chrisl

Ok, so this is pretty much the crux of your entire argument as far as I can tell?  I mean if there is more please feel free to post it, again a few references or fact could be helpful.  Like for instance how big is Russian military industrial capacity?  How does that translate into military production?  How does that stack up with Ukraine's?  How does it stack up to western industrial production?  What is happening to Russian industrial production?  Hint, it does not look good:
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/industrial-production#:~:text=Industrial Production in Russia averaged,percent in January of 2009.
Ok, back into my wheelhouse, the military situation.
"Victories of yore"...? we are talking last Nov.  So in 3 months of what has really been leg dry humping in the Donbas, the entire UA war machine, one that was able to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives over 500 kms apart while being hit by Russian operational strikes...is on the verge of being wiped out.  Or is in an untenable situation?  The UA has lost the initiative and can never get it back?
So here is where I won't be snide or take personal shots.  Instead I will say up front and simply: you have no idea what you are talking about.  Now if you are really interested in exploring and widening you knowledge base, stick around by all means.  If you here to promote unfounded points of view and insult everyone...well nature will take its course.  
I am not sure who you have been reading or listening to but my best advice is to stop because they don't know what they are talking about either.  Here is what Russia is not going to do because there is not pocket dimension that they can drive their military into and reform/rebuild it over 10 years - but only a few days in our time - and then drive it back out and actually change the course of this war: 
- They are not going to solve for the C4ISR asymmetry, which is absolutely killing them (literally).  In order to gain a level of parity they need to either expand the conflict dramatically and directly attack US ISR assets, or spend billions, compress time and space and invent a competitive ISR architecture in comparison to the US.  That is a tall order China cannot meet but that is what Russia will need to do in this war to turn it around.
- They are not going to solve for air superiority.  Closely linked to C4ISR, the inability for the Russian Air Force to get in this game and fight the war they need it to is nearly insurmountable.  The air denial being exerted in this war is pretty definitive.  Add to that the Russians never really had a CAS doctrine to speak of, so there is that.
- They are not going to solve for operational pre-conditions.  The Russian military has demonstrated again and again a failure to effectively dominate the: information/communications infrastructure of Ukraine (and now it is been hardened and integrated with the west), transportation infrastructure to effectively cut off western support and sustainment, and disrupt the linkages between military strategic and political decision making - i.e. shock.  They also have not demonstrated an ability to establish effective levels of force protection - we see that nearly daily.
- They are not going to solve for logistics.  This has been the major problem for the RA and the UA/Western actions have made it nothing but worse.  At this point Russian logistics is functioning but has severely been eroded.  They have had to disperse logistical nodes and their losses on logistical equipment is approaching horrendous.  More facts: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html...and these are simply insane numbers btw.
This is the operational stuff and it does not even begin to address the effects of UA corrosive warfare and precision asymmetry at tactical levels.
At the strategic level, as we have gone on at length about, Russia has a lot of larger problems.  Force Generation is likely the biggest one.  Russia can produce all the hardware it can but it is useless unless they can turn it, and people into functioning fighting units and formations.  We have seen indications that Russian FG is occurring, likely in better order than we had hoped, but it is no where near what the west is providing the UA with.  We know the RA cannibalized its training schools last spring-summer, which can damage force generation for years.  They have been able to turn out massed dismounted infantry but this is 2023, we have gone on at length at the challenges of training mechanized forces, let alone the number of specialist required to fix those four big operational points above.  Force Generation-wise the RA will need to demonstrate that it can create divisions that are enabled comparative to the UA, and we have seen no evidence of this. 
And then we get into the political level, and have gone on at length at Putin's constraints and restraints.  I just posted an ISW analysis of his risk calculus which outlines some of this.
So against that you have..."well Russia is really big and bad".   The first step to getting out of the Dunning-Kruger hole is to recognize that your are in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

If you think that the West needs to be on war footing for Ukraine to beat Russia in this war then again, you simply don't understand the fundamental facts of the situation. Ditto on the idea that the Western government's are just "arguing about tanks to send".  I don't mean that to be insulting. I'm telling you bluntly that your arguments sound naive and superficial.

Here is where...amongst the flummery...we get to brass tacks.
You are reducing the war in terms of resources to Russian industrial capacity vs Ukrainian industrial capacity. Any realistic assessment should be comparing Russian abilities to Ukraine's plus that of the nations who are providing support. In that case, the scales are heavily weighted in Ukraine's favor.
As to manpower, there too you make some fundamental mistakes.
First, gross numbers are a bad measure. Russia labors under highly inefficient logistical systems that eat up manpower. It's troops are in relative terms very badly equipped with less accurate systems, less advanced targeting at a lessor distance, poorly supplied, etc. History is replete with larger armies losing to smaller ones. Russia in 1917 springs to mind for some reason.
Second, the manpower pool a country possesses isn't remotely the same thing as what it can actually bring to a fight. Russia is an older country. That industrial capacity you overestimate needs workers. There are political constraints to limit who can be conscripted without destabilizing the state. How many you can minimally feed, arm and actually deliver in some sort of fighting condition factors in. And every single one of these conditions has been observed so far in the war on the Russia side. 
Fundamentals.

Russia’s entire annual military budget is about 1.25 Lockheed-Martins.  And that’s Lockheed’s revenue during peacetime.  And that’s just one company of the US MIC.  And that doesn’t begin to account for differences in technical capabilities.  Sure, people get paid less in RU so your ruble goes farther, but when you factor in the Russian corruption I suspect that cost advantage goes away.

Russia’s entire annual military budget is about 1.25 Lockheed-Martins.  And that’s Lockheed’s revenue during peacetime.  And that’s just one company of the US MIC.  And that doesn’t begin to account for differences in technical capabilities.  Sure, people get paid less in RU so your ruble goes farther, but when you factor in the Russian corruption I suspect that cost advantage goes away.

You do realize how that sounds?  Probably gets some hackles up and so makes readers less receptive to your message.  The folks who post here are pretty smart overall but you seem to imply that folks just aren't smart enough to understand your message.  They understand, they are just disagreeing with your positions on several matters and have made some very strong arguments.

On a lot of this: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-update-february-5-2023
Very interesting analysis/assessment and speaks to a dictator that is either very risk adverse after making a big gamble and losing, or is much more politically hemmed in than many think.

yeah I was wondering what in the world that comment meant when most here feel exactly the opposite.  My guess he meant that Russia would have occupied Ukraine in the absence of western support.  The problem with that is assuming that occupying meant Russia would win when the reality is Russia would have been stuck with a massive insurgency.  It may have taken much longer, but in the end Ukraine would still win.

I disagree😉

Ok, well you have already been pretty badly beat up on just about all your comments and positions with respect to military assessment.  This is not a bar, posting some credible references or something, anything that supports your position may be an idea as we move forward.  But it is a free country and that comes with all the good and bad in the end.
So lets talk about "Russian Advantage", because that is what this all comes down to in the end.  In line with the Russian Economic Advantage, what is the Russian Military Advantage and how does that translate into future outcomes etc?  Well the obvious one, from those who deeply study warfare, is capacity.  Russia, as has been shown on infographics since day one of this war, has got mountains of steel and an ocean of fighting aged males to throw at a poor huddling Ukraine as it just barely manages to hang on.  There is some truth to this although I personally think it has been over emphasized to a large extent as Russian willpower to actually spend all that steel and blood is clearly not a "done deal" with respect to this war.  If it was, Putin would have fully mobilized at the terrifying scope and scale the Russian Bear is capable of as demonstrated by so many Hollywood movies and myth.  Ok, lets not quibble, the RA is a big ol beast, with a large industry behind it...got it.
So does size still matter?  Does it matter in this environment?  Does it become a liability in this environment?  And finally, why has Russia largely failed on the battlefields of Ukraine if size and attrition were the critical factors in this war?  Why has Russia largely failed on the battlefields of Ukraine when they also had advantage in manoeuvre?
What I do not get from the "Russia is going to win" crowd, is what is their explanation of the exceptionally poor battlefield performance of the RA, which has led Russia into what is now a morass and quagmire (if this was a US war, people would be all over those words)?
And Russian performance - outstanding gunners and all - has been abysmal.  Pulling from the RUIS preliminary report:
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022
Russia had enormous mass advantage in Phase I of this war.  12:1 of mechanized forces north of Ukraine (pg 1).  By all traditional military metrics that is an overwhelming force ration advantage.  They were stopped cold.  Worse, after a month of mooing like cows in column while getting pounded they had to withdraw from 2 out of the 6 major operational axis of advance, many of those units reportedly at 20-30% strength after a month of being cut up and hammered by UA "tiny" artillery.  So that was the first really bad sign, again if the US had suffered a similar setback in 2003 south of Bagdad people would have lost their minds - or gleefully celebrated the downfall of US power in the region, whichever their leaning.  Ukrainian War Phase I - this is done, it is fact.
Then Russia did a political spin in quick order and re-drew the definitions of victory.  "The Northern Offensive as a feint" which is brutally laughable at those force ratios pointed at a capital city and seat of political power in nation you are invading.  They then re-set the official line as "The Donbas" and began a crushing and grinding assault on the region during Phase II of this war.  Recall the cauldrons and pincers with bold red arrows all over maps last Apr-May?  "Attrition against Russia will never work!" people cried..."Ukraine cannot win"..."Russia has reframed this war to their strengths."  Well turns out they were wrong then too.  Russia, at one point at Severodonetsk, has mounted over 900 guns in a density to rival the western front in WWI.  They turned entire fields in the Ukraine into moonscapes as they completely abandoned mechanized warfare and did a "blast-advance-repeat" older style of overwhelming firepower.  But what actually happened?
Well they did not achieve an operational level breakthrough - against a vastly outnumbered and gunned UA.  We did not see a single mechanized, or otherwise, break through - let alone break out - in that campaign.  We did see some horrific Russian river crossing attempts and casualty rates, but remember "Russian Bear!!"  The UA stood back and took it.  I recall the rumblings on social media of UA troops, under trained and equipped for this fight...it was only a matter of time.  But it went nowhere.  Russia managed to take Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk and advance a couple dozen kms towards Slovyanks - which I am sure as a "studier of warfare" you recognize as the obvious operational objective in the region. 
And then the RA stalled and ran out of gas.  No other way to put it.  At a strategic level Russia "mobilized" which is never a good sign for how things are going on the ground (see: conscription and Vietnam).  Russian attacks and firepower all waned.  Phase II was a poor outing that had high costs and yielded very few gains.  And then Phase III happened.  
The UA, who was supposed to be on the ropes and barely hanging on, went on the offensive.   We all knew Kherson was an operational objective but conditions were clearly set for Kharkiv as well.  My hypothesis is that the RA burned itself out so badly at Severodonetsk that the entire Kharkiv line eroded out.  So then we saw this:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/09/15/a-stunning-counter-offensive-by-ukraines-armed-forces
That is what a breakin, breakthrough and breakout battle looks like.  It does not look like what we are used to, but the UA managed to make the entire right flank of the RA collapse in about 30 days.  And then they were not done yet:
https://www.graphicnews.com/en/pages/43152/ukraine-kherson-counteroffensive
Now this was not Dunkirk that we wanted, but retaking the capital of a region that Russia just did a big show of annexing is nothing but a win in my books.
And so here we are, Winter 2023 and the "Ukraine can't win" crowd - who do have legitimate concerns, I will not take that away - are back.  So I am not going to dig into the current state of the RA or an assessment of their actual fighting capacity at this point based on what we are seeing - human wave attacks with weaker artillery is again not a good sign.  All the while the UA is getting larger and larger injects of greater capability.  Or how fundamental conditions like ISR, air power or sustainment have not actually changed.
What I am going to do is make the "Ukraine can't win crowd" do the actual work to prove their point.  Based on all of that above, and the progress of this war to date, you have two ways to go.   The UA and Ukraine are barely holding on and are going to break any second - lets call this the Macgregor school.  Or the "Russia is just getting started and has magic rabbits by the fuzzy buttload in hats".  Based on the progress of the war so far you are going to have to provide evidence and facts that support the idea that conditions have fundamentally changed.  That those changes will alter the current trajectory of this war.  This is something I have not seen one credible coherent argument put forward in this whole thing.
In fact, I will give you opportunity to take a shot, and then if I have time I might just try to do it for you, if I can. 

Just because Putin declared they consider some parts of Ukraine as Russian doesnt mean he will start ww3 for it.
In fact, there is ongoing and daily proof that Russia does not Nuke anyone even though they have lost and abandoned major parts of their "homeland".
Im pretty sure by now Putin has seen enough reality despite the initial poor information to conclude for himself that his army is not going to grind itself back into Kherson.
The only chance for ww3 that I wager is if he perceives certain losses to be his personal downfall. Given the complete lack of hostile response from anyone in Russia to anything concerning the war, except getting drafted themselfs in which case people just leave, I dont reasonably see how losing even crimea would suddenly change the usual apathetic Russian reaction.
Even now de-jure Russian border towns and cities are getting shelled, his response? Ignore and carry on.
 

If you are going to start throwing statements like these around you need to put out the facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_financial_crisis_(2014–2016)
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/gdp-gross-domestic-product
GDP contraction in 2015 (post sanctions) was somewhere in neighbourhood of 2-2.5%.  It was around 3-3.5% contraction in 2022:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanctions-russian-economy/
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russias-economy-end-2022-deeper-troubles
Inflation.  In 2015 inflation increased to about 13%  (see Wikipedia page on Russian Financial Crisis 2014-2016).  In 2022 annual inflation in Russia - 13.7%
https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/russia-inflation-rate/
Russia’s capital market has taken a serious hit, dropping by 1/3 and has not recovered (see Impact-sanctions-Russian-economy on the consilium site).
So the reality is that beyond some Ruble propping which comes with some risks as I understand, your central premise is not backed up by facts.  The Russian economy, based on some central indicators like GDP growth, inflation and capital markets has take hits equal to or worse than “the immediate shock of 2014”…and this is without the drop in oil prices that occurred then.  
The entire argument falls apart out of the gate at this point.
Ok, another big statement “we all know” without any foundations in facts.
First off Russia is currently holding about 87 thousand sq kms of Ukraine right now…about 18%.  So on the surface, “oh my that is scary”.  Well it skims over the fact that within that 87 thousand sq kms is the original occupied territories in the Donbas and Crimea, which come to about 42 thousand square km…which they have occupied since 2014.  So in reality the gains in this war come to about 45 thousand sq kms or roughly 7.5% actual gains within Ukraine that they did not have before this war.  Based on 350k dead or wounded, that is about 46k per percentage gained, or 6k sq kms.  I do not know where the Russian finish line is but it had better be close at those loss rates.
I have posted the economic realities of the Donbas, which was one of the lowest economically performing areas of Ukraine pre-war and realities of the Crimea so many times that you can do the work to go dig them out.  But essentially we have debunked the entire “it is all about oil and gas” more than once.  Russia did not need those reserves, or in the case of the Black Sea, already had control of them.  And the costs of accessing them are going to exceed any gains for a very long time, maybe never at this rate.
”The reality” is a lot of people with a quick finger on their favourite Reddit or wherever get these “facts” and then repeat them so that they become “known”.  Few of these people actually put in some time on research and get enough facts to create context.  So a lot of your initial premises are in fact flawed, which unfortunately means that your deductions have got some problems too.  I would respectfully suggest that you need to revisit some of this and then come back to the discussion.

It's pretty important to note...as commentators with a lot of experience in Russia always remind us...is that there is a virtually bottomless well of cynicism in modern Russian culture. Will Russians say that Crimea is an unbreakable part of the Russia soul? Sure...when they think somebody is listening. What most of them really think is that this is way above their heads, that they can't control it and that they aren't going to be like those fools who got arrested protesting it.

Based on your words, we must give Putin whatever he wants. He's an idiot with a nuclear weapon and can push a button feeling humiliated. After Ukraine, Putin Invades Poland and NATO is forced to retreat because pushing Putin's troops out of Poland could humiliate him and lead to a nuclear war. After that, Putin repeats this cycle many times and achieves the capture of the world.
I'm a genius, I came up with a way to take over the world.😁

funnily enough, I was thinking of the Eastern Front during WWII. Yes, obviously the terrain has a lot of similarities now as then, and one of the sides is literally the same, but that's not what I mean.
In 1941 the Germans launched a strategic operation that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. It was super scary, lasted around 5 months, and led to some of the biggest individual battles ever. If it would have worked the Germans would have overrun all of western Russia and knocked them out of the war. But it didn't quite get to where it needed to. So ...
In 1942 the Germans launched an operational offensive that stretched from the Sea of Azov to, uh, some grotty town on the middle reaches of the Don. It was super scary, lasted about 4 months, ended up with one of the most recognisable battles ever. If it would have worked out the Germans would have taken control of the bit of Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas, and secured a bit of oil (which they probably wouldn't have been able to realistically move back to Germany anyway). Buuuut it didn't work out so great for the Germans,  so ...
In 1943 the Germans launched a tactical battle somewhere, uh, somewhere in the middle of of one of Russia's oblasts. It was pretty scary, lasted about a week, and metal fanboys still have wet dreams about it. If it would have worked the Germans would have secured about 100km^2 of land, and maybe eliminated a Russian Army from the orbat. But it didn't produce the results the Germans were after, so ...
In 1944 the Germans utterly had their asses handed to them.
The overarching story here is one of diminishing resources leading to diminishing options, prospects, and aspirations. Meanwhile the opposition, although taking some hefty blows, was rebuilding with the assistance of the rest of the world, and after being on the receiving end for a while landed a couple of roundhouse blows to the nuts and, well, that was the ballgame.
I'm hearing echoes? Is anyone else hearing echoes? It does sound a bit like someone is playing a 33 1/3 LP at 45rpm, but I'm definitely hearing echoes.

Provide some evidence please, that:
a. US generalship advised UA to fight at Bakhmut (and not the opposite).
b.That they had so much influence to enforce it (while it is widely known fact Ukrainan military to be very stubborn negotiating partner even for US; one can't simply force them to do anything).
Otherwise, it's a grass-talk based on convictions and your personal assumptions about US mil-industrial complex and supposedly "dumb" generals, which has nothing to do with Ukrainian reality anyway.
I genuinly don't understand this sentence, sorry. Why it is impossible? Accustomizing oneself with history, learning language and extensively educating in several other fields (like political systems and its particularities) may be a good start to know something about Russia. 😉 And Ukraine too, btw., which was Achilles heel of many western analytics and experts, and is to this day.
We don't know who may succedd Putin, he may be worse or better. Or roughly the same. Or perhaps (in most optimistic scenario) Russia may even end up with some form collective leadership. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible; there are precedents from the past.
Bakhmut is being shelled 4 months now- if Russian advantage would be so great you described, they would take it long time ago, not wasting tons of their ammo, wearing down the barrels and suffering several munition hungers in the effect (which is not infinite as well). Lack of visible artillery advantage, both when comes to precision, ammo timing and range is one of the causes this battle is costing Russians so much. Details of it being discussed endlessly in Western, Ukrainian and even Russian channels. To the point Ukrainian artillery don't even consider now RU counterbattery fire a threat in this sector and does not even change ther stations.
1:1 lossess, while attacking by human waves for weeks if not months?? In the light of everything we know about Bakhmut- there are literally hundreds accounts and evidences scattered along this topic to prove you otherwise. Including Russian ones.
I am also not particulary hooked on 3:1 or 5:1 loss ratio in favour of Ukraine in general in this war, but this one sector of the front seem to be exception. But yeah, difficult to say with certainty. Certainly Russians did exchanged lives of freakingly many prsioners, but for what? We don't know. Perhaps nether do Prigozhin. Even if they take the city in the end.
Position of Ukrainian MoD will to be open for applicants soon, perhaps you could send them your extensive CV then. You are so confident in your assumptions you would certainly do better than "dumb" folks who served for decades.😉

So here's the thing...if you were generating forces in order to create the offensive blow or series of offensive blows in order to win the war then perhaps you might do the following: 
hold the enemy at easily defensible points let him use up ammunition/materiel/men for few gains provide him with incentives to concentrate manpower easily visible to your ISR and deliverable HIMARS/arty use as few of your forces as possible as you organized other units for later offensives I have no doubt Russia means to launch an offensive...in fact, I think it's already begun. But Ukraine has done exactly as I've described at earlier points in the war. Why are we forgetting that or (as Girkin and others have point out) that Russia has yet to show any ability to handle an offensive of any note in more than one sector at a time?
This isn't an enigma. We've actually seen several phases play out this way and those were in situations where Russia was actually better equipped than it is now while Ukraine was still scrambling for artillery shells.
Put briefly, you should be wondering who is being dogwalked in this situation...the army that's splurging it's one advantage (manpower) for an objective that is marginal at best or the army that's doing the bare minimum at that point while it trains up and arms up maneuver assault brigades? 
For example: 
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/02/03/ukraine-forms-assault-brigades-to-liberate-crimea-donbas-from-russian-occupation/

His initial framing is bad.
Ukraine doesn't need to *take* Crimea to send Russia into a likely final tailspin in this war. It can cut it off at Perekop and drop the Kerch bridge. Russia is then stuck in a Kherson-but-far-worse situation that is likely not sustainable and it would be impossible for Russia to claim Ukraine was "escalating" the war if it had to pull out of Crimea itself.
He also seems to believe the very unlikely scenario that it's possible for Prigozhin to succeed Putin. That's a very unlikely scenario for reasons I've stated before in this thread. And he also ignores a fairly obvious point that it's going to take a hardliner to end the war. That's who will have the credibility to make it happen.
Finally, I think the Capt and others have pointed out the "ARMOUR NOW!" problems before. That Gates jumps on that bandwagon is pretty much the Gates specialty...seeing what is popular and promoting it.

So in the rock-paper-scissors game, while we wait for the drone swarms (that we need Chinese help to make in bulk quickly btw) to kill all the mobiks or all the trucks or whatever, what trumps Dumb Mass of Russian bodies backed by what remains a formidable artillery arm?
1. Starvation -- both munitions and food -- was ultimately the tool used by the Americans against the Japanese, whose sole suit once their Navy went down became fanatical infantry with a little obsolete artillery and a light tank here and there. Of course, interdicting sea logistics was a lot easier than overland, but starvation trumps brutality.
2. Antipersonnel mines: Schu mines, bouncing betties, toepoppers, butterflies, claymores. Yeah sure, treaties Hague norms fairy, whatever. Do you need to kill and maim bushels of badly trained Russians (and bog them down so your artillery can kill or main still more bushels of badly trained Russians) fighting across what is already an ecological and social moonscape, or don't you?

Also curious that the balloon didn't seem to have a parachute.  The conventional (and fail resistant) way to deploy parachutes on those type of balloons is just to hang the payload by the parachute with an attach point at the top center of the chute. Once the balloon is separated, the package starts to fall and the chute opens.  Even with the remnants of the envelope attached you'd at least expect to see the chute flail around, even if the flapping envelope prevented proper inflation.  Here's pictures that include the full chain of a long duration antarctic ballon.  You have to scroll down a ways, and there's both pictures and a diagram after the lift/separation chain.

https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/01/anatomy-of-a-russian-army-village-assault/
An article about Russian preparations for one small-scale BTG action, from summer months but worth reading. Limitations in communication seem deadly to BTG as a concept; it's curious if Russians improved it by now, using much larger assault formations near Vuhledar.

Google translate has had a major effect on this war...

It's quite likely they simply have no idea how too shoot down something like that. The Canadians tried in 1998 on a much smaller balloon and failed:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/02/03/busting-that-chinese-balloon-is-harder-than-you-think/
You might still think that simply puncturing the balloon envelope would be enough. It might not pop like a toy balloon, but letting the gas out should be enough to bring the balloon down.
The problem though is one of scale. Stratospheric balloons are colossal. NASA’s standard balloons are 40 million cubic feet, a volume equivalent to more than 195 GoodyearGT -1.6% blimps: you could fit en entire football stadium inside one. The balloon envelope is made of plastic material no thicker than sandwich wrap, and the pressure difference between the inside and outside is small. Attempting to let the air out by punching a few holes is like expecting to ventilate an entire warehouse with fresh air by opening one small window.
We know that large balloons are hard to shoot down from previous experience. In 1998 a rogue Canadian weather balloon drifted towards Russian airspace. Fighter jets from Canada, Norway and Sweden attempted to bring it down without success. Two Canadian air force CF-18 fighters hit the balloon with more than 1,000 rounds of 20mm cannon fire off the coast of Newfoundland, riddling it with holes. This was not enough to let a significant amount of gas out, and the balloon continued drifting.
A volley of 2.75” rockets was equally ineffective, as the high-explosive rockets simply flew though the balloon without detonating. This may be the Air Force’s real concern with intercepting the Chinese balloon: any missile fired at it may be a much greater hazard to civilians below than the balloon itself, which is likely to descend slowly if at all. (The Canadian balloon drifted into Russian territory and is believed to have come down in the Arctic Sea).

Does this mean... The balloon has gone up? 
. 
... 

On ADS-BExchange I've seen a couple E-3s and a couple Rivet Joints in the US Upper Midwest/Plains area, plus a Rivet Joint headed up to western Canuckistan, presumably to follow up on reports of another balloon spying on @The_Capt in his Yukon lair.  They'll eventually figure out this is where he's posting and maybe stop sending balloons.  You can be assured that every transmission is being slurped and recorded for further analysis (both from The_Capt and the balloons).  It's pretty certain that US and Canada probably both have been watching the balloon for a while and only had to admit its presence publicly when it got spotted by regular people.
I also read an unconfirmed report that the USAF does have the capability to retrieve the balloon.  It doesn't surprise me that much - the basic tech is old and the main issues are size of the balloon and altitude.  If they can snag the harness and snip off the balloon envelope behind the plain they can recover the whole payload intact.  
There's probably some interesting diplomacy going on behind the scenes to come up with a story, apology, and public response agreeable to both the US and China.  Unless the balloon has a small telescope on board (possible) it probably can't really get anything you wouldn't get from google earth, anyway.