The_Capt

It is an honour to simply be nominated - we will of course backstab War in the East during the post-awards mingle. We do have a demo, when it will see the light of day? - is the question. As to “worth buying?” well that is a personal choice. CMCW by design is more unforgiving and many have commented on a steeper learning curve. Cold War was a weird time in warfare and it may be a shock for some on just how lethal the environment had become. In the end, players choice really. I think if you liked any of the modern titles you will like CW, it basically bridges WW2 and modern era. If you are a hardcore WW2 fan, you may find it off putting. But hey, thanks for thinking of us regardless.

Combatintman already answered this in detail, all I can add is that at higher levels - strategic and political - at some point Afghanistan stopped being about Afghanistan. Military services competed for shine, SOCOM came out on top with Army and then Air Force close seconds - the poor Navy was stuck in the Gulf of Oman intercepting “Taliban ships”. Political agendas became about scoring points back home, or denying them to the other political team - seriously, get me drunk sometime and ask about “girls schools”. And this was not just the US by any stretch, every western nation got in on this drug deal in some shape or another, hell Canada only went to Afghanistan because we skipped out on the Iraq cheque. So in the end we dumped money into a corrupt system, took pictures of blue thumbs and risk managed the whole mess until the last guy finally pulled the trigger on the whole house of cards. We were not in it to really fix Afghanistan because that was impossible…why? Because Afghanistan did not want to fix itself - well that is half true, their “fix” was the Taliban but the TB was on the wrong side. Example of how futile it was, Combatintman refers to land reforms, Afghanistan is living under roughly 13th century feudalism (and I am probably being generous). No Afghan farmer actually owns the land they are on, everyone was a sharecropper or in some form of serfdom to landowners who stretched back for generations. It is a crazy idea but people who do not own the land they live on are less likely to fight for it, we found that out the hard way. So if you want to change Afghanistan you have to completely reform land ownership - we are talking 1917 Russia level of reform. You then change the deep economic bedrock of the nation, and the cultural will follow. Of course no one, and I mean no one was interested in taking this on. So in reality we simply moved the deck chairs around until the TB came back, but we looked damned good doing it. We also kept AQ bouncing and hands clapping, so there was that. As to Ukraine, very different environment and nation - with the possible exception of the Donbas and Crimea. Ukraine will come out of this war with a stronger central identity - they were the nation to take on a nuclear power in a stand up conventional fight and won, only North Korea and Vietnam can really claim that one (I am probably forgetting someone…Algeria?). However, the west is likely going to back the winner of this war as opposed to totally shutting them out so the post-war trajectory for Ukraine will be very different…so long as they stay the course and remain the good guys. In reality Ukraine has already won this war. The shooting could stop right now and we re-draw the international borders by nightfall. Ukraine is in NATO and under article 5 protection by morning, the one deterrence Putin still seems spooked by. No one will be happy but the money will start pouring in for reconstruction and Ukraine will likely be the safest country on the planet by the weekend. Not optimal nor what anyone wants as an end-state but that is the current worst case - short of nuclear apocalypse but again, one second to midnight at a time. Ukraine has corruption but if it can keep its democratic processes clean they will be golden because we will back the little guy who won and defended the system. In Afghanistan we were trying to resurrect a dead patient, in Ukraine we are not nation building, there is already a strong one there, we are alliance building and friend-shoring. For the time being Ukraine is still about Ukraine. Just as long as we do not lose the bubble.

President Karzai (president from 02-14) was the figurehead of a group of Afghans, largely coming out of one tribal group - the Popalzai, but to pin this on one tribal group is an oversimplification. Regardless this group was largely centred on the Northern Alliance leadership who promptly labeled anyone they had a grudge with or saw as a threat to their position as “Taliban” and we obliged them through all sorts of military actions which actually alienated large swaths of the population. We also sent them boatloads of money which was largely stolen. Example - poppy field eradication. In Kandahar we were told to burn “those fields” but not to touch the ones belonging to his brother Wali, a guy so incredibly corrupt you could see his palace from the PRT while his people starved - they finally clipped him in ‘11. So this power block of “guys who lost to the original TB in the 90s” did not really endear themselves to Afghans writ large, nor did they have any interest in actual democracy while we poured blood and treasure into the mess because…well 9/11 really. It was a lot like South Vietnam but dustier. If you want the real inside scoop on the last ten years ask @Combatintman, he has likely forgotten more about the inner workings of that country than anyone talking on TV will ever know.

The aim of the mission was to set the conditions for long term democracy and stability, not colonization. Aggravating internal divisions violently really was not a viable option. We did this in the initial invasion with the Northern Alliance but when the mission shifted to nation building there was a different playbook. That, and the reality that Afghans could agree in large groups that we were the problem because we sided with another group in power who clearly did not have the best interest of all Afghans in mind, and instead stole everything they could and bolted as soon as western support was pulled. In simpler terms, we lost in Afghanistan because we supported the losing side with an unworkable overall strategy. Getting Afghans to kill each other better would have been politically untenable back home and likely would have made things worse on the ground. As it relates to this war, although very different circumstances the spectre of previous debacles hangs in the mind of the entire western world. Ukraine needs to be nearly spotless in it prosecution of this war, which is frankly almost impossible in any war, or it risks being painted with the “propping up another corrupt losing side” brush. Zelensky has played this brilliantly so far by shifting and sustaining a narrative of “front edge of freedom”. Ukraine is demonstrating that it is a modern western nation at heart in how it fights, from the treatment of PoWs to targeting. “One of us, fighting for democratic survival.” is about as good as it gets for a strategic narrative and one we never saw in Afghanistan.

The difference is that I have spent a fair amount of time in that part of the world and can confirm that this particular general observation directly applies to the scenario you raised originally. There is no “brotherhood of Islam” in the Stans (or really anywhere else for that matter…Palestine…anyone, anyone?), any more than there is a brotherhood of Christianity. If China “pays and plays” them off deep clan and tribal schisms then China is likely to be successful much like every other colonial power in history. I seriously doubt the people of the Stan’s would cross the street to put out a burning Uyghur of China is pushing money and power in enough directions. As a region the Stans have never united, even under threat of the Mongols. Perhaps the empire of Samarkand was as close as they ever came. The region was pretty much a Wild East, run over by one empire or another until it became Russia’s side porch. In fact Chinese influence in the region is more likely to get a reaction out of Moscow than regional powers - and in the end they are probably going to care about the Uyghurs as much as the average Saudi does. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/14/saudi-uyghur-refugees-china/ Edit: or Iranians, just to keep the bases covered - https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-hardliners-claim-china-is-serving-islam-by-suppressing-uyghur-muslims-/30766289.html

I wouldn’t count on that angle too much. We have Afghan mercs fighting for Russia apparently, deep grudges exist in that part of the world but they tend to be pretty pliable.

As to this war, I am not that concerned…I mean, ok it is not good news for China to be pushing critical commodities into Russia’s war machine. It will draw out how long Russia can keep this up from technical standpoint e.g. communications equipment. However, the RA is broken in ways one cannot fix with equipment alone or at least not the stuff we are talking about. Now if China started to push multi-spectral hi res ISR Russia’s way we could definitely start worrying but I am not sure 1) China has it yet, at least not globally, and 2) not sure they would play that hand and reveal cards if they did, all for Russia…they are not that cosy. And then there is the complete failure in the cognitive dimension - Russia is not learning fast enough and, as we have noted, is unable to learn what it needs to due to many constraints. Chinese radios will be useless if the information being pushed through them is still low grade and the processing of that information is as far behind as it has been so far. I guess we will see, but man that is one helluva situation, this whole thing basically becomes a proxy war between the US/west and China with Russia and Ukraine in the middle at that point.

I think that the post-war relationship between Russia and China, and how that impacts Chinese power trajectories and the collision between US and China is one of the great unknowns. We are in a post-pandemic world, which would have been enough to shake things up, but now we have a proxy war between Russia and the US/west. A war that Russia is losing badly and leaves a lot on the table as far as uncertainty goes. I am pretty sure China will try to spin the aftermath in its direction. Russia is facing satellite status depending on how hard the landing is after this war. It has sees itself as a great global power, and has been in the past, but empires have collapsed after wars like this one. How many pieces? Whose orbits those pieces wind up in? What does China stand to gain? What could it lose? These are all pretty much in the wind to my eyes. Until we know the state of Russia after this war it is very hard to predict where things go with China. The latest US NS strategy is pretty clear, we are in a strategic jockeying situation as we set the conditions for what comes next. The global power order is in play and the fallout from this war will be part of that landscape. How much, how big and how far still remains to be seen.

No disagreement there, but you brought it up. Well you may have been talking about electronic specifically but I am pretty sure LLF was making a much broader point: Specifically this part here gave it away: "IMHO, over the long term, Russia's embrace of the Dragon is going to have much bigger consequences for the world than either Taiwan/SCSea or Ukraine, or even the future of Russia itself as a Kremlin-ruled concern. China will at long last control (even via RU clients) the sheer quantities of resources commensurate with its customary place in the world (i.e. approximately 30% of world GDP). From a pure strategic resource supply standpoint (and I am setting aside climate issues and consequences here), it will achieve parity with the US without needing to overcome US ocean dominance. The 'pen to write that global playbook' is Made In China, guys." I would suggest we are talking about a geopolitical shift that may land in China's favour in all of this post-conflict. I am not sure if this is entirely true but the size of the entire Russian economy overall is not small, particularly energy. I mean seriously the world is not going to pivot on Russian electronic imports/exports but it isn't like we can narrowly sanction this one minor industry after Bucha and go back to buying cheap gas - that would be really weaselly and essentially serve as a passive endorsement of Russia behaviour in this war. I mean seriously how does that even unfold? "Russia you have unilaterally invaded another nation illegally, committed continuous egregious violations of the Law of Armed Conflict and threatened global stability on a scale not seen since the 1960s." "Our response is to sanction your electronics industry which amounted to a pre-war grand total of about $42B in exports/imports out of a $1.77T economy - so about 2.3%. We hope you learned your lesson, now turn the gas pipes back on."....?? https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/exports/electrical-electronic-equipment#:~:text=Russia Exports of electrical%2C electronic equipment was US%246.14 Billion,updated on December of 2022. https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/imports/electrical-electronic-equipment The OP in that Twitter feed appears to be looking at electronics as an indicator - he also notes hydrocarbons and auto manufacturing, and then more disturbingly the trend of Chinese-Russian military cooperation.

Slight taken - and highly inaccurate assessment to boot. First off we are not just talking about “electronics” we are talking about the entirety of Russian trade as the West won’t do business with Russia until some renormalization conditions post-war are met…right? Stuff like reparations payments and war crimes prosecution? Looking at Europe pointedly here. As for Canada, we do about .5 trillion dollars in trade with the US per year. If that all walked over to China I am sure it would register as a “blip”. The shift in oil and gas alone would likely freak everyone out even with the size of the US economy. https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/canada/tradestats As for Russia, well the news is not great. Russia sells about $221B in oil and gas per year, and only about $45B of that to China. If Russia can only sell oil and gas to China due to sanctions and this war it will quadruple the amount of exports available to China and other “outside” markets. China is not stupid and will take advantage of Russias position to secure cheap energy. https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/russia/tradestats https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/exports/china Now I am no business expert, but I am pretty sure pushing cheap energy in the direction of a competitor is never really the best outcome. Now China has to access that energy, which will mean serious investment. Or they could also buy the oil and gas companies in Russia and export the stuff back to Europe through loopholes. I am sure there are very clever economics people who can hack the system here to ensure China comes out on top. Point being is that Russia has the 11th largest economy on the planet and if it is pushed into Chinese orbit it will not exactly help the western cause. Of course Russia will also be a social and political train wreck so making them China’s problem has a possible upside there. I think LLF’s point is that the post-war geopolitical shift is going to have serious repercussions and we might want to put that in the old mental wheelhouses.

So I am not sure the Americans would be able to “fight like Americans” in this war - air parity being a big issue, US has not fought in an air parity context since Korea. Big formations manoeuvring might actually play to Russian strengths: they are large enough that even Russian ISR will spot them, and they are concentrated which favours Russian massed fires. Russians are in bad shape but I am not sure they are in such bad shape that offering them big targets wont get a response. Now corrosive warfare and then an iron fist to really exploit the breakthrough may be a plan here. It may accelerate Russian collapses, but then we get into the logistics problems. One has to sustain those formations at 100s of kms as they blitz. I am still kinda at “dance with the one that brung ya” and “if it ain’t broke…etc”. Does the UA need manoeuvre formations, yes. Do they need to emulate the US or other western powers…less sure they should. In fact we could probably take in a lot of lessons and adopt the Ukrainian ways of war in many ways - it has been tried and tested in peer environment. The western way of war has never really had that. Persian Gulf was a close as we got but that was 30+ years ago and a very different war. Since then it has largely been COIN/dusty grudge matches or the tethered one eyed goat that was left of the Iraqi military in ‘03- hardly a stunning pedigree of victories to show for trillions in defence spending and fairly untried in the environment the UA finds itself within.

You greedy glutton, we have had three operational ones in 10 months, but your bottomless gullets wants more?! Things go slow, until they go fast.

Imperial Russia had a population of about 125M (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire_Census) and took about 5.5M casualties, 500k MIA, about 3M PoWs - so about 9M impacted to varying degrees. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_russian_empire. Which is about 1 in 13, so less than Germany but well into intimate community space. Of course Imperial Russia was a brutally authoritarian society which is a whole thing to unpack. War losses are one pressure on a society, not the pressure. Economic, cultural, religion, ethnic/identity and political to name a few. How fragile or brittle a society is very important as well. Societal resilience is a really deep subject but authoritarian states tend to be more brittle, which means they resist and look formidable, right up to the point they shatter. The point here is that as big as 350k losses in this war sound, they likely are not going to create revolution on its own. It will need contributing factors - tensions and frictions, before one can expect to see a breaking point. The Soviet did not break because of Afghanistan, it was a contributing factor that led to a breaking point on top of a lot of other factors. If this war goes to 1M plus, and rapidly, we could see attrition pressure build to a breaking point. As you note elites are a subset of society and the calculus for them is different. However, they too are looking at public sentiment as a barometer on making a move and the losses in this war are not outside their figuring. Economic pressures are more likely to effect them. We do know that if enough Russians are killed strategic collapse will happen. But smart rapid attrition leading to operational collapse is probably a better overall strategy.

That ain’t the magic number. I suspect the number is about 1.1 - 1.5 million dead and or wounded, but there are a lot of caveats to that estimate. Humans can hold about 125 intimate relationships in their heads, max. These are family, friends, acquaintances/neighbours, guys we hang out in forums with. “Intimate” means we actually get a glimmer of empathy for them because we see them as people - of course empathy is a slippery beast and different for everyone, especially guys on a forum. So if that is “first order” then those intimate relationships, relationships are second order - so 125 times 125 = 15,625 (“technically”, because I know some guys here are going to be that picky, it is 125x124 because our connection should not be counted twice). People who are connected to the max amount of people we can give a crap about. (Assuming no overlaps but let’s try and keep it simple). So this is “there is a guy I know from work whose cousin…” type of thing - two degrees of separation. In order to have an second order effect on 144 million people Russia need only have about 10,000 casualties in this war and they crossed that threshold months ago. This is the point where “I know someone who knows someone” effect kicks in. However, we humans are also pretty damned insular. Just because the guy at the grocery store had a second cousin who got his leg blown off at Kharkiv does not mean I am going to march in the streets and overthrow the government. For that no one can really calculate the tipping or saturation point easily. One could argue it is 1 in 125 - which for Russia is about 1.1 million. This would mean that the average Russian is likely to know someone directly who has been killed or wounded in this war - “the guy in the grocery store went to Kherson and got his legs blown off”. I am not sure that would even do it to be honest but as that number of dead and wounded grow the pressure on the average Russian’s little security bubble get higher and higher. In order to ensure every single Russia household has at least one direct impact we are talking 58.6 million - https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/number-of-households-in-russia-2096160/ That number will very likely set off the micro-social bomb unless Russia is truly “all in”. The number for Ukraine is about 17 million - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households Historical example - in WW1 Germany took 7.4 million casualties (https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_germany) with a population base as of 1910 of about 65 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany). That is 1 in 8 Germans. No data on German households, given that family sizes were larger but that is approaching the 1 per household line. Add to this food shortages and a bunch of other pressures it really is not that hard to see why Germany buckled, in fact it is pretty impressive they lasted as long as they did. But of course none of this takes into account context. Is a nation in an existential war? Who are they fighting? How unified is their culture? [aside: Russian mobilization concentrations in certain regions is a very bad idea as it creates schisms as some regions will feel the effects much more than others - this little exercise assumes uniform distribution of casualties, which we all know is not the case, but making it worse is a very bad idea] So the real question: when does Russia start to feel the pain enough to do something about it? Almost impossible to answer in detail. How invested are Russian in this war? Seconds cousins of grocery guy? Grocery guy? My second cousin? Brother, son or father? Me? Just about every society will tolerate the Grocery Guy’s second cousin to a point. Unless the war is really upside down or the society is really anti-war - we had rumbling and push back here in Canada on Afghanistan and we were likely just below the grocery guys cousin in that war. Rate of loss is also a factor. Over time the grocery guy’s cousin is going to die anyway. So rates of loss = shock. How fast those second order hit happen is important. Over 20 years is a slow pressure, in 10 months the effect can be amplified. And then we have the internet effect. We are able to make connections over greater distances. I am not sure if this is changed fundamentally how many connections we can make but online communities clearly have an effect as we have seen here. Before it had to be people in my neighbourhood that mattered, now it is a much wider net. The converse of this is a desensitization effect. We can also have a phenomenon I call spontaneous relevant convergence this is when something hits a note that resonant deeply within human collective psyche. It creates convergence on a focal point from a large collective of people who would normally be completely disconnected. For example, the was a dramatic difference in opinion and support wrt the 2015 European refugee crisis after that photo of the four year old boy washing up on the beach happened. No one could predict that, nor are the mechanisms really well understood - some sort of empathetic transpositional response? So here we are at let’s say 350k Russian casualties of some shape or sort. That is about 1 in 400ish, well outside uniform intimate community impacts. Some neighbourhoods are going to be severely impacted while other only see it on the evening news. Plenty of room for denial and whatabout-isms. Until that number gets to 1 in 125 - about 1.1 million, large swaths of Russia will only see this war at a distance. A thunderstorm “over there”, I can raise an eyebrow, have an opinion and pretty much get on with my life. Unless something happens that resonates, I can ignore the whole thing because the grocery guys cousins really doesn’t mean much to me. I do not have a significant sense of collective empathy or social responsibility. I just want to get through the freakin week. But once the storm get closer, faster…well then I start to think about my roof and my car. And we have not even touched the economic effects of this war, which are easily in that intimate area to some extent. Finally, this is also likely why Putin is not mobilizing 5 million men, that is well into intimate communities across the entire nation, and he knows it.

So good to finally put a face to the name:

Did you try right-click “Run as Admin”?

“But they got the Pz2000 up and running in a month - it can’t be that complicated” The_Capt said sardonically.

I guess the main reason I would call the northern Kyiv offensive a collapse - or perhaps controlled collapse - is also based on the amount of hardware they left behind. To my mind a collapse is when the weight of the system can no longer be supported by the system. There are multiple dimensions to this - equipment, material and physiological, to name three big ones. This all creates a collapse in viable military options space, which we clearly saw in all three cases. I guess the violence and momentum of the collapse is the key consideration. Does a collapse become autocatalytic? Does it create a runaway feedback loop? Or can the RA C2 tie it off and isolated it. I think you are correct in that in these cases, except possibly Kharkiv, the RA managed to collapse in manageable condition. Of course this is an incredibly dangerous game. How many times can the RA roll that dice before the come up with a natural 1?

Minor quibble but I think we have seen two operational collapses - the first drive at Kyiv out of the North, and Kharkiv. Kherson was not a collapse so much as a withdrawal. The three of these combined could be taken as strategic collapse but I would want to see more stuff happening deeper in Russia to call it. All them folks - most well educated and rich - running for the border is a pretty good sign that not everyone in Russia in on board.

The RA has not seen benefits massing anywhere. Honestly looking at the map, let ‘em come. Even restricting targetS to occupied Ukrainian territory that is over 100km of tight terrain that will be lit up by ISR and hammered by PGM. The F ech in the front could effectively be cut off by deep strike, and the. The UA could eat them in small bites while they freeze - it could be a better operational ambush then last time. For the RA to even have a shot at this they would need to: blind the entire western ISR architecture in that region, establish air superiority/unmanned superiority, and somehow take out the UA’s deep strike capability. This is before dispersed and hybrid UA forces, now well armed with wickedly effective ATGMs, start to work on them. Oh, and the RA would need to build its own ISR architecture in the region to gain cognitive superiority. At this point the RA and UA are hardly the same species, let alone competitive in the cognitive domain.

Where and how Russia attempts to re-gain strategic offensive initiative will be a key indicator of just how much they understand the situation, as well as what their overall strategy is, or is not. An offensive aimed at blunting or dislocation of the UA in order to freeze this war is their best play - not saying it will work, the RA has still failed to establish pre-conditions for operational success anywhere. However a spoiling offensive in the south to buy time and options would be a sign Russia has finally figured out what is actually happening. A second attempt at Kyiv and a northern offensive is insane. RA logistics are already stressed just to keep what it has in the field. Some northern adventure on a whole new front? The RA managed 12:1 force ratio advantage in Feb 22 up at Kyiv and got nowhere. The UA is better armed, trained, experienced and integrated into western ISR that it was back then. The RA has eroded - no signs of Russian ISR improvements, air picture, logistics or tactical improvements. It has lost an entire military’s worth of equipment and an estimated 75k-ish troops. It bought UAVs from Iran and …? Do we have any other indications of any new RA military capability? Unless the RA has been hiding something extremely well, any offensive is likely to resemble what they are already doing - tactical leg humping in the south. Big losses of dumb mass for very little gain while the UA continues to hammer the critical nodes and connectors in the RA operational system. I don’t see an RA offensive this winter as a threat, it is an opportunity. In other news - the UA is signalling heavily at Melitopol, which makes me think they are going to push somewhere else. Up on the left flank maybe? Or cut the land bridge further East, make a push for Mariupol maybe? Or Berdyansk?

Hmm, well if he is talking that much equipment to sustain current pressure that would be another story. That is a lot of hardware so we are talking significant losses in the current UA structure are expected. Then this becomes more of a Force Generation problem. I guess the big question will be “what do you plan to do with them?” because that will drive a lot of requirements.

I am going to assume we are talking modern western equipment here so 3rd Gen stuff. I mean I am sure there is older stuff in war stocks and parking lots but I doubt this is what the general was talking about. So that is an Armoured Divisions worth of tanks, with about ten percent of all the M2s in the US inventory and half of the entire US inventory of M777s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M777_howitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle Given the state of the RA, a force that size would definitely do the trick of punching through their defensive lines - assuming engineering support vehicles. However sourcing it from a single nation is going to be impossible, not even the US (E.g Germany only fields about 266 Leo 2s). So to do it would mean a mixed fleet from several nations. The logistics issues with this are significant - like Gulf War significant. I mean keeping 300 MBTs fueled alone is going to be 360,000 litres per day - and these are peacetime numbers. Considering we are talking intense combat operations that will likely double. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1-specs.htm That is anywhere from 37-74 M978 tankers for the tanks alone. One would need surplus because they are going to take losses and you will need to spread them out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Expanded_Mobility_Tactical_Truck Given the distances this will drive the requirements up further. I do not disagree that this force could break the RA - they are pretty beat up and conventional mass of this scale would likely do the trick for deep penetrations. Going to need to start building it now and count on a year+ before it is ready and one will need an allied coalition levels of logistical support in-country to keep it sustained. Of course Ukraine would become one of the most powerful militaries in Europe with this level of capability - and that is going to come with a pretty high price tag to keep operable over time, even well after this war is over.

US space based - multispectral and in real time with a resolution that is likely classified. Combine that with SIGINT, ELINT and any other INTs beaming all over the region and trying to position a RA force of any size, along with its supply lines is impossible to hide. Deep precision strikes will wreck the already battered RA logistical capability so that any forces that do go on the offensive will run out of gas in about a day or two. Now that all said Russia has really been playing to stupid this entire war - so I am sure they will try an offensive with poorly trained, poorly supported and equipped masses of troops, in the middle of winter - that is doomed to fail.