The_Capt

Hey man it is your country but a lot of big assumptions there you might want to be real sure of - a lot of this sounds like the cultural assumptions the Russians made about Ukrainian resistance and we all saw how that turned out. You will have about 31k who joined to fight the UA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatants_of_the_war_in_Donbashttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatants_of_the_war_in_Donbas No idea how many survived but that sounds like the start of a nasty insurgency to me but I guess we will have to see.

May the Almighty curse your mouse hand with a blister…it was an empty threat. Whole point of this thread and forum it to try and hold onto a sane analysis/assessment and discussion of the war, and that takes all kinds. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and perspectives…fair point…*grump* - I just got high roaded by LLF no less.

We discussed at length the issues with reoccupation of the Donbas and Crimea. Ukraine is fully justified both legally and morally to do so: however, it may not be the smartest move in the short term. LNR/DPR have actively participated for Russia in this war which demonstrates a pretty clear signal of that areas intentions, while the Crimea remains pretty entrenched in the Russian camp demographically. In retaking these regions Ukraine would have to navigate the slippery slope of reintegration of the regions which would likely come with resistance, possibly armed insurgency. Beyond thorny question of real democracy in these regions - which will be the western expectation - counter insurgency is really dirty business where it only takes a few high profile errors to have the narrative blow up in one’s face. So it is not a simple “Ya Ukraine has its Crimea back…all is right in the world!” In fact my recommendation is to not re-take these regions at all in the short term. Russia needs to leave, that we can agree upon, but I would hand them over to the international community to manage for a decade or so and then, after Russia proves to be a poor sad sack super power, they may very well come over to Ukraine via political process as opposed to armed occupations. Tricky because these regions are likely not homogeneous in their orientation - so where does one actually draw the ZOS? As to Russia - have stated it before, will state it again, we want Russia as a functioning state in the international community that get back in line. We have walked down the revenge-porn laden path of the destruction of Russia and it goes nowhere good. In fact it makes Ukraine and the region less stable if Russia fractures and falls apart. Best case may be a functional but isolated grudge holding malcontent Russia that we have to risk manage - gawd make ‘em Chinas problem. But we do have the issue of resources and energy impact on Europe, but they look like they are gearing for offset strategies,

Makes it look bad to us. I am not sure how much of what is really happening makes it back to the average Russian - it is an authoritarian state after all. I do think the winter is a very good opportunity to kill a lot of poorly supplied and trained RA recently mobilized troops. This in combination with continued corrosive pressures in line with what they have done all fall is an excellent idea. It may actually hit Steve’s breaking point scenario.

Ya that is pretty much it. It is about effective translation. Russia is doing all sorts of strategic flailing and it is not translating to operational effects. Ukraine is translating much better upward and if they operationally break the RA it will theoretically achieve the strategic effect everyone is looking for without escalation risks, or at least without as much escalation risk. As to end-state, that is a hard one. As we discussed, total and complete Russian defeat may fracture that nation, which is what we do not want. But if it is a “peace with honour” we will be doing this again in a decade or two, which we do not want. My bet is we are talking about a Russian withdrawal, Putin gone and some sort of re-normalization effort with a new regime - which will need to include reparations and warcrimes prosecution - while Russia manages to keep it together. Ukraine in NATO and EU, reconstruction in full swing to try and pay everyone off. We can risk manage the future at that point with respect to Donbas and Crimea. But that is really best case…lotta points of failure on this one.

Well I am not sure I am on board with this one…well maybe on the fence. This is straight up old fashion exhaustion leading to a much larger collapse of political will in the society. Man that is a tall order. I mean nothing says that system warfare and direct attrition can be combined, in fact collapsing Russian logistics in winter might just do that. But a big question is “what is the breaking point?” What is the magic number where Russia taps out? Further, all war is personal, so a lot of dead Russians could actually have the reverse effect you are looking for. I am not sure Ukraine can just simply kill enough front line troops to buckle the entire house, or maybe not fast enough. Further that may take a very long time. We are talking beyond strategic corrosion and down to societal corrosion leading to collapse - that is not a small thing and notoriously difficult to do once a nation gets into the clinch of it. Russia was not entirely sold at the outset…tough one. Personally I would stick with system corrosive effects on the RA until it collapses - it has worked so far. This keeps focus on the UAs limited resources and hits the things that hurt the most. If the RA is rendered broken, that also kicks out a leg of that bigger stool - political, military and public. But as I said, nothing says you cannot get both if you get those mobiks to all freeze to death while hitting RA logistics.

Then why take the bloody risk? Ukraine can nibble the RA operational system and have demonstrate it very well against mainstream predictions. However, you are upscaling linearly on both risk, cost and opportunity. In order to incremental erode Russias broader strategic capability and capacity to prosecute this war and fundamentally change conditions we are not talking about a few demonstrations with ATACMS. Back over the summer the UA fired hundreds of HIMARS at RA logistics and effectively crippled them - that wasn’t “nibbling” it was chewing. That erosion led the RA to the point of full collapse at Kharkiv and a more controlled one at Kherson. It was erosion of the RA through precise targeting of a critical component. To do this at the strategic level is much more intensive. To be effective it would mean hitting Russia across sectors of its military, political and industrial complexes. The key component missing in your theory is speed. To conduct corrosive warfare one needs to hit precisely fast. Faster than your opponent can replace the losses of critical components. Upscaling means the speed needs to outstrip Russian ability to recover at a strategic level, which means wide scale and heavy strikes on critical components across those sectors. The UA did not “onsey-twosie” RA logistics at the operational level and the strategic level requirements to do the same are much higher, Sure he does - seriously this is dangerously obtuse and what I mean about under prescribing. If Russia was not deterred by NATO at all, as you claim, Russia would at a minimum 1) be hitting support bases in Poland and 2) likely have employed WMDs- they had no problem in Syria. In fact if there was no NATO deterrence Russia may have led with chemical weapons which was in line with Soviet doctrine. So this is what this is really about - your personal frustration with the level of western support? And somehow “small amounts of long range missiles” are going to fix this. So this whole angle is really about making you feel better? Ok, well this is where I get off this bus. ATACMS are an escalation as they shift western support to directly targeting Russia inside its own borders. But apparently you believe NATO holds no deterrence so I am not sure we will ever agree on the deterrence/escalation calculus, regardless. Further “small amounts” ATACMS or other weapon systems will largely only serve as demonstrations and strategic harassing fires. Their effectiveness is directly linked to western ISR for target development, validation, prosecution and post-strike assessments, which provision thereof is also an escalation - but we are also not going to agree on that because there is no escalation Russia will respond to according to your position. Finally, as a citizen of a supporting western nation, I find this continual uninformed western/US bashing insulting and ignorant. E.g. we are sending them BMPs because the UA can quickly get them into the fight and keep them into the fight - only a rank amateur would think stuffing Marders into the UA is easy and west is somehow being lazy for failing to do it. For example, Marders has 6 dismounts while the BMP has 8 - so the UA can just redesign its squad size over a long weekend while re-aligning it’s logistics system to maintain the things, including a whole new suite of FCS and spare parts…apparently. The west is sticking its neck way out on this one for a lot of good reasons, and not all of the altruistic; however, they are backstopping Ukraine well above and beyond the call while not dragging us all into WW3. But people in the cheap seats still want to crap all over us because we did not supply whatever piece of kit pops into their highly uninformed heads. Ok, I am out…can someone show me where this damned ignore button is?

I would add a nuance to this - it all comes down to killing the right Russians. This is not simple exhaustion through attrition, this is corrosive warfare. It basically means killing the critical nodes and connectors within the Russian war machine faster than they can be replaced. This is precise erosion leading to system collapse - we have seen it operationally three times now. What I am not convinced of is that this can be upscaled into a strategic level direct campaign - Ukraine is doing this indirectly thru essentially destroying the RA. Upscaling comes with 1) severe escalation risk and, 2) will not work without more direct involvement by the US/West and 3) may not work at all, and actually shore up Russian Will by shifting the narrative to an existential war for Russian survival (they are trying it now through some pretty stretched logic and not everyone is buying it).

Oh my this is setting up for a UA winter offensive.

So you are suggesting pulling the US more directly involved in this war so we can basically ping away at strategic targets within Russia “just a little bit more”? The risk to opportunity costs are pretty upside down on this. As I said before Ukraine has every right to strike legitimate military targets within Russia and obviously has a level of domestic ISR to do so. However, this is harassment fires that create uncertainty and doubt, which is not small, but Ukraine is already capable of this on its own. Supplying longer range HIMARs without ISR support will limit their employment to what Ukraine can already prosecute or risks Ukraine leaning in and taking risks we are not comfortable with. I have no doubt if the US supplies ATACMS today there will be people on this board screaming for “more ISR support so Ukraine can widen its target set” in another month or so. A strategic offensive is not something one “nibbles away at” in ones or twosies - you claim to want a quick end to this war (strategic end) and that Ukraine needs long range precision fires to target in-Russia targets (Means) but they are going to do it incrementally (Ways)? - this is a flawed strategy with all the risks of escalation and none of the payoff? You have under prescribed the risks to fit your narrative but it does not fix a fundamentally flawed strategy. Your limited Russian airfield is a classic example of amateur military planning - ok, we execute a “limited campaign” against a single Russian airfield with strategic bombers, “1-4” was the number you quoted. Let’s unpack this one: We give Ukraine a few dozen ATACMS and they go ahead and do this campaign on their own - no western ISR. Ukraine now has to validate the target and do BDA all on its own. We have definitely escalated things by providing the weapons but can keep our hands clean from direct targeting. Ukraine goes ahead and hits the target - you will all feel better I am sure. They hit some infrastructure, damage the airfield and take out 4 Russian strategic bombers - huzzah! Well this will definitely create some uncertainty for Russia which is not small, they will react and likely pull assets back lengthening flight times. This will definitely be an escalation as it is now targeting their ability to defend themselves from NATO but it might make life harder for pounding Ukrainian cities. Ok, now what? Russia has over 500 TU-95s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95 . So the actual damage to the fleet is minimal. Airfields also take a lot to knock out so the actual damage to that airfield is going to be temporary. Finally, we have done nothing to actually affect the Russian strategic bomber system. It’s production, maintenance, fuelling, arming and C4ISR. We have damaged an airfield and knocked a few platforms. The Russians will pull back, take a little longer and burn a little more fuel (which we also did nothing about) and still hammer Ukrainian cities with abandon. What we did do is escalate this war. Likely reinforced Putin’s narrative that this is an existential war for Russia against NATO pretty significantly, and Russia will likely continue to escalate strikes against Ukrainian cities. So in a month or so, you and others will be demanding a broader campaign to hit “all Russia’s airfields in ATACMS range!!” There will be all sorts of upside down risk calculations because - once again - no one has offers any educated assessment of where the Russian escalation threshold actually is. A larger counter AirPower campaign will require western ISR support and pull the US further into direct involvement in this war while steadily marching towards a plausible Russian escalation threshold we cannot fully define. More bluntly put - we are breaking our opponents hands and arms right now. It is slow and painful but working. If you want a fast end to the war you are going to have to hit the body and head, hard and fast - no sidestepping or weasel-ing out of that reality. Russia has nuclear strategic deterrence and a doctrine behind it:https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/R45861.pdf. That is a pretty grey and broad doctrine btw. So if we start striking it’s head and body we are on a slippery slope to someone pulling out a gun in this bar fight. The end to this war is not about making you feel better. It is about negotiating with a reality nobody wants but can live with. Russia is already on the ropes within Ukraine, the operational campaigns have been brilliant and are working. If we are going to do anything more double down on that because any “quick and easy” magic new platform/weapon solutions aren’t quick or easy.

Honestly I think we are sending just about everything we can that makes sense for this war…at least right now, We have escalation room but they come with risks, some pretty severe. I do not think there is a magic bullet solution here. For example, we send the Leo 2s - great, but tanks have not been definitive in this war and we have little evidence a more modern tank will really change the game. It will put more strain on the UAs force generation and sustainment challenges though. Same goes for AirPower etc. Decisive weapons like HIMARS are part of a larger package that as we have discussed might make things much worse if we expand their use. ISR has probably been the most important thing we have given the UA but it is likely restricted as well. Logistics support will be critical in winter, medical supplies etc. I think even though everyone’s heart is in the right place, we have become a bit biased in our views of warfare in the last 30 years. Small wars can be long and slow burning, but big ones are supposed to end in a few weeks. Well this one is big and it is long, and there really is not much we can do to change that without taking some pretty big risks that may very well get more Ukrainian’s killed than if we had not. So if someone was asking me “what do we need to do/spend money on?” - sustain what we already have pushed in and build a pipeline with enough flex to ensure we can be strategically agile in the future. Keep up the force generation support. - if we are going to expand capability investment stick to the big 3 - PGM fires, infantry and unmanned (offensive and defensive). All supported by ISR and logistics backbone. EW and Cyber are also areas we could put some more weight behind. - Streamline the fleets. The UA is starting to look like a bit of a western military dumping ground, which has to be creating holy hell in sustainment. - Enhanced C4ISR integration, that loop needs to get tighter and tighter. Double down on corrosive warfare support, it is the only thing that consistently seems to work in this war. - Start thinking about fishing rods. Ukraine needs a domestic arms industry for so many reasons. - Start thinking Ukraine Reconstruction and post-war. The follow through is the most important part and we frankly suck at it. - Strategic narratives - show no daylight in our resolve or unity. Those would be off the top of my head.

Yep, congrats you found a bug we hoped stayed hidden. By the time we noticed the compass problem it was way too late to fix, which would have been a full rebuild. Pete W had a compass mod fix but we couldn’t use it in a formal release. So the US forces are counter pushing on another Soviet axis towards Uttrichshausem, these are second ech forces. The Soviets are moving SE and US hits them from that hill top. Map is really accurate if one flies over in MSFS but direction is off.

Well beyond the hard left turn at pro-proliferation, for which I can think of about a dozen arguments against with respect to Ukraine or any other small power nation for that matter - back to my question: “so what is the Russian redline?” The pro-“give them everything” crowd has either undersubscribed this factor or simply sidestepped the question. “We should do everything from no-fly zones to providing Ukraine with ATACMS to F22s and M1 Abrams. We should feed them targeting data on Russian targets everywhere and hope they stick to them.” Ok, so again, people in this camp have highlighted what they are pretty sure are not Russia escalation tolerance lines but have offered no insight as to what those lines may actually be. What would it take for Russia to be forced into a corner enough to escalate to WMDs? If the answer is “they will never escalate” then prove it - post some studies that support this. I have no idea what those Russian red lines are, or are not. 75k dead clearly is not, how about 150k? A few strategic hits, how about 20 or 30, or 300? Try and kill Putin and hit the Kremlin? Really hit their nuclear arsenal and not a single airbase? I don’t know and I am betting neither NATO, nor the US knows either. This is not a schoolyard fight, it is a really dangerous war. If we are going to get serious about hitting Russia fast and hard, we are talking about doing it to the point where the entire Russian war machine collapses. Widening the war to hitting their entire military strategic system - not some amateur hour lobbing of a few ATACMS. So is that going to trip the trigger? I am glad some of you are very confident in your positions - but these levels of confidence in warfare make me very nervous. War is all about uncertainty and we are in the middle of a high consequence big uncertainty right now. I applaud the US and the west for playing this one so carefully and still ensuring Ukraine is coming out on top. This has been a masterclass in smart incremental warfare.

https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/act-of-war Act of war definitions are pretty broad and being integrated into a kill chain by essentially doing the targeting on another sovereign nation is going to be an escalation…no “poo pooing” that one. I have said this repeatedly - look at the whole system. ATACMS are of very limited utility without real-time hi resolution ISR. We know the US is already providing this to the UA for targets in Ukraine - even the unrecognized annexed territories. However, the US direct supporting targeting of Russian strategic installations and/or capability directly is not a step to be take lightly. Sorry but to try and spin it otherwise is being disingenuous. Ok, so Russia has been hit and have not started WW3 - it is a leap of extreme logic between a few “dropped cigarettes” or “industrial accidents” and the very broad strategic precision strike campaign the UA would need to do in order to actually change operational conditions, which are already in their favour btw. To hit things like Russian strategic ISR, industrial capacity, Strat LOCs and even political HVTs (aka Decapitation Strikes) effectively, meaning beyond symbolic or on the scale that Russia is doing to Ukraine, will take an enormous effort. We are talking hundreds of HIMARs all hooked into a US based ISR/target enterprise. We can quibble “act is war” all day but I am pretty confident that meets the threshold and if the situation was reversed we would also consider it an act of war. I am also pretty sure we are risking getting pulled directly into this war as western strategic ISR would now become legitimate military targets for Russia - arguable they are now but likely only if they are in or over Ukraine. If strikes are “highly restricted” then what is the point? For example, in order to cripple SLOCs one would be talking a sustained campaign against Russian rail infrastructure. To hit one or two bridges is basically worthless but comes with significant risks. A strategic harassment campaign is likely to stiffen Russian resolve and not actually degrade their ability to sustain this war. No, if we are going to do this it cannot be half-assed and will be one hell of an escalation.

It is not in the least. There is one very big caveat to this that everyone is glossing over- who is developing the targeting packages, and with what? The risk of escalation is not so much weak-kneed western resolve it is trying to avoid direct acts of war between the US and Russia. Of course Ukraine can hit legitimate military targets in Russia, particularly if they are part of this “special military operation”. And the nuclear escalation equation is also part of all this but the spin here is that the US is avoiding direct involvement in this war because then it turns the war into something else. For the same reason the US is not conducting airstrikes, they are pretty cautious with their ISR data. So Ukraine get ATACMS or whatever - whose data are they using to hit the right targets in Russia? If the UA fires blind they could wind up hitting a civilian neighbourhood, which is going to harm their cause - and I get the unfairness as Russia pound civilians in Ukraine but as we discussed before one warcrime does not justify retaliation warcrimes. And there is the risk that a Google Earth long range fire hits something Russia does take seriously enough to escalate over. For those in the “Russia is full of crap on escalation, always” camp - ok Tex, what is the Russian red line then? Would a NATO ground invasion of Russia set them off? If you answer is “yes” - ok, let’s walk it back from that and in your professional opinion tell me when to stop. A direct strike on Russian political leadership? A strike on Russias nuclear arsenal? If your answer is “no” - please leave for a bit because you are no longer part of a rational conversation. Regardless, we are back to “where is the ISR coming from?” If the US or any other western nation is developing targeting data or packages for direct strikes on another nation it is an act of war. Imagine if Russia or China was a third party in a conflict and was providing targeting data into a western nation…ya, that. I am pretty sure the US ISR architecture is tying itself in knots to avoid being pulled into Russia right now. If the UA can use their own ISR - and I suspect HUMINT is being employed - good on them and please don’t do something dumb. However, Ukraine is a free independent nation defending itself with its own resources. The US developing data and packages on Russian targets, in Russia, is an escalation on our end - a pretty serious one. It definitely shift to strategic offence which is a pretty severe line to cross just because we will feel better. Further, it may not shorten this war, it may lengthen it. The single biggest fear in the west is that Russia will widen the conflict and directly strike out at a NATO nation. Why? Because we would have to respond, NATO is too big to fail. If Russia calls our bluff and we do directly respond the whole thing gets crazy fast. Now Putin has justification for broader escalation and that is a train we might not be able to get off. Further it may split resolve in the western world - I am not sure how keen the rest of Europe is on dying for Ukraine. The evil truth is that Ukraine may be more important to Russia than it is to the West when we get into that sort of calculus…maybe. The US president was pretty clear and I agree with him - the second this conflict widens into the western sphere, pulling NATO in, we are talking about WW3. And that will involve strategic nuclear escalation because it is all Russia really has left in the bag for a conflict of that scale. We might get lucky and Russia blinks and someone shoots Putin in the head before it comes to it - but that is a hope, not a plan.

It is a risky calculus. Being on top does mitigate against mine strike. The detonation does not even need to penetrate the hull and you can still get your legs broke if you are inside. Riding on top also equals faster dismount. Big downside is airburst arty which is what "buttoned up" was supposed to fix.. This kind of indicates something we read awhile back - UA is using their IFVs as battlewagons to get them to the fight but are dismounting and spreading out (in some cases up to a km) from the vehicle when in contact. It makes sense to ride on top away from direct fire contact and observation, where mines are the biggest threat. In close contact the IFVs are looking more like direct fire escorts a la tanks, or being left a bound back as dispersed infantry do the forward work. Another thing notably missing is IFVs in defensive positions. Normally they are supposed to be dug into those trench lines but I have not seen that for some time. So I am wondering if the old mounted infantry concept is at play here - with armor getting them too and from, but less so in contact, or maybe plays a more specific role in contact is a better way to think of it. The issue may be that vehicles are highly visible and artillery magnets for both sides, so infantry are staying away from them when coming close to the enemy.

So what I did is after studying the history and getting as much detail on the plans for both sides, I then did up a larger operational schematic of what the collision between the two forces would look like. If you go into the CMCW manual you can see the Russian one. When you do this for both sides the logical locations for most likely engagements just kind of jump out at you. You can then string these together into a campaign (or campaigns) and still have room for single scenarios. For example Valley of Ashes is a prelude scenario to the US campaign, happening out in the ACR screen. Really nice looking map btw.

Absolutely true. In the western military experience - with very few isolated exceptions - the last time we were anywhere near something like this was the Balkans, and there are damned few of us left who recall that one. And there we were largely on the sidelines but combat did reach these levels of exchange but nowhere near as pervasive. To really get back to this level of conventional intensity would have to be Korea, I don’t think even Vietnam this level of parity in combat. This is why all the GOs and definitely the YouTube SOF-bros have very little real world experience to draw upon. Add to this warfare is changing under our feet as this thing unfolds. Every war is the same, but every war is very different.

Ok, well I can’t let this one bounce because it does relate directly to the war we are seeing - war as a concept. There are many schools of thought on this, some very narrow and other very broad. The narrow give advantage of specifics that lead to solid principles and doctrine - problem is when conflict goes off their maps. For example Clausewitzian definitions start to fall apart within intra-state conflict and below - the larger issue is that inter-state is connected to infra-state. So Clausewitz begins to fray in certain contexts and loses the benefits of its specificity - and we fall into the decisive battle trap etc. Broad schools, to which I subscribe, see war as a fundamental part of human social interaction. It cannot be nicely compartmentalized into a discrete phenomenon as it is entangled too deeply in human social discord throughout history (and pre-history). For example, to say war is not connected to disease is factually untrue. There is ample evidence that disease spreads as a direct result of warfare, and spread far beyond what it normally would have without war propelling mass numbers of people across great distances. In fact only recently have combat deaths exceeded those from disease within combatant populations. I mean seriously just Google “war and disease” and tell me what you see. Economies, as we have seen in this war, are also directly impacted. As is culture, and apparently generational trauma at an epigenetic level. Famine, due to loss of manpower and forced migrations/loss of agriculture production -this war is impacting food security in Africa right now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/13/climate-disasters-collide-with-ukraine-war-deepen-hunger-crisis/ I mean c’mon this isn’t stretching in the least. You are mocking but warfare is a secondary effect of “being born” because it is integral to being human. It is arguable that next to sex, war/conflict/organized homicide has been central to our species from the beginning. I am not sure how many sources I would need to prove this point but the “modern definition of war” is not modern in the least. It pre-dates the agricultural age and rise of civilization. How can an activity this broadly impactful and deeply rooted not span so many specialized fields? Humans wage warfare where resources have nothing to do with the equation - plenty of historical evidence of this, including the war in the Ukraine. We do it because it is a collision of collective fictions. You note that race is largely a fiction - based on genetic evidence you are correct. The collision between Ukraine and Russia is entirely the fiction of one man surrounded by a group of other yes- men who believe in their fiction so hard that they have dragged entire nations (another fiction) into this thing. So what? Well the broad school offers something the narrow cannot - a broader picture of war to pull link between cause and effect. In doing so allows for broader strategies - however they are all custom and cannot be easily transposed from one war to the next. The breadth of impact of this war is enormous as are its causes and factors that influence its outcomes. If you choose to adhere to the narrow schools of thought on warfare - well good luck to you. You will likely be able to create accurate predictive frameworks - so long as they stay within the established lines. Or you can expand your view to the broad schools that pull in a lot more cross-cutting factors. Given the historical evidence, I am not sure where to draw that line between what is war and what is…well whatever one wishes to somehow call “less than war”…we have been down that road far too often lately. Regardless, in the future as we continue to analyze this war, the narrow school is going to collide with the bars of its cage, it already has, and when it happens we can come back to this and discuss. I would close with the recommendation that you have not stretched you personal concept of war far enough and it is risking blind spots and map edges that may be worth exploring. War is not about “every species on earth” it is inherently human, however in that is spans almost every facet of humanity - I challenge you to find one that has not been impacted.

Ok I think we need to self moderate here because this is getting way off topic. I recommend everyone who is still interested, read up on European colonization and its effects - there is plenty out there. My overarching point is that one cannot uncouple war, disease, famine or economic damage - and going waaay back to the original sub-thread, we were weighing the effect it may have on human evolution. But lets put a pin in all that and get back to the war in Ukraine.

Ah, the "sorry I sneezed on you" angle. Well yes and no. https://www.se.edu/native-american/wp-content/uploads/sites/49/2019/09/A-NAS-2017-Proceedings-Smith.pdf While I am sure that is comfort for the indigenous people who died at something like 80-90 percent of their pre-contact populations - it directly links to a secondary effect of warfare, disease. One cannot uncouple the two, nor the evolutionary pressures of disease and warfare combined. Example - Black Death and Mongol Invasions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_migration#:~:text=It was reportedly first introduced,Southern Europe%2C whence it spread. And then there is famine. Fighting drives people who survived disease off their lands and food energy intake tanks. There are four horsemen for a reason.

I don’t know where they pulled their data from but I have no doubt there are accuracy issues, especially the further back you get. In reality this graphic is probably conservative as a I do not see the conquest of the Americas or Africa, which resulted in massive loss of life. The Holocaust is lowballed at about 4.4 million, depending on where one sticks the circle. The point of course is not any one conflict but the reality that we have been doing war everywhere-all the time throughout history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll A lot of stuff here: https://slides.ourworldindata.org/war-and-violence/#/title-slide This from the Pinker school of decreasing violence over time, which could be the flip side argument that we are evolving away from war but I am not entirely sold as it relies a lot on deaths per capita, which is slippery. Are we really more peaceful or has our population base accelerated faster than we can kill each other? It also really only focuses on post-WW2 which is too short a period to determine if we are indeed becoming more peaceful or just pausing. As to “why do we count everything?”, well it is an attempt to understand our environment better through math I would guess. I mean democracy is founded on counting things in order to understand collective will better. We count deaths to try and avoid them in the future (e.g. COVID)- a human thing I suppose.

As in entirely fictional and man made. There is no natural environment construct that would drive Russians and Ukraines to kill each other - we (mankind) artificially created it essentially out of nothing accept our imaginations and emotions. War itself creates a very real artificial physical environment and applies direct evolutionary pressure - see Kilcullen’s weak spin on this - https://academic.oup.com/book/33631/chapter-abstract/288151079?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false but the underlying premise is solid in how we observed terror organizations evolve over 20 years. The real question is how does the impact of these punctuated constructed environments have on us over time? Or as you point out - “how long does is stick?” Very good question. One could argue a single wars effects are accelerating but limited to perhaps a generation or two. However we see. To have been doing this at scale for quite awhile: This one does not show Mongols and Crusades, nor Three Kingdoms wars - which were some of the largest per capita impact wars in history. The point being how does 5 thousand years of big wars and maybe 100k years of micro-wars effect human beings at a genetic level? Social? Cultural? Does the acceleration effect stack up over time? What is interesting about that graphic is that wars appear to almost be 1) continuous as small, and 2) cyclical - almost by generations, for the large. Have we changed how we reproduce as a result? We have definitely changed how we access energy from the environment to do this better…again all artificial self-inflicted pressure. Unlike beavers who do shape their environment directly - war creates an artificial environment to shape its creators. It has propelled us on many levels. I have read that one along with The Third Chimpanzee and Collapse. Harari as well. For a really grounded look at pre-historic warfare, to see just how far it’s impact reaches, read (if you have not already) Lawrence Keely’s War Before Civilization and Azar Gat’s War in Human Civilization - and even give old John Keegan’s A History of Warfare a go. There is surprisingly little on pre-historic warfare and it’s potential impact on humanity. I think the effects of war go beyond the death count and direct selective pressure. One could argue its effects in this arena occurred when our populations were very small. I think the effects of wide scale trauma, social and cultural pressures has driven us far further and faster as a species, even down to the genetic level, than it would have without it. The big question to my mind is “do we own the process or does the process own us” with respect to warfare - and the jury is very much out on this one.

Bingo. This is basically like trying to talk a suicidal jumper off a ledge while they hold a hostage. Except the hostage is gnawing the jumpers arm off. I can only imagine the people working on how to give Russia a just-soft-enough-landing but demonstrates the consequences of stepping out of line, remove Putin and enough of his cancerous cronies, support new Russian leadership with less blood on hands and may not drive the country off a cliff for a little bit at least, and figure out what a path to post-war renormalization looks like. While also selling Ukraine reconstruction. Now that is one messy problem set.

I think it is deeper than that. They cannot lose to Ukraine - to do so would show all the cracks in the foundation of a nation that has been inherently unstable since the fall of the Czar. So this war started as a demonstration of power intended to push NATO back and shore up an internal narrative - Putin has not been subtle in his speeches on this point. To lose now would likely break them. This would be like the US invading Mexico and getting crushed, pretty damaging to the whole internal framework on a lotta levels. So now they stuck their heads into a hornets nest and can’t get out. If it wasn’t for the nuclear arsenal and all the death and destruction it would be hilarious. What is bad is that I do not think Russia knows how to lose this war and suddenly the West has to figure it out for them so we don’t go down really bad paths.