The_Capt

Cost vs gains - cost here is also time and narrative. I question the western resolve to support a war that drags on for another 3 yrs so that Ukraine can take back stuff it has not held since 2014. Without western support, particularly ISR, this conflict has a good chance of freezing back to where it was on 22 Feb 22. Ukrainian economically stronger with Donbas - c'mon, we have covered this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_subdivisions_by_GRP. The Donbas constitutes $6.8 billion GRP (2020) our of a national $113.8 billion. At this point is is cheaper for the west to pay Ukraine to not try and take it back, than whatever they expect to develop in a hostile territory that shares a border with the enemy - that actively supports across that border. Sure, except the for the facts that 1) Crimea is a freakin nightmare to try and take back militarily, 2) see Donbas on local hostility potential and 3) it is the one spot that might trigger a true nuclear escalation...sorry not worth it either. Declare Sevastopol an open city, whatever, and move on. The only way it happens easy - and ffs we should not be falling into that trap anymore than Putin did at the start of this thing - is a total Russian collapse. Not military but national. If that happens, sure go for it, there is no more Russia to push back. Short of that, I am pretty sure we already proved our point. Opponents of the West have already got the message. [aside: I do not for second want to under value the frankly breathtaking efforts of the UA and Ukrainians but we are talking projected narrative here] We took an underdog nation that by all military metrics we understand should have fallen months ago, and turned it into a terrifying war beast that is crushing a P5 nation on the battlefield. Do you seriously think we really care where lines on the map line up right now? Do you think China is going to go "well sure, but you did not take Crimea back"...?! There is tons of disincentives for Ukraine not to go all the way, given current conditions (see Russian collapse). There will be a point when the sacrifice equation for the west splits from Ukraine on this trajectory because we 1) already proved our point, 2) want stability, more war for symbolic land gains really is not a sold concept for us, and 3) Russia sucks and we can continue to punish it; however, this war is not existential for the west at this point - it was back in Feb. So dragging this well out, at this point is likely to start to take the shine off. I have said for some time - Russia back in line, regime of gangsters we can deal with, strong rebuilt Ukraine with a westward facing. None of these are hinging on Donbas or Crimea. Last point of narrative - right now Ukraine is on top. The underdog little guy who really knocked the bully on his ***. Re-take Kharkiv and Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol - have a parade: "today is our independence day!" Oh wait, Ukraine wants another year or two of slugging to retake land it hasn't held since the Obama administration? Oh and we are going to spend billions more on that instead of re-building Ukrainian schools and businesses? Oh, look another election cycle. I am not an expert on Ukrainian, or Russian political mechanisms, personalities or perspectives as they relate to military affairs. I am an expert on US/5EYES and NATO, but I do not need to be to know how this will go in the west, without a major strategic shift to reframe these regions as existential to us. The "oh, no not another Afghanistan/Iraq voices will get louder" and once seats change this could risk the entire reconstruction momentum. As I wrote, China is shackled to a zombie right now - you can fill in the blanks if the West wakes up one morning and thinks it is shackled to a rabid dog.

And I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

All war is negotiation and sacrifice - all war is negotiation with sacrifice. So Putin dropped the 'mobilization' boogey man, kinda. And of course threatened nuclear war without saying it...oh my. Well I think Phase 2-3 of this war were positioning for endgame - Russia's point "Imma gonna take the Donbas, cause that was what I wanted all along...well that plus Kherson and everything I did not lose in Phase I". And Ukraine's counter-point "No you are not." This could have gone on for some time longer but clearly things are coming to a head in Moscow. So I think this is endgame. What does a soft-mobilization/slightly-louder-threat-of-nuclear-war-based-on-bizarro -annexation-internal-legalities-that-no-one-else-is-going-to-recognize-for-a-century, really tell us? - Well first it tells us that Russia is desperate. Putin and the gang are opening themselves up to significant political exposure here. You average Russian may, or may not, have actually supported this war but they all had the luxury of staying out of it - changing that is a major shift. We are already hearing rumblings in opposition, who knows how far that will go; however, we do know that Putin would not have pulled on this lever if Russia was winning. This is a pretty clear sign of losses and the impact it is having on his war machine. - Next, this is not an escalation, it is desperation. This is an attempt to preserve military capability in the field and re-assert a status quo, not raise enough forces to re-take Kyiv. In short, whatever the UA is doing, it is working very well. - Russia is clearly on the defensive, and likely will stay there until this is over. Throwing 300,000 conscripts in any variation is not going to create offensive military capability - unable to create positive decision, so at best negative and null (i.e. denial). This signals a shift into a strategy of exhaustion, annihilation for the Russians has left the building. This puts Russia a couple rungs above an insurgency as far as military strategy goes. They are going to try and dig in an hold on to what they have until the other side gets tired. - We could be heading towards a nuclear decision point. The battlefield use of nuclear weapons has always been a grey area in warfare. It is an escalation but the West and USSR went around and around on whether one could have a limited nuclear war. I suspect that Putin might be thinking about testing the norms around this by declaring all the territory they have taken as "mother Russia" - we freakin knew that Russian doctrine and law were useless to refer to because autocrats just move the goalposts. So I suspect the redline is the Crimea, and maybe somewhere in the LNR/DPR. If the UA push that far, we might actually see Putin try to go that way - I say "try" because he 1) might already be removed from power by then, or 2) someone will put a bullet in his dome before they drag Russia into a doomsday scenario. If one does go off well it won't be the end of days, tactical nuclear weapons can effect a couple grid squares and were designed for heavy armor concentrations at Fulda - this war is far to spread out. We will likely lose our minds in the West and the response will be key to what happens next. I suspect conventional escalation or other options to send a strong signal to Russia that they will be the first country in history to lose a strategic nuclear war. Regardless, if Russia employs a nuclear weapon, we are off the map, beyond the Cuban Missile crisis; however, I also still think this actually happening is a long shot. For those in Europe and NA, I would not start getting too excited until strange looking Patriot systems start being deployed around major urban areas and/or in the Canadian north. So the biggest question on the table is - "what does endgame look like?" This is in the weird political space as militarily Ukraine has demonstrated that given time they can likely retake everything back to the pre-2014 border - the question is do they want to? Do they need to? Putting emotions to one side - I suspect the West will be putting a lot of incentives for Ukraine to push to 2014 borders and then stop. Why? Well some possible reasons: - DNR and LNR are burned out wrecks with large sections of the population that clearly do not want to be Ukrainian, so let em go. Ukraine gains nothing but a couple Northern Ireland scenarios if they re-occupy, that and a massive reconstruction bill. Walk away and wish them luck with their sugar daddy. - Crimea. Here we could see "neutral and open" tossed around a lot more. Without Sevastopol Russia is pretty much cut out of the Black Sea, and if they are out of the Black Sea they are out of the Med. If Russia is going to go nuclear, it will be over Crimea...and to this guy over in NA, it is not worth it. - Ok, so that is the unthinkable "bad", what is the carrot? Fast tracked entry in NATO - this entire bullsh#t goes away if Ukraine has Article 5 to lean on, because that is simply too big to fail for the West. Hell Ukraine is already armed better than most NATO nations, with NATO STANAG equipment. Their training is US/UK standard and I have no doubt we have already built most of their ISR infrastructure. Ukraine in NATO next week is a clear win for the west. Next, entry into the EU. Bureaucratic nightmare that it is, this would cement Ukraine into Europe economically and set them up for post-war success. Last, a reconstruction plan to rival Marshal. The West commits hundreds of billions to turn Ukraine into a shining example of what our money can do as a counter-point to China's game these last 15 years or so. As to Russia? Well it made its bed. Sanctions stay in place until 1) reparation deal is cut and in motion, 2) war crimes of all sorts are investigated and prosecuted and 3) Putin regime is gone enough that we can pretend whoever replaces it is clean...or clean enough. If Russia refuses any of the above, well enjoy being a Chinese satellite with a Cold War Soviet standard of living and we will see you again in 30 years - we will risk manage Russia, we are good at that in the West. So What War? Well UA will likely focus on taking bights out of Donbas just to ensure 300,000 Russian conscripts don't feel left out. They will re-take Kherson and push south over the Dnipro up to the Crimean border. And Melitopol, cut that stupid land bridge and box the Russians and their cronies back to where they were before this nonsense started. Anyway, crazy days and keep your head up because it might get crazier.

Oh the thread will survive, it must until this war is over and then it needs to be archived somewhere. Now whether some members join John Kettler in the outer-darkness is another question. My view is that this thread is a collective analysis and assessment of the war and its conduct. It is crowd sourced from open source intelligence and brings together a very broad set of skillsets and points of view. I would argue that it is also one of the most objective/apolitical, thorough, and accurate exercises of this type on the internet right now. However, our efforts must adhere to that analysis and assessment focus, we can and will drift on occasion into areas that are "less than helpful", but this must not devolve into an argument of one point of view over the other - no one can win an argument here - these are not Reddit games. One can provide useful analysis, assessment and information, and yes, even opinions. We are not going to solve anything here, that is not how these things work. All we can do is remain objective/apolitical, thorough, and accurate as we try to separate mis/dis information from reality as this thing unfolds. An opinion, however, differs from a position. Opinions, informed by education and experience lead to sound judgement, which is very helpful. A position is a dogmatic and entrenched set of beliefs that very often defy reality - that is less helpful and is better served elsewhere in this big wide Internet where every position possible is out there for you to rage against or join in: Go nuts. There is a standing list of topics that we will simply not solve here, nor should be waste our time trying to. And by rolling hard into these topics all people do is generate noise, while we are looking for signal. Nearly 1400 pages in, these flare ups happen at intervals - normally in a lull in activity in-theatre - and I suspect is more an emotional outburst as things get pent up. Hopefully we have it all out of our systems now and may move on.

You can't make this stuff up. I swear parents are worse than the kids at this age.

“His crew were the only people he knew in his unit” - that is not small. It means that his unit was not integrated beforehand, or he was an augmentee who was not fully integrated. Either way it points to at least one unit where you are talking about half-built teams, which means there is a risk they will fight the same way. Here is where the NCOs are key, they become the integrators of replacements or in a hodgepodge rebuilt unit they quickly pull it together. This matches observations of a poor or non-existent NCO corps in the RA. Nothing definitive, and could easily be a an anomaly or one-persons perspective. But it does line up with the overall qualitative problems the RA has been reported to be having. Cohesion is key to morale, and morale is key to sustaining a will to fight.

Iodine pills with my PBJs! Put that on your tweeter.

Kinda comes off like a millennial just 'discovered' that nuclear war is a thing. Boomers and X'ers grew up with that gun to the head basically since birth - "Climate change? Sure if you want to wait around for a century. Lemme tell you about how mankind can really kill us all in a weekend, son!"

Yes, but also the way around this now is volume. We have been saying for years to stop treating UAVs like an aircraft and a munition instead - dear gawd the UAS argument is so insane sometimes. The obvious answer is to 1) harden against direct EW effects on the vehicle, and 2) make more autonomous. Both which are very doable with todays technology let alone tomorrows.

That is a clear indication of a lagging C4ISR and Targeting enterprise. Russia should have invested all the money they wasted on the T-14 into their ability to see, understand and hit, in a joint context, faster and better than their opponent. They were behind at the start of the war and have been falling further back. This also hints that the UA solved for defence thru dispersed or distributed mass - give your opponent nothing to hit but smoke. Then we get into metrics of what "10 days ammo" looks like with modern smart weapons. The author is exactly correct - we need to examine this war very carefully and make sure we see the real lessons, not the ones we want to see.

Well here is Perun's spin - have not watched it all the way through but his track record has been solid: So the question, I think, is - the UA has solved for offence, but have they solved for all offence? First off I am not sure how many casualties they have taken in Kherson. Report of "mass casualties" are likely overblown, or very localized, mainly because the offensive itself it continuing. Sure the UA is taking casualties but I do not think we are talking the opening of the Somme here. So what about "prepared defence"? The Maginot Lines that Russia has been able to throw up all over the place? Thoughts: - This war is asymmetric, and has been from day 1. The UA has access to much, much, better C4ISR, and its logistical lines have never been challenged in any meaningful way by the RA. [Aside: I think it is safe to discuss now; however, the only shot Russia had at winning this war was way back in Feb. IF the RA had made the main effort of the war Lviv, and to cut off the western support corridor by land - I think we would be in a very different reality.] Russia has had access to mass, beyond manpower - for which there has been rough parity - the RA has significant advantages in just about every other metric of military mass; tanks, IFVs, guns, EW/support vehicles. The thing is, the UA advantages once they were given access to western smart-weapon systems (by 'smart' I mean weapon systems that can sustain approaching -1:1 shot to kill ratios through a much better organic TA and lethality designed to offset RA protection) and combined it with the C4ISR asymmetry - they effectively dislocated all that RA mass. And did it with largely 'light' forces - Phase 1 of this war was mind-blowing, frankly, it was far more that 'Russian's suck'. In reality the UA managed a hybrid distributed defence along ridiculous frontages that made the RA "suck more" - to the point of failure. - So building on that asymmetry, over the summer the UA were able to expand their options significantly when they gained more access to deep precision strike capability. I will say it loud and proud - HIMARS were an absolute game changer. It gave the UA something akin to ersatz airpower without the bother of airfields and infrastructure. They have employed this system, along with others, in both deep strike and CAS-like roles - there has been hand wringing over the tank but I would think air power advocates should take note of this as well. With this capability they did pretty much what they did with SOF and Light infantry in phase 1, but much further and faster - they corroded the entire Russian operational system: logistics, C4ISR, EW and morale, to the point that the RA never were able to regain offensive initiative after the summer in the Donbas. - Then we saw the very visible result/end-state of this work in Kharkiv, which appears as much about RA taking insane risks to shore up other areas of the front - they did so because their system is in failure. Kharkiv was "easy" because of this...slow....until it is not. Kharkiv is an obscenely fast advance and an RA collapse, it will likely be the blueprint for the course of the rest of this war. "Ok that was great but what about...?!!" War is not a fast food industry - quick, cheap and tasty; we have become addicted to quick short wars, followed by an insurgency hangover in the west since 1991. It is dangerous thinking and we needed a lesson on what a real war looks like - brutal, long and all up in your face. No more of this video-game warfare nonsense. You want to get into a peer fight? This is what you get - except now with nuclear apocalypses hanging overhead. A lesson both China, and I hope the West walk away with. We have been sold on the idea that war is an inconvenience - to the point that they are teaching this in some academia circles to future policy workers and government leaders. Some unpleasantness to get over with and then put the military back into a box and get back to the "real business". Pinker was, and is wrong - this is the business of humanity, history backs me up on that one. So back to Ukraine, well the UA is well ahead of force generation estimates, the double operation Kharkiv-Kherson demonstrates this, so I am not sure where they really are at to be honest but "well ahead" is a good place to be. The next question is "how far behind is the RA?", and how fast is that getting worse? - it is getting worse. The UA has been very smart, and they learn faster than the RA - I go on about options being a key indicator of how things are going; however, collective learning has to be another. Both sides in this war are learning, it is that kind of experience, but the side that can learn faster and more broadly has a clear advantage - that would be the UA. So the UA will likely go back to slow, until the conditions are ready for them to go fast. As to Kherson, it does not take a military genius to know that fighting with a river to your back is likely the worst position to be in. We know the RA supply lines are heavily damaged and the troops in those "hardpoints", know it too. In the end the Maginot fell with a whimper because it was totally dislocated - RA hardpoints in Kherson will likely go the same way - it is the biggest vulnerability of a 'hardpoint', it cannot move. However before that happens the RA needs to be further corroded until the holes outnumber the metal and, like Kharkiv the whole rotten house collapses. "How long can the RTA hold out" - see my para on real war: no freakin idea. It is not forever, based on how hard the UA is still pushing, they think the RA will fail before the weather changes. Does Kherson have the only decent RA General and leadership? Did they stockpile more than we thought? How bad is the RA system in that area? We do not know. But I will put one thing out there - time is on the Ukrainian side, not Russia. Which is what this is really about - we need to move past that myth. The UA could sit back and hammer the RA positions with impunity in Kherson. They could do it during the muddy season and into the winter - they can find, fix and finish target from well outside of RA retaliation capability. Precision means they do not need an ocean of ammo to do it either - 1000 rounds equals 1000 effective hits, kind of thing. Russia could not mobilize anything that looks and fights like a real military on the scale they need for years and western resolve should get us well into 2023, particularly once the Dark Winter is over. My guess is that Ukraine wants a short war because their people are dying, but they can win a longer one as well. They are pushing hard and up-close at Kherson because they are assessing it will fail soon. Ukraine will likely win this thing enough (all war is negotiation) in 2023 - assuming it does not happen sooner - if the current paradigm holds. If we get a major strategic shift then we would have to re-asses. How they are going to do it is to likely stick with the same game they have been playing all along - exhaust the RA operational system and then kick it in the walnuts from multiple directions at once. Watch the RA collapse - meme the hell out of that, document the war crimes the Russians were stupid enough get into and show them to the world, get more western support while Russia and its cronies make quacking noises and write bad fiction, rinse and repeat until one hits the Russian border or someone finally puts a piece of metal into one 70 year old's brain pan and the Russians leave sooner. It is the winning recipe so far.

A few pages back. Apparently the Wagner guys are the height of professional because they have a standing order not to rape "fauna or flora" - plant violation is a thing apparently. Thought it was a hilarious English language barrier thing but now I am no so sure.

Kind of puts the whole “no sex with flora” point in perspective.

So to my eyes this is classic fog-eating-snow attrition to manoeuvre. However, it is really less about where the UA is, or has made gains - ground taken is not the metric in play on this front, it is the erosion of the Russian operational system. We need to be looking for signs that the Russian defensive system is failing. The fact that the UA has all the LOCs and the RA is fighting on the wrong side of the river is a damned good indicator that the RA system will fail; however, how long it will hold out is tied to indicators like - volume of fire, abandoned vehicle (particularly high value stuff) with empty gas tanks, deserters, Russian units turning on each other, abandoned allies and surrenders. Terrain is still fine but it does not tell the story on this front as well as these others. Qualitative analysis of the RA is what is needed at Kherson...until it becomes fast, then we can go back to terrain.

So taking a look back to WWI era - Germany referred to the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an ally as "fighting while shackled to a corpse" Right now China has to be thinking "this is like competing while shackled to a zombie". The damn thing just wants to "eat near abroad" so that it can stay afloat for a few more decades...every time...all the freakin time! How are they supposed to deliver on a 500 year campaign for global supremacy when their 'guy' keeps lunging erratically?! As we discussed, it even looked like Russia was getting good (or maybe just lucky) with more nuanced plays...and then it went all "brains!!" in '22 - complete with war crimes! Seriously, I would cut these guys loose as well if I were China and India.

I read this as a bit of a spin piece to be honest. I think the fear is that if Ukraine has "won" than why do we need to keep supporting them? "They have not won, this will be a long fight = long term support". As opposed to a military operations assessment. The weather break will be the muddy season, not winter. Winter warfare is harder in some ways and easier in others - ground firms up, wetlands can become like pavement. Water obstacles freeze over and disease goes down - frostbite goes up. Ukraine is re-setting and reloading because they made enormous gains. I do not expect the Fall 22 offensives are over yet, maybe in a month or so. Next ops are going to be continuous pressure on Kherson, slow biting there has a good chance of become another RA collapse. Then the UA has to be thinking about "the middle". As to how long this last - who frickin knows? All we can say is that the strategic initiative has shifted and Russia is on the defensive; this was a key moment we were looking for. How fast the UA can make gains is anyone's bet. No one predicted the speed it occurred around Kharkiv - Kherson makes more sense for this war...slow...then fast. The UA might make a switch back to Deep Strike campaigns to further stress the RA operational system, and then pulse out again after the mud clears. All war is negotiation and sacrifice - the Russians seem to be the ones dealing with that space right now - less so Ukraine: they know all about sacrifice but are looking much less inclined to negotiate. I will go back to a re-occurring theme: options. Russia now has the fewest military options it has had in this war - offensive appears off the table entirely, defensive is getting narrower as positions get tenuous and capability erodes (corrosive warfare - attrit the entire system, not just the front end). The compression on those options lays out like a schematic basically all the way back to 24 Feb. So Russia either needs to turn that around - and I am at a loss on how they can (nukes has been discussed and largely dismissed), or they start to explore other options in the diplomatic space. Frankly short of a significant ally jumping in on the side of Russia - and now we are at how important relationships are - and no one is looking to do that, went way out on a branch on that one Vlad, Russia remains largely isolated and increasingly fragile. For the "what do we do next" problem space; establish some tangible objectives; confirm long term support to the end of the conflict, into post-conflict; get serious about national reconstruction and integration of Ukraine into the western sphere, and; start thinking about how we are going to manage the post-Ukraine War realities.

Heh, clearly never taught in US or Canada. Unpleasant, undisciplined and lawyered up.

LOL! I get the same thing from the H-47.

Heh, I guess that depends on what scale of history you are using. Post-WW2, post WW1, maybe. Before that almost every state on the planet was authoritarian to some extent, the democracies of the US and France were largely experimental. On a long history look we really have a single point of data - the current era. Democracies and societies that were more internally dynamic have always been a very small minority and many times they failed and spiralled back into authoritarian regimes (e.g. Rome). China has sustained multiple global power empires for over 2000 years and largely on the authoritarian model. As did Egypt, Persia and empires all over the planet. There is far more historical evidence that humans are attracted to authoritarian power than anything else. So I would argue we are living either in the beginning of new era (thousand points of light) or an anomaly, and it is far too soon to tell. My sense is that we fear uncertainty more than anything else and when “dynamism” turns into uncertainty we run back into the arms of a central pack/herd leader - history does back that up. The subversive warfare I am talking about is all about projecting uncertainty and letting it do damage to us internally. There is plenty evidence of its success, and even strategic gains by those that employ it. Uncertainty create confusion and chaos inside our cognitive and conative frameworks and they then leverage that vacuum to push their own interests. You do make a solid point though, neither China or Russia has been able to offer an attractive idea that makes their gains stick - and that is probably Russias biggest loss in the war; any chance to try and make one. My bet is that if they keep us disrupted and unstable, their idea may be “certainty we cannot offer”. And as things have been unfolding the shine was definitely starting to fade on us in he west as well - misadventures like Iraq and Afghanistan really did not help. I hope that Ukraine acts as a slap in the face and glass of cold water to the west - this is what happens if we remain divided, this is the result of us allowing ourselves to be divided and subverted, this is what happens if we do not push back before a war starts and thousands die, billions wasted. I do not speak of what happens inside the wire often but I can say the needle is moving and we are starting to see things in a different light on all of this. We will pivot to China but it will not be solely a conventional military deterrence equation on the table, that would be a major mistake. Nor can we assume our “attractiveness” as a natural gift, this is a contest of power, ideologies and certainties, and we should never forget that. The second we do - more Ukraines will happen.

Well we each have different seats in all this so that is understandable. You speak of their models of conflict, which is a very interesting conversation: Russia - appeared to be following a Soviet expansion model of Explore, Infiltrate, Subvert, Proxy and Formal Claim - rinse and repeat. What they have been missing is an ideology, an idea to back it up. China - is playing with a new version of the People's War/Tso's doctrine, subvert, stalemate/exhaust, advantage - conventional gains. Both of them rely on what I can Decision Denial - they do not need positive decisions, they need only ensure we are not able to focus and are mired in negative/null ones. I am nor sure where this goes, we have never had this sort of conflict under these conditions.

I could probably write a book: Forcing function - The US and west have been the the worlds hyperpower for at least 30 years. Any conventional matchups come with so many caveats that only non-state networks have really been dumb enough to take them on in the CT/VEO space. In fact the last time a nation state fell out of line the Gulf War happened and any great power outside of the US/western sphere took note. So a revisionist state was trapped between the devil of nuclear warfare they could not win, and the deep blue see of being vastly overpowered in the conventional space. Our History. We understood our power early. While interventions and CT work kept us busy in reality the west has not faced an existential state-based threat since the fall of the USSR. As such, we let things slide in the famous "peace dividend days". Everyone was counting mothballed tanks and ships, but we also mothballed the NS architecture capable of waging global scale political warfare. Sure we kept intelligence and the like but funding went way down as we all figured "well who would mess with us". It got a major boost after 9/11 but it was built to hunt humans in and amongst other humans, not deal with larger scale nation states. So our ability to actually conduct counter-subversive and pre-emptive political warfare campaigns has atrophied over the last three decades. Our reality. Unlike autocratic societies, we lay our internal social divisions and friction-points out for everyone to see, we celebrate and fund them. Further we have laws that enshrine freedoms and an open society based on the value of each and every citizen. We doubled down on all of that after the Cold War ended. What makes our nations strong a great are also some of our biggest vulnerabilities in this arena - not advocating for anything different here, this is just our reality. Free press, free enterprise, free academia and freedoms "from and to" are what makes us the most powerful versions of humanity that ever existed; also leaves us very open to asymmetric strategies. Their reality. The revisionist power states, like China and Russia, were largely left out, or at least feel like they were left out of the re-writing of the global order. They understand where they stand in the pecking order, and while it took awhile, they figured out that they 1) did not like it, and 2) had to start moving the needle to change it. Direct confrontation with the west was impossible, so they went sideways. They all have long histories in the subversive space, hell one could argue the Chinese invented it. So they renewed old doctrines that leveraged energy resident within our systems to work for them - classic reflexive control. This was done with long above-water campaigns of influence as they picked up steam. Cyber and information space meant that societies became connected, but they also became "seeable" in extremely high resolution. Like the invention of the microscope, this opened up new observable phenomenon, which we could not see in the Cold War. States and corporations - often overlapping - went to town on this. They collected data and developed theories of how humanity worked at micro-social scales that did not exists 30 years ago. They could map those spaces and that could gauge cause and effect. We used to sell stuff and collect "likes and subscribes", they, the other lost powers, used it to create "options". Ones that are very hard to attribute and are aimed at what is both our greatest strengths and vulnerabilities - our open society. These options were not legal acts of war, responses lay outside of our legalities and policies, and they were designed to hit us where they knew we would never even be able to agree at what happened - classic negative and null decision space. Russia out front. Russia has a very long history of playing these games and decided to flex first. China has always been quietly waiting and watching in the background - stealing IP, buying off politicians and power brokers, colleting information and re-drawing maps. Russia is not that nuanced, never has been really. They were far more blunt and began act on their new theories - Gerasimov Doctrine/Russian Hybrid Warfare - whatever. It was an ability to exercise strategic options outside of what we understood as war or peace. Russia tried things out in Georgia and Chechnya - learned some hard lessons and then went prime time in 2014 in Ukraine. No big conventional war, they just undecided Donbass and Crimea, and then made it too hard for us to really decide anything about it. They pulled off wins in Syria and Africa (that no one really noticed) and kept getting free lunches while we in the west sat back and scratched our heads "how did they do that?" Seriously, as I have told some senior people, "I am tired of admiring the other team". China was doing all the same stuff, just much more nuanced and quietly - they called it unrestricted warfare/systems warfare but it basically amounts to the same thing; however, China appears much more adept at leveraging the rules and laws of the international order, while at the same time playing outside of them. Unprepared and paralysis. We really were in a kind of strategic shock in the west. Both Russia and China had worked hard to make sure that they played out internal divisions and that groups in our own societies became indirectly invested (ignorantly in some cases) in their interests. Our national security and defence architecture was too busy chasing "snakes" and was dislocated in dealing with state-based threats. In many cases we had no policy or legal frameworks for what these new threat theories could do, and we sure as hell did not have counters/pushbacks. So while we were basically strategically dislocated both Russia and China made great gains while we dithered and argued with each other - and I do not mean solely in the US. North America, Europe and Pacific partners, all yelling and divided. NATO was on the ropes, many nations had grown tired of GWOT, and we saw (are seeing) the rise of nationalism and isolationism. Russia poops the bed - and modern war is in the wind. For reasons I still do not understand Russia decides to drop its A-Game and fall back on an open conventional military power approach in Ukraine. I have never heard a good reason why this is, and why they took this risk but here we are. So China is sitting back watching, again as all this unfolds and what does it see? Well first thing is that modern conventional warfare is upside down. By our old metrics/doctrine Ukraine should have lost this, even in the face of Russian crappiness. The war was going to be longer and grinding but eventually Ukraine would fold under the weight of a military machine that was an order of magnitude larger by some metrics. And then "boop"! So what the hell happened? - well personally I think the 3rd offset (out of favor now) actually came into it age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_strategy) in doing so it is re-writing conventional war as we know it. Russia is running into a brick wall but China is watching and noting it. China was feeling strong, by old metrics it was catching up and rising to challenge the West - particularly when one considers our aversion to sacrifice. Unless China is a complete idiot, and nothing I have seen suggests they are, then this war completely blew up their pre-war estimates. Modern warfare just got insanely more lethal and expensive - harder not easier. And once again western warfare looks like it leaped ahead, this was not the plan. So What? Well, despite all the sabre rattling with China over Taiwan, I suspect the Chinese are conducting a serious re-think (they should be). Everyone in the bar is armed and sizing each other out. A big guy draped with guns and ammo, looking like Rambo, picked a fight with a little guy who just punched Rambo's teeth in with his own ammo belts. A conventional conflict with China just got less likely, if China has been paying attention and I suspect they have. The metrics by which China was gauging things just shifted and they are not going to pull "a Russia" blindly. So, So what? Well China is likely going to do a few things 1) re-set its conventional military power metrics, likely better than we will - we are going to bask in "well there you go, we win!", 2) Keep to its A-game longer and double down and what has been working - it saw what happened to Russia. We on the other hand are likely to go back to arguing and losing the bubble, making us even more vulnerable. That is the biggest unknown and question "how do we re-gain internal integrity in our systems, without breaking them ourselves?" All the while China and very likely what is left of Russia will work in helping us to break us. We are likely to see a lot more proxy actions done this way because invading is a dumb idea. China has a decades head start on us, so we face major challenges getting better in this space - it is the one area that China's options are expanding and ours remain stagnant. Cold War, Hot Peace, Tepid Status Quo, it all really ends the same; more political warfare happening where the terrain favours the opponent - we need to get over ourselves and agree that in this area we are all of one mind: create equilibrium and expand options, while compressing our opponents. And this is not all on the US, which has its own problems, we have seen pressures and threats here in Canada in ways that we do not have any response to other than "togetherness and resilience". Every western country has a micro-social space, and it is largely lying wide open to direct influence, which in a democracy is incredibly powerful and dangerous. I strongly suspect that this war will be a watershed moment for whatever comes next - likely a Coldish War but one where the lines are far more blurry and a significant continuing of the trend of the re-emergence of political warfare as a primary theater in pursuing national interests while blunting an opponents. Finally, my instincts tell me, "don't think 1960", they are telling me "think 1900". There are a lot of similarities between now and pre WWI with respect to great power competition/conflict. Accept now we have nukes and cyberspace - and the history of WWI to learn from. Regardless, we need to win this war, put Russia back in a box and then everyone sit down and have a serious conversation on how we let this happen and how we need to close the spaces between us or someone is going to use that: one second to midnight at a time.

And then there is the long term service contracts. I totally get the narrative from a euro-centric POV; however, the reality of the US enterprise, it genius in fact, is to take the 19th century UK model and make it more inclusive. Having dealt with US military my entire career and worked with people in trade and diplomacy who have also worked with the US very closely, the genius of the US system is that it really plays "win-win+" as brilliantly as any empire in history (I think they stole some from the Roman Empire as well). By win-win+, I mean the US are masters of going into a nation and creating win-win opportunity, and then they leave a nice little margin for themselves to keep ahead, just enough. The US track record is not perfect, and people/corporations who have exploited this have been caught out and anti-US crowds have built an entire mythology around it. However, on the whole and in sum, this strategy has worked brilliantly. So take Ukraine. US goes in and funds $50B worth of infrastructure/reconstruction - some people will go "$50B!? WTF, what about my XYZ?! Damned government!" Well as you say, most of that will be with US-heavy companies, but there will be spin of long term service and maint contracts that will go to local-US hybrids. Ukraine gets new infrastructure and a foundation for long term growth, likely linked back to the US, there are obvious diplomatic pluses, the list goes on. Win-win+. China has been trying to emulate this strategy around the world but I think China is too xenophobic to make it work, frankly. However, I think a major downside from this war is not the conventional deterrence vs China re: Taiwan, it is going to be a doubling down on unrestricted warfare/systems warfare to which we in the west are particularly vulnerable.

Great, now I can't unthink that...thanks for that one.

Wow, plants too? If this guy has to include trees in the standing orders, I mean what the f#ck?!

Well it is optimistic assessment, we can say that. Kinda sounds like a sales pitch to be honest. When I hear "cost neutral" or "someone else will pay" I start looking for the magic beans. There are some significant downsides to this whole thing and some serious risks - a fully fractured Russia is one that has been discussed here a lot. None of what is listed here is guaranteed: - The EU may look to the US to foot a significant portion of the reconstruction bill. Plus the US is going to want a piece of that anyway - infrastructure equals influence. - LNG/Energy. Ok, Europe could also accelerate away from LNG to either renewables or coal, likely both. Weaning them off cheap Russian LNG does not automatically equate to "buying American" with its shipping cost overhead etc. - NATO - definitely going to get some momentum, but that is likely going to be a drain as demand goes up and every nation tries to do it as cheaply as possible, leaving hidden expansion costs to, yep the US as usual. - China. Don't get me started. They have been sitting back and reaping intel rewards and LLs this whole war, plus they are likely to get access to the all that Russian cheap LNG, from a strong negotiation position. As we polarize up, the vacuum created by the collapse of the Russian Arms industry is more likely to get picked up by China. Seriously, does anyone in that club look like they are going to cozy up to US arms imports? India is the swing state; however, this war has rattled them energy wise as well. I am not sure where Indian-Western relationships are going to go after this war. This has been a major disruption. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/business/russia-oil-china-india-ukraine-war.html https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/04/indian-foreign-policy-and-the-russian-ukrainian-war/ We can probably count on India continuing to backstop Russia as a minimum, they will just get everything cheaper from here on out. I mean I get the thrust here - it is pushback against the political narrative of "Ukraine is costing too much and it is X's fault, etc etc". Ukraine is going to cost everyone in the west, most definitely but that is not the issue. The issue is that the cost of "not doing" was much higher than the "cost of doing" in this case. The cost of not doing were a complete destabilization of the western rules based international order, which underpin a significant amount of US global power base. In short the whole damn scheme falls apart if a revisionist power can employ conventional warfare to re-draw the map in freaking Europe. That is way to complicated and nuanced for the average voter - in any country - so we have to go with these sorts of polarized assessments, I get that. However, I am also very nervous around over-subscribing to narratives that do not account for the downsides and risk.