The_Capt

Fair point, like I said it was one major pressure but also not the only major pressure. I do wonder if the USSR could not have reinvented itself much in the same way communist China did? It was a flawed system however clearly when allowed to evolve somewhat can, and does work in a sense. Of course the heart of the thing is current hemorrhaging all over Ukraine so the odds of enlightened evolution look to be slim in hindsight. I do think the other military contribution to the USSRs defeat was containment. Like Nazi Germany the USSR only theoretically “worked” if it was able to continually expand, pulling in more and more resources to feed the corrupt bloated monster. Expansion was key to its survival and that was blunted and compressed a lot by western military affairs in concert with other elements of power. Looking forward, after this war, we are going to have a very sore Russia with less to lose - assuming it survives the landing. China continues to rise while running out of soft/smart/sharp power runway to fuel its expansion, while it also deals with internal frictions and sore spots. There will likely be an acceleration of the Outsiders club in pulling away from the West and pulling in more members. This will not be a repeat of the Cold War but instead be something far more insidious and vicious I suspect. Hard choices are in front of us, this war in Ukraine was the first real one and I am heartened to see we appear to have passed the test, at least so far.

Pretty much exactly. Also for context, Lebow and Stein (the authors of the Atlantic article) have been shoveling this for quite a long time: https://www.amazon.ca/We-All-Lost-Cold-War/dp/069101941X Their underlying post-Cold War euphoria thesis is that the competition somehow prolonged the Cold War, not shortening it. Beyond healthy Reagan and Bush bashing the book takes some leaps of logic and assumptions that do not age well given our current circumstances - the most basic is that autocratic empires built of skulls and ashes won't simply play nice if left alone. The current war in Ukraine is what happens when deterrence fails and it is not pretty. Of course back in 95 a wave of liberal humanism and optimism was sweeping the western world, and in a lot of IR schools it took root and will not die.

An empire does not spend up to 14% (or higher) of GDP on a "shrug/whatever". The USSR had to keep up a front of credible deterrence in many global theatres and there had to be a calculus behind that. Some was no doubt imperial ambition but no small amount was pushing back against NATO encroachment and containment. I disagree the Soviet Union would have "spent the money regardless", there is no credible evidence I have seen that would have been the case - and I have pointed out more then one example where spending was directly linked to competitive capability parity/superiority. Both sides were locked into military industrial complexes, however, that will only push things so far. I think the evidence shows that the both the nuclear arms race and conventional deterrence equations - as extensions of imperial power were both critical to the outcome of the contest. To simple shrug ones shoulders and say "well those crazy Soviets were going to do whatever they were going to do" completely misses the point of the entire Cold War strategy. The Soviet Union, much like Russia today, is spending too much on defence because we were (are) putting pressure on them. I do not buy into the mythical "culture, destiny and sugarplum fairies won the Cold War" when all evidence points to deliberate strategy and a lot of blood and treasure. Both sides definitely drove each other, I can point to entire lines of force development in the US that were 1) very expensive and 2) specifically designed to create overmatch against the Soviets. Back to this war, Russia is going to fail but only if we keep the pressure on. They have a corrupt and rotten system but it needs continual stress to realize its collapse. Some of that is its own weight but humans are really good at improvisation, history is filled with empires that managed to limp along for centuries past the point they made sense. I would need to see a lot more than a couple articles (one from The Atlantic) before I buy into the idea that the Soviet Union military spending was in splendid isolation of western strategy.

Well we know that we were not going to invade but I am not sure they did. If the west was irrelevant then the USSR likely would not have worked so hard or spent so much on threat based capability development. The Cold War within militaries is a narratives of continual, and very expensive, one-upmanship. Just take a look at tank development. If the USSR really did not see western military capability as a threat and was largely a propaganda device, why spend billions on development arcs in the T-72, T-80 and T-90 series? A whole bunch of cheap T-62s could keep the locals in line and a bazillion of them would make the average insular population convinced they were safe. This was a template applied across military forces, from aircraft to ships, to nuclear deterrence. The R&D and development efforts were not going through the motions on either side, they were highly competitive and drove everything from doctrine to intelligence priorities. I am allergic to the “Soviets sucked and would have collapsed if we did nothing” argument because it is not supported by the facts. The Soviet empire was a pretty powerful but flawed beast. The Cold War was not an easy day in history, it took a lot of effort and sacrifice to win. A lesson we should definitely keep in mind for whatever this is in front of us.

I think this position likely decouples too far. This suggests that if the US had dramatically decreased spending the USSR would have stayed “flat” and collapsed anyway. I do not think this is true. Western and Soviet defence spending were linked, however were a component in a larger competition. If one decouples US defence spending from the argument then it is too easy to insert revisionist agendas on current defence spending - eg “well it had nothing to do with the outcome of the Cold War, why are we doing it again with China?” The Soviet system was brittle and flawed from the get go. By forcing it onto an unsustainable trajectory by creating a decades long arms race the West did successfully create pressures that led to an eventual collapse of the system. It took a lot of pressures of which military was a central component. If the West had tapped out and relieved the pressure the Soviet system could have also reduced spending and perhaps survived much longer. The effect of Western defence spending was much larger and longer than any single decade of the Cold War.

To which I would add “…any Russian government based information”

Lord, this is why we can’t have nice things. So right off the bat one has to be really cautious. In this political climate revisionist history cuts both ways. The reality is a lot less cut and dry. I will offer this as a period piece analysis from 1989 - kinda hilarious to see projections of the Soviet Union out to 2000s: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA207965.pdf And then there is this famous meta data site: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-long?time=earliest..2016&facet=none The reality is that a line of US presidents going back to Truman, along with NATO national leadership “won the Cold War”. How they did it was in a three prong strategy that was not always pretty but it worked - contain, entice and out-compete. So details. Defence spending in the USSR was not flat as much as it was a steady escalation. They were forced onto a competitive trajectory very early on. The problem within the USSR was cost versus income/production. When one looks at the percentage GDP one can see the Soviet Union really was spending far more than it could afford on defence. Why? Because it had to, it had to try and keep up with all of NATO. Now as to “Reagan winning the Cold War”, well not really. The big jump in US defence spending was actually trying to catch back up. In the late 70s/early 80s (the setting of Combat Mission Cold War…it is in the lobby gift shop) US defence spending kinda crashed. Post Vietnam, economic downturns, and that whole OPEC thing played havoc with military spending so when Reagan jumped in the US was really playing catch-up. By the mid 80s the fate of the USSR was sealed, and they knew it. Corruption and misdirection of money, built in inequities and general holes in the communist system lined up with the Afghan War and “plop”. Russia could not have surge spent on defence if it wanted to: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/31/world/soviet-military-budget-128-billion-bombshell.html So what? Well the Cold War was a sustained contest that took decades to win and often went to the brink on several occasions. It also is a historical example of how an arms race really assisted in deciding a conflict as part of a broader strategy. A similar strategy with China is problematic because we do not have an iron curtain with China, we have globalization. Anyway…”bad lies and statistics”, “written by the winners” etc etc.

An excellent example is the relationship between Britain and Germany in the lead up with WW1. By all rights: diplomatic, economic and political Germany and Britain should have been allies in WW1; however, the Kaisers very ill advised pursuit of naval parity with Britain led to a costly arms race that shaped relations between these two nations. Arms races can be the spark that trigger conflict moving into a violent collision stage, but “war” is not binary, it is a process on a spectrum. Arms races can be considered preliminary moves or shaping that may or may not lead to open warfare. The counter example is the Cold War where the US effectively won the conflict without direct military collision by forcing their opponent to spend more economy could sustain. Here the arms race was the war. As to the current situation with China, the issue is less arms race and more one of “who is willing to sacrifice?” China is hungry, aggressive and smart (as opposed to Russia who only had the first two). The US is highly divided, entitled and very self absorbed. It is also extremely powerful and rich but whether it can focus that power and will remains the central unanswered question of the early 21st century. I do not think an arms race will doom the US and China into a conflagration, but it definitely is part of the intensification of competition between these two powers. The biggest threat to the West right now is not Chinese arms, it is US apathy versus extremism.

So maybe a dumb question from an outsider but why not curb the powers of the presidency? The US has a lot of checks and balances but maybe not enough. I am sure there are a thousand reasons not to do this but seriously haven’t you guys had enough bad presidents to maybe rethink things a bit? We have two types of pardons in Canada, one is done by the judicial system and the other is a royal pardon by the Governor General - normally ceremonial and rarely used. The PM cannot pardon anyone - a pardon cannot be politicized. The PM also has a lot less executive power - we do not have the executive order system in this country. We have an Order in Council but it is also done be a committee and technically has to go past the GG. In short there are political systems where one person can only do so much damage. The ability of one administration to effectively hijack the democratic system is just a disaster waiting to happen. It would be hilarious except for the whole “empire we all bet on” part.

Well given the Russian track record…but not what I am thinking. GPS and inertial guidance will take care of that bridge, even if they try GPS scramble it. Lasing the bridge via UAS is another option. Once it gets fully in range the UA are going to blow the living hell out of that bridge (again). No they likely can read a map as well as we can and are prepping for ferrying operations to support a defence in the Crimea. The positions they fall back to - already dug, when the UA offensive cracks them like an egg.

Hmm, now why would the RA be conducting water xing drills way back there in the Crimea?

I don’t think the age or capabilities of the platforms are deterministic. They need to hook into the Ukrainian C4ISR and carry the AIM 120, as such they are a threat the RuAF cannot discount. This will reinforce the air denial situation which is about as good as it gets in this war with respect to AirPower. There is already a lot of noise on dogfight capability but in reality Ukraine just needs a missile carrier that can move quickly and go where the ISR network tells it to. This, along with other capability stacks up and keeps Russian air power at stand off, which will be critical in a ground offensive. The F16 is a capable module in a much broader air denial system, so it is good news.

Womble just made my “suspicious list”.

Doesn’t that create an infinitely spiralling acronym? A fractal acronym?

1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 8. This raid has the hallmarks of strategic shaping, but shaping takes time and effort. Uncertainty has been projected upon Russia, how much and how intensely remains a question. Russian intelligence likely has been aware of this troublesome border region for a long time, people do not suddenly decide to become disenfranchised. But this was an overt attack in broad daylight that is going to create pressures, most of them negative - this raid just undecided the integrity of Russian Ukrainian border, that alone is going to induce a response even if it is below the waterline. War is communication and Ukraine just signalled that it is willing to support back door resistance within Russia, and it was very likely backed, at least indirectly, by western powers - does anyone think we did not know this was in motion? Communication, once received and processed, shapes perception. Perception drives action/reaction. War is also certainty, so communication and certainty are in constant tension with perception in between. And Russia has a lot of back doors.

I think some people on this thread had this listed as a serious risk for about a year now. A Russia in free fall could definitely see Putin lobbing WMDs at his own people. And then someone is going to get their hands on WNDs and start lobbing them at Putin. Before you know it the damn things are swinging everywhere. "Well so long as they stay in Russia, why do we care?" Because they won't.

Of course a single raid is not likely to see major Russia muscle shifts, but is does create a lot of uncertainty in their calculus. A few more, or if this one gets big enough and the RA will definitely have to start thinking and positioning to cover their backdoors. That will draw combat power away from other fronts...and also mess up some static defensive networks - Russian are not so good with the moving thing.

So this is what shaping looks like. If true, this would be a very effective way to get Russian forces moving away from the areas of a planned major offensive. Indirect approach of employing Russian insurgents is a brilliant stroke, a proxy war within a proxy war. Not sure if this is just hopeful rumor but we could be seeing the start of the offensive.

Here is the full document: https://static.rusi.org/403-SR-Russian-Tactics-web-final.pdf First time I have heard any credible reporting that the RA is capable of intercepting HIMARs - albeit within a pretty narrow context. All other sources of RA AD on HIMARs is a cesspool of Russian propaganda. However, a lot of this report does ring true on what needs to be prioritized in supporting the UA - and it is not tanks or F16s. It is artillery, counter-battery specifically along with ammunition. EW - particularly C-UAS. Assault Engineering. And training. The authors themselves put a lot of provisos up front. What is curious is that if the RA has solved for a lot of UA capability, then why have they continued to fail on the offence? For example if thermal camouflage is so effective then why are Russian tanks still staying back kms? If they have created advanced tactical C4ISR networks, why are those tactical units still unable to really make gains? Of course the UA, which is the primary source of the information of this report are not stupid. It is in their best interest to emphasize the challenges in order to build up sufficient support for the upcoming offensive. I would not accuse the interviewed pers of outright lying but emphasis in a certain direction does make a lot of sense. I recall hearing similar stories back last summer as well. One way or the other we are going to find out just how robust the RA defence is or is not. I strongly suspect the RA is as capable as described in this report, however, only in selected and prioritized locations. That is a massive frontage that they are trying to hold with a severely mauled force. The ability to create and sustain a massive HIMARs-proof wall of AD in depth along a 850km frontage is highly doubtful. As is an ability to sustain indirect fires superiority, everywhere. Now if Russia is able to do this, however, it can only do it on static defence. And if the UA cannot crack it. Well we truly have entered into a defensive warfare primacy era. Corrosive warfare for the UA will have been blunted and we are back to slow grinding attrition that could take years. Personally, I do not believe this is the case. Too many signs of systemic failures within the Russian military machine. I also do not see the RA able to match or cope with Ukrainian C4ISR superiority at operational and strategic levels. Out of all of this the largest threat is evolution of Russian AD - if the RA can start to create scions of Iron Dome then a key pillar of the UA capability suite starts to fail - long range precision fires. If that goes, then the ability to interdict LOCs/C-moves, hit RA C2 nodes and hammer logistics becomes challenged. So I am not sure what advanced SEAD capabilities we have in the back but I would start shouting about them far more than tanks, F-whatever’s and better missiles. That and other long range systems that RA AD cannot solve for, like stealth mesh net drone swarms. The authors also hit on the primacy of evolving tactics and training. The problem here is that the west doesn’t have that. We have our tactics and training, of which there is little proof of their effectiveness on these battlefields. The experts on whatever this war has turned into are in the UA fighting it. We can support them on the basics, such as field craft, small unit organization etc. But the larger evolutions are well outside out experience - that one is going to have to be the UA, and then we can hire them to teach us once this war is over. In warfare the answer to an evolving opponent is very simple: evolve faster.

It is uncertainty, which is toxic to humans. We mostly do one of two things with uncertainty, we push out and explore to remove it, or we pretend it does not exist. We were never apex predators in nature, middle of the food chain in reality. However we had a big enough brain to be aware of where we sat in the food chain which created fear. We then leveraged that to survive and evolve. The fuel for a lot of our fear is uncertainty, the unknowns because in nature those unknowns could easily kill us for food. So we will work very hard to remove uncertainty, it is a primary impulse. To over simplify and dumb thins down, particularly when faced with highly complex unknowns is a very old human strategy. One of the first things we did was to try and use substances to cope - alcohol, narcotics etc. Than when we constructed faith and religion. And now we have whatever the hell this era has produced with echo chambers and ideologies that embrace obtuse and willful ignorance as dogma. Better to embrace safe lies and face unknowable truths. And to be fair there is also a caloric strategy at play here as well. Brain chews up a lot of calories so in one embraces dogma one can stop burning calories on worrying about unknowns. Certainty and uncertainty are also central to warfare. I describe all warfare as a violent collision of human certainties. It creates enormous uncertainty as social structures are fractured. Uncertainty is a weapon in itself and can be projected onto an opponent. We have been wrestling with uncertainty since 23 Feb 22. We have all created mental frameworks that aid us in reasserting certainty - I know I definitely have. This is not a bad thing so long as those frameworks remain on speaking terms with reality and the facts on the ground. If the space between my mental certainty framework and reality becomes too wide, I am in an unreality space and that is when decisions get really shaky. Now for any 8th graders out there. We are afraid of the dark because we can imagine all the bad within it. So we can either build flashlights or cover our heads and pretend it is daytime until the sun does come up.

Here is another: “full of sh#t and bad manners”. You posted ignorant drivel, got called out, basically told the moderator to “shut up cause you can’t tell me what to do” like an over entitled millennial. And are now pushing post-truth fanboi lines like they are scripture. Dunning-Kruger: “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2]whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge.” I just posted a half dozen reasons why you foundational premise is weak, your original post has zero merit, and you come back with “college boy eh?” It is a big internet there are all sorts of sites that will appeal to where you are coming from - good ol folksie wisdom and hard workin practical experience that “tells it like it is” in simple easily digestible one liners that will make you feel all sorts of clever. They distill the complexity of human conflict to 140 characters and offer easy answers to this scary complex old world. You can learn all about “Elitist this and globalist that” and will no doubt hear all sorts of down home simple solutions that are so obvious. And then we here can muddle along as best we are able because clearly “we just don’t get it”.

Ok let’s play “How Many Reasons Why Russia May Open Up Negotiations That Are Not An Immediate Sign Of Defeat” - all the College Boys chime in. I will start: - Shifting the strategic narrative/reframe the war in an attempt to demonstrate that they are the reasonable ones and start down a road to victimology that may appeal to certain political parties in the west who have their heads in warm dark places while they listen to “experts” with big mics, empty heads and a serious lust for more money and power. - To create uncertainty in the European alliance and NATO as some nations just want this to be over and renormalize. - A ploy to pull China into this in some sort diplomatic tag team. China enters the side of “Putin the Reasonable” and leverages it towards a win for them both. - The Russians simply stall for time in a hope to slow down the UA in a hope for a battlefield reverse. - To play up to a domestic audience, with never any real intention of ceasing the conflict. - Because Putin is finished and we wind up negotiating with a bunch of separate goons, none of whom actually represent the Russian people. - Putin is not finished but wants us to believe it and over reach. Link to playing for time and dumber political machines moving into power. - Random irrational objectives that we can only guess at. Now just for you - go look up Dunning-Kruger and think about it for awhile. And did you just walk into Steve’s house and tell him to shut up and sit down? Seriously, how does that get right on any political spectrum? And we are at Ignore.

Ok, how cool would it be of Bakhmut turns into a Russian Stalingrad? I mean a lot to ask for but a boy can dream…

You realize that this sentiment is really the problem, right? I mean there is nothing categorically wrong in what the ambassador said for an objective point of view. Russia has not demonstrated that it will act in good faith during the conduct of this war - the systemic warcrimes are a big hint. So it would be a very good idea to approach any peace negotiations very carefully. You do not have to like someone nor agree with their politics, but that does not automatically mean everything they say is incorrect. Statements or positions need to be weighed against the facts, not affiliations, no matter which end of the spectrum the come from. There are exceptions of course, for example if someone has demonstrated habitual lunacy or use of mis/dis-information, sure go ahead and burn them as a source, but the Ukrainian ambassador does not fall into that category as far as we know - unless you have proof beyond her possible post-secondary education? You are burning her based in affiliation alone or at least it appears that way, and that is intellectually lazy to be blunt. Finally this whole line of thinking is a significant fracture point that has, and will be exploited by all sorts of players. It is in fact step 2 in the subversive warfare playbook - widen the fractures that were already there and make them unsealable; the death of compromise. Step 3 is to harden elements from either side of the fracture into organized and connected collectives that are able to self perpetuate and metastasize - a carcinogenic operation. This is a long standing recipe on how to destroy a society from the inside out. This is exactly the type of operations Russia did before 2014, and was attempting before this war started. Every nation that borders Russia is combating this sort of influence. And it will very likely be what Russia falls back on once this war is over - assuming there is a functioning Russia left. China is also very good at this game, it is also out of their playbook, but they are much better at it. So you do not have to agree with the current US president - and sure go ahead and insult him based on ageism. But it is hard to disagree with the results in Ukraine, so far. This has been one helluva tough one to steer through from a strategic and political level. And it has not been perfect. But for navigation through the first real proxy war of the 21st century I gotta give it a B+ so far. As to the rest of the politics, well you Americans can go argue that - preferably on another thread.

Huh? Didn’t we just hear that the UA was pushing back at Bakhmut by kms? Now it has fallen?