dan/california

That is the best NEW information we have had in days. Edit: Was it in Polish or English? Some spaces have recordings available.

It gets back to the lack news. The weather, and an information clampdown by both sides means there is just less new stuff to discuss, so we are going in circles. I am as guilty as anyone.

There are a lot of arguments about can be done, should be done, and so on. By far the strongest argument is to get Ukraine more 155 tubes, and pull our ammunition stocks as low as necessary to get Ukraine through this war. Since the west has ZERO desire to pick any new fights, and incidentally it looks like Soviet legacy air defenses are eminently beatable by the full U.S. SEAD package, the real strategic risks of disorganizing some portion of our artillery branch seems extremely low. It has been reliably stated that a third of the Ukrainian guns are out of action at a given time. This is just one of the cost of the war, figure it into the math. We need to see what the Russian army looks like when it is receiving an effectively equal volume of fire along the whole front. My guess is not so good. And note I said effectively, by all reports NATO guns get a lot more done per shot fired. We have endlessly discussed the need for more industrial capacity in many aspects of the logistics system. Those cost create jobs, Congress/Parliament can figure that out. Last but by no means least we should pull our heads out of our A&%% and start sending Ukraine the DPICM ammo we say we don't want anyway. If the Ukrainians would rather an incremental increase in their already enormous clean up problem in order to get rid of the Russians sooner that should be their call.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/world/europe/bakhmut-ukraine-russia-war.html Did I mention the NYT is doing better?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/opinion/ukraine-putin-russia.html Kristof coming back to work after his unsuccessful political foray may be why times is doing better lately.

I resemble that remark.

We need some actual news, or the new game.....Maybe a tiny bone fragment about the new game?

My number one question is are their Patriot crews about to finish training? Or about to start training?

Now that is actually useful!

Of course we could have started nine months ago, or eight years and nine months ago.

Funnily enough that would have gotten them into Europe thirty years sooner, and with a fraction of the damage the Russians are doing now. We really should start a pool about which of the major asian nations announces first. Indonesia might be a sleeper in the race. I need to look up more about their nuclear power program.

The lesson is extraordinarily simple, get nukes, and keep them. We will all regret that rather badly soon enough. But there is ZERO chance Russia would be in Ukraine if they still had those warheads. I am deeply curious if Japan and South Korea will get past their own animosities, and announce that they have joined they have club together.

Yes, but is has to freeze first. The same warm winter that is bleeping up Putin's strategy of freezing Europe into submission is drowning any real offensives in mud at the moment. The Ukrainians are just waiting on the weather.

There are coherent arguments that re-equipping Ukraine with Western tanks and IFVs in the middle of the war is just too hard. I disagree with those arguments, but they they are not irrational. To be even more even handed the people who say it is too hard are closer to the problem than I am. To worry that tanks and IFVs are going to cross some sort of red line, after shipping tens of thousands of ATGMs, and at least a million rounds of 155 is just not credible. None of the arguments about the risks of hitting air bases on the far side of Moscow even sort of apply. And just the statement of Western resolve it would imply is no small thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/world/europe/russian-trench-fortifications-in-ukraine.html The NYT is having an episode of doing its job. There are excellent hi res satellite shots of Russian defenses across the South. BFC should at least consider considering, to coin a phrase, buying some imagery of the most contested spots. It would make a lot of scenario making pretty much cut and paste.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/putin-russian-ukraine-war-global-peace/672385/ Good top level article. Short version, if Putin can portray this as a win, everything gets worse.

Then let me repeat something I said months ago, and it is still true, if Ukraine can't push Russia all the way out. Whatever Ukraine doesn't have boots on when when the shooting stops, they need to just let the bleep go. If Russia can hold the 2/24 borders then let Russia annex them, sever all ties and be done with it. Even the tiniest scrap of territory in some sort of limbo absolutely guarantees another war in a few years. When this is over every square meter need to have one permanent owner. This is the question that anyone who wants to yell about the expense, hassle, or anything else has to answer. That and Germany blocking letting Ukraine in 2008. This would just not be happening if they hadn't done that, and it should be a black mark on Merkel's historical record that dwarfs any and everything else she did. Well, except allowing Germany to become almost totally dependent on Russian gas. Which incidentally paid for everything Russia is shooting at Ukraine.

I perhaps didn't make my point in the best possible way. If Ukraine winds up taking the Donbas and Crimea it will be because they have beaten the Russians more or less completely. And in the process the Ruskie Mir dream that seems to account for most the ideologically motivated fighters in the DPR/LPR will have been tested and found wanting. The stupidly brave are probably mostly dead already, and any that are left are not exactly out of chances between now and when the Ukrainians clean out that last little Southeastern corner of the Donbas. There is simply no way they will ever be able to tell themselves that they have a better shot at their so called dream than the one that has just been smashed. I can't prove that would matter, but I really think it might. It might be different if the Russian cut bait right now, ceded all Ukrainian territory right up the 2014 borders, and intentionally set up an incipient insurgency in an organized way as they leave. That is sort of a scary thought actually. Ukraine also won't have the language issue that utterly bedeviled our efforts in the Middle East.

Just to clarify, do we know the Switchblade 600 is available in any meaningful numbers, and will stand up to Russian jamming? At least some versions of the Spike use a fiber optic cable instead a radio link. Pretty sure those are close to fool proof in terms of ECM.

Your analysis of the various possible outcomes is spot on as usual. I just feel that Western decision makers are way too confident in their ability to shape the details of the outcome, and too comfortable with the idea that the current glide path gives them the most control. I would humbly submit that Ukraine winning faster is the lowest risk, lowest cost scenario. We have discussed endlessly what would help Ukraine the most, But the simplest answer might be taking the small risk of depleting our artillery, both guns and ammo more than doctrine theoretically allows. And another 200 tubes would move this thing right along. The casualties on both sides are high enough every day that the ever increasing sunk cost makes both sides demands more maximalist, there is ample precedent for this from WW1. That isn't going to change until one of them breaks, we really want that to be the Russians. I don't think the finale will be any better if Russia manages to cobble two hundred thousand mobiks for a spring offensive and Ukraine turns half of them into fertilizer. I don't think that will reduce the odd of Russia collapsing spectacularly either, rather the opposite. The sunk cost, and the generational bitterness, will be that much higher on both sides I realize bad things happen at the worst time. This war being launched at the tail end of Covid with intentional malice is example A. But the only other looming fight that looks existential for the West is Taiwan, and we don't seem to shipping stuff there with any sense of urgency. So at least ship Ukraine enough of what we are already sending them, and yes, for bleeps sake, send two hundred of the same kind of gun.

I don't normally think cloning is a good Idea, but he might be an exception!

Pretty sure there are less of them left every day. Also some possibility they have found being used as the military version of crash test dummies educational. But you are correct, a lot of Russians are so so screwed up that even being marched into minefields without so much a steel pole to use for a probe might not be enough to get it through their heads that this whole Donbas Republic project was just a fun chew toy for the FSB.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/world/europe/russia-ukraine-missiles.html

double post, sorry

Edit, actually hit a triple.