Der Zeitgeist

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very long but very interesting article.  Thanks...

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

Very interesting article here, explaining the development of military culture in Russia and Ukraine, and how it influenced their battlefield performance in this war.
https://www.thebulwark.com/i-commanded-u-s-army-europe-heres-what-i-saw-in-the-russian-and-ukrainian-armies/

I don't like this "decadence" narrative, partly because it reminds me of all the pre-WW1 talk of "the cleansing bath of steel" and stuff like that, considering how that turned out. We shouldn't dismiss advances of western civilisation as making us "weaker". If anything, actually embodying these ideals would be a great advantage when it comes to checking the influence of autocracies in the developing world. I mean, how can we expect them to see the light of democracy and freedom if our actions are so often obviously guided by economic self-interest?
Also, it is easy to talk the big talk if you are not the one who will be sent into the meatgrinder if push comes to shove. Sometimes I wish the boomers would find the same sudden steely resolve in response to inequality and injustice within their own societies, but sadly it seems reserved for external enemies...

It was inevitable... 😄
 

Denying present and past Russian (beginning to have dificulties with even typing that word) war crimes (mass rape is a trade mark for the Russian army, always have been, even in Eastern Prussia 1914 and Afghanistan), a picture of NKVD thugs in your profile (those bastards practically invented war crimes), 'threatening' with a world war, as your beloved leader likes  to do....Personally I don't understand why you haven't been removed from this forum a long, long time ago.

Hi all, I have a new video AAR out today. Since the battle plan kind of flows from the doctrine of the time one on one, it's a bit lighter on the "explaining my plan, showing how that works out, what goes wrong and how to I improvised" content than my last videos. But I hope it's a fun report of this very enjoyable scenario non the less.
 

This. The crucial geopolitical fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine accomplished was to convince Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, etc that Russia is a problem that cannot be handled through accommodation. More to the point, in places like Germany, it's popular to advocate for more direct confrontation with Putin. Leaders will get pilloried (as Scholtz is) for not taking a firm stance and parties will lose voters if they mishandle the conflict in the long term. The EU/NATO may not always act as quickly or as adeptly as many wish but this is not a job that most nations' leadership think can be left half done. 

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

It's all pure speculation of course, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised when in 20 years some biography comes out mentioning that US military assistance was quite a bit more extensive than it seemed at the time.
There's just a few things that make me go "hmmmm", like the almost perfect situational awareness that Ukraine seems to have, or a number of incidents where Russian stuff mysteriously blows up and everyone quickly agrees that it was probably a Ukrainian Tochka missile that got a lucky hit.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

With 36 years' employment in the field I can reassure you that any such biography in 20 years time will be a work of fiction from someone bigging themselves up.  The US, having recently and with popular assent somewhat untidily extricated itself from one conflict last year is in no rush to become involved in another one directly. 
Enablers such as providing situational awareness, intelligence sharing plus lethal and non-lethal aid are of course being provided.  The old adage of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it" will certainly be uppermost in the calculus of the US and its NATO allies which again makes direct intervention or other capers like officially sanctioned 'American Legions' highly unlikely.  History proves that 'deniable ops' simply aren't and that is particularly so in the current information environment.
'Almost perfect situational awareness' resulting in stuff mysteriously blowing up is also in the realm of 'doesn't happen.'  People are quick to tell me that "the int was rubbish" - "we weren't warned" etc, which is frequently an excuse to hide their own failings (not reading the intelligence or ignoring it (Mr Putin refers) being fairly common) or their misperception about the art of the achievable by the intelligence cell, unit or agency.
The factors for Ukrainian success are well-documented, roadbound columns, little or no attempt to enforce tactical spacings, little or no attempt at camouflage and concealment and the use of insecure communications on the part of the Russians.  On the part of the Ukrainians, once the limited axes of advance have been identified a combination of mark one eyeball, UAVs and tactical SIGINT provide sufficient means to develop a tactical picture of sufficient granularity to strike.   That they have been able to do so is because they have developed a command and control architecture which has allowed this information to be shared and acted upon quickly.  Some of it is very unsophisticated as explained on some of the videos we have seen:  UAV team goes out, launches from a wood near one of the identified road, flies the UAV until a target is seen and passes the target grid over VHF direct to a mortar unit.  BDA sent over same means, rinse and repeat as necessary.  Combat or tactical intelligence isn't particularly hard if you have a tactically incompetent and undisciplined opponent moving along easily identified axes of advance.

It's all pure speculation of course, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised when in 20 years some biography comes out mentioning that US military assistance was quite a bit more extensive than it seemed at the time.
There's just a few things that make me go "hmmmm", like the almost perfect situational awareness that Ukraine seems to have, or a number of incidents where Russian stuff mysteriously blows up and everyone quickly agrees that it was probably a Ukrainian Tochka missile that got a lucky hit.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

On the pro-Russian side, there's some stories going around that the satellite imagery showing the bodies in Bucha might be fake. This is mostly based on this "analysis" from "Southfront", claiming that none of Maxar's satellite had their orbits going over the region during the dates mentioned on the pictures: https://southfront.org/more-evidence-more-doubts-about-bucha-massacre/ .
I looked into that, and as expected, it's a poorly-made fake counting on people being too lazy to check the satellite tracks themselves, which can be easily done by using tools like this one: https://in-the-sky.org/satmap_worldmap.php
On each of the dates, March 21 & March 19, Maxar's satellites (specifically WorldView-1 & GeoEye-1) passed directly over Kyiv.

On the pro-Russian side, there's some stories going around that the satellite imagery showing the bodies in Bucha might be fake. This is mostly based on this "analysis" from "Southfront", claiming that none of Maxar's satellite had their orbits going over the region during the dates mentioned on the pictures: https://southfront.org/more-evidence-more-doubts-about-bucha-massacre/ .
I looked into that, and as expected, it's a poorly-made fake counting on people being too lazy to check the satellite tracks themselves, which can be easily done by using tools like this one: https://in-the-sky.org/satmap_worldmap.php
On each of the dates, March 21 & March 19, Maxar's satellites (specifically WorldView-1 & GeoEye-1) passed directly over Kyiv.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.

Just to clarify: With my post about the Bucha satellite imagery, I didn't mean to start an entire discussion about various Russian disinformation efforts. I just came across this yesterday, found it easy to debunk, and thought it might prove helpful as a reference for anyone getting into a discussion about this particular Russian narrative.