FlemFire
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Posts
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Posts posted by FlemFire
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Just now, JonS said:
The Russian economy is about the same size as Italy, or Canada. That's an OR, not an AND. Does Russian have vastly more resources than Ukraine AND Britain AND France AND Germany AND Finland AND Norway AND Poland AND The United States AND Canada AND Italy AND Australia AND &c.?
Actually, the Russian economy is in a sense much stronger than Italy/Canada, but also much weaker. That is the fundamental high-risk/high-reward cost of being a natural resources exporter and little else. It's economic blackjack. As for industrial capacity, Russia is on a war footing. The West is not. It's not a video game. You don't just tally up base #'s and go off of that. If NATO were actually fighting Russia then it'd be a different story. Not just economically, but militarily. But they're not. They're arguing about how many tanks to send to Ukraine instead of just up and doing it.
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1 minute ago, danfrodo said:
You do realize how that sounds? Probably gets some hackles up and so makes readers less receptive to your message. The folks who post here are pretty smart overall but you seem to imply that folks just aren't smart enough to understand your message. They understand, they are just disagreeing with your positions on several matters and have made some very strong arguments.
TheCpt's posts were dripping with such language and I answered them anyway. If one salty sentence gets them running, all the better as far as I'm concerned. It's not like my arguments are being taken at face value or given any benefit of the doubt. There has already been a number of occasions where I point something out only for a response to be, "Well I guess Putin is just a super genius then", as if that is a fair treatment.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Ok, well you have already been pretty badly beat up on just about all your comments and positions with respect to military assessment. This is not a bar, posting some credible references or something, anything that supports your position may be an idea as we move forward. But it is a free country and that comes with all the good and bad in the end.
So lets talk about "Russian Advantage", because that is what this all comes down to in the end. In line with the Russian Economic Advantage, what is the Russian Military Advantage and how does that translate into future outcomes etc? Well the obvious one, from those who deeply study warfare, is capacity. Russia, as has been shown on infographics since day one of this war, has got mountains of steel and an ocean of fighting aged males to throw at a poor huddling Ukraine as it just barely manages to hang on. There is some truth to this although I personally think it has been over emphasized to a large extent as Russian willpower to actually spend all that steel and blood is clearly not a "done deal" with respect to this war. If it was, Putin would have fully mobilized at the terrifying scope and scale the Russian Bear is capable of as demonstrated by so many Hollywood movies and myth. Ok, lets not quibble, the RA is a big ol beast, with a large industry behind it...got it.
So does size still matter? Does it matter in this environment? Does it become a liability in this environment? And finally, why has Russia largely failed on the battlefields of Ukraine if size and attrition were the critical factors in this war? Why has Russia largely failed on the battlefields of Ukraine when they also had advantage in manoeuvre?
What I do not get from the "Russia is going to win" crowd, is what is their explanation of the exceptionally poor battlefield performance of the RA, which has led Russia into what is now a morass and quagmire (if this was a US war, people would be all over those words)?
And Russian performance - outstanding gunners and all - has been abysmal. Pulling from the RUIS preliminary report:
Russia had enormous mass advantage in Phase I of this war. 12:1 of mechanized forces north of Ukraine (pg 1). By all traditional military metrics that is an overwhelming force ration advantage. They were stopped cold. Worse, after a month of mooing like cows in column while getting pounded they had to withdraw from 2 out of the 6 major operational axis of advance, many of those units reportedly at 20-30% strength after a month of being cut up and hammered by UA "tiny" artillery. So that was the first really bad sign, again if the US had suffered a similar setback in 2003 south of Bagdad people would have lost their minds - or gleefully celebrated the downfall of US power in the region, whichever their leaning. Ukrainian War Phase I - this is done, it is fact.
Then Russia did a political spin in quick order and re-drew the definitions of victory. "The Northern Offensive as a feint" which is brutally laughable at those force ratios pointed at a capital city and seat of political power in nation you are invading. They then re-set the official line as "The Donbas" and began a crushing and grinding assault on the region during Phase II of this war. Recall the cauldrons and pincers with bold red arrows all over maps last Apr-May? "Attrition against Russia will never work!" people cried..."Ukraine cannot win"..."Russia has reframed this war to their strengths." Well turns out they were wrong then too. Russia, at one point at Severodonetsk, has mounted over 900 guns in a density to rival the western front in WWI. They turned entire fields in the Ukraine into moonscapes as they completely abandoned mechanized warfare and did a "blast-advance-repeat" older style of overwhelming firepower. But what actually happened?
Well they did not achieve an operational level breakthrough - against a vastly outnumbered and gunned UA. We did not see a single mechanized, or otherwise, break through - let alone break out - in that campaign. We did see some horrific Russian river crossing attempts and casualty rates, but remember "Russian Bear!!" The UA stood back and took it. I recall the rumblings on social media of UA troops, under trained and equipped for this fight...it was only a matter of time. But it went nowhere. Russia managed to take Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk and advance a couple dozen kms towards Slovyanks - which I am sure as a "studier of warfare" you recognize as the obvious operational objective in the region.
And then the RA stalled and ran out of gas. No other way to put it. At a strategic level Russia "mobilized" which is never a good sign for how things are going on the ground (see: conscription and Vietnam). Russian attacks and firepower all waned. Phase II was a poor outing that had high costs and yielded very few gains. And then Phase III happened.
The UA, who was supposed to be on the ropes and barely hanging on, went on the offensive. We all knew Kherson was an operational objective but conditions were clearly set for Kharkiv as well. My hypothesis is that the RA burned itself out so badly at Severodonetsk that the entire Kharkiv line eroded out. So then we saw this:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/09/15/a-stunning-counter-offensive-by-ukraines-armed-forces
That is what a breakin, breakthrough and breakout battle looks like. It does not look like what we are used to, but the UA managed to make the entire right flank of the RA collapse in about 30 days. And then they were not done yet:
https://www.graphicnews.com/en/pages/43152/ukraine-kherson-counteroffensive
Now this was not Dunkirk that we wanted, but retaking the capital of a region that Russia just did a big show of annexing is nothing but a win in my books.
And so here we are, Winter 2023 and the "Ukraine can't win" crowd - who do have legitimate concerns, I will not take that away - are back. So I am not going to dig into the current state of the RA or an assessment of their actual fighting capacity at this point based on what we are seeing - human wave attacks with weaker artillery is again not a good sign. All the while the UA is getting larger and larger injects of greater capability. Or how fundamental conditions like ISR, air power or sustainment have not actually changed.
What I am going to do is make the "Ukraine can't win crowd" do the actual work to prove their point. Based on all of that above, and the progress of this war to date, you have two ways to go. The UA and Ukraine are barely holding on and are going to break any second - lets call this the Macgregor school. Or the "Russia is just getting started and has magic rabbits by the fuzzy buttload in hats". Based on the progress of the war so far you are going to have to provide evidence and facts that support the idea that conditions have fundamentally changed. That those changes will alter the current trajectory of this war. This is something I have not seen one credible coherent argument put forward in this whole thing.
In fact, I will give you opportunity to take a shot, and then if I have time I might just try to do it for you, if I can.
I mean the explanation is quite simple: they tried to “Georgia” Ukraine and overthrow the government. They did not come into Ukraine with the goal of conquering it. At some point you have to accept this perspective for the rest of the arguments to make sense. Obviously, if you perceive the invasion to be one of conquest then it looks extra bad with a side of r-worded sprinkled on top. What I saw were Russians parked outside of Kiev, confused that the Ukrainians were, in fact, firing back on them. When the order came in to retreat, it was a rout. Total mess. Even in Georgia, Russians showed some cohesion issues so going backwards in Ukraine, and at that number, proved quite a comedy.
I do not hold Russian military command in any high regard, but I think even the Russians would know that 40,000 men is not enough to conquer a capital city like Kiev. It’s not a “feint”, necessarily, but a scare tactic that fell right on its face. The fact this was Russia’s “plan” to begin with is in and of itself an indictment of their military thinking. The fact they didn’t even have a backup plan, or an exit ramp of any kind, definitely gasts my flabber. Rather strangely, and I guess this is where you very likely struggle to give credit where it’s due, Putin was smart to listen to his generals and actually pullback. Multiple areas faced encirclement and massive loss. Unlike Stalin in ’41, who ignored Zhukov about (coincidentally) Kiev and in fact demoted the general, Putin submitted to reality and gave up the territories to preserve his army.
Russia humiliated itself in its retreats. That much is obvious. But that was then, and this is now. The war Russia was looking to “fight” in 2022 is not the far it is going to fight in 2023. Holding onto victories of yore does little. You actually kind of make the argument in your preamble there. Russia simply has vastly more industrial capacity and manpower than Ukraine. That’s really all there is to it. I think if Ukraine weren't fighting a democratic nation, then it could bleed their way to victory, but they're not. They're fighting Russia. And if Ukraine wants to engage in a long war, then Russia will oblige and Ukraine will pay for it dearly. This is why I think Ukraine should have sued for peace after the counter-offenses. All that initiative has been lost and now the Russians are creeping forward again and we don’t know exactly what their plans are now. I mean this is the part where also significant disagreements arise: I'm looking at 2023 trying to figure out what new things Russia's going to do. They're clearly planning something, and they're clearly not going away. Others are looking at 2023 like it's just going to be 2022 all over again, as if the Russians are just too dumb to learn and adapt. As I mentioned elsewhere as well, Russia now has had 1-full year to adjust its industries on a war footing. I don't think people really understand what that means while they debate and pull their hair out about a battalion or few of Leopards and Abrams.
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4 hours ago, The_Capt said:
If you are going to start throwing statements like these around you need to put out the facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_financial_crisis_(2014–2016)
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/gdp-gross-domestic-productGDP contraction in 2015 (post sanctions) was somewhere in neighbourhood of 2-2.5%. It was around 3-3.5% contraction in 2022:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanctions-russian-economy/
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russias-economy-end-2022-deeper-troubles
Inflation. In 2015 inflation increased to about 13% (see Wikipedia page on Russian Financial Crisis 2014-2016). In 2022 annual inflation in Russia - 13.7%
https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/russia-inflation-rate/
Russia’s capital market has taken a serious hit, dropping by 1/3 and has not recovered (see Impact-sanctions-Russian-economy on the consilium site).
So the reality is that beyond some Ruble propping which comes with some risks as I understand, your central premise is not backed up by facts. The Russian economy, based on some central indicators like GDP growth, inflation and capital markets has take hits equal to or worse than “the immediate shock of 2014”…and this is without the drop in oil prices that occurred then.
The entire argument falls apart out of the gate at this point.
Ok, another big statement “we all know” without any foundations in facts.
First off Russia is currently holding about 87 thousand sq kms of Ukraine right now…about 18%. So on the surface, “oh my that is scary”. Well it skims over the fact that within that 87 thousand sq kms is the original occupied territories in the Donbas and Crimea, which come to about 42 thousand square km…which they have occupied since 2014. So in reality the gains in this war come to about 45 thousand sq kms or roughly 7.5% actual gains within Ukraine that they did not have before this war. Based on 350k dead or wounded, that is about 46k per percentage gained, or 6k sq kms. I do not know where the Russian finish line is but it had better be close at those loss rates.
I have posted the economic realities of the Donbas, which was one of the lowest economically performing areas of Ukraine pre-war and realities of the Crimea so many times that you can do the work to go dig them out. But essentially we have debunked the entire “it is all about oil and gas” more than once. Russia did not need those reserves, or in the case of the Black Sea, already had control of them. And the costs of accessing them are going to exceed any gains for a very long time, maybe never at this rate.
”The reality” is a lot of people with a quick finger on their favourite Reddit or wherever get these “facts” and then repeat them so that they become “known”. Few of these people actually put in some time on research and get enough facts to create context. So a lot of your initial premises are in fact flawed, which unfortunately means that your deductions have got some problems too. I would respectfully suggest that you need to revisit some of this and then come back to the discussion.
I’m always fascinated whenever I run into people who vomit links and graphs and numbers without even understanding what they mean. You have my thanks for posting those graphs, even if you and apparently a lot of other people do not grasp what they actually mean. I can simplify it for you, though. If you look at the economic metrics of Russia in 2014 and on, you might notice they continue into 2015, 2016, etc. This is called a crisis.
For reference, I suggest dialing back your google searches to 2014 to understand how obvious and apparent this was quite literally immediately. Remember, Russia annexed Crimea in March. By April, that is 1-month later, IMF was already ringing alarm bells and claiming Russia to be in a recession:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-27221345
Note, the financial crisis itself hadn’t even set its teeth in yet. That would be another half-year away as the ruble plummeted in value and investors started abandoning ship at great speed heading into 2015. This is why those graphs show a horror show straight running into and through 2016. Keep that in mind: 2014, 2015, 2016, absolute nosedive.
Now let’s look at today.
Pray tell, did you see such forecasts in 2015? In the same way Russians mistakenly thought Zelensky would flee and Kiev would fold, the West mistakenly thought Russia’s economy would buckle. Note, the sanctions in 2014 were small-ball. The sanctions in 2022 are the veritable decoupling of Russia from the entire West. Do I have to explain the gulf of difference there in terms of severity? Do I need an additional 1,000 words to explain the STARK difference between the resultant two data sets that unfolded after? Feel free to let me know.
The rest about lost territories is embarrassing. I grow tired of the propagandized sides of this conflict who fail to see reality for what it is. Losing 1/5th your territory is not to be taken lightly. I just don't really understand what mindset is required to be so cavalier in dismissing that. As for resources: Russia is an oil-state. Its economy is entirely centered around its natural resources, but we're going to sit here and pretend it carving itself access to a shale reserve and natural gas deposits is definitely not in their objective sets. Alright. Whatever. The fact people subsequent to this post make points about Russia losing access to foreign experts still, truly, do not at all grasp what is going on. The global oil market was shunted and shifted and yet people are not recalibrating their thinking at all.
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I'm curious if anyone here has been to or at least studied Taiwan from a geographic POV. I only see the word "mountain" used once in the entire thread. Even absent of U.S. involvement, Taiwan is a veritable natural fortress. It's basically Switzerland condensed into a postage stamp with a zillion mountains all over the place many of which directly face potential avenues of approach. Mountains are nightmare fuel for any offensive army. That has not changed even with modern military advancements. China has virtually zero experience mounting amphibious assaults. China has virtually zero combat experience in general. Their mountain combat experience is derived from playing Medieval Times on the Indian border. What little we've seen of them operationally has left a lot to criticize (e.g., Vietnam) and it's pretty easy to surmise their open water logistics system would be a hot mess. I just have a hard time seeing this working for them.
As far as outside help is concerned... the US Navy would absolutely, 100% annihilate anything China puts in the water. I'm not sure what the wargames chitchat is there. China doesn't have any substantial open water experience at all, meanwhile that's the U.S.'s wheelhouse through and through and they've been wargaming it for decades now.
Others are right about the long game -- the reality is China doesn't actually need to invade Taiwan. They can just wait it out. And they can also pressure it greatly from within, which they have been doing. There are pro-mainlanders within the political system of Taiwan.
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7 minutes ago, kevinkin said:
I don't disagree. But this is largely out of the West's hands once Russia withdrawals. That will be internal palace politics. But Russia will probably coalesce around Putin or another strongman again. Lord help them.
I am not sure the UA had any options after months of fighting with flying columns of light infantry. Someone somewhere made the command decision in November that the rest of Ukraine would have to wait. I advocated at time is to maintain operational freedom and momentum - if possible. But we don't have all the facts and figures. We will never know the true body counts during this trench warfare stage, but it appears the ratio is very much in the UA's favor.
It's impossible to understand the innerworkings of another country. The issue with a guy like Putin is you get, or least I do anyway, a strong sense that the figures available in the country to replace him are actually worse than him. The hard pill to swallow on Putin is that many Russians, particularly older ones, like him because he was a huge upgrade compared to the ruthless mobsters running the show prior. Yes, I understand that invites immediate statements about how Putin himself is a mobster. I get it. But there are far worse than him lingering in the dark corners of Russia. It's hard to say if the levers of power are even remotely setup to withstand his (let's say, sudden) absence. The rest we can agree to disagree. As you say, we won't really know for years, if ever. I just go off my own understandings of warfare, but those could 100% be wrong as not every case is the same.
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16 minutes ago, billbindc said:
The Russian army has excellent fire control? And what do you actually know about how the UA is fighting in Bakhmut? What evidence do you have of loss ratios? Or the exact terrain advantages from place to place on that front? And what would be the precise strategy you would adopt that is superior to defending a prepared urban conurbation bisected by multiple waterways?
Objectively, please.
Yes, the Russian army's artillery fire support is excellent. It's not as good as the Americans, but it is good. Take a whizz on it all you want, though, it ultimately matters little when the results come out the same. What evidence do I have for loss-rates? Nobody has any hard evidence on casualties, it's all assumptions. That I'll readily admit. My assumptions are based upon fighting on the backfoot in a fixed position against vast volumes of enemy artillery fire. They're based upon Bakhmut being dangerously close to operational encirclement for weeks now which means established bases of fire are attacking from multiple angles. They're also based upon the occasional murmur of intel coming through that Ukrainian losses are really bad. Considering the infosec on bad news is really, really high, the fact anyone is saying anything about losses means it's worse than they're even letting on. On the Russians side of things, losses in Western sources will be (and have been) grossly exaggerated, but I do assume they're ugly too. The difference is even if it's 1:1 it's still mostly a PMC eating much of it. I think it's obvious by now that the Russians are content exchanging a couple convicts for revealing Ukrainian positions and then flattening them.
My strategy is to fight in more open ground. Already said it. Most of the equipment Ukraine has received is no good operating in rubble strewn streets and fighting house-to-house. Numerically, it is not in sufficient quantity to go toe-to-toe with established Russian fire positions. These are basic facts, really. I don't know if you've seen the images out of these places, but these towns are being quite literally flattened. Russia has never had any qualms doing just that and they will happily keep doing that if you want to play their game. See: Grozny. Russians lose cohesion when on the move and they can be better divided and annihilated in those moments.
Just now, kevinkin said:Dogwalked into what? Defending themselves? What do you mean?
Is the West's military industrial complex any more incestuous than Russia's? At least the West is producing modern weapons and their post cold war hand-me-downs are better than anything Russia can field (ever). Russia has no competent navy, air force, or army. All they have is nuclear blackmail. Which is why it's imperative that WMD don't fall into the hands of state support terrorists and non-state actors. Unfortunately, for its people, Russian already contains state support terrorists top to bottom and state hardly worth defending. Putin let the genie out of the bottle and Russians are now and for years going to pay the price.
Dogwalked into static, attritional warfare.
All military industrial complexes are incestuous, yes. American military tech is vastly superior to Russia's, yes. The Russian military is by and large incompetent, yes. Nuclear blackmail is implied whenever great powers bump into each other. I don't disagree with any of that. I don't think Russia is going to dish out nukes to non-state actors when they, themselves, have enough enemies in that sphere to see it turned around and used right against them. I think shattering Russia into a broken state, though, would hugely endanger the world to this potentiality. It was definitely a concern in the 90s.
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Just now, Beleg85 said:
Except "American generals" advised precisely opposite thing to Zaluzhny - long time ago they put a cross on Bakhmut and wanted Ukrainians to switch to other places. It was Ukrainian initiative to hold the city and sorroundings. And it is as much political as cultural and humanitarian (no need to tell what Russians do when they enter civilian areas). Still we don't know the situation, perhaps there is a well-grounded strategic cause of holding this terain.
https://news.yahoo.com/western-allies-advice-ukraine-switch-133550653.html
Now they are, yes. Right now a mercenary group whose mostly constituted of convicts is pushing through Bakhmut. The time to engage Russia in attritional warfare is, in actuality, never. Just like the time to engage the U.S. military in the open field is never. You do not play to your opponent's strengths. Warfare 101.
2 minutes ago, dan/california said:The Russian's have higher volume of fire, their fire control borders on laughable for most of their guns most of the time. That s before we discuss that they are mostly shooting forty year ammo out of worn out barrels. The Ukrainians are not running into anything, they are holding the front with the absolute minimum troop density they can. Precisely so they can put a force together to do some thing else. The Russians can advance of a carpet of their own dead for this very reason. The Ukrainian system is designed to give ground under truly maximum effort attacks at just the ratio that gives them the best casualty ratio.
Yes mistakes happen, yes squads fail to get the word, it is an unpleasantly even fight and bad things happen. Occasionally the Russians spot something with a drone that is actually in communication with a battery that can hit the designated square kilometer at least. But all of that just proves that there is a war on.
I suppose we can just ignore basic fundamental realities of warfare. Artillery is no longer the queen of the field. Having the high ground means nothing. Capturing fire superiority is pointless. Etc.
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7 minutes ago, billbindc said:
"As for what Russia does now... why would they change? If Ukrainians want to run bodies into bombardments, why would Russia not oblige?"
I'm fairly sure we aren't watching the same war.
I don't watch wars. I study them.
Remove the names and characteristics. Look at it objectively. Your opponent has fire superiority. They have the high ground. They have excellent fire-control. Their military doctrine is based around artillery. You see this and you wish to stand ground? You see this and you think you're the one winning the loss-rate ratios?
1 minute ago, Beleg85 said:They don't have choice, we are long past muscovite armour columns happily penetratng hundreds of kms into enemy territory to "f..k around and find out". Fights in the north are often more manouver in character than those in the south- as much as they can be under conditions, i.e. both sides try to move frontline. The problem is Russians are not that stupid anymore, fight methodically and have much more resources at hand now. They stemmed Kreminna advances and even coutnerattacked effectively.
They do have a choice. The choice is to give up ground to reacquire tactical advantages elsewhere. It becomes politically untenable to do that when you turn places like Bakhmut into your personal Stalingrads. Hence why politics should stay the hell out of military affairs. My belief is that the Ukrainians were dogwalked into this by the American generals' advice. It sorta makes sense, as American generals are all incompetent stooges completely invulnerable from accountability while they operate with one foot out the door to Boeing, GD, Lockheed, etc.
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19 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:
Situation with Bakhmut may be special, though. Urban terrain prepared for defence, proceded by months of shaping operations (Russian style, of course...) and work based on personal ambition done by very peculiar military group. Is it model for similar operations, or maybe Muscovites have something different in mind now? Hard to tell. Perhaps casualties on other fronts, incurred by regulars would tell us more about character of future Russian attacks and expected scale of casualties.
https://www.ft.com/content/268bd522-4794-4f3d-895f-f58a55536af9
Btw. previous gossips are now confirmed. Kiryl Budanov will become new Minister of Defence. He is very young, but very posh and with good contacts in the West; some say he was groomed by Americans from the start. Rheznikov will be moved to head of industry. Not a great scandal and pretty civilized ending.
Ukrainians should not be engaging Russians in static warfare. Sitting around in static lines while artillery has a field day? Uhhh... Russian military doctrine will happily oblige. Contrast that to the maneuver warfare seen in early/mid-2022 where Russians bumble about incompetently getting shot in the back. Why would you allow the Russians to shell and bomb you to dust? I legitimately don't get it.
This is why I have believed since the moment I saw it that these rumors of Russians running out of shells/missiles had to have been Russian disinformation. Who else would have to gain from such rumors? It's the sort of chatter that might convince people to sit places like Bakhmut thinking the Russians are going dry. Except they're not. Except they keep dropping 10-20,000 shells a day. A 122mm/152mm shell is about the cheapest item you can make. 1/5th of Russia's manufacturing employment is in the arms industry. What do people think these guys are doing all day? Seriously.
Just now, The_Capt said:So Russias economy is airtight and bulletproof, and Putin as glorious leader/dictator for life can demand his people die in the millions for him?
I mean that is where this line of thinking is carrying. We as weak western democracies cannot possibly impose enough pressure, nor will our willpower survive as long as a dictatorship because our system is inherently weaker.
I am sorry but I am not buying any of these points and nor does history bear them out. Sure Russia has put in fallbacks and economic bastions, but how long can they last? Every dictator you mention had a very different economic system to sustain their society. Russia will need to re-wire theirs (already have) in order to make this work in the long term. We have posted a plethora of charts and graphs on how the Russian economy has taken sever hits and has had to prop up its currency and system in many dangerous ways. Now the IMF makes a two year prediction in the middle of a shooting war and we leap to “negotiate!”…?
Economic systems take time to shift - in 2014 it wasn’t like the sanctions were felt over a weekend. In fact it took 2 years to see full effects on GDP, maxed out in 2016.
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp
And then recovered but never back to 2014 levels.
Yes, let’s look at the long game for a minute. If Russia gets away with this stunt and we blink, then we are back to anarchy of states. China, Russia or whoever is aligned with them are going to be able to fall back on Rule of the Gun. If we didn’t stick it out in Ukraine then why should we in Taiwan?
We built the system. If we want to keep it, we have to be willing to fight for it. Russia is not a bunch of extremist yahoos, it is a global power that went “ya, whacha gonna do about it?” So we either push it back in line or the whole drug deal starts to unravel. This is not about national identity, it is about a global order (warts and all) that put us all on top. We defend it or lose it.
This war is a test of western will and resolve as much as it is for Ukraine or Russia. Dictatorships are notoriously fragile, normally collapsing with the death of the dictator. A few have bucked the trend - North Korea, but that freaky state is a whole thing on its own. Russia is a modern and developed nation, with a capitalistic economy. It does not get to illegally invade another nation and get away with it. And if we tap out, we’ll what happens next is all on us.
Can they be beat? They already have been. Someone (other than Macgregor) paint me a scenario where Russian strategic aims are accomplished. We can construct a new Iron Curtain if we have to, hell we split Germany in half and pulled its western side into NATO. Europe is weaning off Russian energy, that is going to have effects that last a generation. Russia has not regained operational offensive initiative, they are doing the same tactical pecking they have been doing for months. And even if they did retake the initiative, how long can they hold onto it?
No, our main threat is western attention spans. We are used to everything being fast, especially our “real” wars - the low level stuff we can always change the channel on. So now that we are in a real test of resolve we either buckle down and finish this thing, or not.Russian GDP contracted immediately due to the sanctions in 2014. It was a clear and obvious economic shock. Tomato, tomatoe. As for the rest, I'm glad you at least admit World War III is on the table. As you say, the economic balances are endangered and that entails quite a lot. Did it have to be that way? No, I don't think so. That's the point of disagreement, really. I'm personally far more worried about the West shooting itself in the foot in concern with the global markets than I am with Russia and Ukraine. My consideration here was to kill as many Russians as possible, sanction them into a black hole, and then call for peace. As you say, it's a message in general to the rest of the world. The idea that Ukraine would militarily push Russia out has never been a viable conclusion to the conflict for me.
As for what Russia does now... why would they change? If Ukrainians want to run bodies into bombardments, why would Russia not oblige? You said it yourself, the West perceives war in video game-like ways where things are resolved quickly. But I don't think you yourself are entirely divorced from this perception if you see anything wrong with what Russia is doing; as you say, "doing the same thing they've been doing for months." What is that, again? Throwing cheap mercenaries in exchange for bombing Ukrainian positions on the daily? Has it not already been established that Putin and the rest of his population could not care less about the soldiers he's tossing into the grinder? Do Ukrainians feel the same about their own conscripts? I doubt it. And I doubt that the side who has taken the high grounds, has vastly far more fire superiority, and is the one who dictates the battles is the one losing more people right now. I don't think Russia is running out of shells anytime soon. I think 1/5th of Russia's manufacturing jobs are in the arms industry and they now have had 1-full year of insight to see where to assign throughputs. Do I need to explain that 122mm/152mm shells are extremely cheap to make?
As for strategic aims... I'm not sure if people in here just don't understand reality or what. Russia occupies 1/5th of Ukraine. They now have access to the shale reserves cutting northwest. They have ensured the safeguarding of natural gas in Crimea and the waters around it. They now have in the ballpark of 8-10m more people behind their borders. I think their strategic aim of couping Kiev failed. That's pretty obvious. They have humiliated themselves in the eyes of the West. That's obvious, but that was already obvious so I'm not sure much has changed there. Beyond all that, I actually wouldn't assume what their objectives are. I never believed they wanted to 'conquer' Ukraine, but I do think they tried to setup a pro-Russian government. I honestly think that's off the table for them, but it would mean another objective would come in. I don't know what that would be. My assumption is they want to fill out the oblasts entirely and then sit on those terrains. I also think they're possibly timid to re-engage in maneuver warfare because they plainly suck at it and are equally fearful of another retreating embarrassment. I do think if Russia wants to sit in trenches and lob bombs they can do that until the end of time.
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18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Saddam's Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba have all endured prolonged and harsh sanctions. True. However, none of them were/are fighting and losing a resource draining conflict that the regime itself says is necessary for its survival.
Steve
Saddam fought one vs. Iran for years. Then got wiped out by the West. Then got sanctioned. Then virtually lost his northern territories to the Kurds. Modern nation states have vast resources and are not easily broken. People on this board who know the world wars should understand this very well when you see the depths to which countries like Germany, Russia, and Japan went. I don't see Russian civilians dying. I don't see Russian cities getting bombed. Russian factories are untouched. We're talking about intangible economic strain via pressure on consumer goods. The slack was picked up elsewhere.
28 minutes ago, dan/california said:Saddam didn't have to fight what is rapidly becoming a full up NATO army, and come up with half a million shells a month just to lose slowly. Bankruptcies , and regime disintegrations happen very slowly, then all at once.
Saddam suffered far worse than Russia right now and he survived. He didn't collapse, either. Americans kicked his door in and hanged him. That was that. It's actually the main reason I drew up Saddam in the first place -- he didn't just face sanctions, he faced the physical dismantling of his army and severe losses of prestige.
Also, a full up Western anything is not the West, btw. Don't get it twisted on how armies fight and win. If you swapped the American military tech with Russia's, USA would still demolish the Russkies because things like training, discipline, communication, cohesion, etc. matter far more than tech specs. Putting Western tech in someone's hands hasn't been a magic bullet. Ever.
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2 hours ago, The_Capt said:
I think we kind of beat the Russian economy to death a few pages back. I am not so confident that they can come out of this better than they went in - the material costs of waging this war alone are significant.
And the full effect of sanctions, energy price caps etc have not fully set it.
And as with everything economic, it really depends who you ask.
https://blog.oxfordeconomics.com/content/a-darker-economic-scenario-from-russias-war
The answer is simply - keep at them, pressure those doing business with Russian anyway we can and make Russia’s economic life as difficult as possible.
Full effects in 2014 were readily apparent. Now that anti-Russian rhetoric is insanely high to the point people are deploying scientific racism, you're not going to find very many straight shooters on the subject. If you're running into weasel words and the like for 2022/2023, it means it's not working as intended. The reality is Russia learned from 2014 and has positioned safeguards against another version of it. I mean the sanctions right now from the West make 2014 look like a little firecracker so the fact there's any discussion at all is a very bad sign. And I'm not sure how you pressure anyone to do anything. India and China are not going to blink. BRICS smell blood in the water. OPEC nations already sided with Russia. The USA can't endanger its relationship with USD/oil. Most other nations were subjugated by Europeans and these nations love watching the Euros suicide their economies. Most are not going to give up economic benefits on account of some Euro war that has nothing to do with them. Would you be fine eating economic bullets on account of Somalis/Ethiopians? Didn't think so. This is why I have become greatly concerned that people are attaching so much national prestige to the winning of this war. You leave yourself two options when you start losing: ratchet up the intensity (risk WWIII), or you step back and take a big splattering of egg on the face and lose a ton of credibility. This applies to the other side as well. The more Russia dumps into the conflict, the less likely they are to negotiate. Wise statesmen and observers were calling for peace negotiations when that initial thrust got turned back. Now it looks like Russians are going on the offensive and the ball is in their hands again.
Also, just look at the long game for a moment. Russia is run by a dictator. Remember Iraq? Sanctioned, starved, and bombed. Even a defanged Saddam Hussein managed to keep power despite all those pressures and being in a terribly weak position. So long as Putin exists, Russia can and will outlast the democratic West. A dictator can make his people suffer as much as he wants them to. You can't get that out of the West when people start protesting and demanding peace.
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1 hour ago, The_Capt said:
Sure, I was pointing to the tone and errors in the twitter post (and WSJ if that is what they are saying). There are no "international sanctions" on Russia right now. What we have are a lot of bilateral sanctions, and the EU, which while technically an international body, does not speak for the entire international community. For that one needs an UNSC Resolution. Now what we are going to do about India and China's continued trading with Russia is another topic entirely.
They're one and the same topic, really. Russia's ability wage war is entirely dependent on its economy and safeguarding its population from hits against said economy. But Russia's economy is not suffering. It has barely contracted and the IMF even foresees it growing in 2023. All the lost slack of trade with Europe was simply picked up by everyone else. We already know what economic rifts and disasters look like with Russia because we saw it in 2014 but we are not seeing it now. Now we are also seeing a coalescing of non-West economic powers in increasing antagonism toward the West itself.
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13 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
The other thing I found myself wondering was why they didn't pull back and use that RPG or something else once they figured out the defenders were in dug in good and weren't going to give up easily. Putting even an AT round through one of those windows would have probably caused more damage than the hand grenades.
Same. The second they saw the windows already boarded with stones, they should have recognized it as virtually prefigured to be defended. But another red flag would be that if the enemy knows they're surrounded but are not surrendering then either they're going full seppuku or they've got a line of communication telling them to hold out. I have to imagine that's where the artillery strike came in at toward the end. These are things you learn from, I suppose, but to me CQB is so deadly I just don't see the point of physically entering a building you have surrounded. Pointmen definitely put all their nuts on the table walking into places like that. I can't even conceive of that level of courage.
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China is in a position in which they can wait and let the tides change on their own.
My fear is that if Battlefront releases a game on this topic, then the topic will come to fruition as their mystic powers manifest yet another real-life conflict.
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23 minutes ago, Kraft said:
Sending scientists, 60something exVets, shipmates and anyone in the donbas who can hold a rifle into combat just screams manpower reserves.
Maybe do a little thinking as well instead of just dismissing possible sources.
How come Russias massive army has increased by more than 300000 troops yet they lost about 50% of their captured area in the meantime? Surely its all the AFVs and tanks they have more in storage than Ukraine
lets ignore Oryx as well, he may be CIA asset or what?
How about you do an event study on the 200th Brigade to get a grasp.
To me it screams Russia fighting the war on the cheap, presuming it will be short, and all the while trying to protect its core urban centers from the effects thereafter. I thought I already made that abundantly clear. Is it not already a known fact that Russia does this? We can't make inferences into Russia's manpower reserves based upon whatever yokels they throw into the blender. If you saw this out of some other countries, sure, but we've already seen this tactic in Chechnya and Afghanistan alike. All we can really pull out of the opening stages of the war is that they did commit some high value assets and those were lost and are definitely not easy to replace.
I don't think any intel agency should be assumed to be a good source. You can glean from it whatever you want, but I'm just stating the reality that if they're releasing info to the public it is not to be blindly trusted as read. Ever.
Oryx I actually like and do more or less trust, FWIW. I'm not actually shocked at all by the losses Russia has taken. The question at hand is what they have in replacement.
As for losses, I agree that they're quite likely in the 100,000 area. 100,000 casualties is different than 100,000 dead though. Very, very different.
18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:Yup, and I think pretty much everybody here agrees with this. Even those here who think Ukraine can take on Crimea do not see it as being possible "soon", depending on how "soon" is defined.
True, especially as most of the differences you perceive aren't real.
Steve
A bit rude. I'd consider there to be a pretty real difference between "Ukraine defends until the West finds a diplomatic solution at the behest of economically cornering Russia" vs. "full out warfare to reclaim lost territories in the hopes Russia does not or cannot escalate."
I think at this point, like I said, it's all a bit moot. We'll see pretty soon what Russia has left in the tank. (Love using that phrase in this context.)
2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:Putin is, after all, the master strategist!
I think stuff like this is also rude. In my mind, he's a dangerous opponent to take seriously, but at the same time he is an idiot in many ways that speak for themselves, and he was clearly hoodwinked into thinking this would be a walk in the park. I don't need people implying I'm saying otherwise. Feel free to say this was a "general" statement and not at all directed to the only person with which anyone in this thread has had contention for the past few hours.
6 minutes ago, Kinophile said:Ah in fairness I can go on about the moral aspect, I'm aware.
Just to focus on this for a bit, I want to make something clear. What Ukraine is doing is in actuality saving a truckload of lives in the future. Not just in Europe, but possibly other places just as well. By making the aggression costly to Russia, it keeps them in check and defangs them of any incentive to try this excursion again. It also puts out a flare to the planet as a whole that if you do this to your neighbors, you're liable to see a hammer fall on you. It also puts out a flare to possible victims that you need not fold, because if you stand your ground help may yet come. I know we disagree on means and ends, but I think this aspect of the conflict is very real and very true. This is a wargame forum and almost every single one of the games developed comes out of a conflict born from its primary actors never being curbed.
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3 minutes ago, Kinophile said:
@Khalerick you've mentioned this war as ending in a diplomatic /economic negotiation...
I'm sorry, what?
I tire of this pearl clutching indignation, to be honest. My viewpoint is not niche at all.
"The probability of a Ukrainian military victory — defined as kicking the Russians out of all of Ukraine to include what they claim as Crimea — the probability of that happening anytime soon is not high, militarily." - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley.
You needn't knock me over the head with the moral shovels, either. I'm aware of the rest. Can we engage on a more common ground for once? Our differences are not even that far apart.
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No offense, but you gotta think for yourself a bit here. I wouldn't trust much of anything coming from the intel agencies of the parties involved. Their entire purpose, literally, is to serve up disinformation and anything hitting the public waves has a purpose. "The CIA says--" wait a second, why am I reading this in a newspaper? See what I'm getting at...?
I think we'll get a much clearer picture of where Russia's at on these issues in a few weeks to months from now. No reason to lean on spooks whose entire job is to tell you what they want you to think. Not sure if you're American or remember 2001-2003, but personally I've had quite enough of this "public facing" intelligence for one lifetime already.
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I'm quite aware Russia's incompetence has led to significant military losses. I was one of many sitting back and watching the tapes. When the war started, I remarked about having observed the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, and watching drunken Russians stumble around in the middle of the road while driving an AFV into a berm. It's obvious to anyone who pays attention that for all its resources, the Russian military is not what one might call "professional." As even Battlefront's lovely games showcase, certain doctrines baked into their military structure are also not what one might call "flexible." Mix the two together, throw it against some resistance, and abracadabra. Where have we seen this before except in virtually every conflict they ever partake in.
However, we actually do NOT know the full extent of Russia's stockpile. You have to pull a lot of data from the end of the Cold War to recent times to estimate it. As you near the end of the Cold War, those estimations have to be safeguarded against with the knowledge that the West has to elevate the threat to justify its own defense budgets. As you near modern times, you have to start safeguarding against assertions that Russia is a broken nation with nothing. In between you gotta figure out what % you're willing to shave off to things like corruption and waste. I'll say this about Russia's military: it has been a focus for them. This is not the decaying creature that it seemed to be in the early 00s. Anyone who plainly asserts that the Russian military is vanishing or isn't "relevant" is making an assumption. We don't actually know. We just know the stockpiles are very, very likely to be quite vast. How Russia is able to marshal those forces is another question entirely.
27 minutes ago, kevinkin said:PS: somewhere I read the official channels between the US and Russia have never been so busy. I will try to find the source again.
You wouldn't have to source it at all, I'd fully believe it as read.
16 minutes ago, dan/california said:Urals oil is currently being priced about thirty dollars per barrel below Brent Crude. That is actually a devastatingly effective sanctions program in the medium to long term. Brent at ~~85 per barrel is well within historical norms. And Russian oil is expensive to extract. At $55 per barrel Russia is not making a lot of money. Certainly not relative to the vast expenses of the war.
Russia has the economy about the size of Italy's. This is not quite the pin in the doll as you might think. It has to go lower. Also, Russia trades at losses to some nations in exchange for other goods. Be wary of taking raw numbers when staring at a speculative "legal" black market like oil trade. I'm sure you're already aware that the oil market is a whole bag of hammers and trickery all on its own.
16 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:Because you are dismissive of the depth of discussion that goes on here. We do not just take a quote from one guy and say that is sufficient to prove everything else said as wrong.
Not at vanished, not relevant. Again, this is a discussion that has been had many times before and with greater nuance than bean counting. Which is the exact sort of thing that underlies the horrific predictions made by "experts" on Russia before and during this war.
Numbers are only a part of the story. The other part is that Russia can't access the reserves without a declaration of war. Therefore, that large number that's been so often quoted is meaningless unless there is a massive shift in how Russia is manning its armed forces. A shift that Putin is overtly afraid of doing. The partial mobilization was a long delayed compromise measure and was very poorly executed. It was supposed to go after reserves first, but in effect was grabbing people off the street (literally in many cases) because it was the easiest thing to do.
You need to do better research. Putin is not negotiating. He says he will, even so far as saying with no preconditions, then lists off all the same BS he started the war with. There are efforts from time to time to test the waters, and each time it's come back with Putin being unwilling to abandon any of the things I enumerated.
If you think this is wrong, please cite a source.
At some point Putin might conform to what you described, but so far there's been no signs of this. Again, if you disagree then you need to provide proof or you should adjust your concept of what is going on in this war.
Yes, and as we've discussed maybe 1000 times (as recently as a few pages ago) this is exactly what Putin did not do.
You really should go back and read more of what is discussed here instead of insisting this is all novel.
Steve
Just focusing on the peace stuff, I said there were efforts and there have been. We actually don't know to what extent he'll negotiate because neither side has sat down and hammered out details in awhile. Publicly, he can say whatever he wants to say. He's made his objectives clear and is sticking to them. I've already said that this is part of the theater of public diplomacy. I think it's an eyebrow raising mistake to do this just like it is for the other side. Behind closed doors tides change, though. Call me an optimist in this regard.
And I've said my observations here are not niche already. People are choosing to engage with them so I don't see the issue. Nothing wrong with back and forth. I've no umbrage with anyone here and if anything I said made it seem otherwise I apologize. It's quite late on my end so something may have slipped through.
1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:They've invested more manpower into Ukraine than they originally allocated to the invasion, correct. The first few months they moved just about every military unit stationed anywhere in Russia and deployed it to Ukraine. This included units actively involved in "peace keeping" and garrison duties. Add to this all the personnel originally left in garrison (i.e. 3rd Battalions), hastily raised volunteer battalions, Wagner, the portion of the partial mobilization that were deployed, and the huge campaign to secure new Contractors straight from civil society. We've also seen anecdotal evidence that a wide array of normally non-combat personnel have been transferred to the front. My favorite example was the junior officer (IIRC 2nd LT) who was a meteorologist with some Arctic unit. He was killed while manning a rifle unit somewhere in the south early in the war.
Anyway, it's been a long time since I've crunched the numbers. But even months ago they had rotated in more men than they started with. Yet the overall Russian force size does not to be noticeably bigger. It is, instead, noticeably not the force it started with. Whether 165,000 is the right number or not, it is certainly six figures in size.
Steve
I just don't understand how one can make these assertions. I've seen casualty numbers all over the place. If you want to make estimates, fine, but what #'s are there to even crunch? There are wars long concluded which people still debate this crap. The idea you could do it live is a bit silly. I personally think the total casualties are very high, but I'm 100% guessing and I honestly don't know. Both sides have strong interests in totally muddying the water on this topic. Looking at unit rotation to glean data is interesting but that's a big rabbit hole because we just don't know Russia's internal designs for this sort of thing (unless you got some very up to date documentation, then I'd gladly take a look).
Here's my own rabbit hole. The West has keen interest in Ukraine winning this war. If what you say is true about the casualties, then we can assume the West's generals know this as well. So why are they not acting on this information? Why are they not depositing as much war material as physically possible right this second to press the advantage? Again, I find this wishywashy reluctance by the West to be indicative of a lack of faith in the project as a whole. The U.S. MIC will get its money. That's what it wants. But in terms of military objectives if Russia is so lambasted that they could be pushed over, why are the generals not moving in the aggressive direction? I sincerely find this very suspect. But, like your notions with the rotations, it is only something I can gauge at a vast distance. And while I may be taking the word of one man, that man is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's not speaking off the cuff. He's speaking at the spearhead of what is undoubtedly the world's biggest mountain of intelligence and analysis. His conclusion does not track with this assertion that Russia's forces are virtually obliterated.
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1 hour ago, kevinkin said:
All Russia has left is nuclear blackmail at this point. Now is not the time to kick the can down the road. They, or some other two bit so-called nation will do the same in the future. All the west and Ukraine are asking is a return to the pre 2014 borders. Then they will talk. Otherwise they will have to be forced out. And that is not a nuclear trigger in itself. I am starting to think that the west sees UA casualties mount and is now slowly replacing bodies with high tech bullets calculating that if P has not gone nuclear by now, its time to titrate more offensive ground taking equipment into the theater. You can't negotiate from strength with Russia occupying Ukrainian soil.
You can, actually, if Russia has no oil receipts and Muscovites start feeling the effects of their leader's decisions.
What would Putin's response be if you cut these resource revenues in half? Throw more men into Ukraine? With what money? It's the same basic objective and conclusion, just a different route. A route I personally think is far more realistic and far safer. When I see Putin threatened militarily, I just see a different response mechanism activated: putting more men in the grinder. And he can do that all damn day if the oil is flowing.
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19 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
Hey Khalerick, welcome to the thread, and it's always good to have a team B / devil's advocate view here.... I and others have played that role on occasion over the last 2000 pages.
But you have now left us about a dozen wordy posts over the last 2 pages in which you have laid out some *extremely* confident statements as to facts, only some of which may in fact be true. A bit of a Gish Gallop debating strategy.
....And now you seem to be saying 'take it or leave it' on your thesis.
I'm not tone policing -- we have some *very* cranky regular posters here, some of them in the emerging Western democracy that is fighting for its life. But nobody is going to make it their business to parse and debate each one of your assertions. Especially if your response to being challenged is simply to double down and say 'I thought I made myself clear.'
And then seem to suggest that the people posting on this thread are more preoccupied with confirmation bias via Tweet or giggling over war porn than understanding the ramifications of the struggle.
Because if that's really your impression of this community, you might want to take your opinions elsewhere.
I've been quite polite considering some of the rhetoric I'm reading. Why is this directed toward me? All I did was ask a very simple question of how does Ukraine militarily win this war. My belief is there is no such conclusion. The highest ranking officer in the entire U.S. military has said there is no military offramp so this is not a niche observation. My conclusion is that the West needs to get the global markets in line otherwise Russia will gladly oblige a long war. I don't understand how this is controversial.
Going by the Military Times at the outset of the war, backed by IISS yearly report, this is what Russia had:
900,000 active personnel with 2,000,000 in reserve.
40,000ish fighters from Dontesk and Luhansk.
18,500+ AFVs. 5,500+ pieces of artillery.
Taken as read, people in this thread seem weirdly certain all of this manpower and material has vanished, though, and of that I'm not so certain. The Joint Chief of Staffs of the United States military doesn't seem so certain. I don't wish to argue from authority, but that is some rather supreme authority. You say I gish gallop while I'm trying to illuminate the wider picture? My entire point is that the solution is a diplomatic/economic one and that statements like General Milley's are correct. OPEC, India, and China are not helping. That's basically the other half of the planet. We need them to cooperate to dry out Russia's oil receipts and force them to the table at a weakened position. There is nothing complicated or conspiratorial or contrived about this argument.
3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:We've covered this topic, in depth, probably two or three dozen times since February. You bring up no angles that haven't been covered before. The consensus here is that we have to be careful with Russia, especially after the war is over, but he's not crazy and he won't nuke. He doesn't even seem willing to risk a conventional war with the West (we'll have to see about the pipeline that just blew up, of course).
Here's where you are wrong. Putin wants:
- Ukraine destroyed as a viable nation state, forever
- Ukraine "demilitarized" without any NATO forces on its soil *EVER*
- permanent and total control of all Ukrainian territory anywhere near the Black Sea coast and the Donbas
- formal recognition of #2 by the rest of the world, especially Crimea
- lifting of all sanctions against Russia
- normalizing trade relations with the rest of the world
- no accountability for its crimes
- Europe to return to being dependent upon Russian energy
- no expansion of NATO
That's what Putin wanted going into this war in February and, by all accounts, it is still what he says is the minimum for starting negotiations.
In addition to these openly stated goals (yes, Putin has explicitly stated these), he has two more:
- restore the Soviet empire (this was a goal before the war, but oh boy has he made this a bigger problem as it's collapsed a LOT more since February 2022)
- a divided Europe
Of course this war screwed up both of those big time, but to be clear he still wants them.
And I could go on, because there is more as part of Russia's bigger beef with NATO, Europe, and the US.
The West also finally has decided they have had enough of Russia being a perpetual "bad actor", so they want Russia's long term ability be one significantly curtailed.
And Russia to be held accountable for its crimes.
Tell that to Putin, because he is absolutely the one that refuses to negotiate. Which indicates that Russia needs further defeats on the battlefield before Putin will start to be serious about negotiations.
Correct. But until there is even the remotest signs of willingness on Russia's part to compromise, then there are no realistic options for a diplomatic settlement UNLESS it means Ukraine surrendering. That's up to Ukraine and not the West.
Steve
Putin is a tyrant. News at 9. The guy can still be negotiated with. Despite your assertions here that he refuses to negotiate, there have been efforts by both sides now and again. As for demands... this is something you can learn at a used car lot, but typically when you come to negotiations you do so with the extremes and then walk it back from there. Unfortunately, the demands are turning into stone right in public limelights. I'm fully in support of the theater of Zelensky and co. coming to America and letting people understand the situation. I'm not nearly in as much support of him locking Ukraine into a deathmatch with a former superpower run by a dictator when we already know dictators can make their own countries suffer as much as they want to get what they want.
Basic rule of thumb is to always leave yourself an out. Again, I don't think this should be controversial. Like I'm not trying to rile people up. You can leave yourself an out while at the same time pursuing the war goals of driving Russia out of eastern Ukraine. You can't just assume your war goals will come to reality, though. I'm sorry, but that is bad statesmanship. There is a strong argument made by Hans Morgenthau, the father of political realism, that public diplomacy is necessarily self-destructing. Neither side is going to have an easy time compromising when they're screaming to the world that they want XYZ and nothing less. It's also why platforms like the U.N. turn into useless soapboxes. I think this mistake has been made here and it makes me worried about the war escalating into something worse because we're edging toward the territory of, well, as some in this thread stated, things just not escalating because they won't. Tautologies like that work until they don't.
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1 minute ago, danfrodo said:
So what is the executive summary of what you are saying? Succinctly, what do you think UKR & it's allies should do? Like in a few sentences. Your overarching thesis is lost, for me, in between all the other stuff.
I get that your biggest concern in Putin unleashing nukes, either through misunderstanding or brinksmanship or spite. But what is it you want to do?
I thought I made it quite clear but I can try to summarize as we are far away from those points:
Putin wants the eastern territories.
The West wants to make it as costly as possible to remove incentive for this sort of action; in the peripheral of this, they also need to show certain other 3rd parties the cost of taking aggressive military action.
Ukraine wants Russia out and its territories back.
Somewhere in between, you negotiate. Jingoists and nationalists are not a part of this conversation. They can't be. It's like Orwell's essays on ideological groups, the basic reality is there are certain compromises certain groups will never make. I 100% believe there are Russians and Ukrainians alike that would literally rather grind their nations into ash than see the other guy win a 60/40 cut of the peace deal. You have to understand this, alright? And you have to understand why these conversations are difficult when people like that exist. It gets a little scarier when there are powerful people who are more than willing to oblige these thoughts. Such people also exist so those fears are not unjustified.
Now outside those barriers are very different results. Ukraine stands to lose a lot more than just two territories and the West stands to lose a lot of prestige and standing in the world, just saying it rather plainly. Russia also stands to do this just as well if Ukraine is able to push them out and/or the West rallies global markets against Russia. Again, I just want to point out that the depth into which Russia is willing to dig to not be humiliated is fairly deep, so this route is extremely costly and dangerous. Typically, the West suffers war exhaustion at a much faster rate, even when they're not taking part.
As far as negotiations go, it's all about putting yourself at advantage. There's a reason why the U.S. General Milley said Ukraine should go to the table in November (he also said there was no military offramp, by the way). Ukraine had taken back some territories and looked competent enough to make this a long war. Russia at the time was drawing up reserves. It was a position of strength vs. uncertainty on the part of the Russians. Now that time has passed. Now everybody is sitting around wondering if Russia is going to go on another offensive, or if Ukraine can breakthrough after Russia has spent 9+ months building static defenses. Every single time you push off negotiations, you run the risk of things escalating in the wrong direction.
I mentioned, though, that I truly don't think the military side of this is the big bargaining chip. IMO, Ukraine fights and holds on while Western intelligence and weaponry pours in. The West meanwhile has a main objective that is totally outside of Ukraine: they have to get other global markets onboard. Truly, that's it. Russia would fall apart very, very quickly. Problem is that those economic and political bullets are missing right now. And those are the ones we need to land. I don't know how people assess Russia's situation as precarious. As George Kennan said, it's impossible to fully understand the inner workings of a foreign country. Most anything you hear about another nation's innerworkings is going to be propaganda or disinfo. Example, I personally think the notion of Russia running out of missiles was disinfo - spread by Russia themselves. But my thinking on the whole is that Russia learned from 2014's sanctions and have successfully shifted trade east to prepare for the economic contractions the West would be belting across their backs. I have contacts all over the world, just as well, and I do not hear this anti-Russian fervor at all from those places. Also, again just plainly speaking, I don't know how seriously I can take Europe's war effort when they're still trading with Russia. Talking about sending Ukraine tanks with one hand while the other helps build the ATGM's to destroy them. I'm sorry but even this incongruity has to make a few people twitch.
My personal hope is that Ukraine comes out of this as a member of NATO. If that doesn't happen then this entire affair has been a tremendous failing. There are ways to do that which are fairly realistic, but will require compromise. There are ways to do it that are tremendously risky and require no compromise. Measuring which route you go is something you take day by day.
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Didn't they also say they wouldn't invade Ukraine literally days before doing exactly that
Seem trustworthy enough.
Real talk though, when it comes to nuclear holocaust the main concern is misunderstandings and misinterpretations of information leading to it.
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23 minutes ago, Kraft said:
Well, if it is that simple we should tell Putin we'll nuke him in 2 weeks, but gesture that we are willing to settle on him leaving Ukraine as a compromise.
Has someone nuked Korea, or Vietnam? Are the Taliban a heap of ash because of the USSR or the US? Nukes arent a win button, unless you fall victim to nuclear blackmail (good luck trying to prevent future blackmail and conflict).
Besides, what should he nuke first to aquire Ukraine? The Black Sea to test the water? Start immediately with London and Washington? Or choose the conservative option and nuke Zelensky? That will surely give him what he wants.. unless some world power already made some conventional promises about the fate of the Russian Armed forces should even a tactical nuke be deployed. It also somehow does not solve the issue of the UA military still standing in his way, or does he intend to nuke the frontlines as well?
And when push comes to shove, as you say, I have high hopes that random Russian officer #13 wants to live more than Putin does.
This war has considerably more at stake than just territories and nationalistic rises and falls. I mean, I don't have the time to go over this, but it's pointless anyway. Not that diplomatic history matters much once the war has started, only to say that the diplomatic choices taken were godawful and history will absolutely see that through. So you have the war now, and the war now is just kill everyone and take territories and ostensibly ignore everything in the peripheral from nuclear capabilities to reserves to global oil market shifts to China to India to OPEC and so on and so forth. By all means, I hope you're right and we see Ukraine put an offensive down and drive the Russians out and Putin just eats the L. I think my opinions clear and it's going in circles. I'd love nothing more than to see Ukraine drive the Russians out. The wargamer in me (as this is that type of forum) would actually quite enjoy watching Challengers and Leopards meet Russian armor and put it on them. Perhaps I'm wrong and Russia has nothing left in the, if I may, tank.
25 minutes ago, Kraft said:Since you brought this up, nuclear Holocaust somehow involves the whole world dying, so I somewhat assume it is not in Chinas & Indias best interest if the biggest and wealthiest markets seized to exist, not to mention the annoying Ice Age that would wipe them out a little later. If you also include them profiting from the war in general, yeah but a recession in Europe hits China harder than if Russia, its xxth most important trade partner buys more military boots.
It doesn't involve the whole world dying, actually. It could just involve a section of it. We, naturally, do not know. For all we know, India and China would call an emergency meeting and let each other know that they are standing pat while the West melts itself into a fat-filled plastic puddle. It is no secret that these countries seek primacy. The West rose to prominence on the backs of much of the rest of the world who were, at the time, undeveloped. I don't see how the East doing this exact same thing would be any different. At that point, they'll be dictating everything. I feel like this notion that things will simply remain the same in perpetuity is more or less hubris. Things can and do change. You don't think some Roman in the old days thought his empire would never end? All around him were glistening ivories, giant buildings, running water, magnificent constructs, war booty from corners of the world he'd never even heard of. How could he possibly imagine that would ever end, right? I don't like narrow perspectives. With the scope of history on hand, which includes the rise and fall of entire civilizations, I would like my leaders to operate with a little caution. That's all.
lets ignore Oryx as well, he may be CIA asset or what?
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
First off, nobody earns the right to be mean. That's a silly statement.
Secondly, I've been rather cordial this entire time and barely taken umbrage with some of the absurd responses I've seen. If you think I'm being condescending, I in no way intend to be.