billbindc

Edward Luttvak was yattering on about this topic over the weekend and taking exactly the wrong conclusion...which he claimed to be that since Russia was convinced it couldn't lose then it wouldn't. There *is* a mismatch between the sides in that Ukraine and the West are making reasonable cost/benefit analyses of the situation (even when we disagree with them) while Russia isn't really doing cost/benefit analysis at all. And the idea falls apart when you look at what it would look like if Russia "won". It would still be a high sanctioned pariah state with heavily armed neighbors watching it like a hawk, a permanent externally supported insurgency and a resource extraction economy reliant on an entirely cynical dictatorship that covets Russian territory in Far East. Where folks like Luttvak (who for the moment let's pretend isn't just being a controversialist/opportunist/clown) don't understand is that Russian intransigence and/or inability face reality is simply a function of time and resources. Russia has been steadily losing this fight since about 6 weeks after it began. It's *already* had an almost successful coup attempt designed to reverse the trend. A third to a half of Russian war related industries are understaffed because more than a million younger Russians would rather try to eke it out in Tbilisi than serve in the war. Conscription has already been enacted multiple times because average Russians don't want to fight this war. The ruble is once again losing traction and reserves are going in the wrong direction. So while it's tempting to say "the Russian's won't quit", there is every indication that they *are* quitting the war...and losing...already.

A generative AI definition of ressentiment is useful here: "Ressentiment is a feeling of deep-seated resentment, frustration, and hostility. It can also be a cautious, defeatist, or cynical attitude based on the belief that individuals and human institutions exist in a hostile or indifferent universe or society. Ressentiment can be induced by more durable, intense, and, on occasion, abstract sources, including social–structural features. It can also be a chronic feeling of resentment and hostility harbored by one individual or group against another. Ressentiment was of particular interest to some 19th century thinkers, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Nietzsche, ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed toward an object that one identifies as the cause of one's frustration. It is an "instinctive reaction" to suffering." It would be hard to find a more apt description of modern Russia than that.

Heh. Guilty as charged.

There are ways but there are limits. Add in that it is and will be a febrile atmosphere with an appetite in many quarters to scream "corruption" and call for impeachment at pretty much any old opportunity and such efforts will be complicated. The bottom line is that Ukrainian aid is a no brainer but domestic politics weighs heavily on it.

Same. I constantly hear variations of "We really need to learn from the UA not just to help them there but to deter China over Taiwan". You simply wouldn't be taken seriously if you said anything else. Nothing new to this sort of thing of course (the below is from the UP, May 1943):

What's always interesting about these quotes is that they are always anonymous and you simply never hear them in real life. Add in that you also never hear them in any sort of context and they have all the hallmarks of clickbait rather than straight reporting. I personally do not actually believe "Hey, drones dude...not prime." is the sort of thing that's being discussed by the respective military commands.

And the more I look at it, it seems like it will be a pretty decisive campaign if they get there.

And Prigozhin stopped *before* he got to Moscow because nobody...and certainly not the folks who backed him...wants to take the risk of unleashing any sort of popular revolt. This is a mafia state permeated with a mafia ethos. Money comes first and stability is necessary to make money. Girkin's a big exception, not the rule.

Double...somehow.

You may put me firmly in the camp of those who think a Russian state collapse is a highly unlikely outcome. We've already seen how demobilized Russian citizens are. When this ends, it's far more likely whimper than bang.

The hard reality of national security reporting is that there are a vanishingly small number of sources to work with and all of them are either former or current members of the intelligence services. So "the Government" isn't putting out official statements but an element of the government most certainly is passing on those details to those reporters. That's how it works. It's critical to ask yourself why.

I cannot begin to imagine what you've gone through but hang in there!

To this point, the milieu in which Ukraine takes over would be in the wake of decisive Russian defeats that will be more than just military. The idea of Russkiy Mir will have been punctured definitively. Russia itself will be in a pretty dire economic situation and Moscow will be looking to retrench control at home in a precarious political position. Whoever is running the Kremlin at that point will have a limited amount of bandwidth and have enormous trade reliance on partners (China primarily) who will want to invest in Ukrainian grain, Ukrainian ports, etc. Ukraine will have won militarily, it will have won in the contest of ideologies and it will have a lot to offer Russian allies who will possess leverage. Does that make a supported insurgency impossible? No. But it certainly isn't anything like the COIN problems we faced in the Middle East or even the ethnic divides of Belfast. Ukraine will have advantages here that most security forces lack and very powerful political, cultural and security motivations to win. I know where I'd put my money if it came to a bet.

It could go either way and we don't know definitively yet but elements in the German government are clearly pushing the idea that the Russians didn't stop an attack by amateurs with their professionals on site and didn't do the pig obvious thing (go public) that would have stopped the attack in its tracks. Those are extraordinary claims that will require extraordinary proofs...not a recitation of maybes that have all the hallmarks of a false flag operation or look like over worked attempts to explain away the much simpler realities. That's not directed personally at you, to be clear, but at the faction in the German government that seems dead set on complicating Berlin's support for Kyiv. I'm not someone who denigrates German efforts on Ukraine generally but in this case it very much looks like German intelligence that has gotten pretty much everything wrong for a long time is going all in on the bit.

The idea that the Russians were attempt to covertly stop a Ukrainian attack on Nordstream is...to put it mildly...absurd. All they would have had to do is make it public and the Ukrainian government would have perforce put an end to it. Also, that Russia is somehow inherently incapable of complex covert operations is...well, let's just say that they've been doing them against the Germans successfully for a long time so perhaps the BND and friends aren't the best judges of that capability.

Ukraine already conducted a civ/mil campaign in Mariupol before this phase of the war that worked quite well and that was in an environment where public corruption was far more tolerated. If it takes back Crimea, investment will pour in not least from China.

I agree with the above but it's worth remembering that Ukraine now has probably not just the most effective army in Europe but also the most effective anti-Russian security services. They have rooted out Russian networks in controlled territory quite effectively since the war began and would efficiently do so in Crimea too. Added in, no language barrier and the high likelihood that Russia's most vehement supporters will flee to the mainland and I like the GUR's chances.

Galeotti with the right take: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/prigozhins-death-has-exposed-putins-weakness/

The theory that still fits the facts we know best is that Prigozhin imagined he had enough backing to secure his degrading position and take over the war effort from Shoigu and Gerasimov. It's easy to look back now and think that was a bad bet but...the large majority of the security services did actually either join in or refused to resist the effort. Prigozhin's problem was that the percentage of the former was a lot lower than the latter. Then, like the proverbial dog that caught the car, he didn't know what to do when he had it in his teeth. It's entirely believable to imagine that if he held on a bit more or been less volatile a character he could have won at least in the short term. My analysis would be that Prigozhin on his own was incapable of neutralizing the state to that extent and knew that he was dependent on partners in the regime. He had backers in the FSB, GRU, Rosneft and the core governorships who, when it was clear that Moscow there for the taking, held him back because while it's one thing to put a gun to Putin's head it is quite something else to risk a full bore revolution. Without that backing, Prigozhin knew he couldn't go forward and they froze things and used him as a tool to renegotiate the system with Putin. They did, the coup 'failed' and Wagner was sidelined. And as soon as Prigozhin was no longer suit to purpose Putin's vengeance was allowed to go forward. Finis.

There are plenty of contingencies in which it could happen again. If Putin is incapacitated in any way, if there are any severe military setbacks, keep an eye on the Rosgvardia especially.

In Russian perception they were very much national heroes. Grotesque, misguided and sick...but that's what passes for Russian patriotism these days.

I think that will be the first take and I vehemently disagree. Regular Russians actually supported Prigozhin and Wagner. The hard core Ukraine war folks did so intensely. Utkin and Prigozhin were nationalist heroes. The vox populi will be that they were killed because they tried to win. Add in that it says state capacity is a total mess.

I suspect the most common reaction will be to sign up in one form or another with other factions (i.e. Rosneft, Rosgvardia) or to simply bail out (Africa, private security, etc). They represent the most vehement nationalists so while their skills will be prized, they will be distrusted by the power structure. It's equivalent to destroying the SA without the SS there to pick up the slack.

The knee jerk reaction to this is going to be that Putin put the finisher on the last coup. The reality is that Prigozhin was no longer necessary for the next one. That will not stop a wave of claims that Putin's back in charge, that things are turning his way, etc. Don't believe the hype.

I would flat out ignore virtually every anonymous quote you are hearing on this topic. Everything that is being leaked is driven by agendas that cannot be assessed and isolated from any real context. We quite literally don't know who is saying what, why, when or how. It could be Milley talking in the Oval or some Colonel sitting at the Rosslyn Starbucks. We will find out several years from now.