billbindc

A crucial thing happened this week. A quote from Amb. Blinken in Beijing: "With regard to lethal aid to Russia for use in Ukraine, we and other countries have received assurances from China that it is not and will not provide lethal assistance to Russia for use in Ukraine. We appreciate that, and we have not seen any evidence that contradicts that." That despite everything, China isn't throwing Russia a lifeline (in any major way) says much. It says China will do only what is in its own interests and that being bound to Russia's fate clearly isn't.

My party trick is <cough>lesin<cough, cough, cough>.

Don't forget our friend Oleg Smolenkov. His hurried removal from his Northern Virginia house was in reaction to a credible threat from Moscow. Things were heading in an obvious direction for those of us paying attention who weren't inclined to expect miracles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/ex-russian-official-thought-to-have-spied-for-the-us-was-hiding-in-plain-sight/2019/09/10/21cee7cc-d400-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html

Pfarrer is a crank.

My great-great-grandfather's unit used so called Coffee Mill guns during the Civil War. My grandfather knew his grandfather and I knew my grandfather in turn. The point being that these transitions happened, in historical terms, quite quickly.

The hydrography, rail and road transport maps all make a very strong argument for option 2 on the operational map. And that option 2 is right on the border of RuAF groups Center and South makes it even stronger.

Same here and it’s very common. Folks have to realize that analysts of any flavor are in effect making public predictions (within their field) upon which their reputation is felt to rest. The ones that develop a well known reputation tend to be the ones who most categorically take a position. When that position turns out to be wrong, it can be *very* hard to step off that ladder. Charap, Mearsheimer, et al are the most prominent examples but there are plenty more where they came from. So, rather than pro-Ukranian copium, what you often see is an extreme hesitancy to accept that no, actually, the Russians *do not* have anything up their sleeve. That population and the number of tanks *do not* actually decide a conflict. This is not just a problem with professional analysts. It is *very* common in natsec journalists too. I have had several conversations where nuclear weapons are understood to be virtually magical weapons in the Russian arsenal that would end the war in Moscow’s favor immediately. The larger point…there’s a lot of copium out there. It goes in both directions.

Looks like Moscow is queuing up the next atrocity.

This. We've talked about corrosive warfare. We've talked about lack of traditional air cover. We've talked about ubiquitous ISR. This isn't going to be Desert Storm or Al Alamein. Relax everybody.

I think Prigozhin will comply but it certainly suggests that control from the top is....attenuated. Russia is in the middle of a knife fight that may determine whether Putin's gigantic bet will be lost completely. The absolutely last thing that they need is a squabble for control between Wagner and the RuAF. Yet it's happening. Slippage. Bad slippage.

There will be a variety of outcomes depending on who is doing the exchanging, the connections of the exchanged, etc. But some will have come back under a cloud and their fate will have not been kind. Those stories travel.

They are terrified of surrendering because they want to go home again someday. They have certainly heard horror stories of what may be happening to those returned in prisoner swaps.

How do we know what that umbrella looks like from the snapshots we have seen so far?

The mid Kherson offensive vibes are getting pretty strong around here.

Hearing it was helicopter insertion attack well behind the line. Good? No. Utterly inexcusable? No.

Don't mistake what Simonyan is doing. She is as plugged in as it is possible to be with Putin's circle and clearly that circle has decided that with the offensive that's starting and the resources Russia has to stop it a status quo result would be a pretty good outcome for Russia. Her job is to make that outcome seem reasonable in the domestic Russian propaganda space. Thus, the trial balloon.

Some chap on here likes to natter on about 'fog eating snow' and I think that applies here...just at a higher tempo than previously. What I'm looking for is when/if Ukrainian operations force the RuAF to have to maneuver in a significant way. I don't think they they retain that capability at this point and will come unstuck. If Ukraine can take advantage of it, that's the ballgame from the Dnieper delta to Mariupol.

As noted, a European agency with one source they couldn't corroborate told the CIA a plan existed but wouldn't allow the story to be checked. <psst! Have you seen the American plans to invade Canada yet?>

Of interest: https://jamestown.org/program/succession-in-russia/

In the vernacular, anybody who questions Seymour Hersh.

Just you watch, Seymour Hersh is going to do an expose on why it's obvious that it was really Elvis that banned Seminole...

Cor blimey. You've just said something I completely agree with.

You seem to believe that levers can't work in two directions at once. Oh well.

You are right in one respect. It's not 'whataboutism' since you are addressing a point about it that I did not make. Any thoughts on the likely operational effects of the dam burst?