billbindc

It's useful to compare the behavior we've seen from Putin in the recent past to his treatment of the mobilization issue. On Ukraine, assassinations in the West, radical interference into other nations politics he's been aggressive, risk taking and remorseless. On gutting Russian civil society and putting the oligarchs in their place he's behaved similarly. But on mobilization, he's essentially been dragged into each phase by events. And when he's done it, it was first covertly then one 'claimed' mobilization and then covertly again. Clearly, this issue is different and I think the reasons are obvious. Economically, he cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. Nabiullina is probably the most capable person in the Russian government and she's become notably brooch-less. I am convinced that his Finance Minister is telling him that Russia simply won't be able to fight the war if he strips too many working age men out of the economy. Wagner, Gazprom, convicts, etc all look like Putin's attempts to solve that chicken and egg problem she's presented to him. In addition, mobilization has obvious political implications. Putin knows Russian history. He knows that if he really goes for hard mobilization in the core areas of metropolitan Russian ethnicity and then doesn't win handily the spectre of 1917 will be lurking below the surface of Russian politics. I think it terrifies him.

Phew...I'm off the hook.

Just had a flashback to the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railwaymen and their absolutely crucial role in the events of 1917. An incredibly risky move.

This is getting super interesting. The Russian state is issuing approval for more private armies. Governments that are dependent on force to the degree that Russia is are normally *quite* reluctant to give up a monopoly on force. The only way that I can see this is that state need is far greater than state capacity and Putin is allowing this out of necessity.

Fellow resident here and that's all spot on. And that's just a taste of how many police departments exist in the city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies_in_the_District_of_Columbia

If we ever are able to confirm it, my bet's on fabrication or at best an amalgamation. There are too many things that are conveniently topical and/or suggest a wider experience than one man could have. Maybe it turns out to be true. If so, that would make it pretty unique.

Have to say...the biggest indication to me that this is not on the up and up is the 70 year old guy doing isolated recon in Eastern Ukraine hearing for the first time of the balloon who suddenly has more knowledge of Chinese balloon capabilities and a likely reaction to an overflight than almost any professional natsec expert I know would have had 10 days ago. Strains credibility and looks exactly like post facto commentary.

If I made a list of folks to pay attention to on this topic it would include: Masha Gessen Julia Ioffe Andrei Soldatov/Irina Borogan Mark Galleoti John Sipher

The strangest thing about the "who can know what Putin thinks?" trope is that he quite clearly states what his intentions are. Russia's not a riddle, wrapped in an enigma these days...it's a short guy in the Kremlin making clear statements about what he wants the world to be for anyone who's willing to listen without preconceptions. Under the previous three administrations, Putin got used to the maneuvering room that gave him. This time, not so much.

My personal take is that the offensive at least in shaping terms began about two weeks ago.

I’m curious what your record is of calling events before they happened in this war is…because you are spouting off at folks that have professional interest and experience in the subject who quite accurately do that exact thing.

Who you gonna believe...Khalerick, or the guy who launched the invasion and then overtly stated what it was intended to do? https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-admits-ukraine-invasion-is-an-imperial-war-to-return-russian-land/

This has got to be a bit.

If you think that the West needs to be on war footing for Ukraine to beat Russia in this war then again, you simply don't understand the fundamental facts of the situation. Ditto on the idea that the Western government's are just "arguing about tanks to send". I don't mean that to be insulting. I'm telling you bluntly that your arguments sound naive and superficial.

Here is where...amongst the flummery...we get to brass tacks. You are reducing the war in terms of resources to Russian industrial capacity vs Ukrainian industrial capacity. Any realistic assessment should be comparing Russian abilities to Ukraine's plus that of the nations who are providing support. In that case, the scales are heavily weighted in Ukraine's favor. As to manpower, there too you make some fundamental mistakes. First, gross numbers are a bad measure. Russia labors under highly inefficient logistical systems that eat up manpower. It's troops are in relative terms very badly equipped with less accurate systems, less advanced targeting at a lessor distance, poorly supplied, etc. History is replete with larger armies losing to smaller ones. Russia in 1917 springs to mind for some reason. Second, the manpower pool a country possesses isn't remotely the same thing as what it can actually bring to a fight. Russia is an older country. That industrial capacity you overestimate needs workers. There are political constraints to limit who can be conscripted without destabilizing the state. How many you can minimally feed, arm and actually deliver in some sort of fighting condition factors in. And every single one of these conditions has been observed so far in the war on the Russia side. Fundamentals.

It's pretty important to note...as commentators with a lot of experience in Russia always remind us...is that there is a virtually bottomless well of cynicism in modern Russian culture. Will Russians say that Crimea is an unbreakable part of the Russia soul? Sure...when they think somebody is listening. What most of them really think is that this is way above their heads, that they can't control it and that they aren't going to be like those fools who got arrested protesting it.

So here's the thing...if you were generating forces in order to create the offensive blow or series of offensive blows in order to win the war then perhaps you might do the following: hold the enemy at easily defensible points let him use up ammunition/materiel/men for few gains provide him with incentives to concentrate manpower easily visible to your ISR and deliverable HIMARS/arty use as few of your forces as possible as you organized other units for later offensives I have no doubt Russia means to launch an offensive...in fact, I think it's already begun. But Ukraine has done exactly as I've described at earlier points in the war. Why are we forgetting that or (as Girkin and others have point out) that Russia has yet to show any ability to handle an offensive of any note in more than one sector at a time? This isn't an enigma. We've actually seen several phases play out this way and those were in situations where Russia was actually better equipped than it is now while Ukraine was still scrambling for artillery shells. Put briefly, you should be wondering who is being dogwalked in this situation...the army that's splurging it's one advantage (manpower) for an objective that is marginal at best or the army that's doing the bare minimum at that point while it trains up and arms up maneuver assault brigades? For example: https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/02/03/ukraine-forms-assault-brigades-to-liberate-crimea-donbas-from-russian-occupation/

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.

"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.

It’s becoming clearer that a Russian offensive is coming.The UA is warning about it…with a literal timeline and Girkin is having a public meltdown about it. And Russia is selling down its yuan reserves in order to stay afloat while now even the regular RA is emptying the prisons for warm bodies. It simply reeks of 1917. PS: Part of me thinks that the offensive started 2 weeks ago and we sort of didn’t notice. Girkin’s critiques are quite specific.

His initial framing is bad. Ukraine doesn't need to *take* Crimea to send Russia into a likely final tailspin in this war. It can cut it off at Perekop and drop the Kerch bridge. Russia is then stuck in a Kherson-but-far-worse situation that is likely not sustainable and it would be impossible for Russia to claim Ukraine was "escalating" the war if it had to pull out of Crimea itself. He also seems to believe the very unlikely scenario that it's possible for Prigozhin to succeed Putin. That's a very unlikely scenario for reasons I've stated before in this thread. And he also ignores a fairly obvious point that it's going to take a hardliner to end the war. That's who will have the credibility to make it happen. Finally, I think the Capt and others have pointed out the "ARMOUR NOW!" problems before. That Gates jumps on that bandwagon is pretty much the Gates specialty...seeing what is popular and promoting it.

Gates is a guy with a long history and despite the fact that it was his specialty, he got Gorbachev and what was happening in Russia then about as wrong as it was possible to be. If he has a talent, it's at being a courtier and a highly skilled bureaucratic infighter a la Henry Kissinger. I'll pass. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-wars-robert-gates-got-wrong https://www.csmonitor.com/1991/1004/04041.html

There is no reality in which Xi agrees to meet with Blinken on Sunday/Monday and wants this to happen on Saturday. Somebody in the PLA's 3rd Department screwed up...either with intent or not...and severely embarrassed the leader of the country. One need go no farther to prove that than to note the Chinese apology and the rarity of such in the recent past. The kicker is that either way, it screams both ineptitude and aggression just as China's neighbors are deciding if it's safe to throw in completely with US containment strategy.

What's interesting about it is that it's not at all official...or at least not directly. It's just a call from some folks at what amounts to a lobbying shop but it has very serious ramifications to costs of trade for Russia. People often imagine soft power is KPop or Hollywood and it is...but it's also something as tangible as this.

An anecdote from the shipping insurance business I heard recently: There is a non-government group in DC that normally works on Iran sanctions. In that realm they've become quite good at noticing what goes on bulk shippers. Friends in the shipping insurance business have started getting calls from them saying "Hey...just a tip, that particular bulk ship has what may be sanctioned Russian cargo. You might want to think about whether or not it's a good idea to insure that boat." If you are shipping insurer, what do you do that information? Well, you can't afford to mess with sanctions so you immediately send a quit notice and pull the ship's insurance. That sends the carrier into the secondary or tertiary...or god forbid...the Iranian/Russian insurance combine that's trying to get set up to secure insurance and if you don't, not port of any consequence will let you dock, fuel or unload. That's a huge pain in the ***, causes big delays and is very expensive. Now imagine that happening up and down the line at every stage of trade for Russia. I can easily see chips becoming 4 times as expensive.