billbindc

Yes...and the character is named "Comrade Putin".

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/22/europe/russia-mobilization-logistics-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html It looks like one clear conclusion we can take from the mobilization is that Russia's army is in deep, deep trouble. As noted in the post up a page or so, mobiks are being simply dumped onto the battlefield. What few responsible seeming mobilization officers there are seem to be imploring their charges to bring virtually every bit of kit they can including body armor, socks, boots and sleeping bags. Training seems to be completely going by the wayside and some men are arriving in the field without any at all. Today, word from Kupiansk is of a virtual slaughter of newly arrived Russian soldiers, if at this stage it's fair to call them that. None of this indicates an army that is anything short of desperate. As in, holding on at Stalingrad desperate with no Bagration coming to reverse the course of events. A dangerous moment with a stark escalation choice now directly in front of Vladimir Putin.

"Simonyan exclaimed: “Let me remind you that in 1905, small things like these led to the first mutiny of an entire military unit in the history of our country. Is that what you want?” She starkly warned: “You’re toying with armed people.”" https://www.thedailybeast.com/putins-top-cheerleaders-panic-over-mobilization-mutiny It's quite a tell that Putin's main propagandists are seeing the widening gyre that we see saying it publicly.

My oft repeated statement this weekend wasn't 'worry about the mobilization'. It was 'worry about what happens when the mobilization fails'.

It would be closer to the mark to say that NATO is going *back* to being an anti-Russia alliance. "Keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down" as Ismay had it.

It should be also pointed out that there is quite a bit of information warfare happening already targeted at senior levels of the Russian military and political/intelligence elites. It just looks different now because it can be sent direct to a cellphone or email account and tailored individually. So it's happening, it's just not as obvious.

I suspect that Putin's latest round of meetings was him sounding out China and India on escalation (he has more options that just dropping a nuke) and getting pulled up very short by Xi and Modi. All while in the background the CTSO was falling apart. If I had to guess, the reaction from Modi was "What the f are you doing? Stop it!" and the PRC refused to agree to anything in support of escalation. Then they raced back to Xi and after Putin left the Minister of Foreign Affairs put out his statement of concern over the war.

What I would suggest is that it looks like China is trying to create some space for a climb down. They are being unusually forthright in telling him that nukes must be taken off the table publicly. Privately, they are also almost certainly laying out alternative scenarios where Xi will work to soften the conditions for Russia in a loss. China could probably also do quite a bit to safeguard Putin's life if things start to come truly unstuck. I do agree that Putin is recklessly escalatory but I don't think, thus far, that he's gone off the deep and...including at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The impression that he might have no limits on his craziness was precisely the point he was trying to make.

Per my earlier comments, here's Ireland going out of its way to force a public discussion on the idea of kicking Russia out of the UNSC. That's a *very* unusual sort of gesture from a country that's normally very cautious in foreign policy.

Here's the thing...Russia as part of an axis of the authoritarians is one thing. Russia without any friends at all is something else. It is deeply jarring to the Russians what's happening to them when the go to meet with Chinese officialdom now. The 'alliance without limits' conversation is now dominated by the PRC MoFA folks looking across the table frostily saying "You have to find a reasonable way to end this war soon". Putin may have had grandiose visions of a Russkiy Mir dancing in his head but even he knows Russia must have *some* allies. In other words, going nuclear doesn't solve anything and is just as likely to get him a bullet for breakfast than not.

This is profoundly wrong. The US was bluntly telling Russia what the repercussions of a Ukraine invasion would be from approximately August of 2021 right up until February 24. It was in part doing that through NATO. And NATO was rather feverishly preparing for that eventuality despite the reservations of several of the larger constituent nations. Did you really think the tidal wave of aid Ukraine began to receive within hours of the invasion was thrown on the truck that morning? Put another way, that you didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't happening and if it hadn't happened we wouldn't be talking about Ukrainian offensives until sometime next year if at all.

I think the prospect of being ejected from relations with even the likes of North Korea will be too much for Russian elites to stomach. Putin my decide to try it but my suspicion is that the systema won't go along.

It’s important to put Putin’s decision in a larger context than battlefield success or failure in Ukraine. In that larger context, he just had a *very* bad week. China’s MoFA head explicitly warned against escalation…and clearly was talking about Russia and nuclear weapons. India directly addressed that issue also, in a public setting, with Putin himself. The CSTO states have, while squabbling in ways that underscore Russia’s collapsing ability to coerce them, went further in separating themselves from Russian policy. Et cetera, et cetera. I have heard it described as the worst week in Russian diplomatic affairs that anyone can remember. Putin’s response to these events was, in effect, to tell China and India to go f themselves. That tells us a couple of important things. First, Putin sees at least the credible threat of using nuclear weapons as more important than relations with his closest ally and his largest arms customer. That tells us how profoundly weak his position is. Second, it is without doubt true that he knows and has been told that Russia will be a pariah state on par with North Korea if he pulls that particular trigger. And of course, this week North Korea went to the trouble pointedly disavowing any arms sales to Russia. The diplomatic and military costs of dropping a nuke are now very, very clear to Russia. The cost of using the threat is already priced in. My personal expectation would be that where we are now on the question of use/non-use is likely where we stay.

Exactly.

This is not accurate. NATO has lots of space to escalate conventionally, economically, etc without resorting immediately to nuclear weapons in Ukraine. An imposition of a no-fly zone would be just the beginning of it.

This last bit nails something you don't hear a lot about. Crimea in a post war scenario in which Ukraine comes out on top is more of an albatross to Russia than an asset. It will not have water, it will not have much of an economic use and it will be easily hit with ranged precision weaponry whenever Kyiv needs to...which obviates a large percentage of its military value. It will simply be another failing region in a largely failing state.

Perusing the multiple reports out of Russia since the announcement of mobilization and the clearest conclusion one can come to is that these people are going to get absolutely slaughtered on the modern battlefield.

Absolutely nobody.

Douglas MacGregor is a hack, an appeaser and an all around toerag. Print that article off and use it as toilet paper. It's about what it's worth. And with that, off to happy hour. Cheers.

China is already an outspoken no-first-use state. Will that apply in an invasion of Taiwan? We'll have to see. But clearly Xi is laying down a marker to the Russians. That's good...in that it is the right and responsible thing to do. That's also bad...because China clearly has open lines of communication with Putin and that has caused them to make their negative stance on use of nuclear weapons explicit.

Of interest:

I have to say, it's really striking to me how frantic the Russian mobilization looks. They *don't* have the capacity to process these men. They lack the materiel to properly cloth, shoe and arm them for the kind of war and winter they are about to face. In the field, they are going to be an enormous logistical strain that will not appreciably do much more than hold a sector that isn't in the way of a direct Ukrainian offensive. If they are trying to make a political statement of will to NATO, well NATO can see what I can see what I can see too. If they are making a domestic political statement, they aren't exactly shoring up public faith in the war. If they are merely trying to back fill units, why ignore actual training/abilities/requirements? I can only think, watching it that they are really, truly about to collapse on one or more fronts and must perforce just funnel in bodies and hope for the best. If anyone has a better answer, I'm curious.

Hackett's idea was I think Birmingham and Minsk?

I actually think the 300,000 is more of a smokescreen to confuse domestic opposition. It's already pretty bad, it's clear Putin didn't want to do it and the most expansive parts of the order have been tucked into classified codicils. Also, Putin's game at this point is to prolong the war to exhaust Ukraine and the West. To achieve that as quickly as possible, he would want Sholtz and Zelensky contemplating the Siberian hordes, not a mealy mouthed it might or might not be 300,000.

Girkin about as happy as you'd expect: