billbindc

Captain, stop this avalanche of clear thinking and common sense,. You're running me clear out of likes.

The truth is that whatever the Russian doctrine governing nuclear use may happen to be, under stress the decision makers will do whatever they feel they need to given the political and military conditions. That said, Russia is *very* unlikely to use nuclear weapons to escape a military jam because the negatives of use far outweigh the positives and a truly existential military crisis is incompatible with reality. The danger is political. Putin was quite careful, as ISW notes, to fence the nuclear language off in his speech. That's almost certainly to keep his options open, to not be committed to a potentially fatal course of action and to reassure Modi, Xi and his own boyars. He was also careful to deploy the threat in an attempt to overawe the West and Ukraine with his will to escalate. All of those are to varying degrees political decisions. What's worrying is what happens if the ruling clique's political situation deteriorates to the point that a military loss would precipitate their (Iikely fatal) political downfall. Desperate people do desperate things and such a situation in Russia...a dictator with nuclear weapons, a conspiratorial mindset and few institutional controls losing power...is new. We simply don't know how that turns out.

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There's likely some signaling going on to both the West and to Turkey. My constant refrain is that Putin is unreasonable but not irrational. It is evident that he *really* didn't want to do mobilization. He knows that the US and NATO can see that the nuclear threats are about defending Festung NovoRossiya, not a sign in any way that Russia has the initiative. So...while he's waving that stick he's making it clear that he can be negotiated with. The RuNats might not like it but they got the mobilization they demanded. They can wear this.

Yep…as some swole Brit said back in the day “we are not at the beginning of the end but at the end of the beginning”. We have entered the phase where the aggressor is likely to try once more to regain control of the initiative…at least politically (I don’t think military is possible now). It’s unlikely to work and we then have to manage the direct military endgame. And *then* we have to figure out how to form some kind of sturdy peace. Those of you saying “How *dare* you consider alternatives to total victory” need to get over yourselves. There are a myriad of ways this war could still go badly for Ukraine and there are alternatives to getting everything you would like to have. You may wish to refer to the pithy phrase about perfect and good. I’ve already used up my cliche quota.

That was in this Congressional term. The next, with a House run by folks bitterly opposed to the President, will be different. Do *not* assume smooth sailing. There are rumblings already.

Support for Ukraine from the US goes through the legislature and there are already rumblings among the folks likely to win the House in November that aid to Ukraine is excessive (read: "making the opposition look good"). That support is actually fairly popular in general in the US but that may not matter for at least some period of time. 6 months is a lifetime in American politics. We should take nothing for granted.

The Captain is making the cost benefit analysis that you can be sure is also being made not just in London, Paris and New York but also in Kyiv. Should the war continue to go in Ukraine's favor and should it take back everything to the 2014 line, it's going to have a choice. The choice will be either to continue a much harder war for terrain it may decide it doesn't need or an immediate settlement within NATO and the EU. If that choice takes the potential for nuclear weapons off the table, all the better. That is very much *not* status quo ante. That's a Ukrainian victory of great import...if not a total one. And it's not one Zelensky will ever articulate until the day the Russians sign the document.

I hereby confer collective blame on all Elvii (sp?).

Summer of 1917 would like a word...

-5 for relevance +1,000,000 for musical taste

This is the most sensible reading of what we just heard from Moscow. Still not a general mobilization, a change in DNR/LNR status to signal a willingness to use nuclear weapons to hold them, a warning that strikes at ISR are possible. Russia is continuing the strategy it really began after the Kyiv pullback. Festung NovoRossiya will be attempted in Southern Ukraine with the hope that the West gets tired before he does.

"Mongols" are not a race either.

An interesting look at Russian reactions on Telegram: https://meduza.io/en/brief/2022/09/21/the-real-russia-today

We have yet to see the Ukrainians behaving that way so far and a Ukraine that wants to be in the EU and maybe NATO can't get away with much of that without blowing their chance. Grabbing the odd dacha or taking petty revenge is not worth it relative to that. The incentives have changed.

I won't engage anymore in the conversation as it was a couple of pages ago but this is actually a difficult and interesting question. Some points: 1. Donetsk and Luhansk populations have already dropped and will spike downward in any sovereignty change. 2. Minsk Agreements are a dead letter. 3. Ukrainian politics in every other oblast will have a powerfully anti-Russian unity for a long time to come. 4. Oligarch influence is diminished (look at Kholomoisky). 5. Speaking Russian and a fierce Ukrainian identity is now a routine thing. Should Ukraine take back those oblasts, you are going to see a significant voluntary return to Russia of the fiercest NovoRossiya elements and a very different Ukrainian political culture than those that remain knew before the war. You will also likely see a tidal wave of investment that was completely absent in the years Russia ran it. It won't necessarily be easy but there are lots of reasons to see why it could successfully be reintegrated into the state.

No idea. But something happened because that looked ridiculous today. And Simonyan clearly expected it to happen and she's briefed on what to expect.

Almost certainly immediate annexation of DNR/LNR and some sort of mobilization. But obviously lots of room for detail in there. I don't buy the idea that they were launching a trial balloon today. Something happened to throw them off. Maybe the US sent a message that gave them pause. The EU has already announced additional sanctions to follow any annexation.

If you think that the speech was delayed from 80% of the population for the other 20%, then boy do I have a war in Ukraine so sell you.

Putin's speech being delayed "To be shown bright and early in Russia's Far East". It is now just shy of 8am in the Russian Far East. This looks like some sort of failure of political mobilization at least in the short run. A faltering political mobilization plus a faltering economy is precisely how to get a faltering 1917 situation.

Yes. An under rated aspect of this entire conflict is that the US has to keep a broad coalition together with often quite different views of the war...especially in terms of escalation and where that intersects with material support. The easiest way to manage it is to use each Russian escalation as an opportunity to broaden and heighten engagement. This event will continue that trend. But...now Putin is practically two hours late for his pre-recorded speech. Hmmm...

Yes. An under rated aspect of this entire conflict is that the US has to keep a broad coalition together with often quite different views of the war...especially in terms of escalation and where that intersects with material support. The easiest way to manage it is to use each Russian escalation as an opportunity to broaden and heighten engagement. This event will continue that trend.

My reaction to Russian mobilization: “For the sake of the nation’s life, it was necessary to restore the army’s will to die.” Alexander Kerensky on the June Offensive

I don't think this comports with history in a real way, nor is it a useful or moral way to look at the struggle in which we are engaged. A general note from Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."

But gingerly...oh so gingerly. It's easy to get caught up in detail and miss fairly obvious things like this: the Russian state, in a war with existential consequences to those who rule it, is having to back into with enormous care just a partial mobilization. Putin isn't acting like Lenin...he's acting like a Kerensky who's seen this movie before.