Billy Ringo

And that former Bulgarian prime minister needs to get a job in Brussels. The EU needs to both reward, and be informed by, people willing to make hard calls. If only Scholz had a tenth of the spine...

Wow, despite 70 percent of the country polled as worried and wishing to not supply Ukraine, the Bulgarian government in power in the early part of the war provided essential aid to Ukraine and was voted out of power partly due to that. Note, despite their fall, Bulgaria's parliament voted to allow exports of military aid to Ukraine. I'm not bashing anyone, but I'm just pointing out that they placed Ukraine ahead of domestic concerns.
Of course U.S and British money is a powerful factor, but note that Russian money exists too and was not enough to keep Bulgaria from supplying Ukraine luckily.
Reprisals from Russia:
 

I think no one has posted this. Article about nuclear weapons from POV of not ensuring Ukraine wins. Russia is using nuclear threat as a shield to strike Ukraine with relative impunity and forcing the fight to only occur in the bounds of invaded territory. So victory of any sort will validate strategy of bully nation using nuclear not as deterrence from attack but as shield from intervention.
 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/russias-invasion-ukraine-war-nuclear-weapon-nato/672727/
 

Bundeswehr cannot afford because? I wonder how Poland could have afford to send hundreds and hundreds of tanks and invest in hundreds and hundreds of new ones.

New twitter post from the U.S. House Republican's Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman:
 

Wow took a day off and missed all this.  Well this is basically the question we have been mulling since about 26 Feb last year.  To try and summarize my conclusions to date:
Russia has already “lost”, and Ukraine has already “won”.  This was largely decided last March-Apr, all the churn, suffering and sacrifice since has been negotiating the end-sates of those two conditions.  Without a major strategic shift the war could end right now and Russia would still be looking at a defeat and a Ukraine a victory.  Defeat and victory are not binary conditions. The definition of what those two conditions for all parties is largely what this has all been about. Russia has failed to achieve its political and strategic goals, in fact in many ways they have made things much worse. Ukraine has survived as a sovereign independent nation, now with the full attention and support of the western world (even as weird as it is to keep buying Russian gas…seriously, agree with you on that one, c’mon Europe who signed off on this?).  The west has demonstrated unity and resolve to actually stop bickering and unify in defence of the global order it created.  And that is as of today 14 Jan 23.
We often muddle political and military victory/defeat…you kind of did it with the original question.  The two concepts are interlinked but not intrinsically.  One can have military defeat but political victory (losing well), and vice versa.  The trick is understanding there alignment and interactions.  Russia has gotten its *** handed to it for about 11 months now, but if Putin can somehow hold onto some blasted land and survive…well in the low bar the Russians have set, that could be a political victory.  Ukraine, and the west by extension, by not retaking that lost ground, despite a string of military victory could be staring a level political defeat in the face.  But these do not change the actual outcomes of the war.  The realities of the end-state are coloured by these issues but not determined.
Ok, so what?  As I said many times before (and the guys must be sick of it by now): all war is certainty, communication, negotiation, and sacrifice.  Those are the four essential components that define its progress and outcomes.  So “how does Ukraine win this war”.  Well it negotiates with the concept of victory, while Russia negotiates with the concept of defeat.  This will mean altering their certainties; however, to what extent?  These components interact continually.  What was an acceptable negotiated certainty last Nov will be unacceptable in Jan because one side has invested sacrifice.  The violence we see is all communication and both sides are more than capable of continuing this, although Russian communication is straining.
But you asked “how”, which is jumping over a lot of the real questions of “why” and “what”.  I am not sure if that is because you think you already know the why and what, if so then you have also already kind of boxed in “how”.  Regardless, the “how to win…enough” for Ukraine is to continue to develop and exploit what looks like some new version of attritional warfare that has been dubbed “corrosive warfare”.  It essentially is rapid, precise attrition along the entire length of an opponents operational system in order to encourage it to collapse under its own weight.  We have seen this phenomenon three times now at the operational level.  A lot of unknowns going forward, such as, can the RA be eroded to the point that a good hard conventional manoeuvre approach work?  Has the RA dug in and devolved its operational system to the point it is becoming rust-proof.  All unknown at this point.
What we do know is that neither Ukraine or Russia are done yet. The UA still has offensive initiative, while the RA culminated last summer - this tactical noise over the winter is costly and useless leg humping in military terms.  Now where the needle lands in the next 6 months will be key,  At some point Ukraine may simply run out of gas.  Or, more likely, the entire RA may collapse - it is in pretty bad shape.  
The simple answer to your question is “to keep doing what it has been doing and incrementally chewing the RA to bits via corrosive warfare while regaining lost territory”.  But this only describes the military “how” while skipping a lot of the important bits. Russia, for example, needs a hard fall but soft landing.  It is not a Ukrainian nor western win if the state of Russia collapses entirely, quite the opposite.  You seem to think this is impossible, and I heartily hope so.  A collapsed Russia is very bad news.  Now Putin and his gang, they must go. There is no real way for anyone to win if he stays in power.  I mean he and his cronies will win but everyone else, including Russia will lose, which is kind of what this war is really about at this point.  A Western win is demonstrating the western global order still works; reconstruction and integration of Ukraine into our sphere, and a punished Russia back in line and on the road to renormalization…very tall order, we will likely have to live with less.
How do we avoid WW3? Well escalation control is important but Russia has never demonstrated an inclination to be a suicide state.  If this was North Korea, I would be very worried.  But Russia is still a rational - albeit relatively rational, actor at this point.  There are lines we need to worry about but frankly if Putin had the backing for tactical WMDs he would have used them by now.  Russia is clearly aware of and deterred by western response in these areas.  Within Russia this whole thing has taken on the look of flailing regime survival, and an order to start launching nukes is more likely to get Putin tossed out a window…who are we kidding “a sudden and tragic stroke”, than anything else.
Anyway, hope this helps with your question, you may want to revisit the answers to other ones that got you to it.  Finally, this is not a Reddit thread and you will never win an argument here and feel better about it.  The only way to “win” any debate in this thing is for events on the ground to unfold in support of your position.  We can - and have - yell at each other all day and fill pages of back and forth but the actual deciding factor has to unfold.  If say you position is “they cannot, the conflict will be frozen into a forever war bounded by nuclear deterrence”, ok we can go back and forth on that but until it actually happens on the ground no one is right or wrong.  We can have bad assumptions, poor logic and all sorts of stuff but it really doesn’t matter until the facts on the ground support them.  People thought we were nuts back in Feb-Mar pointing out that Russia was losing - and then it happened.  We were off mainstream when we said Donbas round 1 would go nowhere.  HIMARs were a game changer.  The Fall offensive would see Kherson fall through corrosive warfare - Kharkiv was a shock to me.  And now here we are winter 23, all sorts of futures floating out there…we will see.
 

Well thank you so much for tolerating us.
In fact, you ask 'simple' questions but don't really seem to give a rats about listening to answers or accepting feedback.  Every response is just to give yourself a springboard to post yet another wall of text, making very bold but highly debatable assertions.
...Plus, at last count, you've managed to ad hom about a dozen of us here already.
So let me ad hom you right back, you're coming across right now as a superbly intelligent, well read 18 year old. One of many who have graced this fine Forum over the years. (I have a 16 year old at home here).
...And while I think it's fine you are stirring the pot and challenging us, I predict a rage quit soon when we crusty groupthinkers fail to bow down before your high energy debating style.
TL:DR you are really going to need to give and take a little here, or this will get tiresome.
But of course, as Steve properly reminds me, it's his living room, he sets the rules for decorum. My views are my own alone.

Hey Khalerick, welcome to the thread, and it's always good to have a team B / devil's advocate view here.... I and others have played that role on occasion over the last 2000 pages.
But you have now left us about a dozen wordy posts over the last 2 pages in which you have laid out some *extremely* confident statements as to facts, only some of which may in fact be true.   A bit of a Gish Gallop debating strategy.
....And now you seem to be saying 'take it or leave it' on your thesis.  
I'm not tone policing -- we have some *very* cranky regular posters here, some of them in the emerging Western democracy that is fighting for its life. But nobody is going to make it their business to parse and debate each one of your assertions. Especially if your response to being challenged is simply to double down and say 'I thought I made myself clear.'
And then seem to suggest that the people posting on this thread are more preoccupied with confirmation bias via Tweet or giggling over war porn than understanding the ramifications of the struggle.
Because if that's really your impression of this community, you might want to take your opinions elsewhere.

I hear you.  To be clear,  I'm not seeking a Great Leader, with all its attendant slippery dangers, just someone with enough moral fortitude to take a stand and lead (not Capital L Lead) the EU wide conversation. Van Der Leyem is good and all but nothing happens without France, Germany and (now sometimes) UK. A figurehead like Leyen is useful but limited. 
That 50% against is not monolithic, polls are like sand dunes -  ever shifting,  rising,  fading. 
Sure Germans want a quieter, a less Out In Front leader, fine. But it's short term thinking, as public opinion usually is. Scholz should look past that,  with a vision that he unfortunately does not have. He's a man dominated by his place in the polls,  not in history. All he sees is the next vote,  not the next decade. He is absolutely not the man for the hour; he's just a plastic bag in wind, flapping around and making noise, blown in directions that he's incapable of controlling. His position has great potential power,  but he's a Lada engine hiding inside a BMW. 
His lack of PUSH is just maddening. Can you imagine what would have happened by now if he was as convicted as Biden, or as energetic as Johnson? .Johnson delighted in getting his grubby little hands on some historical relevance but still -  he led. Macron,  well -  Macron has yet to find a Photo Op Looking Presidential that he doesn't like. But still,  he's leading and pushing public opinion in a certain direction. Biden has limits but he is 101% clear on his moral duty to FU Putin's invasion.
My argument is that Scholz has that moral duty too,  because he's a leader on the damn continent where the invasion is actually happening. 
Now,  let's see you mix and match that many metaphors in one post! 

But this, I think, is frankly what gets under everyones skin about Scholz. 
It's his slavish obsequsiouness to party politics and his avoidance of what many  expect of the leader of the largest country in EU -  moral leadership. 
I mean,  it's bloody ridiculous - Here is a tailor-made historical opportunity, a once in a generation chance to take the moral lead against an enemy that is an insanely similar mirror to Germany's terrible past, to finally put to bed the idea of continuing German guilt,  to bloody LEAD THE CONTINENT on a deeply righteous project and -  wtf is he doing? Fretting about voting margins? Dribbling Gepards to the Ukrainians?
Doesn't Scholz get it?  He could be the Greatest German of his Generation, outshine Merkel and put her Russian complacency to shame. And who did we get instead -  Boris Bloody Johnson?  Boris Johnson put the German Chancellor to shame? A Clown showed up the leader of Germany?! 
Sure,  polls etc show certain,  whatever.  Polls change and can be changed. . You can lead your nation with conviction and the polls will follow. You take a moral stand,  stating clear and unequivocal democratic principles and people will vote for you even though they don't like much else about you. 
But, GOD he's such a waste of space.Yet another bland, grey, moral rubberband of a politicker such that he cannot see the chance that is being provided him -  or worse, he sees it but balks out of fear, his own inadequacy or sheer spineless careerism. 
There is a gaping, Chancellor shaped hole in the middle of European leadership and this fool will never fill it. He doesn't have the wit, ethical gumption or intellectual depth to lead anything more than a domestic political party. 
I guess leading Europe is just beyond his ability. 
Such a depressing twat. 

FT article linked but I'll post the tweets.
 
If China really did not know of the full invasion, or even did know beforehand, the signal of running from Russia is a indication of good news for Ukraine and very bad news for Russia.

A useful primer on what's coming up in Russian politics. I'm somewhat less inclined than most to see a future dominated by Prigozhin and his ilk. 
https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88753

I've said this since the first week of this war, and it's still true:
Kill Putin's ego, end the war.
There is virtually no other valid reason to continue this war, except Putin's ego and self-serving desires.

It must be obvious to any sane person that when somebody takes a weapon and goes to another man's house to kill him to take that house for himself - that that somebody cannot be a "decent person" by any definition.
No amount of propaganda can change this fact.
Only if the person himself thinks that somehow killing and stealing is above "decent". Propaganda may only add fuel to that world view.
And even then the fact is - there's simply no possible excuse for russian soldiers being here - therefore it's absolutely normal that they all must die since they don't want to stop killing Ukrainians.

Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko—formerly the foreign affairs minister, head of Ukraine's mission to NATO and the ambassador to Canada—told Newsweek in an interview at Ukraine's Embassy in London that ...
"We've been in the war for almost a year now," Prystaiko said. "We're losing people left and right. We're not advertising how many of those lost are military or civilians, but you can imagine that numbers are huge, indigestible. And the cities, some of them are totally destroyed."
"The West now has a unique chance," Prystaiko said. "There are not many nations in the world who would allow themselves to sacrifice so many lives, territories and decades of development for the purpose of defeating the archenemy."
He continued: "I understand the problem of Russia's nuclear arsenal, that in the end they can push the button and destroy the whole planet. I even understand what Elon Musk is saying and worrying about. But that's what we face now or later. They're not becoming better"
"This is what I mean: All hands on deck, every single thing we can spare to help Ukraine win," he said.
- Newsweek (Jan 7, 2023) 

That is not a strategy, it is wishing. The best definition of a strategy I have heard is “a theory of success”.  What you have there is an envisioned end-state, and not a very good one.  This war could end right now and in the long term it will cost more than Russia has gained.  Russia will be a pariah for years and living under sanctions for a generation.  It’s economy is going nowhere but down and towards out.  Russia invaded one of its best customers and alienated the rest of Europe.  What was the plan for that?  How is this going to make Putin’s position more secure with the elites?  Will the cling to the captain that ran the ship aground?
A good strategy cannot solve for part of the problem, it must solve for the whole thing.  A strategy provides a framework in which effort aligns with outcomes.  It provides a vision and a certainty to marshal collective will.  It solves the problems it creates before they happen.  It aligns position and power, Ends, Ways and Means, narrative and demonstration.  A strategy defines and delineates.  And finally a strategy is a sentient thing, it is self aware and adapts while still retaining its identity.
I mean if someone has some inside knowledge here please speak up.  Best I have heard was this entire war was aimed at avoiding a looming Russian identity crisis.  It is of course creating one. Beyond that I cannot see the game here, to the point I am convinced that those in power in Russia cannot either.  The failure of the initial plan is generating its own strategy - keep throwing things at the problem and hope.  And make sure that when the music stops it is somebody else’s fault.

Is Fundation that popular nowadays? I don't thnik so, it's one the books that is formally canonicall to every scifi fan but seem to be less read than people claim. Anyway, Asimov actually used real sub-humanistic scholarschip genre name to create his own McGuffin:
https://psychohistory.com/
This way of writing history spectacularly failed already at 70-80's, either. Due to inherent dynamism of human world. So not every McGuffin is worth another McGuffin
There is fundamental material and psychological difference between countries waging wars on their own turf, and those who send expeditionary forces oversees, that's why I don't think comparisions to US in WWII are valid in any way for current conflict (even Civil War would actually serve us better here) nor afterwards- 1950's generation profited immensly from fantastic position US industry obtained after the war, which Ukraine will not have. UK example is more interesting, they were bombed by enemy airforce after all, but again- Wehrmacht boots never touched British soil, except Channel Islands. And they had entire might of British Commonwealth working for them, which is luxury very few states in era of Total Industrial warfare had.  Germany, Italy and USSR serve much better examples when comes to destruction, but every one is much different -they were totalitarian attackers and Empires, even fascist Italy- which Ukraine is neither.
But generally thinking about war in Atlantic world is different than in continental Europe, especially East of Odra river. War is considered absolute destruction, madness of absurd proportions taking crushing toll on material being and on broken societal relations here, not Machiavellic tool of politics, something that one can choose and end just like that. It's end of the world for entire generation (we had Lost Generation, like many neighours, not Greatest one), so even victorious conflict has extremelly bitter taste. Just look at the ruins and changed landscape. It's not even Polish thing, ask Balts, Czechs, Hungarians, Ukrainians or anybody else from the region and they will collectivelly have roughly similar image. Let's hope this one indeed will be perceived differently.

Absolutely.  All war is sacrifice.  I use that term deliberately and it does not mean to simply be willing to "give something up".  Sacrifice actually means "to make holy" or "sacred".  This is a point Clausewitz completely missed.  War is extremely personal as we literally sacrifice people for something bigger.  The real question is just how much we believe in that "bigger" thing.  This is more than "cost", it is the fundamental changes that happen at both macro and micro cultural levels as a result of any war.
Ukraine is sacrificing - making holy costs - in defence of their ability to be free to chose their own future.  Russia is sacrificing - making unholy costs - in defence of some false vision/narrative being sold to them by a kleptocrate and his cronies to stay in power. Sacrifice negotiates with Certainty, now whose certainty is more righteous?
No society can withstand endless sacrifice without breaking.  However, when I see Ukrainian boys holding wooden rifles better than a lot of western soldiers, I can only see a society that has a pretty deep cultural zeitgeist right now - killing Russians.  The Ukraine that went into this war, will not be the one that comes out.  Russia and Putin have likely created a regional power pole in all this that will change the face of Eastern Europe, just to add to the bafflingly bad strategic outcomes they constructed in all this.   
However, after all that we are back to "when does it end?"  Well I think that is directly tied to the point when the Sacrifice gets close enough to the Certainty.  Kherson was painful.  There will be other operations that are just as painful.  Hell we may see a Ukrainian defeat before this is all over.  But to my mind, the average Russian's ability to "change the channel" is waning everyday - e.g. a lot of the middle-class Russian's left.  And the Russian Sacrifice-to-Certainty equation is very different then Ukraine's - time is not on Russia's side. 
This war will end when Ukraine and the West have won enough, and Russia has lost enough.  A lot of people post that "this war will end when Putin decides", or "it will end when Ukraine decides" - this is incorrect.  A war is a living breathing entity, it carries its own weight and influence.  History is filled with wars that should have stopped but didn't.  Or ones where the job was not finished but stopped anyway.  Wars have stopped on executive decision.  They have stopped on broader public decision.  They have also stopped because of weather events and eclipses.
In the end this war will end when it makes sense to end it. The "making sense" part is the hardest thing to determine as it is filled with relative rationality, emotion, power, culture, relationships and human failings/strengths.

Until victory, until peace returns to Europe, our support for Ukraine will not waver. I confirmed it to President Zelensky: France will provide light combat tanks and continue its support in terms of air defence.

What does the general population of Crimea want?  Do they want to be governed by Russia? Ukraine?  Independent on their own? 
I'm not suggesting they just take a vote and let that stand, but---if Ukraine were to push into Crimea would the local population support or reject those advances?  That would seem to be a major factor with regards to Ukraine's abiity to take over Crimea.

What does the general population of Crimea want?  Do they want to be governed by Russia? Ukraine?  Independent on their own? 
I'm not suggesting they just take a vote and let that stand, but---if Ukraine were to push into Crimea would the local population support or reject those advances?  That would seem to be a major factor with regards to Ukraine's abiity to take over Crimea.

What does the general population of Crimea want?  Do they want to be governed by Russia? Ukraine?  Independent on their own? 
I'm not suggesting they just take a vote and let that stand, but---if Ukraine were to push into Crimea would the local population support or reject those advances?  That would seem to be a major factor with regards to Ukraine's abiity to take over Crimea.

This “where are the Leo2’s/M1s!!” is like a chronic cognitive yeast infection on this thread.  Does anyone actually still believe that 200 of either of these platforms would sweep the Russians from the field?
If one could get past the integration bill (training, organization and logistics), which is a pretty big hurdle in the middle of a shooting war - “what about the M777 and Pz 2000!?” well integration of a few dozen arty sub-units is one thing, and even with these we know there have been challenges.  Integration of a Bdes worth of armour which has to fight in close cooperation with a Ukrainian military organized very differently than the German or US Army is something else entirely.
But for arguments sake let’s bypass those issues and say in 6-12 months the UA can fully integrate these systems into their current battle order…ok, so what?  Last I checked both the Leo2 and M1 still run on the ground and are vulnerable to mines, which we know the Russians are planting everywhere.  They are big, fat, hot concentrations of steel that even the RA ISR will be able to find quickly.  The RA still has ATGMs last I checked, and a lot of them. And last I heard all western tanks run on gas…a lot of gas, and need ammo and spare parts.  So their logistics system will also be a big target.  In fact a lot of what we have heard and seen on tanks in this war makes little sense in terms of doctrine - “indirect fire role 10kms from the FEBA”, how are western tanks going fundamentally change this?
I get the sense that some still believe that 200 Leo 2’s or [insert my favourite tank from CM] would end this war by next Tues. Well that position is not supported by the evidence we have seen in how this war is being fought.  In fact the cost of a few hundred western tanks could be more than they return on investment at this point.  To wit The_Capt’s prescription for western support:
- give them all the C4ISR 
- give them stuff they can use, right now.
- prioritize supporting the big three - infantry and infantry support, unmanned systems (both offensive and defensive/counters), and precision fires.
- prioritize logistics.
- and once you have got all that, then send in limited complete tactical capability packages that the UA can operationalize.  So we are talking a western tactical system, top to bottom, that the UA can make best use of in how they are waging this war.  One that does not force them to have to shift entirely to a western based doctrinal approach that we have zero evidence would even work.
People want this to be a nice and neat western conventional war, over in a week or two…it is not, that ship has sailed. In fact the few western near-peer conventional wars we have had are terrible parallels to try and draw from for this war.  This is the real deal - brutal, grinding and drawn out.  This does not mean “frozen”, it means attrition is back in play - it is foundational in corrosive warfare. Fast, loose and easy manoeuvre warfare is sitting on the sidelines with a broken nose.  We all need to get used to that idea.
All war is certainty (a vision of how we want the outcome to be…we cannot lose this), communication (it goes slow…then fast), negotiation (what does victory look like?  What does defeat look like?), and sacrifice (what are we willing to pay?).

I'm back. Week ago Kyiv and Kyiv oblast were under heavy attack of Shakheds. More than 30 in one launch. Alas at least five could breakthrough and hit several important substations in Kyiv, so our quarter for three days had only five hours with a power supply,mostly at the night. First day we also hadn't a water and heating. Latter was repaired on second day after the strike and this was in time,because we had -5 at that night. 
In other days electricity appeared some more, but anyway mostly at the nights or at the morning for 2-3 hours. So, we had opportunity to cook something and charge our phones. Several times we heated food in large can with dry spiritus and kept it in heating bateries. We were very angry, when have seen other districts around us with a light at the evening, but our several quarters were almost in full darkness.
Special thanks to Kinophile and other for notebook - it has powerful battery, so it's using as powerbank too ) 
Without electricity all cell towers around were either dead or had  so big abonents load, that internet almost didn't work. Sometime I cought Starlink, deployed by Emergency Service, but it was too far and connection was unstable - about 1-2 minutes. Single place,where I can catch cell phone internet was subway and streets, having power supply. But I had too much work out of my workshop, so almost hadn't time to track   news thoroughly.
At last at weekend, maybe in honor of Christmass our quarter got almost 24hours power 
Damn, I have to read a week of forum )

Fox did not even show Zelensky's speech, but TC unloaded on him as the speech was wrapping up.   Somebody at Fox has an agenda and it's not just Carlson--and it makes no sense to me whatsoever.    I found myself watching the coverage on CNN and then CNBC's Rachel Maddow and actually agreeing with her---like I was in some alternative universe. 
 
The Cat from Hue is a phenomenal read regarding the news media reporting on war and how their personal views can both change and impact public opinion.  Cronkite included.