How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Aragorn2002]

46 minutes ago, dan/california said:

The proof that Biden new and believed is the Afghanistan exit. I have zero inside knowledge on this, but I am convinced knowing about Russias plans for Ukraine are why Biden got out of Afghanistan so abruptly. We just would not have been ale to respond the same way with the Taliban suddenly being flooded with Russian kit.

Wasn't leaving Afghanistan Trumps decision?

[dan/california]

17 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Wasn't leaving Afghanistan Trumps decision?

Trump signed something and drew down a lot of forces. Final withdrawal was under Biden. I suspect we would derail things for thirty pages trying to hash it out in more detail.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Seriously, there isn't a single person.  There are entire communities, military, intel, state. etc  Where I give Biden credit is

1. He's listening to his experts

2.He's following through and doing his portion of the job

3.He isn't grandstanding for points.  Just slow and steady and doing what smarter people are telling him we need to do.

The issues pointed out earlier about mistrust of intel is based on situations where our politicians wanted to do something and didn't want to listen to anything counter.  That's where you get into trouble trying to justify what you've already decided to do.

Yup, definitelly Biden benefits greatly from his life-long experiences at countering Soviet Union; this grand power play suits him better than Middle Eastern quagmires. It's actually curious as historians will judge his administration- there are lot of relatively young people there calling very serious geopolitical decisions. While this administration lacks charismatic personas like Kissinger or Brzezinski, atmosphere at Washiongton was undoubtedly extremely tense before and during the war. It will be fascinating topic to write on as time will go, comparable to Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam era tensions.

Another curious example is Boris Johnson- instead of (rightfull) walk of shame, it seems he will enjoy (also rightfully) walk of glory into history as ultimate benefactor of Ukrainians, people he barely knew or understand before. His name will probably be known there for generations to come, like Reagan in Poland.

Really Fortuna can turn her wheel in strange directions. Ancients knew it before us, ep. 1000+.

[poesel]

I hope that everybody who already knew that the invasion was happening bought gas & oil futures and is filthy rich right now. Missing such a sure opportunity would really be a bummer.

[Beleg85]

Ok, I sweared myself will not post any mems in this serious board, but this is simply too good to miss. Info-war is already lost by Kremlin, battered remnants of muscovite forces fled behind Ural mountains.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

46 minutes ago, poesel said:

I hope that everybody who already knew that the invasion was happening bought gas & oil futures and is filthy rich right now. Missing such a sure opportunity would really be a bummer.

Damn, I didn't think of doing that.  Crap.  Guess I have to keep making wargames to pay my bills.

Steve

[dan/california]

21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Damn, I didn't think of doing that.  Crap.  Guess I have to keep making wargames to pay my bills.

Steve

I was sure enough about the housing bust 2007-8 to talk my wife out of buying in Sacramento at the top of the market. But sadly not sure enough to short the banks like I meant it, still bummed. Although being right about the first part and not bankrupt is nice...

[Battlefront.com]

53 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Yup, definitelly Biden benefits greatly from his life-long experiences at countering Soviet Union; this grand power play suits him better than Middle Eastern quagmires. It's actually curious as historians will judge his administration- there are lot of relatively young people there calling very serious geopolitical decisions. While this administration lacks charismatic personas like Kissinger or Brzezinski, atmosphere at Washiongton was undoubtedly extremely tense before and during the war. It will be fascinating topic to write on as time will go, comparable to Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam era tensions.

Biden's leadership on the confrontation with Russia has been exceptional. In particular because it's so quiet about it.  I've got my laundry list of complaints about Biden's leadership on other important topics, but on this one I give him extremely high marks.  As a historian, his authorization of unwrapping intelligence before the war for public scrutiny is one of the most important decisions made by any President since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Do I credit Biden with coming up with the plan?  No, but that's not important.  What is important is that he listened to his experts, acted quickly and decisively upon their advice, and was consistent with the follow through.  The war in Ukraine would look very different without Biden's leadership.  I think Ukraine would ultimately win without such support, but it would be a much longer and much bloodier war for sure.

53 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Another curious example is Boris Johnson- instead of (rightfull) walk of shame, it seems he will enjoy (also rightfully) walk of glory into history as ultimate benefactor of Ukrainians, people he barely knew or understand before. His name will probably be known there for generations to come, like Reagan in Poland.

Entire books will be written about this.  The UK has been traditionally very weak about cracking down on Russian money because it benefited from it very directly.  They didn't call it "Londongrad" for nothing.  A lot of people didn't expect the swift reaction from the British government.  Almost as shocking as Germany agreeing to scrap Nordstream 2.

Steve

[Lethaface]

5 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

I think this is just you being German. Everyone in Eastern Europe knew Russian attack is just a matter of time. 2008, 2014, of course they were going to continue.

And not just them, this is Combat Mission: Black Sea forum section after all.

EDIT: especially with Russians spreading anti-nuclear propaganda and building Nord Stream 2. In hindsight, those are just further facets of their plan to subjugate Europe.

So why didn't you/everyone do sumfink about it, if you knew what was going to happen?

Anyway I don't like the generalizations too much and think uncalled for.

Personally I expected something to happen in the Donbass, not a full scale gloves off invasion. Even after 2008/2014 that wasn't the rational thing to expect, it was against the trend for Russia to do this which is in a large part why it wasn't expected by a large part of the world. 

[Calamine Waffles]

29 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Do I credit Biden with coming up with the plan?  No, but that's not important.  What is important is that he listened to his experts, acted quickly and decisively upon their advice, and was consistent with the follow through.  The war in Ukraine would look very different without Biden's leadership.  I think Ukraine would ultimately win without such support, but it would be a much longer and much bloodier war for sure.

The thing about Biden compared to both Trump and Obama, as Peter Zeihan puts it, is that he's a lot more receptive to advice from his staff. Obama throughout most of his presidency just flat out did not like listening to people unless he really had to, while Trump would listen but not accept anything unless what they said agreed with what he already thought.

[Letter from Prague]

47 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

So why didn't you/everyone do sumfink about it, if you knew what was going to happen?

Anyway I don't like the generalizations too much and think uncalled for.

Personally I expected something to happen in the Donbass, not a full scale gloves off invasion. Even after 2008/2014 that wasn't the rational thing to expect, it was against the trend for Russia to do this which is in a large part why it wasn't expected by a large part of the world. 

Like do what about it? I don't have carrier battle group I could park in Black Sea. Nor do I have magical ninja assassins I could sent after Putin or space marines I could deploy from orbit to lay siege to Kremlin.

The US knew, and they did a lot about it. Eastern Europe had other trouble - they were at that time thinking whether NATO will hold or whether the Western Nations will Munich them off to Putin once Ukraine is done. The behavior of France and Germany in the pre- and beginning stages of the war did not inspire confidence in NATO and while it is unthinkable for Biden's US to betray its allies, Trump's / someone like Trump's US is a much less safe bet.

If the Russian plan of saying "do not help Ukraine or we'll nuke you" and West saying "oh well I guess we won't help then, we don't want to risk nuclear war after all" worked, it would very obviously turned into "do not help Baltics or we'll nuke you" and "do not help everything east of Germany or we'll nuke you".

Not sure where you're from, but the beginning stages of war looked very bleak in places that were invaded and occupied by Russia relatively recently (they left here in 1992), probably in comparison to places a continent away or parts of Europe where people never had to live with that horror.

This might be my social bubble, but even around here - where Russia would have to go through at least Ukraine and Slovakia and likely Poland to get here - people somewhat calmly accepted we are next and the West likely won't help and started making preparations. The "active reserves" system of our Army basically collapsed because of too many volunteers. I myself tried to apply for a job in our intelligence because that's where I thought I'd be most useful as a person good at working with large amounts of data (but I gave up when they asked for perfect eyesight and drug-free past).

Eventually it turned out that NATO holds, Ukraine is heroically and effectively defending, Russia sucks at war because they learned nothing since WW2 but new ways of corruption, barbarity and evil, and so on. The world is somewhat normal around here. But that was not always the case.

EDIT: this was possibly too emotional reply, sorry about that, I'll stop posting until I sober up.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Letter from Prague

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Like do what about it? I don't have carrier battle group I could park in Black Sea. Nor do I have magical ninja assassins I could sent after Putin or space marines I could deploy from orbit to lay siege to Kremlin.

The US knew, and they did a lot about it. Eastern Europe had other trouble - they were at that time thinking whether NATO will hold or whether the Western Nations will Munich them off to Putin once Ukraine is done. The behavior of France and Germany in the pre- and beginning stages of the war did not inspire confidence in NATO and while it is unthinkable for Biden's US to betray its allies, Trump's / someone like Trump's US is a much less safe bet.

If the Russian plan of saying "do not help Ukraine or we'll nuke you" and West saying "oh well I guess we won't help then, we don't want to risk nuclear war after all" worked, it would very obviously turned into "do not help Baltics or we'll nuke you" and "do not help everything east of Germany or we'll nuke you".

Not sure where you're from, but the beginning stages of war looked very bleak in places that were invaded and occupied by Russia relatively recently (they left here in 1992), probably in comparison to places a continent away or parts of Europe where people never had to live with that horror.

This might be my social bubble, but even around here - where Russia would have to go through at least Ukraine and Slovakia and likely Poland to get here - people somewhat calmly accepted we are next and the West likely won't help and started making preparations. The "active reserves" system of our Army basically collapsed because of too many volunteers. I myself tried to apply for a job in our intelligence because that's where I thought I'd be most useful as a person good at working with large amounts of data (but I gave up when they asked for perfect eyesight and drug-free past).

Eventually it turned out that NATO holds, Ukraine is heroically and effectively defending, Russia sucks at war because they learned nothing since WW2 but new ways of corruption, barbarity and evil, and so on. The world is somewhat normal around here. But that was not always the case.

EDIT: this was possibly too emotional reply, sorry about that, I'll stop posting until I sober up.

Not at all, the current near best case outcome was in no way guaranteed. And yes I realize it is still awful, but we are WAY into the positive side of bell curve in terms of bell curve in terms of predictions on 2/23. 

[Battlefront.com]

37 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

So why didn't you/everyone do sumfink about it, if you knew what was going to happen?

They did what they could, which was vocally support the notion that the Russian threat was real and had to be dealt with.  Taking a quick look at what happened towards the end of 2021, it seems that November was the "watershed moment".  That's where I start seeing a lot more talk about Russia's threats being serious enough to warrant action.  Here's something from Poland from that month:

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7785/Artykul/2854270,Polish-FM-warns-of-‘possible-new-Russian-invasion-of-Ukraine

Even Germany and France chimed in and expressed "concerns".

What we didn't see happening is that a lot of planning was going on within NATO for a phased response to Russia's buildup.  Including rather large shifts in NATO forces into Poland and the Baltics.  I think you can safely bet that those countries were very, very, VERY active in that planning activity.

37 minutes ago, Lethaface said:

Anyway I don't like the generalizations too much and think uncalled for.

Personally I expected something to happen in the Donbass, not a full scale gloves off invasion. Even after 2008/2014 that wasn't the rational thing to expect, it was against the trend for Russia to do this which is in a large part why it wasn't expected by a large part of the world. 

You and me both   I gave Putin way too much credit for being a cunning realist.  After the war started we started to figure out that Putin wasn't making his decisions based on the same information I was using.  I knew his military sucked and Ukraine wasn't going to roll over and submit, Putin apparently didn't know either.

Steve

[CAZmaj]

3 hours ago, Butschi said:

While not implausible, that too is no proof.... I'm just curious if he had real proof, like intercepted orders, war plans, you name it or if he just bluffed...

I read somewhere that the FSB faction supplied the USA with detailed plans of attack.

[MSBoxer]

I have wondered if Putin's original plan, circa 2019/2020 or so, was to continue to take smaller bites of Ukraine but realized that the west might only give him one more shot so he decided to make it count and go for the whole enchilada. 

I also have to say that one of the few times I agreed with our former president was when he called for our European partners to live up to their commitment to NATO, it is unfortunate that it took Putin's invasion to make some realize that defense spending is still important.  I do however disagree with Trump's threat to leave NATO like a spoiled child taking his ball and going home.

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Like do what about it? I don't have carrier battle group I could park in Black Sea. Nor do I have magical ninja assassins I could sent after Putin or space marines I could deploy from orbit to lay siege to Kremlin.

The US knew, and they did a lot about it. Eastern Europe had other trouble - they were at that time thinking whether NATO will hold or whether the Western Nations will Munich them off to Putin once Ukraine is done. The behavior of France and Germany in the pre- and beginning stages of the war did not inspire confidence in NATO and while it is unthinkable for Biden's US to betray its allies, Trump's / someone like Trump's US is a much less safe bet.

If the Russian plan of saying "do not help Ukraine or we'll nuke you" and West saying "oh well I guess we won't help then, we don't want to risk nuclear war after all" worked, it would very obviously turned into "do not help Baltics or we'll nuke you" and "do not help everything east of Germany or we'll nuke you".

Not sure where you're from, but the beginning stages of war looked very bleak in places that were invaded and occupied by Russia relatively recently (they left here in 1992), probably in comparison to places a continent away or parts of Europe where people never had to live with that horror.

This might be my social bubble, but even around here - where Russia would have to go through at least Ukraine and Slovakia and likely Poland to get here - people somewhat calmly accepted we are next and the West likely won't help and started making preparations. The "active reserves" system of our Army basically collapsed because of too many volunteers. I myself tried to apply for a job in our intelligence because that's where I thought I'd be most useful as a person good at working with large amounts of data (but I gave up when they asked for perfect eyesight and drug-free past).

Eventually it turned out that NATO holds, Ukraine is heroically and effectively defending, Russia sucks at war because they learned nothing since WW2 but new ways of corruption, barbarity and evil, and so on. The world is somewhat normal around here. But that was not always the case.

EDIT: this was possibly too emotional reply, sorry about that, I'll stop posting until I sober up.

I for one appreciated your post.

This is the sort of thing I've always used as "ammunition" when arguing with Russians or their proxy Western useful idiots.  The people that have lived under Soviet (aka Russian) rule are the most enthusiastic about not having it happen again.  Just look at the members of NATO that met the 2% GDP spending for 2021:

"The other countries [other than the United states] that met the 2 percent threshold include the United Kingdom, Greece, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania."

https://www.newsweek.com/majority-nato-nations-fail-spend-2-percent-gdp-guideline-defense-1694014

Steve

[CAZmaj]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

If one goes back to the beginning of this thread.....Of course the US did not show the public it's detailed intelligence, but it SURE AS HELL DID show it to France, Germany, and others of NATO.  The victims of Soviet/Russian aggression seem to have been more receptive.  The Balkans definitely were, so was Poland.  ...

Yugoslavia (Balkan) in 1948 -1957 was somewhat close to being invaded by Soviet/Russian/Warshaw Pact forces.

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

I read somewhere that the FSB faction supplied the USA with detailed plans of attack.

This is suspected, yes.  However, it appears that the US Intel community had "taps" on key communication channels and is still (for good reasons) reluctant to reveal them. 

That aside, let's also remember who was trying to hide this information... Russia.  They have demonstrated time and time again that their OPSEC sucks as much as their tanks or their troop morale.  Hell, their own agencies have posted truth on their websites and then quickly taken them down when someone else realized they were broadcasting the wrong info.  The strike on the Wagner HQ is just another example.

While I give the US Intel community a lot of credit, I also think a lot of credit has to go to the Russians for sucking at info security.

2 minutes ago, MSBoxer said:

I have wondered if Putin's original plan, circa 2019/2020 or so, was to continue to take smaller bites of Ukraine but realized that the west might only give him one more shot so he decided to make it count and go for the whole enchilada. 

I also have to say that one of the few times I agreed with our former president was when he called for our European partners to live up to their commitment to NATO, it is unfortunate that it took Putin's invasion to make some realize that defense spending is still important.  I do however disagree with Trump's threat to leave NATO like a spoiled child taking his ball and going home.

The only good thing to come from this war, IMHO, is that defense spending in Europe is on the rise.  I'm hoping that the Bundeswehr, in particular, benefits from this.  If the Germans want to know what a large and underfunded military does in a real war, just look at Russia's performance in Ukraine for the answer.

Steve

[billbindc]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

 

I think it is fair to say that most people looked at the Russian buildup with skepticism.  Russia has done these sorts of buildups several times now for the usual reasons of bullying neighbors into doing what they want "or else", while at the same time claiming people are overreacting to "exercises".  However, such "exercises" were also used as cover for the forces that eventually invaded in June, July, and especially August of 2014.  Creating uncertainty in the minds of Russia's enemies was also a big part of the regularity of the buildups.

However, by January it was pretty clear to us open source people that this time was different.  The scale of the deployments was very different.  Very expensive as well.  Anybody with a decent understanding of Russia knew at this point that something was going to happen.  The political rhetoric out of both DLPR and the Duma was different.  There were some traditional Russian "playbook" elements missing (see comment below), but for the most part the question being asked wasn't "will Russia invade?" but rather "how will it invade?"

 

I think this gets directly to the reason this time was different. The question that was being asked, correctly, by the Biden administration was “What are they going to do, after all of this political/military/economic investment in the build up if they *don’t* go?”. Neither France or Germany could answer that question in any reasonable way…which should have been the point at which they realized what was happening. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

Yugoslavia (Balkan) in 1948 -1957 was somewhat close to being invaded by Soviet/Russian/Warshaw Pact forces.

Yup.  One genuinely great achievement of Tito was his leadership in keeping Yugoslavia from being a vassal state of the Soviet Union.  A weaker leader would not have even tried.

Certainly was good for NATO, but it was also good for the Yugoslav people.  Tito's reign was bad enough, but it could have been worse.

Steve

[dan/california]

Just now, Battlefront.com said:

Yup.  One genuinely great achievement of Tito was his leadership in keeping Yugoslavia from being a vassal state of the Soviet Union.  A weaker leader would not have even tried.

Certainly was good for NATO, but it was also good for the Yugoslav people.  Tito's reign was bad enough, but it could have been worse.

Steve

Unfortunately he flunked succession planning...

[billbindc]

5 hours ago, Billy Ringo said:

From the article:  “Russian ears only open up when there is a giant military bat hitting the Russian head,” he said.

Truth.

One perpetual question I have is: Who is really calling the shots for the US response and strategy for Ukraine?

I am not a Biden fan, can't stand him or what he stands for.  But I have been very impressed with the overall strategy and support for Ukraine.  So he gets the credit as the man at the top regardless of who/whom is delivering the goods.

But who and or what group is driving the US strategy?  What to send, when to send it, how to send it, how to manage the press and public opinion, work directly with the Ukrainian government and their military, work directly with other countries, etc.   Is it Biden? Is it his cabinet?  One particular group or team in his administration? State Department?  Is it the US military? Some combination of Senators and Congress?  Who is coordinating the strategic efforts across the US players?

Would love to hear other's opinions and insight as to who is running the show for the US?

Thanks in advance.

Situations like this are driven, very directly, by the occupant of the Oval Office for the simple fact that engaging major allies to take on the possibility of a major was is not something another government will take at all seriously unless the principal is clearly behind it. Remember also that Biden is the first POTUS since GHW Bush who came into office with zero delusions about who he was dealing with. Bush Jr saw something in Putin’s eyes, Obama was convinced Russia was not powerful enough to matter and Trump had an obvious affinity for Putin’s methods and manner. Biden had watched things develop for more than 15 years, had witnessed Putin weaponizing own family against him. Is Biden deciding on what HIMARS hit what? Of course not. It’s not his lane. But he is very much in charge of the overall course of the US effort.

[dan/california]

I think most drone sorties end up more like this. But this still gravely damages the morale and exhaustion levels of the guys getting the run around.

[billbindc]

42 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Like do what about it? I don't have carrier battle group I could park in Black Sea. Nor do I have magical ninja assassins I could sent after Putin or space marines I could deploy from orbit to lay siege to Kremlin.

The US knew, and they did a lot about it. Eastern Europe had other trouble - they were at that time thinking whether NATO will hold or whether the Western Nations will Munich them off to Putin once Ukraine is done. The behavior of France and Germany in the pre- and beginning stages of the war did not inspire confidence in NATO and while it is unthinkable for Biden's US to betray its allies, Trump's / someone like Trump's US is a much less safe bet.

If the Russian plan of saying "do not help Ukraine or we'll nuke you" and West saying "oh well I guess we won't help then, we don't want to risk nuclear war after all" worked, it would very obviously turned into "do not help Baltics or we'll nuke you" and "do not help everything east of Germany or we'll nuke you".

Not sure where you're from, but the beginning stages of war looked very bleak in places that were invaded and occupied by Russia relatively recently (they left here in 1992), probably in comparison to places a continent away or parts of Europe where people never had to live with that horror.

This might be my social bubble, but even around here - where Russia would have to go through at least Ukraine and Slovakia and likely Poland to get here - people somewhat calmly accepted we are next and the West likely won't help and started making preparations. The "active reserves" system of our Army basically collapsed because of too many volunteers. I myself tried to apply for a job in our intelligence because that's where I thought I'd be most useful as a person good at working with large amounts of data (but I gave up when they asked for perfect eyesight and drug-free past).

Eventually it turned out that NATO holds, Ukraine is heroically and effectively defending, Russia sucks at war because they learned nothing since WW2 but new ways of corruption, barbarity and evil, and so on. The world is somewhat normal around here. But that was not always the case.

EDIT: this was possibly too emotional reply, sorry about that, I'll stop posting until I sober up.

I just finished my beer on Balticka Street and I can tell you…your emotional take fits with everything I’ve seen in Prague this week. Slava, etc.

[akd]

It's time for Army-2022 and videos of Russian armor crews missing targets during a range demonstration (it's a thread):