How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, Huba said:

Thanks for sharing that, it's great to hear from somebody with first hand experience! 

Yeah, but I'm not sure how relevant it really is.  He stated that his original rides were as old as Pterodactyles

Steve

P.S.  I had a UH-1 fly over me last weekend.  Forest Service around here still uses them.  Is it just me, or is the thump-thump-thump of its props kinda fun to listen to?

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

If the Ukrainians are still pushing towards a place eight miles from the Russian boarder, and in deteriorating weather, they must be strongly of the opinion that Russia/LPR has nothing to push back with. They seem to want to spend the winter camped on ALL of the Russian supply lines bar the Kerch bridge.

I hope this turns to be true AND that Ukraine gets in there before all progress stops due to weather or exhaustion.  This is the only railway link to Belgorod.  Taking it instead of interdicting would be optimal.

Steve

[Butschi]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I could probably write a book:

Forcing function - The US and west have been the the worlds hyperpower for at least 30 years.  Any conventional matchups come with so many caveats that only non-state networks have really been dumb enough to take them on in the CT/VEO space.  In fact the last time a nation state fell out of line the Gulf War happened and any great power outside of the US/western sphere took note.  So a revisionist state was trapped between the devil of nuclear warfare they could not win, and the deep blue see of being vastly overpowered in the conventional space.

Our History.  We understood our power early.  While interventions and CT work kept us busy in reality the west has not faced an existential state-based threat since the fall of the USSR.  As such, we let things slide in the famous "peace dividend days".  Everyone was counting mothballed tanks and ships, but we also mothballed the NS architecture capable of waging global scale political warfare.  Sure we kept intelligence and the like but funding went way down as we all figured "well who would mess with us".  It got a major boost after 9/11 but it was built to hunt humans in and amongst other humans, not deal with larger scale nation states.  So our ability to actually conduct counter-subversive and pre-emptive political warfare campaigns has atrophied over the last three decades.

Our reality.  Unlike autocratic societies, we lay our internal social divisions and friction-points out for everyone to see, we celebrate and fund them.  Further we have laws that enshrine freedoms and an open society based on the value of each and every citizen.  We doubled down on all of that after the Cold War ended.  What makes our nations strong a great are also some of our biggest vulnerabilities in this arena - not advocating for anything different here, this is just our reality.  Free press, free enterprise, free academia and freedoms "from and to" are what makes us the most powerful versions of humanity that ever existed; also leaves us very open to asymmetric strategies.

Their reality.  The revisionist power states, like China and Russia, were largely left out, or at least feel like they were left out of the re-writing of the global order.  They understand where they stand in the pecking order, and while it took awhile, they figured out that they 1) did not like it, and 2) had to start moving the needle to change it.  Direct confrontation with the west was impossible, so they went sideways.  They all have long histories in the subversive space, hell one could argue the Chinese invented it.  So they renewed old doctrines that leveraged energy resident within our systems to work for them - classic reflexive control.  This was done with long above-water campaigns of influence as they picked up steam.  Cyber and information space meant that societies became connected, but they also became "seeable" in extremely high resolution.  Like the invention of the microscope, this opened up new observable phenomenon, which we could not see in the Cold War.  States and corporations - often overlapping - went to town on this.  They collected data and developed theories of how humanity worked at micro-social scales that did not exists 30 years ago.  They could map those spaces and that could gauge cause and effect.  We used to sell stuff and collect "likes and subscribes", they, the other lost powers, used it to create "options".  Ones that are very hard to attribute and are aimed at what is both our greatest strengths and vulnerabilities - our open society.  These options were not legal acts of war, responses lay outside of our legalities and policies, and they were designed to hit us where they knew we would never even be able to agree at what happened - classic negative and null decision space.

Russia out front.  Russia has a very long history of playing these games and decided to flex first.  China has always been quietly waiting and watching in the background - stealing IP, buying off politicians and power brokers, colleting information and re-drawing maps.  Russia is not that nuanced, never has been really.  They were far more blunt and began act on their new theories - Gerasimov Doctrine/Russian Hybrid Warfare - whatever.  It was an ability to exercise strategic options outside of what we understood as war or peace.  Russia tried things out in Georgia and Chechnya - learned some hard lessons and then went prime time in 2014 in Ukraine.  No big conventional war, they just undecided Donbass and Crimea, and then made it too hard for us to really decide anything about it.  They pulled off wins in Syria and Africa (that no one really noticed) and kept getting free lunches while we in the west sat back and scratched our heads "how did they do that?"  Seriously, as I have told some senior people, "I am tired of admiring the other team".  China was doing all the same stuff, just much more nuanced and quietly - they called it unrestricted warfare/systems warfare but it basically amounts to the same thing; however, China appears much more adept at leveraging the rules and laws of the international order, while at the same time playing outside of them.

Unprepared and paralysis.  We really were in a kind of strategic shock in the west.  Both Russia and China had worked hard to make sure that they played out internal divisions and that groups in our own societies became indirectly invested (ignorantly in some cases) in their interests.  Our national security and defence architecture was too busy chasing "snakes" and was dislocated in dealing with state-based threats.  In many cases we had no policy or legal frameworks for what these new threat theories could do, and we sure as hell did not have counters/pushbacks.  So while we were basically strategically dislocated both Russia and China made great gains while we dithered and argued with each other - and I do not mean solely in the US.  North America, Europe and Pacific partners, all yelling and divided.  NATO was on the ropes, many nations had grown tired of GWOT, and we saw (are seeing) the rise of nationalism and isolationism.

Russia poops the bed - and modern war is in the wind.  For reasons I still do not understand Russia decides to drop its A-Game and fall back on an open conventional military power approach in Ukraine.  I have never heard a good reason why this is, and why they took this risk but here we are.  So China is sitting back watching, again as all this unfolds and what does it see?  Well first thing is that modern conventional warfare is upside down.  By our old metrics/doctrine Ukraine should have lost this, even in the face of Russian crappiness.  The war was going to be longer and grinding but eventually Ukraine would fold under the weight of a military machine that was an order of magnitude larger by some metrics. And then "boop"!  So what the hell happened? - well personally I think the 3rd offset (out of favor now) actually came into it age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_strategy) in doing so it is re-writing conventional war as we know it.  Russia is running into a brick wall but China is watching and noting it. China was feeling strong, by old metrics it was catching up and rising to challenge the West - particularly when one considers our aversion to sacrifice.  Unless China is a complete idiot, and nothing I have seen suggests they are, then this war completely blew up their pre-war estimates.  Modern warfare just got insanely more lethal and expensive - harder not easier.  And once again western warfare looks like it leaped ahead, this was not the plan.

So What?  Well, despite all the sabre rattling with China over Taiwan, I suspect the Chinese are conducting a serious re-think (they should be).  Everyone in the bar is armed and sizing each other out.  A big guy draped with guns and ammo, looking like Rambo, picked a fight with a little guy who just punched Rambo's teeth in with his own ammo belts. A conventional conflict with China just got less likely, if China has been paying attention and I suspect they have.  The metrics by which China was gauging things just shifted and they are not going to pull "a Russia" blindly.

So, So what?  Well China is likely going to do a few things 1) re-set its conventional military power metrics, likely better than we will - we are going to bask in "well there you go, we win!", 2) Keep to its A-game longer and double down and what has been working - it saw what happened to Russia.  We on the other hand are likely to go back to arguing and losing the bubble, making us even more vulnerable.  That is the biggest unknown and question "how do we re-gain internal integrity in our systems, without breaking them ourselves?"  All the while China and very likely what is left of Russia will work in helping us to break us.  We are likely to see a lot more proxy actions done this way because invading is a dumb idea.  China has a decades head start on us, so we face major challenges getting better in this space - it is the one area that China's options are expanding and ours remain stagnant. 

Cold War, Hot Peace, Tepid Status Quo, it all really ends the same; more political warfare happening where the terrain favours the opponent - we need to get over ourselves and agree that in this area we are all of one mind: create equilibrium and expand options, while compressing our opponents.  And this is not all on the US, which has its own problems, we have seen pressures and threats here in Canada in ways that we do not have any response to other than "togetherness and resilience".  Every western country has a micro-social space, and it is largely lying wide open to direct influence, which in a democracy is incredibly powerful and dangerous.  I strongly suspect that this war will be a watershed moment for whatever comes next - likely a Coldish War but one where the lines are far more blurry and a significant continuing of the trend of the re-emergence of political warfare as a primary theater in pursuing national interests while blunting an opponents.     

Finally, my instincts tell me, "don't think 1960", they are telling me "think 1900".  There are a lot of similarities between now and pre WWI with respect to great power competition/conflict.  Accept now we have nukes and cyberspace - and the history of WWI to learn from.  Regardless, we need to win this war, put Russia back in a box and then everyone sit down and have  a serious conversation on how we let this happen and how we need to close the spaces between us or someone is going to use that: one second to midnight at a time.

I seriously hope you are going to write that book.

The prospect of conflict with China scares me. With Russia, well we turned a blind eye towards Russias ambitions but at the same to we overestimated their capabilites. China though... I don't know how you military guys have been perceiving things over the last two decades. In industry but also in science, we have been underestimating China. At the same time we know that they want to be the dominant power by 2049. I, too, think they will learn from this war. And if they finally make a move (for Taiwan, for instance), things will get nasty unless we have somehow learned a few lessons ourselves and made ourselves less dependent on others. I highly doubt there can be sanctions like against Russia. The current energy crisis will hurt us but we will manage somehow. Disruption of trade with China will directly cause our economy to implode. Yes, China is dependent on us, too. But if you think Scholzing is bad... well, you have seen nothing yet, I assure you.

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

No-no! ) Russian (Moskovite) feudalism like in 14-17 centuries is nothing like Europe. This is Golden Horde type super-centralized power, where all nobles either 100 % loyal to Tsar or dead/expelled. Indeed this is Ukraine has hystorical tradition of private armies. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth nobles (under Lithuanian also means local Ruthenian (Ukrainan) nobles), ruling in the Ukrainian landsб had own armies and contested with Polish central power for own old rights if seen attempts of kings to strenght own power. Later turmoils among Cossacks in the second part of 17th century caused that sometimes several hetmans (cossack warlords, having some state administrative power in Ukraine, when in Poland and Lithuania hetmans were just temporary warlords) could exist with own armies, and this bored known proverb in Ukraine "where are two Ukrainains there are three hetmans". So, such tradition of nobles "court hosts" and self-organized Cossack bands (when they only appeared) with frontier mentality borned in 2014 huge number of volunteer units (many of which really were micro-PMC). Even Azov was "favorite toy" of former Internal affairs minister Arsen Avakov (middle-hand oligarch).

Very good points.  Thank you.  From what I remember of Russian progression over the centuries is that they were "feudal" in the political sense for most of the last 300-400 years.  In fact, this was what Peter the Great was to make Russia be more like the Europeans.  However, looking at it now it appears this is just another example of "Russian Half-Assed Change".  The old Mongol system still survived.

Some day I want to revisit old Russian history.  It's been 30 years since I studied it in university.  My professor was a true Ukrainian (he escaped the Soviet Union), so I am sure I got good information from him

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

Unlike in Russia UKR oligarchs have a parellel with 15-17 centuries nobles, opposing to central power or suporting it for some benefits, so this is one of reasons, why in Ukraine dictatorship is almost impossible.

About Akmmetov - this is not good example. Workers cooperated with DPR fighters for "joint patroling" but not for withstanding to them. Better example with Akhmetov - he as largest maphiozi had own criminal army, which was known under name "Lux". Soon he legalized this thugs as "security company Lux". He had own chiefs of local police, local SBU (Khodakovskyi was commander of Donetsk "Alfa" SBU Spetsnaz and became commander of Vostok DPR unit), Procecution Office... He could just said a word and his bandits could eliminate all pro-Russian insurgents... But... Akmetov, who had a plans to dictate own demands to Kyiv's power and made own game, at last outplayed himself.

Ah, Akhmetov.  I forgot about him (by name, at least).  Yes, the sudden appearance of armed and organized criminal gangs in the east certainly got things going in the wrong direction much quicker than Russia could have managed on its own.

Steve

[Butschi]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

The danger for both Russia and China...that's fast becoming the reality...is that they don't provide a model that is more attractive than the US/EU because their aims are simply to install a cruder, more restrictive hegemony for themselves

Attractiveness is really the point here. Sure, western way of living still sounds attractive to a lot of people. But freedom, plurality and all that only go so far. Democracy (paired with capitalism, we shouldn't forget that part in "western way of living") always has the (at least implicit) promise of a better life. At some point people realize that there are different kinds of freedom. While you are legally allowed to do a lot of things, in reality you can't because you can't afford it. You look at your elected political leaders and realize that while every vote counts the same, it is always the well to do people for whom politicians care. Or for themselves. And at this point the masses look for a strong leader. Maybe I have less freedom on paper but does it matter, I never really had that freedom in the first place. But that strong leader will give weed out the corrupt politicians up there and give us back our pride...

In short: Attractiveness of democracies should never be taken for granted.

[sburke]

10 minutes ago, Butschi said:

In short: Attractiveness of democracies should never be taken for granted.

for sure not but people do vote with their feet and both China and Russia see more people voting to leave for the West than they see folks from the west immigrating.  When the gov't can just take away whatever you have or allow their cronies to do so with no legal repercussions it isn't just the freedoms but the sense of a rule of law.

[CAZmaj]

9 hours ago, Grigb said:

And right on time

[UPDATE] Prigozhin PR campaign is getting in overdrive

 

What is "Macedonian Style"?

 

[Battlefront.com]

Another good sign of support for Ukraine's ability to defeat Russia... 5 million Ukrainian refugees are returning home!

https://censor.net/en/news/3367421/about_5_million_ukrainians_returned_from_european_union_to_ukraine_von_der_leyen

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Funny... I was just wondering if anybody found a use for all the Molitov Cocktails that weren't used.  Leave it to the Ukrainians to be ever the innovators

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/xf101e/kill_it_with_fire/

Intense combat footage supposedly from Lyman:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/xf1ts9/the_best_video_you_will_see_today_ukrainian/

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

15 minutes ago, CAZmaj said:

What is "Macedonian Style"?

 

Never heard of this term myself.

Going by Grigb's post it sounds like some Russian term for dual wielding firearms. I did a Google search and this seems to be the case.

https://history.mk/fire-your-pistols-in-macedonian-style/

Edited September 16, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[dan/california]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62922152?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

Russia's Wagner boss: It's prisoners fighting in Ukraine, or your children

I suspect the convicts will do just fine. Although you have to wonder what level of disaster is going to get these people to leave. Nothing for it but more 155.

[LongLeftFlank]

8 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I think Vietnam very much wants to start getting manufacturing that foreign companies can move out of china since china making itself look less and less reliable.

****

OT, but this has been happening since at least 2017. Some of what's coming out of China is actually Chinese enterprises trying to diversify themselves out of Beijing's reach, but that's tricky. Infra is Vietnam's main problem, there's never enough of anything.

Thailand and Mexico are other beneficiaries; Malaysia (only 25m people) is pretty much saturated.

India, Indonesia and the Philippines still have too much red tape and korupsyon, plus clunky infra, to be desirable for high tech manufacturing, except for labour intensive picking and packing.

To read more on this, and just how badly China is fouling its own nest, I suggest following Dan Harris.... https://harrisbricken.com/chinalawblog/

I actually know Dan personally. 

 

[chrisl]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yeah, but I'm not sure how relevant it really is.  He stated that his original rides were as old as Pterodactyles

Steve

P.S.  I had a UH-1 fly over me last weekend.  Forest Service around here still uses them.  Is it just me, or is the thump-thump-thump of its props kinda fun to listen to?

Our county fire flies various flavor of UH-1 plus UH-60 Firehawks, so I hear those a lot.  I think Cal Fire flies mostly UH-1s, and we don't get much forest service stuff unless there's an actual fire, but it's fun to hear and check out the various helos.  Some of the contract fire companies fly some interesting aircraft.  The county contracted to get a couple Chinooks the last couple years, so those are cool to hear flying over.  And when there are fires you get all sorts of old fixed wings that have been converted, too. I started watching on ADS-B Exchange so I don't have to go outside to see which helo it is unless it turns out to be something unusual that I want to see.

[dan/california]

Meme of the day

[Vergeltungswaffe]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

P.S.  I had a UH-1 fly over me last weekend.  Forest Service around here still uses them.  Is it just me, or is the thump-thump-thump of its props kinda fun to listen to?

I'll never not love that sound.

Like a Wright Cyclone or a Rolls Royce Merlin, you can tell what it is by the unique acoustic characteristics before you ever walk out of the house.

[dan/california]

8 hours ago, billbindc said:

Where most people look at Prigozhin and see Stalin, I look at Prigozhin and see Kornilov or Wrangel. 

The more I think about Prigozhin, the more I agree with you. He will be the last gasp of the existing power structure before the wheels come completely off the bus and Russia starts getting smaller, quickly. the pre Lenin Kerensky government in 1917 failed most of all because it wanted to continue the war, and the army's rank and file wanted to end it at any cost. I can easily see Progozhin presiding over a similar scenario, well briefly anyway.

[chrisl]

I don't think I saw this NYT link on the Kharkiv offensive posted here (may be paywalled - gift link valid for 14 days here).  To the surprise of absolutely nobody here, the US provided a ton of ISR for the offensive.  Slightly more interesting is that the US and Ukraine are admitting to Ukraine sharing more of their plans with the US than they had done (or admitted to) earlier in the war.

Edited September 16, 2022 by chrisl

[Der Zeitgeist]

Photo from the Samarkand summit. Note who's missing on the picture.

[LongLeftFlank]

Brezhnev's clone looks surprisingly perky.

[LongLeftFlank]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/lukoil-chairman-ravil-maganov-is-the-8th-russian-energy-executive-to-die-suddenly-this-year.html

OMG, this guy IS literally Monty Python: "he have heart attack and fall out of window on top of exploding bomb"

Edited September 16, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[gregb41352]

"P.S.  I had a UH-1 fly over me last weekend.  Forest Service around here still uses them.  Is it just me, or is the thump-thump-thump of its props kinda fun to listen to?"

Not if you were in Vietnam.

[LongLeftFlank]

2 hours ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

I'll never not love that sound.

Like a Wright Cyclone or a Rolls Royce Merlin, you can tell what it is by the unique acoustic characteristics before you ever walk out of the house.

Yup, there's a DC3 that still flies a regular route from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini and there's no mistaking the drumbeat of those radials.

[Kinophile]

@Battlefront.com

I dunno, Donetsk is looking pretty ripe...

[kraze]

9 hours ago, FancyCat said:

This is why Germany is the weak link for Ukraine to pressure on expanding deliveries from NATO. The thread keeps going, but basically the justification given last week was none to spare, needs refit, needs it to reinforce German commitment to NATO 

40 Marders to Greece, for BMP-1s 

Thank god for the Greens, and I hope Scholz is a one term Chancellor. 

 

 

 

Because some idiots still believe that once putin is gone - it will be possible to trade, deal and be friends with Russia in general again. As long as you don't piss off the next imperialistic government that, of course, will be more reasonable because, ugh, Yeltsin was (he wasn't).

And trust me, sadly, this "putin bad russia good" isn't exclusive Germany's issue by far.

Edited September 16, 2022 by kraze

[G.I. Joe]

11 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Yup, there's a DC3 that still flies a regular route from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini and there's no mistaking the drumbeat of those radials.

Here in Vancouver, DHC-2 Beavers are still a common sight, with Harbour Air and other seaplane operators flying them out of the inner harbour on a regular basis. There's no mistaking the sound of that R-985 Wasp Junior (same engine as the Stearman PT-17, BT-13 Valiant and OS2U Kingfisher).