How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[cesmonkey]

From the latest senior defense official background briefing:
 

Quote

In the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian forces continue to consolidate their lines in support of their counteroffensive, with both sides trading artillery fire. We do assess that the Ukrainians have liberated some villages in the region and continue to make advances as they pressure toward the east. Russian forces in this area are largely focused on reinforcing their defensive lines.

Near Bakhmut fighting remains heavy and dynamic, with Russian forces attempting to take the city but being contested by Ukrainian forces. And in the Kherson region, Ukrainian forces continue to make deliberate and calibrated operations in support of their counteroffensive along three main axes. We assess that Russian forces are largely digging in to strengthen their defensive lines in this sector.

 

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

tsk tsk.... CHEESESTEAKS.  It isn't a lottery ticket.  The other misspellings weren't as important.  

 

44 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Opposition was much stronger 8 years ago. What has happened since has been highly effective repression and civic demobilization. I think it's hard to parse why one society kicks back harder and longer...Ukraine being the best example even before this war started...but it's clear that civil capacity is as variable and as important as it is in the military sense. If I had to say, I would argue that while quite shambolic, Russia is still a multiethnic empire based on resource extraction with Russians as a dominant caste therein. That creates political cross currents that undercut forces struggling for representative government against corruption and authoritarianism. 

 

Damn autocorrect/complete! 
And the igules or whatever it was at the end was another autocorrect although to what they thought it now is?? The translation of the spoken word “Iggles” is Eagles for non native regional speaker.

Edited October 25, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[Beleg85]

37 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Opposition was much stronger 8 years ago. What has happened since has been highly effective repression and civic demobilization.

True, but limited almost exclusivelly to places with already strong "liberal" (in Russian sense) places like Moscow, St.Peterburg or Yekaterynurg, and almost ignored by rest of the country. Then we should also ask: why it was effective there, but not in Belarus (initialy)- Luka did push out the opposition, but it formed abroad into something he is afraid of. Belarusians ultimately did not let themselves being divide by tyrant.

Russians leaving country did not formed anything resembling such civic diaspora, and live thier own unconnected personal lives. Without head, they lost sense of community. Now sorry it may sound rather racist (it is not, I hope) but there is something massively broken with Russian political imagination that goes way beyond simple lack of civic society. Including this liberal minority.

37 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Ukraine being the best example even before this war started...but it's clear that civil capacity is as variable and as important as it is in the military sense. If I had to say, I would argue that while quite shambolic, Russia is still a multiethnic empire based on resource extraction with Russians as a dominant caste therein. That creates political cross currents that undercut forces struggling for representative government against corruption and authoritarianism. 

Yup, all very much true. But I am afraid issue is much deeper than Moscow being Barad-Dur full of mafias sucking countryside. Russians collectively seem to be unable to even imagine functioning polity that is other than Kremlin-ruled empire, i.e. that is normal state in western sense of the word (btw. even at language level Russian word gosudarstvo is differently coloured than similars in other slavic languages; it evokes sacral power, might and indivisible authority of father). If one looks at Muscovite history, whole political form was always created from the top, with society as mostly passive actor. Now demanding from such people to transform into something more "civilized" is literally asking them to cut with 500 years of history and significant portion of chauvinist culture; entire ethnicities and sense of community  would need to be redefined.

It will simply not happen. Even if Putin will be exchanged by somebody smiling and riding electric bicycles. And Western Powers should ackowledge this uneasy fact in their calculations regarding this war; I am talking specifically about those who still thinks current war is something of an anomaly. Big Bad Russia will not go away- it needs to be permanently contained for foreseeable future.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Beleg85

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

First hubris and then political and media inertia. A lot of careers and budgets orbited around Afghanistan. One need only look at the CNN roster of on air personnel 50 and up. Almost all got an enormous boost from Afghanistan career-wise at the beginning and then swung back every few years to write a book or do a 'thoughtful piece on why we are/are not winning the war'. That dynamic made ending it political poison...as we saw last year.

Yes, certainly. But I keep thinking about the misplaced “Mission Accomplished” extravaganza propaganda. Afghanistan would have made sense, unlike the bizarre other one. Why the civilian policymakers in DC thought a land war and nation-building in Asia was a supremely great idea…as if, whoever thought of doing THAT before? The buck stops with the guy in the Oval Office chair. Hubris, as in we can do better than the Russians did? Wow…just wow. 
 

I’ll make a wild guess that the USA and Europeans don’t screw this crisis up. And don’t try to “manage” Ukraine after its victory.

Edited October 25, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[billbindc]

4 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

True, but limited almost exclusivelly to places with strong "liberal" (in Russian sense) places like Moscow, St.Peterburg or Yekaterynurg. Then we should also ask: why it was effective there, but not in Belarus (initialy)- Luka did push out the opposition, but it formed abroad into something he is afraid of. Russians leaving country did not formed anything resembling such civic diaspora.

Yup, all very much true. But I am afraid issue is much deeper than Moscow being Barad-Dur full of mafias sucking countryside. Russians collectively seem to be unable to even imagine functioning polity that is other than Kremlin-ruled empire, i.e. that is normal state in western sense of the word (btw. even at language level Russian word gosudarstvo is differently coloured than similars in other slavic languages; it evokes sacral power, might and indivisible authority of father). If one looks at Muscovite history, whole political form was always created from the top, with society as mostly passive actor. Now demanding from such people to transform into something more "civilized" is literally asking them to cut with 500 years of history and significant portion of chauvinist culture; entire ethnicities and sense of community  would need to be redefined.

It will simply not happen. Even if Putin will be exchanged by somebody smiling and riding electric bicycles. And Western Powers should ackowledge this uneasy fact in their calculations regarding this war; I am talking specifically about those who still thinks current war is something of an anomaly. Big Bad Russia will not go away- it needs to be permanently contained.

I generally agree but it's also true that empires have a way of looking quite permanent until quite suddenly they are not. The Ottoman empire was incredibly corrupt, decadent, weak...and resilient for a long time...until WWI finally kicked the legs out from under it. Ditto the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. That Russia survived as something like an imperial state is an anomaly based on a lot of contingency and geopolitical conditions that are unlikely to remain in place for long. Energy economics alone...aided idiotically by Putin in this war...are one extremely significant pillar that is going to weaken.  

[BletchleyGeek]

11 hours ago, Huba said:

It's even funnier that this post suggests - it looks like we have too much gas at the moment, time to turn up the heating

 

Didn't want this post by @Hubato be washed away... that's so interesting! In any case, if all this "Cold Winter" story ends up being just burning bullcrap smoke vented by the Russian propaganda machine (and its knowing or unknowing accomplices) I think that the resulting massive push for solar (up to a year waiting list in Spain for subsidized home solar installations) and basic things such as improving home insulation will be a net positive contribution to the welfare of the World.

[Beleg85]

53 minutes ago, billbindc said:

I generally agree but it's also true that empires have a way of looking quite permanent until quite suddenly they are not. The Ottoman empire was incredibly corrupt, decadent, weak...and resilient for a long time...until WWI finally kicked the legs out from under it. Ditto the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. That Russia survived as something like an imperial state is an anomaly based on a lot of contingency and geopolitical conditions that are unlikely to remain in place for long. Energy economics alone...aided idiotically by Putin in this war...are one extremely significant pillar that is going to weaken.  

The question is more of fundamental "imagined community" than issues like current political system, size of territory or sources of income. Ottoman empire was shattered by global war we don't want, Austro-Hungarian too- and both lacked this clear cut ethnical core that Russia has. German Empire, or more properly: enlarged Prussian polity, was even different beast as it was born as relatively normal state that gradually reshaped into empire for only short time (1870-1918 and arguably 1933-45); Kaiser's power was by no means sacral, nor was Fuhrer's.

Russians have hundreds of years of living in shackles of their Kremlin overlords, which forms entirely different perspective on polity. That is the reason why these childish stories of "ancient Russian people" or "sacred borders of Russia" saturated with some strange transcendance (that is completelly alien to our tastes) being endangered by something shapelessly modern were so popular even among most humanistic of Kremlin critics, including people like Solzhenitsyn. When they refused current Soviet/Russian centralized polity, they were left without one at all. Which is one of the things that human anthropology simply rejects- it is like state of nature swallowing entire political community. This lack of different, natural political shape is crux of the whole problem. That is why 90's are collectively remembered as such time of disgrace and social breakdown, of Smuta- when Tsar abdicates, jungle comes in.

 

Good point about energy, but I am afraid Kremlin's rulers will have enough buyers for various resources in foreseeable term. Simple size of Russia make it impossible to ignore as provider. And authoritarian states can survive a long time even with people walking hungry.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Beleg85

[billbindc]

8 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

The question is more of fundamental "imagined community" than issues like current political system, size of territory or sources of income. Ottoman empire was shattered by global war we don't want, Austro-Hungarian too- and both lacked this clear cut ethnical core that Russia has. German Empire, or more properly: enlarged Prussian polity, was even different beast as it was born as relatively normal state that gradually reshaped into empire for only short time (1870-1918 and arguably 1933-45); Kaiser's power was by no means sacral, nor was Fuhrer's.

Russians have hundreds of years of living in shackles of their Kremlin overlords, which forms entirely different perspective on polity. That is the reason why these childish stories of "ancient Russian people" or "sacred borders of Russia" saturated with some strange transcendance (that is completelly alien to our tastes) being endangered by something shapelessly modern were so popular even among most humanistic of Kremlin critics, including people like Solzhenitsyn. When they refused current Soviet/Russian centralized polity, they were left without one at all. Which is one of the things that human anthropology simply rejects- it is like state of nature swallowing entire political community. This lack of different, natural political shape is crux of the whole problem.

 

Good point about energy, but I am afraid Kremlin's rulers will have enough buyers for various resources in foreseeable term. Simple size of Russia make it impossible to ignore as provider. And authoritarian states can survive a long time even with people walking hungry.

Russia strikes me as far more like the Ottoman Empire than any of the others with a difficult geographic spread, a large and dominant ethnic core, seemingly unfixable systemic characteristics and a sense of itself gigantically out of proportion to its actual role in the world. I think like that empire, Russia isn't going away but with some 45% of the federal budget coming from energy sales, it's going to be a shadow of it's former self even with only a gentle decline of the internal combustion engine.

[Battlefront.com]

Good article that sums up what we've been discussing regarding Russia's declining influence in previously Soviet central Asia:

https://www.businessinsider.com/border-clashes-show-that-russia-is-losing-central-asia-influence-2022-10

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

Agree with this and the previous comments by my betters here. But what I have never been able to fully grasp is why the USA at the time, after smashing up al Qaeda if not fully, rather well, did not then announce loudly and clearly that “We are leaving now (translated: we saw what just recently happened to Russia when it rather overstayed its welcome). DO NOT frak with us ever again because the next time THE STARK FIST OF REMOVAL will arrive very very quickly and thoroughly.”…and get the heck out. 
 

I mean, we must have learned *something* from Vietnam, followed by Russia’s Afghan Adventure. Fortunately, so far, this feels very different.

There's a lot of reasons, but one of them was the conclusion that al Qaeda is like herpes... it will keep coming back if not continually suppressed.  The original idea was to stay in Afghanistan long enough to set up a government that would be capable of swatting down AQ (and others, like Haqqani network) so the US wouldn't have to invade periodically to keep it tamped down.  Also, the US has almost no chance of proactively invading based on intel alone thanks to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  Which would mean the US would go into Afghanistan only after some extremists conducted an attack big enough to get Americans calling for retribution.

Nope, I have no problem with the strategic theory.  It was fine.  The execution, on the other hand, was horrible in the first few years and nobody had the political will to scrap it and start over again or get out.

3 hours ago, NamEndedAllen said:

This post made me think of something not easily known, so not often spoken of: more Intel reliance on national technical means than on human intelligence. And some of the enumerated issues smack of focusing on what we know, and not on what is missing.

This is a longstanding problem in military wargaming and analysis.  They can easily count weaponry and assess physical performance.  They can easy count heads doing this or that.  Deep dives can even estimate things like war production, logistics capacities, manpower replacement pools, etc.  All empirical and verifiable to a large extent with espionage to find the answers you don't have. 

Assessing all the rest of what goes into fighting wars, however, is squishy and subjective.  They don't like it so, traditionally at least, it was removed from wargaming because it supposedly made the wargaming and analysis less reliable.  This war proves how absolutely wrong this mentality is.  Those squishy factors MUST be taken into consideration or you're almost certainly going to get a flawed result from wargaming and analysis.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, billbindc said:

I've been hitting conservatives in Congress pretty hard lately for getting soft on Ukraine aid. Today, egged on by the clowns at the Quincy Institute, the Progressive Caucus put their oar in the water. Their letter below is a tissue of caveats and attaboys for Biden that they seem to have believed would cushion their call for the US to essentially beg Putin to negotiate.   

https://progressives.house.gov/_cache/files/5/5/5523c5cc-4028-4c46-8ee1-b56c7101c764/B7B3674EFB12D933EA4A2B97C7405DD4.10-24-22-cpc-letter-for-diplomacy-on-russia-ukraine-conflict.pdf

This take was so anathema to pretty much everyone in DC who doesn't hang around with MTG that they had to 'clarify' (that's DC speak for rapidly abandon) their statement. Idiots.

 

 

Like we really need a reminder that the nutty left is as unfit to have a say about national security policy as the nutty right.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Didn't want this post by @Hubato be washed away... that's so interesting! In any case, if all this "Cold Winter" story ends up being just burning bullcrap smoke vented by the Russian propaganda machine (and its knowing or unknowing accomplices) I think that the resulting massive push for solar (up to a year waiting list in Spain for subsidized home solar installations) and basic things such as improving home insulation will be a net positive contribution to the welfare of the World.

Oh, I think there was real reason to be worried.  If nothing was done I think a lot of people would be in big trouble this heating season.  However, what we're seeing is that something was done and that it is probably sufficient.  At least for this winter.

I do agree with the notion that energy disruptions are good for promoting more resilient alternatives.  My posts have been brought to you by the sun, even at night, for the past 15 years or so because I got tired of energy price spikes and downed powerlines.  If energy was cheap and reliable I'm not sure my green tendencies would have been enough to put up the big money to go off grid.  All the years later I feel it's some of the best money I've ever spent.

Steve

[kevinkin]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/congress-democrats-reaction-ukraine-strategy/index.html

The signatories are from left field - to use a baseball term.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by kevinkin

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

Opposition was much stronger 8 years ago. What has happened since has been highly effective repression and civic demobilization. I think it's hard to parse why one society kicks back harder and longer...Ukraine being the best example even before this war started...but it's clear that civil capacity is as variable and as important as it is in the military sense. If I had to say, I would argue that while quite shambolic, Russia is still a multiethnic empire based on resource extraction with Russians as a dominant caste therein. That creates political cross currents that undercut forces struggling for representative government against corruption and authoritarianism. 

 

There's all kinds of reasons, both real and imagined, as to what is wrong with Russians who move abroad.  But the fact remains that there are MILLIONS (30 million according to this Wiki article) of them spread out amongst many dozens of countries, including all of the Western countries.  They are not controlled by Putin or his repressive regime.  They are not limited to Russian state media.  For the most part they aren't persecuted for being Russian either.

Sooo... when their country of birth is off waging a genocidal war and their new home countries so strongly supportive of the victims... why aren't they making their opinions known?  Why aren't they organizing to form some sort of opposition as the Belorussians have done recently?  Or the various peoples of Eastern and Central Europe did when under Communist rule?  At best they stay silent, at worst they overtly support Putin.

I refer back to the pole done in Lithuania that I cited.  Nearly 1/2 of the Russians living in Lithuania supported the seizure of Crimea by Russia.  Half.  That is a lot more than a fringe minority.

Again, the notion that Russians are all equally evil is false.  The notion that Russians can never shed their imperial mindset is false.  But there is a problem and it's a significant and widely held one that is unlikely to change dramatically for quite some time.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I'm asking all of you to keep your eyes open for any and all reports of how these tiny drones do in combat situations.  There's bound to be discussion of them soon now that Ukraine has them in their hands (er, litterally:

Steve

[Canada Guy]

What are these 'Phillies' and 'Eagles' you speak of ? They appear to be some sort of totem or 'sports' team?

[dan/california]

The tweet is from some COMPLETELY random account on the internet, that looks like it was created last week. That doesn't make the idea wrong. Maybe the Russians are still in Kherson, because the AFU general staff are still smarter than all of us?

[Battlefront.com]

Exiled Turkmenistan politician describes how Turkmen are recruited out of prisons by PMCs and then quickly cycled into Ukraine.  He suspects this is going on with other central Asian countries.

 

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

Exiled Turkmenistan politician describes how Turkmen are recruited out of prisons by PMCs and then quickly cycled into Ukraine.  He suspects this is going on with other central Asian countries.

 

The Russians have dug an entire coal mine under the bottom of that barrel.

 

[chrisl]

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm asking all of you to keep your eyes open for any and all reports of how these tiny drones do in combat situations.  There's bound to be discussion of them soon now that Ukraine has them in their hands (er, litterally:

Steve

Aaaaaaand we have now completed our entry into the technology world of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.

 

[kraze]

11 hours ago, Butschi said:

How many Russians in how many western countries do you know about that you can make this claim? @cesmonkey explicitly said "at least some of the refugees". That means, in order to "prove this is not the case" you have to prove that not "at least some of the refugees" are altered, which means you have to prove that this applies to none of the refugees. So you better know about every Russian in every western country, otherwise your statement is wrong.

Simple:

You can see russians doing pro-war marches in various countries, Germany in particular being the weirdest example, where you see them rallying in support of genocide in the center of Berlin which should've been a huge no no alone.

But you do not see them doing any rallies in support of Ukraine. In fact usually it's everyone but russians doing it.

War, especially a genocidal one, makes things black and white - if somebody stays silent (especially in safety provided by the West) - that somebody probably simply does not exist in the first place.

[kraze]

12 hours ago, riptides said:

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Yeah, who was an absolute imperialistic filth and openly supported genocide of Ukrainians. An extremely bad example.

[sburke]

27 minutes ago, kraze said:

But you do not see them doing any rallies in support of Ukraine. In fact usually it's everyone but russians doing it.

as I noted earlier, yes you do.  The Russian student union at Stanford U has done events with the Ukrainian student union against the war.  Is it a lot?  No.  To say there are none however is false.  I am sure it isn't the only example in the US.

[Haiduk]

8 hours ago, dan/california said:

MRB would be ~700 soldiers? Three companies and a weapons company? Plus or minus a hundred from unit to unit?

MRB is a brigade. LDPR brigades correspond to Russian TO&E, maybe with some minor distinguishes

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, Canada Guy said:

What are these 'Phillies' and 'Eagles' you speak of ? They appear to be some sort of totem or 'sports' team?

Yes. Most sacred of totems, and based where our Declaration of Independence was signed. Generally regarded as symbolizing all that the USA stands for that is worthy and righteous. But because freedom requires eternal vigilance, they must eternally return each year at the same time in order to defend our highest virtues.

Or they might also be sports teams, yeah.