How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[The_Capt]

Just now, domfluff said:

If I have perfect ISR, but no means to prosecute that, all I've learnt is exactly how screwed I am.

And here we get to the shortfalls of former conventional military thinking.  In fact most militaries are starting to turn on this idea of information being an enabler and seeing at as part of an over all effects system

So first off ISR is not simply "seeing", it can have a direct on the battlefield by "being seen, seeing".  An entire op can be blown if surprise is blown, so the idea that ISR or information are somehow helpless to affect is incorrect, and frankly really narrows down options that do not need to be.

Next ISR/Information lean into inductive effects - a lot of conventional military do not get the power of these things as they have a long history of breaking in order to get stuff done.  Unconventional forces like SOF totally get it, they have an entire field of special warfare dedicated to the concept ("by, with and through").

Finally, as the RA is demonstrating very aptly, on the modern battlefield, having a lot of stuff without the information to make it competitive is in fact a liability not an asset.  They are a complete system - without one or the other one is on a down slope to defeat.

If given a choice I would rather have perfect information than perfect physical weapons with little or no information.  With perfect information supremacy I can get my opponent to shoot at each other or drive them into the ocean with their hands at the wheel.  This was the situation within COIN.  Our opponents had information superiority in all the places it matter, namely the people.  They were pounding us in that space and had very few weapons to essentially demonstrate they could make life miserable and that we had not won, and never would.

The reality, and my over point is that it is all information even the explodey parts.  It is the volume or mass of that information (and here we cannot forget quality) that should get the attention, not the numbers of artillery pieces.

[Fenris]

Pretty grim thread showing what's being said was a failed small Wagner attack, the aftermath and then the clean up some days later.  It very much appears taht after the attack quite a few of the wounded were left to fend for themselves, it's not nice to watch, there are a lot of corpses shown in the later posts where they're collecting gear from the dead wagner men.

https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1637054537725878278

[dan/california]

2 hours ago, chrisl said:

The RUSI report that was linked several pages ago (here) has a nice summary of what Ukraine did from 2014 to 2022 that helped them enormously (and sometimes inadvertently), as well as how both home grown and wester ISR helped them at the start.  I'm only partway into the report, but it's an excellent summary.  They're often more generous to the Russians than we tend to be here (and I think they're accurate), but they also highlight the major failings of the Russians very well.  One thing about what Ukraine did from 2014 to 2022 that I marvel at is that Russia had *exactly the same opportunity* and squandered it. Russia was on the opposite side of the lines the whole time and gained far less from the experience.

First and foremost Ukraine closes the loop quickly enough to be meaningful far more often than Russia does. To be militarily useful information has to go up the chain be transformed in orders and firing solutions and sent back down for prosecution fast enough to be useful. It isn't just that Ukraine is shockingly good at it, although I think they are. It is that Russia is really awful at it, at almost every level, almost all the time.

 

[chuckdyke]

Interview Ukrainian Artillery.

[Gpig]

59 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Pretty grim thread showing what's being said was a failed small Wagner attack, the aftermath and then the clean up some days later.  It very much appears taht after the attack quite a few of the wounded were left to fend for themselves, it's not nice to watch, there are a lot of corpses shown in the later posts where they're collecting gear from the dead wagner men.

https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1637054537725878278

Does it seem strange to anyone else that there's all this audio accompanying the long-distance drone video that includes the sound of foot-falls and dirt/debris sliding etc. Seems like it's been dubbed overtop. Unless they've got a microphone on the treeline or something . . .

I think I've seen something like that before where the sounds of the artillery shells detonating happen at the exact same time as the visual, even though it's being filmed from over a kilometre away (or more). The sound of the artillery shell sounds like a canned SF/X.  Neither here nor there, but the post-production on some of these clips (w/music and atmospheric winds etc.), are definitely pushing a kind of information warfare)

Edited March 19, 2023 by Gpig

[chuckdyke]

Infantry. Think like a hunter and don't think like you are the prey. 

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by chuckdyke

[Offshoot]

3 hours ago, dan/california said:

Long article, fairly grim conclusions, though I doubt many people on the thread will be surprised by any of them. Xi is obsessed with Taiwan and pushing the U.S. out of the western Pacific. A new cold war with China seems inevitable, and a hot war over Taiwan by no means unlikely. There are parts of the Chinese government that understand this is a terrible idea, but they are very much not the ones in charge.

The cold war could already be here:

Qantas warns about interference by the ‘Chinese military’ in the South China Sea - https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/qantas-warns-about-interference-by-the-chinese-military-in-the-south-china-sea/news-story/40ff6a6a66408d666565085c5abf5d86

Likely a direct response to AUKUS and Australia ordering nuclear submarines from the US.

[Fenris]

14 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Suggestion he may use a double carries some weight.

 

Bit over 80 years ago apparently...

[Grossman]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks for posting this.  It is possible that this is exactly what is going to happen next week.  From China's perspective it makes total sense.  As we've discussed here many times, this war is *NOT* good for China for several reasons, the primary one giving all of China's potential adversaries motivation to be better prepared to deal with potential Chinese aggression.  The longer the war goes on, the more prepared the US and its allies will be.  The more likely Asian countries will seek even stronger military alliances.  The more likely countries will question their reliance on Chinese manufacturing.  The more likely investments will be withheld from Chinese interests.  The more likely Chinese "soft power" abroad will be challenged.  Etc.

If China wants this war to end ASAP, there's two ways to go about it:

1. help Russia defeat Ukraine and its backers in open warfare.  This means sending massive amounts of military and economic aid.  So much that it's unlikely China will get paid for it in any reasonable timeframe.  China will also have to suffer further negative consequences with the West and its Asian neighbors.
2. not help Russia defeat Ukraine and instead use some carrots and sticks to get Putin to end the war even if it means getting little from it.  This will likely be catastrophic for Putin's regime, but like us China probably thinks Putin will be replaced by someone similarly hostile to the West and so no net loss.

Getting back to my points about "possible" and "probable", either scenario (or shades of it) is possible.  It is possible that this war might be decided by Xi rather than Putin.  Is it probable?  I really don't know.

One possible play for Xi is to say that Russia is on its own unless it tries to negotiate a cease fire based on terms Ukraine might accept, offer financial assistance to keep Russian's economy from collapsing, and promise Putin a safe haven if his regime goes belly up.  Another play is to make it known within Russia's power elites that it wants Putin gone and will richly reward anybody who makes that happen.  There's all kinds of things Xi can do, but Putin could wind up rejecting all of them and keeping things going.  For now.

Steve

Steve. No 1 is unlikely. China would be siding with Russia against both the EU and US, against its national interest. Besides it would feed weapons into Russia surreptitiously and not be brazen about it. The most likely is no 2, read Putin the riot act, give him some carrots to end it. One thing is certain, it is no longer a Russia/China partnership if it ever was one. Russia is wholly dependant on China. Xi calls the shots.  The White House has been strangely silent on the visit. It probably is well aware of the agenda. Putin will reject all, and keep going. It's his life's ambition, he's a war criminal, he is prepared to die in his quest, unrepentant. 

[kevinkin]

Chinese ammunition has been used during the war in Ukraine, United States government sources have confirmed, adding that they believe Russian forces to have been the ones using it, according to a recent report.

US government officials told a Japanese news source, Kyodo News, that although they are still unsure if China did indeed supply Russia with ammunition, they will take action against China if it is true.

The US currently possesses information that indicates China's intent on sending ammunition and weapons to Russia.

US President Joe Biden warned Xi that if China were to provide any military aid to Russia to use during the war, there would be severe consequences.

Sketchy report, but it's out there:

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-734760

Would like to see what this is all about. 

[MHW]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

My only problem with "information as force multiplier" is that it boxes it in.  Information supports physical effects.  The reality is that the two are far more symbiotic.  Physical effects create information and in some cases are only conducted to gather information (e.g. spec fire).  The two concepts drive each other.  Better physical systems are a force multiplier for information - I can move, see and "cause" better than an opponent.

Norman Friedman wrote a 2009 book, Network-Centric Warfare, tracing the idea back through naval examples, starting with the Royal Navy in WWI. A battleship admiral of 1900 could only affect the battle that he could see—maybe twelve miles—but once cruisers started carrying high-powered radios, the Admiralty could direct ships clear on the far side of the globe. By mid-WWII, air battles and antisubmarine operations are all about sensors and tactical data systems.

To your point: Friedman very much dislikes the term "network-centric warfare," and wishes instead that people had called it "picture-centric warfare." Talk about networks, and the issues immediately collapse into discussions of hardware and technical capabilities. Talking about a picture, now you can discuss the quality of your own picture, and you can plan to degrade your enemy's picture.

[dan/california]

8 minutes ago, Grossman said:

Steve. No 1 is unlikely. China would be siding with Russia against both the EU and US, against its national interest. Besides it would feed weapons into Russia surreptitiously and not be brazen about it. The most likely is no 2, read Putin the riot act, give him some carrots to end it. One thing is certain, it is no longer a Russia/China partnership if it ever was one. Russia is wholly dependant on China. Xi calls the shots.  The White House has been strangely silent on the visit. It probably is well aware of the agenda. Putin will reject all, and keep going. It's his life's ambition, he's a war criminal, he is prepared to die in his quest, unrepentant. 

Just to reiterate, the Economist forecast is 100% the other way. They strongly predict Xi is going to back Putin strongly, and demand Russian technology and support over Taiwan in return. The Economist has real on the ground sources all over Asia, and has for decades. I am not saying they are necessarily correct, but it is hard to just dismiss them out of hand.

[The_Capt]

Just now, MHW said:

Norman Friedman wrote a 2009 book, Network-Centric Warfare, tracing the idea back through naval examples, starting with the Royal Navy in WWI. A battleship admiral of 1900 could only affect the battle that he could see—maybe twelve miles—but once cruisers started carrying high-powered radios, the Admiralty could direct ships clear on the far side of the globe. By mid-WWII, air battles and antisubmarine operations are all about sensors and tactical data systems.

To your point: Friedman very much dislikes the term "network-centric warfare," and wishes instead that people had called it "picture-centric warfare." Talk about networks, and the issues immediately collapse into discussions of hardware and technical capabilities. Talking about a picture, now you can discuss the quality of your own picture, and you can plan to degrade your enemy's picture.

He (and you) have landed on another spin on this thing - military culture.  Western militaries are always fighting for funding.  They are in competition with the rest of social spending, national security and each other.  So they carved out military domains as kinda fence lines between the services.  A domain, as the name suggest is "territory under stewardship of", other definitions have been floated but we always come back to that.  For the longest time "joint" really meant air-land-sea.  Then technology forced the services to accept space and cyber.  The problem was that these areas were to complex (and expensive) for any one service to take one, so we cut up the operating environment to accommodate...let the games begin again.

Cyber, was the way to cover off "information" but it really isn't.  It is the hardware and software to sustain, deny and attack information infrastructure.  Information is currently an "environment" which is code for nobody owns it but everyone claims it, right next to human (the closest we got to a Human Domain was in SOF and PsyOps, but it was always a poor third son).  So now Information is everywhere.  Intelligence claims to own it but Int is another thing we have torn apart - everyone has intelligence mechanisms, and they often do not talk to each other. 

Ultimately it gets dumped on a commander who has about a hundred people all over the place working it.  For example, if you want to talk about weaponizing information to effect, you are going to get Cyber, Joint Int, Service Int, PsyOps, Strat Comms and Legal - and that is before you get into other government space.  This is what JADC2 is supposed to solve and dump a lot on AI, but we will see.  Rumour has it the UA has already bolted an integrated info sharing system that is able to create pictures faster-better.

Finally, names matter.  "Picture-centric" is not going to fly in military circles, sounds too pre-school.  Cognitive-centric is a term being tossed around.

[MikeyD]

China's only dog in this race is they don't want to see lawless chaos along its long northern border. So they're caught between a rock and a hard place. Russia's not an ally, its not much of a trading partner, its not a good neighbor, the ideology they used to share is all but forgotten. But Russia holds back the forces of chaos in the north. So do they let Russia fail and fragment? Do they 'help' just enough so that the Russian state won't collapse outright? Or do they bet all their chips on Russia eventually winning a war they're currently losing? It was a diplomatic faux pas for the US to be so publicly treating China as 'the enemy' for the past couple years. It greatly reduced the likelihood that China will want to publicly assist us on this.

[Halmbarte]

17 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

China's only dog in this race is they don't want to see lawless chaos along its long northern border. So they're caught between a rock and a hard place. Russia's not an ally, its not much of a trading partner, its not a good neighbor, the ideology they used to share is all but forgotten. But Russia holds back the forces of chaos in the north. So do they let Russia fail and fragment? Do they 'help' just enough so that the Russian state won't collapse outright? Or do they bet all their chips on Russia eventually winning a war they're currently losing? It was a diplomatic faux pas for the US to be so publicly treating China as 'the enemy' for the past couple years. It greatly reduced the likelihood that China will want to publicly assist us on this.

In the long run the Russian war just accelerates Russia turning into a client state. That gives the Chinese access to The Northern Resources Area without having to look bad by invading to 'protect the Han people living north of the border' or some such pretext. 

Even better the Russians can be made to pay for their tighter integration into the Chinese economy as the Russians don't have much of a choice. 

H

[akd]

Hahaha

 

[kevinkin]

China is only interest is self interest. To that end they are looking to flip the world order so that it leans to them and not the west. They want to maintain the west as a importer of cheap goods produced by cheap labor. So this transformation will be slow (poaching the frog). To paraphrase Stalin: keep the population fed enough to work, but not strong enough to revolt. They will maintain a caste system of workers, lower and middle management, executives, and owners that are a front for the state. China has a "so be it" approach. Help Russian a little: they fail, so be it. They out last Ukraine, so be it with a smile. If they try to broker a peace, it will not be in anyone's interest but China's. Or perhaps one of the growing third world countries they deem as strategic assets. Seems like India can sit back and reap some tangible rewards by doing nothing. And nations have every right to try to improve themselves as long as they adhere to basic human rights. Oh, but there's the rub. 

[Battlefront.com]

China is in a fascinatingly advantageous and screwed position at the same time.  Such a dynamic probably hasn't been around since... I dunno, maybe 1914 Germany or Russia?  In any case, China is not going to have an easy time threading the needle.

To me it seems China is best off not pissing off the West too much.  Let Russia implode (staying whole or breaking apart), scoop up lands and resources (directly or contractually), deal with its economic problems at home, take time to revamp its military from top to bottom, and so forth.  As I said in my previous post, if Putin goes away some other Chinese leaning Russian government (or plural if Russia dissolves) will take his place.  China might even be better off with weaker Russian leadership, provided it can keep its seat of power.

That's my take on this from someone who doesn't understand the subtitles of Chinese leadership thinking.  Which means, for all I know China is going to go the exact opposite route.

What doesn't make sense, I think, is for China to try something half way between fully supporting Russia or not supporting.  Half way likely means making no tangible difference in Russia's war, but making (or at least risking) things with the West as bad as if they went all in on Russia.  The war drags out and now China is in direct diplomatic and economic conflict with the West to a degree not seen since the days of Mao.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, kevinkin said:

Chinese ammunition has been used during the war in Ukraine, United States government sources have confirmed, adding that they believe Russian forces to have been the ones using it, according to a recent report.

US government officials told a Japanese news source, Kyodo News, that although they are still unsure if China did indeed supply Russia with ammunition, they will take action against China if it is true.

The US currently possesses information that indicates China's intent on sending ammunition and weapons to Russia.

US President Joe Biden warned Xi that if China were to provide any military aid to Russia to use during the war, there would be severe consequences.

Sketchy report, but it's out there:

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-734760

Would like to see what this is all about. 

Could be that this is another "balloon" event to see what happens when undeniably Chinese munitions show up in Russian hands.  How quickly is it noticed, can it be traced back to them, what sticks are being waived in their direction, what carrots might be on offer, etc.

Steve

[Halmbarte]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Could be that this is another "balloon" event to see what happens when undeniably Chinese munitions show up in Russian hands.  How quickly is it noticed, can it be traced back to them, what sticks are being waived in their direction, what carrots might be on offer, etc.

Steve

A little bit of Chinese ammo leaking in via 3rd parties can remain deniable by the Chinese, just the same way that recently manufactured Western electronics found in Iranian drones are considered 'leakage' w/o anyone calling for sanctions against Phillips or Siemens. 

Entire ships or trains worth of munitions would be much more easily trackable and much less deniable, which is why I don't think the Chinese would go that route. 

Much better to keep buying oil & gas at a steep discount and make the Russian economy even more dependent on the Chinese w/o taking any big risks. 

H

[Battlefront.com]

Interesting stuff in ISW's March 19th report.  Summarizing:

1. Ukraine made a limited, but significant, counter attack around Bakhmut
2. A further 25 Russian attacks on Bakhmut were either outright defeated or made minimal gains
3. Ukrainian commanders are using language that hints they think Bakhmut is now out of immediate danger of being lost
4. Wagner's forces are likely near or totally spent as an offensive element
5. Avdiivka is holding, Russia is committing new forces without success.  ISW theorizes Russians are trying to draw Ukrainian reserves away from Vuhledar
6. Vuhledar sector is seeing elements of the 98th Guards Airborne Division being deployed in support of the battered 155th Marines.  ISW notes that the 98th also has elements fighting in the Kreminna area.  This indicates to them that Russia is in short supply of functional reserve units and is desperately spreading out what little it has to try and keep multiple pressure points active
7. Interestingly enough, ISW classifies the recent Russian fighting as "spring offensive" and that they also think it is showing signs of culminating.  I've thought of the recent fighting as the end of the winter season, not spring.  In any case, they are thinking that Russia is no longer in a position to conduct offensive operations of any significance

Now for the fun bit:

Quote

The overall Russian spring offensive is thus likely approaching culmination. Ongoing Russian offensives along the Svatove-Kreminna line, around Bakhmut, and along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City and Vuhledar frontlines have failed to make more than incremental tactical gains in the first few months of 2023. Russia has committed the approximately 300,000 mobilized soldiers, called up by partial mobilization in September 2022 for the purpose of pursuing exactly such a spring offensive, to these various offensive efforts. If 300,000 Russian soldiers have been unable to give Russia a decisive offensive edge in Ukraine it is highly unlikely that the commitment of additional forces in future mobilization waves will produce a dramatically different outcome this year. Ukraine is therefore well positioned to regain the initiative and launch counteroffensives in critical sectors of the current frontline.

In short, Russia invested all of its mobilized forces and still came up short.  Now that its resources are spent it is unlikely to be in a position to do anything offensively for the rest of 2023.  This conclusion remains the same even if Russia engages in another large mobilization.  I agree with that assessment, except for the possibility of a counter offensive if Ukraine fumbles really badly somewhere.  I mean, epically bad.  Which I don't see happening

This gets back to the debate we had earlier this weekend... Russia's offensive power is gone.  All it has left are units that have been wrecked and only partially rebuilt using poorly trained volunteers and mobilized.  Their officer shortage must be extreme at this point.  We've already seen that when a unit gets mobilized they are commanded by one of their own as there's nobody else to do it.  If the unit is lucky the guy they put in charge has at least some experience, even if dated.  Since Russian attacks seem to be rarely larger than platoon sized, it means the leadership of the attacking element is unlikely to be qualified to do so even under Russia's poor definition of leadership training.

Beyond what ISW is saying is what I've been harping on and on about... equipment and munition shortages.  It seems to me now that we can say Russia's rebuilt combat power peaked late 2022 and has been in perpetual decline from that point on because it can't bring new or dusted off stuff into use faster than it is lost. 

The only way this can change is if the war stopped now, thus stopping losses, and use the time to put new production and refurbished mothballed equipment into service to replace past cumulative losses.  Ukraine is very unlikely to give Russia that sort of breathing room, therefore it is likely that from this point on each passing day Russia will get weaker proportional to what it loses on failed attacks or from Ukraine's counter attacks.  Even if massive amounts of munitions and light weaponry come from China, it won't be heavy stuff and it won't be enough to both sustain current ops and restore lost immediate reserves.

Last year Russia collapsed several times with far better odds in its favor.  Hard to imagine how it is going to avoid another collapse sometime this year.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, kevinkin said:

China is only interest is self interest. To that end they are looking to flip the world order so that it leans to them and not the west. They want to maintain the west as a importer of cheap goods produced by cheap labor. So this transformation will be slow (poaching the frog). To paraphrase Stalin: keep the population fed enough to work, but not strong enough to revolt. They will maintain a caste system of workers, lower and middle management, executives, and owners that are a front for the state. China has a "so be it" approach. Help Russian a little: they fail, so be it. They out last Ukraine, so be it with a smile. If they try to broker a peace, it will not be in anyone's interest but China's. Or perhaps one of the growing third world countries they deem as strategic assets. Seems like India can sit back and reap some tangible rewards by doing nothing. And nations have every right to try to improve themselves as long as they adhere to basic human rights. Oh, but there's the rub. 

A Russian Mil Blogger perspective:

https://en.topwar.ru/213007-iz-kitaja-s-ljubovju-perspektivy-postavok-v-zonu-svo-tjazhelyh-vooruzhenij-iz-knr.html

As with much of what I've found on this site, and with other better informed Russian pro-war sources, the author pretty accurately sums up the basic situation; China has a difficult choice to make because either way it gains and loses.  He also made it clear that China is out for itself and can not be relied upon by anybody, as it will switch strategies the minute it feels it isn't working for them.

His conclusion (surprise surprise) is that Russia is more valuable to China than the Western aligned countries, therefore China is going to provide Russia with a large amount of stuff.  He then lists all the potential stuff and reasonably rules out large swaths of it for various practical reasons.  However, the stuff he thinks of as possible would violate what he himself thinks China might do, which is to try and covertly supply Russia.  So his list of possibilities is overly optimistic if he applies his own logic to it.

Interesting to note that the comments section seems to think the author is wrong and that Russia is not as valuable to China as he thinks.  Which means Russia won't get meaningful support.

 

On a side note, I find it so amusing that the RU Nats can talk about the need for China to supply the Russian military in order for it to succeed.  I've listened to RU Nats for decades talk about how it has the military might to take on the entire world if it chose to.  And yet, apparently it can't even take on a bunch of backwards, racially inferior "little brothers" who are being armed with Cold War era equipment.

That point apparently just zips by them.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

1.  Said to be a JDAM strike on a Wagner position.  Certainly looks to be a PGM and far bigger than what I'd expect to see from HIMARS or Excalibur.  So possible for sure.

Looks like the timing was just a little late, but still there are obvious casualties:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/11vvqn3/bakhmut_a_building_with_dozens_of_wagnerites/

2.  Reminder of the side effects of poorly trained vehicle crews (in this case 3rd Army Corps):

3.  Seems Girkin also think the "Putin" in Mariupol is a double:

 

Steve

[dan/california]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

A Russian Mil Blogger perspective:

https://en.topwar.ru/213007-iz-kitaja-s-ljubovju-perspektivy-postavok-v-zonu-svo-tjazhelyh-vooruzhenij-iz-knr.html

As with much of what I've found on this site, and with other better informed Russian pro-war sources, the author pretty accurately sums up the basic situation; China has a difficult choice to make because either way it gains and loses.  He also made it clear that China is out for itself and can not be relied upon by anybody, as it will switch strategies the minute it feels it isn't working for them.

His conclusion (surprise surprise) is that Russia is more valuable to China than the Western aligned countries, therefore China is going to provide Russia with a large amount of stuff.  He then lists all the potential stuff and reasonably rules out large swaths of it for various practical reasons.  However, the stuff he thinks of as possible would violate what he himself thinks China might do, which is to try and covertly supply Russia.  So his list of possibilities is overly optimistic if he applies his own logic to it.

Interesting to note that the comments section seems to think the author is wrong and that Russia is not as valuable to China as he thinks.  Which means Russia won't get meaningful support.

 

On a side note, I find it so amusing that the RU Nats can talk about the need for China to supply the Russian military in order for it to succeed.  I've listened to RU Nats for decades talk about how it has the military might to take on the entire world if it chose to.  And yet, apparently it can't even take on a bunch of backwards, racially inferior "little brothers" who are being armed with Cold War era equipment.

That point apparently just zips by them.

Steve

 

The most informative sentence ever written was

Quote

Upton Sinclair 1878–1968. American novelist and social reformer. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

I might add that in Putin's Russia you might add his life to the balance. When you simply cannot figure out why something works the way it does, start here.

[sburke]

59 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

On a side note, I find it so amusing that the RU Nats can talk about the need for China to supply the Russian military in order for it to succeed.  I've listened to RU Nats for decades talk about how it has the military might to take on the entire world if it chose to.  And yet, apparently it can't even take on a bunch of backwards, racially inferior "little brothers" who are being armed with Cold War era equipment.

That point apparently just zips by them.

Steve

This meeting should be interesting, it is the first and likely only meeting where Putin is clearly not the alpha dog and also can't play any of his antagonistic mind games.  Xi is in the driver's seat and Putin will need to basically follow Xi's direction or risk complete isolation.  This has to be extremely uncomfortable for a person of his temperament. Good thing that table is so long, maybe Xi won't see him squirming.