How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Seedorf81]

Shouldn't "World War" be about the number of participants (lot of countries all over the planet) and the simple fact that pretty much the entire world is directly and substantially influenced by it?   (Even neutral countries in both previous world wars couldn't sail, or drive or fly anywhere they wanted. Huge parts of the world were battlegrounds or would-be batllegrounds.)

In theory you could have a World War with less than 10.000 casualties.

[The_Capt]

44 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Dimensions I've found myself discussing lately include but are not limited to duration, intensity, relative capabilities (peer, near peer, asymmetric), and whether a war is a conventional war or a guerilla war (sometimes called an unconventional war or an insurgency/counterinsurgency). So I'm well aware those other aspects exist. But they don't need to be taken into account when you're just trying to define scale. Not every concept about war needs to capture every other concept about war. It would be impossible to discuss any one concept in detail if that were the case.

Ya kinda do and just demonstrated it.  If one focuses solely on scale = body count then it is far too easy to miss other factors such as unconventional vs conventional.  I strongly disagree with the entire position that one can ignore other dimensions/concepts and focus on single factors.  It is like trying to dissect a symphony by counting the number of notes.  One can focus on the melody lines of an set of instruments but it has do be done in context of the whole.  So, yes the entirely of the concept does need to be taken into account in any discussion.  This does not preclude focused concept development but it must be re-integrated into the whole.  This is the entire foundation of joint warfare (i.e. no domain can be taken isolation), or mulit-domain (whatever they call it these days).  

So when discussing scale and hanging it solely on in-war body counts one risks doing exactly that.

[Centurian52]

34 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Ya kinda do and just demonstrated it.  If one focuses solely on scale = body count then it is far too easy to miss other factors such as unconventional vs conventional.  I strongly disagree with the entire position that one can ignore other dimensions/concepts and focus on single factors.  It is like trying to dissect a symphony by counting the number of notes.  One can focus on the melody lines of an set of instruments but it has do be done in context of the whole.  So, yes the entirely of the concept does need to be taken into account in any discussion.  This does not preclude focused concept development but it must be re-integrated into the whole.  This is the entire foundation of joint warfare (i.e. no domain can be taken isolation), or mulit-domain (whatever they call it these days).  

So when discussing scale and hanging it solely on in-war body counts one risks doing exactly that.

Because you are talking about one factor one day does nothing to prevent you from talking about another factor the next day. For someone who spends their entire life studying warfare, spending a single day focused on just one factor absolutely does not risk missing out on all the other factors. Nor does it risk missing out on how those factors interact with each other or produce emergent effects (it's easy enough to talk about the trees one day and the forest the next day). There are a lot of days in a lifetime.

And of course bodycount is an imperfect measure of scale. It was very consciously a rough and imperfect measure, in part because there is no perfect measure, and in part because this one is good enough for the purpose it was being used for (Pinker's purpose being to illustrate a point about scale invariance, and my purpose being to forestall calling everything a world war).

Edited September 20, 2023 by Centurian52

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I am just a poor boy though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
...All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest

Look, it's the same bloody macroeconomic data everyone uses, with all its limitations.

Decent sliced and diced historical sets for countries are available at UNCTAD; I use them myself for work, and they are quite interesting for certain purposes (trends in aggregate supply and demand, energy intensity, etc.). Yes, some data could be falsified or misclassified, but even USSR or Mao's China didn't go to extreme lengths.

...And what it's telling Tooze is not to count on the Russian consumer blowing a whistle in the event of a 'long war' cuz too many guns and not enough butter are crimping his lifestyle. Which makes reasonable intuitive sense to me, unless China decides to side with the West or sumfink.

He makes no claims though regarding the long term ability of the Russian economy to sustain the war machine.

I don't get what people are so torqued about here.

At least I don't feel 'torqued' or whatever you mean by that ;-P. 

My question was more in the context of 'there have been many articles about the Russian economy and how the sanctions are/aren't working' or how much the war has an influence on the economy, all based off probably the same data (or lack thereof). Plenty of 'derivative' indexes/numbers/predictions continue to operate and produce periodic sets without much consideration (and or because they're contractually obliged and don't really care what other parties do with their calculations). Maybe that is what you mean about torqued people.

We at least know for sure that Russia has interest to present a case that the sanctions aren't working and that those participating in it are hurting themselves for little/no gain. 
One could also put forward that Russia has interest to portray, at least internally, that their economy isn't really affected much by the war or the sanctions. 

So I wondered if he (Tooze) found something 'new', but I'll read the article now that the sun is slowly going down on this side on the globe. 

Sometimes a question is just a question and there's not much more behind it then an enquiring mind. 

[Battlefront.com]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Look, it's the same bloody macroeconomic data everyone uses, with all its limitations.

Decent sliced and diced historical sets for countries are available at UNCTAD; I use them myself for work, and they are quite interesting for certain purposes (trends in aggregate supply and demand, energy intensity, etc.). Yes, some data could be falsified or misclassified, but even USSR or Mao's China didn't go to extreme lengths.

...And what it's telling Tooze is not to count on the Russian consumer blowing a whistle in the event of a 'long war' cuz too many guns and not enough butter are crimping his lifestyle. Which makes reasonable intuitive sense to me, unless China decides to side with the West or sumfink.

He makes no claims though regarding the long term ability of the Russian economy to sustain the war machine.

I don't get what people are so torqued about here.

My problems with Tooze fall into two categories:

1.  Nowhere in his report did he state, even a little bit, that the data he used could be flawed enough to affect the conclusions.  Especially because we know the Russians lie about pretty much everything.  This should have been stated clearly and humbly with insightful alternatives "should X data prove to be wrong, it affects my conclusions Y" sort of thing.

2.  He made the mistake of making prognostications that were outside the scope of his study.  In particular concluding that the economic data he analyzed indicated that the Russian state can just keep on chugging indefinitely.  While the theoretical numbers (even if they are accurate) might lean towards such a conclusion, without examining it in the greater context of Russia's history, as well as that of other autocratic states in crisis, that conclusion has no value without caveats.

The end result is a premise that is being stated as a conclusion without the necessary caveats and alternative scenarios that someone trying to predict the future should include.

Steve

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Centurian52 said:

Because you are talking about one factor one day does nothing to prevent you from talking about another factor the next day. For someone who spends their entire life studying warfare, spending a single day focused on just one factor absolutely does not risk missing out on all the other factors. Nor does it risk missing out on how those factors interact with each other or produce emergent effects (it's easy enough to talk about the trees one day and the forest the next day). There are a lot of days in a lifetime.

And of course bodycount is an imperfect measure of scale. It was very consciously a rough and imperfect measure, in part because there is no perfect measure, and in part because this one is good enough for the purpose it was being used for (Pinker's purpose being to illustrate a point about scale invariance, and my purpose being to forestall calling everything a world war).

You and Pinker are kinda making my point.  Right so we firmly establish that this current war is indeed not A World War because it falls under a certain (arbitrary) scale on a single metric of loss of life.  So what?  Do we feel better?  Do we have a better frame or lens through which to look at this war?  How does that offer one wit of anything valuable to the analysis?  

And by fixating we are missing the larger picture: sure this isn't a World War (and no one has jumped in with legal of diplomatic definitions) - but it is a Global one.  It is having global effects on security and collective defence, food security, human security, nuclear warfare deterence and the role of the UN and global order to name a few.  This war will very likely change the cultures of Ukraine and Russia in ways we cannot even see yet.  It is shifting power dynamics in a region which again has global repurcutions.  Within the information space this war has gone global with open source and information warfare happening everywhere (even here).  In reality, I am not entirely sure if a war can be truly "small" anymore; however, this one definitely is not.  So beyond drawing arbitrary lines on narrow metrics todays fixation, like a lot of them in this vein, completely misses the point.

[Harmon Rabb]

 

[akd]

Classic “why is spotting in CM so broken?” situation:

 

[Seedorf81]

Tensions between Ukraine and Poland getting bigger.

Not helpfull at all, I think.

Origins of dispute in link:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66849185

[Harmon Rabb]

18 minutes ago, Seedorf81 said:

Tensions between Ukraine and Poland getting bigger.

Not helpfull at all, I think.

Origins of dispute in link:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66849185

Hopefully Ukraine and Poland work it out. So far the Ukrainian-Polish relationship during this war has been nothing short of incredible.

 

[JonS]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Right so we firmly establish that this current war is indeed not A World War because it falls under a certain (arbitrary) scale on a single metric of loss of life.

right ... except ... he's not trying to describe this - or any - specific war (singular). Instead he's describing wars (plural), and how they compare to each other (along one metric).

[Haiduk]

6 hours ago, cesmonkey said:

Rybar had this interesting telegram post about Ukraine's tactics for launching storm shadow missiles against Crimea:
https://t.me/rybar/52150
 

 

Unofficial twitter of Air Forces commented this "inside" with Russian prowerb "The fear has big eyes" (means someone, who fears exaggregates the danger)

Also interesting Rybar at least recognized three missiles "fell down" (hmm... new-language "hit") "former military unit". Crimean authorities claimed "fragments of UAV fell into vineyards and set fire the grass"

You can see "burning grass" with black smoke and locals could this watch many hours - there are many photos, despite Russian authorities warned about punishments for this. 

 

Also locals wrote about many ambulances driving toward smoke area - maybe some "winegrovers" got burns from "burning grass"? %) 

Reportedly territory of 744th Comm Center of Black Sea Fleet Command was hit in 2 km north from  Verhnyesadove village (northern suburb of Sevastopol). According to local chat rumors barrack and HQ building were hit. No final information about losses, but allegedly there are only wounded 109 alone. Among servicemen were many young conscripts (they formally don't participate in war until sign contract after 6 months of service).   

I note, when UKR strike ammo dump near Oktyabrskoye airfield about two months ago, local authorities also "shot down" all UAVs/missiles and "extinguished a burned grass". But since this time parents of more than dozen of conscripts try to find any info about their boys, who served on this base. They even openly established a group in local TG. Their children likely just evaporized, when ammo, which they unloaded, detonated after strike. But command of military unit doesn't say anything.   

"Storm Shadow" on route over Crimea, Simferopol district

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Haiduk

[AlsatianFelix]

I hate playing scenarios with green tank crews

[Kinophile]

With the Air Force,  Ukraine  MoD made a public campaign of air aces (eg the sadly lost Juice). 

Have they done equivalent for tank aces? 

[Haiduk]

One more daring operation of GUR, conducted on 18th of September. Their agents could sneak on well(?)-guarded Chkalovskiy airfield in Moscow oblast, where deployed 8th aviation special purpose division directly subordinated to Air-space forces HQ. GUR claims particularly its 354th special purpose aviation regiment was struck by their agents. Division has transport aviation and 354th regiment has passenger "a*s-carriers" for military top-brass. 

Reportedly were damaged An-148 and IL-18D (it was mistakingly passed by IL-20 flying transmitter in GUR report), also one An-148 got minor damages. More - one Mi-28N helicopter, which was deployed on this airfield to fight with UKR drones got tail part damages by explosion

https://gur.gov.ua/en/content/nevidomi-dyversanty-pidirvaly-dva-litaky-ta-helikopter-u-pidmoskov-i.html - official report of GUR (English)

  

Edited September 20, 2023 by Haiduk

[L0ckAndL0ad]

On 9/19/2023 at 4:30 PM, Kinophile said:

 @L0ckAndL0ad and others

Pekka is a firm supporter and I appreciate his constant exposure of RUS stools and narrative through his "vatnick soup" series. Is this thread accurate? 

I've deleted my twitter account some months ago (and don't regret it), but I've unrolled it via another site and yeah, in my opinion that's accurate information. Just like with inserting and supplying Girkin and his buddies (Babai, Bezler etc) in the east (I still remember seeing a photo of that first truck fully loaded with RPGs "magically" appearing, and their first AKs on photos near administrative buildings), Russia was responsible for all sorts of events like that one. Odessa was just another point where they've created tension via various means. They've been doing stuff like that for a while, and for a lot of countries. Their special services are behind all kinds of really nasty stuff.

 

ps: There's a lot of burning grass today in Crimea. 

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, JonS said:

right ... except ... he's not trying to describe this - or any - specific war (singular). Instead he's describing wars (plural), and how they compare to each other (along one metric).

I think the key objection is is if that metric is useful.  I don't think it is.  Let's look at some wars that have gone on recently:

• Syria
• Yemen
• Sudan
• Ukraine

Without checking the numbers in great detail, I think all of there are in the same ballpark (300k-600k) with Ukraine perhaps being the less of the four.

Of these only Ukraine is truly global in nature, with Syria probably being the next broadest, then Yemen, then Sudan.  Body count isn't really important because Ukraine was rocketed to global in scale even when the casualties were in the now 1000s.  Meaning, when Ukraine was at say 10k casualties it was vastly more important to the world than Yemen at 500k casualties.

For me, I don't mind someone classifying wars by arbitrary casualty figures because I don't think it's important and therefore I will just ignore it

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, akd said:

Classic “why is spotting in CM so broken?” situation:

 

That link is broken, but I think it's the same one AlsatianFelix just posted:

That's some crazy bad Russian TacAI.  Putin needs to fix or do somefink!

Steve

[Haiduk]

Interesting video with Russian mobiks of 1442nd motor-rifle regimenmt of territorial troops. They have been fighting near Klishchiivka already long time. The video has ENG subs, but in short:

- they are remains of infantry, drivers, mortar crews, servicemen of logistic units, cooks of 1st battalion. Their regimement lost alsmost all "line infantry" in "meat attacks" and command now gethered them and ordered to give 10 men for assault group to attack Klishchiivka again, but these guys say they don't want go to assault, because this is 100 % death. No artillery support, no ammunition for mortars. 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Haiduk

[The_Capt]

14 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I think the key objection is is if that metric is useful.  I don't think it is.  Let's look at some wars that have gone on recently:

• Syria
• Yemen
• Sudan
• Ukraine

Without checking the numbers in great detail, I think all of there are in the same ballpark (300k-600k) with Ukraine perhaps being the less of the four.

Of these only Ukraine is truly global in nature, with Syria probably being the next broadest, then Yemen, then Sudan.  Body count isn't really important because Ukraine was rocketed to global in scale even when the casualties were in the now 1000s.  Meaning, when Ukraine was at say 10k casualties it was vastly more important to the world than Yemen at 500k casualties.

For me, I don't mind someone classifying wars by arbitrary casualty figures because I don't think it's important and therefore I will just ignore it

Steve

Illustrates my point perfectly.  I personally think Pinker is selling cool aid and using selective statistic to try and flavour.  Considering the potential long term impacts of this war, I do not think a "well at least it isn't WW2" line of thinking is really all that helpful.  The scope and scale of its impact are not directly related to body counts or any single metric.  

[Bulletpoint]

19 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Interesting video with Russian mobiks of 1442nd motor-rifle regimenmt of territorial troops. They have been fighting near Klishchiivka already long time. The video has ENG subs, but in short:

- they are remains of infantry, drivers, mortar crews, servicemen of logistic units, cooks of 1st battalion. Their regimement lost alsmost all "line infantry" in "meat attacks" and command now gethered them and ordered to give 10 men for assault group to attack Klishchiivka again, but these guys say they don't want go to assault, because this is 100 % death. No artillery support, no ammunition for mortars. 

 

So if the Russians are down to just cooks and drivers now, who don't want to fight, and they have no ammunition, surely we can expect Ukraine to make big advances around Bakhmut very soon?

[dan/california]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ya kinda do and just demonstrated it.  If one focuses solely on scale = body count then it is far too easy to miss other factors such as unconventional vs conventional.  I strongly disagree with the entire position that one can ignore other dimensions/concepts and focus on single factors.  It is like trying to dissect a symphony by counting the number of notes.  One can focus on the melody lines of an set of instruments but it has do be done in context of the whole.  So, yes the entirely of the concept does need to be taken into account in any discussion.  This does not preclude focused concept development but it must be re-integrated into the whole.  This is the entire foundation of joint warfare (i.e. no domain can be taken isolation), or mulit-domain (whatever they call it these days).  

So when discussing scale and hanging it solely on in-war body counts one risks doing exactly that.

Spent too much of my morning thinking about this, and I think the best two examples of how little the body count matters to the long term effects are The Russo Japanese war of 1905, and the Rwandan genocide/civil war. The casualties in the two are very approximately the same, somewhere in the mid to high hundred thousands. One of them has had had massive effects that have echoed through history to this very day. The other led to some rhetoric that hasn't amounted to much, and very little else. Not saying that is right, or just , or anything else. Just that one event has mattered a LOT more than the other one.

[Haiduk]

Concerning allegedle Ukrainian involvement in attacks on pro-Wagner RSF rebels. Today journalists asked Budanov about CNN article he said nothing about Sudan, but say "We will pursuit Wagners anywere"

The moment of FPV drone under allegedle UKR team control hits at RSF jeep

[Haiduk]

9 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

So if the Russians are down to just cooks and drivers now, who don't want to fight, and they have no ammunition, surely we can expect Ukraine to make big advances around Bakhmut very soon?

No. This is particular situation of one regiment. But such units on southern flank of Bakhmut much more than UKR forces. A guy from 3rd assault brigade told UKR advance in this area is unique because this was offensive, when UKR troops had MUCH less troops than defendeing side. He also told UKR forces are phisically and moral exhausted, they suffered lack of armor, but they and other assault units advance forward just on motivation  and fury

[Haiduk]

Just a some pleasure moments of past day

UKR drone hit this night fuel tank in storage in Adler airport near Sochi (Russia)

Russian Su-34 bomber of 47th bomber aviation regment, airfield Baltimor, Voronezh crashed today in Voronezh oblast. Pilots ejected