How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Ultradave]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

There was definitely speculation that Trump getting booted from office was part of Putin's calculation that non-kinetic solutions weren't going to work.  With Trump in office for another 4 years NATO might have been wrecked.  With Biden (or pretty much anybody else) it was likely to regain some of the strength Trump had taken from it.  Better to strike while the alliance is at its weakest point ever vs. waiting and having it be stronger..

Just my own opinion, but I think this is the most likely argument. If Trump had won, Putin could have waited. Ukraine would not have gotten aide from the US and without that the rest of NATO would be less likely to go it alone. With Biden in office, he knew that Biden would build up unified opposition and a good case for aide, so the sooner the better (or in reality, the sooner the less bad  )

Interesting how the disinformation campaigns take root and are hard to weed out. My cousin stopped overnight on his way back from a business trip a few weeks ago. My wife was out of town so we went out to dinner at a local Irish pub and he brought up some of the issues in Ukraine. First on his list was the "secret US run bio warfare labs that the Russians had liberated". Ugh. I thought that was put to bed long ago. He recommended that I not listen to the "mainstream media" and instead go to "trusted sources".  He named a few - all of them completely unreliable rumor mills. I won't bother to give them any print here. Now this is a guy, middle aged (mid 50s), who is well educated (University of Florida, then Oxford), in economics, has worked in oil and gas futures and resource evaluation for a couple decades. He's no dummy. But he's been led astray by all the BS that is spread. I explained the "bio-labs" and how the US has been for years helping Ukraine and others better secure facilities, and that rather than following his sources, he should actually read the state department agreement that details exactly what has been done over the years. Slack jaw. There was more - Ukraine and the US started everything. There was a treaty that the US would not expand NATO at all after the USSR fell. There was no guarantee of Ukraine's integrity, yada, yada, yada.

I love him to death. I only have 2 cousins and with my parents and my younger brother all dead, 1) I'm the oldest in the family, and 2) he and his sister are the only peer family I have left (we all have "kids"), but ugh, we agreed to talk about other stuff. 

Dave

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bulwark-podcast/id1447684472?i=1000630354064

The first half of this podcast is as good a summary as will get of the current state of the process to pick a new speaker. I don't think it is meanigfully different fro what I posted above, but it has more details.

[Offshoot]

2 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

As for "why not wait a little more", no idea. My best guess is that Putin was born in 1952 and his age starting with 7 was the symbolic thing that made him go "wait if I want to have greater empire as my legacy, I need to do it soon".

They couldn't wait because of the state of the Russian forces that had been gathered on the border for months. It was either go or pull back for refitting for however long that would take, which would have been a bad look given Putin's standoff with the west. From reports of some Russians themselves, the forces on the 22nd were already not up to the task in some places.

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Ultradave said:

Now this is a guy, middle aged (mid 50s), who is well educated (University of Florida, then Oxford), in economics, has worked in oil and gas futures and resource evaluation for a couple decades.

Te best sentence Upton Sinclair ever wrote "You cannot get a man to understand something when his salary depends on is not understanding it". 

[Kinophile]

I know Congress is important to Ukraine support but right now we know f-all, basically,  and no way to know more. 

Can we get back to the main course,  please? 

[Battlefront.com]

7 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

Just my own opinion, but I think this is the most likely argument. If Trump had won, Putin could have waited. Ukraine would not have gotten aide from the US and without that the rest of NATO would be less likely to go it alone. With Biden in office, he knew that Biden would build up unified opposition and a good case for aide, so the sooner the better (or in reality, the sooner the less bad  )

Yup, and let's also remind the viewing audience that war was going to happen and relatively soon no matter who was sitting in the Oval Office.  The only way war could have been avoided is if Ukraine surrendered ahead of any military conflict, which we all know wouldn't have happened under any circumstances.  Therefore, it was always about Putin deciding when and not if to go to war with Ukraine.  After Trump lost it should have been crystal clear to Putin that ever day that passed the NATO and US response was going to get worse and not better.

7 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

I love him to death. I only have 2 cousins and with my parents and my younger brother all dead, 1) I'm the oldest in the family, and 2) he and his sister are the only peer family I have left (we all have "kids"), but ugh, we agreed to talk about other stuff.

Good call.  There is no way you'd ever make any progress on convincing him he's wrong.  As soon as I hear someone say you can't trust mainstream media, the next thing I know I'm going to hear is something detached from reality.  Even if what that something is has some basis in truth, it's at the very least going to be distorted and lacking proper context.

It is amazing how otherwise smart people can be so totally led astray.  Ironic that they think they're so independent minded and yet have no independent thoughts.  If you try to engage in debate/discussion all you get are alternative facts which you then have to argue about before getting to whatever point you started out trying to make in the first place.  It's draining and unproductive.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

I know Congress is important to Ukraine support but right now we know f-all, basically,  and no way to know more. 

Can we get back to the main course,  please? 

That is what I suggested a few pages back.  Seems a good time to remind us that all will be clearer soon, so might as well see how it plays out instead of speculating.

Steve

[kimbosbread]

Now now, some of us enjoy “war by other means”!

[danfrodo]

Here's some tankie fun, hopefully distract from US House nonsense w some UKR related nonsense.

It always amazes me how filppin' stupid people can be and how zealous in their stupidity.  It's great and good to be anti-war, but not when it also makes you pro-slavery and pro-genocide.  This naive idiots think that we can just talk to the monsters and they will behave?  The world talked and talked and talked to Putin, and then he invades UKR.  Then having basically lost any good reason for continuing the war, he continues the war.  All the while trying to sabotage global food, global energy, and our democracies.  It's utterly amazing to me.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2197568/-Ukraine-Update-Top-tankies-attack-Bernie-Sanders-claim-he-is-a-warmonger?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_9&pm_medium=web

[Fenris]

Almost looks like a Stuart

 

[Butschi]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I still do not see the forcing function.  Subversive campaigns can take a decade or more.  How long did Russia play silly buggers in Ukraine before 2014?  I think it is pretty obvious that he tried because he thought he could pull it off.  The plan was to hold Kyiv, install some puppet, leave some occupation support and a helluva lot of security forces to solidify control (see that RUSI reports on Russian unconventional warfare, the level and detail of planning is staggering).  The West would make quacking noises and toss on a few more sanctions at oligarchs but was too addicted to cheap energy to really unify.  It would all settle down and Russia would really be no worse off than they were in 2015.

Ok, but why Feb 22?  Worst time of year weather wise.  No crisis in the Kremlin - that we know about.  No looming NATO entry - hell the vast majority of westerners were entirely consumed by the pandemic.  You got a Rules Based Order guy in the White House.  I mean Jan 6th 2021, sure makes a lot of sense.  2022?  The smoke had cleared and the US actually had a moment to breathe.

It is the timing that gets me.  Putin could have waited another 24 months and hit in the middle of the US election.  NATO and the rest of the west would have been left wondering who to bet on.  You do this special operation in Nov or Oct and Europe would have had a whole winter needing more gas.

I get the motive, it is the opportunity space that really does not line up for me.

You make some very good points about the timing. From the German perspective: Early in 2021 would indeed have been a better date. Ukraine? Do they have a vaccine ready for distribution? Can they provide large quantities of masks cheaply? Are they important for the global supply chain? No? Too bad.

Else, as you say, autumn 2022 or better 2023. It is hard to imagine that Germany would have gone along with sanctions on natural gas that close to winter. But starting in February gave us a lot of time to prepare - which worked out quite well (with a little help from a rather mild winter, of course). Better yet: Autumn/winter after Nord Stream 2 went online. Just refusing permission to start the pipeline is one thing. Shutting it down when it is already in use would have been a different beast entirely. Imagine the potential for friction between a well supplied Germany and CEE countries when the other land based pipelines are switched off.

So, as others have already commented, the only thing that makes sense for me is that during the pandemic Putin went through a rather slow process of facing his own mortality. Combined with an isolation induced lack of reality checks.

[Battlefront.com]

We have to keep in mind that the timing of the war was in the context of how Putin thought it was going to play out.  The two overriding concepts he had was a) it will be over in 2 weeks and b) nobody is going to make a big deal out of it.  If those two things were true, then the timing really wouldn't matter at all.  On the contrary, if Putin understood Russia's weakening standing in the world and that NATO was likely about to become stronger, then attacking ASAP makes a lot of sense.

Putin's decision to invade Ukraine even though the US made his intentions public, and rallied support against Russia, also makes sense given his obsession with wiping Ukraine off the map.  He would likely never have a better opportunity than he had in hand right then.

This also explains why Putin had no Plan B.  There was never a possibility of there being one.  Which is why Russia is still operating with a slightly modified Plan A.

Steve

[Harmon Rabb]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Here's some tankie fun, hopefully distract from US House nonsense w some UKR related nonsense.

It always amazes me how filppin' stupid people can be and how zealous in their stupidity.  It's great and good to be anti-war, but not when it also makes you pro-slavery and pro-genocide.  This naive idiots think that we can just talk to the monsters and they will behave?  The world talked and talked and talked to Putin, and then he invades UKR.  Then having basically lost any good reason for continuing the war, he continues the war.  All the while trying to sabotage global food, global energy, and our democracies.  It's utterly amazing to me.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2197568/-Ukraine-Update-Top-tankies-attack-Bernie-Sanders-claim-he-is-a-warmonger?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_9&pm_medium=web

Code Pink members posing with MTG. Don't know exactly what the context of this photo is, but something tells me I know where they found common ground.

Helping Ukraine...Bad.

Edit: Read the entire article danfrodo posted and found out what the context was. My hunch was right, To quote MTG herself. 

Quote

The war in Ukraine must END! Today, I met brave @codepink activists who protested for peace in Bernie Sanders’ office. He had 11 of them arrested! Peace & free speech shouldn’t be a partisan issue. We don’t agree on most things, but we do agree Congress should STOP fueling the war in Ukraine!

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[billbindc]

2 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

This is definitely true in republican districts, but I hardly think this is the case in blue. With the exception of the Squad, the Dems primarily cater to a centrist constituency of wealthy 'Not In My Backyard" liberals, business and real estate interests. For Examples, see Kristen Synema, Eric Adams, Bloomberg etc. In senate races against Republicans, they run democratic candidates who can best be described as Bush senior/Reagan era conservatives to try to capture the vote of this unicorn 'reasonable moderate republican' who would be willing to back a conservative Dem over a Republican. With predictable results. The one exception where that has worked is Manchin.

Anyone who identifies with the left can tell you that we are NOT the democratic base. Lol. The DNC and liberals basically tell us to shut up and vote for them because we have no other choice.

Neither Sinema, Adams or Bloomberg is ever likely to win another Democratic primary in their lives. Middle of the caucus Democrats are also far to the left of Bush/Reagan era conservatives...and most Bush/Reagan era Democrats on trade, unions, gay marriage, abortion, etc. You are correct that The Left is not the Democratic base but by pretty much every measure Democrats have become more liberal over the last decades.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246806/understanding-shifts-democratic-party-ideology.aspx

 

[NamEndedAllen]

4 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

This is definitely true in republican districts, but I hardly think this is the case in blue. With the exception of the Squad, the Dems primarily cater to a centrist constituency of wealthy 'Not In My Backyard" liberals, business and real estate interests. For Examples, see Kristen Synema, Eric Adams, Bloomberg etc. In senate races against Republicans, they run democratic candidates who can best be described as Bush senior/Reagan era conservatives to try to capture the vote of this unicorn 'reasonable moderate republican' who would be willing to back a conservative Dem over a Republican. With predictable results. The one exception where that has worked is Manchin.

Anyone who identifies with the left can tell you that we are NOT the democratic base. Lol. The DNC and liberals basically tell us to shut up and vote for them because we have no other choice.

Respectfully and understanding the sentiment, one must show the actual evidence that the non competitive districts you assert have been all centrist/“moderate” candidates, despite the steady drift to the left side of the Democratic voters’ identifications and the candidates’ themselves. No judgments here, just the data. The reality isn’t that the Dems are far left. It’s that their “ center” has steadily moved towards the Left and no longer has much overlap with the overall political Center, same as the Republicans. Some links:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-are-too-liberal-for-their-own-voters/ar-AA1hf7co

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-democrats-have-shifted-left-over-the-last-30-years/

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/both-white-and-nonwhite-democrats-are-moving-left/
 

Edited October 6, 2023 by NamEndedAllen
Clarification that the Dem center has *moved* further Left…not that its majority is all the way left.

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

That is what I suggested a few pages back.  Seems a good time to remind us that all will be clearer soon, so might as well see how it plays out instead of speculating.

Steve

Sorry! I’ve been catching up chronologically in between trips to our vet’s office.

[danfrodo]

deleted, on second thought don't want to add to the politics stuff

Edited October 6, 2023 by danfrodo

[The_Capt]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'm glad you mentioned this, because it was gnawing at me while reading the ISW report.  We've certainly discussed it at length here, but in this area the report was decidedly short on details.  It just summed it up as "Putin saw the opportunity to strike".

I'm still of the opinion that the specific timing was some combination of the following:

1. hubris.  Because Putin presumed Ukraine wouldn't resist there was no need to be concerned about the campaign weather.  We also have evidence that he intended the war to start a month earlier but the US leadership spilling the beans caused Putin to put it off.
2. internal politics.  I strongly suspect there was some pressure building up that Putin needed to get on top of and waiting another 1-2 years wasn't viable.
3. health.  There's a very real possibility that Putin thought he didn't have time due to some sort of health crisis.  Either he'd be dead, ousted, or not physically strong enough to push this through.  When you're an egomaniac, it really is all about you!

Steve

I think of these three, #2 was the most viable but now after the war went all sideways where is the internal political threat?  If there were frictions and divisions that drove this pretty extreme course of action, then why have they not exploded in the mess that followed?

It only matters if the calculus that started the war can give insight into how to end it.  But so far I have not really seen any definitive explanation - we might never get one.  My best guess is that military and security forces were not ready until Feb 22, so that may explain “earlier”.  But it does not explain “why not later?”  Maybe Putin is feeling his own mortality.  Maybe there was an internal forcing function that somehow went away after the war dragged on.  Maybe the plan was to go later but Russia got wind that US intel had picked them up and they had to go before support to Ukraine started to build.

 

[The_Capt]

4 hours ago, Ultradave said:

Just my own opinion, but I think this is the most likely argument. If Trump had won, Putin could have waited. Ukraine would not have gotten aide from the US and without that the rest of NATO would be less likely to go it alone. With Biden in office, he knew that Biden would build up unified opposition and a good case for aide, so the sooner the better (or in reality, the sooner the less bad  )

Interesting how the disinformation campaigns take root and are hard to weed out. My cousin stopped overnight on his way back from a business trip a few weeks ago. My wife was out of town so we went out to dinner at a local Irish pub and he brought up some of the issues in Ukraine. First on his list was the "secret US run bio warfare labs that the Russians had liberated". Ugh. I thought that was put to bed long ago. He recommended that I not listen to the "mainstream media" and instead go to "trusted sources".  He named a few - all of them completely unreliable rumor mills. I won't bother to give them any print here. Now this is a guy, middle aged (mid 50s), who is well educated (University of Florida, then Oxford), in economics, has worked in oil and gas futures and resource evaluation for a couple decades. He's no dummy. But he's been led astray by all the BS that is spread. I explained the "bio-labs" and how the US has been for years helping Ukraine and others better secure facilities, and that rather than following his sources, he should actually read the state department agreement that details exactly what has been done over the years. Slack jaw. There was more - Ukraine and the US started everything. There was a treaty that the US would not expand NATO at all after the USSR fell. There was no guarantee of Ukraine's integrity, yada, yada, yada.

I love him to death. I only have 2 cousins and with my parents and my younger brother all dead, 1) I'm the oldest in the family, and 2) he and his sister are the only peer family I have left (we all have "kids"), but ugh, we agreed to talk about other stuff. 

Dave

 

I think no small amount of the dis/mis Information Age we live in is because most people do not know how to vet and apply critical thinking with respect to the internet.  Younger generations seem better at this but is digital refugees tend to lack some of the basic skill.  We grew up when information was pumped at us through a box.  We believed it, to a point.  

Then the information world blew up.  In an ocean of information, anything can be made true.  Connecting dots - even ones that were not there- became too easy.  We gorged and got sick on it.  Then we got scared and went back to listening to one or two channels on the box.  Problem was we all seemed to pick the channels we liked and not the ones we could trust because we did not know which ones to trust.  So we wind up with information being provided based on what we want to hear as opposed to what is actually happening.  The monetization of mainstream information channels did not help (although one could argue it was always monetized) but they adapted and began to tell truths they could seem to a market...not the actual truth.  It was all fun and games until politicians started doing it.  Now everyone else but my sources is “lying”, in an age that lying should be impossible.

The truth became relevant.  Again one could argue it always has been but the distance between relevance frameworks grew and diversified as we all sought certainty instead of truth.  I can only hope that young people are growing up far more digitally cynical and can smell “fake” much better than we can.  Of course with AI, “fake” is simply getting better as well.

[Kinophile]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67017010

That drone strike on the cadets was probably really an assassination attempt on the Defence Minister. It puts the Syrian gov on notice that public events of any kind need to be properly secured. There has been a steady increase in rebellious events over the last few months.

Whats nasty is that its exactly the kind of assault that a determined domestic terrorist could attempt in any western nation, against any major public figure or event, like a pride parade. 

Personally I avoid crowded public events where I cant easily walk away or can get hemmed in. This event just amplifies my fears. 

Expect more of this horror in the ME, then spreading elsewhere. 

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

I think of these three, #2 was the most viable but now after the war went all sideways where is the internal political threat?  If there were frictions and divisions that drove this pretty extreme course of action, then why have they not exploded in the mess that followed?

This is logical from a Western point of view, but isn't applicable to societies used to autocratic rule.  Even in the West friction can be reduced through some sort of nationalistic bonding.  I personally experienced this with 9/11.  I despised Bush Jr right up until that fateful day, at which point I literally stated that I'd put that aside and support doing what needed to be done.  Questions raised about how US foreign policy contributed to setting the stage for this act of terror were also put aside.  We've seen Ukrainians saying that about Zelensky for exactly the same reason.  Russians are no different except they are easier to mislead and keep misled.

The pre-war stress was coming from a growing belief within Russia that Putin was no longer able to consistently deliver upon his promises of Russian greatness and increasing quality of life.  The bump in living standards and domestic stability had long since faded and was in noticeable decline, the overt signs of corruption becoming ever more obvious.  The 2014 Crimea bump also faded.  There were signs of growing grumblings and nothing to distract from it.  Too many people were asking too many pointed questions.

According to the stuff I was reading in 2021 and 2022 the Rah-rah-Russia stuff that Putin was putting out wasn't doing the trick because it was all talk, no action.  Cracking down was the only way to keep a lid on the grumblings, but there's only so much pure negative reinforcement can do.  He needed a solidly Russian nationalistic BS purpose for people to justify life sucking.  MHO this war was in part, but not in total, a way to solve the domestic problems.

What Putin was aiming for was another Crimea bump.  Russians would rally around their glorious leader because he proved himself, once again, to be the top dog.  All bow before him, with detractors being further isolated.

What he instead got was an accidental redo of the Great Patriotic War, according to the messaging that evolved since the war started.  It didn't seem to get much traction in the beginning, but with the grumblers either leaving or shutting up due to greater levels of repression, it seems to be doing what Putin needs.  On the whole it seems Russian society is buying into Putin's sales pitch because the other choice lands them out of work or in jail.  As long as someone else is dying for them, well, that's OK.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67017010

That drone strike on the cadets was probably really an assassination attempt on the Defence Minister. It puts the Syrian gov on notice that public events of any kind need to be properly secured. There has been a steady increase in rebellious events over the last few months.

Whats nasty is that its exactly the kind of assault that a determined domestic terrorist could attempt in any western nation, against any major public figure or event, like a pride parade. 

Personally I avoid crowded public events where I cant easily walk away or can get hemmed in. This event just amplifies my fears. 

Expect more of this horror in the ME, then spreading elsewhere. 

Interesting timing as this is inline with the Russian video of the strike on a Ukrainian company sized force well in the rear.  We also had the very early war casualties from Ukrainian training grounds near Poland that were hit.

It seems pretty clear that distance and cover no longer have much meaning in warfare.  This is not good in conventional warfare to say the least, but for terrorism this is a whole 'nother level of bad.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Adding to above is Russian fatalism and pride in suffering, topics we've discussed endless times.  Stereotyping here, but if you got the average Russian into a choice between doubling down on a known way vs. a novel way, they'd choose the known way even if the status quo is not to their liking.  It's the "preferring the devil you know" thinking taken to an extreme.

At least this is how I interpret Russian culture under stress.  "My country right or wrong, but especially when it is wrong" seems to be their motto.

Steve

 

[Battlefront.com]

Some temporary strategies for continuing US funding for Ukraine are starting to be kicked around in public.  This one involves reallocating State Department funds intended as loans for countries wanting to purchase weaponry:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/05/biden-state-department-fund-ukraine-00120199

Steve

[dan/california]

34 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting timing as this is inline with the Russian video of the strike on a Ukrainian company sized force well in the rear.  We also had the very early war casualties from Ukrainian training grounds near Poland that were hit.

It seems pretty clear that distance and cover no longer have much meaning in warfare.  This is not good in conventional warfare to say the least, but for terrorism this is a whole 'nother level of bad.

Steve

Quote

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/turkish-officials-says-ground-operation-into-syria-an-option-after-bombing-2023-10-05/

WASHINGTON/ANKARA, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday shot down an armed Turkish drone that was operating near its troops in Syria, the Pentagon said, the first time Washington has brought down an aircraft of NATO ally Turkey.

A Turkish defense ministry official said the drone that was shot down did not belong to the Turkish armed forces, but did not say whose property it was.

Turkey's National Intelligence Agency carried out strikes in Syria against Kurdish militant targets after a bomb attack in Ankara last weekend, a Turkish security source said on Thursday.

 

In another Mid-east complication, and perhaps a more significant one for Ukraine, The U.S. and Turkey are either having major trust issues, or major deconfliction issues. U.S. clearly did not want that drone overhead. Article goes on to imply it was some Turkish intelligence agency. Maybe everyone involved will be smart enough too declare it was an accident, even if it maybe wasn't.