How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[danfrodo]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is pretty close to what I've observed as well. In foreign policy, China has completely alienated the Philippines after it had made enormous progress in suborning it to Chinese interests. It virtually drove Australia into much larger military commitments to the US alliance. Wolf warrior diplomacy induced Japan and South Korea into a trilateral pact with the US. 

All of that is indeed quite stupid. What I see is a nation that has economic and military interests that on many levels it pursues rationally but that cannot stop itself from lunging emotionally almost systematically in ways that unite its opponents...who is anyone in their neighborhood. China, as a diplomat friends likes to say, has no friends.

 

This is what I find so mind boggling, that a dictator can be so incredibly emotionally driven.  To become dictator they make ruthless, clever, calculated, rational decisions.  Then they become dictator and suddenly they lose their minds.  In RU, how was a country of 144 million w nukes and a huge supply of easily made money (fossil fuels) not enough?  But it seems once they hit what should've been the pinnacle of power they suddenly need to grasp for more.  I was one of the knuckleheads who thought "attacking UKR is insane, it won't happen".  Learned my lesson.  Sanity is no guide for what dictators will do.  

[The_Capt]

11 minutes ago, billbindc said:

This is pretty close to what I've observed as well. In foreign policy, China has completely alienated the Philippines after it had made enormous progress in suborning it to Chinese interests. It virtually drove Australia into much larger military commitments to the US alliance. Wolf warrior diplomacy induced Japan and South Korea into a trilateral pact with the US. 

All of that is indeed quite stupid. What I see is a nation that has economic and military interests that on many levels it pursues rationally but that cannot stop itself from lunging emotionally almost systematically in ways that unite its opponents...who is anyone in their neighborhood. China, as a diplomat friends likes to say, has no friends.

 

Money talks, BS walks:

https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/phl/partner/chn

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports/philippines

There are no “friends” in international politics - there are only business partners…and opponents.

 

[billbindc]

1 minute ago, danfrodo said:

This is what I find so mind boggling, that a dictator can be so incredibly emotionally driven.  To become dictator they make ruthless, clever, calculated, rational decisions.  Then they become dictator and suddenly they lose their minds.  In RU, how was a country of 144 million w nukes and a huge supply of easily made money (fossil fuels) not enough?  But it seems once they hit what should've been the pinnacle of power they suddenly need to grasp for more.  I was one of the knuckleheads who thought "attacking UKR is insane, it won't happen".  Learned my lesson.  Sanity is no guide for what dictators will do.  

Democratic governments have institutions and political processes that allow for addressing and releasing economic/political/social stresses in peaceful ways. Dictatorships mostly do not or at best do not do it well. Dictators thus must constantly look for ways to handle those stresses while being unable to diffuse responsibility for doing so...because they cannot do that without loosening their grip on power. The irrationality is inherent to the system.

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Then France will be our new master.

Now I'm worried

[billbindc]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Money talks, BS walks:

https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/phl/partner/chn

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports/philippines

There are no “friends” in international politics - there are only business partners…and opponents.

 

What are China's exports to the US? Would that matter much if they went for Taiwan? 

How much trade was 1913 Germany doing with Britain and France? 

(Note: I agree on rational terms with your points. I'm pretty sure Chinese diplomats wouldn't be clear on the concept.)

Edited December 3, 2023 by billbindc

[LongLeftFlank]

Infrared drone footage of a UA night 'tank raid' in Lyman area. Nothing gory.

Mariinka. Symbolism aside, it doesn't seem imprudent to let the Ivans be the ones to cross those open fields, rather than trying to resupply a slim foothold in the ruins.

 

Kill All The Chinese Go-Karts! (no gore)

 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[cyrano01]

57 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Point taken.

I guess a way to put it is that I would suggest starting with known facts and then working out your conclusions. Making a model from that, if you will. The problem with the Thucydides Trap, etc is that they go in the other direction. 

I see where you're coming from although I think, similarly to Karl Popper, that it is OK, indeed normal, to come up with a theory and then test it against the facts.

 

What happens far too often in reality, is that only a carefully selected, favourable set of facts are considered in testing the theory. As David Morgan-Owen (British strategic historian) commented when discussing historical parallels for the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), if you're going to learn from history it pays to get the history right.

Edited December 3, 2023 by cyrano01

[sburke]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Ok let’s not start pointing out temper tantrums by every nation on earth or we will be here all night.  FFS, shall we talk about the US performance during COVID?

I do not know about it being genetic but China essentially collapsed in the 20th century after being a great power in the east previously.  In 60 years they went from being a 3rd world nation that could not even feed its people to a position where they can be considered a challenger.  Poo-poo all you want but that did not just spontaneously happen.  

Japan went from being a feudal nation in 1860 to crushing the Russian navy in a historical defeat in 1905.  35 years after that they had the most powerful aircraft carrier fleet in the world.  What's my point?  Don't really have one other than to say China's performance isn't all that unique.

Edited December 3, 2023 by sburke
40 years after they had no fleet :-D

[sburke]

Ukraine predicted where Russia would reroute trains after it blasted the railroad connecting Russia and China, and then attacked again, report says (yahoo.com)

Interesting if true.

Quote

 

Ukraine's security service attacked a major railroad connecting Russia and China, reports say.

One train was hit with explosives as it went through a tunnel, and a second was hit as it was rerouted.

A Ukrainian official told the BBC they had preempted the diversion, and Russians fell into the "trap."

Ukraine's security service attacked a railway line deep inside Russia in an act of sabotage and then attacked again when the trains were diverted.

A freight train was targeted with four explosions as it traveled through the Severnomuysky tunnel in Russia's far east, on the Baikal Amur line running to the border with China.

The attack did not end there, as Ukraine's SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) anticipated that traffic would be redirected following the attack and struck again as a train passed over a bridge as part of the alternative route, say reports.

A Ukrainian official told the BBC that Russians fell into the "trap" and said, "this is exactly what the SBU was counting on."

The official said that explosive devices were planted on the bridge, which is over 100 feet high, and went off as the train passed.

The second attack has not been confirmed but was reported on by Ukrainian media and the Russian Telegram channel Baza.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Zeleban said:

Wait a minute, who said that the Polish government is considering the possibility of unblocking the borders with Ukraine. Nothing like this. Only strengthening the blockade.

Overall, this is a pretty reasonable solution to keep Poland safe from the millions of Ukrainian refugees who will flee ahead of the advancing Russian troops deep into Ukraine. So I expect that the borders with Poland will remain closed until the fall of Ukraine and the blockade of these borders by Poland will only intensify.

You are not only being an "alarmist", you appear to be suffering from amnesia that has wiped the last (nearly) 2 years of the war from your memory.

First, the border situation with Ukraine is problematic and likely influenced by Russia.  However, your characterization of it is wildly inaccurate, therefore the implications of it are also seriously off the mark.  This situation will get resolved because the government of Poland is not behind the blockage.  Quite the contrary, Poland has been Ukraine's strongest supporter in this war.  There are no signs of that weakening and, therefore, your characterization is not only inaccurate but, frankly, insulting. This is similar to your attitude towards the West generally.  You seem to think in black and white terms instead of the shades of gray of the real world.

On the military front we've seen Russia attacking along the entire front MANY times since this war started.  A number of pages ago I posted about the past pattern has been:

Russia has shown absolutely no ability to successfully conduct a strategically successful offensive campaign.  That does not mean it hasn't achieved some measure of territorial success in the process.  Most often it has been tactical in nature, with the exception the seizure of northern Donetsk which it still controls.  Even with that, on the whole Russia controls far less of Ukraine's territory than it did in March 2023.

The notion of Russia being able to advance out of the Donbas or across the Dnepr is impossible.  I didn't say implausible, I said impossible.  Russia never had the strength to do this and still does not.  The only way it could even attempt this is if it mobilized 500,000 conscripts *AND* were able to arm and supply them without triggering a regime collapse within Russia.  We've talked endlessly about this topic and the conclusion, every time, is that such a call up of conscripts is politically impossible and likely beyond Russia's logistics capabilities.  Anybody that starts down the path of denying this reality is as clueless as the people that expected Russia to defeat Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks.

As for Ukraine's homefront difficulties, this is of course a significant concern.  However, it doesn't seem that there's any serious movement within Ukraine to "throw in the towel" and surrender to Russia.  Maybe things will improve because of this struggle, maybe not.  However, I do not see reason to think that Ukraine's willingness to fight Russia will change either way.

Part of the reason for this is Russia is still showing NO signs of realistic conditions for freezing the war.  If this changes in a significant way, then perhaps Ukraine would fracture into groups with very different agendas.  Yet Russia shows no signs of pursuing this option, which means Putin fears what will come of it or he thinks there is advantage in continuing on without change.  We don't know, however we do know it hasn't worked so far nor is it showing any signs of working.

The bottom line is that Ukraine is now in a tighter spot than it was in June of 2023, but not as tight as June of 2022.  Compared to the 2022/2023 winter offensive it's probably in overall better shape because Russia is decidedly weaker than it was at the time.

Some tough months lie ahead for Ukraine, but when has that not been true since this war started?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

8 minutes ago, sburke said:

Ukraine predicted where Russia would reroute trains after it blasted the railroad connecting Russia and China, and then attacked again, report says (yahoo.com)

Interesting if true.

 

I don't see any reason to doubt this.  Due to the inflexibility and predictability of railroad traffic I bet a bunch of us on this Forum could figure out a pretty good disruption plan sitting safely at home.  That's not the difficult part, executing it is. 

Ukraine's special services (SBU and GUR) have shown themselves to be extraordinarily capable of conducting extremely innovative, competent operations deep within Russia.  Compared to the Kerch truck bomb, coming up with a solid plan to disrupt rail transport is pretty easy.  It's just a matter of Ukraine deciding to prioritize it and then dedicating resources to make it happen.

Up until recently the supply lines between China and Russia weren't all that important to the near term war effort (which includes civilian economic needs).  Because of that it is not surprising Ukraine hasn't tried this sooner.  Now that Russia is becoming more dependent upon China it makes sense to make connections between the two countries go boom.  Easier to disrupt rail transport than by sea, but I think we'll see some attempts to interdict North Korean military aid sooner rather than later.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

Russian tank raid, Avdiivka coke plant (today?). Tanks doing what tanks do, running stuff over.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

An OpEd in the Washington Post paints a picture of Russia's economic conditions as improving rather than worsening:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/28/putin-russia-sanctions-economy-oil/?utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_ideas

It's likely behind a paywall, so I will summarize:

Russian oligarchs have started investing inside Russia instead of outside as they had before the war.  This has created the sort of internal investment Putin tried to encourage before, but could not because the West has simply offered much better opportunities.  Now that those are gone, the oligarchs have no choice.

I do not doubt this is happening.  It happened after 2014/2015 for a period of time.  However, insular investment within a corrupt and autocratic economy has inherent limitations.  The boost Russia's economy received after the 2014/2015 sanctions was not as good as it appeared to be.  Here's a good article giving historical perspective up to 2020:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/19/long-read-russias-economy-under-putin-in-numbers-a66924

As you can see, Russia's domestic economy was only slightly better than flat since 2014, but it was in steep decline compared to the rest of the world.  In other words, Russians felt things were about the same but at the macro level Russia's economy was slipping further and further behind.  This is shown in the following assessment:

Quote

Real disposable incomes have been declining since 2014, and even a shift to new methodology then didn't help to lift reported incomes. However, the picture looks better when you adjust the incomes for purchasing power parity and add in the grey incomes. According to the IMF's estimates for 2018 this means real incomes, including off-the-book payments, are one of the best in the whole of CEE and ahead of several EU countries. These high incomes are the effect of the oil-subsidies that the Kremlin has been pouring into the economy for two decades and the high level of black work and corruption-related income. That extra money puts Russian's income ahead of even Estonia, which has the highest level of income in nominal dollar terms in the region. In practical terms this means that spending money in Russia goes a little bit further than it does in Estonia, but there is a huge difference when Russian's leave the country as Estonia's nominal incomes are close to €2000 a month, whereas Russia's nominal income is a bit less than 800 euros.

Remember, this is before the war.  It is the sort of evidence I've previously noted supports the notion that one of Russia's reasons for invading Ukraine was out of economic desperation.

Countering the fairly rosy picture painted in the Washington Post OpEd is this more nuanced view:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-russian-economy-is-in-bad-shape-no-matter-what-the-kremlin-says-russian-economist/ar-AA1khiag

The summary here is that while the oligarchs and the Russian government are doing things which make the economy look like it's doing pretty well, there are plenty of indicators that it is mostly smoke and mirrors.  The economic life for average Russians is bad and getting worse because oligarchs aren't known for spreading their wealth around.

This reminds me of fake charities.  You know, the ones that say "we raised $10m to help X cause" and then you find out that $9.9m of it was spent on "marketing and overhead" expenses.  Always question the top level numbers because they never tell the whole truth.  And the more incentivized the organization is to lie, the less likely the high level numbers are reflective of the real truth.

My belief has not changed since this war started that Russia's economy is headed downward at a steep pace, but the Russian government has a lot of smoke and mirrors tricks it can perform to make things look better than they really are.  At some point those tricks will stop being effective.  I believe Putin understood that very well in 2021 and it is one of the reasons why he invaded in 2022.  He had to do something and liberalizing the economy and fighting corruption were likely never considered instead of war.

Steve

[Zeleban]

33 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

You are not only being an "alarmist", you appear to be suffering from amnesia that has wiped the last (nearly) 2 years of the war from your memory.

Not at all. I remember these two years of war very well, because I myself partly took part in them. Therefore, there is no need to doubt my health. I remember very well how energetic, optimistic and ready to do anything for victory against the enemy, the people who were near me did not give me the slightest doubt about our victory. But there is nothing of this anymore. I'm already tired of describing the mood of people in the rear. Now there is not even a shadow of the spirit that was in people at the very beginning of this war.  This has nothing to do with the past. This is what it is right now. Let's forget 2022. 2023 is already coming to an end.

 

43 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This situation will get resolved because the government of Poland is not behind the blockage.

Perhaps the Polish government understands the danger of this blocking. But the mood of ordinary Poles is by no means in favor of Ukraine. To be convinced of this, you can read the comments of the Poles on any news about the blocking of the Ukrainian borders - they gloat over the imminent and inevitable fall of Ukraine. And the government of a democratic country is obliged to listen to the sentiments of ordinary people. 

Previously, I was also confident in the full support of Ukraine by the Poles. But these times have passed as well as the fortitude of the Ukrainians. Now the Poles are more likely to sympathize with the Russians than with the Ukrainians. And I previously argued that Ukraine would fall very quickly without the support of Poland and now the time is drawing near.

49 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Russia has shown absolutely no ability to successfully conduct a strategically successful offensive campaign.  That does not mean it hasn't achieved some measure of territorial success in the process.  Most often it has been tactical in nature, with the exception the seizure of northern Donetsk which it still controls.  Even with that, on the whole Russia controls far less of Ukraine's territory than it did in March 2023.

Yes, but what is the point of carrying out any strategic offensives if the rear of Ukraine as well as the entire supply system falls and if a civil war breaks out in the rear.

 

52 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The notion of Russia being able to advance out of the Donbas or across the Dnepr is impossible.  I didn't say implausible, I said impossible.  Russia never had the strength to do this and still does not.  The only way it could even attempt this is if it mobilized 500,000 conscripts *AND* were able to arm and supply them without triggering a regime collapse within Russia.  We've talked endlessly about this topic and the conclusion, every time, is that such a call up of conscripts is politically impossible and likely beyond Russia's logistics capabilities.  Anybody that starts down the path of denying this reality is as clueless as the people that expected Russia to defeat Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks.

Russia will not need to strain itself so much. All Russia will have to do is continue its successful campaign to destroy Ukraine’s rear and incite its former allies against Ukraine.

54 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

However, it doesn't seem that there's any serious movement within Ukraine to "throw in the towel" and surrender to Russia.  Maybe things will improve because of this struggle, maybe not.  However, I do not see reason to think that Ukraine's willingness to fight Russia will change either way.

No, there is no talk of surrendering to Russia. But speeches about the overthrow of the government are becoming louder, and on the other hand, accusations of an attempted coup in the interests of Russia are heard. and the situation is heating up every day. I don’t think it’s worth reminding how it could end

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The bottom line is that Ukraine is now in a tighter spot than it was in June of 2023, but not as tight as June of 2022.  Compared to the 2022/2023 winter offensive it's probably in overall better shape because Russia is decidedly weaker than it was at the time.

This is wrong. Ukraine is in a much worse situation than in February 2022. Most of our most experienced and motivated fighters were killed, captured, maimed, and finally simply tired of the war and require replacement. But there is no one to replace them. You can send us mountains of weapons and equipment. But where can we get soldiers to continue the war?

As for Russia, if you really want to defeat it, then forget about underestimating Russia. We made this mistake before and today we are paying for it.

[Letter from Prague]

37 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't see any reason to doubt this.  Due to the inflexibility and predictability of railroad traffic I bet a bunch of us on this Forum could figure out a pretty good disruption plan sitting safely at home.  That's not the difficult part, executing it is. 

It happened on the green line bit East of Lake Bajkal:

The tunnel has just one rail line in it, and there's two bypasses - the old routes - and the bridge was on one of them. The closest other rail line is hundreds of kilometers away, so yeah, pretty predictable.

Of course the Russians are claiming they fully opened it yesterday. I somehow doubt that.

[kimbosbread]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

This is pretty close to what I've observed as well. In foreign policy, China has completely alienated the Philippines after it had made enormous progress in suborning it to Chinese interests. It virtually drove Australia into much larger military commitments to the US alliance. Wolf warrior diplomacy induced Japan and South Korea into a trilateral pact with the US. 

All of that is indeed quite stupid. What I see is a nation that has economic and military interests that on many levels it pursues rationally but that cannot stop itself from lunging emotionally almost systematically in ways that unite its opponents...who is anyone in their neighborhood. China, as a diplomat friends likes to say, has no friends.

Yeah I made so much fun of my Chinese acquaintances over this. They agreed and were pretty butthurt about it.

My one coworker (one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met) went to Vietnam with his Korean wife, and the wife made him pretend to be Korean the whole time. He was like “Wow I had no idea the Vietnamese hate us this much”.

[Zeleban]

At the border with Hungary, 8 Ukrainian citizens were detained while trying to cross the border. The organizer of this “scheme” was detained along with them. Men pay crazy amounts of money by Ukrainian standards to avoid conscription and hide from the war. There are more and more similar messages.

Do you remember how we laughed at the Russians who fled mobilization last year? Now I'm not funny at all

[Vet 0369]

On 12/2/2023 at 12:26 PM, Harmon Rabb said:

 

“The Ukrainian military will now be able to use this complex on its own”

Very interesting statement since we’ve already seen reports of Patriots being used in Ukraine a few times now, so the question is WHO HAS BEEN USING IT?

[Yet]

18 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

“The Ukrainian military will now be able to use this complex on its own”

Very interesting statement since we’ve already seen reports of Patriots being used in Ukraine a few times now, so the question is WHO HAS BEEN USING IT?

Read your article: "70 additional soldiers" 

which means there was already crew that could use it properly. 

[Carolus]

Someone provided a surefire way to get across Russian minefields.

 

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.economist.com/business/2023/11/26/xi-jinpings-grip-on-chinese-enterprise-gets-uncomfortably-tight

Xi Jinping’s grip on Chinese enterprise gets uncomfortably tight

Welcome to the era of party-state capitalism

 

Xi seems determined to see how much mistreatment the Chinese economy can stand.

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah I made so much fun of my Chinese acquaintances over this. They agreed and were pretty butthurt about it.

My one coworker (one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met) went to Vietnam with his Korean wife, and the wife made him pretend to be Korean the whole time. He was like “Wow I had no idea the Vietnamese hate us this much”.

I can tell you from personal experience in SE Asia that China, as a state, is deeply unpopular and resented. And the more dominant China is (i.e. in Cambodia) the more intense the feelings are.

[billbindc]

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12150

Edited December 3, 2023 by billbindc

[Offshoot]

The Russians have worked out how to manoeuver in the grey zone - Flintstone turtle mechs

Russian infantry uses ‘cocoons’ to covertly move across the terrain - https://mil.in.ua/en/news/russian-infantry-uses-cocoons-to-covertly-move-across-the-terrain/

[Vet 0369]

1 hour ago, kimbosbread said:

Yeah I made so much fun of my Chinese acquaintances over this. They agreed and were pretty butthurt about it.

My one coworker (one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met) went to Vietnam with his Korean wife, and the wife made him pretend to be Korean the whole time. He was like “Wow I had no idea the Vietnamese hate us this much”.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. During the Vietnam Conflict, the “Tail-gunner Joe” idiots convinced the U.S. political and military leaders that North Vietnam would ask the Chinese to help them. Unfortunately, the closed minded fools never bothered to consider the history of the region. The Vietnamese had relatively recently (about 100 years earlier) evicted China from Indochina after about 1,000 years of Chinese domination. Within just a few years after the U.S. withdrew its forces, China began hostilities on Vietnam’s northern border.

Really powerful and influential positions and military who failed to learn the history of the region.