How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[FlemFire]

47 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Well, KevinKin is having his fun.  he KNEW that UKR would fail this summer.  He's like a sports gambler that wins a bet and thinks he prophesied the result.  No, folks looked at data and made guesses, and a bunch of us guessed wrong.  We had good reasons for our guesses, but were wrong for lots of reasons (mines!, UKR not as good as we thought, defensive supremecy, etc).  And you were right, congrats, you are the smartest.  I was wrong about this summer, I thought UKR better and RU worse than they actually were.  

Now KevinKin thinks he knows everything about anything.  Good for him.  He must be having a good time.  Now we are being lectured in long screeds, which I now just skip, hoping for something more insightful & interesting to come along.

Meanwhile, in the war.... looks like a long slog.  Maybe UKR loses all the occupied territory because it just can't bust through and finally settles into some kind ceasefire w low grade violence sometimes along the line.  Maybe RU soldiers mutiny.  Maybe there's a coup in moscow.  Maybe zelensky is thrown out of power.  Lots of unknowns ahead.  Kevinkin, however, will tell us how all these unknowns will turn out, with complete certainty.  

 

I'm not lecturing. I am responding in kind to those who want to have a discussion. Plenty, like yourself, melt down into childish insults. Everything is too emotionally charged. I even responded in such kindness to a person that I gave him his own post to discuss, which was a Tooze blogpost, about as dry and crispy as datapoints can get. Still didn't take. Still reverted to insults. That's fine. I don't think it's fruitful, but this is the internet.

[FlemFire]

55 minutes ago, Astrophel said:

You introduce the word ethnicity which is in itself provocative.  For me ethnicity is a cultural phenomenon.  To cite the American Heritage Dictionary: "Of, relating to, or characteristic of a group of people sharing a common cultural or national heritage and often sharing a common language or religion".

So yes there are other groups influenced by russian ethnicity - some 15-20% of Israelis share this heritage.  We are all familiar with Serbian sympathies.  Bulgarians are not far removed.

At the end of the day we all should take responsibility for our actions.  Ethnicity is not an excuse for setting up filtration centres, torture centres, brainwashing children, bombing hospitals, or genocidal intent.

To return from your engaging distraction, the russian "ethnicity" over the past few hundred years has regularly engaged in unreasonable domination of neighbours and cruelty.

Coincidentally I spoke today with a senior diplomat who spent several years in Moscow - "In russia human lives don't count" - she said.  This would seem to be true on current evidence and constitute a huge ethnic divide between them and us.

This war is 100% caused by russia - they invaded.  Your attempts to share the blame are frankly disgusting.

Sorry to talk about ethnicity, but you brought it up.

I brought it up? You were the one who brought up their "nature." What are your thoughts on Arabs? The Moors? The Chinese? The Japanese? What do they have in their nature? Amazing that I am called a troll while you have people spouting racist dog whistles like this.

Edited December 15, 2023 by FlemFire

[Sunbather]

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The facts don't seem to support your position.  How else do you explain hundreds of thousands of Russians willingly volunteering to die in a war of choice against in a country that posed no threat to it?  How do you square this with Russians willing to do this even after several hundred of their fellow citizens have died or been maimed?

 

Where are the facts regarding that it lies in "the nature of [insert country X here]" to slaughter other people? Why are you all about talking culture now when the lamented thread talked about nature? Kinda proves my point that the argumentation here (on whichever side) is a bit on the lazy side and words get twisted around a lot.

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

We've discussed the nature of Russian culture here in detail.  You skipped those discussions.  Your choice.

The nature of the culture? I know it's an American expression to say "it is the nature of..." but the nature of the culture, really? It's getting Pythonesque here. And yes, it was my choice. I stand by my choice. I think it was a good choice to not read 3300 pages of "discussion", feeling already a bit damaged after only reading 4.

 

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

No new announcements at this time.  Previous announcement was there would be no expansion of Black Sea while this war is going on.  It is still going, so that's your answer.

It was meant as a joke, hence the winky smiley. But thank you for answering anyway, although I do remember the last news actually was that we will be getting news regarding the release embargo (whether or not it needs rethinking). But I'll patiently wait for the new New Year's post

Edited December 15, 2023 by Sunbather

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, kevinkin replacement said:

Just to balance this out a second, the dictation here is that it was the West's call.

Not necessarly; some general remarks amid other contrary remarks. Put it together with Arakhamia interview (which was also not-well recepted in Ukraine, due to unfortunate wording) and we indeed see that USA/UK at that moment were for Ukraine continuing oppose Russians. But this sole fact is neither new nor surprising; to claim that part of the West forced Kyiv to fight against its will and recognition of the situation is other thing. And we so far have no proofs of that, other than this one sentence that can be differently interpreted. Specified stance of Ukrainian delegation was contrary to what you are claiming: they knew Putin will partition their country one way or another, and it became only blatantly obvious after massacres were discovered. They did put the nose in settlement room, sniffed a little what can be bargained and left cause it had no sense, regardless what Boris Johnson was shouting from next room. Add internal UA politics mechanisms that were at play here, which you (and I) know very little about.

By puting different pieces together, especially from Ukrainian sources you rarely cite (they are just dogwalked pawns with no voice, right?), one almost see how the process developed and feel dilemmas they were facing. First year of the war confirmed that it was possible to push Russians out of their country on specific directions, train new troops and obtain Western support. Now we are in sort of limbo; there is no clear strategy of winning, we don't know what to do with this hot potato and additionally long-time supporters face various domestic problems; chiefly USA, which naturally was spritus movens.

Generally you still think it was entirely possible to see how events will unfold already in March 2022. There were so many factors: will Germany and sceptics in EU send help, will massive financial and material support be possible, how Ukrainians will fight, how US domestic audience will react, how Russian economy will behave under sanctions (yes- they should be much heavier), will Russian power system crumble (wasn't that far) etc. that it was very difficult to predict the outcome. State of limbo kicked in somewhere around middle of 2023. But yeah, we should far much better for sure, especially regarding industrial capacities.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Beleg85

[Battlefront.com]

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

Just responding to this part because it's the only part that is remotely relevant. Note, the West walked out. You words, truth to power.

Er, I was just repeating your characterization of it.  I have no idea what really went on.  Nobody does.

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

It is the West's guiding hand which thereafter leads to full-out conventional war...

Seriously, how in the name of whatever deity you choose to mention did you get THAT out of what I said?  In fact, I said the opposite.  Ukraine is in the driver's seat on this, not the West.  While I don't agree with how well they are handling getting Ukraine everything it needs to fight this war, it certainly can't be seen as shrugging it off either.  As I pointed out a bunch of pages ago, the West has collectively provided Ukraine with 2x its annual GDP in various forms of direct assistance.  It might not be enough or the right mix of things, but it certainly is a massive commitment.  Historically it is abnormally large, as a chart I posted at the time demonstrated.

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

You characterized my opinions as conspiracy. I gave you George Kennan, the guy who literally designed the containment policy against Russia. Now you recategorize the opinion as being held by "some people." I guess that's an improvement. You're free to disagree, but perhaps do so without flinging insults first.

You are flinging around so much stuff so fast and so lose that you are losing track of it as much as I am.  The "conspiracy theory" charge I made against you was specific to your premise that there's a cabal of military industrialists teamed up with Neocons running the show, somehow, under a Democratic controlled US government which is acting in concert with a few dozen other nations.  That's the conspiracy theory I was referring to.

As for the notion that NATO expansion was the cause of Russia's aggression towards Ukraine, in any way, I will challenge any policy expert who holds that opinion to a debate on that topic.

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

People like Kennan believed that Russia should have been brought into the Western fold.

This has been discussed at length and debunked.  The fact is Russia was invited but declined to join.  Even before Putin.  The slaughter in Chechnya was a prime example of this.  Such barbarity needed to be abandoned.  Using tanks to settle political disputes was also not something that was very encouraging.

I also challenge the notion that Russia wasn't invited into the West.  Trade and travel were normalized and investments in Russian industry and domestic commerce were massive.  But Russia didn't want to play by the West's rules.  There's a litany of Russia agreeing to be bound by legal conventions and then not complying with them whenever it suits it.  And not in the "normal" way Western countries do, but in egregious ways.  Like Yukos Oil for example.

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

 I'm of the opinion that Russia could have been in the Western fold. How do I know this? Because we flattened two other nations completely and turned them into allies. We killed millions of Vietnamese, yet they became an ally.

In no small part because Vietnam fears China.

Even if Russia wasn't a lost cause in the 1990s, and there's a great debate about that for sure, the fact is by the time the 2000s rolled around it was firmly headed down the authoritarian path.  And even if it wasn't, there was no reason for the Eastern European countries to think that Russia had really changed.  History shows they were correct.

So no, it wasn't the West's fault.  Russia chose its path and that is the path we have to deal with.

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

 Yes, it was set for expansion because of the Treaty. When the war was concluded, what did the people look to so as to asses what not to do? The Treaty. The cogs were well in motion before Chamberlain said a word. We all know this now. So why is it that when Keynes assesses a post-WWI Germany, he sees it as a mistake to be punitive and that inclusivity is the path to peace; but if we apply such metrics to a post-Soviet Russia it's suddenly conspiracy? Keynes going "uh oh" about the Treaty is all well and good, but Kennan going "uh oh" about NATO expansion is flirting with conspiracy. Doesn't track with me. But this is going in circles, both sides are clear I believe.

It doesn't track because they are not related.  The mistake with WW1 was the "Guilt Clause", impossibly high reparations, obvious selfish land grabs by the victors, as well as giving traditionally German controlled lands to other nations without the people's consent.

The analogy does not apply to Russia at all.  The Soviet Union broke itself apart, it was not defeated.  Lands were not given away by foreign powers.  Lands were not occupied by foreign powers.  Russia was not forced to pay reparations to any of the countries it subjugated for decades, including two bloody military actions.  Russia was not forced to pay the West for all the money it spent over the years confronting the Soviet Union.  Russia wasn't forced to sign some declaration that everything that happened since 1945 was its fault.

None of that.

Instead, Russia was recognized as a nation in all respects.  It even got the Soviet Union's seat at the United Nations, despite having no legal claim to it.  Russia was invited into international treaties for trade and military security cooperation (you seem to not know of these?).  Economic assistance was provided.  And when Russia slaughtered its own people in Chechnya, the West didn't do squat about it.

Could the West have done more to help Russia not slide back into authoritarianism?  Some say yes, some say no.  I take the position that no was more likely than yes, given 100s of years of history.

NATO expansion came after this.  The die was already cast and the victims of Russia's 100s of years of oppression were right to seek its protection.  History has borne this out.
 

38 minutes ago, kevinkin replacement said:

I'll think of a name change. I changed it initially out of lightheartedness. I don't know who kevin at all, amusingly.

Thank you.  I expect your change shortly.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

 

12 minutes ago, Sunbather said:

Where are the facts regarding that it lies in "the nature of [insert country X here]" to slaughter other people? Why are you all about talking culture now when the lamented thread talked about nature? Kinda proves my point that the argumentation here (on whichever side) is a bit on the lazy side and words get twisted around a lot.

We've had several detailed discussions about what makes Russia willing to do the things it does.  It was not a lazy discussion at all, but it was depressing.  Many of us, myself included, had hoped that Russia's exposure to the West's culture would have produced more change within its society.  The conclusion from our discussions was that it had not.  That the cultural forces within Russia that prioritize violence and pain as a means to an end are still the dominant influence within Russia.  That and their willingness to suffer and inflict suffering for material gain.

Again, long and thoughtful discussions with a variety of perspectives and sources.  It was rather depressing.

12 minutes ago, Sunbather said:

 

Where are the facts regarding that it lies in "the nature of [insert country X here]" to slaughter other people? Why are you all about talking culture now when the lamented thread talked about nature? Kinda proves my point that the argumentation here (on whichever side) is a bit on the lazy side and words get twisted around a lot.

The nature of the culture? I know it's an American expression to say "it is the nature of..." but the nature of the culture, really? It's getting Pythonesque here. And yes, it was my choice. I stand by my choice. I think it was a good choice to not read 3300 pages of "discussion", feeling already a bit damaged after only reading 4.

Well, this wasn't the best 4 pages to jump into.  Not indicative of much of this thread.

12 minutes ago, Sunbather said:

It was meant as a joke, hence the winky smiley. But thank you for answering anyway, although I do remember the last news actually was that we will be getting news regarding the release embargo (whether or not it needs rethinking). But I'll patiently wait for the new New Year's post

See you there

Steve

[Seedorf81]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Absolutely.  I don't expect to change his mind, but I do mean to demonstrate to the rest that we do not shut people down because they have a point of view that is contrarian.  However, at some point that becomes clear and the distraction factor becomes more of a concern.  I've not run out of patience yet.

Steve

Democracy is not perfect, not great. Recent years have shown that even the greatest democracies have difficulties being democratic.

But I believe that the way in which Steve(Battlefront.com) gives room to "antagonistic" and /or "Kettlerian" or very annoying (Me, for instance, when  a few years back I pushed the limit of decency with my whining about the Schwimmwagen) forumposters, may be representive for the real difference between democracy and pretty much any other political system.

Being tolerant (WITHOUT GETTING WOKE, btw) towards people who have different opinions, and/or people who say things we'd rather not hear at all, is one of the best ways to get a "reasonable" society. Not perfect, not great, but still a society with freedom of speech, little to no cruel oppression, equal justice for most, and opportunities for most people.

It is fair to say that Steve is in a position of power, as it were. He can ban everyone he wants, anytime it pleases him.

But he gave Kettlerians, neo-nazi's, dumb-asses and hardcore commies, and the rest, always the benefit of the doubt. He usually tried to reason, to warn and to explain, even when he must have felt annoyance or even anger.

I don't always agree with Steve's views ( Russian collapse seemed always unlikely to me, because these Russians have a survival-tenacity that is like having chewing gum stuck in your hair), but to me he is a real democrat (Not a US-politics democrat) and I appreciate that.

 

Thank you, Steve.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Seedorf81
I need to take typing AND spelling lessons..

[JonS]

4 hours ago, FlemFire said:

Can you find me a single historian discussing the start of WWII who does not refer to the Versailles Treaty? No, right? Now, why is that?

Why is that? It's because everyone /else/, for 80-odd years, bought the easy lie that Versailles was unfair and particularly or especially onerous. People like Tooze think that's balls, but have to waste a ton of pages showing /why/ it's balls because otherwise they get mouth breathers going all "derp, he forgot about Versailles- that's the reason for everything! Hurrdurr"

I mean, in one sense you're right - pretty much every historian of the rise of the Nazis and the outbreak of WWII does mention Versailles. But they are definitely not all saying the same thing.

You are either being dishonest by implying they are, or being ignorant in thinking they are.

Edited December 15, 2023 by JonS

[danfrodo]

9 minutes ago, JonS said:

Why is that? It's because everyone /else/, for 80-odd years, bought the lie that Versailles was unfair and particularly or especially onerous. People like Tooze think that's balls, but have to waste a ton of pages showing /why/ it's balls because otherwise they get mouth breathers going all "derp, he forgot about Versailles- that's why everything!"

My mind was greatly flipped around on versailles treaty unfairness when I learned two things:  1.  germans, when in control, imposed greatly more onerous treaty on Russia (Brest-Litovsk)  2.  German plans for post-victory in the west in WW1 were much more onerous than versailles.  

Having said that, two  seemingly hypocritical things can be true at the same time:  1.  germans were genuinely angry at versailles and believed it to be a great betrayal and burden.  2.  Germans were plenty happy to dish out way worse than versailles when they had the power

[JonS]

13 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Having said that, two  seemingly hypocritical things can be true at the same time:  1.  germans were genuinely angry at versailles and believed it to be a great betrayal and burden. 

They may have genuinely believed it, but belief =/= truth.

Even without the "the German terms would have been/were worse" addendum, the actual terms of versailles weren't especially harsh (/especially/ in the context of just-lost-a-war-they-caused), and were regularly renegotiated during the 20s to make them even less harsh than that.

Edited December 15, 2023 by JonS

[danfrodo]

some war stuff for today.  Sniper w thermal sites wrecking a mine laying team.  Another RU soldier chased down and blown apart by a little drone -- this is one cruel war.  Plus a few other interesting bits.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/15/2211794/-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-Suicide-bomber-attacks-Ukrainian-council-meeting?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, JonS said:

Why is that? It's because everyone /else/, for 80-odd years, bought the easy lie that Versailles was unfair and particularly or especially onerous. People like Tooze think that's balls, but have to waste a ton of pages showing /why/ it's balls because otherwise they get mouth breathers going all "derp, he forgot about Versailles- that's the reason for everything! Hurrdurr"

I mean, in one sense you're right - pretty much every historian of the rise of the Nazis and the outbreak of WWII does mention Versailles. But they are definitely not all saying the same thing.

You are either being dishonest by implying they are, or being ignorant in thinking they are.

Yes, I have seen some very insightful reassessment of Versailles in terms of the rise of Hitler.  Exhibit A?  Fascist Italy.  Exhibit B?  Fascist Poland.  Exhibit C?  Fascist Hungary.  Exhibit D?  Fascist Romania.  Exhibit E?  Very almost France.  The Treaty of Versailles either didn't apply to them AT ALL or they were the beneficiaries of it.  Yet Fascism had no problem self rooting and spreading in those countries.  So why would Germany be magically exempt, especially when France teetered on the brink and was the architect of the Treaty?

That said, the Guilt Clause was a massive mistake.  First, it was factually untrue.  Second, the Germans believed it was untrue.  Third, the Germans felt they had no say in the matter.  It was a controversial idea at the time it was proposed and it would have been better if it hadn't happened.  It's impossible to say how much that influenced Hitler's rise, but it certainly wasn't zero.

A variety of territorial changes were likely the biggest reason for Hitler's popularity.  Lines drawn on maps by people far away who aren't from there doesn't tend to end well.

Steve

 

[MikeyD]

We might as well throw in Fascist Cuba at the time and the very-nearly-implemented 1933 Fascist coup against the US government by a fellow named Prescott Bush, while we're at it.

[The_Capt]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, I have seen some very insightful reassessment of Versailles in terms of the rise of Hitler.  Exhibit A?  Fascist Italy.  Exhibit B?  Fascist Poland.  Exhibit C?  Fascist Hungary.  Exhibit D?  Fascist Romania.  Exhibit E?  Very almost France.  The Treaty of Versailles either didn't apply to them AT ALL or they were the beneficiaries of it.  Yet Fascism had no problem self rooting and spreading in those countries.  So why would Germany be magically exempt, especially when France teetered on the brink and was the architect of the Treaty?

That said, the Guilt Clause was a massive mistake.  First, it was factually untrue.  Second, the Germans believed it was untrue.  Third, the Germans felt they had no say in the matter.  It was a controversial idea at the time it was proposed and it would have been better if it hadn't happened.  It's impossible to say how much that influenced Hitler's rise, but it certainly wasn't zero.

A variety of territorial changes were likely the biggest reason for Hitler's popularity.  Lines drawn on maps by people far away who aren't from there doesn't tend to end well.

Steve

 

Margaret MacMillan echos a lot of this in 1919.  The treaty was punitive but it is a bit of a myth that it somehow drove Germany into WW2.  It was a large part of Hitlers narrative - along with blaming the Jews for everything.  But in reality she notes that the real impact of the treaty was fairly limited in the grand scheme of things.

All war is certainty.  A collision of certainty.  So in this respect, sure Ukraine made this war happen.  They did so because their certainty- a free sovereign nation - was irreconcilable with the Russian position of Ukraine=client/vassal state.  The West did not somehow force Russia or Ukraine into all this.  In fact a major criticism (from the direction of the same crowd as whatever he is calling himself now) was how badly Obama botched the job by not showing Russia some teeth.  We really did not do much when Russia re-took Crimea or the Donbas regions.  We made quacking noises and slap a few sanctions on individuals but it was tepid as hell.  Now the same crowd are all “Elites pushed them into this”…the entire thing makes zero sense.

As to Russia itself.  We did a lot more than accept it back with open arms.  We bankrolled it coming out of the fall of the Soviet Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis

Hell at one point we were doing military cooperation and funding de-nuclear-ization.  Pretty odd behaviour for western compression.  Would it have been better to get Russia into the western sphere…definitely.  All that energy going east won’t do anyone any favours with respect to competition with China.

But our strategic options spaces collapsed as of this war.  Were we to say “hey no problem, go ahead and illegally invade another nation?”  Drop the Baltics out of NATO so Putin could take them too?  Sweet Jebus, since when did appeasement become a viable strategy with Russia?  Russia pushed everyone into this position.  And to this day no one has been able to point to the Russian crisis point in all this.  At best Ukraine would have had a decade to get into NATO or the EU.  We hadn’t even started the process.  Was Ukraine about to accept western troops en masse?  Western  nukes?  Was Ukraine massing military forces on the Russian border?

No bizarro logic to justify a contrary position is going to change what this whole war really was - a bafflingly poorly thought out land grab that turned into a nightmare quagmire by Russia.  There was no external forcing function.  Why go in freakin Feb? Worst time of year to do it?  It was likely the largest strategic blunder of the 21st century (so far).  If it was forced by the West it was a brilliant strategy but I do not give us that sort of credit.

What is breaking my soul is just how incredibly soft we have become.  Ukraine has one disappointing summer offensive - hell they did not even lose ground.  And now it is the end of days.  Pull the funding and run away!  How can we be the grandchildren of the generation that fought and won WW2?  Worse, there is a clown show of people trying to score points on all this.

[Harmon Rabb]

7 hours ago, Splinty said:

I put him on Ignore as soon as I saw his User Name.

After reading the last few pages I have a sudden urge to give the ignore feature a try.

Let the record show, this is the first time I have ever used this feature on this forum.

[Ultradave]

2 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

After reading the last few pages I have a sudden urge to give the ignore feature a try.

Let the record show, this is the first time I have ever used this feature on this forum.

It's pretty useful for your blood pressure. There are are number of unnamed individuals on my list, and for very good reason as I'm pretty tolerant.

Dave

[LongLeftFlank]

8 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

After reading the last few pages I have a sudden urge to give the ignore feature a try.

Let the record show, this is the first time I have ever used this feature on this forum.

It doesn't help much, sadly, since others just keep quoting and arguing with him.

Look, there are tough questions to discuss here around actions Ukraine may need to make urgently if it is to stay in this war, much less 'win'. And there's a lot of room for differences of view on those.

But I for one am not about to waste time chasing down Carlson/tankie talking points at the bidding of some rando who argues at the level of a bright 17 year old off his meds. He brings less than nothing to this conversation.

[danfrodo]

17 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

It doesn't help much, sadly, since others just keep quoting and arguing with him.

Look, there are tough questions to discuss here around actions Ukraine may need to make urgently if it is to stay in this war, much less 'win'. And there's a lot of room for differences of view on those.

But I for one am not about to waste time chasing down Carlson/tankie talking points at the bidding of some rando who argues at the level of a bright 17 year old off his meds. He brings less than nothing to this conversation.

Speaking of what you are not about to waste time doing, let's discuss what you are wasting time doing:  you've been providing some really good content lately, thanks much, greatly appreciated 

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Margaret MacMillan echos a lot of this in 1919.  The treaty was punitive but it is a bit of a myth that it somehow drove Germany into WW2.  It was a large part of Hitlers narrative - along with blaming the Jews for everything.  But in reality she notes that the real impact of the treaty was fairly limited in the grand scheme of things.

All war is certainty.  A collision of certainty.  So in this respect, sure Ukraine made this war happen.  They did so because their certainty- a free sovereign nation - was irreconcilable with the Russian position of Ukraine=client/vassal state.  The West did not somehow force Russia or Ukraine into all this.  In fact a major criticism (from the direction of the same crowd as whatever he is calling himself now) was how badly Obama botched the job by not showing Russia some teeth.  We really did not do much when Russia re-took Crimea or the Donbas regions.  We made quacking noises and slap a few sanctions on individuals but it was tepid as hell.  Now the same crowd are all “Elites pushed them into this”…the entire thing makes zero sense.

As to Russia itself.  We did a lot more than accept it back with open arms.  We bankrolled it coming out of the fall of the Soviet Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis

Hell at one point we were doing military cooperation and funding de-nuclear-ization.  Pretty odd behaviour for western compression.  Would it have been better to get Russia into the western sphere…definitely.  All that energy going east won’t do anyone any favours with respect to competition with China.

But our strategic options spaces collapsed as of this war.  Were we to say “hey no problem, go ahead and illegally invade another nation?”  Drop the Baltics out of NATO so Putin could take them too?  Sweet Jebus, since when did appeasement become a viable strategy with Russia?  Russia pushed everyone into this position.  And to this day no one has been able to point to the Russian crisis point in all this.  At best Ukraine would have had a decade to get into NATO or the EU.  We hadn’t even started the process.  Was Ukraine about to accept western troops en masse?  Western  nukes?  Was Ukraine massing military forces on the Russian border?

No bizarro logic to justify a contrary position is going to change what this whole war really was - a bafflingly poorly thought out land grab that turned into a nightmare quagmire by Russia.  There was no external forcing function.  Why go in freakin Feb? Worst time of year to do it?  It was likely the largest strategic blunder of the 21st century (so far).  If it was forced by the West it was a brilliant strategy but I do not give us that sort of credit.

What is breaking my soul is just how incredibly soft we have become.  Ukraine has one disappointing summer offensive - hell they did not even lose ground.  And now it is the end of days.  Pull the funding and run away!  How can we be the grandchildren of the generation that fought and won WW2?  Worse, there is a clown show of people trying to score points on all this.

It is actually worse than that. The goal of the Republicans opposing the aid is to cause a disaster in Ukraine, and then turn around and use that disaster against Biden in the next election. Taking power from the opposing faction in our own country has become far more important than the countries position in the word, or managing the system that has made us the most prosperous place in history by orders of magnitude.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Look, there are tough questions to discuss here around actions Ukraine may need to make urgently if it is to stay in this war, much less 'win'. And there's a lot of room for differences of view on those.

Sauce good for goose and gander both.  So the US needs to prep defensively in depth.  Minefield ps work both ways.  West need to got off its butt and push ammo, EW, UAS, AD and as much PGM as they can.  Keep the C4ISR taps wide open.

Been thinking about the next offensive a bit and the solution may be staring us in the face.  Massed drone attacks.  We have not seen these yet.  But waves of FPVs sustained over time could clear a wide enough swath that a traditional mine breaching op might work.  It would need to be layered and deep.  Out to RA gun ranges.

We are talking about thousands of semi-autonomous systems.  Supported by deep precision strike and good ol artillery.  Breach by massed precision firepower - massed precision beats everything.  Flames eating snow.

We have not seen its application in this war but such an attack might just provide a bubble tight enough to breach the minefields and then break out.  Infantry does not go out and sweep the ATGMs off the field - FPVs do.

Next question…is such an attack even possible?  Deep strike and ISR are up to it.  But how does one mass and C2 several thousand drones working to target and clear an area?  Does the technology exist?  Do the drones exist?  Does drone technology allow for 20km penetrations and sustained targeting at that range?  Do we need carrier drones that can launch smaller fully autonomous ones?

2 years ago I would have been the first to call it pure science fiction but after watching this last year it may be time.

Edited December 16, 2023 by The_Capt

[OBJ]

Ah, from my limited experience this seems like a perfect discussion topic for this forum.

Coming late to the party, it does seems theoretically possible that the application of mass FPV drone precision fires could create the needed defense suppression for clearing lanes through the minefields and other obstacles to the full depth of the prepared defenses.

But there are questions I hope have not already been asked or answered elsewhere in the forums:

1. How does the attacker mass the needed intelligence, logistics, and FPV drone fires units, obstacle clearing units and follow on penetration units without being detected by the defender

2. What mass of FPV drome fires would be required over what physical space over what period of time to allow successful mine/obstacle clearing and penetration to the full depth of prepared defenses to make this work

3. What would the composition of exploitation combat and logistics forces be

4. What would the scheme of maneuver and support be after full penetration of the defenses

5. What would be the defenders anticipated responses and how would each be countered

6. Where are EM, Cyber and AI in this discussion

Unfortunately I have no sources to quote, even to support my generic questions let alone answers, but I will start looking. I also look forward to what I fervently hope will be a rich discussion of likely near future tactical combat.

Who knows, @The_Capt and others may one day, if not already, be cited just as J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart were in their day, along with the modern equivalent of expanding torrents 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by OBJ

[The_Capt]

20 minutes ago, OBJ said:

Ah, from my limited experience this seems like a perfect discussion topic for this forum.

Coming late to the party, it does seems theoretically possible that the application of mass FPV drone precision fires could create the needed defense suppression for clearing lanes through the minefields and other obstacles to the full depth of the prepared defenses.

But there are questions I hope have not already been asked or answered elsewhere in the forums:

1. How does the attacker mass the needed intelligence, logistics, and FPV drone fires units, obstacle clearing units and follow on penetration units without being detected by the defender

2. What mass of FPV drome fires would be required over what physical space over what period of time to allow successful mine/obstacle clearing and penetration to the full depth of prepared defenses to make this work

3. What would the composition of exploitation combat and logistics forces be

4. What would the scheme of maneuver and support be after full penetration of the defenses

5. What would be the defenders anticipated responses and how would each be countered

6. Where are EM, Cyber and AI in this discussion

Unfortunately I have no sources to quote, even to support my generic questions let alone answers, but I will start looking. I also look forward to what I fervently hope will be a rich discussion of likely near future tactical combat.

Who knows, @The_Capt and others may one day, if not already, be cited just as J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart were in their day, along with the modern equivalent of expanding torrents 

 

Hm, let me take a shot, but honestly we are on the edge of the map here.

1.  This is a really tough one.  In a magic land of unlimited resources one could set up several of these attacks simultaneously to overwhelm an opponents defensive ISR capabilities.  But given the current realities, I don’t think one can mass all the bits without being detected.  Feints and decoys might go some distance but one would need to rely on a lot of firepower.  The opponent might be able to see but would not be able to do much about it.

2.  I simply have no idea.  This might be a force density number that shifts with terrain.  Or it might be entirely contextual.  My sense is “a whole buttload” and then see if it works.  Risk will be depleting UAS along the other parts of the line.

3.  My best bet is a combination of more unmanned and light, fast infantry.  Once they can get through the minefields they are likely going to meet RA conventional c-moves, so PGM and ISR will be key.  Along with AD.  No point breaking through if RuAF just smack them 30kms in.  Light infantry come with the benefit of the lowest logistics footprint.  One could bomb them up and do a modern flying column thing.  Big and heavy would then come last.  Once a protected corridor/bubble is in place and the enemy is starting to react.  Save the mailed fist for a coup de grace type strike.

4.  Scheme of manoeuvre.  Good question.  Do they go really deep?  Go for short gains and encirclements?  I think it would be situational dependent.  Short gains would make the breaches larger.  Deep could severely dislocate a sluggish RA.  

5.  My bet is the RA would try heavy c-moves and surging artillery.  “Attack!”  That is textbook.  This is both risk and opportunity.  Opportunities include killing a lot of RA hardware as it rolls forward.  Risk is getting caught outside the bubble.  The bubble itself would have to move.

6.  EW would be critical.  Shutting theirs down and pushing UAs forward.  This is like a creeping barrage.  In fact the whole damn thing would be a creeping barrage of EW, unmanned and artillery.  And then it had better be able to run.  Cyber is likely too far back (or forward).  Anything that could hack or disrupt RA C4ISR would be priority follows by anything that flies.  AI - better be as far forward as possible on those drones.  Creeping kill boxes of autonomous systems with enough brains to kill anything that looks like RA.

Big questions are:  Can they build it?  Can they project it?  Can they sustain it?  Can they exploit it?  No one has ever done this sort of operation before so what it would take to realistically pull it off is basically a mystery.  A lot of moving parts and would take months to try and out into motion - assuming one could get enough unmanned systems in the first place.

This sounds crazy but I am pretty sure tanks also did at Cambria.  And of course Cambrai did not work, or at least not all the way.  So the UA would need to be ready for failure and not overreach.  

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

It doesn't help much, sadly, since others just keep quoting and arguing with him.

Look, there are tough questions to discuss here around actions Ukraine may need to make urgently if it is to stay in this war, much less 'win'. And there's a lot of room for differences of view on those.

But I for one am not about to waste time chasing down Carlson/tankie talking points at the bidding of some rando who argues at the level of a bright 17 year old off his meds. He brings less than nothing to this conversation.

The problem such a poster poses is that this is an open discussion and cutting people loose of it too quickly gives the impression that we're not interested in hearing any "new" ideas.  Yet at some point not cutting them off degrades and distracts the thread from being relevant.  I take it upon myself to suck it up and play it out until either the person tires of playing the martyr or I have to at least threaten the ban button.  It's a thankless and sometimes tiresome job, but it's not a difficult one because the past offers a clear pattern to follow.

Steve

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-josh-marshall-podcast/id1351411911?i=1000638698802

Kate and TPM's Josh Kovensky talk with Serhiiy Plokhy, director of Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, about the Russia-Ukraine war at an inflection point as support for Ukraine fades within the Republican party's right flank and future aid is imperiled.

 

Good podcast.

 

[dan/california]

Twitter is managing to be even more irritating, but this near miss video from some Russian Pilots is amusing.