How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Kinophile]

RPG indirect fire.  Another to-do for the next AI upgrade

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Haiduk said:

This is mockery meme ) Russians, who positioning themeselves like "defenders of Russian language" often in real show own terrible analfabetizm. They often write on the walls "For DoMbas!", insted "Donbas". Also Russian propaganda all time was repeating "Ukraine bombed Donbas", so because of words "bombed" and "DoMbas" sound similar, the twisted meme "Dombed Bombas" has appeared ) 

Holy crap.  Obviously I gave Russians too much credit.

OK, not a typo.  Wow.

Steve

[OldSarge]

Necessity is often the mother of invention. It de-mines, trenches and can be remotely operated. What will they think of next?
 

 

[Haiduk]

Zelenskiy: I didn't see that Russia is going to withdraw from Kherson. All this is just PsyOps in order to distract more our forces here from other directions. Yes, they evacuate some number of population, but this is just a theater. Most of their capable troops remain on own positions.  

[Huba]

9 minutes ago, OldSarge said:

Necessity is often the mother of invention. It de-mines, trenches and can be remotely operated. What will they think of next?
 

 

Many years ago I was working at an archaeological dig at a highway construction site. When we arrived, there were a few army guys operating a similar device less than ten meters from our future dig. They said it was just a precaution, to ensure that everything is safe (it was not that far away from Seelow Heights...), but you can imagine what it did to our morale. I was never that careful while digging ever again 

I believe they were using a version of Bożena remote controlled demining vehicles:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trał_przeciwminowy_Božena_4

Edited October 27, 2022 by Huba

[dan/california]

6 minutes ago, OldSarge said:

Necessity is often the mother of invention. It de-mines, trenches and can be remotely operated. What will they think of next?
 

 

They are going to need the big brother version of it to clean up after this war, and not just one or two of them. And by big I mean at least five times that size. They are going to have to do thousands of square kilometers of wheat and sunflower fields to get production restarted safely.

It will take a generation for the wind break tree lines, and other wooded areas to be made safe,

[dan/california]

1 minute ago, Huba said:

Many years ago I was working at an archaeological dig at an highway construction site. When we arrived, there were a few army guys operating a similar device less than ten meters from our future dig. They sad it was just to make sure that everything is safe (it was not that far away from Seelow Heights...), but you can imagine what it did to our morale. I was never that careful while digging ever again 
I believe they were using a version of Bożena remote controlled demining vehicles:

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trał_przeciwminowy_Božena_4

When they  said light careful strokes with the trowel, the were NOT kidding. 

[Sojourner]

54 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

After yesterday strike at fuel train in Shakhtarsk Russian TV showed reportage how local firemen heroically rescued dozens of tank-cars. Today next three HIMARSes hit the same station where theese resqued tank-cars remained standing. As result of strike next portion of tank-cars were set on fire with fuel tanks of fuel depot on this station. One missile also reportedly hit deploymnet place of "Dizel" tank battalion near railway station, also causing fire.

Gotta love it....

Russian TV: "Hey Ukraine, you missed a few"

Ukraine: "OK, no problem, thanks!"

[Beleg85]

26 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Holy crap.  Obviously I gave Russians too much credit.

Well, then look at this triumph of Russian technical thought:

Tested at Osipoviche in Belarus, to reportedly dumb Javelin warhead.

[Haiduk]

Serviceman of 43rd high-power artillery brigade (2S7 Pion): 

So, that you don't worry. Counter-offensive on the South is continuing. Our [guns] already changed positions some closer. Yesterday [25th Oct] we have destroyed with concrete piercing ammunition very painful for Russians fortified object.

He edited later this post. Initially it was ended with "Sorry I can't show results of  our work - this is strictly prohibited. But I can say it was full "rozyob" [hellish fu...g destroying] " 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

52 minutes ago, OldSarge said:

Necessity is often the mother of invention. It de-mines, trenches and can be remotely operated. What will they think of next?
 

 

@Huba

This is British Armtrac 400 for State Emergency Service

Edited October 27, 2022 by Haiduk

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, Huba said:

I just watched an interview with Anna Maria Dyner, who is an analyst in Polish Institute of International Affairs, about the situation in Belarus. Very unfortunately, Youtube didn't translate it, and it was a very good material. Ms. Dyner is really professional and one of the better experts in the subject. Let me summarize some of the most important points:

Yup, this Lady is generally recommended, unlike some hot heads she is not panicking about Belarus every second week.

There is also another layer- there are multiple signals Polish officials are concerned that Russians may try to swarm borders with Kaliningrad with migrants like the last year. Turkish airlines are reportedly doing increased flights to the enclave (Erdogan perhaps bargaining for something in NATO?). While of course minor issue compared to Ukraine war, such provocations may pose a danger of escalation. Russian border guards/FSB are more sharp and risk-taking than Belarussian ones.

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

 

Here I have to diverge.  The plan was doomed by bad strategy both political and military - capability only guaranteed it.

Zero disagreement.  The plan was crap because it all rested on a single assumption which was questionable, at best.  Making a plan for a war that was this big an consequential, not to mention 100% voluntary, based on such a narrow path for success puts this war into a category of bad decisions that is difficult to match in modern history.  Argentina's attack on the British perhaps finally being edged out for the "Most Moronic War Of Choice Award".  Certainly Russia sets the bar very high for anybody coming after this war to take away Russia's well deserved glory.

However, that's not my point.  My point is that if the Russians had been correct I think their TikTok army likely could have pulled it off.  The fact that there was less than a snowball's chance in Hell of that is a separate issue.

And I want to circle back to a point I made a couple of posts ago.  As horribly flawed and ridiculously optimistic as this plan was, it wasn't the worst mistake Russia made.  Sticking with it for weeks was.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

This is why I claim no prescience before the war because until we saw the actual strategy could the outcome become clearer.  For example and one you used, if Russia had focused solely on the Donbas and limited objectives we would likely be seeing a very different outcome, sucky tactical capability and all.  It was the absurd political objectives misaligned with strategy and reality that killed this thing, the UA’s ability to reinvent warfare made sure it was going to happen faster and across a broader set of possible outcomes - to the point I am note sure how the RA could have pulled this off as they were built for another war entirely.

Absolutely agree.  2 days before the war started it became clear to me that Russia was going to go with a full blown war.  I was shocked because I didn't see any way it could work.  In fact, all I saw was piles of Russian dead, Putin being overthrown, and Russia breaking apart.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

It isn’t western thinking it is military professional thinking, something Russia lacked.  Find me a military school of thought, east or west where this was a good idea.  A lot of this is arguing with simple physics and some pretty simple rules of war - like effective concentration of forces, unity of command and selection and maint of the aim for starters.

The "western thinking" comment was that experts before the war, and well into it, presumed that Russia had this sort of basic professional military thinking.  It's pretty clear that it does not. 

What Russia does have the ability to carry out basic military concepts, but they really don't understand how to conduct a large scale military operation with combined arms, despite spending a huge chunk of their GDP over the last decade creating a force that had the outward appearance of being similar to what NATO has.  This gets us back to the Cargo Cult concept, even though we agree that's too extreme for this situation. 

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I agree but you are really stretching the concept of an effective plan here.  A term I employ is “relative rationality”, sure from inside the Russian bubble it was a great plan, we love this plan!  But inside that bubble was mass delusion reinforced by an autocrat who does not tolerate dissent.  Just because everyone opinion the room believes it is a great plan doesn’t mean it is in reality…the last 7-8 months have been a glorious testimony to that fact.  A plan based on fantasy does not have merit, even if they really believed in that fantasy.

Again, no disagreement.  The plan was horrifically flawed from those of us outside the bubble.  Which, obviously, makes it a really bad plan.  But it was internally consistent and within Russia's ability to pull off PROVIDED that one fantasy assumption hadn't been so wrong.

Let's compare/contrast this with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The military (the Pentagon) was told to draw up a war plan by the political authorities (Bush Admin) with certain political constraints.  The military came back and said it simply wasn't possible to do.  After much wrangling the Bush Admin (mostly Cheney and Rumsfeld) relented and allowed the force size to be dramatically increased.  The military produced a plan that they felt they could sign off on, but warned it was sufficient only for the conventional phase of the war.  They estimated several hundred thousand extra troops would be needed for occupation.  This was not something the Bush Admin thought feasible for many of the same reasons Putin put off mobilization.  Both Bush Admin and Putin wanted to do this war quickly, cleanly, and on the cheap.  And like Putin, the Bush Admin told the Pentagon not to worry about the occupation because a) the Iraqis will greet us as liberators and b) we'll set up a new Iraqi government and turn security over to them.

Yesh, the more I think about the parallels between the 2003 Iraq war plan and political interference and what Putin just did, the more I wish I hadn't started down that path.  The similarities are, unfortunately, quite easily found.  Including both being wars of choice for ideological reasons that were kept hidden while BS reasons were stated to the public.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Relative rationality and progressive unreality are absolute poison to military planning - trust me I have flogged enough majors with this over the years.  A “good plan” is aligned with reality, certainty and capability.  It ensures the certainty one is pursuing is going to be well communicated, supports a position of stronger negotiation and keeps the sacrifice to a min.  The Russian strategy had none of that, except in this world they totally made up.

Yup, it was a really bad plan simply because nothing that flimsy, and lacking a Plan B, should have been executed given that failure could end the Russian Federation.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Steve, no I do not buy into the post-truth world.  Bribe, lie, cheat and murder may get me on a runway in Paris but reality is going to come crashing down sooner than later.

Right, but that's our thinking and not Putin's.  Putin's thinking is incremental to an obvious fault.  It's like a Ponzi schemer. Any sensible assessment of a Ponzi scheme shows that at some point it will fail and the bigger the scheme the bigger the fail.  The Ponzi schemer doesn't see it that way, instead thinking that if things go sideways there will be another way to keep the scam going.  And even if it fails, it could be so far down the road that it won't matter (e.g. die of natural causes before it collapses).

That's one of the key lessons here.  Many people, including me, thought Putin was a better long term strategist than he really is.  Instead, Putin is (or was) a calculated gambler who only really cares about short term advantages.  This war, on the other hand, was a decision that had irreversible long term consequences that Putin wasn't concerned about, for whatever reasons.  Putin is still going with short term gambles to get out of this long term mess, with the results being rather obviously poor.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

But Russia did not have a good or viable strategy that aligned the capability they had (means) with the operation (ways) to achieve viable objectives (ends).  I think we are coming at this from opposite directions.  Here is some test questions:

- If Russia had a better strategy, say to solely focus the crappy capabilities it had to take the entire Donbas and far more limited objectives would it have worked, even with UA resistance?  Would it have met better  and more realistic political objectives?

Quite likely.  At least better than zero.

But I still ask the question a different way.  If Russia was correct that Ukraine didn't have the will to fight, could the crappy Russian Armed Forces successfully taken over eastern Ukraine within a couple of weeks?  I think it could have.  How likely that was to happen and what it would do after are separate questions.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

-If Russia had better capability would it have been successful in its extant strategy?

Yes, if it had another couple hundred thousand forces going over the line in February and March, with crappy Russian logistics scaled up in quantity, I do think they might have had a slight chance of success with Phase I (less Kyiv, I think they would have had to besiege it).

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

- If the UA had poorer capability, say similar to,what they had in 2014 would the extant Russian strategy work?

No, I do not think the plan and forces Russia used in February 22 would have achieved a successful Phase I result if the Ukrainian forces had been more akin to 2014 status.  I saw Russia have too many problems dealing with the Ukrainians in 2014 and 2015 to think otherwise.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

- And finally what about the UA strategy?  What would have happened if they had sought decisive battle (which is very western combined arms) for example?

Uncertain.  Specifics matter, but generally I think Ukraine would have come out with a battlefield victory or a draw, but in doing so used up too much conventional capacity and would have to increasingly switch to a prolonged guerrilla war that Russia would ultimately lose.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

What is becoming clear to me that we have a spectrum of Russian sucking but in different places and levels.  Some, such as a broken strategy, were definitive. Others such as bad capability or operational systems were contributing. The same applies to the UA but here their capability to resist appears more definitive as it destroyed Russian strategy - UA strategy was less dependent on Russian capabilities.  A different Russian strategy that took into account UA resistance may have worked, different Russian capability not so much - we noted that even modern western militaries would have a problem with the UA right now. 

Agreed.

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

A bad UA strategy would have killed this thing too but they aligned theirs with their capabilities very well, and then those capabilities adapted and evolved very quickly. Russia a rigid strategy that stifled evolution, hell they are pretty much zombie operations in the Donbas right now.

So it comes down to much more than Russia sucking - where did they suck and why.  What impact did sucking at certain levels of warfare have?

It also comes down to how much Ukraine did not suck, excelled in fact.  And then the comparative collision of those two systems. 

Absolutely.  Hence my follow up to my earlier Russia Sux™ post by listing well over a dozen things that Russia doesn't fully suck at.  No military is perfect, but few are this incompetent at war. 

By contrast, Ukraine has made major mistakes, but it's overall fighting extremely intelligently and effectively.  They can afford to screw up because generally they don't.

Steve

[Ultradave]

48 minutes ago, Huba said:

Many years ago I was working at an archaeological dig at a highway construction site. When we arrived, there were a few army guys operating a similar device less than ten meters from our future dig. They said it was just a precaution, to ensure that everything is safe (it was not that far away from Seelow Heights...), but you can imagine what it did to our morale. I was never that careful while digging ever again 

 

When I was working in the UK, there were a group of us helping BAE with the next submarine design (there are parts in common between the US and UK SSBNs this time). The BAE engineers were discussing a new extension to an existing building into an area fenced and walled off next to a road. 

"Well, the first thing we'll have to do is get the Royal Engineers in here to do a survey for unexploded bombs"

We (US contingent) all looked at each other. I said "Now there's a sentence you would never hear in the US"

This was in Barrow-in-Furness, now BAE Submarine Solutions, formerly Vickers Shipbuilding. As you can imagine, it was heavily bombed during WW2.

A different perspective. 

Dave

[Haiduk]

Koblevo area, Odesa oblast. The night 26th-27th Oct. AA guns fire at some aerial target over the sea, likely Shaheds

 

[NamEndedAllen]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

Dude, I totally respect you and your posts and we agree on things politically -- we're even in the same lovely state (I'm on the wet side, where are you?).  I see that this is bugging you.  Does it matter whether I put that or not?  I actually think it's kinda funny, but I can see it's having an adverse affect for you.  

OK I'll not put it there next time --  but when I link to to that site w/o warning and someone gets mad about it I'll send them to you .  I'll say "Sir, would you like to speak with a manager" 

Anyway, thanks for your posts on the forum, keep 'em comin'.  

Right back at you! THIS is how amicably Oregonians settle disagreements!! You are clearly one of the brightest of lights here, and a gentleman to boot. The fact that we agree on about everything has nothing to do with that compliment. NOTHING! 
 

But seriously, thank you for indulging my quirk on this. And sure, send grievously members exposed to headlines at that site to me for ER attention. In my career I had to deal with angry Palestinians, Israelis, Cowboys (the real ones), and worst of all, BUREAUCRATS! The worst.

PS From the Dry, the Wet, the East Coast, New England, the Old West, and now back home in the Wet. A great ride it was!

Edited October 27, 2022 by NamEndedAllen

[danfrodo]

2 hours ago, Kinophile said:

RPG indirect fire.  Another to-do for the next AI upgrade

I know is war is not fun, but that actually looks like fun.  Sending RPGs 2km like some kind of modern version of Robin Hood archery contest.  I'm assuming no mortars came down on these guys soon after.  Which brings up the ongoing degradation of RU artillery resources that allow these guys to stand there & do this w/o response.  

[Zeleban]

Russian men are the strongest and most courageous on earth

[Beleg85]

Of interest from political standpoint...defeat was not Ugluk fault, it was Grishnakh fault.

Seriously, it may be that last compromitation of his brave warriors shaped Kadyrov position somewhat.

[chuckdyke]

Looks like the main task of the conscripts is digging trenches and foxholes. You don't need ammo for doing that.

 

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Ultradave said:

"Well, the first thing we'll have to do is get the Royal Engineers in here to do a survey for unexploded bombs"

We (US contingent) all looked at each other. I said "Now there's a sentence you would never hear in the US"

This was in Barrow-in-Furness, now BAE Submarine Solutions, formerly Vickers Shipbuilding. As you can imagine, it was heavily bombed during WW2.

I live in the Ruhrgebiet. IIRC, last year they found about 6 unexploded bombs in a park that has 6 figure visitors per year. The park exists for nearly 70 years.

The papers had that in the 'local' section.

14 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

Russian men are the strongest and most courageous on earth

Well, her choice of words and her action are not especially a grace for the German nation, either. But then, I don't know what happened before.

[Zeleban]

1 minute ago, poesel said:

Well, her choice of words and her action are not especially a grace for the German nation, either. But then, I don't know what happened before.

I'm afraid they didn't understand what she was saying to them.

[CAZmaj]

https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/10/10/putin-might-lose-the-war-what-would-that-look-like-for-russia-ukraine-and-the-world/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Paid&utm_campaign=FB-Paid-Putin-Loses&fbclid=IwAR186FUA6WuTs3ccp2ADQxHo_xYtHw8i7wJjVJxa-egwZBILmZM5sfSy8W0

Putin might lose the war. What would that look like for Russia, Ukraine and the world?
A former CIA leader on the cataclysms that may lie ahead — and how the U.S. should deal with them.

John McLaughlin
Special Contributor

October 10, 2022
In October 1989, I was in what was then West Germany. It was one month before the Berlin Wall was breached — a stunning moment that would lead in short order to the collapse of communist East Germany and the reunification of the German state less than a year later. In hindsight, the discussions I had in West Germany that fall were almost as remarkable as the globe-changing events that followed; every German leader I met with then — to a person — insisted that Germany would not and could not be reunited in their lifetimes.

I was there with then-CIA Director William Webster, meeting with senior intelligence and government officials to better understand the changes sweeping across the Soviet satellite countries of Eastern Europe. These people simply could not conceive of a reunified German state and an effective end to the Cold War, nor could they envision the path that might take them there. Never mind that CIA analysts were telling me that the “German Question” — a phrase implying reunification — was back on the table.

I share this history to make two points. First, as the physicist Niels Bohr famously said, “prediction is difficult — especially about the future.” Second, I think we have arrived at a moment in the Ukraine War that shares much in common with 1989 in West Germany, in that this is a time when all of us have trouble imagining the future with any certainty, and some of us may be looking ahead with too much certainty, just as those German officials did in 1989. And as a result, many of us may look back and wonder how we missed what was coming.

Such forward thinking may be especially difficult for the Russians themselves. I sensed this in recent off-the-record meetings with very knowledgeable, internationally minded Russians, people who strongly oppose the war (”off-the-record” meaning I can discuss what they said, but not who said it). These are sophisticated policy analysts who left Russia as President Vladimir Putin went to war. While they fully understand that the war in Ukraine is going very badly for their country, and that Russia might actually lose, they can’t quite get their heads around how that would look and where it might lead.
In particular, the idea that Putin’s regime might collapse is almost impossible for them to visualize. Putin and his system are so deeply embedded in their experience of Russia that even the most clear-eyed Russians I have spoken with believe that even if the Russians lose (I can’t speak to whether they think a win is still possible), Putin would hang on to power in some weakened state.

They may be right. But increasingly, such assumptions look as shaky as the assumptions made by those West German officials more than three decades ago. We — and they — should not be surprised by a Ukrainian victory, and if that happens, we should not be surprised to see some startling changes within the Kremlin itself. Back in April, when the war was still young, I wrote for Grid that having watched Putin closely for 20 years, “this is the first time that I doubt his ability to survive politically.” I stand by those words now, particularly given what we have seen since: Russia’s catastrophic defeats on the battlefield, Putin’s narrowing of diplomatic exit ramps with his sham annexation of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, an emerging opposition in Russia, new reservations expressed by Putin’s foreign allies, the desperation shown by his highly unpopular “partial mobilization,” and the stampede for the exits that the mobilization has inspired.

This weekend’s explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge is both a symbolic and strategic blow to Putin and his war. Symbolic, because the bridge — which links the Russian-held Crimean peninsula to Russia — was a point of pride for the Russian leader. He attended the opening in 2018. It’s a strategic nightmare because the bridge is a critical supply route for the Russians in Crimea.

It’s only the latest in a series of events that raise questions about what a Russian defeat might look like — and then what it will mean for the region and the world.

These are questions as profound as those the world wrestled with when the Berlin Wall came down. Perhaps more so.

Might Russia lose?
There is no question: Ukrainians have the battlefield momentum right now. Their forces are advancing on two fronts, either taking or threatening territory that Putin announced just 10 days ago would be Russian territory “forever.” The U.S. and NATO weapons flow continues. Reports of chaos and even anger within the Russian army come almost daily.

I believe some version of defeat is increasingly likely for Russia. I base that on all that we now see, and on my own and others’ experiences with war.

Militarily, the Russians have failed in their theater-level strategy — unrealistic estimates of the force required, an absence of senior enlisted leaders empowered to make decisions at the front, and a gross underestimate of the Ukrainian and NATO responses. The Russians have also failed on the logistical front — here, I take my cue from University of St. Andrews scholar Phillip O’Brien, who has studied World War II logistics more extensively than anyone I know. He believes that Russia will not be able to train its new raw (and perhaps unwilling) recruits adequately, nor equip them properly, in time to swing the battlefield momentum.

Then there is the more elusive metric: the will to fight. My own understanding of this comes from direct engagement in one war (Vietnam) and indirect involvement in two others (Afghanistan and Iraq). Ultimately, any war becomes very personal and its success rests heavily on whether individual soldiers are ready to risk their lives to defeat an opponent. An army arrives at that readiness through some combination of strong identification with a cause, a government that commands respect, and a conviction that one must destroy the adversary to save oneself and one’s comrades. By now, it is clear that on all these fronts, the Ukrainians hold the overwhelming advantage.

So a Ukrainian victory over the vaunted Russian army is increasingly possible.

What defeat might look like
How to define a victory for Ukraine? Or, from the other side, what would defeat look like for Russia? To some degree, only Putin himself can answer that — given that he has shifted his war aims and narrative multiple times since the first troops rolled in. But I think he would see it as a defeat if his forces were driven back to the small areas of Donetsk and Luhansk where Russian proxies held sway as Putin’s invasion kicked off on Feb. 24.

That said, the way things are going, “defeat” could look worse from the Russian perspective; Ukraine may push further and expel Russian forces from those territories Putin held prior to the war. It is harder perhaps to imagine a Ukrainian recapture of Crimea, which Putin seized in 2014, but even this is no longer out of the question.

It would be hard for Putin to spin any of these outcomes into “mission accomplished”; as Grid has reported, some of his most stalwart pro-war propagandists have begun questioning Russia’s performance and demanded that more territory be taken, no matter the costs to Russian soldiers. For many vocal and influential Russians, any of the above scenarios would be seen as an unacceptable humiliation.

Several analysts have argued that Russia still has a vast military that it has yet to commit, and which dwarfs the Ukrainian capability. But where is it? Is Putin saving this card for a larger battle with NATO — even though he calls the battle with Kviv “existential”? And if he really holds that military strength, why must he mobilize 300,000 untrained and unwilling Russians to continue the fight in Ukraine?

Something doesn’t add up.

The nuclear fears
If the Russians lose, or appear on the verge of losing, then what?

Putin has pointed repeatedly to his nuclear arsenal and called its potential use “no bluff.” Whether he would go this far is simply unknowable, perhaps even to Putin himself. Russian doctrine does allow for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event its conventional forces are overwhelmed, but this has never been tested on the battlefield. The White House and Pentagon have surely been gaming out such scenarios and potential responses; no doubt their European counterparts have been as well. Perhaps the best odds anyone can give regarding Putin going nuclear is that the chances are not zero; the West would be foolish to rule it out.

If Putin did resort to nukes, what would the U.S. and its allies do? I have no “inside” information, but I suspect the answer would depend on factors such as where Putin strikes, and with what kind and yield of weapon (ground attack or air detonation, e.g.). There would be no shortage of potential retaliation targets — as suggested by some retired U.S. military officers — ranging from supply depots to Black Sea bases and many others. The U.S., which has impressive conventional capabilities, would not have to “go nuclear” to make its point in a devastating way. So, while I do not know what the U.S. contingency plan is, I’m confident there is one.

What should the U.S. do in this nightmare scenario? My own advice — in the event Putin deploys a small tactical nuclear weapon: Don’t be hasty. Condemn the act in the most serious terms but hold any retaliation long enough to let the world and his fellow Russians absorb what he has done. How long to hold fire would depend partly on how the world reacted; for one thing, a Russian nuclear attack would confront China and Putin’s other enablers — all of whom oppose any “first use” of nuclear weapons — with an act they would almost certainly deplore and probably condemn outright. U.S. retaliation might be essential eventually, but an instant response would raise unprecedented questions of nuclear escalation. It would probably also be twisted by Putin and some of his foreign backers who’ve argued that he was pushed to war by U.S. and NATO policies.

The fall of Putin?
It is no longer unthinkable that Putin will lose power in the event of a catastrophic outcome in Ukraine — the collapse of the Russian military or its expulsion from the country. Exactly how this would unfold is not clear, which helps explain why even those sophisticated Russians I spoke with find the scenarios so hard to fathom.

Under Putin’s own last round of constitutional changes, in the event that a sitting president leaves office, the prime minister (currently an obscure former taxation official hand-picked by Putin), would become president for 90 days or until a new election can be held. Of course, the problem with this orderly scenario is that no one sees Putin allowing it to happen.

But if Russia suffers defeat in Ukraine, the Russian elite and all those ultranationalists who dominate the media would have to contemplate a world in which Russia and many of its leaders remain under Western sanctions, with a weak and globally isolated leader at the helm, and Russia carrying little weight on the world stage. Would they accept that? Their capacity for sycophancy has been almost boundless, but it is already fraying; calls for a more competent and brutal campaign have filled the airwaves lately, and public criticism of the mobilization has been heard all over the vast reaches of the Russian Federation.

One possibility is that as the bad news persists, Russian military and security service leaders might act as a kind of informal “politburo” and inform Putin that they can no longer support him, and that it is time for him to retire to his dacha with some honor intact.

That may prove to be wishful thinking as well. Other outcomes are possible — including a breakdown of public order — but with Russia’s highly centralized system and the security services willing so far to brutally put down all forms of protest, that scenario is even harder to imagine.

Finally, some Russians — struggling to imagine the aftermath of a Russian loss — sketch yet another scenario, one that might be described as a slow fading away for the Russian leader. A weakened Putin would cling to power, many more Russians would leave the country, and Russia would for a time simply exist as a dispirited and weak country.

This is what Putin’s monumental miscalculation has wrought for a country that, whatever its shortcomings, has no shortage of proud traditions and gifted citizens, and which during his early years in power had attained a place of significant influence and respect in the world. Russia has arrived at a critical, even existential, crossroads at least three times since World War I — during its 1917 revolution, facing the German onslaught on its territory that began in 1941, and then in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. These were huge and very different challenges, and Russia is in some ways still working its way through the consequences of all those upheavals.

With his Ukraine invasion, and the folly of his many moves since, Putin appears to be driving the country toward another crossroads. The outcome looks every bit as uncertain and potentially destabilizing as those earlier cataclysmic events.

Thanks to Lillian Barkley for copy editing this article.

John McLaughlin Special Contributor
John McLaughlin is a former acting director of the CIA and a distinguished practitioner in residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

[kevinkin]

44 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I know is war is not fun, but that actually looks like fun.

My father's war stories from WW2 in the Mediterranean sounded like it was episodes of terror ruining long periods of quiet and parties. I can't imagine being a Russian conscript. Little hope at all. You can't expect people to fight when all the hope has been sucked out of them and their families for years now.   

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, Zeleban said:

Russian men are the strongest and most courageous on earth

I have an expression that seems to upset twitter, but forgive me for using it here just once....

Burn the orcs, BURN THEM ALL!

Edited October 27, 2022 by dan/california