How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

15 minutes ago, photon said:

Another question I don't know the answer to. The consensus of the Thread so far has been that a NATO imposed no-fly-zone poses unacceptable escalatory risks (because it would involve NATO assets shooting down Russian planes). Does that escalatory logic hold now that essentially all (all?) of the Russian incursions into Ukranian airspace are unamanned? Is there strategic room for a more nuanced ruleset - something like, "We, NATO, will shoot down all unmanned aerial objects that are within 10km of a large conurbation or civilian infrastructure target west of the Dniper?

The no-fly-zone was always a fantasy, but as you say very little of the destruction Ukraine is experiencing is originating in Ukrainian airspace.  This would mean the no-fly-zone would either be pointless or it would mean NATO aircraft shooting down and engaging ground targets well over the border into Russia.  Nobody should think that's a good idea.

Steve

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, photon said:

Another question I don't know the answer to. The consensus of the Thread so far has been that a NATO imposed no-fly-zone poses unacceptable escalatory risks (because it would involve NATO assets shooting down Russian planes). Does that escalatory logic hold now that essentially all (all?) of the Russian incursions into Ukranian airspace are unamanned? Is there strategic room for a more nuanced ruleset - something like, "We, NATO, will shoot down all unmanned aerial objects that are within 10km of a large conurbation or civilian infrastructure target west of the Dniper?

My initial reaction was "nope".  But the US did pretty much this in and over Israel last week so there definitely has been a precedence set.  I think the major hurdle if positioning western troops on Ukrainian soil during the war to make this happen.  To my mind this a western escalatory threat ladder rung.  We could essentially declare a no-fly west of the Dniper but Russia is going 1) take this as a major escalation signal, and 2) milk it for all its worth to drive domestic support for this war upward.  This could easily creep off-mission if manned Russian A/C start upping operations - we have to let them bomb Ukrainian civilians but shoot down the unmanned only.

I think if we are going to call "no fly" we need to mean it and make damned sure we are justified in taking this next step.  We are talking about global powers no longer prosecuting by proxy as we would be targeting Russian assets directly.  Then if we make the call, do not be half @ssing it - just declare "no fly" like we did for Saddam and Gadhafi.

Interestingly, the US president does not need blessing from congress for this as Commander-in-Chief.  This would be a US military operation comin gout of in-year operations funding.  I am betting it is an option on a whiteboard somewhere, but no one seems willing to take it just yet. 

[Battlefront.com]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

My initial reaction was "nope".  But the US did pretty much this in and over Israel last week so there definitely has been a precedence set.  I think the major hurdle if positioning western troops on Ukrainian soil during the war to make this happen.  To my mind this a western escalatory threat ladder rung.  We could essentially declare a no-fly west of the Dniper but Russia is going 1) take this as a major escalation signal, and 2) milk it for all its worth to drive domestic support for this war upward.  This could easily creep off-mission if manned Russian A/C start upping operations - we have to let them bomb Ukrainian civilians but shoot down the unmanned only.

I think if we are going to call "no fly" we need to mean it and make damned sure we are justified in taking this next step.  We are talking about global powers no longer prosecuting by proxy as we would be targeting Russian assets directly.  Then if we make the call, do not be half @ssing it - just declare "no fly" like we did for Saddam and Gadhafi.

Interestingly, the US president does not need blessing from congress for this as Commander-in-Chief.  This would be a US military operation comin gout of in-year operations funding.  I am betting it is an option on a whiteboard somewhere, but no one seems willing to take it just yet. 

Interesting point.  What is a "no-fly-zone"?  Traditionally it has always been keeping aircraft out of a defined area, but now that means very little.  So should the term be updated to something like "hostility free airspace"?

My earlier point about engaging targets in Russia, however, still stands.  Batting down Russian missiles and drones may initially preclude striking back at targets within Russia, but how long will it be before someone on the NATO side says "enough of this nonsense.  We're going to take out some bombers to make our point know".  That's the sensible path to go down, so it's the one we should assume someone will try to take us on.  And then what?

Steve

[Anthony P.]

On the topic of democracy (democracy indexes, democratic backsliding and the like) I can actually contribute with more than my typical "expert amateur's" opinion since poli sci is my academic background.

The Economist Democracy Index appears to be from 2021 (based on Norway's and Sweden's scores of 9.75 and 9.26 respectively). That year Switzerland dipped down below 9.00, which changed its colour in the map @The_Capt posted. It might be a colour vision thing @kimbosbread? Personally I know that my red-green colour vision is in the dumps, and I cannot make out any distinction what so ever between the colours assigned to 8, 7 and 6 in that map. That still places it as a full democracy though.

It should be noted for the Economist Democracy Index's use of the term "Flawed democracy" doesn't mean that it's not a democracy, undemocratic or the like:

Quote

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations can have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

In the case of the USA, this likely refers to issues such as voter turnout, gerrymandering, first-past-the-post and the virtual two party system, civil rights, etc. Emphasis on "likely" though, because the Economist Democracy Index is based on anonymous scoring from undisclosed experts, so no one can say with certainty what particular aspects influenced a state's scoring.

 

V-dem is in my experience the preferred democracy index, notwithstanding any personal bias (it's from my alma mater). What makes the most difference (going by the examples cited here) though is how you measure democracy: Visual Capitalist choses to measure shares of the global poluation as opposed to number of states. This leads to statistical oddities/misrepresentations of the scale of democratic backsliding, since states are entities: if say State A and State B have become democracies whereas State Z has become an autocracy, that's a net increase in democracy, regardless of the fact that State A & B only have a combined population of say 20 million whereas State Z has a population of 1 billion. That's how Visual Capitalist arrives at the dire conclusion of "2010 Democracy: 50.4% vs 2021 Democracy: 29.3%".

India alone being reclassed from "electoral democracy" to "electoral autocracy" is behind a not insignificant portion of that change: the number of people living in electoral autocracies increased by 1.76 billion between 2010 and 2021 (India's population today reaching 1.41 billion). The remaining net global population which has shifted from "liberal/electoral democracy" to "electoral/closed autocracy" is "only" 0.7 billion. I.e., one single country falling back into autocracy is behind a smidge over 2/3 of that shift.

 

If we were to look at states instead (the typical poli sci method and arguably the more accurate measurement), we get this more positive picture:

Between the end of the Cold War and 2022, liberal democracies have remained virtually the same, more than half the world's closed autocracies have gone the way of the dodo, and electoral democracies and electoral autocracies are tied at 32.58%: back in 1990, electoral autocracies were almost 30% ahead of electoral democracies, and a staggering 36.84% of the world's states were closed autocracies. Closed autocracies were by far the most common form of government in the world when the Cold War ended: today its the opposite, it's the least common.

 

That was an argument against Visual Capitalist's measurement of democracy. Democratic backsliding is accepted among most experts, but there's not much certainty as to whether or not this will turn out to be a lasting development or if it's simply a symptom of many politically and socially underdeveloped/unprepared states which were democratised when the Cold War wrapped up simply having reverted to forms of government which are more in line for what could be expected of them.

 

 

Edit: I was going to write a brief reply. Instead I wrote more here than I've gotten done on my thesis during the last two months combined. FFS...

Edited April 19 by Anthony P.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting point.  What is a "no-fly-zone"?  Traditionally it has always been keeping aircraft out of a defined area, but now that means very little.  So should the term be updated to something like "hostility free airspace"?

My earlier point about engaging targets in Russia, however, still stands.  Batting down Russian missiles and drones may initially preclude striking back at targets within Russia, but how long will it be before someone on the NATO side says "enough of this nonsense.  We're going to take out some bombers to make our point know".  That's the sensible path to go down, so it's the one we should assume someone will try to take us on.  And then what?

Steve

Ya definitely a slippery slope.  Something like Iron Dome - Ukraine is probably a possibility but again one is looking at western military personnel on the ground.  What it could do is secure the backfield and then let the UA do the dirty in Russian territory much like they have been.

But it would become so easy for us to get pulled in by this point.  Western forces actively hitting targets inside Russia is the nightmare scenario that likely won't happen without a WMD release type of escalation. 

[The_Capt]

7 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

V-dem is in my experience the preferred democracy index, notwithstanding any personal bias (it's from my alma mater). What makes the most difference (going by the examples cited here) though is how you measure democracy: Visual Capitalist choses to measure shares of the global poluation as opposed to number of states. This leads to statistical oddities/misrepresentations of the scale of democratic backsliding, since states are entities: if say State A and State B have become democracies whereas State Z has become an autocracy, that's a net increase in democracy, regardless of the fact that State A & B only have a combined population of say 20 million whereas State Z has a population of 1 billion. Visual Capitalist arrives at the dire conclusion of "2010 Democracy: 50.4% vs 2021 Democracy: 29.3%".

But isn't populations the actual effective measure.  I mean if we have 30 island nation states of perfect democracies but they only make up .1% of the global population then isn't using the state as the key metric misleading.

To my eyes if India goes autocratic that is 1.4B people who have lost democratic freedoms, which has much higher weight than a single nation state backsliding.  What matters is the people in those states not the number of states themselves...no?

Edited April 19 by The_Capt

[Haiduk]

Russian HE and cluster submunitions strike (likely Tornado-S MLRS/ Iskander-M ballistic missiles) on Dnipro city airport and 5 km out of it. It's theoretically possible to reach airport with Tornado-S from Enerhodar area.

It's claimed three MiG-29 got damages (it's unknown about their operational conditions before strike) , hangars with aviation ordnance was hit and some S-300 complex equipmemt destroyed. The time of strike is unknown, but more likely during last week.

Edited April 19 by Haiduk

[Ultradave]

48 minutes ago, photon said:

Another question I don't know the answer to. The consensus of the Thread so far has been that a NATO imposed no-fly-zone poses unacceptable escalatory risks (because it would involve NATO assets shooting down Russian planes). Does that escalatory logic hold now that essentially all (all?) of the Russian incursions into Ukranian airspace are unamanned? Is there strategic room for a more nuanced ruleset - something like, "We, NATO, will shoot down all unmanned aerial objects that are within 10km of a large conurbation or civilian infrastructure target west of the Dniper?

My thinking is that your scenario would require at least some NATO troops and equipment on the ground in Ukraine, and therefore a pretty big escalatory risk. Whether that risk is really large is in the eye of the beholder, and Russia could make quite a propaganda blitz out of NATO soldiers in Ukraine.

Dave

[Haiduk]

It's confirmed preliminary information about Russian command center of Central military district troops was hit with two Storm Shadows in Luhansk on April 13 on the territoruy of local machine-building factory.

As result of this strike was killed colonel Pavel Kropotov, commander of 59th control brigade of Central military district. Likely more names of HQ officers will come later

 

Edited April 19 by Haiduk

[Haiduk]

Two days ago GUR issued a video with Russian military Mi-8 helicopter was set on fire in Samara city airport

Today governor of Samara oblast made a statement, that two 16 y.o. teens were detained in Tolyatti city on suspicion of this action

Edited April 19 by Haiduk

[photon]

41 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

My initial reaction was "nope".  But the US did pretty much this in and over Israel last week so there definitely has been a precedence set.

What I don't know is how far a NATO AD umbrella based in Poland and Romania could reach. I suppose the question is whether it's worth the escalatory risk to free up whatever Ukrainian AD is currently tied down in that backfield.

Ok - Patriot is good to 70km so even Lviv would be a stretch, so probably not worth the escalatory risk. Sigh.

Of course, it would be better to just give a more effective and larger AD umbrella to Ukraine and let them operate it where they see fit, but American policies is, as we've noted, totally dysfunctional right now.

[kimbosbread]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Then I am doubting you know where Switzerland is on the map.  Or maybe it is a colour green thing?

Well, I am red-green colorblind, and I have a lot of family there.

[Haiduk]

Battle for Novomykhailivka (Vuhledar direction) remains in the shadow of Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, but here soldiers of 79th air-assault brigade and other units already destroyed and disabled 300 enemy vehicles

 

Edited April 19 by Haiduk

[omae2]

An interesting peak into the russian geopolitical mindset.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06PtZaSK4YU

[Battlefront.com]

41 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Battle for Novomykhailivka (Vuhledar direction) remains in the shadow of Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, but here soldiers of 79th air-assault brigade and other units already destroyed and disabled 300 enemy vehicles

 

What is the timeframe for all of this destruction?  Several months?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ukraine aid is advancing!  Vote of 316 - 94:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4604948-house-advances-ukraine-israel-aid-as-dems-help-speaker-johnson-gop/

3:1 margin for supporting the Senate approved aid, and yet it took us months to get this vote.  I can tell you that if my local government held back on something critical that more than 75% wanted because less than 25% were unhappy about it, we'd tar and feather them.  Yet at the Federal level, it is just business as usual.

Looks like we'll know tomorrow how many actually vote against the aid package itself (the above vote was administrative).  The Senate is staying in session this weekend to do what it has to once the House passes the legislation.

Steve

[acrashb]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting to hear this from an influential conservative radio show guy. 

That's partly why I posted it.  The "right" isn't a monolith any more than the "left" is.  Shapiro in particular, while generally aligned with the "right", thinks independently.

In any event, the fact that, as you say, someone influential on that side of the line is making supportive statements - backed up with obvious logic and some obvious emotion (never bring facts to a feelings fight)- is significant, and that's the main reason I posted.

Very hopeful that a meaningful Ukraine (and others) bill is passed, and I see Shapiro's support as indicative that it will.  There is clearly bipartisan support, and that's what's needed to get this through.  I would say "tripartisan", but is it just as obvious that a faction, including MGT and similar, will not be onboard.

 

Edited April 19 by acrashb

[Anthony P.]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

But isn't populations the actual effective measure.  I mean if we have 30 island nation states of perfect democracies but they only make up .1% of the global population then isn't using the state as the key metric misleading.

To my eyes if India goes autocratic that is 1.4B people who have lost democratic freedoms, which has much higher weight than a single nation state backsliding.  What matters is the people in those states not the number of states themselves...no?

It's a matter of perspective. 1.4 billion Indians reverting to electoral autocracy does mean more seen to the number of people (negatively) affected by democratic backsliding. But seen from the perspective of politicial science and democracy, that's "just" 1 state which has shifted towards autocracy. It's the state that's changed, not its citizens. You can view it like road safety almost: if a car with 4-5 occupants crash, that affects more people than if a car with just a driver crashes, but the focus is (and can only be) on the entities containing said people, i.e. the cars.

It's also a relevant from the democratisation aspect. Democratisation spreads to neighbouring states according to many, regardless of size.

[sburke]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Interesting to hear this from an influential conservative radio show guy.  However, the comments back at him show (yet again) that the MAGA faithful can not be swayed by reasoned arguments, even from people that are generally on the same page in terms of how government should/shouldn't work.

Steve

well this should make your day.  

Quote

A report that the House Freedom Caucus has activated its Floor Action Response Team (FART) has sparked a wave of mockery on social media as a result of the body's acronym.

Freedom Caucus' New 'FART' Team Sparks Avalanche of Jokes, Memes (msn.com)

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, acrashb said:

That's partly why I posted it.  The "right" isn't a monolith any more than the "left" is.  Shapiro in particular, while generally aligned with the "right", thinks independently.

In any event, the fact that, as you say, someone influential on that side of the line is making supportive statements - backed up with obvious logic and some obvious emotion (never bring facts to a feelings fight)- is significant, and that's the main reason I posted.

Very hopeful that a meaningful Ukraine (and others) bill is passed, and I see Shapiro's support as indicative that it will.  There is clearly bipartisan support, and that's what's needed to get this through.  I would say "tripartisan", but is it just as obvious that a faction, including MGT and similar, will not be onboard.

 

These folks have always existed.  Some were in the House and Senate.  Those of us in the middle have hoped that the "rational right" would be able to take back the GOP from the hands of con artists and the "intellectually ungifted" (hey, I just made up a cool Woke term!).  Sadly, the opposite has happened over the last 4 years.

And this is why it matters.  Not just for democracy, but also for those who support political policies that are right of center.  This GOP Rep put it quite nicely in this article:

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4604636-gop-rep-blames-gaetz-and-seven-useful-idiots-for-house-turmoil/

What it boils down to is the "useful idiots" made such a mess of the process, that in the end Johnson had no choice but to go along with what the Senate came up with.  All of the potential issues, such as loans or using Russian assets, had to be thrown out because there wasn't enough support for them within their own party because too many were in full blown tantrum mode and wouldn't support ANYTHING.  The Dems knew this, so why would they negotiate when the opposition has no support for their own points?

To sum up... if the GOP didn't have such a large number of wingnuts, they could have come up with some compromises to the Senate bill for foreign aid that the Dems would have been forced to swallow.  But the wingnuts killed that because they are extremists and compromise, to them, is not what democracy is about.

Steve

[Haiduk]

47 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

What is the timeframe for all of this destruction?  Several months?

Steve

For six months, as clarified General Staff

[The_Capt]

29 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

You can view it like road safety almost: if a car with 4-5 occupants crash, that affects more people than if a car with just a driver crashes, but the focus is (and can only be) on the entities containing said people, i.e. the cars.

Hmm, well I will take your word for it but it really sounds like creative accounting.  This is a bad example really, traffic accidents are more often expressed in fatalities, not cars.  In fact one can have more car accidents but fewer fatalities (see: seatbelt campaigns in the 80s).

To my mind one cannot discount the mass of the population as a foundational metric of the power of any given state.  If Lesser Tonga decided to go back to a monarchy it will have far lesser impact regionally or globally than if China suddenly breaks out in Liberal Democracy; however, by these metrics we are counting "one".

Regardless, as much fun as this side journey has been, I think we can agree that democracy has come under pressure recently - there seems to be wide agreement on this.  Whether this is a blip or trend is kind of a red herring as it will either be a blip or trend based entirely on what we do right now.  And more specifically how well the US defends its own democracy individually and abroad...like Ukraine. 

As a Canadian, I can say with a lot of authority that if the US democracy fails/erodes, we are not going to be able to write it off as a "single nation backsliding" in the global ledger.  We are going to feel that impact on a very broad scope and scale.  Further, the western world and champions of democracy, fumble the ball in Ukraine the impacts on global order and stability will also be felt far and wide.  We cannot reduce this war to "one more in the lose column".  More importantly "how" we win or lose this war is also very important.  If we can "lose" in a Korean Peninsula scenario - which, I for one do not see as a loss but many will disagree - we can still preserve something of a global order.  If we catastrophically lose through apathy and political paralysis it is going to risk damaging the democratic narrative and influence for some time to come. 

[Battlefront.com]

17 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

For six months, as clarified General Staff

Thanks for the clarification.  300 vehicles destroyed trying to take a tiny piece of terrain is significant no matter what the timeframe.  To put this into perspective, If we figure 15 vehicles per attack with a 50% average rate of destruction, that's about 40 large scale attacks at a rate of about 7 every month, or roughly 2 attacks per week.

It still amazes me how Russia can keep this up month after month in the face of such minimal visible gain.  But that's Russia for you.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

47 minutes ago, Anthony P. said:

It's a matter of perspective. 1.4 billion Indians reverting to electoral autocracy does mean more seen to the number of people (negatively) affected by democratic backsliding. But seen from the perspective of politicial science and democracy, that's "just" 1 state which has shifted towards autocracy. It's the state that's changed, not its citizens. You can view it like road safety almost: if a car with 4-5 occupants crash, that affects more people than if a car with just a driver crashes, but the focus is (and can only be) on the entities containing said people, i.e. the cars.

It's also a relevant from the democratisation aspect. Democratisation spreads to neighbouring states according to many, regardless of size.

I see both as important factors.  On the one hand, having 1.4 billion people being raised in an illiberal democracy means 1.4 billion people potentially looking to move to a freer country.  And since corruption and incompetence issues are always higher in illiberal countries, there's more reason for 1.4 billion people to go abroad to find better financial opportunities.  More people to be exploited by other countries, such as Russia duping poor Indians into fighting in Ukraine (I posted a detailed article on this last week).

On the other hand, India is only a single state.  It has only one national policy, one vote in the UN, one seat at any economic group, etc.  It may be, or might not be, more powerful because of its size, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more influence.  Very much like the Senate in the US.  It doesn't matter if you are the most populous state, you have the same voice in the Senate as the least populated.

Which matters more depends on the circumstances it is being applied to.  Russia, for example, has a large population under its thumb, the largest amount of territory of any nation on Earth, but it's influence is less than that of many countries much smaller in terms of physical and population size.

Steve

[Haiduk]

Chief of GUR Kyrylo Budanov told in own comment to BBC Ukraine, that AD and GUR have been waiting Russian Tu-22M during a week in the ambush. The bomber was shot down on the range 308 km.

Budanov told some thing was used, deeply upgraded by Ukrainian enginners. Some OSINTers on the GUR video recognized interiror of S-200, but with complete changed equipment.

If true, looks like we could extend the range of missiles much more than 180-240 km of Soviet S-200V/M variants

PS. Ukraine hadn't latest S-200D system with range 300 km. USSR had a time to produce and deploy only several complexes of this type in the late 80th, and they were only in Russia and were withdrawn from service in the mid of 90th. 

Ukraine had S-200V with 180 km range and S-200M with 240 km range (255 km on AWACS planes). They were withdrawn from service in 2011-2013

https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/articles/c3g58qn2jvgo?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2AfBzV1Eh_3H9H3O2ycqZbVOnB3WvjlLJhYLm5Fh4_3lVpdQphJ-pBTRU_aem_AdlSS5xReobUX09lrT-tHx8agDHkU2b3y0ncsvUX982bv2sWMivU_F_W5V7t4OaV4MVejUFjlmfwVQc283wuhDYP

 

Edited April 19 by Haiduk