"If history is any guide, a game predicated on outlasting Russia’s strategic endurance and willingness to fight is a very bad game to play indeed."
Yes, that was the punchline I was waiting for, through all of the concluding paragraphs. And it's absolutely true. "We'll make them suffer until they say uncle." You'd have to know nothing at all about Russian history to think that'll work.
What the war needs is for the adults to step in and send both sides to opposite corners and declare the fight is over. Get all countries to cease feeding the conflict. No more aid, no Marshall Plan, just stop the irredentism, the jingoism, the cheerleading by the profiteering war hawks and behave. Call it a tie and celebrate that the slaughter has ended. Impossible? No, just difficult. Withhold a billion here, a billion there and the outside parties walk away and war is over. ***poof***
Pie in the sky, Dale. Your thesis assumes that both sides (the west and Russia), a) are equally invested in the war, or b) they both stumbled into it by accident. Neither is the case. In the first instance, the war really is existential for Russia (if they lose, it’s possible break-up and destruction of the RF), while it really isn’t for the west (if they lose, they just carry on as before - sure The Empire will have taken a big hit, but they can bullshit their way around that). In the second instance, The Empire has been planning this proxy war for years (well before the 2014 coup), and the RF has been building up its strength and resilience for just as long. It ain't no tie, and the slaughter is vastly disproportionate and not in favour of Ukraine. The only countries feeding this horror are the US and its European vassals, and they are wrecking Ukraine. They stop it, and it stops - on the terms Russia confirmed in summer 2024: No NATO, loss of the 4 oblasts plus Crimea, demilitarisation, and denazification (as far as possible).
"Suffering" is in the DNA of Russians, to the extent that westerners are unable to grasp. Honest assessment of their history is essential if a western party wishes to engage Putin diplomatically.
Well, I mean 1917… Afghanistan… Russians have their limits same as anyone, it’s culturally different - deaths don’t have the same impact but a perceived loss of power is extremely dangerous in Russia. The big question is do Russians feel this is existential a la WW2 or Napoleon in which case they really will put up with almost anything or do they feel like it’s a foreign adventure gone wrong more in the mould of the top two that you can retreat from to regain power.
You are extremely naive, gullible, and brainwashed by the western non-stop propaganda if you truly believe that this fight is purely about Putin feeling vulnerable... All Russians understand that NATO, the Euro-Nazis, and the genocidal "hegemon" across the pond will kill all Russian if they just got a chance.... The west is full of geniuses like you, which is why NATO and the yanks keep throwing those Ukrainian bodies into the furnace.
Hey Amigo, my reply was to the above ⬆️ comment by Ed: "The big question is do Russians feel this is existential.....? " I am in no way qualified to speak for or know if the special military operation in the DonBas is perceived as 'existential' by the rank and file populous of Holy Russia. My personal view is that it definitely appears to be "do or die" in Putin’s eyes. You obviously perceive this conflict as existential, got it. ☑️ Hopefully all of this death and destruction can end soon. Lord, have mercy.... (& Big Serge is a solid source✍🏼)
Existential. They lose, and it’s regime change, breakup, and the loss of their resources. Or…… before that happens it’s MAD. I’m not Russian, but that seems Crystal to me.
The Great War was thrust upon 🇷🇺 Nicholas II. Russia was not prepared for modern war, and the Czar was not really wanting to fight with his cousin, the Kaiser, or the AustroHungarians. German cash sponsoring Lenin's return 🚂 📣 to Russia was the ultimate wrench 🔧tossed into the ⚙️ machinery 💣💥⚒️. WW-one redrew all the maps ✍🏼🕰️ of Europe and the MidEast, for better or worse. Remember, at that time, western "ukraine" was part of 🇦🇹 Austria.
It took millions of casualties and looming mass starvation of the civilian populace and it still took two revolutions for Russia to quit. Russia is nowhere close to that right now.
The average Ukranian in 2019: "I will vote for Zelensky because he promises peace with Russia and prosperity for Ukraine". The average US citizen in 2024: "I will vote for Trump, because he promisses to end foreign wars and bring prosperity to the US, again." The people that really run things laugh and make money, while very, very, knowledgeable people explain the pros and cons of the latest wonder weapons. Amusing stuff.
Consider me among the duped, at least on Trump being the 'man of peace'. I've never believed he'd grow us of the Debt or fix our screwed financial system, figured out that was BS by 2019. Very sad & disappointing but not surprising unfortunately.
Where I live, in the outlaw US Empire, there's no need for election fraud: A pre-selected field of sellouts, psychopaths and outright human waste is what the average voter gets to choose from. This is true for any public office holding the power of the Nation's purse: Congress and President. Before any actual public election, there is a pre-selection process: Who do we allow to run for office? Same is true for most Western "Democracies" I know.
Upshot: By the time the public gets to make a "decision" via voting, the decision is meaningless. Almost everybody here in the US knows this, which is why few bother to vote.
It is important to take note of the wider context of the war, ignored here, since this is a military analysis.
Putin and the RF Duma have frequently stated that they want:
All US/NATO missiles back to 1991 positions.
A whole new European Security Framework written, taking RF interests into account.
Denazification of Ukraine. This will require dissolution and reorganization of a new Ukrainian Constitution to outlaw Banderism, hence full regime change in Kiev and regional governance.
Demilitarization of Ukraine, which means either no army, navy, air force, or one restricted purely to defense.
Removal of sanctions and return of foreign monies stolen under them.
Re-constitution or compensation for Nordstream 2 sabotage.
Trials of all Ukrainian war criminals.
How much of all that they eventually get is the moot point.
Putin/Medvedev/Lavrov have clearly stated that RF is not gonna quit till they attain their goals by complete Western capitulation, either at a table or via the battlefield.
>Putin and the RF Duma have frequently stated that they want:
They actually stopped asking for most of the that a long time ago.
Pushing NATO back has not been mentioned since Istanbul in 2022.
Denazification and demilitarization has been off the table since Putin's calamitous press conference in June 2024 where he effectively declared all the SMO goals null and void by proclaiming that if Russia is given the four oblasts the war will end.
Well, of course everyone with a brain knows that there will be no denazification and demilitarization until the Russian army is in Drogobych and Chervonograd, because the only way to denazification and demilitarization is by physically denazifying and demilitarizing the territory, on the ground. And proclaiming that if Russia is given the four oblasts the war will end effectively means Russia abandons the rest of Ukraine to the Nazis.
There's an old joke about this to help you understand:
A joke about a married couple: The wife asks her husband, "We've been married for 50 years, and you only told me you loved me once, at our wedding. Why haven't you ever told me you love me again?" The husband replies, "If anything changes, I'll let you know."
You seem to take politicians at face value, but I do not. Trump wrote 'The Art of the Deal.'
BTW, you have missed some news. After everyone of the so-called 'Ceasefire' negotiations earlier this year the Russians complained that the Americans were not understanding the items on their agenda, Gen Kellog particularly not understanding any of the Russians positions.
Believe me, GM has not missed any news whatsoever on this dispute. And while I very much doubt Trump wrote the Art of the Deal rather than some ghostwriter, what does that have to do with anything?
They've said those things, but they've also said, repeatedly, that a form of the terms negotiated in Istanbul could end the war. And who knows what got said in Alaska? I guess the negotiations are moot anyway, though. This will end with the elimination of Ukraine as a state.
There is no question that ukraine and NATO are taking "unsustainable losses". However, please explain how Russia is taking "unsustainable losses" because every other credible source I follow does not think Russian losses are "unsustainable".
Maybe I’m being misled, but I think it was the incessant meat wave attacks that the Russian armed forces were ported to be doing all the time, although there was never any actual evidence of it😛🤓🧐
Surely that must be it…. It’s why ukrainians and their shitty mercenaries are grabbing everyone who can walk, probably including dogs, and throwing them at the front.
Yep. The meatwave attacks ended with the expenditure of the Storm Z penal units in Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Yet two years later you'll still find fools talking about the Russians doing meatwave attacks despite there being no video evidence of it. As frustrating as it is to read such idiotic posts, at least they let you know you can just dismiss the rest of their opinions if they're not even aware of where, when, and why the meatwave attacks ended.
I subscribe to National Review. It's kind of a love/hate thing, but their writers are kind of funny in how stupidly they adhere to neocon conceptions of the Russian army being as careless as men as the Red Army was in 1943.
There wasn't any evidence that Wagner Storm Z detachments were being used in "meat wave" attacks, either. Uked publicize everything; if there was a single shred of evidence we would have seen never ending edits of it.
Yeah, it is basically a well known fact even in Russia that mortality in Storm Z back way in Bahmut was astronomical. Can't say that anybody cared though. That might be extremely inhumane and cynical to say, but those were mostly very bad people and a strain of resources on the state. In terms of 'realpolitik', good riddance. We thank them for their service. And yeah, it is not a pleasant idea.
This is a pretty good summary of the current situation and how we got here.
The really important issue, and one not spectulated here, is that if the Russians achieve their objectives - either minimalist as stated or they go on to occupy up to the entire east bank of the Denipr and/or Odessa and the Black Sea coast - what will happen to NATO? Will it survive? Will the US wash its hands of Europe and go off to play in its Pacific playground against the Chinese? Will Europe be forced through economic desperation to make a humiliating accommodation with the Russians? Either way the West is prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian, but have they considered what comes after the war.
"Will the US wash its hands of Europe and go off to play in its Pacific playground against the Chinese?"
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If Russian Federation is still standing with no color revolution happening and not balkanized, not much degraded? The USA CAN'T EVEN OPEN the game against China.
They MIGHT take another stab at Iran, but to what meaningful end?
The pivot towards invading Venezuela is probably the most do-able "forever war" choice for our Siamese war party to keep their owners happy, though not an especially good one. Think Vietnam but THESE insurgents could WALK to Washington DC & make their objections known, given the time (and some already may have).
Iran and Venezuela are part of the move against China. The attempt will be to pick off the weak parts before moving on to China. However I do not like the US chances against China in a full on competition - lack of strategic thinking and preparation over the last 30 years which is the exact opposite of the Chinese.
As for Russia, its economy and its society, the war has made it stronger. Putin may be under pressure to go harder, but also there are many Russian thinkers who see an advantage of the war going on longer on the argument that Russia will only get stronger because of it.
This proxy war The West(®) triggered in Ukraine has now become the western leadership's very own "tar baby", they can't seem to drop it or get unstuck.
Tar is a toxic, carcinogenic & dangerously flammable substance that is VERY hard to get rid of once you've been contaminated with it, qualities matching these governments owners perfectly.
"but have they considered what comes after the war."
Whatever comes after, Europe will declare it as their victory. Want an example? Take a look at the Winter War between USSR and Finland. Finland lost spectacularly, but to this day (and way after) Finns and other westerners believe that Finland has won this war.
They probably will do - but the difference between what they say and what is real may be too apparent to spin. The real world consequences will be out of their control and they may very well be detrimental to Europe.
So... little has changed, seemingly, and yet evrything is changing evermore in Russia's favour. And depiste genuine trumpian concern for Ukraine and will to try and bend Russia's determination, the means of pressure are becoming extremely limited even for Washington.
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If I may advance a general summary of where this takes us all: Russia is on her way to imposing a major strategic defeat on NATO. The question that lingers in my mind, is that of what tricks Trump will be devising to shield the US from the consequences of this major defeat, and to let the EU eat up the poisoned gruel that she so cheerfully kept on the fire for much longer than was necessary, out of fear it would have to be swallowed at some point...
Oh, even though the entire Maidan coup was about deliberately pissing off the Russians in honor of the cold war mentors of the U.S. foreign policy blob, the economic justification was for the more recently discovered oil, gas, and REM reserves under Donbas.
That's why Ukraine has been told to hold the Donbas at all costs. Them failing to do that is what has sparked so much alarmism and militarism in Europe and among the U.S. foreign policy establishment this year.
I've only really been following this war closely since late 2023, but it's been clear since then that the Russians did a major revision of their tactical doctrine, and they've been using the bite and hold tactic successfully since Avdiivka.
Bite and hold was invented by the British Army in WW1 and was used at the battle of Passchendaele successfully until British high command got tired of the slow pace of advance this tactic requires.
Russian high command embraced "bite and hold" and fully committed to it, and that's why we've seen the death by a thousand cuts. Units take the positions in front of them and hold them, fighting off the inevitable Ukrainian counterattacks rather than rushing to assault the next position and then losing both. You just do very limited small-unit offensives up and down the front instead of attempting the big arrow defensives that can blown apart by precision long-range fires.
The Germans in WWI couldn't do anything significant against bite and hold, and the Ukrainians can't either.
This is a very well known military tactic among military historians, but western analysts refuse to acknowledge it's happening and refuse to acknowledge that it's been masterful in keeping constant pressure on the line of contact and exhausting Ukrainian forces by never giving them any respite.
I can agree that bite and hold is part of it. But Russian forces are heirs to the USSR military tradition. The USSR designed absolutely coherent operative doctrines for attrition warfare, in part in response to the kind of warfare that the Nazi invasion was fighting, and in part due to having learnt from the entire WWI experience. Broadly speaking, the Soviets fully accepted the fundamental principles of total attritional war. In this perspective, it doesn't matter how fast you gain territory, or how long the entire war effort needs to last. All that matters, is that the end result of your grinding tactics is the final depletion of the enemy's resources and thus, of the enemy's ability to keep on fighting. Once those resources are gone, there is no more meanihngful resistance, and you can start moving as fast as you desire, as far as you desire. At the end, Nazi Germany had no pilots left for the Luftwaffe, and Landwehr mortars were operated by 12 year-old boys... So that the Red Army ended its war only when there no longer was a Germany.
Tomahawks missile may be useful to pummel some third rate military from a far, but it’s doubtful whether they could do any real damage to Russia.
They’re slow, and not particularly stealthy, and Russian AD have already demonstrated their capabilities by shooting down the (in comparison) far more advanced storm shadow missile.
Tomahawks can carry a nuclear warhead. In last Trump/Putin call am sure Putin expressed fact that Russia would not be able to determine whether a tomahawk was carrying a nuke or not and would thus trigger a launch of Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Whatever happened to the old idea of self-determination of peoples? The Ukrainian nationalists refuse to face the reality that they do not have the means either in materiel or personnel to recover lost territory, so, unwilling or unable to compromise by making concessions, they seek a ceasefire in the desperate hope of staving off collapse long enough to rebuild forces. The Russians see through the ceasefire ploy and won't accept any pause other than a comprehensive settlement, which involves them keeping won territory-territory populated by Russian speaking Russian ethnics. Zelensky probably can't compromise anything; there were reports early in the war that he had been threatened with death by the ultra-nationalists if he made concessions. So the war grinds on in spite of President Trump's efforts, and for that matter, the wishes of the Ukrainian people. If the war doesn't escalate into a nuclear catastrophe, it seems likely that it ultimately will be a NATO defeat, perhaps leading to the dissolution of that entity.
I remember reading some Telegram posts by troops who weren't allowed to evacuate indefensible positions where relief troops and supplies couldn't even get to them and they were saying "Zelensky better hope the Russians get to him before we do."
There was never any doubt that Russia would win militarily against Ukraine. The bigger question remains: why hasn't Russia taken out Kyiv in the first place and forced a surrender instead of settling for much less? Russia will win the conflict but lose the peace because it failed to take out Ukraine. Ukraine will survive and serve as a platform to link up with European forces in a few years and Russia will say that they've been deceived again, just like every other time it said it. No country fears Russia, having been emboldened by its passive stance and eagerness to resume business with the West. Whose side is the Kremlin on, anyway? Follow the money. Oh well, Agenda 2030 nears, and every country is in on it. Ukraine will be forgotten by then, a mere useful distraction, before everyone gets the screws put to them. It's all a staged theatric brought to you by a one-world government. Enjoy the show. lol
I find your assessment disconnected from reality. What evidence you have that Russia will stop before achieving its objectives? Once Russia realised that Ukraine will not capitulate they seem to have decided to snuff the will to fight from Ukraine now and in the future. Short decisive campaigns don’t achieve this. Compare Iraq or Afghanistan with Chechnya. I mourn for Ukrainians. They were captured by oligarchs and never developed the sophistication as a state to navigate among powerful countries. But at the end, the strong do what they can and weak suffer what they must. As true today as in 500 BC.
>What evidence you have that Russia will stop before achieving its objectives?
Because the objectives are completely unattainable with the current Russian posture.
1) The current official Russian positions is that they get the four oblasts in full and the war ends. And Putin was ready to retreat even from that by the latest information, which does seem to have been correct, i.e. Ukraine withdraws from the rest of the DNR, Russia freezes the front in Kherson and Zapoorzhye, i.e. Putin gives away without a fight two regional capitals of the RF. For which he should hang for grand treason if there were actual laws in Russia, but we all know how things work.
2) There has been no mobilization in Russia, meaning that the forces to meaningfully go beyond the Donbass don't really exist. The size of the part of the Red Army that recovered Ukraine back in WWII was several million people. But that was before commie blocks and before drones. And before the Banderite cancer had spread, with the vast majority of the population in the cities that were being liberated on the side of the Red Army. In contrast, Putin allowed two decades of Banderization in Ukraine to proceed unimpeded, then attacked them and sent the process into hyperdrive, and didn't finish the job quickly so it remained in hyperdrive for years. They have been training teenagers to operate drones for three years now.
3) There has been zero effort to isolate the battlefield, i.e. cut off supplies from Poland and Romania. Combined with the previous point, you are looking hypothetically at a small Russian force of a few tens of thousands entering Kiev, a city of three million, and from every window of a commie block they will be launching FPVs at them. How is that going to work out? It will be a much much worse version of early 2022.
So you need to first mobilize and prepare the necessary forces, which number in the 1-3 million range (which Putin himself has publicly acknowledged when asked that question), then glass Poland and Romania with nukes in order to take them out and cut off the supply of drones and other weapons, then move in with ground forces.
Given the current Russian posture, how likely does that look?
1. Four regions is a starting negotiating position. With a military victory, demands will certainly increase. This doesn't mean demands for the Baltics, of course, but still.
Then something completely incomprehensible happens: nuclear strikes and so on. Why? Why Poland and not London? The goal seems to be to maintain the image of a "besieged fortress" for the "global south," achieving the systematic depletion of resources and economic collapse. With the prospect of the collapse of military and economic blocs and civil strife. It's much more humane to play for oneself, without nuclear carpet bombing.
Because Poland doesn't have Trident D5 missiles and weapons are not flowing through it directly into Ukraine.
If you can make sure no Trident missiles will be fired at Moscow, then of course you go for the UK too, and in principle it is doable, but how exactly certain the success of such a move would be is not something we on the outside know.
>With the prospect of the collapse of military and economic blocs and civil strife
There isn't going to be any collapse in the West on a meaningful time scale, and even if there is, it will make them more aggressive towards Russia, not less. The whole reason for this war is that the West should have collapsed completely in the 1990s due to depletion of internal resources and the dysfunction of the capitalist system, but it was saved by Gorbachev's treason and the transfer of many trillions of real wealth from the East to the West (not just from Russia, China too, in the form of cheap labor, but the Chinese managed to trick the West into transferring its industry to them at least). The problem is that the effects of that injection started to wear off by 2008 so they had to organize another one. Which is precisely why the war on Russia began to ramp up right around and after the financial crisis.
Also, and I keep asking this question here, but nobody ever answers it, how collapsed will the West have to be for the missile and drones to stop flying into Russia?
Because we have the example of Yemen firing missiles and drones into Israel for two years now. And Yemen is as collapsed as it gets, it has no economy to speak of, and is not a technological center of anything. And it is 2000 km away from Israel. Yet it fires stuff into it all the time. So it appears that the level of collapse beyond which you stop being a threat is something much worse than Yemen. Good luck waiting for that, by the time it happens Russian will have been completely destroyed.
Finally, if you are attacked, you defend yourself. And especially if you are the country with the most firepower in the world. If your leadership refuses to defend the country, then it is failing at its most basic duty, and it has to go. It's that simple.
It is strange (there's that word again) that Russia hasn't mobilized again. They're going to have to do that if they want to besiege and capture the cities they even claim they want, aren't they?
Perhaps that's the American thinking at play here. What happened in Iraq when the government was taken down. Chaos and terrorism. Russia doesn't need that. It's easier and cleaner to just destroy the army.
but who's going to surrender if there is no government. People may take up arms in masses. And Russia must be thankful that an amateur like Zelenksy is in power. He made one military blunder after the other.
Control cities by putting them under siege. Then the only alternative is surrender or starve. Avoid guerrilla warfare completely. I explained how to do it, but it's too long to repeat.
That would alienate a lot of Ukrainians, something the Russians have tried not to do. They'll have enough to contend with when they've won on the battlefield dealing with the Banderites and their Western backers who are guaranteed to keep lighting fires.
Putin considers Russian Ukraine part of Russia. He wants to preserve what he can of Kiev unless it has become a bastion of Banderism. Putin does not want to be stuck with the ethnic Ukrainian parts of Ukraine. If he does not trust the West to keep Ukraine out of NATO he will capture as much of it as he can.
How many times already have we gone through this "Will they?.Won't they?" kabuki already? In the end, they always will, aided by Russian dithering and indecision.
But this analysis misses the point. Nobody even sort of knowledgeable ever seriously thought that Ukraine would win on its own, no matter what was said for public consumption. That was never the plan. Even the NATO generals who devised the much hyped counteroffensive knew full well that they were driving dumb farmboys into what was sure to be a bloody failure. (Let the implications of that sink in. Yes, NATO and its generals are *that* cynical.)
The real plan, the only real plan all along was ever always only to get the Americans to step in, once warm live Ukrainian bodies had soaked up enough Russian munitions. Whether the Americans simply charge in as a result of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, or whether they do so, rather than leave their european catamites hanging out to dry, makes no difference in the end.
That plan is proceeding apace, for Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. Admittedly, Russian dithering and indecision are again doing Russia no favors here.
I have often heard it said that It would be worse under a President Harris. I doubt that. Besides Harris not being as easily manipulated, image-obsessed and responsive to flattery, one can easily imagine the situation of a Harris presidency with Team R holding one or more houses of Congress, and then blocking any further aid to Ukraine simply to stymie Harris. (Team D tried to do something similar with respect to Yemen during Trump's first term.)
It's certainly the Ukrainian's plan, and also that of the Eurohawks. US plans are simpler - let their proxy die, then find another proxy and let them die too, then find another proxy and those ones die, and after that find another proxy . . . .
That’s because it is collapsing. One could not help noticing that the entire war is happening at a pace that is not rapid. You and GM et al also say the sane thing over and over again sometimes briefly but most of the time exhaustively. It’s tiresome
Ukraine offensive that petered out in 2023 was the US/NATO "air land battle" without the air component.
For Ukraine to run such an ambitious offensive would have required significant US airpower in the form of 100 plus air superiority fighters, 120 close air support fighters, supporting AEWC, tankers and US Army air defense systems committed to the offensive areas. US had committed to intel support from the time of the Obama administration.
Maybe could have let in the US Army Apache and USMC super cobra gunships.....
US did not and probably could not because: limited air bases, long logistics lines and estimated lose rates exceeding it experience in Vietnam.
Back in 2023, they genuinely believed the Russians would break and flee in panic, overwhelmed by NATO’s so-called superior weaponry, the Leopards, M1 Abrams, Bradleys, and Strykers. Instead, they were met with a harsh dose of reality: a battlefield littered with destroyed tanks and IFVs, a grim reminder of what happens when you underestimate a determined enemy entrenched behind well-prepared defences.
How naive do people have to be to think that NATO didn't know the offensive was going to fail?
But it was never the goal for it to succeed, the goal was to move the red lines, and for that it had to fail. Because if it had succeeded, the Russian frog would have jumped out of the warming kettle, i.e. pulled out the big guns and ended this charade.
The US has been following a very well planned and consistent strategy of salami slicing and frog boiling, and the Kremlin has been falling for it with the same consistency.
In 2023 the goal was to normalize NATO hardware with NATO logistics and planning behind it going on the offensive against Russian forces and to also establish the fact that Russia will not strike at NATO in response. That goal was achieved.
Then the following year they moved the red lines again -- we had NATO hardware with NATO logistics and planning, and a ground force that was 50% NATO personnel too, not just going on the offensive against Russian forces in Ukraine, but actually invading official Russian territory in Kursk.
The frog didn't jump out the kettle on that occasion either, so the goal of normalizing that was also achieved.
The next step will be direct massive NATO strikes on Russia and NATO forces officially entering Ukraine.
Your point on moving red lines is good one, though that does not necessarily also mean that the offensive was intended/expected to fail. My recollection of events was that its success was certain and that badly trained Russian slave soldiers armed with rusty shovels would run as soon as the first shot was fired. I always considered that narrative extremely foolish. Whether or not this public stance was not the private one I could not say, I don't have access to the information. I would guess that different views prevailed and that whilst some expected failure or at best limited success, many believed the BS.
"Besides Harris not being as easily manipulated, image-obsessed and responsive to flattery" -- say you haven't read 107 Days without saying you haven't read 107 Days.
We'd only notice the difference between Trump and Harris in domestic policy. Maybe they'd call tariffs sanctions. But both are puppets in the hands of the DeepState, anointed on Epstein Island)
"Rather than preventing Russian capture of the Donbas, the west is testing how much Putin is willing to pay for it. If history is any guide, a game predicated on outlasting Russia’s strategic endurance and willingness to fight is a very bad game to play indeed."
Especially when the Russians believe that the struggle has reached an existential scale and scope. Which is what many people have been saying since 2022: increasing the cost for Russia would only lead to an increased cost for Ukraine (and the West, indirectly), since the Russians perceive that their very existence is at stake here and will fight like a cornered animal if pushed to the extreme.
There is also the strangely ignored von Clausewitz observation that the goal of an army is to force a political crisis within the enemy. Russia's grinding defeat of NATO has also contributed to the US-desired political and economic collapse of Europe. What people don't get is that Russia's slow way is the quick way. And Europe's collapse under US supervision is masking the US' own economic and industrial collapse. Presidents Putin and Xi are following Woody Guthrie's maxim: "Take it easy, but take it," although Russian soldiers have sacrificed so much for the benefit of us all.
There is no political crisis in the West. Governments may fall, that doesn't materially change anything, because those governments do not decide policy.
Meanwhile a political crisis is slowly developing in Russia, because we have the absurd situation of the descendants of WWII Nazis (and I don't mean only the Banderites from Lvov) attacking Russia with openly stated similar intentions to those back then, yet the Kremlin refuses to defend the country.
This will be resolved in one of two ways -- either Russia will this time be defeated, without it resisting at all, or there will be a coup against the current Kremlin, which will potentially create enormous real instability of the kind that you will never see in the West no matter how much you obsess over Queer Smarmer's single-digit approval ratings.
Since @bigserge didn't bring it up, let me add the following: the problem with the Tomahawks is that trained US military personnel will have to operate them because the Ukrainians cannot. In other words, it would become super-obvious to everyone on Planet Earth that Tomahawk cruise missiles flying from Ukraine into Russia are being launched by US military personnel, even if they are disguised in Ukrainian Army uniforms. The Orange Strongman in the White House mentioned this to the media as one of the reasons why he won't be deploying Tomahawks to Ukraine. Even he seems to recognize that deploying Americans to fire the Tomahawks is an unnecessary escalation against Russia
Hmm. Try this on. Russia may just be the last hope as a revival of Western civilization. Began reviewing Quigley (T&H 1966) last night, and there it was in the introductory chapter. The core (Western Europe and Uk) is totally burned out. Its main peripheral area (North America) revived it , but has also now fallen into empire and rot. Russia is mentioned as an outside chance ‘peripheral’ to revive it, and, according to Putin anyway…here they are…a vital, focused entity feeling its oats and ready to go.
"If history is any guide, a game predicated on outlasting Russia’s strategic endurance and willingness to fight is a very bad game to play indeed."
Yes, that was the punchline I was waiting for, through all of the concluding paragraphs. And it's absolutely true. "We'll make them suffer until they say uncle." You'd have to know nothing at all about Russian history to think that'll work.
"One thing we learn from history is that our leaders rarely learn from history."
- Historian Barbara Tuchman in 'The March of Folly'
Tuchman is great. 🕰️🗺️📚✍🏼✅
It’s almost as if they’re having a nice adult play date where they do magical thinking and support groups based on mutually held delusion
What the war needs is for the adults to step in and send both sides to opposite corners and declare the fight is over. Get all countries to cease feeding the conflict. No more aid, no Marshall Plan, just stop the irredentism, the jingoism, the cheerleading by the profiteering war hawks and behave. Call it a tie and celebrate that the slaughter has ended. Impossible? No, just difficult. Withhold a billion here, a billion there and the outside parties walk away and war is over. ***poof***
I disagree Dale.
One side is fundamentally supporting its war fighting efforts from its own resources, the other is on life-support.
Pie in the sky, Dale. Your thesis assumes that both sides (the west and Russia), a) are equally invested in the war, or b) they both stumbled into it by accident. Neither is the case. In the first instance, the war really is existential for Russia (if they lose, it’s possible break-up and destruction of the RF), while it really isn’t for the west (if they lose, they just carry on as before - sure The Empire will have taken a big hit, but they can bullshit their way around that). In the second instance, The Empire has been planning this proxy war for years (well before the 2014 coup), and the RF has been building up its strength and resilience for just as long. It ain't no tie, and the slaughter is vastly disproportionate and not in favour of Ukraine. The only countries feeding this horror are the US and its European vassals, and they are wrecking Ukraine. They stop it, and it stops - on the terms Russia confirmed in summer 2024: No NATO, loss of the 4 oblasts plus Crimea, demilitarisation, and denazification (as far as possible).
Thank you for the feedback, Steve.
Come on, man...
"Suffering" is in the DNA of Russians, to the extent that westerners are unable to grasp. Honest assessment of their history is essential if a western party wishes to engage Putin diplomatically.
Putin did give Tucker a history lesson but very few in the West are capable of understanding anything.
Well, I mean 1917… Afghanistan… Russians have their limits same as anyone, it’s culturally different - deaths don’t have the same impact but a perceived loss of power is extremely dangerous in Russia. The big question is do Russians feel this is existential a la WW2 or Napoleon in which case they really will put up with almost anything or do they feel like it’s a foreign adventure gone wrong more in the mould of the top two that you can retreat from to regain power.
It's definitely existential 🔪 for Vlad Putin, and that may be all that matters......
You are extremely naive, gullible, and brainwashed by the western non-stop propaganda if you truly believe that this fight is purely about Putin feeling vulnerable... All Russians understand that NATO, the Euro-Nazis, and the genocidal "hegemon" across the pond will kill all Russian if they just got a chance.... The west is full of geniuses like you, which is why NATO and the yanks keep throwing those Ukrainian bodies into the furnace.
Hey Amigo, my reply was to the above ⬆️ comment by Ed: "The big question is do Russians feel this is existential.....? " I am in no way qualified to speak for or know if the special military operation in the DonBas is perceived as 'existential' by the rank and file populous of Holy Russia. My personal view is that it definitely appears to be "do or die" in Putin’s eyes. You obviously perceive this conflict as existential, got it. ☑️ Hopefully all of this death and destruction can end soon. Lord, have mercy.... (& Big Serge is a solid source✍🏼)
Existential. They lose, and it’s regime change, breakup, and the loss of their resources. Or…… before that happens it’s MAD. I’m not Russian, but that seems Crystal to me.
I still remember how invading Russia in winter used to be a punchline for strategic stupidity.
Neocons never learn 🙄🙄🙄
How about WW1?
The Great War was thrust upon 🇷🇺 Nicholas II. Russia was not prepared for modern war, and the Czar was not really wanting to fight with his cousin, the Kaiser, or the AustroHungarians. German cash sponsoring Lenin's return 🚂 📣 to Russia was the ultimate wrench 🔧tossed into the ⚙️ machinery 💣💥⚒️. WW-one redrew all the maps ✍🏼🕰️ of Europe and the MidEast, for better or worse. Remember, at that time, western "ukraine" was part of 🇦🇹 Austria.
It took millions of casualties and looming mass starvation of the civilian populace and it still took two revolutions for Russia to quit. Russia is nowhere close to that right now.
The average Ukranian in 2019: "I will vote for Zelensky because he promises peace with Russia and prosperity for Ukraine". The average US citizen in 2024: "I will vote for Trump, because he promisses to end foreign wars and bring prosperity to the US, again." The people that really run things laugh and make money, while very, very, knowledgeable people explain the pros and cons of the latest wonder weapons. Amusing stuff.
Consider me among the duped, at least on Trump being the 'man of peace'. I've never believed he'd grow us of the Debt or fix our screwed financial system, figured out that was BS by 2019. Very sad & disappointing but not surprising unfortunately.
Nothing to add but for the smirk on the face of the elephant in the room counting all those "votes". Same room. Same elephant.
Where I live, in the outlaw US Empire, there's no need for election fraud: A pre-selected field of sellouts, psychopaths and outright human waste is what the average voter gets to choose from. This is true for any public office holding the power of the Nation's purse: Congress and President. Before any actual public election, there is a pre-selection process: Who do we allow to run for office? Same is true for most Western "Democracies" I know.
Upshot: By the time the public gets to make a "decision" via voting, the decision is meaningless. Almost everybody here in the US knows this, which is why few bother to vote.
It is important to take note of the wider context of the war, ignored here, since this is a military analysis.
Putin and the RF Duma have frequently stated that they want:
All US/NATO missiles back to 1991 positions.
A whole new European Security Framework written, taking RF interests into account.
Denazification of Ukraine. This will require dissolution and reorganization of a new Ukrainian Constitution to outlaw Banderism, hence full regime change in Kiev and regional governance.
Demilitarization of Ukraine, which means either no army, navy, air force, or one restricted purely to defense.
Removal of sanctions and return of foreign monies stolen under them.
Re-constitution or compensation for Nordstream 2 sabotage.
Trials of all Ukrainian war criminals.
How much of all that they eventually get is the moot point.
Putin/Medvedev/Lavrov have clearly stated that RF is not gonna quit till they attain their goals by complete Western capitulation, either at a table or via the battlefield.
>Putin and the RF Duma have frequently stated that they want:
They actually stopped asking for most of the that a long time ago.
Pushing NATO back has not been mentioned since Istanbul in 2022.
Denazification and demilitarization has been off the table since Putin's calamitous press conference in June 2024 where he effectively declared all the SMO goals null and void by proclaiming that if Russia is given the four oblasts the war will end.
Well, of course everyone with a brain knows that there will be no denazification and demilitarization until the Russian army is in Drogobych and Chervonograd, because the only way to denazification and demilitarization is by physically denazifying and demilitarizing the territory, on the ground. And proclaiming that if Russia is given the four oblasts the war will end effectively means Russia abandons the rest of Ukraine to the Nazis.
There's an old joke about this to help you understand:
A joke about a married couple: The wife asks her husband, "We've been married for 50 years, and you only told me you loved me once, at our wedding. Why haven't you ever told me you love me again?" The husband replies, "If anything changes, I'll let you know."
You seem to take politicians at face value, but I do not. Trump wrote 'The Art of the Deal.'
BTW, you have missed some news. After everyone of the so-called 'Ceasefire' negotiations earlier this year the Russians complained that the Americans were not understanding the items on their agenda, Gen Kellog particularly not understanding any of the Russians positions.
Believe me, GM has not missed any news whatsoever on this dispute. And while I very much doubt Trump wrote the Art of the Deal rather than some ghostwriter, what does that have to do with anything?
War criminals including the nest of neocon vipers in the US.
Acco, that's "only" thing the stupid West won't consider.
While "ceasefire is Minsk repeated to be violated!
All sounds good to me. 👍
They've said those things, but they've also said, repeatedly, that a form of the terms negotiated in Istanbul could end the war. And who knows what got said in Alaska? I guess the negotiations are moot anyway, though. This will end with the elimination of Ukraine as a state.
It's a real joke, how Trump tries to play the neutral mediator when he's arming & giving intel to one side. What a peace maker.
And doing the same in Gaza!
There is no question that ukraine and NATO are taking "unsustainable losses". However, please explain how Russia is taking "unsustainable losses" because every other credible source I follow does not think Russian losses are "unsustainable".
Maybe I’m being misled, but I think it was the incessant meat wave attacks that the Russian armed forces were ported to be doing all the time, although there was never any actual evidence of it😛🤓🧐
Surely that must be it…. It’s why ukrainians and their shitty mercenaries are grabbing everyone who can walk, probably including dogs, and throwing them at the front.
You are thinking of the tactics of Prigozhin and the frontal attacks with prisoner assaults, according to most observers, that's been rectified.
Yep. The meatwave attacks ended with the expenditure of the Storm Z penal units in Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Yet two years later you'll still find fools talking about the Russians doing meatwave attacks despite there being no video evidence of it. As frustrating as it is to read such idiotic posts, at least they let you know you can just dismiss the rest of their opinions if they're not even aware of where, when, and why the meatwave attacks ended.
I subscribe to National Review. It's kind of a love/hate thing, but their writers are kind of funny in how stupidly they adhere to neocon conceptions of the Russian army being as careless as men as the Red Army was in 1943.
There wasn't any evidence that Wagner Storm Z detachments were being used in "meat wave" attacks, either. Uked publicize everything; if there was a single shred of evidence we would have seen never ending edits of it.
The Wagner guys described Bakhmut as a meat grinder. They said they lost approximately 20,000 Storm Z troops there.
Meatwave is probably inaccurate, but the tactics they were using for those units involved little regard for force preservation.
Prigozhin also called it a meat grinder, but in the sense that it was a meat grinder for the Ukrainian army.
Yeah, it is basically a well known fact even in Russia that mortality in Storm Z back way in Bahmut was astronomical. Can't say that anybody cared though. That might be extremely inhumane and cynical to say, but those were mostly very bad people and a strain of resources on the state. In terms of 'realpolitik', good riddance. We thank them for their service. And yeah, it is not a pleasant idea.
>ukraine and NATO are taking "unsustainable losses"
NATO is not taking almost any losses.
They are and have been taking lots of equipment losses.
This is a pretty good summary of the current situation and how we got here.
The really important issue, and one not spectulated here, is that if the Russians achieve their objectives - either minimalist as stated or they go on to occupy up to the entire east bank of the Denipr and/or Odessa and the Black Sea coast - what will happen to NATO? Will it survive? Will the US wash its hands of Europe and go off to play in its Pacific playground against the Chinese? Will Europe be forced through economic desperation to make a humiliating accommodation with the Russians? Either way the West is prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian, but have they considered what comes after the war.
@Brenton
"Will the US wash its hands of Europe and go off to play in its Pacific playground against the Chinese?"
----------
If Russian Federation is still standing with no color revolution happening and not balkanized, not much degraded? The USA CAN'T EVEN OPEN the game against China.
They MIGHT take another stab at Iran, but to what meaningful end?
The pivot towards invading Venezuela is probably the most do-able "forever war" choice for our Siamese war party to keep their owners happy, though not an especially good one. Think Vietnam but THESE insurgents could WALK to Washington DC & make their objections known, given the time (and some already may have).
Iran and Venezuela are part of the move against China. The attempt will be to pick off the weak parts before moving on to China. However I do not like the US chances against China in a full on competition - lack of strategic thinking and preparation over the last 30 years which is the exact opposite of the Chinese.
As for Russia, its economy and its society, the war has made it stronger. Putin may be under pressure to go harder, but also there are many Russian thinkers who see an advantage of the war going on longer on the argument that Russia will only get stronger because of it.
Hard to destroy a government with the best balance sheet among the participants
@Brenton
This proxy war The West(®) triggered in Ukraine has now become the western leadership's very own "tar baby", they can't seem to drop it or get unstuck.
Tar is a toxic, carcinogenic & dangerously flammable substance that is VERY hard to get rid of once you've been contaminated with it, qualities matching these governments owners perfectly.
https://englishiva1011.pbworks.com/f/TARBABY.PDF
"but have they considered what comes after the war."
Whatever comes after, Europe will declare it as their victory. Want an example? Take a look at the Winter War between USSR and Finland. Finland lost spectacularly, but to this day (and way after) Finns and other westerners believe that Finland has won this war.
They probably will do - but the difference between what they say and what is real may be too apparent to spin. The real world consequences will be out of their control and they may very well be detrimental to Europe.
That was a truly masterful take on this subject. You covered it so well. I have nothing to add.
When in doubt fall back on sassing people on the Internet, that’s what I do
So... little has changed, seemingly, and yet evrything is changing evermore in Russia's favour. And depiste genuine trumpian concern for Ukraine and will to try and bend Russia's determination, the means of pressure are becoming extremely limited even for Washington.
.
If I may advance a general summary of where this takes us all: Russia is on her way to imposing a major strategic defeat on NATO. The question that lingers in my mind, is that of what tricks Trump will be devising to shield the US from the consequences of this major defeat, and to let the EU eat up the poisoned gruel that she so cheerfully kept on the fire for much longer than was necessary, out of fear it would have to be swallowed at some point...
Oh, even though the entire Maidan coup was about deliberately pissing off the Russians in honor of the cold war mentors of the U.S. foreign policy blob, the economic justification was for the more recently discovered oil, gas, and REM reserves under Donbas.
That's why Ukraine has been told to hold the Donbas at all costs. Them failing to do that is what has sparked so much alarmism and militarism in Europe and among the U.S. foreign policy establishment this year.
I've only really been following this war closely since late 2023, but it's been clear since then that the Russians did a major revision of their tactical doctrine, and they've been using the bite and hold tactic successfully since Avdiivka.
Bite and hold was invented by the British Army in WW1 and was used at the battle of Passchendaele successfully until British high command got tired of the slow pace of advance this tactic requires.
Russian high command embraced "bite and hold" and fully committed to it, and that's why we've seen the death by a thousand cuts. Units take the positions in front of them and hold them, fighting off the inevitable Ukrainian counterattacks rather than rushing to assault the next position and then losing both. You just do very limited small-unit offensives up and down the front instead of attempting the big arrow defensives that can blown apart by precision long-range fires.
The Germans in WWI couldn't do anything significant against bite and hold, and the Ukrainians can't either.
This is a very well known military tactic among military historians, but western analysts refuse to acknowledge it's happening and refuse to acknowledge that it's been masterful in keeping constant pressure on the line of contact and exhausting Ukrainian forces by never giving them any respite.
I can agree that bite and hold is part of it. But Russian forces are heirs to the USSR military tradition. The USSR designed absolutely coherent operative doctrines for attrition warfare, in part in response to the kind of warfare that the Nazi invasion was fighting, and in part due to having learnt from the entire WWI experience. Broadly speaking, the Soviets fully accepted the fundamental principles of total attritional war. In this perspective, it doesn't matter how fast you gain territory, or how long the entire war effort needs to last. All that matters, is that the end result of your grinding tactics is the final depletion of the enemy's resources and thus, of the enemy's ability to keep on fighting. Once those resources are gone, there is no more meanihngful resistance, and you can start moving as fast as you desire, as far as you desire. At the end, Nazi Germany had no pilots left for the Luftwaffe, and Landwehr mortars were operated by 12 year-old boys... So that the Red Army ended its war only when there no longer was a Germany.
"what tricks Trump will be devising to shield the US from the consequences of this major defeat"
You're underestimating the power of the propaganda. Any outcome will be declared as a victory of the US (the West, Europe, Trump's personally, etc.).
Tomahawks missile may be useful to pummel some third rate military from a far, but it’s doubtful whether they could do any real damage to Russia.
They’re slow, and not particularly stealthy, and Russian AD have already demonstrated their capabilities by shooting down the (in comparison) far more advanced storm shadow missile.
It’s just bluster because nothing else worked.
They've shot down Tomahawks in Syria in 2018.
2017
Tomahawks can carry a nuclear warhead. In last Trump/Putin call am sure Putin expressed fact that Russia would not be able to determine whether a tomahawk was carrying a nuke or not and would thus trigger a launch of Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Whatever happened to the old idea of self-determination of peoples? The Ukrainian nationalists refuse to face the reality that they do not have the means either in materiel or personnel to recover lost territory, so, unwilling or unable to compromise by making concessions, they seek a ceasefire in the desperate hope of staving off collapse long enough to rebuild forces. The Russians see through the ceasefire ploy and won't accept any pause other than a comprehensive settlement, which involves them keeping won territory-territory populated by Russian speaking Russian ethnics. Zelensky probably can't compromise anything; there were reports early in the war that he had been threatened with death by the ultra-nationalists if he made concessions. So the war grinds on in spite of President Trump's efforts, and for that matter, the wishes of the Ukrainian people. If the war doesn't escalate into a nuclear catastrophe, it seems likely that it ultimately will be a NATO defeat, perhaps leading to the dissolution of that entity.
I am constantly surprised that Zelensky is still alive and not terminated by a disgruntled Ukrainian. Perhaps 2026 will be his year.
I remember reading some Telegram posts by troops who weren't allowed to evacuate indefensible positions where relief troops and supplies couldn't even get to them and they were saying "Zelensky better hope the Russians get to him before we do."
There was never any doubt that Russia would win militarily against Ukraine. The bigger question remains: why hasn't Russia taken out Kyiv in the first place and forced a surrender instead of settling for much less? Russia will win the conflict but lose the peace because it failed to take out Ukraine. Ukraine will survive and serve as a platform to link up with European forces in a few years and Russia will say that they've been deceived again, just like every other time it said it. No country fears Russia, having been emboldened by its passive stance and eagerness to resume business with the West. Whose side is the Kremlin on, anyway? Follow the money. Oh well, Agenda 2030 nears, and every country is in on it. Ukraine will be forgotten by then, a mere useful distraction, before everyone gets the screws put to them. It's all a staged theatric brought to you by a one-world government. Enjoy the show. lol
I find your assessment disconnected from reality. What evidence you have that Russia will stop before achieving its objectives? Once Russia realised that Ukraine will not capitulate they seem to have decided to snuff the will to fight from Ukraine now and in the future. Short decisive campaigns don’t achieve this. Compare Iraq or Afghanistan with Chechnya. I mourn for Ukrainians. They were captured by oligarchs and never developed the sophistication as a state to navigate among powerful countries. But at the end, the strong do what they can and weak suffer what they must. As true today as in 500 BC.
>What evidence you have that Russia will stop before achieving its objectives?
Because the objectives are completely unattainable with the current Russian posture.
1) The current official Russian positions is that they get the four oblasts in full and the war ends. And Putin was ready to retreat even from that by the latest information, which does seem to have been correct, i.e. Ukraine withdraws from the rest of the DNR, Russia freezes the front in Kherson and Zapoorzhye, i.e. Putin gives away without a fight two regional capitals of the RF. For which he should hang for grand treason if there were actual laws in Russia, but we all know how things work.
2) There has been no mobilization in Russia, meaning that the forces to meaningfully go beyond the Donbass don't really exist. The size of the part of the Red Army that recovered Ukraine back in WWII was several million people. But that was before commie blocks and before drones. And before the Banderite cancer had spread, with the vast majority of the population in the cities that were being liberated on the side of the Red Army. In contrast, Putin allowed two decades of Banderization in Ukraine to proceed unimpeded, then attacked them and sent the process into hyperdrive, and didn't finish the job quickly so it remained in hyperdrive for years. They have been training teenagers to operate drones for three years now.
3) There has been zero effort to isolate the battlefield, i.e. cut off supplies from Poland and Romania. Combined with the previous point, you are looking hypothetically at a small Russian force of a few tens of thousands entering Kiev, a city of three million, and from every window of a commie block they will be launching FPVs at them. How is that going to work out? It will be a much much worse version of early 2022.
So you need to first mobilize and prepare the necessary forces, which number in the 1-3 million range (which Putin himself has publicly acknowledged when asked that question), then glass Poland and Romania with nukes in order to take them out and cut off the supply of drones and other weapons, then move in with ground forces.
Given the current Russian posture, how likely does that look?
1. Four regions is a starting negotiating position. With a military victory, demands will certainly increase. This doesn't mean demands for the Baltics, of course, but still.
Then something completely incomprehensible happens: nuclear strikes and so on. Why? Why Poland and not London? The goal seems to be to maintain the image of a "besieged fortress" for the "global south," achieving the systematic depletion of resources and economic collapse. With the prospect of the collapse of military and economic blocs and civil strife. It's much more humane to play for oneself, without nuclear carpet bombing.
>Four regions is a starting negotiating position
From which Putin has already retreated...
>Why Poland and not London
Because Poland doesn't have Trident D5 missiles and weapons are not flowing through it directly into Ukraine.
If you can make sure no Trident missiles will be fired at Moscow, then of course you go for the UK too, and in principle it is doable, but how exactly certain the success of such a move would be is not something we on the outside know.
>With the prospect of the collapse of military and economic blocs and civil strife
There isn't going to be any collapse in the West on a meaningful time scale, and even if there is, it will make them more aggressive towards Russia, not less. The whole reason for this war is that the West should have collapsed completely in the 1990s due to depletion of internal resources and the dysfunction of the capitalist system, but it was saved by Gorbachev's treason and the transfer of many trillions of real wealth from the East to the West (not just from Russia, China too, in the form of cheap labor, but the Chinese managed to trick the West into transferring its industry to them at least). The problem is that the effects of that injection started to wear off by 2008 so they had to organize another one. Which is precisely why the war on Russia began to ramp up right around and after the financial crisis.
Also, and I keep asking this question here, but nobody ever answers it, how collapsed will the West have to be for the missile and drones to stop flying into Russia?
Because we have the example of Yemen firing missiles and drones into Israel for two years now. And Yemen is as collapsed as it gets, it has no economy to speak of, and is not a technological center of anything. And it is 2000 km away from Israel. Yet it fires stuff into it all the time. So it appears that the level of collapse beyond which you stop being a threat is something much worse than Yemen. Good luck waiting for that, by the time it happens Russian will have been completely destroyed.
Finally, if you are attacked, you defend yourself. And especially if you are the country with the most firepower in the world. If your leadership refuses to defend the country, then it is failing at its most basic duty, and it has to go. It's that simple.
It is strange (there's that word again) that Russia hasn't mobilized again. They're going to have to do that if they want to besiege and capture the cities they even claim they want, aren't they?
Perhaps that's the American thinking at play here. What happened in Iraq when the government was taken down. Chaos and terrorism. Russia doesn't need that. It's easier and cleaner to just destroy the army.
Forcing a surrender destroys enemy forces cleanest and complete.
but who's going to surrender if there is no government. People may take up arms in masses. And Russia must be thankful that an amateur like Zelenksy is in power. He made one military blunder after the other.
Control cities by putting them under siege. Then the only alternative is surrender or starve. Avoid guerrilla warfare completely. I explained how to do it, but it's too long to repeat.
That would alienate a lot of Ukrainians, something the Russians have tried not to do. They'll have enough to contend with when they've won on the battlefield dealing with the Banderites and their Western backers who are guaranteed to keep lighting fires.
I doubt money plays a role. Russia wants to be allowed to join The Club.
yes, yes and yes.
all this bs talk about multi-polarity is just russia wanting a better place at the table.
But Feral, all the money is in the Club. I get what you're saying, though. Later.
I think we'll have to wait until the end to see if Russia has failed to take out Ukraine.
I'm calling it early, Chris. Like the stock market, it's all about probabilities.
Indeed.
Putin considers Russian Ukraine part of Russia. He wants to preserve what he can of Kiev unless it has become a bastion of Banderism. Putin does not want to be stuck with the ethnic Ukrainian parts of Ukraine. If he does not trust the West to keep Ukraine out of NATO he will capture as much of it as he can.
How many times already have we gone through this "Will they?.Won't they?" kabuki already? In the end, they always will, aided by Russian dithering and indecision.
But this analysis misses the point. Nobody even sort of knowledgeable ever seriously thought that Ukraine would win on its own, no matter what was said for public consumption. That was never the plan. Even the NATO generals who devised the much hyped counteroffensive knew full well that they were driving dumb farmboys into what was sure to be a bloody failure. (Let the implications of that sink in. Yes, NATO and its generals are *that* cynical.)
The real plan, the only real plan all along was ever always only to get the Americans to step in, once warm live Ukrainian bodies had soaked up enough Russian munitions. Whether the Americans simply charge in as a result of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, or whether they do so, rather than leave their european catamites hanging out to dry, makes no difference in the end.
That plan is proceeding apace, for Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. Admittedly, Russian dithering and indecision are again doing Russia no favors here.
I have often heard it said that It would be worse under a President Harris. I doubt that. Besides Harris not being as easily manipulated, image-obsessed and responsive to flattery, one can easily imagine the situation of a Harris presidency with Team R holding one or more houses of Congress, and then blocking any further aid to Ukraine simply to stymie Harris. (Team D tried to do something similar with respect to Yemen during Trump's first term.)
It's certainly the Ukrainian's plan, and also that of the Eurohawks. US plans are simpler - let their proxy die, then find another proxy and let them die too, then find another proxy and those ones die, and after that find another proxy . . . .
Russian timidity and (I hate to write this!) incompetence are making the hawks' case for them. They are convinced otherwise.
For someone who claims that they hate to write this, you seem to do an awful lot of writing this
If facts were different, I would write something different. As it is, i hear the variations on "Ukraine is collapsing!" over and over.
That’s because it is collapsing. One could not help noticing that the entire war is happening at a pace that is not rapid. You and GM et al also say the sane thing over and over again sometimes briefly but most of the time exhaustively. It’s tiresome
Speaking of tiresome, we've been hearing "it's collapsing!" for over three years now, but it never collapses.
Ukraine offensive that petered out in 2023 was the US/NATO "air land battle" without the air component.
For Ukraine to run such an ambitious offensive would have required significant US airpower in the form of 100 plus air superiority fighters, 120 close air support fighters, supporting AEWC, tankers and US Army air defense systems committed to the offensive areas. US had committed to intel support from the time of the Obama administration.
Maybe could have let in the US Army Apache and USMC super cobra gunships.....
US did not and probably could not because: limited air bases, long logistics lines and estimated lose rates exceeding it experience in Vietnam.
It also did not help that the 2023 counteroffensive was entirely predictable and charging into prepared defensive lines.
And yes, with lack of air support.
Back in 2023, they genuinely believed the Russians would break and flee in panic, overwhelmed by NATO’s so-called superior weaponry, the Leopards, M1 Abrams, Bradleys, and Strykers. Instead, they were met with a harsh dose of reality: a battlefield littered with destroyed tanks and IFVs, a grim reminder of what happens when you underestimate a determined enemy entrenched behind well-prepared defences.
How naive do people have to be to think that NATO didn't know the offensive was going to fail?
But it was never the goal for it to succeed, the goal was to move the red lines, and for that it had to fail. Because if it had succeeded, the Russian frog would have jumped out of the warming kettle, i.e. pulled out the big guns and ended this charade.
The US has been following a very well planned and consistent strategy of salami slicing and frog boiling, and the Kremlin has been falling for it with the same consistency.
In 2023 the goal was to normalize NATO hardware with NATO logistics and planning behind it going on the offensive against Russian forces and to also establish the fact that Russia will not strike at NATO in response. That goal was achieved.
Then the following year they moved the red lines again -- we had NATO hardware with NATO logistics and planning, and a ground force that was 50% NATO personnel too, not just going on the offensive against Russian forces in Ukraine, but actually invading official Russian territory in Kursk.
The frog didn't jump out the kettle on that occasion either, so the goal of normalizing that was also achieved.
The next step will be direct massive NATO strikes on Russia and NATO forces officially entering Ukraine.
Your point on moving red lines is good one, though that does not necessarily also mean that the offensive was intended/expected to fail. My recollection of events was that its success was certain and that badly trained Russian slave soldiers armed with rusty shovels would run as soon as the first shot was fired. I always considered that narrative extremely foolish. Whether or not this public stance was not the private one I could not say, I don't have access to the information. I would guess that different views prevailed and that whilst some expected failure or at best limited success, many believed the BS.
Don't confuse official propaganda with the planning that happens at the Pentagon.
Those are very different things and you hear and see none of the latter.
"Besides Harris not being as easily manipulated, image-obsessed and responsive to flattery" -- say you haven't read 107 Days without saying you haven't read 107 Days.
Compared with Trump?
We'd only notice the difference between Trump and Harris in domestic policy. Maybe they'd call tariffs sanctions. But both are puppets in the hands of the DeepState, anointed on Epstein Island)
"Rather than preventing Russian capture of the Donbas, the west is testing how much Putin is willing to pay for it. If history is any guide, a game predicated on outlasting Russia’s strategic endurance and willingness to fight is a very bad game to play indeed."
Especially when the Russians believe that the struggle has reached an existential scale and scope. Which is what many people have been saying since 2022: increasing the cost for Russia would only lead to an increased cost for Ukraine (and the West, indirectly), since the Russians perceive that their very existence is at stake here and will fight like a cornered animal if pushed to the extreme.
There is also the strangely ignored von Clausewitz observation that the goal of an army is to force a political crisis within the enemy. Russia's grinding defeat of NATO has also contributed to the US-desired political and economic collapse of Europe. What people don't get is that Russia's slow way is the quick way. And Europe's collapse under US supervision is masking the US' own economic and industrial collapse. Presidents Putin and Xi are following Woody Guthrie's maxim: "Take it easy, but take it," although Russian soldiers have sacrificed so much for the benefit of us all.
There is no political crisis in the West. Governments may fall, that doesn't materially change anything, because those governments do not decide policy.
Meanwhile a political crisis is slowly developing in Russia, because we have the absurd situation of the descendants of WWII Nazis (and I don't mean only the Banderites from Lvov) attacking Russia with openly stated similar intentions to those back then, yet the Kremlin refuses to defend the country.
This will be resolved in one of two ways -- either Russia will this time be defeated, without it resisting at all, or there will be a coup against the current Kremlin, which will potentially create enormous real instability of the kind that you will never see in the West no matter how much you obsess over Queer Smarmer's single-digit approval ratings.
Since @bigserge didn't bring it up, let me add the following: the problem with the Tomahawks is that trained US military personnel will have to operate them because the Ukrainians cannot. In other words, it would become super-obvious to everyone on Planet Earth that Tomahawk cruise missiles flying from Ukraine into Russia are being launched by US military personnel, even if they are disguised in Ukrainian Army uniforms. The Orange Strongman in the White House mentioned this to the media as one of the reasons why he won't be deploying Tomahawks to Ukraine. Even he seems to recognize that deploying Americans to fire the Tomahawks is an unnecessary escalation against Russia
Hmm. Try this on. Russia may just be the last hope as a revival of Western civilization. Began reviewing Quigley (T&H 1966) last night, and there it was in the introductory chapter. The core (Western Europe and Uk) is totally burned out. Its main peripheral area (North America) revived it , but has also now fallen into empire and rot. Russia is mentioned as an outside chance ‘peripheral’ to revive it, and, according to Putin anyway…here they are…a vital, focused entity feeling its oats and ready to go.