Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Open Source Intelligence]

A pretty sad read today in the times about Ukraine’s losses and trouble with corruption inside the recruitment process making it worse😕. Looks like Ukraine is going to have to change up tactics over the winter and going into next year along with hoping the republicans don’t f them
(Edit: also the author in question of this article has a horrible track record on covering this conflict but there is clearly some substance to these topics)
https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/

Read that this morning. Zelenskyy continues being all or nothing. Yes, it's his country and he is morally correct, but since when did morals become a thing in war? You think all these diplomats centuries past negotiating the end of conflicts thought their side had a legal right to the lands they wanted and how dare the other team refuse to recognize that?

Zelenskyy being for everything returned to Ukraine, if he really thinks that behind closed doors, what's the plan to accomplish that that is realistic? Ukrainians taking back Crimea I don't see how that could have ever occurred without other countries' military forces directly involved in the Black Sea, in the skies, and on tIhe ground, instead of simply giving machinery and ammunition.  don't see any forces including ours going into Ukraine.

There's supposed to be a presidential election in 4 months. I see that likely getting suspended until end of hostilities. If Zelenskyy then continues being all or nothing, the war will grind on until either the Ukrainian military collapses due to lack of sufficient foreign support to replenish them or one of Zelenskyy/Putin dies or is ousted in a coup.

If you ask me to place a bet, I look at a negotiated settlement, timeframe of summer 2024 plus or minus a couple months, based on current lines of control because the lines of control have hardly moved the last 18 months, or a minor Russian drawback with a defined in treaty Demilitarized Zone of some kind, and Zelenskyy will give his countrymen the Sold Out Victim Narrative which based on history will manifest itself into something else by the 2040s. If Biden and others in our "Blob" foreign policy world think Trump is too big a threat, even if they think Biden will defeat Trump there's always a good-sized percentage chance he won't (they thought Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump after all), that good-sized percentage chance whatever it is is probably too large a risk for Ukraine and all of Europe looking out into the future and likely endgames..

[Open Source Intelligence]

If you ask me to place a bet, I look at a negotiated settlement, timeframe of summer 2024 plus or minus a couple months, based on current lines of control because the lines of control have hardly moved the last 18 months, or a minor Russian drawback with a defined in treaty Demilitarized Zone of some kind, and Zelenskyy will give his countrymen the Sold Out Victim Narrative which based on history will manifest itself into something else by the 2040s. If Biden and others in our "Blob" foreign policy world think Trump is too big a threat, even if they think Biden will defeat Trump there's always a good-sized percentage chance he won't (they thought Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump after all), that good-sized percentage chance whatever it is is probably too large a risk for Ukraine and all of Europe looking out into the future and likely endgames..

I think freezing the conflict with the line of control will work for Russia only if Ukraine also agrees to Russia being able to veto Ukraine joining NATO.  Of course, Zelensky cannot survive a deal like that so the war will go on.  If this war took place 1000 years ago it would have ended already.  In a War of Kings and Dukes, both sides could already figure out some compromise and end this costly war.  In the War of the Peoples, this is no longer possible. 

What's the Ukrainian plan of war with reduced outside military support?

Biden, Blinken, and some other countries just have to get Zelenskyy and his staff around a table and say "you can get terms now where we can control our support for you and back you up, or wait until a year from now where we cannot 100% guarantee a person will be in the White House that will give you continued support". Even if you think Biden should win, whatever percentage chance you give he won't win because we all know it's not guaranteed, is an incredibly large risk.

[Open Source Intelligence]

If you ask me to place a bet, I look at a negotiated settlement, timeframe of summer 2024 plus or minus a couple months, based on current lines of control because the lines of control have hardly moved the last 18 months, or a minor Russian drawback with a defined in treaty Demilitarized Zone of some kind, and Zelenskyy will give his countrymen the Sold Out Victim Narrative which based on history will manifest itself into something else by the 2040s. If Biden and others in our "Blob" foreign policy world think Trump is too big a threat, even if they think Biden will defeat Trump there's always a good-sized percentage chance he won't (they thought Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump after all), that good-sized percentage chance whatever it is is probably too large a risk for Ukraine and all of Europe looking out into the future and likely endgames..

I think freezing the conflict with the line of control will work for Russia only if Ukraine also agrees to Russia being able to veto Ukraine joining NATO.  Of course, Zelensky cannot survive a deal like that so the war will go on.  If this war took place 1000 years ago it would have ended already.  In a War of Kings and Dukes, both sides could already figure out some compromise and end this costly war.  In the War of the Peoples, this is no longer possible.  

What's the Ukrainian plan of war with reduced outside military support?

Biden, Blinken, and some other countries just have to get Zelenskyy and his staff around a table and say "you can get terms now where we can control our support for you and back you up, or wait until a year from now where we cannot 100% guarantee a person will be in the White House that will give you continued support". Even if you think Biden should win, whatever percentage chance you give he won't win because we all know it's not guaranteed, is an incredibly large risk.

I think most collective West government will suffer a domestic prestige blowback of Ukraine is viewed as "losing" the war.  As a result they will throw in enough resources to avoid Ukraine defeat even as victory is less and less likely.

Most European states (very notably not France because the French have a real military) are hitting the bottom of what they can supply and not affect their own personal defense. If Estonia for example give everything they have to the Ukrainians, there's then nothing to stop Russia coming over the Estonian border. The UK a month or two ago already announced they're there of they've provided everything they can. Procurement for everyone NATO is a bit of a shambles because it was all designed for peacetime and these Wall Street-influenced corporations that were significantly consolidated post-end of the Cold War are not built to run 100% to replenish stocks in a hot war. Here is an American-focused take on our procurement problems the Russo-Ukrainian War has exposed. http://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-america-is-out-of-ammunition

The Europeans are having an argument about what to source for procurement because they can't resupply what is being spent per day. They still have not resolved this (France wants the EU to buy French, the East wants the EU to buy American, Germany at last check did not want to spend the money).

If the West does not have any arms left to give Ukraine, how do they plan on resupplying them? The U.S. is fine, the French are probably fine, but NATO and the EU consists of a heck of a lot more than them. And they're all going to have to spend tons of money to restock when defense-building capacity is limited both by design and choice in a high inflationary environment. This was going to happen even if this war got resolved tomorrow. This war has used up stock equipment sitting in yards and that used up stock will have to get replaced by everyone that supported Ukraine, otherwise they can't support the next conflict that comes up that requires their military.

I look at support less in terms of will and more in terms of means. If you are not supplying men or machinery, your support is not worth a sh*t. If everyone supports Ukraine, they need to get going on procurement NOW. The EU can call a defense ministers meeting into one room, lock the doors, and no one is allowed to leave until they have a common consensus for procurement strategy that starts getting implemented the second the doors become unlocked. That is what Ukraine requires the next year in terms of real support. Otherwise we're just heading to inevitable stalemate and Ukraine will have lost de facto a quarter of its landmass and any coastline on the Sea of Azov in their best case.

[Open Source Intelligence]

We are now all-in on a Ukrainian victory.

We're not all-in on Ukrainian victory. All-in on Ukrainian victory is we deploy our troops on the ground. If supporters don't want to do that, okay, but you're not all-in on Ukrainian victory. Otherwise as the WaPo op-ed above makes clear, there's been no Ukrainian progress on taking back their territory the last 18 months outside of the retaking of Kherson.

[Open Source Intelligence]

We are now all-in on a Ukrainian victory.

We're not all-in on Ukrainian victory. All-in on Ukrainian victory is we deploy our troops on the ground. If supporters don't want to do that, okay, but you're not all-in on Ukrainian victory. Otherwise as the WaPo op-ed above makes clear, there's been no Ukrainian progress on taking back their territory the last 18 months outside of the retaking of Kherson.

Like I said, I'm all-in on a Ukraine victory.  

I know you from other boards. You're Canadian military correct?

You can be all in, whrn you say we though that equates to governments.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.ft.com/content/b42c62f7-57e6-4899-affe-a376cc568d3d

"America and a crumbling global order"

The foreign crises could come to a head quite fast. “The next three months could determine the next few years,” is how one senior US official puts it. A prominent Democrat worries that “by January, we could be talking about how Joe Biden lost Ukraine”.

This was not Joe Biden's war to lose. Never was.

From the article:

There is some resentment in Washington that Israel is insisting it will make its own decisions about military operations, while relying on US muscle in the background. “The Israelis are playing with house money,” as one US official puts it. But, after October 7, there remains a deep reluctance to put serious pressure on Israel to change course.

Yeah, now think of every other country in the world you gave your muscle to. Even ones we have moral compunctions about.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.ft.com/content/b42c62f7-57e6-4899-affe-a376cc568d3d

"America and a crumbling global order"

The foreign crises could come to a head quite fast. “The next three months could determine the next few years,” is how one senior US official puts it. A prominent Democrat worries that “by January, we could be talking about how Joe Biden lost Ukraine”.

As much as I would like to see it happen, I don't see any evidence the war will end that fast, even if US aid went to 0. Europe would make up for a lot of it (white nationalist solidarity) and Ukraine has a lot of space to trade for time - and clearly defensible territory they can fall back to.

If Russian forces and military cross the Dnieper en masse that's a defensive bulkhead gone and little other than plain. Both sides have dug in to their present positions and made defensive investments there. That's why I think once both sides concede this is pointless and they can't accomplish anything offensive that's your new border.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.ft.com/content/b42c62f7-57e6-4899-affe-a376cc568d3d

"America and a crumbling global order"

The foreign crises could come to a head quite fast. “The next three months could determine the next few years,” is how one senior US official puts it. A prominent Democrat worries that “by January, we could be talking about how Joe Biden lost Ukraine”.

As much as I would like to see it happen, I don't see any evidence the war will end that fast, even if US aid went to 0. Europe would make up for a lot of it (white nationalist solidarity) and Ukraine has a lot of space to trade for time - and clearly defensible territory they can fall back to.

If Russian forces and military cross the Dnieper en masse that's a defensive bulkhead gone and little other than plain. Both sides have dug in to their present positions and made defensive investments there. That's why I think once both sides concede this is pointless and they can't accomplish anything offensive that's your new border.

That's a tremendously big if. Not only that, but Kiev is on that side of the river, and it presents a far more exponentially more daunting challenge than the liberation of Mariupol - which was not easy!

Well of course it's a big if. But look at maps, we're just about in the same position now as we were in May 2022.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/12/13/remarks-by-president-biden-and-president-zelenskyy-of-ukraine-in-joint-press-conference-2/

PRESIDENT BIDEN:  We want to see Ukraine win the war.  And, as I’ve said before, winning means Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation and — that can afford to defend itself today and deter further aggression.  That’s our objective.

Note winning according to Biden no longer includes Ukraine joining NATO or any mention of Ukraine's territorial integrity. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/opinion/ukraine-military-aid.html

"Ukraine Doesn’t Need All Its Territory to Defeat Putin"

More shifting of goalposts on defining victory coming from the USA.

I'd always love to be a bug on the phone of the White House central staffers calling up political commentators to influence them.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Yulia Tymoshenko gets involved in the game of mobilization football.  She proposes sending half of all security forces to the front - from the police, prosecutor's office, BEB, and other law enforcement agencies.
https://twitter.com/TheGhost270/status/1740132425043447948

It's either the sign she's a crackpot or they're in trouble. They've not been trained on this style of conflict and would be maybe one step better than militia.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.ft.com/content/3ce63abc-9a71-427b-8e11-ab5309288845

"Army conscription becomes toxic issue for Ukraine’s leaders
Neither the Ukrainian president nor his top military commanders want to take responsibility for drafting reluctant fighters"



Making the same argument I made a while ago.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/25980

"Military Did Not Request that 500,000 Be Mobilized – Zaluzhny"

Zaluzhny refuses to play the role of "bad guy" and kicks the ball back to Zelensky.  It seems  Zaluzhny did say that a large number of men were needed due to needs at the front as well as likely battlefield losses but that is not the same as asking for a 500K mobilization.

In other words, everyone wants 500K mobilization but no one wants the political responsibility of actually enacting it.  

I guess Zelensky thinks his next election contest will be against Zaluzhny.

Technically in a situation of civilian presidential control of the military, a draft is a political decision and not a military one. Political leaders would state war aims. Military would assess and say "we need x many extra soldiers to carry out these aims". Politicians would decide whether to implement the draft to get the men. A military can communicate more requirements for men than are on offer knowing it will create a draft, but that's up to political leaders then to either adjust their war aims downward or choose to go forward and do the draft. Zelensky not wanting responsibility for draft is him deciding to be a politician instead of a leader. If you believe in the war and it's a just cause, own the draft. It's what you think is necessary in order to achieve success in your just cause.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/region776/status/1742581644677231060
Welcome back heroes 🫡

This seems to be part of a UAE-arranged prison swap.  Russia got 248 servicemen in return.

Still a better deal for Ukraine than a WNBA player for an arms dealer.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://elpais.com/internacional/2024-01-04/rusia-lanza-a-sus-soldados-zombis-contra-avdiivka-la-trinchera-mas-feroz-de-donbas.html

"Russia launches its 'zombie' soldiers against Avdiivka, the fiercest trench in Donbas"

El Pais says that the  Ukrainian forces in Avdiivka are running short of ammo.

"The 47th brigade, like many others, is on a diet of ammunition. Their arsenals are exhausted. They fight with what they have, and not always with what is best suited to hit the target," Sgt. 47th Separate Brigade Alexander.

In the long run UA all of Europe and the U.S. need to bulk up its war industry. All the spirit and resolve in the world counts for nothing if you don't have enough bullets.

Fixed your post. The Ukrainians are using more ammunition than what all of Europe can produce.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1742956369848746402?s=12
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1742923100529078575?s=12

Yeah it's good this occurs, but my general problem with the Western coverage of this war as represented by images and videos shared from Twitter by anonymous people on message boards is they cover it like the Ukrainian Army has the same aims as ISIS terrorists. "Ukraine blew up a command center." Okay, the fronts are all still in the same place. Eliminating the command center helps push back the Russians if they now have worse leadership than before making worse decisions, do we think that's the case? If the Ukrainian goal is just to kill as many Russians and their equipment as possible, that's honestly not much different than how Arab partisans have carried out asymmetrical conflict in the Middle East and North Africa the past 20 years outside of the Ukrainians are obviously not terrorists/militia depending on the situation in that particular Arabic conflict. Notice those Arab partisans have never won any of those conflicts conventionally, even the ones with Western support/encouragement in Libya and Syria. Sunni militias/terrorists blew up a command center here and there too. It never changed the reality on the ground of the conflict in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. If the Ukrainian goal is to win back control of all of their territory as they have publicly stated, what are they doing that moves toward that goal right now?

Part of the issue is most people when it comes to this kind of stuff completely lack intelligence on what matters. So they point to the shiniest thing, for example video of a building blowing up, with zero context. And the state of our journalism industry for actually knowing how sh*t works, let alone on military matters, is incredibly poor.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1742956369848746402?s=12
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1742923100529078575?s=12

Yeah it's good this occurs, but my general problem with the Western coverage of this war as represented by images and videos shared from Twitter by anonymous people on message boards is they cover it like the Ukrainian Army has the same aims as ISIS terrorists. "Ukraine blew up a command center." Okay, the fronts are all still in the same place. Eliminating the command center helps push back the Russians if they now have worse leadership than before making worse decisions, do we think that's the case? If the Ukrainian goal is just to kill as many Russians and their equipment as possible, that's honestly not much different than how Arab partisans have carried out asymmetrical conflict in the Middle East and North Africa the past 20 years outside of the Ukrainians are obviously not terrorists/militia depending on the situation in that particular Arabic conflict. Notice those Arab partisans have never won any of those conflicts conventionally, even the ones with Western support/encouragement in Libya and Syria. Sunni militias/terrorists blew up a command center here and there too. It never changed the reality on the ground of the conflict in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. If the Ukrainian goal is to win back control of all of their territory as they have publicly stated, what are they doing that moves toward that goal right now?

Part of the issue is most people when it comes to this kind of stuff completely lack intelligence on what matters. So they point to the shiniest thing, for example video of a building blowing up, with zero context. And the state of our journalism industry for actually knowing how sh*t works, let alone on military matters, is incredibly poor.

Hitting a command post is not in any way ISIS tactics who strategizes are about suicide bombing a town center to kill as many civilians as possible.

I'm talking a roadside bomb that hits a Humvee and kills 3 soldiers or a missile attack at Al-Assad's Command. The guys they can brag about 3 dead but it doesn't do anything to change overall facts on the ground. It's not like killing a commanding general means there's no general. Someone just replaces the guy. The damage is in the logistics are curtailed.

Strikes like this do strategic value as can be seen by the fact that the Black Sea fleet has all but stopped using Crimea as its port which makes bombing places like Odessa harder and also gives more room for Ukraine to export grain out to Turkey

See, that's a great paragraph that has a point, it's an action that does not help Ukraine win the war as they have defined it by getting back all their territory, but provides greater security for the rest of Ukraine they still hold. So congratulations on discussing this conflict on this board and not being effectively a Kindergartener. But why does no one with a mouthpiece outside of the Michael Kofmans of the world actually make salient points like that?

I have a very Clausewitzian view of things - I take that to mean if you're going to have military action, any military action by any group or country, there has to be a defined overriding goal that it all supports. Russia's overriding goal at the beginning of the conflict to remove Ukraine from the map has been defeated. Ukraine's overriding goal as has been publicly defined ("we will take back all of our territory") they have done nothing to advance since the retaking of Kherson which is now more than a year ago, and in the last 20 months the lines of control have hardly moved. So what are we doing? Leave your emotions to the side of who you want to win and instead look at the conflict philosophically. If Ukraine's failure is something that cannot be countenanced for the future of the world and what it would represent, if a person believes that, why are there not active American and NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine now helping them win? Don't give me this bullsh*t about escalation of conflict with Russia. We either believe that is the case of the future of the world is at stake, or we don't. If we don't, then what's the end goal? Because Ukraine I'll bet anyone any amount of money are not taking back all of it. Name your price, we can work out organizing a bet with site administrators.

Where the hell are all the Clausewitzians on this conflict in the West?

[Open Source Intelligence]

Not sure it’s been mentioned here yet, but the claims about NK sending missiles to Russia have apparently been confirmed: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hit-ukrainian-region-with-non-russian-missiles-governor-2024-01-05/

Should surprise exactly no one. Ukraine already has become some kind of proxy war between Western democracies and dictatorships. With latest restriction since the war broke out, Russia basically has moved from autocracy into full dictatorship.

I take it more as the post-post-World War II geopolitical consensus has frayed. The post-World War II consensus was of three worlds: the First World (West and its supporting autocracies), the Second World (Soviets and allies, China), and the Third World (unaligned, which then became a synonymous term for backwards and poor). That world died in the late 80s/early 90s. I'm not sure the next world ever got coined a term but we've been living in it for 30 years. That era everyone with a few exceptions were fat and happy due to globalization, overall increase in business, money got spread around easily, not just by the U.S. but also Europe and China, and that kept the peace. Obvious exception of the Middle East. But the U.S. in this era was military policeman.

Throw into this era and the U.S. no longer wants to be military policeman. If you're a Democrat you blame Trump for this but this was driven by the aftermath of the Iraq War, was what the U.S. population wanted, and Obama was clearly on board with this take. Nature abhors a power vacuum. You saw what happened with the Iranians and Saudis fighting a proxy war first in Yemen, then a momentary coup attempt in Bahrain erroneously termed by the media as an Arab Spring rebellion, and then we got a brutal ugly war in Syria with all of the Arabian Peninsula involved. American withdrawal means people can do things themselves to keep the local power balance. We're allies with Turkey and right now they're de facto controlling and administrating sections of northern Syria. It's part of Turkey de facto if not on a de jure map. The United Arab Emirates which has a really good reputation to the lay person (Dubai, Abu Dhabi), they don't do nasty military/militia stuff openly as the Saudis do but they use their money to heavily involve themselves in local events to increase their power (for what I say below with Ethiopia they're involved). Ditto Qatar. In the 1990-2020 era they were effectively Kuwait.

Even look at benign actions you can see the 1990-2020 consensus going away. Americans are withdrawing their influence from the Horn of Africa and we saw what happened this week where Ethiopia is going to recognize Somaliland in exchange for a port on the Red Sea. In the previous era, Ethiopia paid Djibouti and would've acquiesced American and Western countries to not do such a thing. It's an action that shows the geopolitical consensus is falling apart even though it's not a mil itary actionor troops are dying.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1742956369848746402?s=12
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1742923100529078575?s=12

Yeah it's good this occurs, but my general problem with the Western coverage of this war as represented by images and videos shared from Twitter by anonymous people on message boards is they cover it like the Ukrainian Army has the same aims as ISIS terrorists. "Ukraine blew up a command center." Okay, the fronts are all still in the same place. Eliminating the command center helps push back the Russians if they now have worse leadership than before making worse decisions, do we think that's the case? If the Ukrainian goal is just to kill as many Russians and their equipment as possible, that's honestly not much different than how Arab partisans have carried out asymmetrical conflict in the Middle East and North Africa the past 20 years outside of the Ukrainians are obviously not terrorists/militia depending on the situation in that particular Arabic conflict. Notice those Arab partisans have never won any of those conflicts conventionally, even the ones with Western support/encouragement in Libya and Syria. Sunni militias/terrorists blew up a command center here and there too. It never changed the reality on the ground of the conflict in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. If the Ukrainian goal is to win back control of all of their territory as they have publicly stated, what are they doing that moves toward that goal right now?

Part of the issue is most people when it comes to this kind of stuff completely lack intelligence on what matters. So they point to the shiniest thing, for example video of a building blowing up, with zero context. And the state of our journalism industry for actually knowing how sh*t works, let alone on military matters, is incredibly poor.

Hitting a command post is not in any way ISIS tactics who strategizes are about suicide bombing a town center to kill as many civilians as possible.

I'm talking a roadside bomb that hits a Humvee and kills 3 soldiers or a missile attack at Al-Assad's Command. The guys they can brag about 3 dead but it doesn't do anything to change overall facts on the ground. It's not like killing a commanding general means there's no general. Someone just replaces the guy. The damage is in the logistics are curtailed.

Strikes like this do strategic value as can be seen by the fact that the Black Sea fleet has all but stopped using Crimea as its port which makes bombing places like Odessa harder and also gives more room for Ukraine to export grain out to Turkey

See, that's a great paragraph that has a point, it's an action that does not help Ukraine win the war as they have defined it by getting back all their territory, but provides greater security for the rest of Ukraine they still hold. So congratulations on discussing this conflict on this board and not being effectively a Kindergartener. But why does no one with a mouthpiece outside of the Michael Kofmans of the world actually make salient points like that?

I have a very Clausewitzian view of things - I take that to mean if you're going to have military action, any military action by any group or country, there has to be a defined overriding goal that it all supports. Russia's overriding goal at the beginning of the conflict to remove Ukraine from the map has been defeated. Ukraine's overriding goal as has been publicly defined ("we will take back all of our territory") they have done nothing to advance since the retaking of Kherson which is now more than a year ago, and in the last 20 months the lines of control have hardly moved. So what are we doing? Leave your emotions to the side of who you want to win and instead look at the conflict philosophically. If Ukraine's failure is something that cannot be countenanced for the future of the world and what it would represent, if a person believes that, why are there not active American and NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine now helping them win?Don't give me this bullsh*t about escalation of conflict with Russia. We either believe that is the case of the future of the world is at stake, or we don't. If we don't, then what's the end goal? Because Ukraine I'll bet anyone any amount of money are not taking back all of it. Name your price, we can work out organizing a bet with site administrators.

Where the hell are all the Clausewitzians on this conflict in the West?

A direct confrontation like that between nuclear powers is really dangerous...

Then let's stop with the lie the future of the world is at stake here if Ukraine loses. The crime of the Iraq War was the Rumsfeldian notion of you can do war half-ass and still succeed. Rumsfeld knew if we had to have a post-war occupation force of sufficient size to secure the country it would kill the whole thing before it started, thus the post-war occupation force was insufficient and we all saw what happened. While Iraq proved that wrong, Obama (Libya, Syria) Trump (Afghanistan), and Biden (Afghanistan, maybe Ukraine) still want Rumsfeldian military deployments of sending troops or supplies around the world with stuff going their way while doing as little as possible. Either do wars or don't, doing it half-ass does no one any favors. So now that's out of the way, what on January 5th, 2024, is the end goal?

...but furthermore Ukraine has shown throughout this war they can beat Russia when given the proper tools to win so why risk a nuclear incident like that when giving Ukraine ATACMs, HIMARS, F16s, Bradley’s and Abrams along with ammo works?

Read this and realize the Europeans are in even worse shape. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-america-is-out-of-ammunition?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

[Open Source Intelligence]

Not sure it’s been mentioned here yet, but the claims about NK sending missiles to Russia have apparently been confirmed: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hit-ukrainian-region-with-non-russian-missiles-governor-2024-01-05/

Should surprise exactly no one. Ukraine already has become some kind of proxy war between Western democracies and dictatorships. With latest restriction since the war broke out, Russia basically has moved from autocracy into full dictatorship.

I take it more as the post-post-World War II geopolitical consensus has frayed. The post-World War II consensus was of three worlds: the First World (West and its supporting autocracies), the Second World (Soviets and allies, China), and the Third World (unaligned, which then became a synonymous term for backwards and poor). That world died in the late 80s/early 90s. I'm not sure the next world ever got coined a term but we've been living in it for 30 years. That era everyone with a few exceptions were fat and happy due to globalization, overall increase in business, money got spread around easily, not just by the U.S. but also Europe and China, and that kept the peace. Obvious exception of the Middle East. But the U.S. in this era was military policeman.

Throw into this era and the U.S. no longer wants to be military policeman. If you're a Democrat you blame Trump for this but this was driven by the aftermath of the Iraq War, was what the U.S. population wanted, and Obama was clearly on board with this take. Nature abhors a power vacuum. You saw what happened with the Iranians and Saudis fighting a proxy war first in Yemen, then a momentary coup attempt in Bahrain erroneously termed by the media as an Arab Spring rebellion, and then we got a brutal ugly war in Syria with all of the Arabian Peninsula involved. American withdrawal means people can do things themselves to keep the local power balance. We're allies with Turkey and right now they're de facto controlling and administrating sections of northern Syria. It's part of Turkey de facto if not on a de jure map. The United Arab Emirates which has a really good reputation to the lay person (Dubai, Abu Dhabi), they don't do nasty military/militia stuff openly as the Saudis do but they use their money to heavily involve themselves in local events to increase their power (for what I say below with Ethiopia they're involved). Ditto Qatar. In the 1990-2020 era they were effectively Kuwait.

Even look at benign actions you can see the 1990-2020 consensus going away. Americans are withdrawing their influence from the Horn of Africa and we saw what happened this week where Ethiopia is going to recognize Somaliland in exchange for a port on the Red Sea. In the previous era, Ethiopia paid Djibouti and would've acquiesced American and Western countries to not do such a thing. It's an action that shows the geopolitical consensus is falling apart even though it's not a military action or troops are dying.

Perhaps it took the consequences of this fraying to hit a "Western" country for people to wake up.

Not sure how it can be put back in a box. Looking at Biden I think from an international relations standpoint his presidency is just as much a rejection of Obama as it is Trump. You can make a strong case events forced his hand, but Biden has pretty aggressively reached back into that old 1980s world. I commend him compared to the complete dumbasses the younger Bush, Obama, and Trump all were in foreign policy. But once you're committed to the post-American world, how can you go back? Biden early in his presidency continued an action started in the Trump administration making a strategic step away from the 1980s toward the geopolitics of now by announcing AUKUS, which just due to its connotation was negative for European power moving forward. But look at Europe, even if Biden wants to go back to how things were, he can't, Europe as a collective is the Ottoman Empire circa 1900. They're chronically weak and their institutional power they have globally now is nowhere near their actual power in the modern-day world. Then this Russia conflict in Ukraine came and kind of saved European relevance in a way.

I have a family relation with a bachelor's and master's in history looking for a Ph.D. thesis, so maybe I'll hand this to him, but the new world is coming even if Biden who oddly here is the reactionary and fights it, his party will do the change after Biden passes on, and what it's going to look like is an interesting question. Putin's just as much a reactionary as Biden fighting against the 1990-2020 world, but he wants the post-2020 world to look more like the pre-1990 world while Biden is fighting against the post-2020 world coming into existence and keeping the post-1990 world going. The question is not so much Putin to me for Russia as it is who replaces Putin. The main problem for the U.S. and allies is I think every other country in the world wants to move on from the 1990-2020 era where the Europeans and Americans have less say in their local region, which means multipolarity but also that stuff that we consider "settled" will change. Perhaps Turkey will increase their territory taking away from Syria, perhaps Somaliland does become recognized, perhaps Ukraine and Georgia lose a third of their territory to Russia, perhaps the Iranians and Saudis can get along. Hell, perhaps Israel annexes Gaza. Not everything is on the board right now but a lot is on the board compared to the recent era.

[Open Source Intelligence]

A Twitter/X thread by Tymofiy Mylovanov President of the Kyiv School of Economics and former Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture:

"Ukraine society has become polarized by mobilization. Almost no one is covering this in English speaking social media.

Yeah, they're too busy putting up videos of a building blowing up without context.,

In addition to the press conferences by Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi, Ukrainian media published one idea how a draft can go and that caused a social media storm

The idea is attributed to the government, but no one admitted on record. It is that the government will mobilize whoever is needed for the army, but companies and people who provide high value and pay taxes might be fast tracked to be exempt

The idea is to balance off the needs of the army, the economy, and the government budget that has to finance the army. So, in the jargon of the economist, the problem is the allocation of the labor force between the army and the civil economy

There is also an additional objective - provide incentive for people and companies to pay taxes and minimize evasion. So, those who pay taxes are less likely, other things being equal, to be mobilized.

This policy proposal offended many people. They say it is equivalent to discrimination of the poor - those who are rich won’t serve, those who are poor will.  

While it's easy to cry foul at these, it's roughly how American Civil War military recruitment went.

The alternative - a lottery draft that gives everyone an equal chance - has also not been received well in the discussion. People say it is too arbitrary.

Vietnam War military recruitment.

The third alternative - an increase in salaries in the army so that there are volunteers - is liked by many. It keeps freedom of choice and solves the problem. Its cost however appears to be prohibitive for Ukraine at the moment given that the economy is hurt already

If their problem is lack of manpower, this won't solve the issue. Yeah, it might increase voluntary signups 1%, but I think everyone of fighting age in Ukraine that wants to fight has other than kids aging into military eligibility.

This discussion also attracted attention to two related topics: the efficiency of allocation people recruited into the military to specific positions. Many people think there are many areas for improvement

That's a good discussion to have. Whether it results in real reform is something else.

The second topic is that of whether a proportion of politicians, government officials, and others very visible people should also be forcefully mobilized and whether their rate of mobilization should be at least as high as that of the general population

Should be equal in theory in the sense of "we're all in this together".

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-kiews-problem-mit-den-deutschen-pannen-panzern-a-cd9421ae-4a96-4d4f-983a-6205a063ae15

'Kiev's problem with the German breakdown tanks'

Spiegel did their own set of interviews on the performance of German tanks in the war and concluded that 'German tanks were created for exercises and parades, not for real combat operations' because they break much quicker and are expected in combat conditions and that attempts to repair often lead to additional damage.

I'm seriously about at the point I have as high an opinion of the German state as I do Mexico. They're rich...and nothing else. Congratulations, you're Las Vegas, or maybe Switzerland is a better comparison. And they had the audacity one time to state publicly they should have a position on the UN Security Council. No, the EU member there is France, and it's become clear by now they're the important state in the European bloc.

[Open Source Intelligence]

There is also an additional objective - provide incentive for people and companies to pay taxes and minimize evasion. So, those who pay taxes are less likely, other things being equal, to be mobilized.

Why not do what the USA government did during the Civil War and have people pay a commutation fee?   Current people with economic means are bribing officials to get all sorts of exemptions.  It is better to just put that above the table so the government captures that economic surplus to be used for the war effort versus the government officials' personal gain.

Speaking as a mechanical engineer, complexity makes items/vehicles in this case achieve ever higher heights, but also makes it more likely to break and repairs costly. Fuel injection for example delivers better performance in an engine compared to a carburetor, but a carburetor is zero moving parts. For reasons of cheapness and durability, you want the equivalent of carburetors on large complicated mechanical assemblies (which a tank is). Or compared performance-wise, an M-16 will always outperform an AK-47 based on precision and accuracy, but the AK-47 is a far more important weapon in warfare due to its cheapness and durability. It's why the CH-46 helicopter for the U.S. used in Korea and Vietnam was still being used into the '00s by the Marine Corps because it worked, meanwhile they couldn't figure its designated replacement the V-22 out, which performs the same role as the 46 but adds nothing compared to the 46 internally in terms of cargo space, yet costs significantly more. (The V-22 is the helicopter that takes off vertically but then the rotor wings fold down and it can fly like an airplane.)

[Open Source Intelligence]

Propaganda aside, it does seem that more Russian missiles are getting through.

Is this down to their becoming more effective, defences becoming less effective, or maybe both?

Red Queen Theory would dictate both all other things being equal. "Takes all the running you can to stay in place. If you want to get anywhere, you have to run twice as fast." Also, standing still means going backward.

[Open Source Intelligence]

"Ukraine has lost 500K soldiers, 30K a month" Former Prosecutor General and now AFU member (in the front lines), Yuriy Lutsenko

According to Lutsenko, Ukraine loses tens of thousands of fighters per month, which is why the Ukrainian military proposed to mobilize half a million people.

“We must honestly say that the 500,000 that are now being talked about if divided into months, is 30 thousand a month, and then we will approximately understand what is happening at the front,” he highlighted.

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1744373123892351301
https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1744047646799458517

Wikipedia says the 2023 population estimate is 33.2 million. Divide by two to get males you get 16.6 million. 500k divides into that to be 1 in 33, or 3% of all the country's males. It's obviously a much higher casualty rate for the chief military ages (18 to 35) because boys and the old are not fighting.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Scholz complains about the exorbitant financial burden due to Ukraine in a speech at the SPD party conference. He says that other EU countries should provide more assistance to Ukraine since Germany alone is not able to bear such a large burden.

Pretty Trumpish of him if true. Not sure how it breaks down but the Germans have not been the only country in the EU providing everything. Meanwhile, it's its largest economy.

[Open Source Intelligence]

It is possible that Russia wants to capture Avdiivka before the March Russia Prez elections and Ukraine may have a goal of holding on to Avdiivka before the March Russia Prez elections to deny Putin that PR victory. Either motivation, if true, sounds like a really bad idea and I hope for both sides that is not what is going on as they are wasting lives and resources that should be used more economically for maximum military impact.

We're kind of past the point of worrying about that.