Ukraine 31: Icarus Edition

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

That remains to be seen, but I don't think I'm taking it as a given.  I think that European support for Ukraine will continue even without the US.  European leaders have definitely gotten the memo that the Republican party is probably going to abandon them, and they need to be planning accordingly.  Cutting Ukraine off and giving Putin a big win would make that dramatically harder, not easier. 

Yes, everybody is aware of that. But it has been almost seven years since orange gargoyle took office in the US, so we Europeans) had enough time to do our homework and get our national defense(s) in order. Spoiler we didn't. So Europe can't back Ukraine alone. You can see that with the arms delivery. If we are honest, the Dubya years were already a clear signal towards Europe to grow up and get a military that could enforce European interests. European and US interests alligning is not a law of nature.

And politically, I see it that way, you see it that way. Does everybody see it that way? You will find quite a few countries that want to go back to business as usual, with Russia as friendly business partner supplying gas for reasonable prices.

Hungary and Austria are the biggest sycophants. Now with Fico in Slovakia, you have another country that wants to be friendly with Putin and Fico explicitly campaigned on cutting aid to Ukraine. God knows how the mood in Germany will look like after the next federal election. I assume the major parties being in agreement about Ukraine needing assitance, but I can see some paries campaigning on end the war (and send the Ukrainian refugees back home). No idea what happens in France. Le Pen is distinctively Russia friendly (good thing Macron is in office until '27 iirc).

 

 

[Bironic]

40 minutes ago, Padraig said:

And while  Ukraine could win a war of attrition, this presumably would take years.   And even then, no guarantees

Geography really favoured the Kherson victory last year.  I'm not sure there is anything close to that left in occupied Ukraine.

Sure in a long protracted war everything hinges in the end on western support. Should that stop or diminish, Russia will eventually "win".

I think in the west we don't give the russians enough credit for sound decisions. There is a pattern since the beginning of the war. Once Ukraine gets long ranged weaponry with which they can hit the russians in areas they previously were untouchable, after some heavy losses the russians learn and remove the important things out of the reach of those weapons. This happened first when Ukraine sank Moskva with long range Neptune missile: the black sea fleet was moved further away from the Ukrainian coastline, once Ukraine got HIMARS they started to move their ammo dumps more than 60km from the front lines, again out of the reach of Ukraine. Once they found themselves constantly shelled in the Cherson oblast they retreated in good order because supplying the troops on the other bank became a logistical nightmare. Once Ukraine got Storm Shadow and Harm, they moved most of the Black Sea Fleet away from Sevastopol. Now the russian logistics rely on railroads: once you force them back more than ca. 150km from their last safe ammo dump, they simply can not supply the frontline troops(including the artillery) anymore. Meaning they have to retreat further towards the safe russian border or they will be destroyed. Which is what the russians so far have been doing. Think of the Dnipro that allowed the Cherson offensive as the 1991 border of Ukraine, and the bridges across the Dnipro as the bridges between Crimea and southern Ukraine. Once everything within the 1991 borders of Ukraine is no longer safe because it can and will  be reached by long range Ukrainian weaponry they have to pull back.

Obviuosly this means that Ukraine needs massive amounts of long range weaponry and the one country that can do by far the most in that regard is the USA, which is a very reluctant helper so far (not something anyone would have said 20 years ago).

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

That all presumes, that the west is willing to continue to support Ukraine.

There are some questions marks in order. How weary are the populations in the west of that war? The sanctions cut both ways, so there are some voices that want to lift them. Then with the House Republicans there's also the question how willing are they to grant funds/weapons ofr Ukraine? How much of "Ukrainian resources" of the alliance will be diverted to Israel after the Hamas strike (esp. US military hardware). And how much air will the middle East suck out of the air waves?

The US are the key backer, take them out of hte equation and Ukraine will face great difficulties.

I think a lot of the sanctions could be lifted(not the ones on dual use & military goods, technology, and some of the financial ones) this would probably raise popularity in the west and would have only marginal effects on the war. Russias economy relies on the export of natural resources (especially oil), so the only thing that could seriously hurt them would be a significant and long lasting drop in international oil prices. Now what leads to a drop in oil prices? If there is too much oil and not enough demand. This is what the Gulf states and the US did from 1981 onwards (because they wanted the Soviets out of Afghanistan): Increase production so that the oil price fell and the Soviet Union almost went bankrupt. The problem with this scheme is that the main oil producers in the world couldn't care less about Ukraine so that they're not going to do that. And this means that from an economic perspective russia can continue this war almost indefinitely, (obviously they will end up really poor, but that deosn't concern Putin).

Yes the USA is key... they have the most and the most crucial military equipment... but the other countries can provide significant help as well...

[A Horse Named Stranger]

12 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Yes the USA is key... they have the most and the most crucial military equipment... but the other countries can provide significant help as well...

They can't pick up the slack if the US pull out. No way.

If you want Europe to do that, it would need to switch to a war tiem economy and produce fuckton more weapons and ammo Ukraine would eat through all the European artillery shells within a few months (if it would last thant long). And there's no appetite for that.

Edited October 25, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Bironic]

6 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yes, everybody is aware of that. But it has been almost seven years since orange gargoyle took office in the US, so we Europeans) had enough time to do our homework and get our national defense(s) in order. Spoiler we didn't. So Europe can't back Ukraine alone. You can see that with the arms delivery. If we are honest, the Dubya years were already a clear signal towards Europe to grow up and get a military that could enforce European interests. European and US interests alligning is not a law of nature.

This is so true! That US and European interests do not align with each other necessarily from the Suez Crisis, the Yugoslav wars, the Dubya catastrophe all the way to Orange tan boy this became more and more clear. It's frustrating that even the Invasion of Ukraine doesn't seem to help all that much to move in the right direction...

[Makk]

Keep giving Ukraine more, more and even more drones. They are cheap and effective (even the low tech ones), can be manufactured everywhere, and can be used safely from a distance by less physically capable soldiers. This last month was the first time Ukraine has actually shot more artillery rounds than Russia, I'm not sure if those numbers have held since Russia have started getting their North Korean shipment, but given the disparity at the start of the war it is remarkable. Drones played a huge part in that identifying the artillery location and also destroying them. As the electronic warfare systems continue too get degraded in numbers drones should become even more important.

I think/hope there will be a steady stream of missiles, mortars, and all sorts of other ammunition coming in. I feel the situation in Bahkmut deteriorated and now Avdiika might, simply because they are running low on ammunition and have to be conservative with it. These assaults are gifts from the Russians to Ukraine, they are politically rather than strategically motivated stupidity which could, if defended fully, deliver real killing blows to the Russian war effort.

The other big thing is air defense. Ukraine's biggest weakness is the Russian airforce and as Russia becomes more desperate they will start using their jets more. Ukraine needs more systems so they can risk them closer to the frontlines.

 

[Bironic]

5 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

They can't pick up the slack if the US pull out. No way.

If you want Europe to do that, it would need to switch to a war tiem economy and produce fuckton more weapons and ammo Ukraine would eat through all the European artillery shalls within a few months (if it would last thant long). And there's no appetite for that.

Generally I agree with you, the US has just by far the biggest military (their military budget is more than twice as big as all the other Ukraine backers combined)... I meant the other countries supporting Ukraine in general not only Europe... for example the other countries could buy the insanely large South Korean artillery stockpiles to fill up their own dwindling ones, like the US did... and europe is to ramp up artillery shell production massively, that was one of the very few positive side notes (it will fall short of what Ukraine demands but it will significantly increase nonetheless), and europe can provide certain key systems such as storm shadow, Taurus, etc. (the problem here is that similar to the US there are a lot of politicians that oppose such decisive help)

[The Anti-Targ]

I think the people who are saying that Ukraine has lost the war, they just don't know it yet are possibly reading the western appetite and capability for supporting Ukraine correctly. support has not been and won't be enough for Ukraine to achieve victory sooner, and Ukraine's core support countries will lose the will to support them for enough time to allow Ukraine to win the war later.

The only reason not to have done what was necessary to crush Russia's aggression was it has nukes. Russia winning could be the start of a new phase of warfare for conquest, but only if you are a nuclear power. That suggests non-nuclear nations will need to form mutual defence pacts with the nuclear power of their choice so that they deter the nuclear bullies from invading.

Britain, the US and France might need to think about re-colonising Africa before Russia and China do.

Good times.

 

[Bironic]

15 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The only reason not to have done what was necessary to crush Russia's aggression was it has nukes.

I don't think so, at least it wasn't/isn't the main reason. And not in the way most people think, meaning the fear is not that Putin might use nukes. There were plenty of wars since 1945 where one or even more sides had/have nukes, wars that resulted in victories, losses or stalemates.

I think what the USA fears is not Putins nukes, but a Russia without Putin. As paradoxical that might sound. Joe Biden has never been a war hawk, always a pragmatist, a centrist. He saw several major US interventions that wanted regime change backfire completely: In Afghanistan the Taliban are back in power, in Iraq the situation is extremely unstable and there is a violent insurgency going on, while Iran has massively increased its influence in the country. In Libya there is an active civil war. North Korea tripled its efforts to get a nuke and managed to do so partially out of fear that the US might remove their regime, a similar thing happened/happens in Iran. The rise of Putin is unthinkable in a world where the Soviet Union never collapsed, similarly a rise of Stalin would have never happened if the Russian Empire never collapsed. In all these cases regime change and war led to a regime that went from bad to worse. 

Putin for all the bad stuff he has pulled off, offers a certain amount of stability and reliability. He is like the poker player you play against every weekend for the past 24 years. You know his tells, you can roughly estimate what his hand is and you know when he is likely to bluff(for example when he threatens you with his nukes/ace of spades).

Now what the USA fear is some sort of WWI scenario where Putin is removed from power and then all bets are off. The game played would change from Poker (where a lot of it is luck based, but you can still make progress when you play intelligent and know your opponent) to a game of Roulette or in this case Russian Roulette. There are no good Roulette players and there are no patterns or intel you can learn.

Now obviously the parallelisation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the American invasions and interventions in the middle east are problematic in many ways and the idea that if Russia loses the war, it will dissolve like the Soviet Union or lead to civil war like WWI in the Russian Empire is very very problematic and there is really not much proof of such a comparison but people tend to see patterns in things even when those patterns don't exist. Hence I think thoses horror scenarios is what the US and some other western leaders try to prevent. 

15 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Russia winning could be the start of a new phase of warfare for conquest, but only if you are a nuclear power. That suggests non-nuclear nations will need to form mutual defence pacts with the nuclear power of their choice so that they deter the nuclear bullies from invading.

Good times.

This could be the case, and is clearly one of the long term goals of Putin and Xi Jinping to return to 19th century power politics, where the big boys sit at the table and carve out their respective spheres of influence...

Hence why it is so paramount for the smaller, non nuclear powers to support Ukraine with everything we got.

[Snowy89]

12 minutes ago, Bironic said:

I don't think so, at least it wasn't/isn't the main reason. And not in the way most people think, meaning the fear is not that Putin might use nukes. There were plenty of wars since 1945 where one or even more sides had/have nukes, wars that resulted in victories, losses or stalemates.

I think what the USA fears is not Putins nukes, but a Russia without Putin. As paradoxical that might sound. Joe Biden has never been a war hawk, always a pragmatist, a centrist. He saw several major US interventions that wanted regime change backfire completely: In Afghanistan the Taliban are back in power, in Iraq the situation is extremely unstable and there is a violent insurgency going on, while Iran has massively increased its influence in the country. In Libya there is an active civil war. North Korea tripled its efforts to get a nuke and managed to do so partially out of fear that the US might remove their regime, a similar thing happened/happens in Iran. The rise of Putin is unthinkable in a world where the Soviet Union never collapsed, similarly a rise of Stalin would have never happened if the Russian Empire never collapsed. In all these cases regime change and war led to a regime that went from bad to worse. 

Putin for all the bad stuff he has pulled off, offers a certain amount of stability and reliability. He is like the poker player you play against every weekend for the past 24 years. You know his tells, you can roughly estimate what his hand is and you know when he is likely to bluff(for example when he threatens you with his nukes/ace of spades).

Now what the USA fear is some sort of WWI scenario where Putin is removed from power and then all bets are off. The game played would change from Poker (where a lot of it is luck based, but you can still make progress when you play intelligent and know your opponent) to a game of Roulette or in this case Russian Roulette. There are no good Roulette players and there are no patterns or intel you can learn.

Now obviously the parallelisation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the American invasions and interventions in the middle east are problematic in many ways and the idea that if Russia loses the war, it will dissolve like the Soviet Union or lead to civil war like WWI in the Russian Empire is very very problematic and there is really not much proof of such a comparison but people tend to see patterns in things even when those patterns don't exist. Hence I think thoses horror scenarios is what the US and some other western leaders try to prevent. 

This could be the case, and is clearly one of the long term goals of Putin and Xi Jinping to return to 19th century power politics, where the big boys sit at the table and carve out their respective spheres of influence...

Hence why it is so paramount for the smaller, non nuclear powers to support Ukraine with everything we got.

My issue with this is when you follow this line of thinking to the end: If we are so afraid of Putin leaving, we should right now start working on eternal life to keep him alive, because god forbid he dies naturally. Somehow people seem to think if Putin were to die naturally power transition will be all nice and peaceful. I just do not understand this double think.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Job Snow
extend commit.

[Bironic]

9 minutes ago, Job Snow said:

My issue with this is when you follow this line of thinking to the end: If we are so afraid of Putin leaving, we should right now start working on eternal life to keep him alive, because god forbid he dies naturally.

True. Maybe Elon is up to the task(just kidding)...

His death is obviously is not preventable but there is a higher chance that there will be a somewhat orderly and peaceful transition of power to someone that is roughly like Putin(and thus we have intel on him and can roughly estimate what he will do) and maybe appointed by Putin or by his will in the case of a natural death. (Similarly how the power was transfered from ill Jelzin to young Putin, or previously in the Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko period) I think the US could live with President Medvedev or Shoigu or whoever it then will be.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Bironic

[Kalbear]

I don't think that analysis is accurate at all. While the loss of Putin would be destabilizing he has shown himself to be significantly not predictable nor is he tractable to diplomatic solutions. The US and European behavior since 2014 at least has been publicly and practically with the intent of a regime change with Putin. 

And even if Putin has been predictable and rational (which for most people he has not), that predictability has resulted in an actual war in Europe, with continued threats to do even more. That is not a particular value to the US and Europe. To use your analogy, Putin is a poker player who plays every week and regularly cheats, threatens others and punches out one of the other players. He does it every single week. It's certainly likely that the US isn't going to be taking active measures to remove him, but they're certainly not going to prop him up. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

23 minutes ago, Bironic said:

. Joe Biden has never been a war hawk

Lol

[Bironic]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Lol

He is no John Bolton or Dick cheney or Dubya bush. Never said he is a pacifist.

Slovakias new government stops military aid to ukraine...

Edited October 26, 2023 by Bironic

[Bironic]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

but they're certainly not going to prop him up. 

I never said that...

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The US and European behavior since 2014 at least has been publicly and practically with the intent of a regime change with Putin.

Certainly not in US(think of trump!) and western Europe. Maybe in Ukraine, maybe in some parts of eastern europe, but even there not since 2014, but earliest since 2022. The low amount of reaction by the west in 2014 made Putin think he could get away with more and more.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

To use your analogy, Putin is a poker player who plays every week and regularly cheats, threatens others and punches out one of the other players. He does it every single week.

Agree on that

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 has resulted in an actual war in Europe

A war that can be and is contained right now. If the Ukraine war would become some sort of frozen conflict similar to what happened in Georgia or Moldova I think a lot of people/leaders in the USA and europe would be ok with that.

[Padraig]

  

On 10/25/2023 at 7:34 PM, Maithanet said:

I will freely admit that it is difficult to determine exactly how much staying power either the Russian military or the Russian economy has.  But both are under great strain, and that will only get worse as time goes on.

I see two simple targets for Russia.  One, occupy more of Ukraine.  Two, maintain what they have.  So, when people talk about staying power, could it be that it just negates objective one but objective two remains much more viable?  Ukraine has shown that it is very difficult to make progress against a well dug in opposition.  And Russia wouldn't need to use as much resources in full defensive mode.

I don't think Putin will give up his ultimate objective but he could certainly bide his time for a few years until things seem more promising.  Build up industrial output in Russia or get increased military stock from N Korea and Iran.  Or whittle away at sanctions.

In other words, staying power is only a factor if Russia keeps on using resources at the current levels.  And Russia probably isn't that delusional.

When it comes to the West, if it believes that while it can pump more and more weapons into Ukraine, it is not expected that the borders will change over the next few years, then you can imagine it wandering what is the point?  Of course, it is hard to imagine that Putin will agree to a proper peace, so maybe we end up back in the pre 2022 frozen conflict.

21 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That suggests non-nuclear nations will need to form mutual defence pacts with the nuclear power of their choice so that they deter the nuclear bullies from invading.

Or, as somebody said before, we end up with more nuclear powers.

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The US and European behavior since 2014 at least has been publicly and practically with the intent of a regime change with Putin. 

I was surprised by this statement.  Many European countries tied themselves very closely with Russia, even after 2014.

2 hours ago, Bironic said:

A war that can be and is contained right now. If the Ukraine war would become some sort of frozen conflict similar to what happened in Georgia or Moldova I think a lot of people/leaders in the USA and europe would be ok with that.

Or, we could live with it.  Ok might be a bit too strong.  A frozen conflict is bound to leave us very uneasy because a frozen conflict almost certainly will not stay that way in the long term.  But I could see things go that way.  I find it hard to imagine that we remove sanctions on Russia though.  We have largely adapted to those sanctions by now and it will seem like too much of a reward.  Sanctions could go but I would really want the West to get more than a "frozen conflict".

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Bironic said:

 

I think what the USA fears is not Putins nukes, but a Russia without Putin. As paradoxical that might sound.

That still comes back to nukes. Also, unlike past failed interventions I don't think anyone who should be taken seriously would advocate for anyone pushing beyond Ukraine's 2014 borders, and to push Russia back would not require massive deployment of US or other allied troops in Ukraine. As we've seen Ukraine has the manpower to get shit done, they just need the floodgates to be opened for the firepower. 

It's a fair assessment that Putin does not survive a loss in this war. If the US and co prefer to see Putin in power because they are deathly afraid of the alternatives then their strategic goal is to let Putin keep what he's gained and re-draw Ukraine's boundaries to more or less the current front lines of the war. Someone better let Zelensky know so that he can start preparing the country for accepting that end point, and so he can personally prepare for a life after politics, 'cause he ain't staying as president for long if that's how this goes. In fact it would be better for his health and for what remains of Ukraine if he resigns in the same hour as a peace deal is signed.

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Padraig said:

I was surprised by this statement.  Many European countries tied themselves very closely with Russia, even after 2014.

I don't think that's accurate. Most European nations in 2014 put Russia under sanctions, as did the US. The US started directly supporting Ukraine at that time too, though not obviously as heavily as they are now. There were a lot of other things since 2014 as well - the poisoning in the UK, the Czechia munitions depot, the interference in elections. It's fair to say that Trump did clearly not want that, but the rest of the US absolutely did - and in spite of Trump's objections the US passed even more sanctions against Russia during that time. 

 

5 hours ago, Bironic said:

Certainly not in US(think of trump!) and western Europe. Maybe in Ukraine, maybe in some parts of eastern europe, but even there not since 2014, but earliest since 2022. The low amount of reaction by the west in 2014 made Putin think he could get away with more and more.

Yeah, see above. While I agree that the West did not respond strongly enough, since 2014 the rhetoric has escalated. 

 

[Werthead]

In the last few days, Russia has managed to shoot down one of its own helicopters, one of its own minesweepers has hit a Russian mine (irony?) outside Sevastopol and a mine-clearance vehicle operating in the Robotyne area hit a Ukrainian mine, panicked and then reversed into three Russian mines in rapid succession before finally exploding (the driver managed to jump clear). Some impressive own goals.

Meanwhile, a Russian Telegram "insider" channel is claiming that Putin has straight-up died.

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

Meanwhile, a Russian Telegram "insider" channel is claiming that Putin has straight-up died.

Eh? Say what now?

[Werthead]

Russian trench-troops are reporting a new problem:

2 minutes ago, Relic said:

Eh? Say what now?

Yeah, he's dead (apparently) and one of his doubles is going to take over until the back-channel politics play out and the new ruling faction becomes clear.

I am hitting that DOUBT button rather strongly.