Ukraine War: incompetence vs fecklessness

[Werthead]

38 minutes ago, Bironic said:

I wouldn't say all without exception, there were and still are plenty of politicians that have shown exactly that (both when it comes to Ukraine as well as in regards to climate change).

In regards to Ukraine specifically I would say most of the political leaders in power in Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, Northern Europe, Czech republic, the Netherlands, the UK have shown these qualities. The problem is more that some of the big hitters such as the USA, Germany, France, Italy (with the exception of a very short period lasting from around January 21 to may 22) haven't shown it...

It's worth noting that the UK always had a sceptical eye towards post-1990 Russia, especially after Russian dissidents in London started coming down with a severe case of poloniumitis. Russia effectively used a WMD to kill a dissident in Salisbury (fucking it up in the process), and if the substance had not been found and disposed of quickly, could have killed hundreds to low thousands of people. Since that moment, at the latest, the UK had a very clear-eyed view of Russia. Not clear-eyed enough, to start ramping up military spending in 2017 etc, clearly, but it was on the ball long before France and Germany decided they needed to get with the programme (to be fair, they're there now, and doing a lot of great things for Ukraine).

[Snowy89]

2 hours ago, Celestial said:

I do not think it is a case of "the pool of competent leadership dried up, right across Western democracies, at some point in the 1990's" as SeanF put it, but rather the fact that NATO and the United States have not faced a major threat from a near-peer adversary for more than 30 years. Just like muscles atrophy if you don't use them, so could strategic thinking.

Basically, we have a political class who has lived in a kind of "la belle epoque" for 30 years and who suddenly found itself required to deal with a kind of brutal military expansionism from a near-peer adversary not seen since WW2. It is no surprise that they all, without any single exception, displayed massive complacency, lack of imagination and total incapacity to think outside the box. It is like taking a person who lived for 30 years in a luxury penthouse, all his need covered by a trust fund, and suddenly asking him to plough.

And the same thing can be said about the population of Europe and US. If the politicians lived "la belle epoque", so did their constituencies. If you take a population who had not experienced major hardships for decades and suddenly ask them to make significant sacrifices, they are going to scream and whine. Just look at the European farmers recently: the climate change IS coming and is likely to be brutal, yet they don't give a fuck, all they care about is to have cash NOW. If that's how they react to the global warming which is going to affect everyone no matter where they live, to expect them to show better judgment with regard to Russia (which is not likely to march through Berlin or Paris, no matter what turn the events will take) is pointless.

This kind of politicians and this kind of constituencies is a match made in hell. Say what you want about Churchill, but, despite all his other flaws, he at least had the boldness to tell point blank that "blood, toil, tears and sweat" was what was required. Any politician of today would rather hang themselves than tell their constituency the same. It's safer for their careers to bury their heads in the sand, offer off-ramps to Putin and hope everything will solve itself away by some kind of divine intervention.

This applies to American internal politics as well: because Biden and the democrats never had to deal in their whole life with a situation where a president attempted a coup and with a major political party doing the bidding of a foreign power, they have no clue how to deal with this problem. However, going soft on putschists is a very bad idea, because, if there are no consequences for plotting a coup, they would try again. In Jan 2021, someone like Stefanik claimed the insurrectionists had to be punished. Now, the same Stefanik says there was no insurrection. Why this happened is pretty obvious: in Jan 2021, the MAGA-affiliated politicians thought Trump was done for and will end up in jail quickly. But nothing happened to Trump on that account and, as a result, we have the Republican party back in his thrall and the Project 2025, with the fascists preparing to have a second try and to do it right, this time.

They just opened comments on the article. Many comments that there were no reports on Russian channels regarding a defeat/capture of troops on a scale anything like the one described in the article, so I guess things may turn out not to be as bad. Still, the analysis of too little too late, and as you say a complete lack of imagination on European policy makers parts is still valid. 2 years in and only know are we finally starting to see hard long-term commitments, showing Putin with more than just words that Europe actually is in this for the long haul.

Edited February 20 by Job Snow

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

It's worth noting that the UK always had a sceptical eye towards post-1990 Russia, especially after Russian dissidents in London started coming down with a severe case of poloniumitis. Russia effectively used a WMD to kill a dissident in Salisbury (fucking it up in the process), and if the substance had not been found and disposed of quickly, could have killed hundreds to low thousands of people. Since that moment, at the latest, the UK had a very clear-eyed view of Russia. Not clear-eyed enough, to start ramping up military spending in 2017 etc, clearly, but it was on the ball long before France and Germany decided they needed to get with the programme (to be fair, they're there now, and doing a lot of great things for Ukraine).

Unlike Germany, the UK was not addicted to Russian gas, like an Irvine Welsh Character to heroin.

That Nordstream 2 project should have been put to rest in 2014, the invasion of Crimea and Putin waging wr in the Donbas. Not wanting too sound too sarcastic here, but 2014 was before 2017.

That's an overlap to the Climate Change thread and the German policy failures under Merkel of messing up the switch to renewables big times in favour of cheap (and seeming reliable) Russian gas. Those 16 years of sleepwalking political failures have had consequences on the battlefields of Ukraine.

[Martell Spy]

US to announce ‘major sanctions package’ on Russia following Navalny death
The sanctions will “hold Russia accountable for what happened to Mr. Navalny,” the National Security Council spokesperson said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/russia-sanctions-navalny-putin-00142183

Quote

 

He wouldn’t provide more detail about the package when asked.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday afternoon, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the sanctions will cover “a range of different elements of the Russian defense industrial base and sources of revenue for the Russian economy that power Russia’s war machine.”

Navalny, who was long seen as the most significant political opponent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, died in prison on Friday. The death of the 47-year-old, a month before Moscow’s presidential election, sent shockwaves around the world.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

This is what they'll put sanctions on the table for, huh?

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, Celestial said:

I do not think it is a case of "the pool of competent leadership dried up, right across Western democracies, at some point in the 1990's" as SeanF put it, but rather the fact that NATO and the United States have not faced a major threat from a near-peer adversary for more than 30 years. Just like muscles atrophy if you don't use them, so could strategic thinking.

Basically, we have a political class who has lived in a kind of "la belle epoque" for 30 years and who suddenly found itself required to deal with a kind of brutal military expansionism from a near-peer adversary not seen since WW2. It is no surprise that they all, without any single exception, displayed massive complacency, lack of imagination and total incapacity to think outside the box. It is like taking a person who lived for 30 years in a luxury penthouse, all his need covered by a trust fund, and suddenly asking him to plough.

And the same thing can be said about the population of Europe and US. If the politicians lived "la belle epoque", so did their constituencies. If you take a population who had not experienced major hardships for decades and suddenly ask them to make significant sacrifices, they are going to scream and whine. Just look at the European farmers recently: the climate change IS coming and is likely to be brutal, yet they don't give a fuck, all they care about is to have cash NOW. If that's how they react to the global warming which is going to affect everyone no matter where they live, to expect them to show better judgment with regard to Russia (which is not likely to march through Berlin or Paris, no matter what turn the events will take) is pointless.

This kind of politicians and this kind of constituencies is a match made in hell. Say what you want about Churchill, but, despite all his other flaws, he at least had the boldness to tell point blank that "blood, toil, tears and sweat" was what was required. Any politician of today would rather hang themselves than tell their constituency the same. It's safer for their careers to bury their heads in the sand, offer off-ramps to Putin and hope everything will solve itself away by some kind of divine intervention.

This applies to American internal politics as well: because Biden and the democrats never had to deal in their whole life with a situation where a president attempted a coup and with a major political party doing the bidding of a foreign power, they have no clue how to deal with this problem. However, going soft on putschists is a very bad idea, because, if there are no consequences for plotting a coup, they would try again. In Jan 2021, someone like Stefanik claimed the insurrectionists had to be punished. Now, the same Stefanik says there was no insurrection. Why this happened is pretty obvious: in Jan 2021, the MAGA-affiliated politicians thought Trump was done for and will end up in jail quickly. But nothing happened to Trump on that account and, as a result, we have the Republican party back in his thrall and the Project 2025, with the fascists preparing to have a second try and to do it right, this time.

That’s a very cogent analysis.

Trump’s attempted coup somewhat resembles the Kapp Putsch, a ludicrous affair, that still led to something far more serious down the line.

It’s hard to describe the degree of contempt which I have for most of the Republican Party.

Edited February 21 by SeanF

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Unlike Germany, the UK was not addicted to Russian gas, like an Irvine Welsh Character to heroin.

That Nordstream 2 project should have been put to rest in 2014, the invasion of Crimea and Putin waging wr in the Donbas. Not wanting too sound too sarcastic here, but 2014 was before 2017.

That's an overlap to the Climate Change thread and the German policy failures under Merkel of messing up the switch to renewables big times in favour of cheap (and seeming reliable) Russian gas. Those 16 years of sleepwalking political failures have had consequences on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Also recall it was the German Greens who demanded an end to nuclear power. How different would things be today if the Green movement didn't slavishly adhere to an anti-nuclear ideology when it was clear 20 years ago that nuclear needed to be part of rapid decarbonisation? They won't be seen as the villains of this period in history, but they are not going to come out as the heroes. Indeed I wonder if history will record any heroes in the last 25 years.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Nuclear energy in Germany is a long and messy story. Involving police brutality and partially radicalisation and the anti-nuclear movement is one of the parents of the Green party (the other was the peace movement) in Germany, political decission making process which in the beginning was even more stupid than the ending, which had a few twists and turns of its own.

Wihtout wanting relitigate the history of nuclear energy in Germany, I'll stick to a few really silly highlights.

One of the silliest actors was former Governoer of Lower Saxxony, Ernst Albrecht, who also happened to be the father of Flinten Uschi von der Leyen. He essentially wanted a storage facility in his state as some sorta deterrent against a potential invasion by the GDR (don't ask). It didn't matter that the location was geologically totally unsuited. Thanks to that, Germany still doesn't know where to put it. The geologically best suited locations are in the south with the monatnius terrain (Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg). Bavarians are the biggest NIMBYs in all of Germany, who will point at Lower-Saxxony saying, hey we already have a storage facility there.

The Greens during their first time in federal goverment (1998) got the SPD to sign off on a nuclear exit. Like I said, one of the parties raison d'etre. It was long term exit, with which parts of their voters were not really happy as the time table was too long and the potential of another goverment changing course. Ofc, that was also tied to a switch to renewables. That goverment won a second term in 2002 with the late and great Ha-Chri Ströbele (RIP Hans-Christian ) saving the day by winning his district (his opposition to some party compromises had him being moved way down the ballot, leaving him with what was considered back then a longshot bid to win a district to remain in parliament, first Green MP to do so in history and he continued to hold it until he retired due to his advanced age, and that's now a Green district). Anyway, that coalition didn't last a full second term, because of the SPD starting to implode (social reforms, aka. Hartz IV, aka redistribution of wealth to the top (Schröder's legacy)). Start of the era Merkel. Her first term was a whole lot of nothing because she had to reign with the SPD, when it still had sufficient weight. The goverments she formed with FDP , or when the conservatives were strong enough to govern on their own, that's when things started to get off the rails. Cutting subsidies for renewables, which was the driving factor in getting renewable online, and not protecting the solar industry (patents technological know-how) from Chinese investors on an EU level. The cut of the subsidies was utterly moronic, when you look at it from economic perspective. It did cost a shit ton of jobs as that sector was effectively killed, while politics (CDU and SPD) are so utterly concerned about a relatively small number of jobs in coal mining, it's bonkers. And of course she also reversed course on the nuclear exit, and extended the shelf life for nuclear reactors. then in 2011 Fukushima happened. And Merkel once again reversed course and cut the shelf life of nuclear reactors. With energy companies subsequently suing the federal goverment for damages. So she effectively killed the switch to renewables and cut off nuclear power at an increased speed. Nuclear power was in the end a very minor component of the energy mix in Germany anyway. So the energy had to come from other sources. Hello Putin and his man-servant and former chancellor of the FRG 'Gas Gerd' Schröder.

[Zorral]

Ukraine remains stronger than you might think
Michael O’Hanlon is the Philip H. Knight chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution and author of “Military History for the Modern Strategist: America’s Major Wars Since 1861.” This column is based on data collected by the Brookings Institution.

Share/Gift Link --

https://wapo.st/3wmKjfc

 

[ThinkerX]

Putin has set an ambitious goal for his army. Short of massive human wave attacks combined with throwing all of their remaining armor and artillery shells at the Ukrainians, it seems like this will flop big time. I suspect it'd flop big time regardless of the troops and materials expended. Seems to be a hint or two that Putin is not completely secure on his throne. 

Putin Gives Military 3 Weeks to Seize Entire Region of Ukraine: Kyiv (msn.com)

 

Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of GUR, said during an interview with Interfax-Ukraine that the Kremlin wants control of Luhansk before Russia's upcoming presidential elections.

 

The country's presidential election is scheduled to be held on March 15-17. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the overwhelming favorite to win what Western observers have said is a rigged contest. Though polling indicates Putin is popular among the Russian public, support for his war in Ukraine has begun to slip. Thus, victories such as the capture of Luhansk Oblast could give Putin something to show his people for the sacrifices of war.

[The Anti-Targ]

It's curious that the pundits are saying the Russian election is a rigged affair but at the same time they say Putin is still very popular. I mean Putin being able to get away with the sort of political assassinations that Trump's lawyers would dearly love the Supreme court to sanction clearly shows it's all rigged for Putin to stay in power no matter what.  But it almost seems like killing Navalny was unnecessary, Putin would probably win with Navalny alive, if his popularity is what the pundits say.

[Werthead]

Figuring out how fair and open Russian elections are is always a difficult process. It's clearly not a full-on rigged vote with the incumbent winning 99.7% of the vote, but it's not a free and fair election backed by vigorous courts dedicated to the rule of law. Some Russians have a very pedantic attitude to following the law, mainly as they get scared of what might happen if they are arrested, so will follow the rules no matter what. As a result, the Russian state prefers to eliminate potential rival candidates before the election, using a mixture of rules-breaking, failure to fill the forms in correctly or straight-up arresting them and rendering them ineligible for the poll. So Putin will win in a contest between himself and a bunch of milquetoast semi-opponents who all say nice things about him whilst expressing only minor (and pre-approved) disagreements about some aspects of policy. In this case, ending the war ASAP is very popular so every time someone tried to stand on that platform, their polling numbers immediately shot up to the level where Putin would probably not win the first round outright, which the Kremlin regards as unacceptable (even if he'd win the second fairly comfortably).

That doesn't mean ballot-stuffing, losing a load of votes etc won't happen in certain places, but it's not quite as nakedly and obviously corrupt as you'd think, just somewhat so.

Putin's historically been trusted with defence, keeping the more corrupt oligarchs and officials in line and making Russia look strong on the world stage, all of which remains true. However, it seems that quite a few Russians see the invasion of Ukraine as a mistake that's made Russia weaker and more vulnerable (in general, or specifically into becoming a vassal of China), not stronger. They're just not necessarily going to stick their necks out about it.

[Werthead]

Reports that the Transnistrian Congress will adopt a resolution calling for Russia to annex Transnistria to its territory. Exactly how that's possible when Russia does not control the corresponding opposite territory in Ukraine, it only has ~1500 soldiers in-theatre and there's no way to airdrop troops in is unclear; possibly this is pipe-laying for much later if Putin believes he can take all of Ukraine in the long-term.

Germany has voted in favour of delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Taurus has around a 30% longer range than Storm Shadow/SCALP and flies lower and faster, making them much harder to intercept. The Chancellor still needs to sign off on the deal.

Sweden has announced a new aid package with 10 assault boats and 20 landing vessels, which will be very useful in the river war, artillery ammo, TOW missiles, portable AA systems, grenade launchers and medical equipment.

Japan has also announced $12 billion in aid to Ukraine.

China, Türkiye and the UAE have now completed the process of shutting down payments and accounts into numerous Russian bank accounts, due to the threat of western sanctions. China was particularly voluble about not agreeing to this sort of thing under economic blackmail from the US, but has apparently done it on the sly anyway.

Ukraine has shot down 7 Russian aircraft in one week, thanks to canny deployments of Patriot and other AA batteries in a manner that constantly confuses Russian aircraft in how far outside of Ukrainian airspace they need to be in order to be safe.

Qatar's government has arranged the safe return of 11 Ukrainian children from the occupied territories and Russia to their families in Ukraine.

Amidst all the coverage of Ukrainian shortages, there's been less coverage of Russian shortages, but at the moment Russia is producing only around 35% of the 152mm and 50% of the 122mm artillery shells annually it needs to achieve major breakthroughs. Russia has ramped up weapons productions but is encountering numerous problems (including manpower issues with some of their weapons production personnel forcibly recruited into the military).

A long letter but worth reading, from an American veteran fighting in Ukraine:

 

Edited February 22 by Werthead

[The Wondering Wolf]

18 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Germany has voted in favour of delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. Taurus has around a 30% longer range than Storm Shadow/SCALP and flies lower and faster, making them much harder to intercept. The Chancellor still needs to sign off on the deal.

It hasn't. 

[Werthead]

Interesting. Some of the analysis I'm seeing says that Taurus is still allowed for by the measure that was passed, but not specifically. So a measure calling for specifically Taurus to be delivered was defeated, but then a measure for long-range weapons of the class including Taurus has been passed. The thinking seems to be this confuses the Russian response (since Germany can say, look, we shot down that measure) and also gives the German government greater flexibility in including other measures as well as Taurus, or hold back on them until a later red line is passed.

Its unclear why Germany continues to dither on this point: Taurus offers greater operational flexibility than Storm Shadow/SCALP but it's not like a vast increase in capability, and Germany doesn't have thousands and thousands of them it can send.

Edited February 22 by Werthead

[The Wondering Wolf]

38 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The thinking seems to be this confuses the Russian response

This would require some strategic planning I just can't believe in. The bizarre thing is that with the Greens and the Liberals two parties in government support the idea to provide Taurus, but for the sake of preserving the coalition they don't vote for the measures which are suggested by the CDU/CSU, the biggest opposition party. I'm sure the Stranger Horse can give a more elaborate answer, but the short one is: There is no decision on the matter because Chancellor Olaf Scholz doesn't want it. He hesitated to provide Ukraine with weapons right from the beginning, including this tank debacle with the Leopards. I would love to get an explanation, but he refuses to give one. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Was about to post that.

 

Taurus was not explicitly mentioned in the goverment's motion (which was passed by parliament).

Greens and FDP (broken clock) wanted to include Taurus, the SPD (Scholz's party, not him personally, no idea what his personal position is) didn't want that. Mützenich was rather outspoken on that issue.

The conservatives' (Union) motion did explicitly mention Taurus. That did not gather a majority. So I will go back and focus more on what the goverment agreed on.

While the wording is broad enough to cover Taurus (in some unknown future) for now Taurus is not on the menu for Ukraine. It's really the whiny SPD that's throwing a spanner in the works here. Their reasoning. The increased range would allow Kiev to strike targets as far inside as Russia as Moscow. And the SPD are afraid that this escalation would see Germany become an actual party in the war. Yes, that's ignoring, that Ukraine has kept their promises wrt not striking targets inside Russia with Western equipment without the partners consent, and it's pathetic and whiny. But here we are.

The good thing in the goverment's motion is, it contains the goverments support for a Ukrainian path into NATO (the SPD has moved on that front). That's on top of the military aid.

[Werthead]

Yeah, I think the only dangerous escalatory target that is within the ability to hit is the Crimean Bridge, and even that's probably not that escalatory (especially since Russia keeps fixing it every time they knock bits of it down within 3-5 months). If Ukraine agrees not to hit Moscow and major cities or even any target at all within Russia's borders, they'd probably still take Taurus without a moment's hesitation.

What it does do is bring the absolute entirety of Russian-controlled Ukraine within striking range, ammo dumps within the entire territory, all of Crimea and huge chunks of the Black Sea beyond which Ukraine already has fire control. That's a significant improvement in capacity.

[Bironic]

The decision to send Taurus lies with the chancellor. The security cabinet consisting of defense minister(spd), foreign minister(greens), finance minister(fdp) and chancellor will not overrule him. Media generally agree that both FDP and Greens and their respective ministers are in favor of semding Taurus and it’s widely assumed that defense minister Pistorius (spd) largely shares their view. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Technically true, that Scholz has the last word, he won't openly act against a significant part/majority (?) of his wn party. Baerbock* (foreign minister) and Lindner (Finances) most certainly wouldn't overrule Scholz if he gives his permission.

But Germany is parliamentarian Democracy, not a presidential system. So party politics/position is very much in play. And as much as I dislike our smurf chancellor on a personal level, this is really more of a party issue.

 

*altho I haven't looked it up and it makes no practical difference here, but iirc the vice-chancellor and not the foreign minister is on the security cabinet. That would Habeck (Economy Minister) not Baerbock.

 

Edit: was bothered enough to look who is on the security cabinet up (wikipedia so just a secondary source).

Chancellor (Scholz (SPD)), Vice-Chancellor(s) (Habeck (Greens) and Lindner (FDP)), Foreign Minister (Baerbock (Greens)), Interior (homeland) Minister (Faeser (SPD)),  and Defense Minister (Pistorius (SPD)). Further Ministers (likesay AG) + high ranking staffers from the branches of the security apparatus if necessary.

 

Edited February 23 by A Horse Named Stranger