Everybody knows that combat troops generally comprise a small percentage of necessary forces. The mighty US could probably not muster much more than 150,000 combat troops at this time. And in its last official war it had to conscript about 300,000.
In fact, I’m reading that of the 300,000 just mobilized, 75,000 to 150,000 will serve in combat roles. We’ve lost an appreciation for how significant 300,000 is.
I'm fairly certain that Hitler was named Person of the Year BEFORE he invaded Poland, not after. Hitler had a very carefully crafted press image of himself that played well internationally, along with a general ignorance of the global population of the details of how he was running his government. Speaking of Hitler, Pope Francis just compared Russia's invasion of Ukraine (and torture centers, and attacks on civilian infrastructure) to Nazi Germany's invasion of Europe. In case you are having trouble keeping up, what he's saying is that Putin = Hitler. Pope compares Ukrainian suffering to WWII Nazi death operation Looks like Putin is a long shot for the Nobel Peace Prize at this point.
I think it means restrict participation to "reality-based" discussion, and leave out discussion clearly based on Russian and pro-Russian propaganda. We all generally understand that news coming from Ukraine is often cherry-picked and slightly biased, but the pro-Russian propaganda is pure fiction. It's what happens when journalists know that they can be killed if they write something that offends the people in charge. Pro-Russian westerners are fairly easy to spot as mentally disturbed people (to put it kindly), like Caitlin Johnstone.
Ukraine war: Captured Russian documents reveal Moscow's 10-day plan to take over the country and kill its leaders
Looks like their plans were hy-jacked--- "Russia had planned to take over Ukraine over 10 days and annex it by August this year, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) said. According to the British Army-linked think tank, only a small group of Russian officials were aware of the full scale of the plans. It said even deputy heads of branches within the Russian military were unaware of the plan to invade and occupy Ukraine until days before the invasion began, and tactical military units didn't receive orders until hours before. The documents also revealed that Russia planned to capture Ukraine's power stations, airfields, water supplies, central bank and parliament - and that Russian special services were tasked with killing the Ukrainian leadership. They appeared to assume Ukrainian government officials would "either flee or be captured as a result of the speed of the invasion", RUSI said."
I have no trouble believing anything in that link. However, much of that will likely be dismissed as Ukrainian propaganda. That said, assuming it’s real and Ukraine can back it up, our government needs the actual intelligence, and it needs to go before Congress. Given verification of Russian plans, we need to escalate our involvement beyond mere material assistance. Russia needs to get spanked back into their own borders, and the lesson needs to be such that the next generation remembers when the next bright boy talks about reunification with Little Russia.
I can't wait to hear what comrade has to say about Russia's ten-day plans that included killing all of Ukraine's leaders. "They just wanted to negotiate! They just wanted to negotiate! Russia is a gentle, yet all-powerful, country. Can . . . not . . . com . . . pute."
Spoiler alert: He is not going to say, “Yeah, I guess I was wrong. This was not some sort of limited show of force by Russia. They had a goal of complete conquest, and — man! — did it blow up in their faces. I guess their feet really were too small for their boots after all. Well, I was wrong, and you were right. They’re the bad guys, and — as imperfect as we are — by default we are the good guys. Glory to Ukraine! Let’s go to war!” He is going to scoff and deny the contents, just like the Kremlin is.
This stuff is just so crazy to me - Russia has launched at least 1000 rockets at Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, and Ukraine fights at range, and the US gets nervous... The US should have been providing long range weapons to Ukraine from the beginning. The US has made clear to Ukraine its “concerns” about any escalation of the war with Russia, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said. Kirby’s comments to reporters today came after Kyiv appeared to launch a pre-emptive strike on bombers on two Russian airbases far from the frontlines earlier this week. Kirby said the principle behind the war in Ukraine was one of sovereignty, and “unlike the Russians, we respect Ukrainian sovereignty”. The US has had conversations with Ukraine about the accountability of weapons systems “but in the end these are Ukrainian decisions that they have to make”, he said. He added: When we give them a weapons system, it belongs to them. Where they use it, how they use it, how much ammunition they use to use that system, those are Ukrainian decisions, and we respect that. During a press conference with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and their Australian counterparts in Washington, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US had not “encouraged nor enabled” Ukraine to strike inside Russia. Austin, however, said the US was not stopping Ukraine from developing its own long-range strike capability.
On CNN a while ago, the talk was about whether the U.S. should provide Ukraine with cluster bombs, which Ukraine is requesting. About 100 nations have voted to ban the use of cluster munitions. Russia apparently was not one of them, because they have been using them against Ukraine. I say what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Send Ukraine enough cluster bombs to take care of their invaders. One of the reasons that cluster bombs are not preferred weapons is that not all of the bomb-lets explode, and the ones that don't more or less act as landmines afterwards. Since Ukraine will not be using these on Russian soil, they will have to deal with the potential after-effects of the use of the cluster bombs. If they are willing to accept this risk and responsibility, then I think we should provide them with the cluster bombs (assuming that we have them to provide).
No issue with providing them cluster munitions. But I would rather provide them with a robust Train, Advise & Assist Command.
A so-called expert from some place called West Point weighs in with his opinions on how the war is going. Russian troops' poor performance and low morale may worsen during a winter of more discontent Basically, Russia is screwed.
“I have no trouble believing anything in that link” sums up what I’m up against in this thread. What do you do with people who believe that ... Russia fired a missile on Polish farmers and ate zoo animals to survive and extracted gold teeth from its sympathizers and distributed viagra so as to rape greater numbers of Ukrainian women ?
Good piece. Thanks for sharing. I am far from an expert but it does seem to touch upon what I think is a consistent theme in military analysis that I read, wars in the past. One of the big advantage that democracies have over dictatorships is that they trust their officer corps more, they decentralize decision-making because they are not worried about the political reliability of the military. Therefore, their military can make much quicker decisions and get inside the decision loop of the dictatorial enemy. This was perhaps the most important difference in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, to my memory from reading a few books on it. Almost any move by the Egyptian army had to be approved at the very top, which always added delay. Just some thoughts.
Russia just now finding out that conscripting thugs from Russian prisons wasn’t a good idea. The conscript even more so. LOL Backfired: Putin’s Prison Recruits Spiral Out of Russia’s Control
Wagner is a concern for Russia. It’s getting a little rogue. On the other hand it’s chewing up Ukrainian troops like nobody’s business. Ukraine is sending troops, to Bakhmut, at a rate of 500 a day to replenish troops dying in the meat grinder where it is losing a battalion a day.
Think about it ... To achieve its goals, Ukraine has to push a long way East and fully secure five oblasts and roughly 20% of what used to Ukraine but it’s now on the back foot. Russia, on the other hand, only needs to push a little further West and it has the initiative. Yes, teams have come back from 0-3 deficits but it’s exceedingly rare. All Russia has to do is win 1 of the next 4 games.
