War in Ukraine

All that said, Patton wanted to march to Moscow after Germany was defeated. Interesting notion, but cooler heads prevailed.

 

That’s not my definition of “Let’s quit […]ing around and get this over with.” We have the means to do just that, though. What we lack is the political will.

 

More corrupt than Russia? Where are you getting your information?

 

The Kremlin

 

I believe that unlike Putin, the US was asked for assistance. And we did sign the same security guarantee that Putin did when Ukraine gave up their nukes, ie support the independent state of Ukraine.

 

Tempting to dust off the " How's the weather in Moscow, Vlad?"

 

And? Kuwait was in 1990 and remains an autocracy and is certainly corrupt by Western standards of the term. South Korea in 1950 was not much better than Kuwait is today. Does that mean we would have been morally just to sit back and watch as the strong prey upon the weak with murder, rape, and pillage? Your implication seems to be that Ukraine deserves what it gets from Russia because in its 30-year history it did not rapidly evolve to the liberal political and economic status of countries with hundreds of years of a head start and/or Ukraine deserves it because it had the affront to seek more advantageous defense and economic deals from the West and remove itself from Russian vassalage. That proposition, coming from an American, manifestly shocks the conscience.

 

'Absurd': Russian foreign minister Lavrov sparks backlash for invoking Holocaust

Another talking point for the resident russophiles.....

 

We have a high degree of corruption in the US. Only we call it lobbying.

 

The latest rumor is that Russia’s Spring Offensive would come from eastern Belarus south down the border with Poland (Lviv et al) to the border of Romania with the objective of cutting off Ukraine from NATO resupply. (shrugs) It might work. It certainly is high-risk/high-reward, the risks being that military operations that close to Poland might bring NATO in at long last (Ukrainian forces could retreat into Poland under duress; Russians could not) and a long Russian salient like that would invite all manner of attack to cut it off from its base of supply in Belarus. I’d call it a logistics nightmare if it was mine to plan. Good thing the Russians have proven so adept at tactical and operational logistics. I’m sure they would cut down the eastern flank of Ukraine like a hot knife through butter.

Putin readying ‘700k troops for new offensive in weeks to cut off Ukraine'

 

People: “Evil Russia is laying waste to Ukraine!”

Same people: “Ha-Ha! Russian military are bumbling conscripts.”

 

Ukraine update: The floodgates are already open, Wednesday could bring the flood

Good summary of all the new equipment Ukraine will probably be getting this spring.

 

You know me, I’m all for the material assistance. However, I must point out once again that Russian manpower and material advantages are going to eventually be decisive unless there is severe turmoil on the Russian home front. Our strategy here cannot simply be to hope that Putin’s regime collapses before Ukraine runs out of people to use the toys we’re giving them.

 

From Mike Whitney ...

One of the biggest surprises of the current war, is simply the lack of preparedness on part of the US. One would assume that if the foreign policy mandarins decided to “lock horns” with the world’s biggest nuclear superpower, they would have done the necessary planning and preparation to ensure success. Clearly, that hasn’t happened. US policymakers seem surprised by the fact that the economic sanctions backfired and actually strengthened Russia’s economic situation. They also failed to anticipate that the vast majority of countries would not only ignore the sanctions but proactively explore options for “ditching the dollar” in their business transactions and in the sale of critical resources.

These aren’t trivial mistakes. The level of incompetence in the planning of this war is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before. It appears that all the preparation was focused on provoking a Russian invasion, not on the developments that would happen soon afterwards. What’s clear, is that the Pentagon never “gamed out” the actual war itself or the conflict as it is presently unfolding. Otherwise, how does one explain these glaring errors in judgement:

1. They never thought the sanctions would backfire
2. They never thought they’d run out of weapons and ammo
3. They never thought Russia’s oil receipts would skyrocket
4. They never thought that the majority of countries would maintain normal relations with Russia
5. They never figured they’d actually need a coherent military strategy for fighting a ground war in eastern Europe.

Is there anything they got right?

Not that we can see.

 

This feels potentially big. Losing more of the Slav block

 

Stalin needed the US in the war as much as the Allies needed Russia in the war.

 

totally agree with you. If Putin and the military get their shit together, over time, they can and will win a war of attrition.

 

I think all the sanctions and whatnot are squarely aimed at the “collapse the regime” side of the ledger.

Problem is it seems almost no amount of economic degradation can remove entrenched totalitarian regimes (as we see from longstanding policy in Cuba or NK). We can probably assume some CIA contacts with whatever opposition groups there are. But aside from outright supporting a coup or assassination Im not sure what overt action can be done.

 

Any podcast fans in here? InfoSec or IT folks?

I found this channel a couple days ago. I started listening to this one on the way to work this morning. IT folks should already be familiar with EternalBlue and NotPetya.

 

After listening to the whole thing, it's more about NotPetya in general than about Russia vs Ukraine. Still interesting if you're into that kind of thing.