The Russian Offensive Assessment 10-04-22 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15249749
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgr ... -october-4

Highlights:

* Ukrainian forces continued to make significant gains in Kherson Oblast while simultaneously continuing advances in Kharkiv and Luhansk oblasts on October 4.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of partial mobilization is having more significant short-term impacts on the Russian domestic context than on the war in Ukraine, interacting with Russian battlefield failures to exacerbate fractures in the information space that confuse and undermine Putin’s narratives.

* Putin is visibly failing at balancing the competing demands of the Russian nationalists who have become increasingly combative since mobilization began despite sharing Putin’s general war aims and goals in Ukraine.

* The Kadyrov-Prigozhin incident sparked a rift between the siloviki and the milbloggers, with the milbloggers defending Lapin.

* Fractures are emerging within the Russian milblogger community itself, moreover.

* The fragmentation of the Russian nationalist information space could have significant domestic impacts and could even affect the stability of Putin’s regime.

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General Jack Keane (US Army, Retired), Chairman, Institute for the Study of War; President, GSI, LLC

Dr. Kimberly Kagan, Founder & President, Institute for the Study of War

The Honorable Kelly Craft, Former US Ambassador to UN and Canada

Dr. William Kristol, Director, Defending Democracy Together

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman, Senior Council, Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman, LLP

Kevin Mandia, Chief Executive Officer & Board Director, Mandiant

Jack D. McCarthy, Jr., Senior Managing Director & Founder, A&M Capital

Bruce Mosler, Chairman, Global Brokerage, Cushman & Wakefield, Inc.

General David H. Petraeus (US Army, Retired), Member, KKR & Chairman, KKR Global Institute

Dr. Warren Phillips, Lead Director, CACI International

Colonel William Roberti (US Army, Retired), Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal

My analysis will follow in the first response.
#15249750
Hello, I'm Morgan.

You don't know me yet, but I'd like to begin with my assessment of the information above.

I don't know the forum's meta on the war, so I'm wading in tabula rosa style. Russia appears to have massively overreached. It appears to have failed as it always has failed outside its own borders. A large part of that failure appears to remain what Russians cannot see themselves: Their own insecurities make their men vulnerable to long-term breakdowns in morale, logistics, and military cohesion. Furthermore, as the entire military offensive is on its heels it simply doesn't bode well with the coming Ukrainian winter that wrecked Nazis and Nappy alike!

The problems that have plagued Russia for centuries militarily and elsewhere are systemic and go behind what the politics of the day may be: Czar, Communist, Oligarchy, or Nazbols. It's a reminder about the fate of the Ottoman Empire: Become conservative and die. The British brought technology to the forefront of the modern combat meta with the use of the Longbow.

Russia has stagnated in its ability to project power outside its borders and Putin's own marriage to the Orthodox church and its shameless pandering to racist, homophobic, hierarchical micromanagement of the people's lives, abetted with his now failing scheme to prop up his own supporters by knifepoint or polonium needle, appears to have overestimated his reach and military's ability to fight in the continually modernizing battlefield.

Finally the risk of a nuclear strike. The first is the most obvious. Is Russia serious? If they are, to what degree are they serious? One tactical battlefield nuke may not trigger an immediate Global Thermonuclear War, but what about subsequent launchings? What about direct worldwide involvement and condemnation following a tactical strike?

What if they move to full-on nuclear retaliation? Would NATO resort to its own tactical nukes or would it move to stop Russia's ability to project war altogether?

Shakespeare grins as we consider the rub.

In my view, any nuclear action by Russia will immediately bring World War III. Let's hope I've never been more wrong. Buy your tinfoil now, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm Morgan Le Fay, and that's my assessment on the Russian-Conflict for 10-05-22
#15249768
Finally the risk of a nuclear strike. The first is the most obvious. Is Russia serious? If they are, to what degree are they serious? One tactical battlefield nuke may not trigger an immediate Global Thermonuclear War, but what about subsequent launchings? What about direct worldwide involvement and condemnation following a tactical strike?


First disclaimer. I believe that Putin is as bad at tactics as he is at strategy. I truly do not think he is overly smart and I believe what capacity he has remaining if failing. I see no other explanation for his absurd actions.

So what if he uses a nuke? What would be Putin's worst nightmare? It is that the West does nothing militarily. So he popped a nuke to show he is serious and nobody did anything. What does he do now? Pop another? And still the response from the world is solely passive. What does the world do?

First the world would be under enormous pressure to do something. There would not be a single nation that could sit it out. So the first thing is to eliminate Russia's ability to spend money. They can't buy anything and nobody can buy from them. Like food. Russia can supply the calories necessary to keep its citizens from starving in the long term. But in the near term they would have massive shortages and particularly of the things Russian people want to eat. Then the Russian people would come to the realization that they now live in a third world failed dictatorship. They would have no internet at all save, MAYBE, some state-run news service. They would lose their satellites. They would be blockaded at sea. Russians are using VPNs now to access Western media but that can be switched off in a second.

So overnight Russia would be plunged into the dark, so to speak.

The ball would be in Putin's court. Either escalate to global war, which has not favorable outcome possible, or go back to where he is now.....Losing a war in Ukraine in a spectacular fashion, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

My personal opinion is that he will do something with a WMD. Probably a nuke. And like the whole fiasco in Ukraine, it will blow up in his face.

I should add a note. TicToc. Time is coming when enough people in Russia realize that they can get out of this whole mess with one bullet. Then a quick mea culpa, withdrawal from Ukraine and a closet full of Levi's and Gucci shoes.
#15249771
I would like to think you're right, but we don't have leverage.

After a nuke, the countries that would probably (softly) side with Russia are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, North Korea (BFD), India, all the "stans", Mongolia and maybe one or two tin-pot dictators in the Middle East. That's more than half the world population-wise.

Blockade what? Kaliningrad? Vladivostok? Murmansk? St. Petersburg? Russia does have a helluva coastline up north and on the east coast. Have you looked at a map? Blockade that surface area?

The ruble has recovered. This is not what I want to happen, but reality says the world order is being challenged and the incompetence of messaging and response is getting me down.

Bottom line: our leaders better get their shit together. I think the second tier thinkers have the right answers (the NSC, Pentagon, Think-tanks, those that study warfare, doctrine and historical context), but I'm not sure the WH and the DNC are listening. Their priorities are way out of whack for what they're facing.

Candle-light vigils after the flash isn't fixing this one. We have to be f'n nasty and we don't have it in us. You get that, right? We've signaled we are not a serious people (BIll Maher is correct on that one).
#15249787
@BlutoSays Candle-light vigils after the flash isn't fixing this one. We have to be f'n nasty and we don't have it in us. You get that, right? We've signaled we are not a serious people (BIll Maher is correct on that one).



I do not disagree with this. We need to send stronger signals. That is all Putin understands. He spent four years dictating US politics through his surrogate, Trump. I think he still thinks he can do that.

The US most powerful weapon is the world banking system and access to US markets. The Chinese and Indians must be absolutely certain that if they trade with Russia IN ANY WAY after a nuclear strike that we will seize all of their US assets and cease all trade either way. Do we have the guts to do this? No. The democrats do not have the intestinal fortitude and the Republicans are completely sold out to corporate interests. So no we do not.

We barely have a functioning government at all. And the Republicans are besotted with Putin because he appears to be your "strongman". The thing is Bluto, he is not strong. A strong man, would not be in the position he is in now. Estonia and Poland are kicking sand in his face. So his response is to threaten to destroy the world using weapons that everyone knows will not serve his ends?

Seriously guy. Get smart. Get off your testosterone high, stop cleaning your useless guns and think. The best way to destroy Putin is to take the power away from him. Call his bluff.
#15249800
Morgan Le Fey wrote:Hello, I'm Morgan.

You don't know me yet, but I'd like to begin with my assessment of the information above.

I don't know the forum's meta on the war, so I'm wading in tabula rosa style. Russia appears to have massively overreached. It appears to have failed as it always has failed outside its own borders. A large part of that failure appears to remain what Russians cannot see themselves: Their own insecurities make their men vulnerable to long-term breakdowns in morale, logistics, and military cohesion. Furthermore, as the entire military offensive is on its heels it simply doesn't bode well with the coming Ukrainian winter that wrecked Nazis and Nappy alike!

The problems that have plagued Russia for centuries militarily and elsewhere are systemic and go behind what the politics of the day may be: Czar, Communist, Oligarchy, or Nazbols. It's a reminder about the fate of the Ottoman Empire: Become conservative and die. The British brought technology to the forefront of the modern combat meta with the use of the Longbow.

Russia has stagnated in its ability to project power outside its borders and Putin's own marriage to the Orthodox church and its shameless pandering to racist, homophobic, hierarchical micromanagement of the people's lives, abetted with his now failing scheme to prop up his own supporters by knifepoint or polonium needle, appears to have overestimated his reach and military's ability to fight in the continually modernizing battlefield.

Finally the risk of a nuclear strike. The first is the most obvious. Is Russia serious? If they are, to what degree are they serious? One tactical battlefield nuke may not trigger an immediate Global Thermonuclear War, but what about subsequent launchings? What about direct worldwide involvement and condemnation following a tactical strike?

What if they move to full-on nuclear retaliation? Would NATO resort to its own tactical nukes or would it move to stop Russia's ability to project war altogether?

Shakespeare grins as we consider the rub.

In my view, any nuclear action by Russia will immediately bring World War III. Let's hope I've never been more wrong. Buy your tinfoil now, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm Morgan Le Fay, and that's my assessment on the Russian-Conflict for 10-05-22


Russia is a cleptocratic regime that is based on supreme loyalty through coersion to the ruling person or council of sorts. What does this mean. It means that corruption is a sort of a feature of the system where high ranking business, political or government officials are allowed to steal money from the state but that theft is the coercion mechanism that the ruling council or person uses to keep them in check if they step out of line. By the way, the ruling council itself does this to set an example of what benefits participating in such system there are.

So having said that, nuclear war will never start because you don't steal money to then later on not be able to use it or loose it all. It breaks the whole point and the benefit of the system. If you steal money then you need to be able to use it and, well, not be dead or under sanctions or , at the very least, access to stack wealth abroad so it can't be taken away. Nuclear war prevents all that from happening. This applies to 95% of decision makers in Russia in all government sectors from military to healthcare.

The problem of such regimes is that corruption becomes a part of the system because it is BY DESIGN. But what exactly is corruption? Most people don't really understand corruption and think of it as just stealing money. Not exactly correct. Stealing money is the result of corruption but not what it is. Corruption in more academic terms is circumventing problems of the system in one way or the other. An example here is better in my opinion. Lets say that there is some paper that you need to start business but getting that paper takes 2 years. You can either go through the process of waiting 2 year or you can pay some extra money to the person doing the paper to get it to you in 1 month. That is corruption in a nutschell: a problem of the system that is being circumvented for a payment. The problem actually comes from the fact that this is by DESIGN, so in a regular law based liberal democratic state this corruption would be fixed at some point by making the procedures faster, automated so it would take on average 1-2 months instead of 2 years but in Russia since it is by design such problems are not being fixed because otherwise how would the coersion side of things work or the decision makers enrich themselves. This is the gist of the problem.

Obviously such systems are not very popular over long periods of time because even if people are slow, they still catch up. So the rulers of such systems require external factors to boost their popularity and in this case it is war. Nuclear exchange doesn't solve the rulers or his councils popularity problem also. People will be very pissed if their children will die in a nuclear exchange and so on. If you thought mobilisation was bad, or loosing war was bad popularity wise then what do you think a nuclear exchange will do to Putins ass?
#15249850
I appreciate the insight, I agree that this isn't a rational threat. The concern being, is a cornered Putin, failing at home and abroad irrational enough?

Failing that, the nuclear talk is a bluff, it's just so obvious a bluff it has the same effect as telling a big lie.
#15249852
I do not disagree with this. We need to send stronger signals. That is all Putin understands.


If anyone thought US conservatives only understood force, make way for Putin.

Though I am in the US, as an Anarchist, I do not support it or any nation-state actors, my comments and reporting are intended either as 1) factual assessments or analysis of the Neoliberal West's position, and relative military strength and ability, as well as Russia and Ukraine 2) I am more critical of Russia in this particular conflict, but I also understand competing colonial empires doing what they do, and this is the first time.

I do not get the Red apologists for Putin or Modern Russia.
#15249912
Morgan Le Fey wrote:I appreciate the insight, I agree that this isn't a rational threat. The concern being, is a cornered Putin, failing at home and abroad irrational enough?

Failing that, the nuclear talk is a bluff, it's just so obvious a bluff it has the same effect as telling a big lie.


The bluff is by the west, that Putin would threaten nuclear weapons.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69390

Very much to the end:

They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.


This is simply common sense. If the west uses nuclear weapons, so will Russia. Thats how this works and always has worked. Thats why you cant use nuclear weapons. Ever. Because the answer will be total anihiliation and you'll have to answer with total anihiliation as well.

You might say - and you'd be right - that this is insanity. But its the only way to keep the USA in check.

Especially right now, when they've thrown all the ideals that drove the great US americans of the past, such as John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, in their actions, and in a believable way. Which of course is also why these two had to die.



Morgan Le Fey wrote:I do not get the Red apologists for Putin or Modern Russia.


I do not get why you dont see though western propaganda.

Right now they're trying to tell you Russia would destroy their own pipeline. Which was very expensive and took years to build. And if they actually wanted to blackmail Germany (and Europe, since many countries depend upon Germany for energy), they could just shut it off.

Regular news just gets more and more absurd with time.
#15249913
@Negotiator

I don't think Putin's nuclear talk is necessarily a bluff. Perhaps the only thing deterring him from using a nuclear weapon is the threat of a direct NATO conventional military intervention if he does use a nuke. He still might as part of a strategy to escalate to de-escalate and if NATO intervenes conventionally he might try that strategy on NATO too. If he does, shit can spiral out of control quickly. The reason that Putin is likely not bluffing is due to the fact that if he loses this war, he could very well end up losing power. Putin losing power in Russia is a death sentence to Putin and he knows it. Therefore, he might be willing to use a nuclear weapon to stave off defeat in his hopes of saving his own skin. Which in my assessment would be the truly cowardly thing to do if Putin resorted to the use of a nuke in this situation given he started this war in the first place.
#15249985
I take it Russia wants to use this as a threat to make a deal, like "if you ("the west") does not stop supporting Ukraine with conventional weapons we will use "tactical" nukes".
And "the west" will probably answer with "F'k You".

So the world will try to soothe Putin and trying to open a backdoor for him to remain in power and not lose face?
I'd say Putin's sensitivities or existential orientation is way too much taken into consideration. Shall all always and forever hold back and try to understand and feel with those poor fascists with their mental problems? :eh:
#15249989
@Wels

The problem is defeat for Putin in Ukraine is a death sentence. He is sitting on top of a large nuclear arsenal. If he faces defeat and he will be killed, what does he have to lose by using nukes? So, he has an incentive to make such threats and carry them out as an absolute last resort if he can't find a way out of this without saving his own skin. This is why I assess his nuclear threats as a credible threat.
#15249991
@Wels

He should have but he didn't. This is why absolute power corrupts absolutely. He became addicted to power and the longer you stay in power the more isolated you become from reality and good advice from other professional experts on various subject matters that are necessary to govern wisely. This is what happens when you have somebody who has absolute power. This should be a cautionary tale for anybody who thinks the way to solve their country's woes is to install a strongman to just make things happen instantly.

But this is the current reality we are dealing with is a dictator who made a very stupid decision to invade one of his neighbors in an effort to protect his own power and privilege in Russia and who has now forced himself into a corner of his own making. But he has nuclear weapons and he now has an incentive to use them as a last resort given he has nothing to lose if that means losing in Ukraine will cost him his own life.

See, this is not the case with democratically elected Presidents in the West. If they lose a war, they will not be killed for doing so in some cases (unless they are being invaded and occupied by a foreign power). In such very specific cases, this takes away the incentive of these democratically leaders to reach for nuclear weapons to get themselves out of a bad decision they made on foreign policy if they were the ones to launch a military action that was a mistake, but such a mistake would not cost them their national existence. Such democratically elected leaders can be voted out of office and replaced for making such foolish mistakes. But in dictatorships, in most cases, this ends with the leader being killed by their own people for losing a war even though that war does not threaten national existence or bring about an occupation by a foreign power.
#15249995
^ You are perfectly right.

I want people like Putin, but also his oligarchs and the common russian people, know in which kind of absolute corruption they live, and that is is not reason to be proud to support such a régime.

This should 'probably' ;) NOT be done by means of a nuclear strike, but seriously: If Putin threatens to destroy the world in Russia's and its peoples' name, they should know they are also held accountable if they do not do anything against a madman.
And i give a sh!t about Putin's sensitivities.
#15251536
Wels wrote:I take it Russia wants to use this as a threat to make a deal, like "if you ("the west") does not stop supporting Ukraine with conventional weapons we will use "tactical" nukes".
And "the west" will probably answer with "F'k You".

So the world will try to soothe Putin and trying to open a backdoor for him to remain in power and not lose face?
I'd say Putin's sensitivities or existential orientation is way too much taken into consideration. Shall all always and forever hold back and try to understand and feel with those poor fascists with their mental problems? :eh:


That sounds like a good assessment, and Hell no! I'm not going to cheerlead NATO, but I'm definitely not a supporter of this Russian government, nor its war (As I've been opposed to US Wars as well).
#15251587
You know what would be refreshing? For someone to have the moral courage to just condemn what Russia is doing without trying to blame the rest of the world for other stuff in the same sentence.

So how about it Sport? Russia fucked up and brutally attacked its neighbor with no justification whatsoever. The fact that the Americans killed some native Americans or that Rome salted Carthage has no place in the discussion of this.

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