We don’t know for sure what Putin will do in any particular circumstance but trying to create favorable situations for him will encourage him to go for more. Give him a choice between bad and worse. Push him.
People say he doesn’t know how to back down but that isn’t true. He’s just demonstrated that at Kyiv.
Putin getting dead is an unlikely outcome of this war. He probably fears going out like Gaddafi even more than dying but there’s no need to worry about him. He can take care of himself. He’ll find his own way out of this.
Been told this is because the American military is built around career noncommissioned officers who know their shit and run things in the background with officers while the Russian military is more straight top down.
No idea obv if that’s true. As my military experience is looking into what it would take for my loans to get paid
So it seems like the war is going to be a war of attrition. If Ukraine keeps getting weapons from the west, I don’t see how Russia competes with the western military industry complex. While that group is a massive burden on our country, they sure seem really fucking good at making weapons.
Russia otoh doesn’t seem like it has much in supply other than men. Don’t think that cuts it in 2022.
So if that ends up being true, that leaves Russia with a choice of trying to cut off resupply or fucking off.
I suppose they could try taking the west of Ukraine in some sneaky amphibious assault but lol at that working. Leaves the only other option as scaring the west into stopping, waiting the west out (Ukraine probably a fortress by then), or expanding the war.
the world where he uses a nuclear weapon is much closer to his demise than the one where he hasn’t. i am not saying a revolution is imminent, but if he launches a nuke, most military targets within russia become fair game for a number of actors, not just the US.
Returning to the status quo ante plus permanent sanctions is the opposite of an off-ramp. It would virtually guarantee another war in a few years. The way to de-escalate the situation is to actually resolve the underlying issues, drop our Ukraine-related sanctions, and end the conflict. The war will continue until both parties are ready to do that.
a few years? it would take a decade to rebuild russian military without sanctions. with sanctions it will be another ww2 type army of men with aks, but no modern weapons.
Maybe the war will start with a Ukrainian effort to oust Russia from occupied territory. Maybe China decides to start arming Russia. Who knows? I’ll just say that I don’t expect that Donbas will be a recognized part of Ukraine while being occupied by Russian troops in 2050. So the issue will get resolved one way or the other, sooner or later, probably as part of a peace treaty to end a war. If it’s not the treaty that ends this war that does it, it’s going to be a different war.
Ukraine is spreading reports that top admiral in charge of black sea fleet Igor Osipov, has been arrested. he did not receive wounded and rescued sailors from the moskva, but his boss, admiral of the whole navy, did.
Michael Kofman, on the War on the Rocks podcast linked here a few days ago, says it’s the other way: It’s Russia who has all the equipment atm, and not enough men. And Ukraine that has the men but not enough equipment. Russia can’t fix their issue before the fight for the Donbas, and Ukraine is short of time. If Russia doesn’t make significant gains in the next few weeks then it probably becomes more like what you describe.
And I have to give Kofman credence because of Picard.
Also, the way Russians fight, without strong noncommissioned officers, requires generals to be more involved in direct operations. It’s a different style than US/NATO.
Noncommissioned officers are another name for senior enlisted. They have more authority and autonomy to get shit done than Russian enlisted which allows for more decentralized control.
It’s different tracks. The NCOs are sergeants or whatever equivalent. They never end up formally outranking a second lieutenant (I think) but a good officer listens to their experienced NCOs
I read a good explainer on this the other day but can’t find it. I have no direct experience with the military, but my understanding is that for every 10-20 US soldiers there is a sergeant or similar, a non officer with 5 to 10+ years of experience and multiple promotions, who leads them. These are “enlisted” not officers.
A green 22 year old lieutenant outranks sergeants and is in control of maybe 40-60 men. They come from war colleges, OCS, or similar training. However, they don’t know much and are barely fit to lead men in battle. They depend heavily on NCOs to actually run things and maintain good order. A sergeant is like the manager of a restaurant who actually runs the place, where officers are like assistant regional managers, more focused on strategy and planning.
In the Russian military the junior officers also have to also act as sergeants, often right out of military college, where they have focused mainly on theory and are not really suited to lead a class of grunts, who are generally poor people from the provinces, and less capable than US/NATO enlisted soldiers.
Part of the restructuring of Ukraine armed forces over the last eight years had been to make the command structure more like NATO.
Edit: you can go from enlisted to officer in the the US but it’s not an easy path and would involve, eg, college in between.