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0 pointscaskstrength3y ago0 comments

> If Sevastopol is highlighted for its warm-water access, but Novorossiysk is not, then the issue is at best unclear.

You seem to be hellbent on dying on that hill, but I don't see what is "unclear" about it since anyone can easily verify with 2 minutes of googling that Novorossiysk (as well as multiple other ports in the region) are warmwater. As someone who visited eastern Black See coast in January I can attest that water there is indeed in liquid aggregate state during the winter :)

> Even leveraging interior lines and Russia's robust rail transportation network, pivoting 150,000+ men >1,100km (roughly the distance from Kursk to Petrozadovsk) is not something that happens quickly.

But they would have managed by now if they wanted to, wouldn't they?

> Did Russia reject the proposals, or did the West torpedo the negotiations? https://www.globalresearch.ca/diplomacy-watch-did-boris-john...

Well, I think you could find some hot take on Twitter (which your linked article seems to be based on besides unnamed "multiple former senior U.S. officials") that supports any kind of wild theory on any subject. (maybe martians torpedoed the negotiations? go figure!)

However, Zelensky had always been reasonably pro-Russian until such political position became completely untenable. Remember that the guy was elected on program to "stop the war that is only going on because Poroshenko and his goons are making millions on it and we just need to stop shooting and make peace with Putin", etc. so I don't see any motivation for him to continue it instead of reaping significant political benefits from bringing the peace to his people. I guess next thing you are going to tell me is how revolution in 2014 was completely orchestrated by the West (my friends that participated are still waiting for their paychecks BTW!) and other such talking points that people with your views likes to repeat ad nauseam...

> Yet the American "Thunder Run" into Baghdad was a spectacular success, and Russia's own armored drive on Tblisi in 2008 was also reasonably successful. The tactical concept isn't the failure point, the abysmal incompetence of the force trying to execute it is.

Both of these were executed in conditions of air superiority, which is exactly what I talked about in very next sentence of my previous comment, no?

> By contrast, none of those limiting factors would apply to US airpower if we needed to peel back Russia's IADS. It's the one thing at which we are absolutely exceptional, and while Russian SAMs are still very respectable hardware, their personnel have demonstrated they are so incompetent/poorly trained....we'll probably walk all over them. Hopefully we don't have to find out.

You assume NATO will just "walk over" Russian layered defense of endless Thors, Pancirs, Buks, S-300s and S-400s in hours to allow tank blitz on Moscow? That is a quite a surprising take for me, but okay. I mean, Ukraine _slowly_ putting them out one-by-one with HARMs, but it takes quite some time...

> Rather than engage with the argument you attempted to attack my credentials and/or regional knowledge. I did not make a "portrayal of the start of WW2" [emphasis mine], as my comments contain no temporal specificity. I said that the Soviets were on the receiving end of an invasion from an alliance on their western border. That's an indisputable fact. I didn't clarify WHEN, merely that it happened, and that it colors their logic and thought processes.

> Here's another statement about an adversary within my actual Area of Operations: "North Korea was on the receiving end of a bombing campaign that destroyed every structure larger than a footbridge in the country." That doesn't imply that the war was started by a US bombing campaign, nor does it assign any moral justification to North Korea's actions. It merely provides context for things that affect our military planning today, such as North Korea having thousands of underground facilities. The entire country is an underground bunker complex. I have to constantly bring this up to shake overconfident Marine Corps officers out of their complacency, by comparing a fight in North Korea to "like invading Iwo Jima, except the defenders have fortified a territory the size of Indiana". But back on subject...

Something that is factually correct but presented in certain way is one of the best and most effective kinds of propaganda. A quote from the master of the subject:

"Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand. A propaganda that lies proves that it has a bad cause. It cannot be successful in the long run."

I believe is is important to frame the start of WW2 in the correct way. There is a reason why USSR/Russia propaganda always insist on framing that their Great Patriotic War started in 1941, and the reason is not because USSR had nothing to do with it in 39-40, quite the opposite in fact.

>The key take-away is that the physical borders of the Russian state are demonstrably insecure from the west. Attacking along the Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow axis has been used in 1812, 1915, and 1941 for a reason, all with catastrophic implications for Russia. Russia will continually act with extreme paranoia regarding its European frontier, probably until they have reliable buffer states as far as the Carpathian Mountains. Watch this Finnish Colonel for some background: https://youtu.be/CvonRMSuFpw

As a highly experienced military officer with access to all kinds of closed chatrooms with scary-looking abbreviated names what is your assessment on the likelihood of western invasion into Russia in 21st century? What would be the motivation of invaders and their plan to prevent the war from quickly escalating into nuclear? Do you believe that Russian analyst has different assessment than you on the matter? If so, why?

> Don't put words in my mouth, at no point have I implied that. Your inference of such is entirely a product of your own biases.

And I suggest that framing and wording of facts presented by you is an indication of your biases. Apparently we will have to disagree on this one.

> I also refer to Volgograd as "Stalingrad", Myanmar as "Burma", and sometimes even Ho Chi Minh City as "Saigon". Again, anything you infer from that is a product of your own mind. Unless you spell Munich as "München" regularly, and do the same for every other native-language rendition of every city, in every conversation, then demanding usage of "Kyiv" is just a meaningless virtue-signal. As a side note, do some Google Searches with the date range feature. Reuters.com was using Kiev vice Kyiv in their English reporting as late as 2019. Why did they wait 5 years after Putin invaded the Donbas to switch? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-rally-idUS... Reuters is still using "Munich", BTW. Those dastardly Anglophiles. /s

I don't see anything funny or "virtue signaling" on having courtesy to use geographical names preferred by people that live there. I didn't know that Germany prefers "Munchen", but I happen to mostly call it like that my whole life because that is how it is called in my native tongue (Russian).

> I'm not just a defense contractor, I'm also a NATO military officer. Just because I serve Russia's #1 geopolitical adversary doesn't mean I let my brain fall out of my head to be filled with whatever palatable nonsense is swallowed uncritically from major western sources. The number of field grade officers I knew who took the "Ghost of Kiev" at face value was equally shocking and disappointing. You must understand the context of why your opponent is making the moves that they make, or you will be surprised, caught off guard, or otherwise ill-positioned to send as many of them to Hell as possible. I find "Pressing 'X' to doubt" on most of the talking points coming from friendly sources more useful than the opposite approach.

So let's assume for a second you are actually who you say you are, as opposed to some FSB-dude (or even better-trained Olgino worker) and present you with very simple question: do you believe that security concerns are indeed _the main motivation_ for the invasion? no empire-rebuilding for ideological reasons and political gains involved?

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CapricornNoble3y ago

Ok, I'll concede on the Black Sea ports discussion. Further digging points to this being an area of almost-negligent oversight in common discussion. For example:

Lastly, because of Russia’s geographical limitations, the research de facto chooses two of its only naturally occurring warm-water ports. Novorossiysk in the Black Sea was excluded from the analysis because it is primarily an economic port housing only part of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF),

from: https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/JEMEAA/Journals/...

>>>I think you could find some hot take on Twitter (which your linked article seems to be based on besides unnamed "multiple former senior U.S. officials")

The article links to Ukrainian Pravda which cites unnamed sources close to Zelensky. So are the Ukrainian journalists credible in their reporting, or not?

>>>But they would have managed by now if they wanted to, wouldn't they?

They don't have the manpower, partly because in their arrogance they waited 6 months too late to mobilize.

>>>I guess next thing you are going to tell me is how revolution in 2014 was completely orchestrated by the West (my friends that participated are still waiting for their paychecks BTW!)

Fully orchestrated? No. Subsidized and facilitated by the US State Department and NGOs? Yes.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape-idUSBREA...

>>>You assume NATO will just "walk over" Russian layered defense of endless Thors, Pancirs, Buks, S-300s and S-400s in hours to allow tank blitz on Moscow?

Not in hours. I'd assume at least 30 days for a thorough air campaign, with 1000+ sorties per day for at least the first week.

>>>Something that is factually correct but presented in certain way is one of the best and most effective kinds of propaganda.

With that mindset almost anything can be misconstrued as propaganda.

>>>I believe is is important to frame the start of WW2 in the correct way.

Except the point was never about the start of WW2. It was about identifying the terrain-related strategic vulnerabilities of central Russia which spans centuries. The purpose of highlighting the WW2 experience is simply that it is still within living memory and colors perceptions of Russian decision-makers more than, say, the Battle of Borodino.

As an aside, I also argue we should consider WW2 as starting in 1937 with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Eurocentrism of the major Allied Powers is the only reason we don't.

>>>what is your assessment on the likelihood of western invasion into Russia in 21st century?

Extremely extremely low. Always has been, just look at our force posture. But I absolutely assess that we aim to neutralize Russia as a Great Power, through a mix of external and internal pressures. I'd also argue that we've deliberately destabilized the nuclear MAD balance of power in pursuit of this goal, and everything that has happened in Eastern Europe in the past 15 years is fallout from that.

The same jerk has been running Russia for 20+ years, but compare what his security concerns were in 2001: https://ibs.colorado.edu/johno/pub/Putin_911.pdf

Look at our security relationships in the early-GWOT era: https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/33912.htm

>>>What would be the motivation of invaders and their plan to prevent the war from quickly escalating into nuclear?

1) Undermine a Eurasian-spanning power bloc (reference Brzezinski's "The Great Game" for why)

2) Prevent the creation of an alternate reserve currency backed by Russian natural resources (oil + gold, Gaddafi wanted to do this before he was killed)

3) Finally eliminate the most credible nuclear existential threat to the US (China's nuclear triad, in contrast, is small and inadequate)

I don't think escalation can be prevented with sufficient reliability to approve a conventional regime change operation. The problem is, Russia's paranoid leadership likely sees things differently.

>>>Do you believe that Russian analyst has different assessment than you on the matter? If so, why?

Yes, because their lived experience and cultural environment is completely different. Their historical trauma + cultural ego/chauvinism combine to cause them to weigh the variables in the equation differently than I would. The Marine Corps suffers from similar issues, just in a different context. Our historical trauma = the Navy "abandoning" us at Guadalcanal, so we have an irrational attachment to maintaining our own air support, with stupidly-expensive/complex VTOL performance requirements. Our organizational chauvinism reinforces our refusal to source assistance from our sister services because we think we can do anything and everything by ourselves.

>>>do you believe that security concerns are indeed _the main motivation_ for the invasion? no empire-rebuilding for ideological reasons and political gains involved?

I think there must have been an assessment of security concerns and economic trends that led to "if we don't knock Ukraine out of NATO's orbit permanently NOW, it will only become impossibly difficult to do so in the future". Combined with a REALLY poor intelligence assessment of the West's reaction AND overestimating their own ability to successfully execute a regime change against the largest country in Europe, which has had 8 years of combat to improve itself.

But aren't the four (security, empire-building, ideology, politics) always inextricably linked? National leaders express "security concerns" usually because The Other Guy is interfering with their empire-building, both foreign and domestic. I loathe every time I hear a general talk about our vague "national security interests". A friend of mine used to provide communications support for Tier 1 spec ops units. He said "I didn't kick in doors with them, but I traveled with them and made sure they had working radios. What I learned was..... everything is about money, family, and power."

caskstrengthOP3y ago

> The article links to Ukrainian Pravda which cites unnamed sources close to Zelensky. So are the Ukrainian journalists credible in their reporting, or not?

Dude, I'm Ukrainian and Pravda isn't exactly considered a paragon of journalistic integrity here. In fact, they are exactly the ones who would publish articles based on twitter hot takes and "unnamed sources close to X".

> Fully orchestrated? No. Subsidized and facilitated by the US State Department and NGOs? Yes.

> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape-idUSBREA...

Sigh People with your political inclinations (usually Russia-sympathizers) always bring "Nuland tapes" like some kind of slam dunk. They were discussing who would they have preferred to work with in future Ukrainian government. What exactly is so scandalous here in your opinion? You don't believe Russian diplomats had been discussing their preference at the time? Or that there weren't any strong words exchanged in private conversations of Ukrainian government officials regarding US president elections in general and Donald Trump in particular in 2020, for example? Were US president elections "subsidized and facilitated" by Ukraine?

Also, the conversation about the subject always goes in following way in my experience:

- The revolution was fully orchestrated by the evil collective West!

- How?

- Okay, maybe not orchestrated but payed for!

- People who participated still waiting for they paycheck, where do they apply?

...

- Okay, okay, but US gave some humanitarian aid aNd hEr tApeZ!!1

I personally know a lot of people who participated directly (for free, no Nuland or "drugged oranges" involved, if you get the reference), donated money, food or medical supplies, so please spare me your lectures about western spies paying opposition and hiring nazis to overthrow the legitimate government...

> Not in hours. I'd assume at least 30 days for a thorough air campaign, with 1000+ sorties per day for at least the first week.

I don't get it. You state they are afraid of sudden decapitating tank blitz on Moscow... that will be preceded by 30 days of bombardment? How does that make sense? Won't Russia just retaliate with nukes? (again, which is explicitly allowed by their nuclear doctrine and fits well with their "escalate to de-escalate" playbook)

> With that mindset almost anything can be misconstrued as propaganda.

With your background you should understand better than most how modern propaganda works. It is not a leaflet or poster with "Tovarisch, motherland calls you to kill evil nazi Ukrainians! Apply Now!" (though that still do exist and has its place in the toolkit) but bunch of dudes on payroll performing organized campaigns in social media to distort facts, set the framing and control the narrative. Your message history on HN fits that description perfectly BTW ;)

> Except the point was never about the start of WW2. It was about identifying the terrain-related strategic vulnerabilities of central Russia which spans centuries.

Except that they didn't have nukes during that invasions!

>1) Undermine a Eurasian-spanning power bloc (reference Brzezinski's "The Great Game" for why)

Russia creating "Eurasian-spanning power bloc"? With what? Dude, they have been getting their asses kicked by bunch of poorly-trained Ukrainians with some outdated stuff (Stingers, Javelins, M777s), some nineties tech (HARM, etc.) and very few relatively modern but limited pieces of equipment (~30 launchers with GLMRS, no ATACMS). You assume US are threatened by _that_ and are plotting to prevent Russian glorious domination of Eurasia?!

> 2) Prevent the creation of an alternate reserve currency backed by Russian natural resources (oil + gold, Gaddafi wanted to do this before he was killed)

Russians seem to be doing very well in sabotaging their natural resources business empire themselves at the moment, no need to tank-rush Moscow for that.

> 3) Finally eliminate the most credible nuclear existential threat to the US (China's nuclear triad, in contrast, is small and inadequate)

Fully eliminate nuclear threat... by provoking nuclear war with biggest adversary?

> I don't think escalation can be prevented with sufficient reliability to approve a conventional regime change operation. The problem is, Russia's paranoid leadership likely sees things differently.

Or they just pretending that they are "being threatened by big-scary NATO at their border" to legitimize their conquests?

> Yes, because their lived experience and cultural environment is completely different. Their historical trauma + cultural ego/chauvinism combine to cause them to weigh the variables in the equation differently than I would.

Aren't analyst supposed to analyze military capabilities and scenarios objectively? I mean, how stupid can they be? It is not like their analysis is performed by Kadyrov and Prigozhin, right?

> Our historical trauma = the Navy "abandoning" us at Guadalcanal, so we have an irrational attachment to maintaining our own air support, with stupidly-expensive/complex VTOL performance requirements. Our organizational chauvinism reinforces our refusal to source assistance from our sister services because we think we can do anything and everything by ourselves.

Irrational attachment or people who produce and sell the necessary equipment lobbying for that? There are clear financial incentives for military-industrial complex to keep things "with stupidly-expensive/complex VTOL performance requirements" which I consider more relevant explanation than some "historical traumas".

> But aren't the four (security, empire-building, ideology, politics) always inextricably linked? National leaders express "security concerns" usually because The Other Guy is interfering with their empire-building, both foreign and domestic. I loathe every time I hear a general talk about our vague "national security interests". A friend of mine used to provide communications support for Tier 1 spec ops units. He said "I didn't kick in doors with them, but I traveled with them and made sure they had working radios. What I learned was..... everything is about money, family, and power."

When US invaded Iraq or Afghanistan they didn't try to annex the lands. And even if you suggest it would be unfeasible to annex lands thousands kilometers away, they still could have easily annexed nearby Panama in 1990, for example. Here we see very clear divergence of stated goals ("We just want Ukraine to commit to not let spooky-scary NATO in", as if NATO is actually anxious to get in in the first place...) and actions (ethnic cleansings, forced deportations, annexations).

Do you think there was any realistic scenario where NATO could have accepted Ukraine with significant chunks of the country occupied by Russians since 2015 even without the invasion? And you think Russia didn't understand that Ukraine was not going to be accepted any time soon?

CapricornNoble3y ago

>>>>Dude, I'm Ukrainian

Well, your country being invaded by an incompetent horde of brutal assholes surely influences your ability to dispassionately assess the strategic situation, and the motivations of said assholes. I can understand it's hard to hear that the people slaughtering your countrymen aren't 100% at fault...more like 95% at fault, with the other 5% being sustained multi-decade provocation from....the country that is giving you every weapon imaginable to repulse the murderers. But Ukrainians are dying due to fallout from a chain of events initiated 15+ years ago, by DC think tankers with an irrational willingness to antagonize a Great Power on the opposite side of the planet.

>>>>They were discussing who would they have preferred to work with in future Ukrainian government. What exactly is so scandalous here in your opinion?

I would argue it wasn't a conversation of "wouldn't it be nice if" but them making decisions about who would be the leadership of Ukraine, which isn't something that should be decided by US State Department officials.

>>>With your background you should understand better than most how modern propaganda works.

These days we call it "information operations" and "psychological operations".

>>>> People who participated still waiting for they paycheck, where do they apply?

Don't be naive. The bottom-rank locals in any revolution don't get a paper trail directly back to the US government. Most people who are getting suitcases of US dollars have enough sense to keep their mouths closed about where it came from. $50,000 from an American who "works for an NGO" so the Maidan protesters can buy supplies -> $1,000 spent on supplies "with their own money" and $49,000 quietly pocketed.

>>>>You state they are afraid of sudden decapitating tank blitz on Moscow... that will be preceded by 30 days of bombardment? How does that make sense? Won't Russia just retaliate with nukes?

In order to retaliate with nukes, their nuclear deterrent and MAD has to be credible. Which brings us back to why they were so pissed off in 2007 about ABMs in Eastern Europe: putting an ABM umbrella on their doorstep means you can shoot down their nukes (boost-phase intercept profile), which means the conventional invasion of Russia can proceed with impunity.

>>>>Russia creating "Eurasian-spanning power bloc"? With what?

The Russians would be the western anchor of a military and economic partnership largely led by China. Putin and Xi have been orchestrating such for years.[1][2] The Russian military and Russian natural resource exports would be the main leverage against nations west of the Urals.

>>>>Dude, they have been getting their asses kicked by bunch of poorly-trained Ukrainians with some outdated stuff

Which has left a ton of military professionals flabbergasted. The Russians have demonstrated an embarrassing level of incompetence from the highest ranks to the lowest, and I don't think even people with a low opinion of the Russian military anticipated this poor of a performance. Well-respected combat veterans have held the Russians in pretty high regard since at least the Battle of Debaltseve. [3][4][5] But the Emperor has no clothes, so to speak. Their industry already wasn't able to sustain their grand military ambitions, but it certainly can't replace their losses, compensate for the brain drain, compensate for sanctions, etc....So the Russians are feeding themselves into a Ukrainian woodchipper, basically taking them out of the "Great Game" for at least the next 10 years, if not 20-40.

>>>>Russians seem to be doing very well in sabotaging their natural resources business empire

I think Putin expected the natural gas stranglehold on Germany to keep the Europeans on the sidelines. Not anticipating the severity of economic sanctions and the rapidity of Europe switching to alternative energy suppliers is just one of his MANY egregious miscalculations before undertaking his invasion.

>>>>Fully eliminate nuclear threat... by provoking nuclear war with biggest adversary?

1) I think the policy wonks wanted to salami-slice and encircle Russia until they could get good-enough ABMs in place. Putin has reacted kinetically before that could be completed. 2) Yes, whoever is sticking to the agenda of antagonizing Russia is an asshole, gambling the lives of the whole planet.

>>>>Aren't analyst supposed to analyze military capabilities and scenarios objectively? I mean, how stupid can they be?

I don't think most intel analysts are stupid, just human. On the contrary, the most consistent problem I see with them is the same Dunning-Kruger Effect seen on HN: they are intelligent, but think they are smarter/more knowledgeable about certain specific domains than they actually are, and come to egregiously bad conclusions due to underestimating the gaps in their knowledge base.

>>>>Irrational attachment or people who produce and sell the necessary equipment lobbying for that?

Both. But in the F-35's case definitely the blame lies mostly with the Marine Corps. Our demand for VTOL capability compromised the kinematics of the entire platform.[6]

>>>>When US invaded Iraq or Afghanistan they didn't try to annex the lands.

The US approach to imperial domination doesn't rely on "painting the map" directly. We dominate people's central banks and financial systems instead.[7][8] It's all about maintaining the Petrodollar/global reserve currency system, which allows us to essentially tax the entire planet and give every country monopoly money in return. Monopoly money which we also spend on our gigantic military, which enforces the acceptance of said monopoly money.

>>>>(ethnic cleansings, forced deportations, annexations)

I'd say these are business as usual for brutal sociopathic Soviet-trained leadership, and also the only way that Russia has any hope of controlling the vast territory it's trying to bite off from Ukraine: get rid of all of the locals. Then there is no one to support an insurgency, no one to vote the "wrong" way during referendums, etc...

>>>>Do you think there was any realistic scenario where NATO could have accepted Ukraine with significant chunks of the country occupied by Russians since 2015 even without the invasion? And you think Russia didn't understand that Ukraine was not going to be accepted any time soon?

That would be the case if NATO adhered to the letter of its own laws/documents/policies. But I think the Russians don't consider that possibility as something they want to bet their future on. It would mean putting the future safety of the Russian State entirely in the benevolent hands of NATO decision-makers. I think after the 2007 ABM dispute, any perception of NATO benevolence in Putin's mind was shattered. Maybe we'll carve out a special exception for Ukraine. Maybe we'll re-write NATO's Articles to remove the "no existing territorial disputes" clause. Or maybe the US would just bully/bribe every other member into voting "Yes" to Ukraine. These sound unbelievable to most Westerners, but they are probably all realistic risks in the brain of a KGB field agent. So after Ukraine's constitutional amendment in 2019 [9], Putin probably decided to seize the initiative. If he spent a few months figuring out exactly how to respond, that would put him Summer-Fall of 2019....planning to execute an early 2020 full annexation. Then COVID hit, and Putin waited until the global pandemic was stabilized before setting in motion staging his troops for invasion (Fall 2021 with a planned January invasion)...then he had to delay AGAIN after Big Daddy Xi told him "Don't fuck up my Olympics with your war." So world events may have delayed a Spring 2020 invasion until Spring 2022, which means we're actually witnessing the fastest possible turn-around time for a Russian offensive, assuming Ukraine's amendment was the straw that broke the camel's back. It also means Putin may have planned an invasion while notoriously-anti-interventionist Trump was in office, but ended up getting puppet-on-warmonger-strings Biden in the White House by the time everything was ready. shrug Entirely supposition on my part.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/russia-and-chin...

[2] https://jamestown.org/program/russia-and-china-a-mutually-ex...

[3] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/pentagon-fig...

[4] https://warontherocks.com/2016/05/fixing-nato-deterrence-in-...

[5] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/facing-the-facts-of-...

[6] https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-alli...

[7] http://iskra-news.info/news/segodnja_nochju_iz_borispolja_v_...

[8] https://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-all-about-oil-or-all-abo...

[9] https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-president-signs-constitution...

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