Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[gehringer_2]

30 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

The US/ EU/ World needs to declare the Russian Administration (Putin), and thereby the Russian state, a terrorist organization/ state.

Of course think how much stronger our position on this would be if we had put Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo and Jay Bybee in jail ourselves after Abu Ghraib

Edited April 3, 2022 by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

i like this guys optimism.  That said it reminds me of the optimism I had with Arab spring.  His points about pro democracy pieces already in place are worth stressing though.

[mtutiger]

3 hours ago, ewsieg said:

i like this guys optimism.  That said it reminds me of the optimism I had with Arab spring.  His points about pro democracy pieces already in place are worth stressing though.

The fact is that Ukraine, flawed as their democratic institutions may be, has consistently put in the work toward liberal democratic values.

It's why the comparison to the Middle East doesn't work... they are largely making the choice on their own. Not having it forced upon them.

Edited April 3, 2022 by mtutiger

[romad1]

 

[mtutiger]

Poland and the Baltics leading the way, as per usual

[1984Echoes]

3 hours ago, ewsieg said:

i like this guys optimism.  That said it reminds me of the optimism I had with Arab spring.  His points about pro democracy pieces already in place are worth stressing though.

That's a torrential downpour of koolaid...

One could drown in that much koolaid...

[1984Echoes]

33 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Poland and the Baltics leading the way, as per usual

After Ukraine, they are the next ones exposed, along with Moldova, to Russian expansionism.

I say follow their lead... a complete shutdown of trade relations with Russia.

Germany won't turn off the gas spigot though. They can't. Not without crashing their own economy.

But I'm all for taking the absolute harshest measures possible with them... Kick them out of the G20, out of WTO, out of most favored nation, out of the UNSC, a complete shutdown of trade relations, send 50-75 Polish & Romanian MIG's to Ukraine along with all other Soviet era tanks, APC's, etc.... I think the US and a couple others kicked them out of MFN status... can we get more? Following the Baltics/ Polish lead...?

[gehringer_2]

29 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

That's a torrential downpour of koolaid...

One could drown in that much koolaid...

yeah, I think the bottom line is much simpler: Putin loses this war convincingly, Putin is out in the Kremlin in relatively short order. Maybe not immediately, but the gears will have started to turn in an inexorable fashion. I do believe that is the one dynamic which is probably reliable. Losing wars is pretty universally a death knell for a fascist dictatorship. That is really all that is of primary importance - which is why the West cannot back off on the hard military support until the Ukrainians have insured this is an unambiguous defeat. 

[mtutiger]

Since it appears that April 1 has come and gone and the EU appears to have called The Paper Czar's bluff on using Euros for gas transactions, is it safe to call his threats 'empty' yet?

[romad1]

 

Ugh

[Motown Bombers]

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[oblong]

58 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

the sad thing is I could totally see this.

 

[ewsieg]

13 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

yeah, I think the bottom line is much simpler: Putin loses this war convincingly, Putin is out in the Kremlin in relatively short order. Maybe not immediately, but the gears will have started to turn in an inexorable fashion. I do believe that is the one dynamic which is probably reliable. Losing wars is pretty universally a death knell for a fascist dictatorship. That is really all that is of primary importance - which is why the West cannot back off on the hard military support until the Ukrainians have insured this is an unambiguous defeat. 

Odds are Putin walks away from this with Crimea and control over the two new "independent" states.  He spins it to his people that they 'denazified' Ukraine and points out to the Oligarch's and other power players how he took the energy rich portions of Ukraine for Russia. 

I know we make look at it as a loss as we point out how bad his military looked or how many casualties they take, but I doubt Putin cares about those stats.  

 

[romad1]

 

[romad1]

 

[Tigeraholic1]

Good. Wish they could be kicked out of UN or ar least nullify their vote.

[romad1]

 

[Motown Bombers]

 

[Tigeraholic1]

 

 

[mtutiger]

10 hours ago, ewsieg said:

Odds are Putin walks away from this with Crimea and control over the two new "independent" states.  He spins it to his people that they 'denazified' Ukraine and points out to the Oligarch's and other power players how he took the energy rich portions of Ukraine for Russia. 

Isn't part of the issue though that the resources needed to accomplish these sorts of goals in a negotiated settlement would require a massive escalation from their current posture? Not to mention changes on the ground to bring order to their effort?

At least from what I have read, Russian state media has been selling this entire engagement as being small scaled in nature and one that is going about successfully. Embodied in their Orwellian framing of a "special military operation" when in fact they are engaging in all pit war.

My question is twofold: how do you ramp up resources (ie. More conscripts/troops) while continuing to maintain that your "special military operation" is limited in scope? How do you get whatever remaining units/equipment from the northern theater (ie Kyiv, Belarus) needed in the east when you have had logistical challenges throughout the entire conflict? Much of which will all have to take the long route from Belarus, along the Russia border to Rostov before reentering theater? That ain't gonna happen overnight.

I guess my point is that, despite falling victim to sunken cost fallacy and accordingly remaining motivated, it isn't written into the stars that Russia will achieve even their secondary objectives out of this... maybe they will, but it'll require a turnaround that, this far, hasn't appeared yet. 

Edited April 5, 2022 by mtutiger

[1984Echoes]

11 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Isn't part of the issue though that the resources needed to accomplish these sorts of goals in a negotiated settlement would require a massive escalation from their current posture? ...

No.

They already hold all the land that they need to to control the land bridge that they want from Russia to Crimea. Except Mariupol, which they will eventually take. They also control just west of Crimea, all the way to Kherson, which means they control the water supply into Crimea.

They will try to expand northward from the coastal strip around Crimea... of course.

Also, it is not a problem to rebuild the forces they've pulled from Kiev area into Byelorussia, and ship them over to the Eastern Ukraine/ Western Russia border (right above Donbass) and concentrate on just this one area (north of Crimea coastal strip and west of the Donbass to the Dnieper River. They units won't be what they once were, and they may only have half of those units... but they can still win some territory with numbers. There's a lot of open land between the Russian border above the Donbas and the Dnieper River. That's not where Ukraine wins. They win in built up areas/ cities/ dense suburbs, etc...

And...

Ukraine does not have enough offensive weapons to take this land back. They have mostly defensive weapons.

Unless we (NATO countries, maybe even the US) can get them the MIG's that they want, and tanks and APC's and mobile artillery, they won't be able to make any significant gains against the Russians... Whatever land Russia is able to take, they will most likely be able to hold.

[mtutiger]

2 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Also, it is not a problem to rebuild the forces they've pulled from Kiev area into Byelorussia, and ship them over to the Eastern Ukraine/ Western Russia border (right above Donbass) and concentrate on just this one area (north of Crimea coastal strip and west of the Donbass to the Dnieper River. They units won't be what they once were, and they may only have half of those units... but they can still win some territory with numbers. There's a lot of open land between the Russian border above the Donbas and the Dnieper River. That's not where Ukraine wins. They win in built up areas/ cities/ dense suburbs, etc...

Not a military expert, but Mark Hertling suggested in a twitter thread that a reconstitution of their forces is going to be really hard to achieve. And success isn't guaranteed.

 

[Mr.TaterSalad]

On 4/3/2022 at 3:43 PM, gehringer_2 said:

Of course think how much stronger our position on this would be if we had put Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo and Jay Bybee in jail ourselves after Abu Ghraib

Or over "enhanced interrogation" aka authorizing torture of other human beings. But yes, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremmer, and anyone involved in the decision to torture or who was aware of Abu Ghraib should be tried for war crimes.

[gehringer_2]

29 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Isn't part of the issue though that the resources needed to accomplish these sorts of goals in a negotiated settlement would require a massive escalation from their current posture? Not to mention changes on the ground to bring order to their effort?

At least from what I have read, Russian state media has been selling this entire engagement as being small scaled in nature and one that is going about successfully. Embodied in their Orwellian framing of a "special military operation" when in fact they are engaging in all pit war.

My question is twofold: how do you ramp up resources (ie. More conscripts/troops) while continuing to maintain that your "special military operation" is limited in scope? How do you get whatever remaining units/equipment from the northern theater (ie Kyiv, Belarus) needed in the east when you have had logistical challenges throughout the entire conflict? Much of which will all have to take the long route from Belarus, along the Russia border to Rostov before reentering theater? That ain't gonna happen overnight.

I guess my point is that, despite falling victim to sunken cost fallacy and accordingly remaining motivated, it isn't written into the stars that Russia will achieve even their secondary objectives out of this... maybe they will, but it'll require a turnaround that, this far, hasn't appeared yet. 

I think we underestimate the level of understanding in the Russian public. Most Russians have lived most of their lives under a repressive propagandist regime. The compartmentalization of what is 'understood' in public vs what is understood 'around the kitchen table' as they say, is complete. I think the bigger problem is not that the Russian public doesn't understand enough about the fact the what the regime says is FOS - if nothing else the disappearance of virtually all independent media is a clue that doesn't take long to lead one to the conclusion that something pretty big is being hidden - plus the shear volume of one on one family and business communication from Russia to Ukraine makes it impossible for reality not to seep in(out?). I think the bigger problem is that the public political culture has been pretty much ground into submission by literally a thousand years of this. They lack less the knowledge that could lead to action than a level of political hope that anything they do can make a difference -- or is worth risk of bringing the wrath of state down upon them.