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Comment by bduerst | Hacker News Reader

I'd wished they would have gone into some of the differences between a protracted was with the U.S. and Russia looks like.

It's seems like it is easier to point out how Afghanistan and Vietnam were able to draw out a long-term protracted war and out-will a democracy that (to a degree) follows the changing will of the people. It's especially easier given the lack of threat to the mainland that can be manufactured.

But what about against a neighboring oligarchy like Russia? How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?

View on HN

Chechnya is the counterpoint here: Russia crushed the local populace completely mercilessly and successfully installed a puppet in the form of the equally merciless Ramzan Kadyrov.

This would be likely the worst possible outcome for Ukraine, but it's sadly feasible. The main difference is that world didn't really care about a bunch of Muslims in an unpronounceable city (Grozny) in what was legally Russian territory, while for Ukraine they do seem willing to stand up a bit more.

It's not an apples to apples comparison.

Chechnya population in 1992 was about 800,000. Ukraine has a population of 41,000,000.

Chechnya did not receive military or humanitarian aid, and if it did, it was not as substantial as what Ukraine is receiving now. Ukrainian allies are supplying fuel, food, vehicles, weapons, training, volunteers, humanitarian aid, intelligence, etc.

Russia back then was not sanctioned economically to the extent we see today or kicked out of the banking system. For example, the Soviet Union had banks in the SWIFT system. Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon.

And, unlike Russian equipment where most of the equipment spending has been diverted to corrupt endeavors, Ukrainian military equipment works. Most Russian military equipment now doesn't meet their own specifications.

are there citations for the assertions about military equipment status?

I can't be bothered to look it up but Ukraine has spent a lot of time and money refurbishing their army after the 2014 crisis (where their army performed poorly against the separatists and Russians).

It's not "modern", but it is functional.

I agree Ukraine will be a much tougher situation for Russia to conquer and hold onto, but you also exaggerate the extent of their economic pain:

> Now, Russia has been completely isolated: Russian companies cannot do business internationally due to being unable to transfer money or process payments, the value of Russian company stocks has gone to zero, their stock exchange ceased operations (temporarily), their population are doing bank runs, their currency is worth nothing and its economy is expected to collapse soon.

Russian companies can do business with the world outside the "West", notably China, which is already a voracious consumer of Russian raw materials. The stocks that crashed to zero are the ones listed in Western stock exchanges, not the ones in Russia itself. Yes, the currency has halved, but it has done so many, many times before since 1990. So while the economy will certainly take a beating, it's not going to "collapse" entirely.

My predictions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

1. Water flow through the North Crimean Canal is restored.

2. Kyiv is surrounded from all directions. Ukranian president dies in combat.

3. Odessa is surrounded from the north, then the Russian navy attacks it from the Black sea. Population is forced to evacuate.

4. Donetsk and Luhansk become fully annexed by Russia.

5. Kharkiv is surrounded from all directions.

6. Russian economy collapses. Putin's key supporters turn against him and stage a coup.

7. Ukraine negotiates a ceasefire, then joins the European Union.

8. Unless Ukraine signed a peace treaty granting territory to Russia, Russia will be forced to give up all annexed territories.

> Donetsk and Luhansk become fully annexed by Russia.

It's always possible, but Russia started the war by recognizing their independence from Ukraine. This is the kind of thing that would happen after the war concluded ("we held a referendum and they decided to rejoin Russia"); it'd be kind of strange during a war the purpose of which is to grant them independence.

Donetsk and Luhansk already held referendums, but they were considered fraudulent.

> Ukranian president dies in combat.

That presupposes that he joins the armed forces; at the moment, he is a non-combatant. If he is shot, that would make him a victim of assassination, not a combat casualty.

> Ukraine negotiates a ceasefire, then joins the European Union.

Wooh! Just join! It takes a while to join the EU. Ask Turkey.

Would be nice if the EU sped up the accession of whatever is left of Ukraine after this war, if only to protect it from further Russian imperialism.

That said, I sadly doubt Ukraine will survive this ordeal.

The EU is an economic union, not a military union. It's not in a position to protect anyone from military threats.

I happen to believe that Russia has over-reached itself rather badly; they aren't administering any of the territory they've got troops in, including the single city they've overrun (it's being administered by the incumbent mayor). Most of their supply columns seem to be bogged down, either by resistance or by mud. The best troops they have are paras in the south, and mercenaries around Kiev. Both groups have so far failed to achieve their objectives. The rest seem to be demoralised conscripts.

You use conscripts and mercenaries as cannon-fodder at the front of your attack; I imagine Russia will bring up better equipped and trained troops once they have suppressed Ukrainian air defences, and can provide close air support.

I think it's going to be long and nasty.

The European Union is a federation of countries and they do have the equivalent of a department of defense among other institutions.

In Ukraine, once the supply lines are cut, the main cities may fall. Once one city falls, the invaders will move on to other cities and start an avalanche effect.

> That said, I sadly doubt Ukraine will survive this ordeal.

Well, not if Russian and Ukrainian diplomats can get it together and see this conflict to a amicable conclusion. Ceasefire has to be top priority for the Ukrainian diplomats (as in, liberally accept conditions that stops the war). Whatever the new arrangement for the two countries look like will also probably take weeks, if not months, to draft up and agree to.

With their risky foreign policy, NATO dared Russia, and they called their bluff on it. It is time to accept that Russia didn't hesitate, and it'd be very prudent to move to limit the damage instead. That is, NATO should refrain from making matters worse by feeding the war, as it were, by arming Ukraine's civilians and sanctioning Russian business interests, among other things.

China isn't siding with NATO, and so far, India hasn't too (it may not, since in the century gone by, Russia has bailed out India in multiple wars against CENTO / US-aided Pakistan).

In sum, this is a dangerous enough situation to escalate any further as the West has done, even if without sending its military.

Only some Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT, not all, and their currency has only dropped 30% or so, which is far from being “worth nothing”.

Yes, Russia’s economy is being severely crippled. But you exaggerate the extent significantly.

Exactly zero russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT so far. The cut will only happen on March 12th.

Source: SWIFT itself. https://www.swift.com/news-events/news/message-swift-communi...

Indeed. So I should have said only some Russian banks are even going to be cut off from SWIFT (at least as far as we know now).

The why it was possible in Chechnya is that the rebels have started fighting between themselves; specifically, the (older) Chechen traditionalist / nationalist faction was unhappy with the growing power of the (newer) Salafi fundamentalist faction.

Thus, Kadyrov - except back then it was Ahmad Kadyrov; Ramzan is his son and successor. As the Chief Mufti of Chechnya, he was one of the most powerful figures in the traditionalist camp, and one with the most to lose from Salafism gaining ground (traditional Chechen Islam is Sufi).

Ahmad Kadyrov was all in with the rebels during the first Chechen war, officially declaring it a jihad in his capacity as a mufti. Ramzan boasted of "killing his first Russian at 16" at the time. But by 1999, the Kadyrov clan decided that Salafis are more dangerous than Russians, and switched allegiance.

That is why Russia could install that puppet government relatively easily - because they had considerable local support: not just the Kadyrov clan, but numerous others aligned with it. Ukraine also has many potential collaborators, but mostly in the East, and they are already mostly in the separatist militias. I expect that Russia will recruit from those for its occupation administration.

There’s also the issue that Chechnya is about 2/3 the size of Donetsk, let alone comparing it to Ukraine as a whole.

I doubt Chechnya has the opportunity to be outfitted with a drone air force and TOW/MANPADS for any Ukrainian that wants them. Chechnya involved muslims. Ukrainians are far more European, yes that makes a difference.

Chechnya didn't have direct NATO border nations and supply lines.

I don't believe this to be the normal massive asymmetric difference in firepower if NATO arms the Ukrainians enough. IF they are given sufficient drones, I believe Ukraine could actually have a firepower and battlefield advantage.

Now, I don't know for sure NATO is going to commit to such supply. I think they'll be a bit more reserved, but the more weaponry Russia use, the more NATO will supply Ukraine. NATO may decided to supply just enough to bog down Russia but not hand Ukraine a rapid victory.

I 100% believe NATO could equip Ukraine with enough weapons for certain victory. It now comes down to whether NATO does that.

Missiles: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/03/03/ukrain...

Turkey is supplying new drones. I bet there are more on the way. Stingers and Polish MANPADS are being supplied.

These are the publicly announced numbers. Those numbers tell me NATO will supply ample weaponry.

Ukraine is a nation of 40,000,000 people. And they appear spoiling for a fight. How many of those would train to fight? 2 million? 5 million? 10 million? If Ukraine gets 1 million volunteers and full arms support from the West, Russia is doomed.

I'll be interested to see if female fighting units start getting news like in Kurdistan. If that happens, Russia is in deep trouble.

> Ukrainians are far more European, yes that makes a difference

There’s also a gigantic diaspora: I had no idea I knew so many Ukrainians. Also the amount of posts on LinkedIn where people point out some portion of their dev team is in Ukraine, and now some Product Manager in Spokane is all in on supporting Ukraine because his front-end guy is in a bunker

My wife is in a similar position here in Oregon. Two of her direct reports are Ukrainian, and one just took a leave of absence that wasn't explicitly "I'm off to defend my homeland," but it wasn't explicitly not that, either.

> Ukraine because his front-end guy is in a bunker

Those are two very different fronts. How grim.

> I 100% believe NATO could equip Ukraine with enough weapons for certain victory

Also curious to know how many unofficial troops from NATO countries show up. Russia’s neighbours aren’t fans, and bored Slav, Baltic, and Scandi kids who did military service and wanna be heroes showing up in great numbers isn’t outside the realm of possibility

The announced figure the other day was 16000. That's two to three days after the request. It's being connected via reddit[0] and other platforms (which can be found from Reddit).

[0] https://reddit.com/r/volunteersforukraine

> 16000

That's about two infantry divisions - not to be sneezed at.

And since Chechnya was mentioned, I recall the war nerd discussing that if there's a conflict with Russia, there is the possibility that Chechens show up.

And he emphasized: They are BADASSES. Apparently they were winning the war with Russia until Russia cut a "Red Wedding" deal with the non-muslim contingent of the Chechen resistance. I believe Chechens were in ISIS/Syria and were basically the most effective soldiers.

As you said this could become a perverse version of ISIS: a call to arms to anyone that wants a piece of Russia, from bored teenagers to other conflict regions.

Maybe it's been sufficiently long that those soldiers have finally aged out, or maybe they haven't.

If Ukraine/NATO really is offering 45000 Euros in bitcoin per Russia soldier that surrenders for POW status, then they would probably provide pay to experienced anti-Russia fighters.

If you are a -stan with issues with Russia, then this is a golden opportunity: a possible "death blow" to Russia militarily and economically, possibly cause regime change, and possibly destroy any appetite for war by oligarchs and people in Russia.

I think I read an assessment that mobilization of the population would yield 900.000 fighters.

> NATO may decided to supply just enough to bog down Russia but not hand Ukraine a rapid victory.

If you read a bit more of ACOUP, it's clear that the only path to a "rapid victory" is a set battle against the Russian armed forces, resulting in a decisive defeat for Russia. Even with copious supplies from the west, Ukraine simply couldn't do that. Even if NATO decided to pile in with divisions and air-cover, a rapid victory seems unlikely.

> IF they are given sufficient drones, I believe Ukraine could actually have a firepower and battlefield advantage.

The Turkish drones seem to be wreaking havoc on Russia already.

Checnya is less than 2 million people and less than 20k square kilometers.

Ukraine is 20 times larger. It is impossible for the Russian forces to hold by force, the population should agree to it or a puppet regime ia installed that is accepted by the population.

Now holding the east part, that seems reasonably easy, and to me it's clearly the end goal, the rest is just putting yourself inal a strong negotiating stance.

Macron said yesterday that Putin's end goal is to conquer all of Ukraine, not just the east.

That’s what Putin said, so you can just disregard that.

What motive would Putin have to tell Macron that he is more greedy than he actually is?

We know he hates to look weak, so if he "settles" for eastern Ukraine after saying that, he's going to look weak.

> Now holding the east part, that seems reasonably easy, and to me it's clearly the end goal

Judging from what Putin has actually said, the end-goal is much more expansive than that. I believed that a couple of weeks ago; but recent comments to the effect that Ukraine is a bogus state have changed my mind.

he said that, but I would rather believe that is a negotiation tactic than an actual aim.

Recognising chunks of Ukraine as "independent republics" and then moving troops in isn't a negotiating tactic. Encircling the capital isn't a negotiating tactic.

Kadyrov, a puppet? Russia was badly losing a war, and only managed to achieve peace by siding with one of the feuding clans and paying exorbitant tribute to it.

Kadyrov is totally uncontrollable, makes outrageous criminal statements, yet the Kremlin can't do anything to him because he has a very big private army. Chechen operatives act all over the country and are basically untouchable, kidnapping people even from the police custody without repercussions.

Russia _did_ have a puppet in Ukraine, but he was ousted in a populist uprising in 2014.

Well, Afghanistan was able to defeat the Soviets. I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful.

Edit: some folks have mentioned several, so let me be more specific: guerrilla wars to expel an invading power. This would exclude several attempted Marxist revolutions, but good points made about Chechnya, as well as Northern Ireland and Kenya which failed to expel colonial powers.

> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful.

I can think of one, and unfortunately it was the Russians who won it, but Ukraine is much bigger and better equipped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War

The Mau Mau rebellion against the British in Kenya wasn’t successful.

Neither were the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

The rebellion itself didn't succeed, but it's widely acknowledged that the brutality and violence used to put it down meaningfully contributed to Kenyan independence.

The blog post specifically mentions Che Guevara's two failed revolutions as examples. Some more modern examples I can think of would be FARC in Colombia, or Shining Path in Peru, or LTTE in Sri Lanka. "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland would also probably qualify.

> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful

Because failed ones don't last long enough to be remembered. There was a guerrilla insurgency in Iraq after Saddam's government fell, for example, which folded pretty quick.

Uh.... I think by any measure the insurgency in Iraq was successful in pushing out the US.

A civilian elected government has been running Iraq since 2005. US wasn't "pushed out" by insurgents but rather left in a planned gradual transfer of power. If anything, militant groups in the region (like ISIL) actually extended US military presence there by many years.

That's not true--the examples I gave in my sibling comment are all decades-long insurgencies (which is why I can remember them).

In general, the more likely reason is that most people tend to be resolutely incurious about foreign politics. There are, IIRC, 150-ish ongoing armed conflicts in the world right now (and this count is far lower than it was 50 years ago!). I suspect that even reasonably well-read Westerners would struggle to identify even a dozen of them. So people selectively remember the ones that involved the major powers (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam) while completely ignoring ones that don't (so, how about that rebellion in Aceh that failed...).

Interesting note there. One of the leaders of the early insurrection was Muqtada al-Sadr [1]. There's a lot that's happened in between including him going into exile in Iran, returning, the US droning his house when it was empty to send a message, and much more. But suffice to say the conclusion of this story is that he's now becoming the dominant political force in Iraq. This is particularly relevant today since I think given the chaos around the world, there's a real chance that his name will come to be much more well known.

But the point of this is that unpopular occupation forces trying to impose their will never really works in anything even remotely like the long-run. The only times it can work is when a genuinely popular (and not artificially propped up) leader is able to find common ground with the "enemy". For instance one of the best decisions we made after WW2 was with the leader of Japan, Emperor Hirohito. We actively avoided not only attacking him, but did not try him for war crimes, and let him retain control of the country after the war. He chose to lead Japan in a different direction following their defeat, and everybody came out all the better for it. It's very likely that had we executed him, or installed a puppet, that Japan's relation with the west would be radically different today.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr

So technically the US should have kept Saddam, forcing/swaying him to become a Democratic government?

Yes

I don't think this is a good comparison.

The Emperor of Japan was part of a very old, very well established monarchy; his legitimacy in the office of Monarch far outweighed that of Saddam's in the office of Tyrant.

> guerrilla wars to expel an invading power that hasn't been successful

Palestine?

They have expelled the invading power from their own population centres, Gaza particularly.

Until Israel gets mad and rolls and in stomps their shit again.

Afghanistan won because they literally lived in caves and herded goats; they had nothing to lose but their lives. Modern adversaries to Russia have plenty to lose.

Well, they could also lose their caves and their goats, so it was more than their lives. Let's not underestimate the sophistication and resilience of less economically developed societies.

Afghanistan won because the insurgents could be resupplied and given shelter by Pashtun pakistanis next door and because every part of the country is surrounded by mountains with very few, very easily disrupted mountain passes.

When your reliable supply lines are all flights, costs will seriously mount up.

Plus, they had stingers. They could raid and retreat essentially forever.

> I can't think of a guerrilla war since WWII that hasn't been successful.

Modern Western countries haven't had much of a history of successful insurgencies. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were both invaded by the USSR (along with Warsaw Pact allies), and it didn't result in an insurgency. We shouldn't exclude WWII either, since that was the last time many of Western nations were invaded by outside powers. The resistance movements never seriously threatened Axis rule in Western Europe.

Everyone seems to be expecting a large Afghan style insurgency, but I think it's far from certain that it will happen.

The 1956 Hungarian revolt happened.

Not successful.

I think people miss the point when they try to make the case that Ukraine can win, NOW.

The thing is, if the Ukrainian is really again a Russian regime, and it sounds like they do (if because I'm not them can't speak for them), then Russia has already lost. In time, whatever puppet state that it creates, will fall. America learnt this lesson too many times, most recently in Afghanistan.

The name John Mearsheimer has come up recently and I think one of the key points in his theory is solid: nationalism triumphs everything else, be it America branded liberalism, or communism.

When he says "nationalism", it's actually not what we often think, in his theory it's used in the narrow sense that is the need to determine one's own country's destiny, as opposed to having to obey a foreign power.

The Tamil Tigers were defeated in 2009.

Afghanistan defeated the Soviets and the United States.

Was it really a defeat for the US? Seems more like the US realized the futility of nation building there and just withdrew, hoping the propped up Afghan government wouldn't just surrender or flee.

That excuse for defeat can be given by any nation who withdrew from Afghanistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...

Result: Taliban Victory

It wasn’t a victory, it wasn’t a draw.

It was a defeat, no matter what coat of paint you put on it.

It absolutely was a defeat, but the asymmetric numbers get worse every year for a guerilla force fighting a huge war machine. The ratio of deaths for the US versus the Afghans was staggering...the Taliban won, but at a huge cost of life.

I don't know if there's the same cultural will in Ukraine to absorb that kind of pummeling.

Afghanistan was different enough in that it wasn't a unified Afghan government or population fighting against a Soviet invasion in the same style of aggression of what we're seeing from Russia in Ukraine. A new local Afghan government that had recently sized power in a coup begged the Soviets to help them consolidate power in a civil war in that the Soviets knew would only escalate through international intervention in favor of their allies opposition.

I see what you did there ..

=> Cunningham's Law (a submission earlier this week) playing out nicely in the replies.

ref., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_law

Syria?

"How do you out-will the singular authoritarian leader and/or his small group of oligarchs?"

If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within. We can see that with some of the Russian soldiers surrendering.send me to Ukraine? OK, I'll just surrender so I don't have to fight and die for a bogus cause.

Unfortunately, it seems that Putin is fairly popular in Russia.

Anecdotally, there's been an HN commenter around who claims to be Russian and who buys Putin's line that something had to be done about NATO. Apparently they are not alone:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/europe/russia-reaction-war-uk...

> But Arina's mother sees it completely differently: "My mom believes everything she sees on TV," Arina says.

> "She believes that it was a necessary measure by Putin because there are weapons surrounding the country...there's a threat from the West, which is why Putin is doing this."

Sanctions may be indiscriminate, but not as indiscriminate nor as final as shelling apartment buildings. There seems to be a significant slice of the Russian population who are entirely too content with the current state of affairs, and who need to be woken up to the ungodly horror being unleashed in their name.

So long as the people with guns have their bellies full, not much will happen in Russia. Just like as much as the world wants North Korea to change and become more free, most of the people enforcing the law can’t imagine living any other way and they’re happy to maintain the status quo.

Maybe a rapid decline in quality of life will be enough to turn things around in Russia. Or maybe just enough people are so used to struggles there that nothing will change. North Koreans went through decades of wars and invasions—the people there haven’t known that life can be better, so they don’t feel a reason to revolt. People in Russia who were alive during pre-Putin era struggles most likely do really see him as lifting the country to a higher level. The possibility for Russia becoming a new NK-style state isn’t completely impossible.

The USSR collapsed over 30 years ago. There's a lot of people who were born after that, or who saw their quality of life improve after it happened. I bet you not many of them want to go back to those days.

The death rate in Russia went way up after the fall of the USSR.[1] Democracy and a free market did not deliver a better life for the average Russian. It's important to understand this, because it's part of why Russia ended up with an autocrat.

[1] https://akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/life-expectan...

That death rate is IIRC mostly caused by increased alcoholism, so it may have more specific causes than just “democracy and the free market”.

Could you be more specific?

This article is a response to a critique, by the original authors. It should have cites to the debate: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668136.2012.6...

Wouldn't despair about their predicament or future lead to alcoholism? Something that could be related to regime change.

Note that the Russian economy was still organised around a Sovjet planned economy. Just because you change the legal system doesn’t mean you have fixed the economy instantly. For example there were still monotowns, where the whole town was centred around a single factory. These towns are extremely fragile in a market economy.

> who saw their quality of life improve after it happened.

The end of the USSR is widely considered a humanitarian catastrophe because after the economy colapsed, people had no food, no medicines, no order, it was a wild west for several years (my wife was there, she tells me all about it)... where the hell did you "learn" that people's lives improved after the USSR fell??

It really depends where exactly you were. And quite a lot of people did in fact seen their lives being improved in the long term.

Access to many viewpoints and sources of information does not mean much, as we see here in the U.S. The idea that we just need to shower Russia with the "right" information to get them to turn against Putin is simply a fantasy. However, it's still worth doing as it will help some.

I don't expect plain rhetoric to change the minds of Putin supporters.

Unfortunately, we have to resort to economic pain, which is quite grim even if it's not having your leg blown off and your home reduced to rubble: businesses ruined, working class populations impoverished, massive uncertainty...

It's also not guaranteed to work, as aggressors and oppressors are adept at wallowing in self-pity and inventing victimization narratives.

What's changed for me is that I've come to believe that the Russian population is a bit more at fault here for buying Putin's bullshit.

Whatever the truth of that ('she believes it was a necessary measure ...'), as someone remarked "Putin has done more for European Defence in three days than anyone's done in 30 years". The reaction of the European countries has been astounding.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/03/putin-will-live-...

Sadly paywalled.

As of February 26-28, roughly 50% of the Russian population believed it to be a justified war, according to this poll (which is as independent as it gets in Russia):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ym9e7ot4t-JVBDqtK0m4n6iYPqd...

I thought it was much more than 50%, had been lead to believe the majority of the Russian people supported this war. As the Russian economy tanks, mothers find out their sons died for a pointless war where civilians are getting killed, and the notion that Russia is being internationally shunned starts to sink in, this number should drop.

Hopefully that makes a difference. I do think it's smart to do everything we can to sanction Russia's rich. Those people have power. They're the ones backing Putin. If they start to feel the pinch, feel that the party is getting ruined because of Putin's mood and his thirst for power, they might do something about it.

I think a lot of Westerners are forgetting what "no free press" means. Your average Russian citizen - who does not have foreign bank accounts etc - may not even find out the details about the sanctions. Their quality of life will suffer, but their TV will feed it into resentment of the West.

In other comments, people are talking about how it's impossible for Russia to control all communication in Ukraine because there's always a way for the "resistance" to exchange information in a way the enemy cannot stop... yet, we also see comments like yours that assume Russians have no way to get information from non-state-sponsored actors, despite them being still mostly connected to the Internet (despite Ukrainian requests to remove them) and a simple VPN would give you full access to any website you may want to visit (and that a lot of international sources are still available in Russia - they just now cut off the BBC, for example, but it had been available the whole time before that).

Both are true. It's very hard to control information exchange to such a degree that determined persons cannot find a way to exchange information. But your average citizen doesn't have any reason to be determined - they consume information from mainstream media, and so long as it isn't obviously off, they aren't going to double-check every bit of it.

Thus, over time, you can gradually create a bubble, lie by lie. I remember the early 00s - freedom of press wasn't gone overnight, they went after the more popular stuff first, and then gradually it became more and more marginalized, with the last vestiges being swiped away only now. But with every independent TV channel or newspaper erased, more and more people ended up in the bubble.

>I do think it's smart to do everything we can to sanction Russia's rich. Those people have power. They're the ones backing Putin.

How? The oligarchs had a head's up regarding the start of the war and no doubt took measures to secure their wealth abroad and even get dual citizenship so the west can't touch them.

There was a TV show where one of such oligarchs came to tears for losing two mansions in Italy, apparently :D so I don't think they are very happy or had time to "fix" the issues, at least not all of them.

>There was a TV show where one of such oligarchs came to tears for losing two mansions in Italy, apparently

Well yes, sure, if we're talking about some dumb corrupt politician who blew his illicit gains frivolously on luxuries, out in the open, the second he landed on piles of cash, then yes, same how we have lottery winners who lose everything in a year and crypto speculators who also were left holding the bag, etc.

My point is that stupid and financially irresponsible people are easily parted with their money, especially if it's from illicit gains and have no knowledge how to launder it or invest it, but I can assure you that the smart money took enough timely precautions to keep their dirty wealth intact.

As an example, the west doesn't even really know where most of Putin's assets are, or what they are.

We thought that about Belarus, and Syria. All that happens is the regime becomes as brutal and oppressive as necessary to stay in power. The USSR broke up because it was held together by an ideology and political structure which fragmented. Putin doesn’t have or need an ideology, any more than Assad or Lukashenko do.

> If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within.

We all hope that, but it's not been effective for north korea and basically everywhere else. Waiting 70 years as for the Soviet does not seem an ideal outcome.

True, but what escalations would be preferable? Nuclear war, protracted ground war with near-peer adversaries, WW3, etc are not ideal courses of action either. Assassinations could be an option, but would likely have to come internally to have the desired affect.

Personally, I don't understand this point of view.

Most despotic leaders are not well liked by the people. There are so few examples of the people rising up to depose a despot. I actually can't even think of one that would apply in this situation.

He is probably insulated with layers of old Soviet/KGB true believers/cronies.

Somehow the common person is going to penetrate that? I just don't see it.

> Most despotic leaders are not well liked by the people.

Are you sure? This is not at all obvious to me.

> If the Russian people are unhappy enough, regimes change from within.

Apart from when the US got the UK and France to kneel and kiss the ring in 1956 with Suez when hav sanctions worked? Grenada? North Korea and Iran have been under crippling sanctions for a long time. It leads to plenty of civilian suffering but there’s not much record of success in forcing governments to do what the sanctioners want.

Sanctions got Iran to sign the nuclear deal which was a huge accomplishment (unfortunately later torpedoed by Trump for no reason, but that’s not relevant to the point).

They don’t have to topple the government to be effective.

That said, I do think there’s not enough public recognition of how hostile and damaging sanctions are to innocent normal people.

> unfortunately later torpedoed by Trump for no reason

Not just Trump, but the entire Republican Party and its voter base. And not for no reason: the reason is that it's easier to keep Iran as a public punching bag than try to deal with real and far more difficult strategic problems like North Korea, Russia, or China, all three of which seized the opportunity to pursue their strategic goals while the U.S. was distracted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran took that opportunity, too--the wars provided both the impetus and the time to pursue a nuclear program.

Eh, this isn't exactly true. The three main reasons were that the deal did not have permanent enforcement, Iran is still pursuing ballistic missile development (not covered by the deal), and they provide support to the Hezbollah terrorist group (although this is declining and technically done through a non-government group).

I'm curious, what strategic goals did North Korea, Russia, and China achieve during that time that the US should have dealt with, and what could be have done that we haven't already?

This is exactly the short-sighted mindset that torpedoed the deal. It was explicitly designed to deal with nukes not make Iran behave in general. I think the hawks want to keep the dream of regime change alive. It was a win thrown away for ideological reasons.

"It was a win thrown away for ideological reasons."

That's one opinion.

I think people on both sides are calling the others shortsighted.

For example, what enforcement is there after the 10 year period expires? They weren't forced to forfeit or destroy their Arak facility. This means they could just start using it again.

In my view, the deal could be beneficial, but could also end poorly. The deal doesn't seem to embrace a systems thinking mindset of how all the pieces fit together. The downside is that if we allow the economy to expand and for Iran to accumulate resources during a 10 year period, then reimposing the sanctions will be less impactful (we can only hope that the people would be upset enough to pressure them goverment). In theory, the deal will benefit Iran in the power dynamics, and only benefit us if they decide to follow through in the long term. So the outcome is almost completely at the discretion of Iran, and provides them guaranteed benefit, with no guarantee to the others.

In my general experience, focusing on a single issue, or component of an issue, is the way we come to short sighted solutions. This doesn't mean that we can't do things in an iterative fashion, but we need to have a plan and vision for how that policy will work long term in relation to a variety of other policies and potential events. I don't see that type of strategic thinking with this agreement, and that's even ignoring the terrorist ties.

Maybe apartheid South Africa? Sanctions plus international opprobrium eventually worked.

That's a great example, especially as South Africa had nuclear weapons at that time.

Um, South Africa.

[Edit] Also, I don't think the Russian people have the power to overthrow their rulers. Russia is quite good at repressing dissent. My guess would be that any leadership change in Russia would come about because military leadership decided it had to happen.

i've seen this sentiment echoed lately and it seems patently absurd, US presence in iraq and afghanistan was massively unpopular by the middle of the bush administration; it took another 14 years for us to leave. it seems like foreign policy is still trapped within the fallacies of Giulio Douhet and Curtis Lemay, simply replacing firebombing with starvation. not to mention that the economic devastation and looting of the 90s was how we ended up with Putin today.

The USSR was far more willing to use extreme violence and collective punishment in Afghanistan than modern Russia seems to be in Ukraine, yet they still ultimately had to pull out and leave their ally to its fate. It's hard for any government to justify to its constituents, whether they be voters or unelected state officials, why so much blood should be shed for the achievement of no real goals.

Also, I'm no military expert but aren't both Afghanistan and Vietnam particularly challenging locations in which to conduct large-form warfare over a protracted period of time?

I don't think Ukraine benefits from the same natural advantage, what with its paved roads that easily grant passage to forty-mile-long Russian convoys

In Vietnam, the majority of the people supported the Viet Minh, otherwise the USA and the dictator of South Vietnam would have allowed the elections for reunification agreed to at the 1954 Geneva Accords to go through as planned.

It took 20 years for both Vietnam and Afghanistan (in the American case) to finally convince foreign occupiers to leave. Putin is very unlikely to still be alive in 20 years, so it's more a matter of convincing whoever or whatever follows that the prospect of even more decades of occupation is not worth it. It's unfortunate it takes that long for regime change to finally get over the sunk cost fallacy of the original invaders, but some sort of change will eventually come. When it happens, we'll get to find out how much Putin's cronies really agree with him versus just being afraid of publicly disagreeing as long as he is still in charge.

you assassinate him

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