I really don't get the whole "don't anger Putin" vibe, during the Vietnam War the USSR would send pretty much anything they could against the American forces. Even aircraft together with crews, as aircraft weapon systems really really require trained personnel. And no WW3 happened.
Even if there wasn't some theoretical advantage to prolonging Russia's engagement to bleed them, or the risk of current tech falling into enemy hands, there just isn't the infrastructure in place to keep Abrams etc in the fight. Hell the fuel and ammo difference alone would be a logistical nightmare.
Ammo is already supplied in western standards (for example 155mm, even precision shells) in hundreds of thousands of tons.
This works fine for America because we invest heavily into logistics in the military, but other countries probably won't be helped by having to double up their supply to most tank operations.
And even if they get an Abrams that has half the range they'd take it at this point.
Afaik, while that's true for Abrams, it doesn't hold for Leopards. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment.
We're talking oldest Leopards and Marders here.
Also, it's not just about the vehicles in the Bundeswehr. It's about rallying the Rheinmetall clients to create a pool that can be donated from various European countries, for example adding the excuse to upgrade the european fleet to the latest Leopard standard. It has to start with political decisions, though. The Bundeswehr is fully behind this proposal (it was purposefully leaked to the press early on in the war).
Not questioning this but do you have a source for that?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-german-chance...
It doesn't say that the Bundeswehr was behind it, though. Just that "other top officials" were.
Probably those Leopards Ukraine gets will need to be stationed opposite the Belarussian border and near Kiev, and could not much alter the course of the war unless another invasion were attempted there.
They go out of their way to make everything diesel. two notable examples: there is a motorcycle reconisence squad and the us army had custom Kawasaki klr made with diesel engines for them. the lycoming company had a great deal of trouble making a small diesel engine for a little army drone.
The lycoming el-005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW2T2lvQXBM
The reason is logistics, the army only wants to ship one type of fuel, and go out of their way to make that happen.
Happened with Western heavy equipment when the HIMARS and M777s were sent, happened with air defense with the Patriots, and I'm sure Bradleys will be sent next.
And for the offensive weaponry there is significant coordination among the Western parterns with many supplying equivalent weaponry at the same time (Germany supplied MARS II, which shoots the same rockets as HIMARS; as well as several PzH2000). Add on the the time needed for actually training the people..
But given that and that Poland initially agreed to the delivery and only afterwards started changing their tune, I don't think the PR angle is that far-fetched?
One thing I'd add is that Patriot != Patriot, this is a common name for essentially completely different weapon systems (air defense systems, but from different eras). Same as the S-300. So it could be that US is supplying some really old Patriots that would still work fine for taking down Kh-55 and Kalibr missiles. I don't think we know what exact Patriot battery configuration Ukraine will receive.
- After previous proxy wars that saw a country flooded with western weapons it was not unheard of for a new regime to turn around and sooner or later use all the weapons they got against western forces in turn (see Afghanistan for the most famous example). Governments do slowly learn the lessons of the past and are hesitant to give out too many weapons.
- Mobilization in Russia has seen hundreds of thousands flee the country and tens of thousands of young men have been killed or wounded. Even after the war ends and sanctions are eventually lifted, the demographic imbalances that Russia will face in the coming future will keep crippling its economy and army for decades. NATO doesn't care all that much about who rules the Donbas, but they do care about reducing the threat of Russia to its member states. Prolonging the war for another few years will see tens of thousands more mobilized Russians being fed into the meat grinder, making the future demographic problems that much worse.
- The Russian state falling apart and former provinces selling their nukes to the highest bidder would be a Bad Thing (tm), so we want to supply the Ukrainians with enough weapons so that they don't lose (and maybe win back the conquered territories) but not with enough weapons that they could conceivably make a big enough counter attack into Russia that it would fracture.
It's hard to see a case where the use of nuclear weapons would improve Russia's situation, especially where Ukraine is seeking to recover territory almost everyone other than Russia agrees is rightfully Ukrainian. The story changes a little more if Ukraine were striking at the heart of Russia, but that is not a realistic option.
You mean, pre-2014? They’ve already taken post-2014 “Russian” territory.
Ukraine is currently not close to retaking Crimea.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_annexation_of_Donets...
Nuclear weapons haven't even been used when Ukraine has hit Russias actual territory (in Russia) so why would they use nuclear weapons against Ukraine retaking its own territory?.
RE2) fair point, immoral but realpolitik, can't disagree
RE3) I'm talking about something in the order of what Zaluzhnyi recently asked in The Economist, a few battalions. This is definitely not enough to "conquer Russia", even a small part of it. The nazis used something in the order of a thousand battalions and still failed. Not to mention that I really don't see any political will in Ukraine to do that. Plus defensive nukes, Russian nukes are very very serious.
Russia will end up weaker and Ukraine will end up a bombed out shell of a country with rusting hulks from every other 1st world country scattering the countryside.
Ukraine isn't a black hole. Russia draining resources in Ukriane comes at the cost of Ukraine's own resources, in money and human lives, both economical, civilian and military.
The longer the war goes on, the more lives Ukraine loses, the more refugees (usually young skilled people) leave the country and the less chance they will return later to rebuild the country.
It's terrible for Ukraine to prolong the war.
the problem I'm saying is that the 1st world countries out there appear to be treating ukraine like a loss leader.
help them defend themselves. but that's it. No real action against Russia.. hell not really any sideway action against russia.
Assuming it was possible through increased arms sales/lend-leases/donations to tip the balance (it's not) - wouldn't a quick, comprehensive defeat followed by the accession of Ukraine to NATO and the EU be more of a destabilising black-eye for Russia than a slow-burn demographic time-bomb? Given that they've now seen first-hand the difference between being a NATO member and not, why would Ukraine then go on to burn the possibility of joining by then countering with an invasion of Russia?
If it was possible to end this quickly in Ukraine's favour without starting WW3 then NATO countries would have done so. At the very least so the the EU could go back to buying gas and oil from Russia.
A similar thing happened with the Sweden and Finland situation: NATO would prefer them to be a part of the alliance but had acquiesced to them remaining neutral. However when the war started and they decided they would actually prefer to join NATO now, the current members (except Turkiye, but even they didn't oppose it on military grounds) were more than happy to fast-track their joining procedures. Never waste a good crisis, as the saying goes.
I do think NATO could have done more if they really wanted to end the war quicker. As the original comment mentioned, the western countries have pretty large stockpiles of armored vehicles that could be sent over. There are also plenty of systems like ATACMS and cluster munitions that the USA has but has decided not to supply to Ukraine. The fact that NATO has so far declined to supply these weapons even though they could indeed be used to end the conflict sooner indicates to me that they are not interested in ending the conflict as soon as possible.
I agree that we can do more, but I don’t think we can do enough to turn the tides overnight without trucking in brigades of NATO forces and starting WW3.
But it was always planned on the stupidity of another country to escalate. And that's exactly what's happening.
In this situation you can't get rid of all the stale weapons, can't have a hundreds of new weapon contracts and can't have a perfect opportunity to sell LNG.
> At the very least so the the EU could go back to buying gas and oil from Russia.
This is not in the interests of one NATO country.
That wasn't a masterplan, but it's a result of decades of meddling in the politics of all states on Russian border. Yep, there was a disastrous blunder which allowed to the current situation to develop, but always remember what Soviets were 10 feet tall.
1. the war is being deliberately prolonged by US or NATO, despite the economic and political issues it causes domestically in many NATO countries, with the purpose of offloading some military equipment, selling a bit of LNG for a while and triggering a demographic problem some point in the future (one that didn't topple the USSR when it last occurred after WW2)
2. winning a war is hard and there's only so much hardware a country can use, and it's not clear at what point helping one country causes their opponent to turn to nuclear weapons
The first possibility involves nations acting against their own self-interests in service of a combination of small-fry trade and some nefarious bond villain style plan. The second involves some simple and observable facts.
> but it's a result of decades of meddling in the politics of all states on Russian border
I presume you are referring to Russia’s meddling in those states?
> This is not in the interests of one NATO country.
The entire EU would have been delighted if they were able to keep buying Russian gas at the price they did. They’ve just about managed to cobble together supplies to make it through the winter, and have bodged this floating LNG terminal quickly signalling what the future of EU gas imports probably look like. But make no mistake if they had a way to keep buying cheap Russian gas without throwing Ukraine under the bus they would absolutely have taken it. That ship has since sailed.
I presume you are completely oblivious on what US did in Ukraine in the last 30 years? Or it's a totally different thing, because evil Russkies and democratic Americans?
> But make no mistake if they had a way to keep buying cheap Russian gas without throwing Ukraine under the bus they would absolutely have taken it.
You are stating the reason here yet you are totally ignore it yourself. There is one country what doesn't depend on Russian gas and to which prolonging the crisis only provides benefits without downsides?
> raise Occam's razor
You need to compare comparable things. One thing is a Bond-like master plan. Other one is 'oh things hard' ignoring what this thing were baked for decades.
Yeah, because a federal state headquartered in Moscow would never fracture from the cost of a long slow war, only a quick clear defeat. (Please, please don't look at the last time a federal state headquartered in Moscow fractured and the war that set the stage for it.)
Western countries need to ask themselves: is funding a major proxy war against the second most powerful military in the world in our long term strategic interest?
Russia has a great domestic arms industry/natural resources and can resupply itself in isolation.
People need to realize that Russia's defense is primarily setup to defend its borders.
Any country other than the US would not fare well in a nuclear war with Russia, including China.
China hasn't been at war since the 70s. No one knows how well they would do in a conflict.
You simply cannot ignore nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are a great equalizer, that is why North Korea cannot be invaded from South Korea, despite South Korea having a much better "conventional" military.
Russia is a gas station that happens to have nuclear weapons, not the 2nd most powerful army in the world.
You probably heard about the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. The Moskva was made in Soviet Ukraine, in Mykolaiv. Not in Russia. Shame they mismanaged it so much since then that just a few guided cruise missiles did the job.
The military budget of Russia is a far cry of the military budget of the Soviet Union. The scale is not even comparable, arguably the per-soldier performance went down as well.
I mean, why wouldn't it be? It's directly degrading an adversary and competing power. It's a lot faster than indirect means and it's a lot cheaper than going into combat ourselves. Sure, you could spin that as "imperialist Americans using poor Slavs as proxies" but really the "proxies" want the same outcome as America. Why shouldn't people with aligned interests work together?
IIRC, since the war started, Ukraine has more than doubled its number of operational tanks, some from Soviet-era tanks from NATO member inventories, but mostly with captured Russian ones.
> I really don't get the whole "don't anger Putin" vibe, during the Vietnam War the USSR would send pretty much anything they could against the American forces. Even aircraft together with crews, as aircraft weapon systems really really require trained personnel. And no WW3 happened.
It came pretty close (also in Korea), but you’ll note that those were quite far from the US itself, and innthe Vietnam War the US still did escalate against neighboring countries, which is also something the US wishes to avoid Russia doing.
We're past that point since a long time ago.
Namely:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izmir_Air_Station in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0zmir
Now look at a map and compare the distance to the former territory of the Soviet Union and associates, and compare that with the distance of Cuba to the CONUS.
Whining pinschers...
(also, I think you should have written "Vietnam is far away from Washington", it was the USSR in the position of today's NATO and America in the position of Russia in my analogy; and fair enough it is).
As for Ukraine, they will still have a hard time reconquering the area currently under Russian control. Resources on the Ukrainian and Western side are also limited.
And how should it conclude? Who should give up what?
Conclusion is return to at least Feb2022 borders, preferably 1991 borders. We have the international law for a reason, everyone agreed to this law (including the USSR) after WW2.
This leaves the question, is your proposed end acceptable for Putin? In essence your are saying, if I do not misunderstand you, undo the last year, at the very least. What makes you believe that Putin would judge the situation differently this time, i.e. that this situation does not warrant the invasion of Ukraine?
Sadly, given the delusions of Putin, this means having to prolong the war in Ukraine. Delivering yet more decisive defeats of the Russian military is likely to be the only thing that can shock him into realizing that what he wants is unachievable and he has to adjust his aims to reality.
What do you think this political aims are?
Don't know what the current aim is, could be simply a suppression of Ukraine through continuous damage so that it slowly becomes another Syria over the next decade.
There's also damaging "the evil West" in whatever way is possible, mostly by subverting the democratic processes. They did help with a few political movements (help, not necessarily start), we have evidence for that on both sides of the Atlantic. This goal probably didn't change.
You’re so anxious to proclaim this over, when the main course hasn’t even begun.
And, having read the Zalushny interview, you should know full well that what they need amounts to yet another army, their third in this conflict pretty much. And there’s no indication that they will get it.
They still do not have the necessary military force to conquer Kyiv, which is a necessary precondition for achieving regime change. However, even a conquest of Kyiv isn't necessarily sufficient to effect regime change; you'd need to demonstrate control of sufficient parts of the country to make a rump government or government-in-exile infeasible. That's likely to require controlling more or less everything east of the Dniper, Kyiv, and Odesa. Or basically everything outside of Western Ukraine around Lviv.
In short, Russia did not have anywhere near the military force needed to achieve even their most limited war aims if Ukraine were able to put together any kind of defensive force (which they did).
This leads to the next question, why does Putin want a regime change, after all regime change is not an end goal? What other avenues are there towards the underlying goals, i.e. how could he change strategy or where could be ground for a diplomatic resolution?
The alternative is the breakdown of the system of international borders and end of US hegemony. And nobody is in the western world should be taking these for granted in favor of a different empire, despite their well-trodden flaws.
The Russian Federation retains the right to use nuclear weapons [...] when the very existence of the state is put under threat.
I would think twice if hitting Russia as hard as possible - whether militarily or economically - is really in the best interest of everyone. It is certainly in the best interest of the USA, the weaker Russia becomes, the better, more energy to spend on China, but I am very unsure that hitting Russia as hard as possible is in the best interest of Ukraine.
And yes, I said what about, so let me be clear before you write anything about Whataboutism. I can accept a world with shitty rules where accumulating enough weapons grants you an unlimited stack of get-out-of-jail-free cards, but much worse than shitty rules are different rules for different players, that is truly unfair. Let's just tell Putin that he did a bad thing and then move on as if nothing happened. Or would it not be better if we opposed the USA - and any other country doing stupid shit - as vigorously as we oppose Putin?
I am not in a position to help the Iraqis today but I am in a position to help the Ukrainians, by advocating for their victory and by direct help out of my own pocket. In general those things should be considered separately, there is no simple connection between them. But yes America got away way too easily.
About nukes - the attacking coalition has simply never threatened the usage of nukes. You can also note that during the Vietnam war there was an American general that wanted to fix their military failure with nukes, and he was immediately dismissed from his job.
Back in the real world you have to make a tough decision - your ideals versus your wellbeing. You can keep pushing Russia, maybe it will eventually cave in, fine. But what if not? What if Russia eventually tells you in no uncertain terms, one more weapons shipment and we will go nuclear? Do you call and find out whether they bluff or nuke Ukraine? What if they actually do it? Are you willing to escalate from a proxy war with Russia to a war with Russia? Are you willing to make it a nuclear war?
The current damage and loss of life and health in Ukraine is already larger than a megaton bomb placed over a large-ish city.
Also, the US & NATO voiced publicly their planned response to the usage of a much smaller (kiloton range) nuclear device, namely the complete destruction of the Black Sea Fleet. They did so in the usual way of making former generals speak to the media.
It is also important to notice that it's not US/NATO/whoever's decision. The Ukrainians will fight with whatever they have available, a short talk with anyone in the country makes this crystal clear.
It could also be neither of these, but it cannot be both.
In the "real world", Ukraine seems quite willing to face the possibility of being nuked - if they were not, they would have already surrendered to the bully with the nukes. And it's the Ukrainians ultimately making the decision to keep defending themselves or not, regardless of this specious reference to "proxy war".
Furthermore, offensive nuclear use by Russia would most likely invite an overwhelming conventional retaliation by US and NATO forces, with the goal of preempting Russia from ever doing such a thing again. The alternative would be to just sit back and watch Russia conquer ever-more westward, while suffering the same ongoing "what if" worry.
The countries Russia seeks to assert hegemony over don't particularly want to be a part of that hegemony (even in Belarus!), and Russia doesn't have much in the way of carrots to offer those countries. Offering a diplomatic status that even freezes the status quo as de facto recognition only serves to legitimize Russia's use of invasion to get what it wants--note that this is the third war this century where Russia is invading another country to do this (the prior two being the Russia-Georgia war in 2008, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014).
Without any implications whether I agree or not and ignoring the means used in case this is what Russia wants and does, purely looking at the supposed goal - is this a bad goal?
1. By convincing its neighbours to allow it to be so
2. By forcing its neighbours to accept it as such
Russia's neighbours were not going to allow the former to happen for good reason, and Russia found its possible hegemony swallowed up as its former colonies joined the EU. Ukraine is just another one of these.
Carrot didn't work, so the stick became the only possibility for achieving the same goal. But the carrot never would have worked anyway. Ukrainians toppled Yanukovich precisely because Putin had him withdraw from the EU accession process. The EU has been the only path to prosperity for young people in Eastern Europe; with Russia lied only poverty.
So Russia not only didn't have anything to offer the countries it wished to become a hegemon of, it was also despised by the same countries because they had precisely lived under Russian hegemony within living memory.
The goal was bad because the means they are using were the only possible means. Once Ukraine joined the EU, it would have been lost to Russian hegemony forever.
But now I don't actually know why I went down this thread, I don't think Putin believes he should and can become a local hegemon.
As an outside observer, perhaps, but I suspect for those in Eastern Europe who lived under Russian hegemony in living memory, even this would be undesirable.
> But now I don't actually know why I went down this thread, I don't think Putin believes he should and can become a local hegemon.
It is a matter of speculation whether Putin actually believes in expanding Russia and its sphere of influence, or merely acts so, but it hardly matters if that's the way he's acting.
Cuba probably does not feel any better about the US hegemony, they are getting punished for no good reasons since 60 years.
It is a matter of speculation whether Putin actually believes in expanding Russia and its sphere of influence, or merely acts so, but it hardly matters if that's the way he's acting.
I think this makes a big difference because the possible solutions for this conflict will be very different.
Perhaps, and I wouldn't blame them either if they didn't want to be under US hegemony either.
> I think this makes a big difference because the possible solutions for this conflict will be very different.
Ukrainians will not accept not joining the EU; migrants will risk life and limb to board rickety deathtraps of boats to enter the EU.
Putin knows this, of course, and whether or not he believed in stopping Ukraine from joining the EU or only acted so no longer matters because this war aim is no longer achievable.
So he has settled at the moment for the consolation prize of the annexation of the four oblasts of southeastern Ukraine. Again, whether he believes in a Novorossiyan project or only acts as if so in order to come across as having at least gained something, anything from this war, hardly matters. The Ukrainians have little reason to stop their offensive at the moment. They likely believe (and I do, too) that they will be able to retake all of the land that the Russians captured last year, that they will be able to drive Russia back to at least the pre-February 2022 borders. If they are correct, there is no reason to settle for anything less than a return to those pre-war borders.
Either way, this is incompatible with both Putin genuinely wishing to annex these territories and Putin acting so but in reality just trying to scrape out a win.
If Putin is driven out of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, if the land bridge to Crimea is broken, if Ukraine can still join the EU, then he will have wasted untold resources and lives for nothing. No amount of spin can blind even ordinary Russians from realising that at that point, and whether Putin believes in this project or not, he has already inexorably tied his political fate and legacy to the outcome of this war.
And if Russia is pushed back to the pre-February borders and has nothing more to offer in negotiations, Ukraine may decide to push into Donetsk, Luhansk, and/or Crimea - and at that point, it becomes worse than just a waste, but a genuine loss.
The current aim may be to continie the war so as to defer the costs of failure. While the war continuing doesn’t guarantee that (see, fall of the Russian Empire), the return and demobilization of troops after a failed war isn’t without risks from those who opposed the war and those who supported it and are angry about the retreat and those who, whatever they thought about the war, are dissatisfied with the post-war conditions, which the war continuing can often defer.
However, this was probably a consolation prize after their decapitation strike failed, and may not have been their original plan. Russian ultra-nationalists do play up a notion of 'Novorossiya' which would include everything from Odessa to Kharkiv, however; this by now is utterly unrealistic, but Russia attempted to take both Odessa and Kharkiv early in the war. With the former, they were stopped at Mykolaiv, and with the latter they stopped short of managing to take the city itself.
They also lost the parts of Kharkiv oblast (which they did not annex) they had occupied around September or so. This opens them up to counteroffensives in Luhansk oblast (which they annexed), specifically around Kreminna (where there is ongoing fighting and a reported Russian withdrawal) and Svatove.
You can start with 'totally not a blockade':
> By using the term "quarantine", rather than "blockade" (an act of war by legal definition), the United States was able to avoid the implications of a state of war.