I trust the US assessment better in the context of total Russian military capabilities available which most people seem to think is maybe even overly conservative. The Ukrainian assessments are good context too because both factor in together to paint a good picture for us. About a week ago the US was saying that Putin has used up 5 to 10% of his military capabilities. Sounds like not that much, but when you factor in this in that was only after two weeks of war, each week uses up roughly 5% of Russia's total capabilities with a very very limited amount of ways to fund replacements for those capabilities. The reach out to China is very telling that based on these numbers even in the conservative US assessments, Putin is looking at depleted his entire military capabilities in 20 weeks of war. So if Putin continued on without replenishing his forces & equipment, his ENTIRE MILITARY could be essentially wiped out by July 4th in theory even based on conservative assessments. The way this war is shaping out, it's very likely that this could be a multi-year affair for Russia. So July 4th is a very short runway to achieve his objectives. That's why rolling in Belarus' army, having a major draft in Russia, and getting massive Chinese support in arms, food, supplies, etc. is paramount to Russia being able to occupy Ukraine for the length of time needed to have any chance at holding Ukraine in Putin's control in any length of time. Xi holds the cards here to stop this war if he wants to. The US should be expending all of it's diplomatic capabilities not really with Russia who are all liars anyways, and be working with Chinese diplomats on a path forward that makes sense for the world to get back to F-ing business. ..... I'd also note that Putin would be utterly stupid to not pull out after 50% of his military capabilities are wiped out because of the need to keep for defensive purposes. I'm just making the point as if he's a mad man who has tunnel vision and is going all in without any rationale about the future of Russia.
Russia asks China for military support, we are at a major threshold here. If China helps, NATO has to go in. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/13/politics/jake-sullivan-meeting-chinese-counterpart-ukraine/index.html DD
I’m sure there are other factors to this, but the rapid downfall of Russia on the world stage is stunning. How long before they open their own stock market again?
That would tell the Chinese what they need to know.......they value that money, their MO is usually to get others to fight while they strengthen their economy. DD
So NATO is going to take on both Russia and the PRC? That really would be WWIII and it is very unlikely the fighting would stay confined to the Ukrainian theater.
Yes, they would have to.....if China jumps in it is WW3, yep. But think of this, the USA is thinking of sanctioning companies that do business WITH Russia - many Chinese stocks could be heavily fined.....that might be taken as a form of warfare.... This is all one big old ****up thanks to Vlad........now the problem for China is their military is WAY untested.....and would probably get routed, much like Russia's would, but they have Nukes too....so it is not a good situation for the world. I believe this is the time humanity decides whether we get to survive as a species or we blow it all up and the earth shakes us off and cockroaches rule. DD
Again I don't think anyone here knows how strong Russia actually is or what exactly the type of aid Russia is asking from the PRC. This is information like so much else should be still be taken with skepticism. I'm not going to rule out that the PRC won't help Russia but I still think it is unlikely if this is really the case. It's one thing for them to give rhetorical support but another to be willing to actually give aid. I think Xi and the CCP understand that this could even if not lead to WWIII just lead to them taken a big economic hit at the time when the PRC economy is fragile.
China's stock market rout is due to Shenzhen/Shanghai lockdown more so than Russia. They have a garbage vaccine and stubbornly refuse to buy good vaccines and now are trying to fight Omicron with COVID alpha lockdowns - when all you've got is a hammer, blah blah blah. Yet another state where authoritarian dictator is stumbling and has nobody to contradict him. Authoritarianism is bad, vaccination is good, people.
I have seen several sites refer to this military analysis of the situation in Ukraine. I have no reason to believe there's any exaggeration or anything else amiss with this assessment: https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/ukraine-context-d15
