great article in the New Yorker, an overview of Putin, and Putin's Russia. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-an...utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew The Weakness of the Despot An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West. Stephen Kotkin is one of our most profound and prodigious scholars of Russian history. His masterwork is a biography of Josef Stalin. So far he has published two volumes––“Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and “Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941.” A third volume will take the story through the Second World War; Stalin’s death, in 1953; and the totalitarian legacy that shaped the remainder of the Soviet experience. Taking advantage of long-forbidden archives in Moscow and beyond, Kotkin has written a biography of Stalin that surpasses those by Isaac Deutscher, Robert Conquest, Robert C. Tucker, and countless others. Kotkin has a distinguished reputation in academic circles. He is a professor of history at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford University. He has myriad sources in various realms of contemporary Russia: government, business, culture. Both principled and pragmatic, he is also more plugged in than any reporter or analyst I know. Ever since we met in Moscow, many years ago––Kotkin was doing research on the Stalinist industrial city of Magnitogorsk––I’ve found his guidance on everything from the structure of the Putin regime to its roots in Russian history to be invaluable. <snip> We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of nato. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument. I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had nato not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before nato existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today. I would even go further. I would say that nato expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in nato? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in nato stiffened nato’s spine. Unlike some of the other natocountries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are. <snip> How do you define “the West”? The West is a series of institutions and values. The West is not a geographical place. Russia is European, but not Western. Japan is Western, but not European. “Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted. We sometimes forget where they came from. But that’s what the West is. And that West, which we expanded in the nineties, in my view properly, through the expansion of the European Union and nato, is revived now, and it has stood up to Vladimir Putin in a way that neither he nor Xi Jinping expected. read the whole thing.
Very interesting analysis of I guess you'd say battle inventory if that makes sense. I'd still like to learn more about the run rate. I'm sort of making an educated guess on July 4th being the unofficial "we F-ed our military for generations" date, and No-worries made a good point about historically militaries losing around the 33% losses target. Point being, unless China replenishes his war machine in a HUGE way, Putin has a matter of weeks, not months or years to meet his strategic objectives.... hence why he's already going to China which is a sign of panic only 18 days in.
This is an opinion piece, from a former neo-con. Preparing for Defeat Francis Fukuyama 10 Mar 2022, 4:03 pm I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia's hosting of Sputnik. I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications: Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks. The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses. There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point. The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors. The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they've kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine. The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground. Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power? The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings. The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan. Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist. Turkish drones will become bestsellers. A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.
this is going to hurt. I use GL KT77s in my amp. https://twitteringmachines.com/worldwide-vacuum-tube-shortage-looming-russia-bans-tube-exports/
Sanctions work like this but eventually it opens up competition at home - which creates further isolation. DD
Someone posted this earlier, and I pointed out then that the dude has been rightly mocked for once predicting "the end of history" and the end of armed conflict in the 1990's. He's plenty smart but worth taking with a RAND-centric grain of salt. I would love for him to be right, just like I would have loved for him to be mostly right before. He has no military expertise, FWIW.
https://ovd.news/news/2022/03/02/russian-protests-against-war-ukraine-chronicle-events As of March 13th, according to OVD-Info data, there have been 14,853 protesters detained in 151 Russian cities since the beginning of the protests.
If not for ourselves, think of kids living in this country, in China, and all over the world beyond Ukraine and how a massive war like this would impact them.
Amazing how many people in Russia are willing to put their lives on the line to protest. It's both really sad and uplifting at the same time. That women will likely be tortured and never see her family again.
At some point NATO/USA would need to get ivolved. We have let Putin set all of the parameters of war thus far. He can invade the Ukraine without US troops coming in to help. He can bomb the cities in the Ukraine and we do not send in any air support because Putin says that will be war. We cannot send in any planes because Putin now says that will be war. Finland and Sweden cannot join NATO because that will be war. Now it is perfectly fine for Putin to try and get help from the PRC. It sounds like Putin and Russia and the PRC can do just about anything they want and we are to do nothing about it. I think Putin and Russia and the PRC have a pretty good idea that we really aren't going to do anything, so they should go ahead and carve up their neighbors.
