I'm speculating...but here goes. I think this is an act of significant desperation by Ukraine. Why? It allows them to reduce the size of the 'line' that they need to defend against. Remember, Russia is on the offensive now, the mud has dried and they have built massive force to drive to the Dnieper River, with other forces poised to do more. Ukraine has reduced the avenues of advance, making it more feasible to protect the others. Forget the joke of a 'counter offensive'. The first serious part of that performative campaign in the South just failed, 4000 Ukrainians dead, hundreds of armored vehicles destroyed (personnel carriers and 56 tanks), no penetration of Russian lines. Russian losses were minor.
This is perfect for the Russians as they are happy to repeat Bakhmut until 'the last Ukrainian' as long as Zelensky wants. He lost 50k men at Bakhmut, Russians lost 10k. That's a formula for losing the war, and that's the wort the Russians have ever done against the Ukrainians. Again, we are being lied to about all this in the West. The Russians destroy the Ukrainian forces on the battlefield regularly in lopsided engagements. It's sick to continue the slaughter. They have lost more than 300k soldiers, and with another 500k seriously wounded enough to not be able to ever rejoin the fight. They have had at least 10 million citizens leave, the 40+ million number cited is too high. Ukraine is already far more decimated by this war than Americans understand. Cuz if they did, they'd realize further fighting is futile and we can't have that, can we?
I do have to really push back at the notion that 'defense in depth' is an outdated concept not really relevant to the Russians. No matter what one does with air power or soft power or cyber war, a conquering power will only win victory by eventually taking, clearing and holding territory with their forces. Watching this war has renewed my appreciation for how tough 'combined arms' warfare is in the 21st century. And it seems to me that defense in depth is crucial to provide the ability to degrade invading forces in the air and on the ground. Why would the U.S. have a two ring defense in say the Pacific if this wasn't a tried and true approach to defensive strategies?
But I defer to Mr. Faddis of course. I'm a mere amateur...I do read a lot, lol. I try to remain dispassionate about this war but I find many of my fellow Cold War raised and bred conservatives cannot help but 'port' their hatred of the USSR to Russia. So mistakenly in my view. In fact, my reading of the post Wall collapse, recent history of Russia is that the West missed a HUGE opportunity to draw Russia into the West which would have been perhaps the most strategic victory imaginable.
American ignorance plays in here, and arrogance, not recognizing just how crucial geography and history are. Just due to Russia's place as the largest nation on earth - by a mile. Russia comprises fully 1/8th of the world's landmass.Just due to its borders, it's in business and has important relationships with 14 countries, it will always be a player in multiple regions. It's defacto a major power, if not a 'great power' as the theory of 'Great Power Politics' defines it. We seem to not understand that the very idea that Ukraine could ever defeat Russia in a war is an insult to Russian identity and an absurdity. Russia will annihilate Ukrainian's forces and remove its govt from power now as it perceives correctly that Zelensky is a posing, dimwitted amateur being played for a rube by an incompetent Western elite who won't act reasonably, or better said 'realistically' (and by that I mean according to how a 'realism' based view of politics would expect a rational nation to behave).
As Ukraine is plunged into destruction and famine at scale, do you think this might give the likes of Vicky Nuland pause? We are the ideological lunatics in this war, not the Russians. Too many Americans do not see who we actually are on the world stage, they are stuck in a view of who we used to be (and never really were, fyi). But today we are so far from what Americans idealize our nation as being on the world stage. We are universally seen as insanely militaristic and interventionist with our intel and other powers when not actually taking part in the fighting in some way. We are seen as bullies and also push a radically leftist cultural and political agenda around the world, often allying with local leftists and other radicals against existing govts. We fly "Pride Flags" from embassies to piss off host nations and preach to them. Think about how much the Biden admin geeks piss us off when they speak, imagine the reaction to their arrogance when wielding U.S. power in the world?
The sad truth is that who owns/runs Ukraine was of no real interest to the actual interests of the American people. Sure, we made sure we put lots of stuff in there to 'change the facts on the ground' - labs, lots of NGOs, covert sites, signals gathering capabilities but in terms of anything other than what our aggressive nature had us place there? Nothing we needed from them would have stopped coming to us. We made Russia into an enemy, and now complain that they behave as one. How on earth could they not perceive us as so, expanding NATO by 14 nations right up to their border? And the increasing demonization of Putin and calls for his ouster by the West? Shocker, Americans - there is a consequence to dismissing the rational interests of a major power halfway around the world from us. And this is it.
We'd better grow up as citizens and recalibrate our national identity and interest to reality. We should start with our borders and hemisphere - that's a 50 year project to repair. Let the rest of the world eat itself. We have better ideas and values, but instead we let ourselves become a bullying empire. There was a time when we were a beacon. But that SOB Teddy Roosevelt and then Wilson and FDR turned us into just another empire. And so many dopes followed them along on the path to destruction.
And here we are. Inches from a war with Russia, a land war we could not win with our current forces and readiness...How many Americans know that?
I'm speculating...but here goes. I think this is an act of significant desperation by Ukraine. Why? It allows them to reduce the size of the 'line' that they need to defend against. Remember, Russia is on the offensive now, the mud has dried and they have built massive force to drive to the Dnieper River, with other forces poised to do more. Ukraine has reduced the avenues of advance, making it more feasible to protect the others. Forget the joke of a 'counter offensive'. The first serious part of that performative campaign in the South just failed, 4000 Ukrainians dead, hundreds of armored vehicles destroyed (personnel carriers and 56 tanks), no penetration of Russian lines. Russian losses were minor.
This is perfect for the Russians as they are happy to repeat Bakhmut until 'the last Ukrainian' as long as Zelensky wants. He lost 50k men at Bakhmut, Russians lost 10k. That's a formula for losing the war, and that's the wort the Russians have ever done against the Ukrainians. Again, we are being lied to about all this in the West. The Russians destroy the Ukrainian forces on the battlefield regularly in lopsided engagements. It's sick to continue the slaughter. They have lost more than 300k soldiers, and with another 500k seriously wounded enough to not be able to ever rejoin the fight. They have had at least 10 million citizens leave, the 40+ million number cited is too high. Ukraine is already far more decimated by this war than Americans understand. Cuz if they did, they'd realize further fighting is futile and we can't have that, can we?
I do have to really push back at the notion that 'defense in depth' is an outdated concept not really relevant to the Russians. No matter what one does with air power or soft power or cyber war, a conquering power will only win victory by eventually taking, clearing and holding territory with their forces. Watching this war has renewed my appreciation for how tough 'combined arms' warfare is in the 21st century. And it seems to me that defense in depth is crucial to provide the ability to degrade invading forces in the air and on the ground. Why would the U.S. have a two ring defense in say the Pacific if this wasn't a tried and true approach to defensive strategies?
But I defer to Mr. Faddis of course. I'm a mere amateur...I do read a lot, lol. I try to remain dispassionate about this war but I find many of my fellow Cold War raised and bred conservatives cannot help but 'port' their hatred of the USSR to Russia. So mistakenly in my view. In fact, my reading of the post Wall collapse, recent history of Russia is that the West missed a HUGE opportunity to draw Russia into the West which would have been perhaps the most strategic victory imaginable.
American ignorance plays in here, and arrogance, not recognizing just how crucial geography and history are. Just due to Russia's place as the largest nation on earth - by a mile. Russia comprises fully 1/8th of the world's landmass.Just due to its borders, it's in business and has important relationships with 14 countries, it will always be a player in multiple regions. It's defacto a major power, if not a 'great power' as the theory of 'Great Power Politics' defines it. We seem to not understand that the very idea that Ukraine could ever defeat Russia in a war is an insult to Russian identity and an absurdity. Russia will annihilate Ukrainian's forces and remove its govt from power now as it perceives correctly that Zelensky is a posing, dimwitted amateur being played for a rube by an incompetent Western elite who won't act reasonably, or better said 'realistically' (and by that I mean according to how a 'realism' based view of politics would expect a rational nation to behave).
As Ukraine is plunged into destruction and famine at scale, do you think this might give the likes of Vicky Nuland pause? We are the ideological lunatics in this war, not the Russians. Too many Americans do not see who we actually are on the world stage, they are stuck in a view of who we used to be (and never really were, fyi). But today we are so far from what Americans idealize our nation as being on the world stage. We are universally seen as insanely militaristic and interventionist with our intel and other powers when not actually taking part in the fighting in some way. We are seen as bullies and also push a radically leftist cultural and political agenda around the world, often allying with local leftists and other radicals against existing govts. We fly "Pride Flags" from embassies to piss off host nations and preach to them. Think about how much the Biden admin geeks piss us off when they speak, imagine the reaction to their arrogance when wielding U.S. power in the world?
The sad truth is that who owns/runs Ukraine was of no real interest to the actual interests of the American people. Sure, we made sure we put lots of stuff in there to 'change the facts on the ground' - labs, lots of NGOs, covert sites, signals gathering capabilities but in terms of anything other than what our aggressive nature had us place there? Nothing we needed from them would have stopped coming to us. We made Russia into an enemy, and now complain that they behave as one. How on earth could they not perceive us as so, expanding NATO by 14 nations right up to their border? And the increasing demonization of Putin and calls for his ouster by the West? Shocker, Americans - there is a consequence to dismissing the rational interests of a major power halfway around the world from us. And this is it.
We'd better grow up as citizens and recalibrate our national identity and interest to reality. We should start with our borders and hemisphere - that's a 50 year project to repair. Let the rest of the world eat itself. We have better ideas and values, but instead we let ourselves become a bullying empire. There was a time when we were a beacon. But that SOB Teddy Roosevelt and then Wilson and FDR turned us into just another empire. And so many dopes followed them along on the path to destruction.
And here we are. Inches from a war with Russia, a land war we could not win with our current forces and readiness...How many Americans know that?