Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

I am somewhat philosophical about the nuclear threat. As has been said the West cannot bow to it, so in practice it should mean very little. If the Russians want to start the apocalypse they can do so at any time. This has been a basic fact since before I was born. A bit like a planet killer meteorite it would be sad but whatchagonnado. I think it's unlikely that Putin launches a nuke in a situation where there isn't open combat between Russian and NATO forces. And if he attempts to do so anyway, our last hope is that his palace guard decides to grant him suicide without making it a collective one.

Yup.

I'd rather not my family and everyone I know be incinerated in a nuclear blast - or have to live through a post nuclear wasteland for that matter - but there's no backing down IMO.

[Jacob]

I find it remarkable the people who seriously seem to suggest if Trump was President Putin wouldn't have done it...that he only did it because of Biden's "weakness."

The only reason he may have been less likely to have invaded had Trump been President is he would not have felt any pressure that the West was going to integrate/help Ukraine more, so he may not have felt much pressure to act (although I feel like at the end of Trump's 2nd 4 year term he'd start feeling a lot of the same pressures.)

Trump was calling Putin one of his "best friends" in 2013.

He simped to him for most of the 2016 campaign and most of his Presidency. He once said he "trusts Putin more than our own intelligence." Yeah, that was the guy who was going to back Putin down.

I take it for granted that Trump would just have handed Ukraine to Putin by whatever means possible.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As Brain says to some degree the nuclear threat is nothing we haven't lived with since day 1 of our lives. While it's weird hearing it in 2022 there's nothing about Putin's nuclear saber rattling that is different from Soviet era stuff. Obviously it's awful that this is the direction we're going back in now, but the calculations are no different than in the Cold War.

[Jacob]

Apparently, and this blows my mind, Sweden will sen 5000 (five thousand, one five and then three zero's) AT4's (Carl-Gustav) to Ukraine.

That is actually a substantial weapons cache for anyone, let aloen Ukraine.

Russia has a lot of tanks compared to Ukraine (like by a factor of 10, I think). But 5,000 AT weapons could make a difference there.

[OttoVonBismarck]

From a pure military perspective I'm still boggled by Putin's decisions. The invasion force he built was about the size of the U.S. forces built for Operation Iraqi Freedom (Gulf War II)--that was a war in which we expected the Iraqi Army to collapse almost instantly--which it did, and we had more intelligence suggesting it would because we had literally reduced Iraq to a barely functioning country with 10 years of crushing economic sanctions.

And even then it is now largely agreed that while our forces were sufficient to knock out Saddam's armies, for our longer term strategic goals in Iraq we went in with too few soldiers and should have built a much larger force initially (or better yet never invaded, but that's a different discussion.) So the size of Putin's invasion force in itself has some precedent, but only if you really believe Ukraine is going to immediately collapse. But even if you believe that, the U.S. showed quite quickly in Gulf War II that our forces while appropriate for knocking out the Iraqis were insufficient for occupation. Every sign to me suggests Putin really expected most Ukrainians once they saw a big scary war, would give up and acquiesce to Russian rule.

[Threviel]

Apparently, and this blows my mind, Sweden will sen 5000 (five thousand, one five and then three zero's) AT4's (Carl-Gustav) to Ukraine.

That is actually a substantial weapons cache for anyone, let aloen Ukraine.

Russia has a lot of tanks compared to Ukraine (like by a factor of 10, I think). But 5,000 AT weapons could make a difference there.

As a comparison the UK sent 2000 of a more advanced AT weapon before the war. Belgium sends 200. It is a very substantial gift, even more so because it comes from a small power and not one of the biggies.

It is also the first time since the Winter War and the second time in a century that Sweden takes sides in a war.

[Jacob]

I'm quite certain that Putin bought into an analysis that says "the West is in (terminal) decline". I think he's been hammering in the cracks of Western society for quite a while, and that the cracks have been getting wider in the last decades - whether due to the Russian efforts or due to the internal dynamics of our societies.

If I were to guess, I think Putin's attack is motivated by some combination of his personal insecurity and/ or ambition, opportunity timing (as others have said in this thread, the situation vs Ukraine would only get worse from his perspective), and a feeling that a quick decisive blow would only magnify internal Western fissures (perhaps fatally, even - and if not, there's always the next time).

It is heartening to see the West rally like this. Feels like maybe the terminal decline diagnosis is a little less solid than folks like Putin (and Xi Jinping) may have thought and wished.

[Jacob]

As Brain says to some degree the nuclear threat is nothing we haven't lived with since day 1 of our lives. While it's weird hearing it in 2022 there's nothing about Putin's nuclear saber rattling that is different from Soviet era stuff. Obviously it's awful that this is the direction we're going back in now, but the calculations are no different than in the Cold War.

It's new for people under... what 30? Maybe under 40, even. Something like that. But yeah, it's not new.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something to keep in mind for those who are worried about "Russia turning it up", what that actually could mean. Putin built a deliberate invasion force, so that in and of itself telegraphs to us how many troops Putin thought would get the job done, and also that he was okay committing to Ukraine. A shift to an even broader scale war, say one that isn't trying to capture key points but is trying to roll over the country with a unified infantry front, would require major re-deployments of large units of the Russian army that right now are not setup or positioned for this, and the logistics are not setup either. It will also turn this war into a war fought along the lines of the dreaded World Wars of old in which high casualty counts for Russia are absolutely guaranteed.

From a strategic perspective, it also likely does not move you much closer to what we can assume is Russia's desired strategic end-state--a Ukraine that is pliant and compliant with Russia. Instead it actually increases the chance of the occupation being long and requiring a high level, permanent military presence. It's hard to see the result of the war as being a net positive for Russia if all it has "won" is an open ended occupation commitment that will cost more in money and strategic attention than any benefits Putin could ever wring out of controlling Ukraine.

[Sheilbh]

As a comparison the UK sent 2000 of a more advanced AT weapon before the war. Belgium sends 200. It is a very substantial gift, even more so because it comes from a small power and not one of the biggies.

It is also the first time since the Winter War and the second time in a century that Sweden takes sides in a war.

From what I can see from Ukrainians online - they are very appreciative of anti-tank weapons and the Turkish drones. So this seems like it'll be incredibly helpful.

As Brain says to some degree the nuclear threat is nothing we haven't lived with since day 1 of our lives. While it's weird hearing it in 2022 there's nothing about Putin's nuclear saber rattling that is different from Soviet era stuff. Obviously it's awful that this is the direction we're going back in now, but the calculations are no different than in the Cold War.

The only thing that's new is those pictures of Putin sat twenty feet away from everyone, even his defence minister and chief of the generral staff. As Ben Judah put it those are pictures of a personal dictatorship not a regime - I'm not sure that doesn't increase the risk for Putin and for everyone else I think.

[OttoVonBismarck]

We've faced that too--Stalin and Mao did not have any internal power checks whatsoever, for example.

[Syt]

WaPo's current situation map:



Also, I guess this makes it the 5th Battle of Kharkiv (if you include Belgorod/Kharkov in August 1943 as #4).

[Tamas]

We've faced that too--Stalin and Mao did not have any internal power checks whatsoever, for example.

Neither of them had control over an even remotely comparable nuclear arsenal though.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Stalin and Mao both had enough nukes to be of concern lol.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've been curious to see how these urban battles go, there is really no guarantee with urban warfare. Remember the battles in Ramadi, Mosul etc that the U.S. has fought, even with the most powerful military on earth on one side, fairly terrible opposition forces (quality wise) can make true street by street warfare take weeks and months to resolve. I have little doubt Putin hoped to avoid anything like that.