Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[OttoVonBismarck]

I personally think the most likely scenario where Putin would agree to stop short of full victory is actually one that jives more with his Russian historical/imperial thinking. Putin is obviously very personally corrupt, but every indication I've seen says he is actually very genuine in his nationalism and his belief in Russian restoration. I even think there are signs that he cares about this being a project that will be passed on, either when he dies or becomes too infirm to lead, he sees himself almost with a Tsarist type mindset where he genuinely wants Russia to be restored to greatness and not just for personal gain in his own lifetime.

The facts on the ground in Ukraine would have to basically convince Putin that his project of Russian restoration would no longer be served by continuing the war, and in fact would be served by ending it. Right now I think we're still a decent bit away from that. I do think that some of the mostly unserious peace conditions Russia has stipulated kind of show where Putin's mind is at though. I don't think Russia was genuinely looking for peace, but I think its negotiating positions, probably do accurately represent something they would accept as of right now--otherwise they wouldn't make them, because if Ukraine had actually accepted them and they still declined it would create unpleasant pressures on Russia diplomatically probably particularly with China that largely wants to see this war end because the war puts China in an awkward position.

And what is it the Russians are offering? Genuine independence but with conditions that mean a) Ukraine can't become "protected" by the West, aka cleaved away from Russia and b) a situation in which when Russia is ready to "go again", which could be 5 years, could be 10, whatever, Ukraine will be in a much worse position to defend itself. That tells me Putin probably realizes his most grandiose dreams of what he could gain from this war are out of reach--I think he fully knows even if they succeed in some breakthrough and capturing a lot more territory (which they could, but it will likely require a strategic/tactical re-deployment, and likely closing of some fronts to focus a push into the others etc), his ability to hold a ton of that territory as peaceful Russian land is just not realistic at this time. But he still thinks he can achieve some important goals, being able to set a cap on Ukraine's military and block it from any further protection from the West gives Russia time and a path forward to subjugate Ukraine. It could even give Russia time to play a long game where they start seeding Ukrainian politics with pro-Russian types again, and maybe in a few decades that works out for them. Failing that, they have years to regroup and fix their military problems, then go again at a treaty-weakened Ukraine.

That's where I think Putin probably is at right now. He would need to see more evidence that continuing the war is going to permanently weaken Russia's ambitions to agree to less, which I think is possible it gets there, but it's hard to say when or how. The reason I suspect the war goes on for a really long time is those conditions are such that I don't really see the Ukrainians agreeing to them even if Russia fully occupied the country and it became an insurgency, so to put it in EU4 terms, even Putin's "revised" goals, are still > 100 War Score, the Ukrainians just aren't going to go for them, and as long as that's true we will have a war.

[The Minsky Moment]

It occurred to me that we may be witnessing a truly historic episode of military futility and incompetence.  It is still very early and things might change but . . . based on performance to date, has there ever been a historical episode where a major power military proved so hapless in and across every domain and aspect of conflict: political, diplomatic, strategic, operational planning, operational execution, logistics, tactical performance, inter-unit and inter-service coordination, information management, etc. etc.?  Maybe the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940?  King John's Norman campaigns of 1200-04?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I was actually thinking of Italy's invasion of Greece as I read your post (before seeing you mentioned it), and I think it has some similarities in that it revealed the WWII era Italian military was far below the capabilities it was imagined to have previously. I think what's really happening here is Russia's modern military has been exposed as not that of a major military power. Russia has spent a good bit on its military, but it is overwhelmingly conscript driven. One of the big lessons of the Vietnam War that America's military leaders took away is that conscripts just suck, real bad. They fight like shit, they have poor morale, and it creates domestic political problems to use them very much. We resolved to build a viable all-volunteer military, and I think that creates a far more competent fighting force.

I think the conscription model makes sense for wars of "full mobilization" where literally a large chunk of the country's entire population of fighting age men is deployed in war. We haven't really seen a war like that since WW2, and given technological changes, I'm not sure we will really. Like in theory this war could get to that point, but right now it's nowhere near that, relative to the size of its population and its military manpower potential, Russia's conscript force is quite small by WW2 total war standards. In a war of full mobilization you have a fuck ton of bodies doing various things, but in a more modern war like this your core issue isn't bodies, it's competence, and throwing more bodies at it doesn't increase your competence. Another scenario where some sort of national conscription can make sense is to train people for more defensive outfits like Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, but such forces don't easily translate into offensive wars. I think there is a reason even in Putin's Russia it technically is not legal for conscripts to be put in battalion tactical groups deployed outside of Russia, and that Rogsvardia are likewise supposed to not be deployed outside of Russia. The mindset of someone who signed up or was conscripted, with the understanding that they might be called on to defend their country is not always directly translatable to the mindset of someone willing to invade another country and give it their all for a war of conquest.

Note that even if Russia wanted to turn it into some kind of full mobilization war, these aren't units in EU4, you can't just click build unit and march towards Ukraine. While you could do a big mobilization of Russia's young men via conscription, Putin can't magic up all the logistic resources that would be needed to move such a force around--that sort of stuff would take years to build out and would be even harder due to current sanction conditions.

[Berkut]

I think using conscripts is like.....6th on the list of reasons the Russian military sucks.

[celedhring]

I'll say that I always looked at Russia's paper strength and their economy and wondered "how do they do it?". Well it seems they actually didn't.

I mean, i.e. they have no business having such a large navy as they do. And I'm really suspect about the state of their nuclear forces now (but I'd rather not test that belief ).

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think using conscripts is like.....6th on the list of reasons the Russian military sucks.

I'd challenge you to list the 5 you rank higher, and I suspect many of them are probably actually exacerbated or partially caused by the over-focus on conscription. Poor quality soldiers create problems throughout a unit, and tax professional officers and NCOs and make them less able to perform other tasks well.

[Berkut]

I'll say that I always looked at Russia's paper strength and their economy and wondered "how do they do it?". Well it seems they actually didn't.

I mean, i.e. they have no business having such a large navy as they do. And I'm really suspect about the state of their nuclear forces now (but I'd rather not test that belief ).

I looked at it economically, and with a little more depth.

A first rate navy and air force are crazy expensive things. Now, I don't think Russia has either of them, but they were willing to spend a lot of money to *appear* to have them. And even the appearance is insanely expensive.

So I've always assumed that from the financial standpoint, their army was almost certainly poorly resourced. All the not sexy stuff that actually matters. Training, maintenance, more training, logistics. I've always assumed most of what we saw of their army was what polished up nice, with maybe a few smaller, special forces units that were actually competent.

But the bigger reason I figured they were shit, and I said this before this war started, was that their military system after the Cold War looks like complete shit. Even if they funded it, there doesn't appear to be a truly professional officer corps where competence is rewarded by some kind of non-political evaluation process that rewards and promotes mid to senior level officers who give a shit about their people. Autocracies are almost always terrible at this, unless you find those exceptions (like Nazi Germany) where there is some kind of history behind a professional officer corps, and even then the Nazi's fucked it up pretty thoroughly (eventually). 

So why would we assume that Russia would somehow manage to create a competent military with such a screwed up political system that rewards loyalty and emphasizes control, rather then competence? Running a military is fucking *hard* from a processes and systems standpoint. And this was even before more information came out (or before I noticed it and connected the dots) about just how the Army was subordinated so thoroughly to the security services.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think I alluded to this earlier but if one tries to find a peer competitor power to Russia, in terms of population and strength and composition of the domestic economy and trading sector, the best comp is probably Mexico.  There are other similarities as well - both have large fossil fuel reserves and prouduction, mixed historical experiences with import substitution strategies, difficult experiences in the 90s with capital liberalization, problems with the political clout of organized crime groups. 

A key difference of course is that Russia has nuclear weapons, as well as much higher levels of military spending and a much larger military establishment in terms of personnel count.  The latter, however, does not seem to have translated into much superior performance.  It's hard to escape the conclusion that Russia is a regional power in continuing relative decline, but with great power "phantom limbs" and a huge nuclear arsenal.  Not the safest combination of attributes.

[Berkut]

I think using conscripts is like.....6th on the list of reasons the Russian military sucks.

I'd challenge you to list the 5 you rank higher, and I suspect many of them are probably actually exacerbated or partially caused by the over-focus on conscription. Poor quality soldiers create problems throughout a unit, and tax professional officers and NCOs and make them less able to perform other tasks well.

Yeah, of course all these problems inter-relate, but I think you could have a much better military even with conscripts, if you fixed the other problems.

In no particular order, other then that I think these are all items that are more problematic then using conscripts:

1. Systemic corrupton, graft, and theft
2. Lack of funding for basic military capabilities - training, maintenance, more training, logistics. Paying soldiers, benefits, etc. (this leads directly to)
3. Lack of a significant professional NCO Corps. The job of being an enlisted person in the Army is so bad, nobody is going to stick around to get any good at it.
4. Subordination of the Army to security services
5. The military system itself is one where the primary goal is to ensure that the Army cannot challenge Putin, not actually do its job

You mentioned Vietnam - and I don't disagree that a drafted army and its problems were a problem in Vietnam. However, even with that, the US Army actually worked. We went places, we fought, we were able to do the things you expect an Army to do, and were broadly pretty successful at achieving the missions they were asked to achieve despite a good chunk of the grunts being drafted. 

You are not seeing that at all with Russia. They cannot get fuel where it belongs, or air support, or coordinate a road march, or have secure communications.

[Josquius]

I was actually thinking of Italy's invasion of Greece as I read your post (before seeing you mentioned it), and I think it has some similarities in that it revealed the WWII era Italian military was far below the capabilities it was imagined to have previously. I think what's really happening here is Russia's modern military has been exposed as not that of a major military power. Russia has spent a good bit on its military, but it is overwhelmingly conscript driven. One of the big lessons of the Vietnam War that America's military leaders took away is that conscripts just suck, real bad. They fight like shit, they have poor morale, and it creates domestic political problems to use them very much. We resolved to build a viable all-volunteer military, and I think that creates a far more competent fighting force.

I think the conscription model makes sense for wars of "full mobilization" where literally a large chunk of the country's entire population of fighting age men is deployed in war. We haven't really seen a war like that since WW2, and given technological changes, I'm not sure we will really. Like in theory this war could get to that point, but right now it's nowhere near that, relative to the size of its population and its military manpower potential, Russia's conscript force is quite small by WW2 total war standards. In a war of full mobilization you have a fuck ton of bodies doing various things, but in a more modern war like this your core issue isn't bodies, it's competence, and throwing more bodies at it doesn't increase your competence. Another scenario where some sort of national conscription can make sense is to train people for more defensive outfits like Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, but such forces don't easily translate into offensive wars. I think there is a reason even in Putin's Russia it technically is not legal for conscripts to be put in battalion tactical groups deployed outside of Russia, and that Rogsvardia are likewise supposed to not be deployed outside of Russia. The mindset of someone who signed up or was conscripted, with the understanding that they might be called on to defend their country is not always directly translatable to the mindset of someone willing to invade another country and give it their all for a war of conquest.

Note that even if Russia wanted to turn it into some kind of full mobilization war, these aren't units in EU4, you can't just click build unit and march towards Ukraine. While you could do a big mobilization of Russia's young men via conscription, Putin can't magic up all the logistic resources that would be needed to move such a force around--that sort of stuff would take years to build out and would be even harder due to current sanction conditions.

I just hope others take this lesson.
I'm seeing worrying rumbles from some countries of "see! This is why we need conscription!" - all attention on Ukraine of course.

[The Minsky Moment]

So I've always assumed that from the financial standpoint, their army was almost certainly poorly resourced. All the not sexy stuff that actually matters. Training, maintenance, more training, logistics. I've always assumed most of what we saw of their army was what polished up nice, with maybe a few smaller, special forces units that were actually competent.

Personally I rather lazily assumed this was a PPP effect.  I.e. Russia could spend less in money terms on training and maintenance because of lower labor costs and overall costs of living.  There is some effect there but not enough to account for the full financial shortfall.

[The Minsky Moment]

You mentioned Vietnam - and I don't disagree that a drafted army and its problems were a problem in Vietnam. However, even with that, the US Army actually worked. We went places, we fought, we were able to do the things you expect an Army to do, and were broadly pretty successful at achieving the missions they were asked to achieve despite a good chunk of the grunts being drafted.

Thinking about Vietnam was what caused me to pose the historic futility question.  Because while the Vietnam conflict was a disaster for the US and exposed many shortcomings in military effectiveness, there were also aspects and areas of the military performance that went well, not to mention the ability to sustain and supply a huge infrastructure of bases and large numbers of troops in the field half the globe away.  Even Napoleon's army in Russia was able to competently fight battles and achieve territorial objectives.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The big thing that doesn't easily apply to Vietnam is a significant problem in the South Vietnamese government being able to impose some sort of order on its population is that the North Vietnamese government was continually waging war against them and supporting insurgency in South Vietnam. The United States felt it could only respond to North Vietnam with bombing campaigns and not territorial invasion for various geopolitical and domestic political reasons. This made the already tall-order issues in Vietnam much harder. We don't quite have that in Ukraine because there is no Ukrainian "ally" country that Russia isn't allowed to invade but that is allowed to send men into Ukraine to kill Russians.

In a world where North Vietnam wasn't such an active participant, more of a North/South Korea situation, it is not inconceivable that the dictatorial and corrupt South Vietnamese government eventually stabilized and becomes a modern South Korea. I think it is still a heavier lift just because the South Vietnamese population was quite anti-foreign troop presence and viewed American involvement as an extension of previous European imperialism. The South Korean population actually wasn't all peaches and cream in the 50s and 60s either, and their authoritarian regime did a lot of work to grind out communist sympathizers in the South, but the UN forces were literally there as part of a security council resolution and a request for aid from the South Korean government, so I think were always seen on less hostile terms by the locals.

[crazy canuck]

You mentioned Vietnam - and I don't disagree that a drafted army and its problems were a problem in Vietnam. However, even with that, the US Army actually worked. We went places, we fought, we were able to do the things you expect an Army to do, and were broadly pretty successful at achieving the missions they were asked to achieve despite a good chunk of the grunts being drafted.

Thinking about Vietnam was what caused me to pose the historic futility question.  Because while the Vietnam conflict was a disaster for the US and exposed many shortcomings in military effectiveness, there were also aspects and areas of the military performance that went well, not to mention the ability to sustain and supply a huge infrastructure of bases and large numbers of troops in the field half the globe away.  Even Napoleon's army in Russia was able to competently fight battles and achieve territorial objectives.

I wrote a post saying you should add Vietnam in, but deleted it when I started listing the exceptions for why it didn't.  But the one that fits well is the futility - largely caused by leadership not accepting the reality that they could not win that war.

The statement made in his book by Harold Moore that when he saw the determination of the soldiers he fought against early on in the war, he realized (and tried to communicate to his superiors) that the war could not be won.

It is likely there are a lot of Russian commanders thinking exactly the same thing in Ukraine now. 

[CountDeMoney]

I wrote a post saying you should add Vietnam in, but deleted it when I started listing the exceptions for why it didn't.  But the one that fits well is the futility - largely caused by leadership not accepting the reality that they could not win that war.

The statement made in his book by Harold Moore that when he saw the determination of the soldiers he fought against early on in the war, he realized (and tried to communicate to his superiors) that the war could not be won.

Unlike WW1, WW2 and even Korea to a degree after the demobilization--conflicts where the US warfighting capability and organizational competency actually improved over time--the US military started off strong in Vietnam.  Those first units that saw the first major ground combat in the 18 months from '65 to '67 were arguably the best this nation had ever deployed to that point, and had the results to prove it before the pendulum began to swing.