Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Zanza]

I'm not even convinced that Ukraine War was a bluff that Putin was trapped into acting on.  From the first US warning I thought that it was an actual war planned on, and that accepting diplomatic capitulation to prevent the war was a palatable compromise for Putin rather than the main goal.

It is entirely his choice - and I think it was his personally not a regime decision. My take as I've said before is that his assumptions were wrong and he profoundly miscalculated. But that's not necessarily the same as irrational.

That's my view as well. Fits with reports that he is now frustrated.

[Josquius]

A lot has been made of putins irrationality.
He does seem to have gone a bit Trump with covid.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/02/politics/putin-mental-state-what-matters/index.html

[Barrister]

I'm not even convinced that Ukraine War was a bluff that Putin was trapped into acting on.  From the first US warning I thought that it was an actual war planned on, and that accepting diplomatic capitulation to prevent the war was a palatable compromise for Putin rather than the main goal.

It is entirely his choice - and I think it was his personally not a regime decision. My take as I've said before is that his assumptions were wrong and he profoundly miscalculated. But that's not necessarily the same as irrational.

Not all bad decisions are irrational decisions.

I run into this all the time in criminal law.  Criminals can do all kinds of incredibly dumb things, sometimes to the point where you go "man, is this guy all there"?  But nope, mentally they're "fine" - they just made a bad decision.

[Razgovory]

This invasion was completely rational from Putin's point of view. Putin has been racking up all the Ws since the invasion of Georgia and the West has by and large ignored his provocations and failed to meaningfully retaliate. We showed we were weak and divided and that we wouldn't do shit. He likely calculated that the West would barely lift a finger after he swooped into Kyiv with VDV and forced a Ukrainian capitulation within hours of hostilities commencing. His main error was in thinking Ukraine would surrender quickly.

This probably would have worked in 2014 as his "little green men" operation worked.  Unfortunately for him, he tried to play the same trick twice.  Eight years of war made the Ukrainians ready for him.

[grumbler]

Japan attacking Pearl Harbor isn't quite as irrational as it is made out to be. Time and time again in its ascent, Imperial Japan had come to an inflection point with a larger power largely perceived to be able to handle Japan, and both times the other power had largely gone down like a paper tiger. First Tsarist Russia, and later Imperial China, now most foreign observers thought China's military was less modernized and lower quality than Japan's, but it was massively larger and Japan was not credibly assumed to just be able to whip China's ass. Instead, they did. The Chinese had serious morale problems too.

Japan's decision makers at some level probably understood the basic math of large-scale war with the United States; they simply gambled that America would fold like Russia and China mostly had previously. [Part of Japan's mistake was also not understanding that they may have had China on its heels but it was nowhere near knocked out, and was eventually going to come back with such manpower it was going to be in a real unwinnable land war regardless of what the U.S. did.] Japan's perception was also that a pliant United States would secure all their wins in China, by turning back on the oil spigot and ending American lease aid for the Chinese.

Nit: Imperial China fought Japan before the Russians, not after them.

Imperial Russia would have gone on to defeat Japan in 1905 or 1906 had its war effort not collapsed from within for political, not financial, reasons. The Japanese had simply run out of the economic wherewithal to continue the war.  The leaders of the late 1930s recognized that this was happening to them again in China, but could neither win the war there militarily nor bring the Chinese to the table for peace talks.  China did not "fold" in the eight years of Sino-Japanese conflict.

Japan's attack on the US had little to do with the US and much to do with protecting their drive into the "Southern Resource Area."  The attack on Pearl Harbor was a late addition to the existing plan to attack US forces while Japanese forces were en route to Malaya and the DEI. They absolutely did believe (because that had to believe) that the US will to fight would quickly collapse.  It was either believe that, or accept that they had made mistakes that had gotten them to that point.

The Japanese went to war because the leadership would rather fight, lose, and die than not fight and be called cowards by their subordinates (who lacked the knowledge to realize that fighting meant losing and dying).  So the Japanese leadership lied to itself about pretty much everything in order to avoid acknowledging their blunders. Reality didn't buy into their fantasies, though.

[Razgovory]

I still think the Russians can win, and likely will, but it will take a long time.  Unless the Russians turn this around in the next two weeks they won't be able to launch offensive operations and the invasion will grind to a halt.  At that point the Russians will need to rebuild their entire army.  That will probably require mass conscription, a war economy, and year's worth of time.  Of course the Ukrainians would be doing the same thing.  We could see years of warfare between two heavily militarized states.  I think the Russians would win this possibly attritional war, but it won't be much of a victory.


Of course Russia could just collapse instead.  They have a history of doing that too.

[Barrister]

This probably would have worked in 2014 as his "little green men" operation worked.  Unfortunately for him, he tried to play the same trick twice.  Eight years of war made the Ukrainians ready for him.

2014 worked because the Maidan revolution had just happened and the Ukrainian state was in disarray.  Yanukovich fled Feb 22.  The Little Green Men started showing up Feb 26 in Crimea.  Donetsk started up April 1.  Ukraine didn't have a new President until May.

[Jacob]

This invasion was completely rational from Putin's point of view. Putin has been racking up all the Ws since the invasion of Georgia and the West has by and large ignored his provocations and failed to meaningfully retaliate. We showed we were weak and divided and that we wouldn't do shit. He likely calculated that the West would barely lift a finger after he swooped into Kyiv with VDV and forced a Ukrainian capitulation within hours of hostilities commencing. His main error was in thinking Ukraine would surrender quickly.

Yeah, it seems a pretty rational action based on the facts he had. The West was weak (a reading many of us feared was true as well, I think), and his army powerful (he thought, due to the corrupt court politics nature of his regime - but he genuinely believed it to be true - and so did many of us in the West). His reading of the climate in Ukraine was wrong as well (again due to the problems of running a mafia administration).

So I'd say his decision to invade was rational, but based on incorrect facts and analysis.

Thinking on it a bit, I believe Putin will be rational in his potential use of chemical, biological, and/ or nuclear weapons as well. The real question is whether the facts he believes to be true conform to reality as we understand it.

[PJL]

I am also very concerned about the idea of recognizing those "breakaway" regions as Russian.

That sets a dangerous precedent for more of Ukarine finding itself suddenly majority "Russian" not to mention the Baltics.

Putin already thinks Ukraine is Russian - it is them who is the breakaway republic, not the others.

[grumbler]

This invasion was completely rational from Putin's point of view. Putin has been racking up all the Ws since the invasion of Georgia and the West has by and large ignored his provocations and failed to meaningfully retaliate. We showed we were weak and divided and that we wouldn't do shit. He likely calculated that the West would barely lift a finger after he swooped into Kyiv with VDV and forced a Ukrainian capitulation within hours of hostilities commencing. His main error was in thinking Ukraine would surrender quickly.

Mostly agree, but if the reason why he thought Ukraine would surrender quickly was the reason that he stated in his unhinged loon speech, then his main error was believing his own propaganda.  That's not a rational error.

[Razgovory]

This probably would have worked in 2014 as his "little green men" operation worked.  Unfortunately for him, he tried to play the same trick twice.  Eight years of war made the Ukrainians ready for him.

2014 worked because the Maidan revolution had just happened and the Ukrainian state was in disarray.  Yanukovich fled Feb 22.  The Little Green Men started showing up Feb 26 in Crimea.  Donetsk started up April 1.  Ukraine didn't have a new President until May.

I don't know if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me.

[PJL]

I do think the West should do more to lean on China to restrain Russia though. I think a chemical weapon false flag operation is almost certain now, and that use of chemical weapons and possibly even a dirty bomb as well in the next few weeks is likely. Putin wants this over and done quickly. This war will be over in weeks, not months or years.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Japan attacking Pearl Harbor isn't quite as irrational as it is made out to be. Time and time again in its ascent, Imperial Japan had come to an inflection point with a larger power largely perceived to be able to handle Japan, and both times the other power had largely gone down like a paper tiger. First Tsarist Russia, and later Imperial China, now most foreign observers thought China's military was less modernized and lower quality than Japan's, but it was massively larger and Japan was not credibly assumed to just be able to whip China's ass. Instead, they did. The Chinese had serious morale problems too.

Japan's decision makers at some level probably understood the basic math of large-scale war with the United States; they simply gambled that America would fold like Russia and China mostly had previously. [Part of Japan's mistake was also not understanding that they may have had China on its heels but it was nowhere near knocked out, and was eventually going to come back with such manpower it was going to be in a real unwinnable land war regardless of what the U.S. did.] Japan's perception was also that a pliant United States would secure all their wins in China, by turning back on the oil spigot and ending American lease aid for the Chinese.

Nit: Imperial China fought Japan before the Russians, not after them.

Imperial Russia would have gone on to defeat Japan in 1905 or 1906 had its war effort not collapsed from within for political, not financial, reasons. The Japanese had simply run out of the economic wherewithal to continue the war.  The leaders of the late 1930s recognized that this was happening to them again in China, but could neither win the war there militarily nor bring the Chinese to the table for peace talks.  China did not "fold" in the eight years of Sino-Japanese conflict.

Japan's attack on the US had little to do with the US and much to do with protecting their drive into the "Southern Resource Area."  The attack on Pearl Harbor was a late addition to the existing plan to attack US forces while Japanese forces were en route to Malaya and the DEI. They absolutely did believe (because that had to believe) that the US will to fight would quickly collapse.  It was either believe that, or accept that they had made mistakes that had gotten them to that point.

The Japanese went to war because the leadership would rather fight, lose, and die than not fight and be called cowards by their subordinates (who lacked the knowledge to realize that fighting meant losing and dying).  So the Japanese leadership lied to itself about pretty much everything in order to avoid acknowledging their blunders. Reality didn't buy into their fantasies, though.

My bad, I conflated Imperial China / Republic of China.

You're talking from the perspective of a Western historian. In Imperial Japan they had like a series of 20 "incidents" or wars going back to the late 1800s where they steadily got some form of concession in quasi-victories--sometimes Western powers were involved in the negotiations and were perceived to have "trimmed" Japan of its rightful victory terms. While a lot could be said about this long string of events in Japan they were considered nothing short of triumph after triumph and the only possible thing that could slow Japan down was evil Western powers or weak leaders from within.

The prevailing accepted position within Japan was that the only thing stopping them from winning the 1937 war was U.S. fucking with their oil supply and giving lease aid to the Chinese. It doesn't entirely matter if that was true or not, but to the Japanese it was true, and decisions had to be made with that as it was truth. The Japanese Imperial culture had shown itself to be brutally responsive to people that tried to inject negative pessimism about the strength of the Empire or even make relatively moderate concessions--the Japanese Prime Minister who signed the London Naval Treaty (that Japan basically violated almost immediately) was assassinated for it and his assassins were given the functional equivalent of slaps on the wrist by the establishment.

There were plenty of Japanese generals who knew in any serious war with the United States Japan would lose. But no one actually knew if the U.S. would fight, there was at least some possibility they would respond to initial losses by suing for peace. I think believing that showed a grave misunderstanding of American character, and that was probably the largest single mistake in the history of Japan since it led to Japan being occupied for (I believe) the only time in its history. But within the context of the gas the Japanese were inhaling, Pearl Harbor had a logical consistency to it.

Which I think is comparable to Putin's situation, much of his thinking (flawed) would have been confirmed by events of the last ten years and the West's response. I won't pretend I was special in saying this as others on these very forums did the same--but it was a momentous decision to not respond with overwhelming economic sanctions and etc when Russia chose to violate the spirit of the 1994 agreement with Ukraine and to forcefully occupy Crimea and annex it, because it opened the door to wars of territorial aggression on the European continent arguably for the first time since 1945 (depending on how you count some of the Soviet put-downs of Warsaw Pact rebellions and etc), given the tepid U.S. response to the Crimean annexation I think Putin was not totally crazy to expect we'd do little about this. Honestly if Ukraine had folded in 2 days I'm not sure we'd have reacted this way.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I do think the West should do more to lean on China to restrain Russia though. I think a chemical weapon false flag operation is almost certain now, and that use of chemical weapons and possibly even a dirty bomb as well in the next few weeks is likely. Putin wants this over and done quickly. This war will be over in weeks, not months or years.

Putin doesn't have the option to end the war in weeks or months. Chemical weapons and "dirty bombs" are no more magical than any of the other things people have speculated can just magically win this war for Russia.

The realist view should be that if Russia eventually succeeds in logistically isolating Eastern Ukraine, it will become difficult/impossible for the Ukrainian military to sustain regular operations--at which point they need to transition into an irregular insurgency force (there was actually an article the other day suggesting the U.S. has actually been in talks with the Ukrainian military with advice on how to transition to insurgency if the time comes.) There is no magic button that puts down insurgencies. They used chemical weapons in Syria and it still went on for 10 years.

[alfred russel]

If you believe that Ukraine is within a Russian sphere of influence, this really isn't much different than intervening in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968.

I think from a Russian nationalist perspective it is impossible to admit that it is not. At a certain point it would be clear that Putin has let it get away if Putin did nothing.