I hear what you are saying about actual numbers of deployment. It is pretty scary what the Russians are trying to accomplish.

I was just pointing to what happens when conscription enters the picture. People who could care less start caring more. Putin tried to avoid that element. Now he is deep in the shit of it.

The dangers of conscription are obvious when you are the side that is attacking. Attacking other countries may not be so popular than leaders think.

For Ukraine or any country that is defending itself from outside attack, conscription works quite well.

The logic of conscription has always been put forward on the basis of an existential threat, as the expression goes.

The reference to the American experience in Vietnam brings that more into question than explains anything. Mobilizing a population to fight is a sort of referendum. That worked for some groups better than others.

No. I asked for a geopolitical account by which he might be understood as a rational actor. — apokrisis

Why would you be asking me for such an account, what makes you think I have one?

The logic of conscription has always been put forward on the basis of an existential threat — Paine

A threat to the existence of whom, or what?

Why would you be asking me for such an account, what makes you think I have one? — Isaac

You’re hilarious.

Or then that implosion can come from that 'New Army' that is now created. — ssu

War is messy and chaotic, you're going to find pretty much anecdotal evidence for pretty much anything.

Also, keep in mind a large proportion of Ukrainians speak perfect Russian.

The videos you post seem genuine (and mean absolutely nothing in terms of evaluating the war), but it's worth noting that Ukrainians can easily fake pretty much any kind of propaganda material they want and it will just be immediately posted to Western front page news as "Ukrainian intelligence says".

There's a huge effort to do that. By Putin, actually. — ssu

↪boethius :up: — apokrisis

If you think the Russian state is on the brink of collapse because of a few protests and a tiny minority of people leaving the country, you are truly living in fantasy.

Even if it was remotely feasible, it would cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, perhaps millions, and for zero benefit to the average Ukrainian accomplish, certainly not to attempt and fail.

And from what I understand from Ukrainian Nazi planning on this issue, the idea is not that Ukrainians themselves would defeat Russia but that NATO would do it for them. From this perspective, Ukrainians being nuked is a good thing because they believe NATO would nuke Russia in turn.

That is extremely low odds of happening. Very high odds now of Russia using nuclear weapons; they've basically said they are going to do this, said they are not bluffing, and are now setting up the laws to make it essentially legally obligatory for them to do. Logic will be exactly the same as the use of nuclear weapons in Japan: that it will save lives on both sides compared to more fighting.

How will NATO respond? Likely, diddly squat.

How can NATO respond? They've been flexing their sanctions and weapon supplier muscle, but if they actually wanted to a nuclear standoff with Russia they would have sent boots into Ukraine before or then anytime during the war and dare Russia to nuke them.

Since that has not happened, nuking Ukrainian military positions is not an attack on US or any NATO member and there is simply no legal mechanism in which to retaliate. Neither the US nor any NATO member is in a legal state of war with Russia; there's really no way to just nuke a country out of the blue that you're not at war with.

What about the Ukrainians? You may ask ... well, what about them? Afghanistan government was a literal ally of the US, just let's not put labels on things and this "non-committed relationship"; what happened to them?

Ohhhh noooo!!! but they're brown muslims Boethius, you may cry out! The literally live in a "corrupt stan"! It's right in their name, at the back, see!! Stan! S. T. A. N. spells Stan!

Sure, that's true, but US military and NATO are pretty woke nowadays and have non-discriminatory and equal opportunity throw your "allies" under the bus policies.

US cares not for Ukrainians, but want cold war 2.0 and a irrelevant EU on the world stage.

Nukes in Ukraine accomplishes that, and both the US and Russia get what they want. Why would they bicker about it?

Sounds legit. :up:

Dangerously weak

↪boethius Sounds legit. :up: — apokrisis

Yes, you can be confident this analysis is legit.

The only retaliation available to the US / NATO for a Russian tactical nuke in Ukraine would be something like striking a Russian base with a tactical nuclear weapon ... which would be followed by Russia striking a NATO base, followed by further tactical nuclear exchanges until it's WWIII and full scale strategic exchange.

Or then NATO strikes a Russian base and Russia strikes a NATO base and ... no response? What does that accomplish?

The only available move is to do nothing. Ukraine is not part of NATO and there exists no legal obligation, national self-interest, much less military reason to strike Russia with nuclear weapons in retaliation for an act in a war ... in which you are not legally at war.

Given this state of things, why wouldn't Russia use tactical nuclear weapons? Spot a tank column: blow up the tank column, is a pretty big military advantage.

The "consequence" of Russia using nuclear weapons last year, for example, would be total sanctions and cutting off the cash cow of selling energy to Europe ... well that lever has already been pulled.

The protests against mobilisation and people leaving the country result in not many people being left willing to protest the use of nuclear weapons.

As has been discussed already, there is a sizeable part of the Russian population that are nationalistic and (just like the Americans) will be happy to see nuclear weapons used for their own national benefit and pride.

Dangerously weak — Olivier5

I don't speak german, but I'm pretty sure the key word in that phrase is "dangerous".

Dangerous to Ukrainians, and no one is coming.

As I've stated before, your arms dealer is like your drug dealer: you need them for your next fix to keep on going, but they're not your friend.

Not just to the Ukrainians : to the world.

↪boethius Not just to the Ukrainians : to the world. — Olivier5

If US / NATO retaliate.

Provide one argument that they would?

Ergo, what's likely? US / NATO will scale back their support for Ukraine as they have no response to Russian tactical Nukes in Ukraine.

The war has achieved US policy generously informed by US arms manufacturers as @Isaac cites above, so why continue?

Let winter pass and by the spring everyone will be so fed up with energy prices that peace with Russia will just be the normal, competent, level headed thing to do by politicians wanting to be reelected. Russia certainly learned its lesson and are sorry, time to turn over a new leaf.

The alternative is not simply that Russia uses tactical nukes in Ukraine, but likely then keeps using them until Ukraine unconditionally surrenders (since Ukraine maybe able, with time, develop their own nuclear weapons or WMD's of some sort with their nuclear material and remaining biolabs).

The other thing to consider is that even Eastern Europe may get cold feet now that they're faced with the consequences of their fanatical support for more war, such as Volkswagen saying they will leave Eastern Europe if the energy situation there doesn't improve (aka. the war with Russia does not come to an end).

Talk is cheap, but we'll see soon enough who has their money where their mouth is.

And it's not even me saying we should prepare for Russia to use nuclear weapons.

Who's saying it?

Zelensky:





So, if you're a supporter of Zelenky's analysis and decision making, and uncompromising devotion to the gods of war, then you should support my message, which is the same (just with the added caveat that Ukraine is not an ally to the US and will be left out in the cold ... or then the fierce heat of the nuclear sun, or why not both!).

Der Spiegel makes a broader point, that Putin is becoming dangerous for many, including for Russia herself, with all these civilians being sent to the meat grinder. He's also becoming a liability for his allies, such as China.

With all due respect for Zelensky, I don't believe the nuclear escalation is likely to happen.

↪boethius Der Spiegel makes a broader point, that Putin is becoming dangerous for many, including for Russia herself, with all these civilians being sent to the meat grinder. He's also becoming a liability for his allies, such as China. — Olivier5

Definitely Putin is taking large risks and the whole war is a big gamble and makes lot's of people nervous.

However, what matters in material relations, such as business or international politics, is much more actual leverage than emotion.

The West has become accustomed to focusing on the emotions, but only because the material leverage is taken for granted in Western policy decisions. For example, the decision to support revolution in Lybia and then bomb the place may have been due to the simple reason Gaddafi wanted to make a African bank and needed to be punished and Libya (the most prosperous African state by some metrics at the time) needed to be made a failed state so as not to be an example of how to escape Western debt peonage. Let's assume that's true, well it's far easier to just make some emotional story of people struggling for freedom or whatever, to explain the bombing to the home audience for the show (and just completely ignore the question of why bomb Libya rather than any of the other dictatorships around).

Or maybe it really was from the "goodness of their hearts" of the policy makers.

Either way, the perception that results is that it is emotion that drives international and warmaking policy is only possible because the leverage was there. NATO could bomb Libya, could invade and occupy Afghanistan for 2 decades, US et. al. could invade Iraq, drone strikes can be carried out all over Africa and the Middle east, proxies financed and armed etc.

In other words, the leverage exists to carry out these policies, so the emotions drummed up, whether by propaganda or genuine grassroots sentiment, can match the policies because the policies can be done.

But all this emotional driven policy making is not so possible when you don't have the leverage.

China needs Russian energy and commodities ... that doesn't change regardless of what Xi or anyone in China feels about it. So, the West obsesses over how people may feel here or there, but only because Westerners live in the delusion that emotions matter the most.

It's a pretty typical psychological result of too much power and prestige: the "diva".

The situation in Ukraine is simply that the West doesn't have the leverage to get what it wants, so it cries about it, but that doesn't help.

Russia does have the leverage: energy, food, military, nuclear weapons.

What we feel, what the Chinese feel, what the Indians feel, what the Ukrainians feel, and to a large extent what the Russians feel: doesn't mean a thing.

Only when you have the power, the leverage, can you simply translate your feelings into actions. If you feel like fucking up a country that had nothing do to with 9/11 to express your feelings about 9/11? you definitely can if you have the power and leverage to express your emotions that way. You want your servant to do some humiliating task? You definitely can if you pay them enough or they have no where else to go.

Everyone that doesn't have the power in the situation: learns to bite their tongue and digest their feelings: because that's how the world actually fucking works.

It's been that way for a long time.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

With all due respect for Zelensky, I don't believe the nuclear escalation is likely to happen. — Olivier5

... Well, well, well, if Zelensky is wrong about this, what else maybe he wrong about?

Zelensky is obviously wrong about everything, since he is a ridiculous comedian, a puppet of NATO, and the devil incarnate.

Even in the context of environmental crisis denialism, even Jordan Peterson can see the obvious.

Only delusional propaganda supports the current narrative and policies vis-a-vis Ukraine, and it doesn't matter your politics to see these particular obvious facts if you stop eating lies.

Which ... what does Peterson's observation that totalitarianism involves everyone lying to everyone on every level apply to in the current situation?

Zelensky is obviously wrong about everything, since he is a ridiculous comedian, a puppet of NATO, and the devil incarnate. — Olivier5

I don't know man, I don't think the devil's a comedian nor a puppet.

... or are you saying satan works for NATO, the money's just that good?

Another way to understand the situation is simply that the West finally picked a fight with someone they can't bomb.

But has the West developed any other way to deal with their problems and "feelings"?

No.

They haven't.

Feel something, bomb something. That's just how we roll baby.

Now, you may say Russia hasn't either; fair, but they have picked a fight with someone they can bomb.

And that my friends, makes all the difference in the World.

, I don't think the devil's a comedian nor a puppet. — boethius

I see... But NATO is a tool of the devil, isn't it? So since Zelensky is a puppet of NATO... he's one of the devils in any case. Small devil, or big one, I don't know. I leave that to specialists, better introduced than I am to/by the Lord of the Earth in the East.

I am new to all this line toeing, you see? Can't seem to get it right. It's like... I put one toe on the line, and then the other toes fall on that side of the line or the other! Maybe if I turned my feet inward? How do you guys do it?

War is messy and chaotic, you're going to find pretty much anecdotal evidence for pretty much anything. — boethius

Yet what isn't anecdotal is:

a) Since coming into office Putin has tried to push away from a conscription army and veer the armed forces into an volunteer force, which hasn't happened.

b) Even the Soviet Union had huge difficulties of mobilization it's reserves, which basically were just nothing else than a list of names in a vault.

c) Russia doesn't have an organization for the mobilization of such quantities of troops and neither have reservists been trained. It would be different if Russia would have done refresher training to reservists after their military service and trained these as units. It hasn't done that.

You cannot dispute these facts. Yes, any video material is anecdotal, but those arguments above aren't. Those forces mobilized now will likely be able to be used in a spring offensive by the Russians in 2023.

If you think the Russian state is on the brink of collapse because of a few protests and a tiny minority of people leaving the country, you are truly living in fantasy. — boethius

A tiny majority? Let's see what that "tiny majority" is like?

In the tech sector alone, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 professionals left in the first month of the war, with a further 70,000 to 100,000 expected to follow soon thereafter, according to a Russian IT industry trade group.

around 15,000 millionaires are expected to leave Russia this year, according to a June report from London-based citizenship-by-investment firm Henley & Partners, with Dubai ranking as the top location for the super rich.

IT-sector professionals and millionaires. Quite an irrelevant minority there.

Just here in four days over 27 000 Russians have come over the border. Of course, some go back even here you are talking about thousands fleeing the mobilization. And Georgia and Kazakhstan it's far bigger. Finally Finland is tightening the visas to come here.

Even if it was remotely feasible, it would cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, perhaps millions, and for zero benefit to the average Ukrainian accomplish, certainly not to attempt and fail. — boethius

Spoken like a true Putin believer. Resistence is futile!!!

And from what I understand from Ukrainian Nazi planning on this issue, the idea is not that Ukrainians themselves would defeat Russia but that NATO would do it for them. — boethius

Wow. Sergei Shoigu couldn't say it better. Ukrainian nazis counting that NATO does the fighting for them.

Incredible, Boethius.

I see... But NATO is a tool of the devil, isn't it? So since Zelensky is a puppet of NATO... he's one of the devils in any case. Small devil, or big one, I don't know. I leave that to specialists, better introduced than I am to/by the Lord of the Earth in the East. — Olivier5

I'm not following your theology, but please elaborate.

I am new to all this line toeing, you see? Can't seem to get it right. It's like... I put one toe on the line, and then the other toes fall on that side of the line or the other! Maybe if I turned my feet inward? How do you guys do it? — Olivier5

It's not following a line: Russia's leverage in the situation is factual. All the US says about it is "strategic ambiguity," you, or anyone else, is free to speculate what that ambiguity involves that's in Ukraine's favour.

a) Since coming into office Putin has tried to push away from a conscription army and veer the armed forces into an volunteer force, which hasn't happened. — ssu

This is definitely true, but this plan does make sense. Invading Ukrainian territory with conscripts / reserves is neither legal nor a good political move; especially at the start of the war where you'd have the current disruption and instability of mobilisation in addition to the sanctions in addition to the unknowns of what would happen in the war (they could not know 100% that they'd take South-East Ukraine so easily).

So, invade with the separatist militia's, Chechians (who "like" fighting, especially white people that dip bullets in lard to taunt them), mercenaries, with support of professional soldiers.

Then, once the front stabilises "enough" and effect of sanctions has smoothed out, annex these regions and mobilise to defend this new territory.

b) Even the Soviet Union had huge difficulties of mobilization it's reserves, which basically were just nothing else than a list of names in a vault. — ssu

Russia has 25 million potential reserves and conscripts and nearly 2 million standing army; I think it's far fetched to say they will not be able to mobilise 300 thousand. It's claimed these will be "low quality troops" but A. there's no reason to assume they'd be any less quality than much of Ukraine's conscript force and B. Russia still has professional and mercenary forces to conduct offensive operations and more man-power to support and defend quiet areas of the front can only help.

c) Russia doesn't have an organization for the mobilization of such quantities of troops and neither have reservists been trained. It would be different if Russia would have done refresher training to reservists after their military service and trained these as units. It hasn't done that. — ssu

Reservists have been trained. The usefulness of periodic 2 weak refresher training is debatable. A lot of military tasks require only following orders by average people, like just moving shells and boxes around.

A tiny majority? Let's see what that "tiny majority" is like? — ssu

I definitely say "tiny minority" and not "tiny majority".

IT-sector professionals and millionaires. Quite an irrelevant minority there. — ssu

I'm really just not so sure about how many such people will actually leave, and what the economic impacts are. Presumably they'll mostly still do work for their Russian company or for their contract clients, just at distance and more effectively without the stress and bother of war and all that.

Additionally, pretty much any intellectual work nowadays can be done at distance by Indian's and Chinese firms, and they can easily send their specialists when needed who will not fear mobilisation.

I'm just not convinced this is a big economic problem. Certainly the sanctions was an order of magnitude larger economic problem to deal with.

Russia is also not an IT driven economy, but sells commodities, so IT inefficiencies have few short term impacts. When brain drain matters its generally really top tier stuff of making the next unicorn startups and technological break throughs; silicon valley vs. various other competing tech hubs.

Just here in four days over 27 000 Russians have come over the border. Of course, some go back even here you are talking about thousands fleeing the mobilization. And Georgia and Kazakhstan it's far bigger. Finally Finland is tightening the visas to come here. — ssu

This is a tiny amount of people compared to the Russian population, mostly who don't have the option to flee, and, as you say, many who do flee will return as soon as the situation is clarified a bit and risk seems lower to them.

Spoken like a true Putin believer. Resistence is futile!!! — ssu

The issue was if Ukrainian fighting can lead to the collapse of the Russian state.

Feel free to propose a scenario where that is likely to happen.

Resistance was definitely not futile at the start of the war but could have lead directly to a negotiated peace on the best possible terms for Ukraine.

However, continuing to fight beyond that point to a mythical moment where the Russian state collapses for essentially unexplained reasons, indeed is futile.

Keep in mind that the majority of the Russian population have fresh memories of the last time they overthrew their government to embrace the West. West didn't hug them back, so I find it exceedingly unlikely they would do so again as they all know it would be an even worse repeat of the disastrous mafia state of the 90s and early 2000's.

The West loves laughing at the Russian misfortune after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Russians themselves do not join in that laughter but, for the most part, would rather avoid repeating it.

The situation is not the same where Soviet citizens started to truly believe Western propaganda and that they'd all be living like Finns in a few years if the wall came down.

It's a "Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again," kind of situation.

Wow. Sergei Shoigu couldn't say it better. Ukrainian nazis counting that NATO does the fighting for them. — ssu

That was clearly the plan from the beginning, handing out small arms to civilians, committing to a total war with maximum harm to civilians, and then begging for the no-fly zone.

The Ukrainian Nazi's who really wanted and still want total war certainly believed that NATO would see their righteous plight and come in with their planes and "show the Russians". They would not have been begging for the no-fly zone for so long, even after very clear no's, if they didn't genuinely believe that was possible.

And now, faced with the next disastrous escalation of the war, Ukrainian Nazi's and other "ultra nationalists" and their Western sympathisers, seem to truly believe UN / NATO will nuke Russia in retaliation for Russia starting to use nukes.

The delusions of NATO responding with Nuclear weapons if Russia uses them have been present on this very forum; for example the belief that NATO would give nuclear weapons to Ukraine ... at least a couple to Nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg. How much more delusional can you get?

Wow. Sergei Shoigu couldn't say it better. Ukrainian nazis counting that NATO does the fighting for them. — ssu

It's also highly suspected and really little doubt about it, that "ex"-NATO contract soldiers man HIMARS and all the targeting is with NATO intelligence.

How is this not NATO fighting the Ukrainian Nazi's war for them? HIMARS being "the thing" that keeps them in the fight and their proposed path to victory.

A. there's no reason to assume they'd be any less quality than much of Ukraine's conscript force — boethius

There is. Ukrainians are defending their country against a hostile invader. The Russians aren't.

If the Russians now called were sent to defend St. Petersburg or Saratov from an foreign invasion force, I think they really could be fighting to get into the busses to the front. Never underestimate the role of the will to fight.

A tiny majority? Let's see what that "tiny majority" is like? — ssu

Yes, let's see...

estimated

expected

some

...oh well, maybe later, eh?

There is. Ukrainians are defending their country against a hostile invader. The Russians aren't. — ssu

Your point was about training and quality of skills, not motivation.

And, as from many Russian's perspective, once the 4 Oblasts are officially part of Russia then they will be defending their country against a hostile invader. Likewise, it's possible many Russians happen to share Putin's sentiment that NATO is an aggressive force against Russia and a threat to them.

Additionally, Russia has demonstrated it has highly motivated soldiers able to win in urban environments, so, as I already mentioned, the reservists can have a large impact simply supporting the professional forces.

Ukraine has sent fresh conscripts with little to no training into front line combat, but there's no reason to believe Russia will do the same.

Especially if the consequences are as terrible as talking heads in the West claim, why not just rely on the professional contracted forces in that case for the heavy fighting?

People are free to provide a different military analysis to the main points. Currently there's not really any debate because the other position here is simply fight long enough and the Russian state will just magically go away somehow.

On the diplomatic front, as I've said previously it's difficult to analyse as the trial period of "open source diplomacy" of simply reporting every meeting between world leaders in real time seems to have ended.

However, there are some signs of diplomatic advancement. There's this recent prisoner exchange brokered by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and now India and China are calling for a diplomatic end to the conflict, and also both Putin and now it seems Zelensky have stated they want an end to the conflict.

In particular the prisoner exchange seems super bizarre timing if it was not in the context of steps towards a diplomatic resolution.

Although it seems difficult to imagine what a compromise would be at this stage, it's of course always possible. If Ukraine is simply unable to sustain the current offensive (even regardless of US support) then that hope maybe simply dashed internally and also hardliners who promised some vast victory now sidelined.

For certain the EU has enormous leverage in the situation and can easily use it to broker a peace deal.

A recipe for a resolution could go something like this:

- Ukraine enters the EU on some fast track process.
- Russia gets sanctions dropped and Nord Stream 2.
- Russia pays for rebuilding of Ukraine (which is obviously just recycling some of the massive profits of dropping sanctions).
- The territorial question is of course the tricky part, but that could be resolved by agreeing to have another vote after peace is restored, people return to these regions; something that the world community would accept as legitimate, outside observers etc. If holding onto the territories is an obstacle to a peace deal that Russia actually wants, "giving the territory back" is problematic after annexation, however, the various regions having another vote in x time could be a reasonable compromise for everyone. "Will of the people" At least in principle Ukraine is "fighting" for the right of self determination, and Russia is claiming these regions can leave Ukraine and join Russia based on a vote, and presumably the EU is democratic and maybe even the US, so there's at least no issue in principle. Of course, you'd want to come to this deal before these regions are officially annexed, as Russia wouldn't want the precedent of one of its territories being able to vote to leave.

Of course, a peace deal could be something else entirely, depends on who wants what and what people are willing to give, but my basic point is that there's always creative solutions to negotiation impasses when both parties rather a resolution than continued conflict.

"Strategic ambiguity" may not be a satisfactory response for Zelensky, to name one motivating factor.

And, even if there's nothing much to analyse, although other perspectives on this strange prisoner swap and China and India statements would be welcome, I like to repeat how diplomacy can work as the point of the military analysis is to evaluate the leverage on the table and what is a reasonable deal to take.

Your point was about training and quality of skills, not motivation. — boethius

If we talk about training, the as I've said multiple of times, this force might be useful in a possible spring offensive for the Russians in 2023. Not in two weeks time. And as I said earlier, a perfect example of this was the Ukrainian mobilization in 2014.

Ukraine has sent fresh conscripts with little to no training into front line combat, but there's no reason to believe Russia will do the same. — boethius

Why you think so? With Wagner group searching jails for volunteers, I think this is very typical how Russians have organized these wars: chaotic and unprepared.

- Russia gets sanctions dropped and Nord Stream 2. — boethius

Really, who would after this trust in the West Putin for one's energy needs?