Kherson is free. — Olivier5

Kherson is not "free". None of the critical fundamental freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to associate etc.) are currently available in Ukraine (on both sides of the conflict).

Furthermore, as has been discussed multiple times there is no noticeable difference in governance quality between Ukraine and Russia.

Kherson has been reconquered by Ukraine, and, at best, you could say it will be free later, maybe, someday.

That was fast . — Olivier5

It has not been fast. The offensive to take Kherson started in September, and Ukraine has not really defeated the Russians militarily. Ukraine has suffered significant losses to pressure the Russians to simply leave, while Russia has suffered a political embarrassment and loss of a bridge head, but no catastrophic collapse of their armed forces in the regions as was predicted and promised by pro-Zelenskyites.

The conflict is now entering "winter mode".

At the moment there seems signals to negotiate on all sides.

The Kremlin's spokesman meanwhile rejects that losing the key southern city is a humiliation for Vladimir Putin. — Olivier5

This is accurate, the war is not over and the withdrawal was orderly and not thousands of Russian troops cutoff and surrounded and holding on for weeks and months without Russia being able to rescue them and ultimately surrendering.

We have not witnessed Russian lines collapsing due to the hypothesised low moral and a massive rout and chaotic fleeing and swimming across the river. Which even if that's still not "losing the war" would be at the level of humiliation.

However, as I mentioned months ago, taking Kherson would be the first (small) step in taking back by force all the other regions.

So, Ukraine has made that first small step, but not in a decisive military way and with significant casualties.

But that's the threat of use, not the actual use. Actual use as of now, would be suicide. — Manuel

There is severe negative political consequences of Russia using nuclear weapons right now, which explains why they haven't used them.

However, it would not be suicidal. There is zero reason for the Russians to believe and zero reason for any official or officer anywhere in all of NATO to believe, that the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be met with a US nuclear response.

Indeed, when the offensives were gaining ground and it seemed like front lines really were totally collapsing (and the fact only then did the Russian strike the power grid for the first time and also blowup a damn I think indicates it was a real risk from their perspective as well; maybe not no where near as high as the Western media belief of the war essentially being over and Ukraine won at that point, but still a big enough worry to act upon), the US took great efforts to explain to Russia and the media that there are conventional response options to the Russian use of nuclear weapons at the US's disposal.

Logic being that it would be morally and politically justifiable for the US to retaliate with conventional weapons and Russia would have no moral or political justification to respond with nuclear weapons against the US, and so if they could not respond in kind conventionally then it does make sense.

However, the Russians can also retaliate conventionally to a US conventional retaliation, such as cutting undersea communication cables and blowing up satellites, even cause a full on Kesler syndrome, and the Russian made clear to explain to the Americans and the media that they can and would do these things.

Fortunately for the world these scenarios did not play out, but that would be the likely next phase of a nuclear strike in Ukraine. The followup question would be what the US retaliation to the Russian retaliation would be, and the Russian response to that, and if that cycle would end by one of the parties or would a conventional retaliation, if bad enough, provoke a nuclear retaliation.

Questions no one knows the answer to.

Why anyone with any actual experience of geopolitical diplomacy including people like Kissinger advocate a diplomatic resolution of the conflict and the West compromising and also ending the charade that they have no moral imperative, political responsibility, and negotiation leverage to negotiate but that it is "Ukraine that must do so".

If they use them in Ukraine, not as a reaction to NATO getting directly involved, then by using them they will get NATO directly involved. — Manuel

Also not a fact. There is really no rational reason for NATO to intervene even if Russia uses nuclear weapons.

It's precisely because of this basic rational situation (that NATO has no actual alliance with Ukraine, no legal basis to directly intervene, and no political or moral reason to risk full scale nuclear exchange to make a point about Ukrainian borders), that the weapons systems and information to Ukraine has been a very slow and controlled process, seeing how each weapons system plays out before providing the next, is because Russia may indeed simply resort to tactical nuclear weapons rather than face defeat by NATO weapons systems.

Keep in mind that since the start of the war, or even before, NATO could have provided and trained on things like F-35 and all related weapons systems, NATO tanks and other tracked vehicles, long range HIMARS, cruise missiles, etc.

The reason we don't see more advanced capabilities, but the line is drawn at short range HIMARS, is because sophisticated enough NATO weapons systems may provoke a nuclear reaction and NATO has no rational response to that.

Hence, the policy is to supply Ukraine ... but not too much as to create both motivation and justification for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

The entire situation revolves around nuclear weapons and the fact no one has any rational desire to use them or see anyone else use them (including the Russians, as otherwise they would have just opened with a tactical nuclear barrage).

So, it's a geopolitical puzzle NATO is trying to solve by getting what they want by force without the Russians resorting to nuclear weapons in response. Russia is of course just trying to get what they want by force the ol' fashion way, counting on NATO not intervening "enough" due to said nuclear weapons. NATO's policy position is basically trying to answer the question of is there an "enough" force (vis-a-vis supplying arms) that implements their policies but is not "enough" to provoke Russia into a nuclear response.

And this basic dynamic is what is driving the apparent "stability" of the front lines. If Russia has too much success NATO pours in arms to stop it, otherwise it risks severe embarrassment that the mighty NATO can't even slow down the Russians with all their fancy equipment and satellites, but if Ukraine has too much success the other way then NATO stops pouring in more weapons so as not to provoke a nuclear response.

The resulting situation is an attritional war in which there are conventional options that are more effective than nuclear weapons (such as shutting down Ukrainian electricity grid).

Where nuclear weapons would be seriously considered by the Russians is if the front line collapse we keep hearing about (a real front line collapse, not just mostly orderly withdrawal from a region, but Ukraines actually winning militarily and no other way to stop their advance) actually happens. In such conditions tactical nuclear weapons can destroy critical hardened bunkers, critical logistics hubs, as well as advancing armour columns.

However, it is precisely because nuclear weapons would be useful to stop any otherwise actually unstoppable Ukrainian offensive that (in my view) NATO limits weapons supplies to very limited gains in non-critical regions that the Russians can tolerate.

For example, it is certainly embarrassing to withdraw from Kherson, but it's something the Russians can tolerate; it is a tiny nuisance compared to some real advance in Crimea about to take the port of Sevastopol, to put things in perspective of NATO is no where close to providing Ukraine with the weapons systems and training required to even attempt to achieve.

Yeah, it could well be sable rattling. Nukes would only be used if NATO fights Russia, in Ukraine they would serve little purpose outside of mass murder, with little by way of military advantage, if any. — Manuel

This is very naive.

Although tactical nukes have never been used in a battle and we don't "know" what affect they would have, the idea we can assume they would be useless seems ill advised.

Significant effort is placed on making as big conventional bombs as possible for certain tasks, tactical nuclear weapons just allows bigger bombs for those purposes, for example destroying hardened (but not nuke hardened) command bunkers may only be possible with nuclear weapons.

There's definitely a lot of negative political consequences to using nuclear weapons, but the idea they wouldn't provide any tactical military advantage is I think extremely foolish. The relevance being that the purely military motivation to use them is genuine, and therefore political effort should be made to avoid that happening (setting a path of the banal and regular use of tactical nukes in wars to come and insane proliferation of everyone "needing them", a process already happening due to the war so far).

There is possibly "sound military reasons" the US and Soviets developed things like the nuclear artillery shell, nuclear bazooka, nuclear mines, nuclear air-to-air missile, nuclear torpedos, even a nuclear bullet was made at one point of californium.

The reasons these tactical nuclear weapons systems were developed in vast quantities was that their developers envisioned their utility.

At least the discussion of talks shows that there might be a deadlock in the battlefield.

I agree. The war can still continue. — ssu

Yes, we agree.

And as we agreed months ago Russia is waiting to see how winter plays out. Already European CEO's are starting to warn about gas supplies in 2023.

So, I think Russia has largely succeeded in this basic objective.

Of course, it is far from clear how winter will actually play out.

There has been several of these general mood swings of clearly wanting to stop the war on all sides ... followed by more war up until now.

When the US administration mentions Ukraine fatigue, I think it is safe to assume these are the Europeans. I think it is also safe to assume Europe could essentially force an end to the conflict if Germany and France wanted to.

The solution would need to be highly creative at this stage, giving both Ukraine and Russia something they want (such as Ukraine EU membership, and ending sanctions against Russia), which, any compromise, will be a victory for Russia due to the West setting the standard of their own success and fully "defeating" Russia including in Crimea.

So, any resolution to the conflict will be temporarily embarrassing, but politicians seems to be starting to calculate the real harms to their own citizens is a higher political liability.

Deterrence and ransom is different. — ssu

The difference between deterrence and ransom is strictly a legal one.

If I point a gun that may deter you from doing action X, if I'm in the right and you'd be in the wrong, then using the word ransom would make no sense. However, if I'm in the wrong and your in the right (such as if you leave I'll shoot you, unless you give me what I want, such as money) then I'm holding you at ransom.

Ransom always involves deterrence (come and get the thing or people I'm holding ransom, I'll I destroy them and try to destroy you too), as if you do not have some illegal leverage of deterrence then you're clearly not "holding" anything, much less at ransom.

NATO claims the conquered Ukrainian territory is not legally occupied by Russia and they should give it back, so it is entirely reasonable to say (from NATO's point of view) that Russia is holding the territory at Ransom using nuclear weapons, which is what prevents NATO from simply implementing their conception of the law.

Ransom is entirely apt analogy for the situation if you believe Ukraine has been wronged ... or, if you want to be really precise, if you think NATO has some moral or legal commitment to Ukraine given their stated beliefs and what prevents them from acting on those beliefs is nuclear weapons.

For some reason, people do not want to recognise the common sense reality that nuclear powers (including the United States) can do a lot without anyone being able or willing to do anything about it because of said nuclear weapons, as this delusion is required to maintain the belief that compromise should be rejected and that somehow Russia can be "defeated" while also avoiding nuclear war (have your butter and money of the butter, as they say in French, which makes more sense than having cake and also eating it ... which is just the common sense reason for having the cake in the first place, but I digress; what is the heart of the matter is that the West wants to maintain the belief that we can and should impose our will on Russia by force but also wait, wait, wait not too much force so as to avoid nuclear war, and simply ignoring both the conflict in principle and priorities as well as moral and political issues of this position).

The commanding Russian general Suvorikin acknowledged this: that it simply wasn't possible to supply the troops. Russia wouldn't sacrifice it's best troops, the paratroopers of the VDV for nothing. — ssu

Also of note, the timing is likely relative US elections.

Also noteworthy is Ukraine claiming that Russia is not withdrawing troops and it could be a trap to inflict further damage on Ukrainian troops. Although that may have changed, it is revealing that Ukraine seems to say they are not in a position to re-conquer the city by force--important subtext--and may also simply be true, and what Ukrainian officials called a "staged event" (which is the definition of a press conference) is to encourage removing as many civilians as possible to turn the city into a battle space.

The prevailing wisdom has been that Ukrainian offensives would stop in autumn and winter, and Russians were trying to make it until then. Of course, supplying troops is different to supplying a whole city of civilians. Or maybe the city will be evacuated but not the area around the damn (i.e. a bridge head maintained non-the-less throughout winter, just abandoning supplying any civilians). It maybe the case that Ukrainians cannot supply the city either.

Yes, now the threat of Russia taking Odessa and contacting the forces in Transnistria has indeed subsided. — ssu

This will only be true once Russian troops are actually withdrawn to the Eastern side, but as far as I know there hasn't been an announcement to withdraw from holding the damn, a position that could be used to simply siege Kherson in the spring if the Ukrainians move into the city. Keep in mind that Ukraine may not be able to supply the civilians in the city either throughout winter, so they may simply not move in for that reason.

So it's not clear what the Russians are even intent on doing at this point, other than strongly signalling not supplying any civilians there.

What is clear is that the Ukrainian offensive for Kherson did not simply break through and successfully siege the city. So to evaluate the military meaning of all this we would need to know casualty figures on both sides, which we don't.

With all the talk of negotiation (on both sides and other parties(like the US and telling Ukraine to say they're open to negotiation and mentioning "Ukraine fatigue") it seems a strong signal that both sides are hurting pretty bad, but I still fail to see any evidence Russian forces, government, economy is about to simply collapse and the front seems stable going into winter apart from Kherson.

As ↪Olivier5 pointed out, there isn't actually credible nuclear ransom. — ssu

The nuclear ransom is exactly what's preventing NATO planes and troops in Ukraine.

If this was pre-nuclear era, we'd already be in WWIII general global conflict, almost guaranteed.

Saying Russia is deterring NATO acting on it's legal and moral beliefs to liberate Ukrainian territory, is exactly the same as saying Russia is holding the territory at nuclear ransom.

Explaining that NATO policy is to go up to the nuclear response line ... but not cross it, is the same as explaining one of the above.

So my comments on legitimacy through popular support and how to measure it when democratic tools are not available was pertinent. — neomac

Ah, so you'd agree that since we know there's majority Russian speaking minorities in the occupied territories, we can safely conclude they do indeed want to separate from Ukraine even if we reject the legitimacy of the democratic tools in play?

Certainly if Ukraine's right to self determination is just cause, so too is Crimea and Donbas and the other regions?

As long as there's "legitimacy through popular support" (or at least it's possible to just say so) then Russia is simply coming to the aid of people completely justified in their right of self determination and under attack by Ukraine since 2014.

More than virtue, the defence of Ukraine sends a signal of strength. And it sends it to Putin, essentially. — Olivier5

More bold statements without any evidence or argumentation and complete ignorance of the implications.

Unfortunately, when conclusions are both unsound and invalid it takes a bit longer to explain so amazingly false.

For example, assuming the premise is true, that NATO has shown "strengths" by supporting Ukraine while knowing that support to Ukraine will not be enough to actually win against the Russians, then one must actually argue why it's moral to instrumentalise Ukrainian lives in that way simply to "send a signal". Are you really embracing the position that any amount of Ukrainian death and suffering is justified as long as it "sends a signal" from NATO to Putin?

However, the entire entire idea that military support support to Ukraine (but not "too much") is a signal of strength is extremely debatable.

What has the war demonstrated so far? Apart from placing significant limits on type and quantity of arms supplies, obviously NATO will not commit their own troops and planes into this kind of border dispute. Is that a signal of strength?

Likewise, of the arms and training and billions of dollars of economic support as well ... Russia has still been occupying a significant part of Ukraine for nearly a year. How is it "strong" to let them do that. Saying "get out Putin!" and following up that statement with kicking Putin out would be "strong" and "powerful", sure, but has that happened? Will it happen? Even if it does happen, how many Ukrainian dead are worthwhile to attain such an objective?

Then there's squaring this belief of needing to show "strength" to Putin with the belief the Russian forces are entirely incompetent and essentially their own worst enemy. What need to show strength to an incompetent?

These are facts and a solid foundation for any speculation that revolves around the possible consequences of just letting Russia get what they want. Disregarding these facts is just ignorant and not a valid foundation for any counter-argument. These consequences are things seriously considered in every place where serious discussion about the war is happening, but in this thread, such dismissal is somehow approved to be a valid disagreement regardless of how weak any premisses is in support of such disagreements are. — Christoffer

What are you talking about? We've gone over all of these issues multiple times.

Hundreds of pages have been dedicated to the issue of nuclear war, which everyone seems to agree should be avoided.

The "big" consequence that you fail to mention in your "serious arguments".

It just so happens that the rest of the world also has a right to self-defence in the sense of avoiding conflict in the first place.

For example, if you provoke a bunch of people in a bar and get into a fight, perhaps I recognise your right to self defence once you are attacked. However, that does not place any onus on me to support you in anyway. It would be nearly universally agreed that my right to self preservation by simply walking away from the situation far supersedes any obligation to support other people's right to the same.

Of course, a critical factor of evaluation is my power to do something. If I could help get a better outcome (no one hurt and, certainly no one killed) by doing something at no, or exceedingly low, risk to myself people would generally agree that does become a moral obligation at some point of common sense and easy actions. However, if my only way to affect the outcome is to throw myself into the fight or then give weapons (forks, knives, guns) to the side I think is more justified, in this sort of classic drunken brawl situation essentially no one would agree that I have any obligation to put myself at risk and likewise giving someone a weapon in a drunken brawl is questionable at best (murder / manslaughter at worst if someone dies by my weapon; there would need to be very particular circumstances in which "supplying arms" actually leads to a better outcome).

What does all this mean in the situation in Ukraine? In short, there may simply be no effective actions as bystanders outside the fight that lead to a better outcome, regardless of any moralising at all.

The harms of the war to Ukrainians and poor people around the world are considerable, it must be weighed in the balance of what compromise may end the war.

Sure, a compromise can be a "win" for Putin, but if there's no way to effectively "punish" someone who commands thousands of nuclear warheads then we simply have to live with that.

You seem to conflate terrible outcomes of rash and ill-considered policies to escalate the situation but "not too much" with the intended outcome.

We understand very well your intended outcome -- I would not say it is by definition justifiable (a lot of questions would need to be actually answered in a serious way, as you lament) -- but the discussion has been stuck since the beginning on how the intended outcome of Biden / Zelesnkyites can actually be achieved.

If there's no way to impose Western desires on Putin by force without creating far more harms than a compromise that ends the war, then the entire operation is simply a virtue signalling gesture.

But to who? The dead?

Thanks for the concise write up of the speech as well as Q&A.

To add some philosophical context, here is an interesting interview with Michael Millerman, a sort of Western expert on Dugan (the philosophy Putin allegedly represents, directly or indirectly).



I find it interesting that Dugan derives the culture wars ultimately from the universals debate in the middle ages.

I profoundly disagree with the argument, however.

It seems clear, however, as Michael Millerman notes, that Putin's speech is fully embracing this Dugan world vision.

That's pretty naive. — frank

I'm just more optimistic than you it seems.

Seems? It actually was threatening. The US wanted to destroy Russia, like wipe it off the map. Putin had no choice. — frank

Insane hyperbole is a not good analytical tool.

We can acknowledge that NATO threatens "Russia" in various ways, some big and some small, without believing NATO has some actual plan they are actually intent on actually doing to "wipe Russia off the map".

We can attribute plenty other intentions to the US / NATO to explain their various threats, such as scapegoatism (of losing to Trump), need of an "other" to justify war expenditures (when the writing's on the wall in the middle east), wanting a conflict to sell natural gas to Europe (and make money), politicians laundering a bit of said money through corrupt AF Ukraine, and so on, resulting in stoking tensions without much care of the potential consequences. Aka. business as usual.

Everything isn't a nefarious plot all the time.

• Putin's Russia is a present existential threat to Ukraine, to which the Ukrainians are responding

• until Putin's Russia has taken over all of Ukraine, the (supposed (or, say, future-hypothetical)) threat of NATO membership remains

• if Putin’s Russia was to take over all of Ukraine, then Russia becomes an increased substantial threat to others (like Putinian autocracy, nuclear rattling doesn't help)

See where this is going?

- Ukraine remains neutral.
— Elon Musk (Oct 3, 2022) — jorndoe

You do realise Elon cribbed his proposal from me.

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. — boethius

(September 24th - Boethius)

Only thing I got wrong (compared to Elon's proposal) was that it was Elon, not the EU, that has enormous leverage to broker a peace deal.

According to Putin, NATO was planning to destroy Russia. He saw NATO as an existential threat. — frank

Sure, US neo-cons went on for more than a decade about their "nuclear option" of shutting Russia out of the SWIFT system along with significant sanctions.

They called it the "nuclear option" because it would have (in their minds) the same affect as nuclear weapons and total destruction of Russia, just without the nuclear weapons and not (sufficient) reason for Russia to retaliate.

So, you have guys at the top of the US policy making circles constantly talking about their desire to "nuke you" (just with means of comparable destructive power without actually being nuclear weapons), along with installing forward operating missile bases and wanting to expand the "defensive" alliance forward to the border of Russia.

It legitimately seems threatening words and actions.

Likewise for a decade, Russia is blamed for getting Trump elected and orchestrating some high treasonous plot ... with 200 000 USD of facebook adds from some random add farm? Which was delusional scapegoatism.

History teaches that people who engage in delusional scapegoatism on a large scale often eventually act out violently against the object of their delusions.

One can argue that the threat from NATO was not sufficient justification to start a large war, but the idea NATO, in particular the US, wasn't constantly threatening Russia in action and rhetoric is just absurd.

The nuke rattling can also backfire. Russia's Western neighbors don't host nukes (as best we know), surely that would have included Ukraine, had they become a NATO member. On the other hand, Russia's nuke placements are on neighbors' doorsteps. And Russia bulging seems likely to carry such weaponry along, or threaten to, which might elicit a reaction; after all, not everyone airs nuclear threats. — jorndoe

NATO in Ukraine presents 2 entirely real security problems to Russia.

First, is forward operating bases and missile bases in Ukraine, which we've seen happen in the Baltics despite the theory being they would be part of NATO but not host forward operating bases ... apparently Iran was such a big threat from that exact direction that missile bases needed to be there regardless.

So, even if NATO stated it would not forward deploy to Ukraine, you can't assume that would hold in the future.

Second, more importantly, long borders with NATO simply create a more volatile situation. Once Ukraine is in NATO it could stage a false flag, if no the Azov or Right Sector today then some more extreme organisation tomorrow. It may not be clear "who started it" etc. It's simply a security headache that any random altercation along a thousand kilometre border could immediately escalate to nuclear war. Not only can you legitimately fear a Ukrainian false flag, you can also fear either a mistake or then false flag of your own troops starting a nuclear war on purpose or by mistake. If fighting suddenly erupts, it may not even be clear to the leaders of any state involved of why, who, what is happening. Each side may interpret events as the other side making some pre-emptive move as the prelude to some military plan sparking a series of escalations.

It's essentially common sense for both Russia and NATO to want to minimise common borders to a manageable amount (the current borders are very small and not really any strategic threat either way: you can't invade Russia through North Norway and the baltic states don't have large enough militaries to be worried about ... and hundreds of thousands of NATO troops would be noticed).

It's also entirely reasonable position for Russia to invade Ukraine preemptively to avoid the far more volatile situation of NATO bordering Russia along hundreds of kilometres and (more importantly) a large country with a large population.

Why people with any sort of strategic military education at all (such as @ssu) argue that sure NATO was talking about allowing Ukraine to join but that everyone knew that wouldn't happen, that the threat was empty, and therefor Russia should not have reacted to an empty threat.

The problem with that argument is that if people are talking about doing something, even if it seems an empty threat tomorrow, if the situation changes and there's a moment of weakness they will likely seize the opportunity, so it is logical to react when you have the capacity to do so.

Now, NATO could have, instead of talking trash, just gone and done it: fly to Ukraine in 2008 or 2014 or anytime since, have everything pre-approved, and sign the documents overnight and "poof" NATOed.

Of course, that is and was never a remote possibility because NATO, including the US, simply doesn't care enough about Ukraine to expend any real political capital in Ukraine's interest. And no, supplying arms is not spending political capital but building up your political capital by doing the arms industry bidding.

NATO in Ukraine also presents a domestic political problem that people feel the unsafe with their arch nemesis that continuously calls them their enemy on their door step.

Western analysis seems to start from the premise that all Russians think like Westerners and actually want the West to conquer their territory or then just fuck them up generally speaking. We'll be welcomed as liberators!

Stop changing the subject. — Olivier5

This was literally the point you were responding to with:

It is not incompatible with imperialism. — Olivier5

A point (Russian incompetence) that Ukrainian partisans have been asserting since the start of the war, and we just had a long exchange about it with many participants here, going into quite a bit of battle field minutia.

It's also a absolutely central point, as the "Russian incompetence" theory justifies war without a plan, since it's only if your opponent will defeat themselves that you don't need an actual plan other than to wait for that to happen, which is quite explicitly Ukrainian war strategy most of the time.

The annexion of Crimea, Dombass and Kherson are evidence of imperialist ambitions. We are not talking of just beating Ukraine into Belarusian-type submission here, but of land and people grab. — Olivier5

I see we agree that Russia has executed effectively on some critical Imperial aims.

The question I have been addressing is what can be done about it.

As I mention above, the available military outcomes are:

1. NATO goes to war with Russia to implement by force the West's moral judgements, which maximises the risk of nuclear war, or
2. Ukraine imposes its will on Russia by force
3. Russia imposes its will on Ukraine by force
4. The war goes on forever — boethius

I argue that 1, 2, and 4 are unlikely compared to 3 as well as not necessarily being in the interest of Ukraine even it was feasible (forever war in particular), and diplomatic resolution is superior to testing which of the 4 military outcomes by further warfare.

A smaller state demonstrating a will to fight and a high cost of winning a war to a larger state is classic asymmetric strategy in war theory ... but not to then try to conquer the larger invading state but to resolve the conflict diplomatically on favourable terms.

Again, the cases people like to mention, in particular Finland, were not battlefield "victories" but fighting to a better diplomatic agreement (that involved "losing", giving up 20% of Finnish territory, and owing war reparations to the Soviet Union ... yet where are people's tears for this outcome in the real world or then arguing Finland should not have settled but kept fighting until they defeated the Soviet Union?).

The US didn't annex parts of Cuba nor obtained Cuban neutrality/Cuban demilitarization/regime change. And US reaction was against an actual nuclear threat. — neomac

Not only is your premise here false, you don't even bother to understand the argument.

The point is that "doing something about it" (risking your own troops) is a corollary to "caring about it".

Ukrainian partisans seem to take it for granted that of course NATO can talk about Ukraine joining NATO for over a decade but never actually let Ukraine join NATO.

If it was clear to everyone in the West that Ukraine would never join NATO ... then talking about it, giving some little NATO crumbs of equipment and training and so on, has no moral justification, it is purely a provocation to start a war.

For example, nukes in Cuba was really believed by the US administration to be a problem morally required to deal with.

So, what did they do?

They put their own sailors in harms way and made the ultimatum to the Soviets that if they wanted to keep their nukes in Cuba, then it would be war.

Same could be done in Ukraine any day since 2008, or even before.

It's not done. Why? Because "Ukraine sovereignty" is not legitimately believed to be a goal with any real moral merit or commitment, rather a the Ukrainians belief and willingness to fight a losing battle, is a US opportunity.

Now, even if I believed Russia was some legitimate threat to Finland and the rest of the EU if Ukraine fell! I would still oppose bleeding the Russians with Ukrainian lives knowing there is no benefit to Ukraine for doing so over a negotiate settlement, requiring compromise, yes, but compromise is better than fighting for someone else's war game. Especially when there's no respawn ... and your enemy is in fact not a noob, despite the people wanting you to fight irrationally making that assurance.

It is not incompatible with imperialism. — Olivier5

Russian military incompetence is completely incompatible with the notion that Russian imperialism is something we should worry about. Ukraine will win on the battlefield, Russia for sure could successfully attack more countries and more certainly not NATO, and that's that.

Otherwise, what you're saying is that the mere imperialism requires only the mere intention to build empire and no actual means and that anyone who's the target of someone intention for empire building should be given tens of billions of Euro's of arms and economic support. For instance, if I personally have the intention to expand my empire to the adjacent homes in the area, they should all get tens billions of Euros of arms and assistance, because I do intend to expand my empire. Obviously, that argument makes no sense as I have no actual means to subjugate my neighbourhood into a system of vassal tribute.

You can't have it both ways:

1. Arms, intelligence and financial support to Ukraine is justified despite no discernible pathway to victory because Russian forces, despite being superior in strength in nearly every metric, is incompetent and they'll just randomly fall apart one day.

2. Arms, intelligence and financial support to Ukraine is justified as Russia is on a imperial expansion mission far beyond the borders of Ukraine and therefore we want to damage Russia's army regardless of the Ukrainian lives spent and even if Ukraine can't actually win because far from being incompetent, Russia is executing the war in a ruthless efficient way: nearly surround Kiev to shell to the ground Ukraine war producing industry and also fix forces while the south is occupied (nearly 20% of Ukraine and something the Russians can feasibly hold onto with limited force), then attrit the Ukrainians all summer in a giant cauldron in the South using only professional forces and the Donbas malitias and loads of artillery, bait the Ukrainians into disastrous offensives that exhaust their reserves, followed by a limited mobilisation and destruction of the Ukrainian power grid to "get the job done" once economic and political blow-back affects start hitting the West (like 3 UK PM's in 2 months, or whatever it is, move to the far right in Italy, massive protests in various EU countries). Look at these ruthless Imperialists!!! Quick, quick, throw some more Ukrainian bodies to slow down the Russian war machine.

More importantly, regardless of the argument, what would follow from a legitimate belief Russian Imperialism was a problem morally required to deal with, would be the conclusion that NATO soldiers go and standup to this Imperialism.

Saying something is a problem for me ... but not enough that I take any real personal risk to deal with it, is the same as saying it's not a problem for me, rather just an opportunity for others to suffer a cost for my benefit if they're gullible enough to believe my arguments but not look at my actions.

The international diplomatic "dove" position is not based on an underestimation of the horrors of war.

The attitude is more that of Hector in the movie Troy:

Hector: Tell me little brother, have you ever killed a man?

US policy hawks: No

Hector: Ever seen a man die in combat?

US policy hawks: No

Hector: I've killed men and I've heard them dying and I've watched them dying and there's nothing glorious about it.

So what did the West get wrong with Russia? I think our former prime minister describes it well: — ssu

This analysis by the former Finnish PM is just so amazingly shallow and dumb.

For example, he says he was right about Finland joining NATO and his "mistake" was not pushing for that hard enough while in office.

... But is Finland under attack? Would Finland joining NATO have stopped the Ukraine war somehow?

Did he advocate Ukraine joining NATO at the time ... or even now?

Moreover, he was literally physically there in Georgia negotiating with the Russians ... but fails to mention Russia invading only after NATO declared Georgia and Ukraine would be joining NATO, eventually.

He also says the "Doves were wrong" about economic integration, but fails to mention the 2022 war in Ukraine only happening after Nord Stream 2 was not licensed.

Maybe if that economic integration project went ahead, and Germany and the EU pretended it would for 10 years (why else would Russia and a bunch of Western contractors build it?), the war would have been avoided.

Maybe the doves were right, but the hawks under Biden, once in power, wanted this war and ended the doves peace-and-cooperation strategy to avoid war ... and what do we get? A war.

Hawks then run around, like this arrogant piece of Finnish shit, saying they were right?

But what were their Hawkish policies that would have avoided war? Nukes in Ukraine?

If you yell after the fact "haha I was right about the war happening" you need to actually point to what your alternative plan would have been that would have avoided the war. All the Finnish PM can point to is Finland could have joined NATO ... but would that have affected Russia attacking Ukraine.

Of course, if he made the logical link of Hawks were right and therefore NATO should have let Ukraine join, he'd have to square that with Ukraine wanting to join, requesting to join, begging to join, putting it in their constitution (whereas Finland was quite content not being in NATO and never made any request), but NATO not letting Ukraine in the club. Well, if it's obvious that NATO wouldn't have let Ukraine in any time before 2022 nor today ... nor ever, what's the hawk's great idea that would have avoided war?

Arm Ukraine? Even Blinken pointed out that arming Ukraine isn't a good plan as whatever capacity is built up in Ukraine, Russia will just double it, or quadruple it (and, the sub-text, feel threatened and therefore more likely to attack). Arming Ukraine and teasing "NATO partnership and NATO one day" is the primrose path to the destruction of Ukraine, as Mearsheimer puts it. Made them feel big and tough and therefore no need to negotiate in a level headed and compromising way with Russia.

What was the hawkish alternative plan to this exact scenario?

The Finnish PM does not even address any of the key facts or what hawks would have done differently to avoid war in Ukraine.

He's also just delusional about who's he's even criticising. The Dove's position he lambasts is not that Russia is not a military threat and therefore we had no fear of war all these years.

Rather, the Dove's position is precisely because Russia is a military threat and we should fear war, therefore we should be ever vigilant and diligent in diplomatic and economic cooperation arrangements that maintain the peace.

Knee jerk total sanctions was the hawks wet dream, but what did that accomplish? Did Russia collapse economically or was simply the costs of total war preemptively removed so that there is far less incentive to keep or return to peace?

Indeed, US policy hawks called central bank sanctions their "nuclear option" for decades, how they could effectively destroy Russia ... Russia then spends a decade preparing for this threat US policy hawks literally can't stop talking about.

Did the dove's plan really fail?

Or did the hawks finally get to do their insane plans and this is the result.

This is the proof of imperial ambitions, which you have conveniently decided to ignore because it undermines your narrative... — Olivier5

This is not "proof" of Imperial ambitions, as @Mikie describes above.

What you point to can also be explained by: NATO (an anti-Russian alliance) gets closer to Russia, who views an anti-Russian alliance as a threat, threat in a general sense and also specific threat to their naval base in Crimea, and when NATO starts to get too close, too threatening Russia preemptively acts to secure it's "national interest" (the same concept the US keeps going on about for decades to justify all of it's interventions around the world).

And this expanding towards Russia (that geopolitical experts that managed the end of the cold war, say will invariably lead to a war in Ukraine) is then mixed in with 8 years of Ukraine shelling ethnic-Russians in the Donbas.

So the idea that this war was somehow just completely unprovoked by US, NATO and Ukraine, is simply absurd.

Of course, provocation doesn't determine moral justification, but it is incompatible with the "pure imperialism" or "crazy" or whatever narrative imparted to Russia.

Why getting the narrative plausibly correct is important, is that some basic sense of reality is required to make good decisions; in this case reach a diplomatic resolution to the war.

For, either

1. NATO goes to war with Russia to implement by force the West's moral judgements, which maximises the risk of nuclear war, or
2. Ukraine imposes its will on Russia by force
3. Russia imposes its will on Ukraine by force
4. The war goes on forever

The justification for provoking Russia for 8 years by shelling the Donbas and doing nothing about Nazi's the West's own media would go and report on all the time, and the fanatical total war fighting including handing out small arms to civilians (which only get them killed) was number 1, that US / NATO would intervene with a no-fly zone. Zelensky and co. and a good part of the whole of social media seemed to genuinely believe that would happen. And now that Russia seems to be turning the tide, suddenly the 101'st US airborn is being talked up as doing exercises on Ukraine's border and may need to intervene (according to Patreus) ... why would there be this talk if option 2 was feasible?

And when it comes to option 2, in thousands of comments (over 7000 I believe) in this conversation, there has never been a single remotely plausible proposal of how Ukraine can "win" with pure military means.

Indeed, for months Ukrainian partisans were justifying the fighting because it would increase Ukraine's negotiating position ... and that was even Ukraine and Zelensky's justification from time to time, but where was the peace proposal to go along with that idea? Russia entirely withdraw from Ukraine, even Crimea!!

When it comes to 3, Russia does have the means to simply win. So if options 1 and 2 aren't happening, and 4 is unlikely, then the current Western strategy likely result is simply option 3.

However, how is Russia winning a good way to fight Russian Imperialism?

As for option 4. This might be "bad for Russia", for sure, but how is it good for Ukraine?

Although I have my doubts option 4 can be maintained forever, certainly war can be dragged on a maximum amount of time by bankrolling and arming Ukraine as much as possible, even if they are losing. But how's that good for Ukrainians anyways? Considering the lives and economic destruction it entails.

What's the alternative to these military resolutions?

Negotiated peace.

But if you want a negotiated peace, then Russia is going to get a lot of what it wants, easy to yell as a Westerner safe in their living room "Boohoohooo! Russia need to be punished for their Imperialism!" ... but how many Ukrainian lives are worth it to make that point? How many Ukrainian lives are worth it to make that point and Ukraine still lose the war?

Which is the core of my position: if NATO wants to punish Russia for its actions, it should spent NATO lives to do it. If we won't, then it's not our business and Ukraine can fight if it wants to with its own means, and if it can't win then it should sue for as good a peace as it can.

For, the idea there's some moral imperative to send arms is not only absurd, but also hypocritical.

If it's a moral imperative then we should be sending all the arms! Are we? No.

Even worse, NATO opens and lowers the arms and training and funding taps as it suits them, and won't hesitate to shut things down if it becomes politically expedient (just throw some shade on Ukraine, suddenly things aren't so clear, time to stop sending money into a money pit in Ukraine and spend it domestically, duty to own citizens and Ukraine state has duty to theirs and all that).

So, it's not a coherent moral position to begin with and hypocritical from start to finish.

Now, we could debate spending NATO lives to "show Russia" ... but we aren't because everyone knows no one in NATO gives a fuck about Ukraine beyond an expedient tool for US policy.

Additionally, the "Russian Imperialism" land grabbing left and right, makes zero coherent sense with the Russian military incompetence narrative, which is even less sensical than the "we support Ukraine by not actually supporting Ukraine but just sending weapons", with a nice insane "we can't negotiate as it's not our war, and Zelensky won't negotiate with Russia, as he shouldn't!, but will take every inch of territory back ... but also it's Putin that refuses to negotiate!"

Ok, the argument is the Ukrainians can take care of business themselves if we just send enough weapons.

But is that happening?

We've been told since September Russian lines are collapsing ... yet they're still there. We've been told since the start of the war that Russian economy and society will disintegrate and therefore no actual battle plan is required beyond sending more people to die.

Which is the heart of the matter. Whatever intentions you place on Putin, the question is what to do about it. Wars happen. Most wars are resolved by some diplomatic resolution.

What you are talking about is at best a propaganda battle (which you are deeply engaged in, by the way, given the way you are caricaturing it), not the central geo-political question. Propaganda is just one tool of the geopolitical game, with costs, limits and unintended consequences. — neomac

It is not "at best a propaganda battle" for various reasons.

First (as has already been discussed several times), whether something is used for propaganda or not is independent of whether it actually happened or not or whether it's arguably true or not.

Second, and to reiterate the point I was making that, as predicted, you seem genuinely incapable of understanding, even if our Western purported facts and moral opinions are absolutely "true" (this was the premise of my argument, that we Westerners have the truth) it's still important, even under these conditions of being ultimate arbiters of truth, to understand how other people elsewhere see things, even if it's not true, for the purposes of decision making.

For example, the West genuinely seemed to believe that the massive sanctions (that US policy-wonks kept calling "the nuclear option" for years) would destroy the Russian economy as the whole world would follow them. It seemed of genuine surprise to the US and European administrations that nearly the entire rest of the world noped out on those sanctions and the Russian economy was not destroyed.

Western politicians and western media then just basically ignored the issue.

What I am describing here is a failure in analysis even assuming that the West is good and just and the policies morally and politically sound. Failing to see that there's a "rest of the world" (in the words of Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), a rest of the world (a "jungle" if you will) that does not have the truth and so acts differently is a basic failure of analysis, which leads to sub-optimal decision making and inefficient tending the Western "garden" and clearing of the "jungle" in the rest of the world.

Now, if could be that Western politicians and media are just so naively innocent, so unitarily focused on the sublime truth and justice they contain, that they simply can't form in their heads people holding different opinions.

Or, it could be that these alternative opinions out there in the "jungle" are actively ignored because the Western political and media simply have no good arguments supporting their belief to be ultimate avatars of the truth and justice.

So, either way, there is a failure to understand key facts about the world and the situation, which presumably leads to worse rather than better decision making.

Relevance is a relative term. Relevance to what, and for whom? — Olivier5

Relevance to the current geopolitical situation we're discussing.

I was reacting to your statement that:

Fixed. Morality and geopolitics don't mix well. — Olivier5

Which was in response to my statement:

The central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership. — boethius

I then explain that on the fundamentals, morality is very much related to geopolitics; both in terms of seeking geopolitical dominance or protection "no holds bar" is a moral system, but also there's examples of genuine moral indignation shaping geopolitical decisions and geopolitical institutions.

Fixed. Morality and geopolitics don't mix well. — Olivier5

I agree that the war crimes debate doesn't have all that much relevance. Even to the extent war crimes accusations are the justification for escalation or doubling down on the war effort (on both sides) I would still argue that the policy is chosen beforehand and the war crimes just fit (or are crafted) into that pre-existing policy.

However, I disagree on the fundamentals. Wanting geopolitical dominance is still an ethical system. "Realpolitik" is still a moral code, it just deviates from the Western self-image, as either a standalone ethical system or then justified by the need to defend the docile "way of life" of the tender ignorant citizen through unsavoury, albeit "necessary", means.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, moral condemnation also has strong geopolitical affects, such as the a significant amount of the post-WWII institutional framework influenced by condemnation of the NAZI genocide.

Indeed, the European support for the war in Ukraine is entirely moral condemnation based and in contradiction to any realpolitik view of the situation by most European countries.

I deny that greasing a bullet is a war crime. — Olivier5

Oh! Really? You're saying there would need to be an impartial investigation and trial to really have some solid sense of what is and is not a crime and who's guilty of it? Interesting.

Really? That's all you could come up with in terms of Ukrainian war crimes??? No torture, no rapping, no murder of civilians, but the purely symbolic act of greasing a bullet... — Olivier5

There's plenty of these allegations as well. But the bullets in lard was self-posted, and a clear war crime that no one denies.

For example, using a civilian truck as a bomb is a clear war crime and act of terrorism (making the driver a witting or unwitting suicide bomber), but Ukraine is ambiguous about it, sometimes saying Russia attacked their own bridge.

If there's a case where the accused side is denying it, then you do actually need some plausibly impartial investigation and trial to say a "crime" has been committed and who's guilty of it, at least in the Western "freedom" ideology of innocent until proven guilty.

For example, if it wasn't a tuck bomb but a missile and the truck a military target, then no crime! If it wasn't the Ukrainians after all (which even with Ukrainian officials celebrating it and making a stamp, even explicitly taking credit, it's always possible that those officials don't actually know what happened, just happy about it and assume it was Ukraine and a great victory), then the Ukrainians aren't guilty. How to claim to know such things without even a plausibly impartial investigation of anything?

Can war crimes be staged by one intelligence service against another?

Definitely, that's what many in the West has been saying, at least speculating, about the Nord Stream attacks, that Russia blew it up themselves.

Of course, if you go on international television and say you'll shut down Nord Stream 2 one way or another, you have ways of doing that ... as a bluff, well then you're just really stupid to set yourself up to being framed if, for some reason, Putin really did want to blow up those pipes.

War crimes should of course be investigated and anyone guilty held to account.

But to have any credibility, the West would need to first investigate war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and go after, especially, the torturers, but chooses not to. Why expect anyone else to do differently?

And, to be clear, I don't put it past the Russian Intelligence to have blown up Nord Stream or even their own bridge.

Likewise, I don't put it past the Ukrainian Intelligence to fake Bucha and just go around calling entirely legal graves of mostly Ukrainian caused civilian casualties "mass graves" of Russian attacks.

The Rest of the World - from China, India, Euro-Asia, most of Africa and South America - is naturally not only enjoying this rare moment of schadenfreude as Russia's ongoing impudence threatens to humiliate NATO, but if the leaders of these countries are at all cognisant of their own best interests, they cannot help but speculate whether there is here a rare opportunity to not only humiliate the oppressor but perhaps even force the hegemon's shackles to be permanently loosened. — yebiga

This is one of the things Westerners are for the most part oblivious to, but genuinely seem to be incapable of understanding it even when it's explained.

Is Russia bullying Ukraine ... or has NATO been trying to bully Russia these past decades?

Is Ukraine standing up to Russia ... or is Russia standing up to NATO?

Is Russia humiliated because they didn't win in 3 days against a military waging continuous war in Donbas, supplied and trained and advised by NATO with US intelligence? Or is Russia humiliating NATO by taking Crimea and then taking the land bridge to Crimea and surviving sanctions and building an alternative payment system?

Westerners will immediately reject these questions as essentially illegitimate.

However, even if we somehow knew the answers in absolute terms without needing to reason to them or overcome criticism, the questions are still relevant in understanding the world in that not everyone may agree with our absolute truth of the matter, and if they disagree they may act in inconvenient ways.

For the West, this war is an highly emotional one because white people are being attacked in a context where other brown people wars can result in mass starvation and children starving to death and the West couldn't care less, but for the non-white world that seems hypocritical.

Now, Westerners may rebuttal that they don't give a shit if non-whites find them hypocritical, but that may also be seen as hypocritical, as white countries definitely expect non-white countries (aka. the "jungle" that is "the rest of the world" in the words of EU foreign minister Josep Borrell) to, at minimum, listen to their point of view (as the EU is a "garden" and therefore the gardeners know how to "cleanse" the "jungle").

The central geo-political question of this war is the challenge to Western moral leadership.

A I've mentioned before, the "rest of the word" ("well you know what I mean" also according Josep Borrell) world is ideologically much closer to Putin than they are Western idealism (of course, in practical terms, the West is also closer to Putin than it is its own ideology).

Umm...just who is saying that the Russian army is competent and very effective? :roll: — ssu

The claim was

This was not the issue under contention.
— boethius

OK, at least with this you agree. Yet you continue... — ssu

I honestly don't understand how saying "This was not the issue under contention" is construed as an agreement.

apokrisis's hypothesis is that no analysis and no expert is credible, other than the Russian military is incompetent.

Incompetence is a pretty high threshold and you can of course be competent and still fail, especially in a negative sum game such as war.

Even higher threshold is claiming "all credible analysis" agrees with your position.
— boethius
Umm...just who is saying that the Russian army is competent and very effective? :roll: — ssu

Obviously I don't agree that "all credible analysis" agrees with @apokrisis's position.

However, I also don't agree with the position that the Russian military is incompetent.

You then point out anecdotal evidence that is basically only filtered and published by Ukrainian Intelligence, who we may suspect of not only providing a biased view but also fabricating evidence entirely.

So quality of evidence to come to any conclusions at all is dubious.

A war is a bloody fight, the Western media is basically only showing one fighter in a boxing match. (Even assuming what we are seeing is accurate) we black eyes, sweat, cuts, bruises accumulate on one fighter. Obviously, to conclude the fighter we get to see is losing because they're hurting more and more is non-sensical. The key question is obviously "how's the other fighter doing?"

Which we don't really know. How sustainable are Ukrainian operations is a big question mark.

If mobilisation is bad for Russia ... what would make us believe 7 rounds of mobilisation is good for Ukraine? If Russia not having total air superiority is bad ... does Ukraine have air superiority? Most importantly, if Russia is taking casualties, is Ukraine taking any less.

This kind of long conventional war is very much a statistical game of attrition. Seeing something "bad" happen to the Russians can only be evaluated with the full context (which we don't have). For example, if we see a Russian casualty our opinion would be very influenced if we knew how many Ukrainian casualties were caused before this Russian became a casualty.

As for discipline and crimes. Again, discipline is a statistical game and breakdown of discipline is pretty normal for a military, what matters is how much which we don't have much insight into.

As for war crimes, that has nothing much to do with military competence. US committed a lot of war crimes, including torture, in Afghanistan and Iraq but we don't say the US army is therefore incompetent. And, as much as people absolutely hate to hear how "crime" works in the Western "rules based system" we're apparently defending in Ukraine, we do actually need some plausibly impartial investigation and trial before declaring a war crime; just taking Ukrainian intelligence at their word isn't a system of justice. Ukrainians also have plenty of evidence of committing war crimes, dipping bullets in lard and all and posting to their social media. Again, if war crimes (according to us) mattered in terms of military competence, we'd still need some statistics that Russians are committing more than Ukrainians; which, is information we don't really have as war crimes maybe kept secret.

First this doesn't prove my point wrong. Secondly, you are comparing a political struggle within a democratic regime to a war between Russia and Ukraine critical for the World Order. It's a bit of a stretch. — neomac

To put 's question another way.

What is the price you are willing to pay, in Ukrainian lives, for Ukrainian "liberation" of the 5 annexed territories?

What price are you willing to pay, in Ukrainian lives, and Ukraine still lose the war?

Let's say Ukrainian military is in a position where they could easily defend the rest of Ukraine or could commit to all-in-offensives to liberate the occupied territory at the risk of exhausting their forces and total defeat.

What is your risk tolerance for a failed re-conquest of the annexed territories resulting in the even worse outcome of the complete fall of most or all of Ukraine into Russian control?

You seem to be arguing that Ukrainians fighting more, regardless of outcomes, is a humanitarian accomplishment.

If Zelensky sued for peace in the early stages of the war, say the first days, and basically Ukraine lost Russian occupied Donbas and Crimea and the war ended, are you willing to argue that would have been against human rights on Zelensky's part?

You seem to have disassociated the costs of your proposal from the imagined benefits (even if they are really there, which I find debatable for the same reasons as @Isaac, certainly not some guarantee, but that's simply an added risk for continued fighting--that the fight is for nothing human rights wise even in victory--but I'd be willing to agree that risk is lower than a straight-up loss to the Russians).

1. Sending China a clear message regarding its future territorial claims. — Deus

So to send a "message" to country A requires attacking country B? with nuclear weapons?

Why not just blowup a non-nuclear armed country. Same message, no risk.

2. The re-alignment of Middle Eastern oil producing counties back into western views if not neutrality. — Deus

Ah yes, stabilise the market with nuclear war. Classic econ-101.

3. Reduced inflation for the us / Europe citizen. — Deus

How would taking a major commodities producer (not just of oil and gas but all sorts of stuff) into nuclear war ... reduce inflation?

As for the rest of your post I do not know enough about western military capabilities to fully address your points but I’d like to think we lead the way in the techno/military capabilities — Deus

If I understand you correctly, you like to just assume your ideas of invasion and glorious victory have no consequences if they were to be implemented ... due to simple innate superiority?

Can't quite put my finger on it, but ... seems I've heard that kind of thinking before; definitely rings a bell anyways.

Very easy and surgical attack on important Russian targets/military infrastructure. Loss of American lives ? Minimal … — Deus

With nuclear weapons or without nuclear weapons? You do realise Russia has significant military infrastructure that's hardened against even nuclear attack.

The only problem is of course the age old one. The nukes. — Deus

Ah yes, the age ol' debate about them rusty nukes that goes all the way back to Thales.

Without fully knowing the extent of your enemies capability to strike back even after such important targets are taken out then it does sound naive although my prediction would be not that great. — Deus

It definitely does sound naive.

The Russian nuclear triad is designed to survive a first strike all out nuclear attack with considerable infrastructure built up during the soviet union.

A single RS-28 Sarmat (Satan II) ICBM can deploy up to 15 nuclear warheads and also deploy multiple decoys (not that the US has demonstrated it can even shoot down hypersonic missiles in space or reentry).

Obviously if you believe that everything Russia does is incompetent you may also be naive enough to believe these missiles don't work.

However, sending rockets into space is something the Russians are simply pretty competent at, with Soyuz launches having no failures in 120 launches. There would be no reason to assume the successful tests of Russian ICBMs's (that the US tracks each time) is not another indication of competence in this domain.

Obviously the risk is very high ... as you seem to note yourself; again, what benefit to US citizens or even the current US administration to carry out a first strike?

If you're talking conventional strike, why would that be any more effective than the Ukrainian current use of Himars or the constant Russian use of missiles of all types against Ukraine? How do you think Russia would retaliate? Why would a bunch of cruise missiles bring Russia to the point surrender anyways?

The thing about smart mother fuckers is that sometimes, they sound like crazy mother fuckers to stupid mother fuckers...

Some quote by some guy — Deus

That's definitely a true idiom, I can see it as bright as light of the sun: right in front of my eyes.

But let's not digress, you were explaining how the USA should invade and conquer Russia.

How would they practically do that? How much do you think it would cost in American lives? Why would it be worth it for from an American perspective (citizen or the administration).

Most importantly, is there a political faction in the US government that you feel will lead the charge on this with the right arguments? I.e. it is even remotely politically feasible.

That was before the war, before Zelensky even. But Russia is going down into absolute autocracy, all the while Ukraine's evolution is positive. — Olivier5

Positive according to who? Ukrainian intelligence.

Ukraine literally banned the second largest political party.

That's a far worse direction than Russia.

Vexler explaining why “competence” is such a touchy word for Putin and his rule by information autocracy…. — apokrisis

Again, you say you agree with Kofman ... who does not come to the conclusion the Russian army is incompetent, but indeed competent enough even make progress despite 3 to 1 or more numerical disadvantage.

Where is Kofman in the referenced interview agreeing with your "incompetence" claim.

Note that I summarised his view as that Putin’s political war aims were incompetent because the Russian forces lacked the structural competence to execute them. Then on top of that, there was the incompetent execution due to poor preparation, systemic corruption, low morale, normalised sloppiness, etc, etc. — apokrisis

Where does he state that?

↪boethius A lot of blah, blah, blah. Then a careful silence on your wild misrepresentation of Kofman’s analysis. — apokrisis

Silence?

... or doing the actual work of transcribing and citing Kofman to support my claim.

Feel free to rebut Kofman's central evaluation of the current war situation, which is exactly the same as mine: things depend on Ukraine's ability to sustain their offensives, which is far from clear.

What we can deduce from this basic fact is that, on the short term, if Ukraine cannot sustain it's offensives then Russian "humiliation" will stop and then reverse, so whatever social media ground was gained in wildly exaggerating the war ending nature of these recent offensives will be likewise reversed in Russia's favour.

Longer term, there's a lot of questions of sustainment on both sides, which Kofman is pretty clean he doesn't know the answer to.

Indeed, citing someone who cautions the military analysis community to be "humble in coming to big conclusions" is, if you had a bit of that comprehension you're talking about, in direct contradiction in supporting the position the pretty immense conclusion of "Russian military is incompetent".

Thanks for posting that Kofman interview which flatly contradicts your talking points. That you could hear it as saying the opposite makes me quite worried about your comprehension skills. — apokrisis

Did you listen to the interview?

At no point does Kofman describe the Russian military as incompetent and so bound to lose on the battlefield. He brings up things they did well, things they did less well, achievements and losses.

Of course, things need to be compared to the state of the Ukrainian military, which the interviewer gets to and Kofman's response is as follows:

I focus primarily on the Russian military.

And let’s be honest, for those of us who follow this war, definitely engage in some pragmatic self censorship while looking at the Ukrainian military. I just want to put those cards on the table and be frank about it.

I think the Ukrainian military definitely enjoys a man power advantage, and likely has several hundreds thousand personnel that are mobilised and armed and at this point, ok. That allows the Ukrainian military to rotate troops on the front and introduce fresh troops.

It doesn’t translate necessarily into a huge advantage in correlation of forces as folks might assume, and as you can tell looking at the battlefield, it doesn’t feel like in most parts of the front as if Ukraine has a 3 to 1 or even more advantage over Russian forces as manpower would confer.

For a couple of reasons.

First, Russia still enjoys a fires advantage in artillery and that makes it hard to concentrate forces, on the Ukrainian side. That has been how the Russian military was able to make progress even though they did not have an advantage in troops, per se, they consistently had an advantage in fires up until June, and they could concentrate fires and they could achieve localised advantage, and that’s how they were making progress in the Donbas.

Ok, so second, Ukraine is generating additional units and brigades but it also has to recover from degradation of force quality. Why? In a major conventional war you’re going to lose your best equipment and your best people early on. Right. A lot of your best units are going to be heavy in the fighting and their going to get attrition, right, so Ukrainian military has also faced degradation of quality and that’s why you have the British effort to conduct training and other countries looking to add unit training on top of individual training and trying to fix what is kind of the long pole in the tent, which is, umm, maintaining quality of the force and allowing Ukraine to regenerate or reconstitute its military as the war goes on.

Cause the longer the war goes, the more outcomes hinge on sustainability. Who’s able to reconstitute better, which military comes back better than it was before, which military is able to replace its losses.

Beyond that, I don’t have a lot of details. I don’t know anybody that does. It’s actually very hard to look there. Let’s be frank. I think we know a lot more about what’s happening in the Russian military than the Ukraine military, and that’s been the case consistently, not just during this war, but well before the war. — Michael Kofman interview

Notice how this basic observation of Ukraine numerical superiority not translating into force advantage ... is exactly what @Tzeentch already pointed out:

Further, the fact that they managed to go on the offensive while outnumbered implies that they are not incompetent. To state as much would be a harsh insult to the Ukrainian military. After all, if the Russians are so incompetent then why weren't the Ukrainian forces able to defend against them when they had a numerical superiority on the battlefield? — Tzeentch

Kofman then goes onto to describe Russia has been able to scale it's reconnaissance strike complex (long range missiles and planes) from what it could do in smaller scale in Syria, but has been effective in reconnaissance fire missions (artillery and multiple rockets).

He then describes reconnaissance strikes as something really difficult to do, and that Russia can do, just not as effectively as their capabilities would in principle allow ... not something that if you can't do that makes you incompetent.

What is described throughout the interview is strengths and weaknesses, and of course challenges the Russian's face are the same as Ukraine, so the question is who does better.

And also, to be frank, the more we’ve learned about the beginning of the war, right, the early phases, the more it becomes clear that actually there was quite a bit of capabilities used that we didn’t know about early on. Electronic warfare for example that has proved rather effective for the Russian military and continues to be so, ah, various, ah, attempts to fragment Ukrainian command and control. Employment of offensive cyber means. There’s an impression that some of these capabilities that some of these capabilities were the dog that didn’t bark early on in the more And I just want to say folks should be very careful with that assumption, because I think a lot of what’s going to come out over time increasingly will show that that’s not exactly true. That actually these capabilities used much more than assumed early on and have been used more throughout the war.

And it’s always a challenge, the early takes are often if not wrong based on very incomplete information. And, you I like to annoy people and tell them look, we’re six months into the war just remember we’re still arguing about what happened in World War One.

So be very cautious on how much you consume, and over consume, the current information available about how this war has gone and why. So there as a community we need to be more humble in coming to big conclusions. — apokrisis

Again, you can accept that the Russian military is competent, can conquer and hold onto 20% of Ukrainian territory, but still ultimately "lose", in whatever definition of loss we're going with.

Kofman does place the long term advantage "slightly" with Ukraine, but only insofar as Western support keeps pace.

If you remember my central hypothesis: NATO could support Ukraine enough to win on the battle field, but chooses not to. The weapons drip-feed hypothesis is my central position.

Ukraine is recovering it's territory, not losing more. It's fighting a conventional war against Russia and not fighting a hit-and-run insurgency. Oryx that counts the destroyed/damaged/captured tanks can come up to numbers of 1300 tanks lost simply tells a lot. It speaks of a military failure that you cannot just deny. — ssu

This was not the issue under contention.

Yep. It should be no contest. But then Russian incompetence, as all the credible analysis says… — apokrisis

@apokrisis's hypothesis is that no analysis and no expert is credible, other than the Russian military is incompetent.

Incompetence is a pretty high threshold and you can of course be competent and still fail, especially in a negative sum game such as war.

Even higher threshold is claiming "all credible analysis" agrees with your position.

So yes, in such a debate, citing a ex-US military colonel who works for a "think tank" and wildly speculating on the state of the Russian military back in April, is, at the least, not a credible source to support the idea all credible analysis agrees with your position.