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I think the Russian collapse will be like what scientists call a phase transition: a semblance of stability one day, a complete breakdown one (literal) day later. Ukraine will end up holding more than 100k POWs. The only negotiations will Russia will be about reparations. I hope they don’t settle for anything less than one trillion.
The two subpoints with which I agree are that the NATO decision on the MiGs was wise, and that neither Russia nor Ukraine can climb down from their positions.
My expectation is that of a long hot/cold standoff, eventual splitting of Ukraine, and gradual North Koreanification of Russia with Putin at the helm.
The Great Delusion (2020) by prof. John Mearsheimer: https://youtu.be/nZVIaXFN2lU That if someone really wants to understand where we are with all those Libya, Syria, Iraq, ... Ukraine. And how and when this one really started: https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc As of Francis Fukuyama predictions... I am Ukrainian by myself. With family spread over West Ukraine and Russia East. Note: Russia is the second country after Ukra…
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But the fact that we've transitioned from BiPolar (USUSSR) to UniPolar(US) and now to MultiPolar world is correct as we see.
I'm not sure I believe any of this beyond the fact that the west's "reserve" has at least kept the conflict from extending beyond Ukraine's borders. If the war ended with Russia pulling out of Ukraine tomorrow, it's my opinion that the sanctions should last until there's a complete overhaul of the Russian government - we don't want this happening every five years!
Edit - to the downvoters: after the central powers were defeated in WW1 some hefty penalties were levied on Germany in the treaty of Versailles. The idea was that they needed to be punished heavily otherwise they'd be tempted to rebuild and enter into another conflict that would consume Europe. Obviously that did not work.
The Great Delusion (2020) by prof. John Mearsheimer: https://youtu.be/nZVIaXFN2lU That if someone really wants to understand where we are with all those Libya, Syria, Iraq, ... Ukraine. And how and when this one really started: https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc As of Francis Fukuyama predictions... I am Ukrainian by myself. With family spread over West Ukraine and Russia East. Note: Russia is the second country after Ukra…
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Mearsheimer may be blinded by silly IR theories, but he is a realist (i.e. not ideologue) through and through.
The Great Delusion (2020) by prof. John Mearsheimer: https://youtu.be/nZVIaXFN2lU That if someone really wants to understand where we are with all those Libya, Syria, Iraq, ... Ukraine. And how and when this one really started: https://youtu.be/ppD_bhWODDc As of Francis Fukuyama predictions... I am Ukrainian by myself. With family spread over West Ukraine and Russia East. Note: Russia is the second country after Ukra…
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-...
The question I don’t have an answer for here is how does Russia control Ukraine if they do win militarily? It seems incredibly unlikely that they have enough troops and doesn’t seem remotely sustainable.
Capture is one thing. Holding on is another. According to latest estimates, RU has already invested the lion share of its military assets (not army men) in the Ukraine invasion. And they're doing badly. There will be attrition & guerrila warfare if boots stay on Ukrainian soil. They dont have an economy like US/UK to back this up well. They're bleeding under sanctions. Economy is falling as fast as when USSR collapsed. No major foreign trade possible (except the Southern hemisphere countries, China & India) & companies are pulling out. Mass unemployment & currency devaluation will likely follow. The world opinion is not sympathetic to Russia. It is a lose-lose.
As of now the Russians are fighting for the sake of one man's inflated ego of building the 'Historic Russia'. The Ukrainians may or may not win this offensive, but they have showed remarkable heroism & solidarity to keep the country fighting.
Another counterview has emerged from Meduza, the press group which was 'blocked' in Russia as part of their silencing drive. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/03/12/has-russia-s-invasio... Apparently, according to Meduza we are only seeing the bright side of things - the news we want to hear. The battlefront has several other shock surprises if you look at the Ukrainian losses. It seems bleeding heavily on both sides…
Since we can just make fuzzy predictions and not face any consequence, let's go ! 1. The Russian military (aided if needed by mercenaries) is bringing entire cities to the ground in the south of Ukraine, and just buying times before leveling substantial parts of Kyiv. Source : the news. Painting that as a "military defeat in the making for Russia" is just insane propaganda. 2. There is a perfectly "acceptable" diplom…
Leveling cities into rubble does not necessarily help the attacker, see Stalingrad. It hurts civilians of course, but not necessarily military defense. The thing is that modern urban warfare is so favorable to defense that the attacker has little other choice - it's rolling the dice and nothing more. West Ukraine is not even all that poor, they have a legacy of good institutions as part of the European West and their…
Yes. It wasn't a city, but when the Allies bombed the Italian hillside monastery of Monte Cassino [0] in 1944, it left a pile of rubble that the Germans managed to hold for another three months.
If you don't rubbleise a city, they are horrendous to assault. Most battle tanks (western and Russian) can't elevate their main guns high enough to take out attackers in a nearby multi-story towerblock (the 'urban canyon'), some military comms systems and GPS lose signals, defenders can use subways to transit, etc etc.
General attitude of in Russian army except maybe some strategic stuff is fuck everything coupled with rampant corruption, theft and all encompassing decay. I am not sure China has the same problem and would not count on them being incompetent.
>"Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power"
I think he knows this well and am I afraid that if he sees the end this abomination of human would engineer something that would lead to a WWIII with all the consequences. I hope he gets eliminated before reaching this stage.