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Ukraine Taking My Advice
When the Russians were pushed from Kharkiv back in September, I wrote an unpopular post advocating that Ukraine attack inside Russia. Here it is.
I just wanted to point out that Ukraine is now routinely doing this with the drones they have — Sunday night they hit a major Russian air base (Engels) some 300 km from the Ukrainian border. They are following Sun-Tzu: attack where the enemy is not defending. Leapfrog the guys on the ground, and make Russia pay where they are not expecting an attack. This is the way to force Putin to sue for peace. Ukraine should keep doing it with every tool available. The end of evil dictators is something we should very much desire.
I went back and read the comments. The things predicted by the naysayers on that post (loss of Western support, Russia escalating to nukes, etc.) have all NOT happened. Admittedly, I advocated attacking on the ground (not realizing Ukraine had the aerial reach to pull off these attacks), but the principle remains. And so does the result.
Sometimes, a guy just has to point out when he wuz right.
Published in General
Merkel wasn’t only eager for Ukraine to take that path. She was gonzo on Germany being even more tightly dependent on Russian natural gas – to the point of shutting down the nuclear power generation capacity that Germany already had. That plus the chimera of “green energy” was her path forward. She was told at the time that was dumb. She was told at the time why it was dumb. It has been proven in the interim to in fact be dumb. Did they ask her any questions about that?
Keep trying fella….rooting for a country that is the Congo with nuclear weapons must be a difficult job.
I should have added that Ukraine’s resistance to having these MInsk agreements shoved down its throat are good evidence that it can count further than to 2. It doesn’t want to be Russia’s puppet, and it doesn’t want to be the puppet of the EU or the US.
You are absolutely right, iWe. I was just teasing. Sorry, sometimes I am thoughtless.
That would be like al Qaeda. What do you do with your strange anti-social friend when your common enemy is defeated? I suppose in Ukraine’s case, at the very least you continue to launder money though him.
I don’t entirely understand your first sentence, @flicker, but I certainly agree with your last sentence!
I wasn’t really responding to your comment about Trump, but referring to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. What do you do with your deadly friend when the two of you have defeated your common enemy. You wait for him to turn on you next as al Qaeda did.
I do question my own instincts when they align with the Left …. in this case support for Ukraine against Putin’s aggression.
Zelensky may be not good for this, that, or the other reasons …. but Putin is pure human filth who needs to be defeated.
The sooner the better. Yesterday would be fine.
Still not sure why this is our battle to fight or to fund. Both Democrats and the EU set this up and from my point of view the EU needs to fight and more importantly fund this thing. It will be sad to see the Ukraine finally fail once the Democrats in DC have stolen as much as they can and lose interest. In the end it will end up going the way of Afghanistan, once the Democrats fall in love with something else.
How did they get Putin to invade with that clown-show army?
To the OP: When you made your suggestion, and for one month afterwards, the Ukrainians had heat in their homes and reliable light and power in their cities. One month after your advice they blew up the Crimea bridge. The Russians responded in kind and Ukrainians no longer have heat, toilets that flush, nor reliable light and power.
Expanding the war from a clash of militaries to a total war was a choice.
That’s what did it, and not the Russians running low on 122 and 152mm artillery shells?
Yes, Ukraine should quit provoking Russia by resisting its aggression. Trying to stop the supply of munitions to Russian invaders is one such provocation.
I think it is obvious that Putin set this up
Good points.
Further, iWe, you weren’t right. I looked at your prior post again. You were calling for Ukraine to “invade” Russia, not just launch airstrikes. You specifically mentioned an attack in the direction of Belgorod.
Your suggestion, in the present post, that the Ukrainians “leapfrog” the Russians on the ground, sounds like a terrible idea to me. How would the Ukrainians supply such forces? Have you ever studied, say, Anzio? Or Market Garden? Do you even know these references?
What’s been happening, since your post, is that the Russians shortened their lines in the south and gained the Dnieper as a natural barrier, while accumulating forces for a slow, methodical advance from the east. They continue to advance. This, of course, is in addition to the significant damage from Russian airstrikes noted by mildlyo.
You prior post seemed to call for something like the German Battle of the Bulge offensive, which didn’t go well for them. The current one comes across as the Germans celebrating some V-2 attacks on Britain, while the Allied armies advanced from Normandy.
It is true, though, that the Russian forces are smaller than those assembled for Normandy, but then, the Ukrainian forces are smaller than the German forces at the Bulge, too.
In the long run, greater population and production generally prevails in a war, unless the larger power has little interest in the conflict and decides to cut its losses. We’re the ones with little interest in Ukraine. The Russians seem to be almost unanimously agreed that Ukraine is in their sphere of vital interests.
Perhaps they need to be convinced otherwise, before they begin attacking others in their sphere of vital interests? Which does seem to perpetually expand.
And yet, those are its options.
He’ll find himself under the ground at some point anyway. But will Russia’s interests wrt NATO, Europe, the US and Ukraine change? I think not.
Why does Russia get to count Ukraine as in its “sphere of influence” if Ukraine doesn’t agree?
No, it’s our sphere of (supposedly) vital interests that perpetually expands. Russia’s sphere of vital interests has included Ukraine for over 300 years, since Peter the Great, if not earlier.
Is it really so hard to believe truths that you don’t like?
I want to add something about leapfrogging. It is sometimes possible, with really good logistics. It’s hard on the ground, particularly without seaborne supply.
Our Pacific island-hopping campaign in WWII was successful. Inchon was successful in the Korean War.
It’s very hard for the smaller, weaker power to do so. Think of Lee’s failures at Antietam and Gettysburg.
They say. And “their truths” are irrelevant. Doesn’t mean it makes sense, or that anyone else has to agree. Or even if it maybe somehow made sense 300 years ago, doesn’t mean it still does. And Islam believes the whole world is its “sphere of vital interests.” So what? That doesn’t make their belief “Truth” either. I say feh to them as well.
Ukraine begs to differ- and is proving its point by destroying the Russian army. No other response is nearly as eloquent as that of the Ukrainian people.
Look at a map. The answer is the same as the “Monroe Doctrine”.
The Monroe Doctrine didn’t assert the US right to control South American countries-it just prevented European countries from controlling South American countries. Very different from Russia getting to control any country it borders on.
Intelligent strategy includes any approach that avoids committing the bulk of your forces to a frontal assault. It can involve flanking, using the air, indirect cyber attacks, even propaganda to discourage the enemy populace or encourage your own.
Lee was a terrible general. He insisted on frontal assaults time and again when six of every seven direct assaults in the civil war failed.
And even so-called “island-hopping” was a massive waste of manpower. Most assaults (including Okinawa and Iwo Jima) were terrible decisions. The ocean allows you to literally bypass the entrenched enemy, letting them starve while your ships go straight to their homeland. We lost far, far too many men because the Navy wanted to dump Marines anywhere just to get them off the ships.
Once the enemy air carrier fleet was destroyed at Midway and their vastly inferior supply of materiel and men came into play, Japan was lost. Attacking Japanese soldiers where they were entrenched was playing into Japanese hands.
Iwo Jima ended up not being as vital as initially planned (though denying it to the Japanese was still worthwhile if the invasion of the Home Islands was as tough as the Allies expected it to be). They definitely wanted Okinawa in order to use it for an airbase. That would definitely simplify taking Kyushu.
Maybe for people who think alliance = puppet?
Russia–RUSSIA–recognized Ukraine’s independence in 1991.