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The Battle for Bakhmut
The battle for Bakhmut has lasted for about nine months. It is the bloodiest and most intense fight in Europe since WWII. Advances and retreats are measured in two to six kilometers increments.
Thousands of Russian and Ukrainian forces have been killed in this battle as Russian forces try to encircle the city, and Ukrainian forces try to prevent the taking of the city.
Once again, the following video shows the grunts in the field. I’m not interested in the policy wonk views in the West, nor the Kremlin’s perpetual aggrievement of losing the old Soviet Empire. This fight has become like WWI trench warfare with newer and more deadly weapons.
My opinion is that this war is not going to end anytime soon. Regardless of the past history between Russia and Ukraine, it should be obvious that Ukrainians are fighting for hearth and home.
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Published in Military
Love the tweet!!! From which:
Conversely, …
The US/NATO haven’t been continually inserting themselves into Ukrainian politics for going on 20 (30?) years now in order to aggrandize themselves so much as they did it to try to prevent Russia from benefiting from Black Sea oil and gas, and stuff.
No?
Thanks. This is completely unsurprising. The first casualty of war is the truth. It doesn’t really have a material impact on my analysis or my assessments. It is of course a word of caution to the pro Ukraine side. Neither side in this conflict, or any conflict, has it hands totally clean.
My gut feeling is that it’s more about Russia being a resource rich country that isn’t behaving like a resource rich country but like a country country – ie post the Yeltsin disaster it isn’t for sale. That’s also behind the whole ‘decolonise Russia’ thing where randos from places like
BuryatiaYakutia are being supported in their bid for independence from the Russian Beast.Where dat?
And then of course sometimes I fear we’re trending into the equivalent of you know who and the last US election territory.
Yeah that worries me. Russia may decide it has to reestabish deterrence for its own safety. I support Ukraine, but we must be careful to allow Russia an off ramp where they feel they still have their national sovereignty and territorial integrity. They still have a substantial nuclear force. I support what we are doing in Ukraine, but I am not willing to end the world over it. That having been said I am not willing to let Russia blackmail the west either. Now is the tim3 for a firm and clear eyed foreign policy, alas it is not available to us at the moment.
I trust nothing. Sure I read and I watch video and I listen. But as far as I’m concerned everyone is “talking their book”.
I don’t believe much of what the Ukrainians say because of OPSEC (Operational Security). They will tell you the truthful minimum. The rest they want to keep secret from the Russians. Case in point, the much anticipated counter offensive. We may eventually learn “Operation Guffman” contributed more to Ukraine’s success than we can imagine. By the way that doesn’t mean I don’t expect an offensive.
I don’t trust the Russians for obvious reasons. Not to be outdone, I don’t trust the press either. And I’m dubious about the reliability of our own government. Case in point, we have several thousand versions of the M1 tank in storage in the desert. And while the Europeans are sending Ukraine Leopard 1s, circa 1975, we can’t send 105mm gun M1s?!?
Well what objective would this be consistent with? Sometimes read between the lines?
Or engage in utter speculation: they don’t want Russia to win but they don’t really want Russia to lose either.
Yup.
What do you mean?
I think Ukraine is more dependent on the charity of other nations, so a stalemate probably helps Russia. I assume that Russia is willing to drag this on for 10 years. I don’t see the USA dumping $1 Trillion into Ukraine to sustain them. But, the corporate lobby basically runs D.C.
I definitely see and agree with your point; however, to @postmodernhoplite assessment the Afghans were able to drive the Russians and the US out using small arms and light michine guns the Ukrainians may be able to do the same.
From Aljazeera (August 2021):
Exactly subduing a population is a difficult thing. That having been said. If it had wished and/ or had the will the taliban could not have won against the US. In the end we did choose to leave. Unlike Germany, Japan, and Korea the difference is Russia may not have a choice.
Not so significant in itself, but very interesting as a harbinger, re:
What it might say about relative quality and effectiveness of AFU and AFR troops in the area
More interestingly, as a possible fixing attack (to keep RU troops pinned in place). It’s happening at the same time as limited AFU attacks in Zaporizhiyia and near Kupiansk, and rumors of Ukrainians preparing amphibious assaults across the Dnipro, and armored formations ready to move on the Russian city of Belgorod. The latter two smell like info ops, but the whole looks like battlefield shaping before the much anticipated counter-attack, specifically to keep the Russians guessing where it’s coming, while meanwhile continuing to blow up as much of their logistics as can be reached.
It’s how you chose to fight that war, the price you were willing to pay in blood compared to what you were willing to pay in treasure. According to wiki there were 2402 US deaths in Afghanistan in the two decades from 2001 to 2021. I’m certainly not diminishing the tragedy of the lives lost, but that’s less than 150 deaths a year to maintain control of an entire, mountainous, armed to the teeth country – inhabited by people with an undeniable martial tradition.
There are always these horrifying images of bodies hanging from lamp posts in the weeks after the Taliban take control of a place. The implication is that these were the democrats, the feminists, the secular people that the Taliban wanted to make an example of.
And some of them might be. But a lot of them were also local thugs and bandits that the US backed government either didn’t deal with or actually subsumed as corrupt officials. That’s the awful reason the Taliban retained the critical mass of support from locals in the country. Not because the Taliban are so great, but because the Western backed alternatives could be so awful when the West wasn’t looking. (Or rather, when the Western media wasn’t focused.)
In Afghanistan that was Pakistan, and that’s why you failed. Your interests were at odds, and you could choose to leave. Pakistan could not.
I doubt Russia wants to control all of Ukraine. (Just like Pakistan doesn’t really want Western Afghanistan.) They want the East and they want the coast – imnsho.
Interesting, if anecdotal (emphasis added) story:
Why do the same people have the same debates on the same topics over and over and over?
Without ever changing our, or each other’s, minds? What is this about, really?
And just a few in the last 3 or 4 years. Zero or close to it, for the last year or two, as I recall.
Surrender was always an option in Afghanistan. However, it seems Biden thought he would be able to pass off surrender as victory. (Or just blame everything on Trump.) I’m sure Biden’s “feminist” supporters will say little about the degradation of 16 million women and girls.
If by ‘inserting’ you mean favoring and supporting Western-oriented factions and not conceding Ukraine as Russia’s compliant, autocratic puppet state as with Belarus, and by ‘benefit’ you mean dominating Eastern Europe and possibly rebuilding a substantial portion of the powerbase they had as the Soviet Union (which was almost as much of a Russian nationalist project as it was an ideological empire), then yes.
Edit: The real question is why doing so is either unreasonable, illegitimate or contrary to our national interests?
Is it in the US’ interests to have a buffer state between it and Russia or not?
How do you distinguish a “buffer state” from some other kind of state?
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_state
From a geopolitical, great powers continually jostling for advantage standpoint, it is certainly not contrary to US national interests to have a Ukraine that is within its “sphere of influence”. Conversely, of course, it is certainly not contrary to Russia’s national interests to have a Ukraine that is within its “sphere of influence”, especially since they (unlike us) share a 1,400 mile border with it.
So now we have a hot (and getting hotter) proxy war going. “Yippee!”