Russia and Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh absolutely. Everything about the invasion demonstrates just how true all of that is.

[Anomalocaris]

Oh absolutely.  Everything about the invasion demonstrates just how true all of that is.

The fact that the initial invasion went much more poorly, Russian forces proved much less capable, and adverse world reaction turned out to be  much stronger and more kinetic, than might have been hoped for didn’t prevent Russia from attaining a position to gain its core objective suggests he is a more sophisticated strategists than he is being given credit for.

A sophisticated strategists is not one who always wins or who is always right.    It is one who identified the core objective, and gains the core objective while accounting for the possibility of defeats and being wrong in other assumptions.

The only point that might be open to challenge is did he have to do this at all.  And I think he did, because NATO-ized Ukraine is truly intolerable to any Russia that would like to have geostrategic autonomy.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Just because it is Putin’s fevered dream doesn’t mean it is not likely to be true.     And Putin has show himself to be a more sophisticated strategist whose plans didn’t depend solely on a single throw of the dice or a single measure of superiority, and are therefore more robust and can achieve favorable ends by different means in the face of different contingencies.

I don’t think Finlandization would work in Ukraine. Even if Russia could convince the Ukrainian government to go along (unlikely, but possible), the likely guerrilla war waged by the populace would exact an uncomfortably high price.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Just because it is Putin’s fevered dream doesn’t mean it is not likely to be true.     And Putin has show himself to be a more sophisticated strategist whose plans didn’t depend solely on a single throw of the dice or a single measure of superiority, and are therefore more robust and can achieve favorable ends by different means in the face of different contingencies.

I don’t think Finlandization would work in Ukraine. Even if Russia could convince the Ukrainian government to go along (unlikely, but possible), the likely guerrilla war waged by the populace would exact an uncomfortably high price.

Boru

A truely finlandized Ukraine requires Ukrainians to be as unified, mature and sophisticated as the fins, and led by a government as intellectually honest about the reality of geopolitical power as the post war Finnish governments had been.    The Ukrainians would not be in this position if they had any of these in any significant measure.

So a post war Ukraine would be ruled by a weak and corrupt government susceptible to Russian influence.    A real finlandized government would retain its domestic political and economy autonomy by making sure the Russians didn’t feel it would constitute a security liability for Russia if Russia didn’t meddle in it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Ukraine on the other hand lacks every aspect of political maturity, intellectual honesty, sincerity of political parties, avoidance of ideological showboating, to be able to form such a sophisticate and realistic national outlook and follow its dictates.     So a Necessary Russophile government in Ukraine, unlike a finlandized government in Finland, will be a kleptocratic government that domestically aligns with Moscow and uses threat, coercion, and corruption in handing out rewards to sustain its own power.

What Ukraine does have is a deep and abiding hatred for Russia due to its long history of mistreatment of Ukrainians, including the starving of millions of Ukrainians less than a century ago.

Even if Russia were to defeat the regular Ukrainian forces, I'm pretty sure civilians would take up arms in an insurgency. The west and northwestern sectors of Ukraine were ideal sectors for partisan ops in WWII, and they would have the advantage of a land border with Poland to facilitate supplies.

We saw what a motivated insurgency did to a much more powerful USSR in 1989 -- which eventually resulted in regime change and national breakup. Putin runs a real risk of repeating history even if the Russian "military" <harrumph> wins out, which I don't believe it will. That's because in battle, motivation matters as much as anything else, and the Russians are poorly-motivated, poorly-led, and poorly-supplied. The Ukrainians, if nothing else, have motivation in spades; it's called revenge.

[The Grand Nudger]

I see you're still huffing putins farts about nato and proxy wars. Putin is in no position whatsoever to achieve his goal in ukraine. His aim, he states this repeatedly, he's stated it recently, is the dissolution of the ukranian state and the eradication of ukranian identity.

Everything he's done has put him further and further away from that objective - so if this is how we're supposed to measure whether or not he's a master strategist, looks like a hard no.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The fact that the initial invasion went much more poorly, Russian forces proved much less capable, and adverse world reaction turned out to be  much stronger and more kinetic, than might have been hoped for didn’t prevent Russia from attaining a position to gain its core objective suggests he is a more sophisticated strategists than he is being given credit for.

A sophisticated strategists is not one who always wins or who is always right.    It is one who identified the core objective, and gains the core objective while accounting for the possibility of defeats and being wrong in other assumptions.

The only point that might be open to challenge is did he have to do this at all.  And I think he did, because NATO-ized Ukraine is truly intolerable to any Russia that would like to have geostrategic autonomy.

Putin's objective is the complete conquest and absorption of Ukraine. The fact that he so terribly misread the situation leading up to his invasion impugns his judgement. He completely misread Western seriousness even though we were publicly sharing intelligence about Russian troop concentrations before the war.

The fact that he had such a poor understanding of the combat value of his own army implies that his military leadership is lying to him about readiness. It may also imply their corruption.

The fact that his military leadership cobbled together such a dispersed, idiotic plan, to be carried out by forces unable to provide mutual support or a well-defined schwerpunkt impugns their competence -- though the firings and KIAs of general officers may have allowed others, more competent, to rise to leadership.

All in all, Putin showed a tenuous grasp on likely responses both in Ukraine and the West. It's pretty unimpressive, up there with Hitler thinking Britain would stay out in 1939, or the Japanese thinking the US would sue for peace.

I personally think he suffers from a glut of yes-men ass-kissers who are angling for position in the oncoming post-Putin Russian power struggle.

[Anomalocaris]

The Fins had no love for Russia either, but were sophisticated enough to know the fins and Finland does not come off best by giving free vent to the Russophobia sentiments.

The difference between 1989 in Afghanistan and what is left of Ukraine is Russia does not actually occupy what is left of Ukraine.   So insurgency can only target Ukrainians more than Russians, which is unlikely to make it particularly popular.     In areas that Russia does occupy, the ethnic mix is much less favorable to any Ukrainian insurgency against a population that is about half Russophone.

[The Grand Nudger]

Ah yes, those damned ukranian russophobes, what are they thinking?

[Anomalocaris]

I see you're still huffing putins farts about nato and proxy wars.  Putin is in no position whatsoever to achieve his goal in ukraine.  His aim, he states this repeatedly, he's stated it recently, is the dissolution of the ukranian state and the eradication of ukranian identity.  

Everything he's done has put him further and further away from that objective - so if this is how we're supposed to measure whether or not he's a master strategist, looks like a hard no.

Hyping the fact that the opponent’s stated goal is thwarted does not change the fact that his essential goal is within reach. 

only under very few circumstances does it behoove any thoughtful strategists to clarify his true goals rather using some contrived statement of goal as a tool to create the condition conducive to attaining his true goals.

And it is against Russia’s essential goal,  not stated goal, that U.S. and NATO waged the proxy war.