JC Denton wrote on Jun 6
th, 2023 at 11:19pm:
Dnarever wrote on Jun 6
th, 2023 at 10:23pm:
Quote:expert - says Ukraine is losing the war badly.
In March 2022 Russia took Much of the east of Ukraine and a corridor to Kiev as well as a lot of the North.
By Oct 2022 Ukraine had taken back the path through to Kiev and all of the north east.
March 2023 Ukraine had taken back a little more but much was locked down through winter.
do you ever think there may have been more in depth reasons for what occured in all of those circumstances
ukraine has taken back effectively nothing since kharkov and kherson, and in the latter circumstance the russians gave them back the city, you are lying
kharkov was a vacated front with a significant numerical advantage, the ukrainians were opportunistically seizing upon the fact that russia did not have enough manpower to adequately defend the entire front
manpower has been a significant constraint on operations for both sides in this conflict, in reality despite being the biggest war in europe since world war 2, it is a fairly small scale conflict in the grand scheme of things, with both sides fighting with armies that in total are smaller than most major eastern front ww2 battles
ukraine wasn't even close to kherson at the time of russia's withdrawal, all their kherson offensive yielded after months and months of flailing and sending reconaissance groups into direct artillery fire was a few podunk villages along the dneiper river
it was not remotely possible for russia to capture the kiev metropolitan region with the number of men it had around the city; at that time, the only hope of seizing an urban conglomoration of 3m with a force of about ~50,000 men was a rapid capitulation ala georgia, which was obviously the plan A the kremlins were hoping for
when it became clear that was no longer possible, those forces were withdeawn and redeployed, sensibly
you seem to believe that armies should fight stupid unwinnable battles to the death, and this is a smart way for wars to be fought
and in retrospect given what has happened with the destruction of the novaya kakhovka dam surovkin's decision to withdraw from kherson was absolutely the correct thing to do, as the destruction of the dam could have easily left all russian soldiers on the left side of the dneiper river stranded, inundated and cut off from supplies
a completely reasonable decision in hindsight
what this war has communicated to me more than anything is modern armies don't have enough infantry with fighting power to effectively conduct operations, and are overly reliant on ranged deep strike weaponry which has little capacity to take and hold positions What this war has communicated to me more than anything is don't start wars to begin with. You started off cheering Russia on, now you're just making excuses for Russia's failures, which were all obvious to begin with. Vlad was warned, but he didn't listen.
Vlad believed Zalensky would flee, Ukrainians would surrender, and the Western powers would leave Russia alone to deal with their own backyard.
Exactly the opposite happened. If Vlad had listened to his advisors instead of firing, killing or publicly humiliating them, he would have seen the likelihood of the opposite happening. Vlad's failures are greater than his military loss of face. They go to the heart of his leadership style and political model. His failures show this:
1. The Western alliance is strong. NATO is still a military hegemony. Vlad was warned of the consequences of invading Ukraine by Biden himself, but he ignored the advice.
2. Nationalist populism is the greatest threat to democracy. Vlad eroded human rights and liberties in Russia piece by piece, just as Bolsenaro in Brazil did, just as a Marine le Pen in France or a Donald Trump in America would, or would of if he
could. People might be captivated by the nationalist jingoism they present, but the results are in. Russia is what you get: a poor, isolated backwater, shunned by the world.
3. Consensus-style leadership and democracy is
efficient. Top-down, alpha-boss models don't share power, and therefore don't diversify responsibility. Russia's generals aren't owning their war, they're just being bossed around by some guy over the phone. The same applies to running governments. Russia's public service is still inept after the fall of the USSR as it just replaced the Party with the Boss. Same with the legal system. The only people in Russia with any power are the oligarchs in the private sector, and they have to listen to the Boss too. The Russian economy is seen as a skim by all involved, not a collaborative effort.
4. Invasions and foreign occupations don't work anymore. If no one noticed America's departure from Afghanistan, they can't miss Vlad's invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully, China takes note, despite holding Tibet after all these years. Zalensky is right: Ukraine could very well be the war to end all imperialist wars, but alas, people will inevitably be captivated by the populist nationalists who start them, so we need to listen too.
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expert - says Ukraine is losing the war badly. (Read 9142 times)
