Russia does not seem like they will be able to quickly fix the problems that resulted in Ukraine breaking through Russian lines and take over 8000 square kilometers of land. US satellites and intelligence have been able to precisely identify ammo depots and command centers. Russia has no response to precision long-range HIMARS artillery.
Why will it only be a matter of months before Russia has to completely retreat from Ukraine? Four or five more operations of the scale of the recent operation will push Russia out. However, it will take several weeks to months for Ukraine to destroy the ammo depots and command centers in the next area currently under Russian control. Hitting bridges, roads and rail connections. ammo depots and command centers are hit then Ukraine will be able to set up for another large breakthrough.
Russia loses thousands of soldiers and lots of equipment when these collapses happen. Russia will not be able to recruit and train soldiers at the speed and scale needed to do anything. More troops will not matter if Russia cannot address its disadvantages against long-range precision artillery. Russia cannot train or retrain air force pilots to make the air force effective.
It would take years to address the many logistical, equipment and military tactic problems exposed in this war. Russia failed to do this after the Chechnya wars decades ago.
August, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military to increase its number of soldiers by 137,000 to a total of 1.15 million servicemen.
Russia likely has lost 100,000 men in the war (killed or wounded). Russia will likely lose another 50,000 (killed or wounded) before they completely retreat.
Russia will also have lost large numbers tanks, planes, ships and other equipment. The old soviet era equipment has been shown to be mostly useless.
Russia has about 9 million men aged 18-27.
Russia has nuclear weapons and the equipment to defend itself from attack.
Russia will take at least five years to fix its trucks, tanks, drones, artillery and missile problems. It will also need that time to recruit and train its military after overhauling its military tactices.
Any world military following the Russian command and control tactics, equipment and artillery and military operation style will know they have rebuild their military. However, changing military command and control is not possible if the political system cannot trust junior officers.
Charles Hooper, a retired Army lieutenant general has these insights:
The Ukraine war has demonstrated that a well-supplied, well-motivated defender can effectively disrupt or even defeat a clearly superior adversary. If nothing else, this defender can significantly increase the cost and length and duration of a military conflict to the detriment of the attacker.
Russian officers keep getting killed because they don’t trust their junior subordinates to give them an accurate picture of the battlefield. They’re being hounded by Moscow to [share] what’s going on, and they only trust their own judgment. The success of [breaking up larger formations into smaller ones] is predicated on active, adaptive combat leaders who are willing to use their own initiative during the rapid evolution of combat operations. To illustrate that, we have a saying in the U.S. military that fundamentally describes the cultural difference between the Chinese and Russian militaries and the U.S. military. And every military officer learns it from the very beginning of his training: It’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
[U.S. military officers] learn to use and trust their own judgment in a rapidly evolving combat situation and explain their actions later on. And they anticipate that their leadership will support their actions, particularly if there’s a favorable outcome. And these types of cultural tenets are not necessarily common to either Russian military culture or Chinese culture. Those types of capabilities are absolutely essential to the success in information warfare– and hybrid warfare–based environments.
Several European country will be beyond Russia ability to conventionally attack in 2 years or less. Ukraine will stay armed and capable. Poland, Turkey have or will have armies and air forces far beyond even a revamped Russia conventional force to attack. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan will be too much for China to take. China offensive, power projection is no good. China has russian planes, poorly trained pilots and command and control problems. Plus China is a glass cannon with an economy built for peace. Any war, any capable opponent hits the many dams or the high speed rail crossing points.
Equipment Problems
Russia needs to be able to match Lockheed Martins HiMars which has a proven range of 300 kilometers and new ammunition will give it a range of 499 kilometers.
Russia needs new trucks that can actually go off-road. The tires on trucks that should have been able to go off-road would shred when they were not on roads.
Drones and Tank Protection Systems and Lessons for All Countries
All countries will need to recognize the issue of long-range precision artillery. They will also need to upgrade their combat drones and their tank missile protection systems.
All countries will need to improve air force pilot training.
All countries are modernizing their tank forces and increasing spending on drones, missiles and high-end artillery.
Countries will have learned that the US, UK and European countries can support a country like Ukraine in a proxy war to defeat Russia. They can provide satellite and military intelligence and equipment to defeat Russia.
South Korea and Taiwan have more military than Ukraine has. South Korea and Taiwan have more money, more equipment and more trained forces.
China’s air force is mostly either Russian equipment or copies of Russian equipment.
The US would be able to load up Taiwan with weapons to defeat China. The US would have to avoid send US navy ships too close to China. China has missiles to sink US ships. The US could operate from bases in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.
Russia was previously ranked second in the world in military power. Ukraine was ranked 22nd.
Russia has adapted against the Turkish combat drone. However, there is an arms race in combat drones.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Ignoring any countries over 9 – So the number 2 power is up against the number 1,7,8 ranked powers and the rest of the EU?
The oil and gas Ukraine receives and uses for it’s army is from Russia.
Brian quote – “Any war, any capable opponent hits the many dams or the high speed rail crossing points.”
Again, the US would have bombed the electric grid and power plants, water treatment, communication nodes, sewage plants on day 1. After 6 months, and a setback, the Russians just made a limited electric grid attack in conjunction with shutting down ZNPP.
I do not know why it has been a slow squeeze from Russia, but they have always had more effective options that they have not used… and winter is near. Seems like it is theirs to lose, or win.
The only guaranteed winners are China, Western MIC, oil/gas and Biden’s kickbacks. China is really happy that Western equipment and ammunition reserves are being depleted. They are really happy getting a discount on oil and gas, while their Western economic competitors are paying more. They are getting a chance to see military doctrine and experience with these potential opponent’s high tech weapons.
Guaranteed losers are first and foremost Ukraine, one of the poorest countries in Europe before the war, now in debt… they deserve sympathy, but will likely be thrown under the bus. Secondly, Europe – it’s peoples and industry, which relied on cheap energy to be cost competitive.
The Russians are in a bad place their reserves are fully engaged holding on the wrong side of major river in Kerson with no bridges limited to barges that are under constant fire. Russian doctrine requires huge arty use to hold the lines. Artillery especially plus all other ammo is heavy needs lots of truck supply, not to mention FUEL (maneuver), food, parts, standard movement, and all the rest of daily use. The Karkav force and the reinforcements from Russia was either destroyed or captured. The Izuim force did escape but had to leave all their stocks allot of their equipment and is a hollow force for sometime. Kaplask was the main supply hub junction for whole force, Russian ressuply by rail now has to dog leg all the way through Rostadon Russia far south. Izuim area had huge stocks all captured.
Now the Russians are in wore supply straits short men to build fill hold a new defense line hence why they pulled from northern Uk RS border. They need allot more than that and anywhere they pull from will be open to exploit. Mobilization will not help because it will take 6month to a year to train them and seeing the condition of their war stocks equipping maybe more.
There only real option cut losses full withdraw sue peace or major withdraw to defendable lines pray they can hold through the winter and reinforcement. I think the Russians are to proud to admit defeat and instead will continue to try to hold everything and so lose everything including Crimea if they don’t cut bait now.
Eitherway Russia is fkd and I don’t know if Putin or Russia as it is will survive the whirlwind they stirred up. Autocrat regime nations often don’t survive major war defeats.
Brian,
Your tech stuff is great. You’re geopolitics, not so much. You’ve drunk way too much of the American Exceptionalism Kool-Aid, and it shows.
Example: “Russia likely has lost 100,000 men in the war (killed or wounded).” This is just propaganda nonsense.
I fully expect Russia to win decisively, increasing the pain incrementally until Europe and Zelensky throw in the towel.
But … we will see.
There’s a website that actually documents Russian vehicle losses by individual photographs.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
3670 Russian vehicles documented destroyed. That’s maybe half of actual; remember 3670 unique actual photographs taken – many were not. Three dead per vehicle and we’re at 22,020 dead due to only half being documented. Throw in artillery and infantry deaths and also wounded and captured easily equal twice dead, so you have to triple the number. 22,020 dead and 44,040 wounded and captured. 100,000 dead and wounded is a very conservative number. It is probably more than that.
They used to joke about the clack-clack-clack of Oryx’s abacus counting russian lossses, but now it’s a EDM technobeat…
Newton Pulsfier is right about the pictures of destroyed equipment as a proxy to get better estimate of dead and wounded. NATO, UK, US have estimates.
20,000 to 30,000 russian soldiers were in the Kharkiv area. their lines were broken and they either got encircled, killed and captured or they ran. In equipment then a lot got hit by drones.
The failed Kyiv attack earlier also had a lot of losses.
I track all of these things in detail. I look at a lot of data. I am ranked 58th out of thousands of forecasters on Metaculus. Not just tech and science predictions. It shows me as 59 but I am tied for 58th.
https://www.metaculus.com/rankings/
https://www.google.com/search?q=ny+times+estimate+russia+losses+august+16&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS938US938&oq=ny+times+estimate+russia+losses+august+16&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160l3j33i299l2.13804j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
NY TImes – Heavy Losses Leave Russia Short of Its Goal, U.S. Officials Say
6 days ago — With 500 Russian troops killed or wounded every day, according to the latest estimate by American intelligence and military officials
Aug 12, 2022 NyTimes https://www.nytimes.com › live › 2022/08/12 › world › u…
Ukraine Estimates Sharply Higher Russian Casualty Toll in
30 days ago— Two American officials said that estimate of Russia’s losses included about 20,000 deaths. Of that number, 5,000 are believed to be mercenaries …
https://www.grid.news/story/global/2022/08/16/how-many-russian-soldiers-have-been-killed-in-ukraine-what-we-know-how-we-know-it-and-what-it-really-means/
In late July, CIA Director William Burns put the U.S. intelligence community’s estimate “in the vicinity of 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded,” for a total of around 60,000 Russian casualties. This appears more conservative than NATO’s assessment, which said 15,000 Russians had been killed way back in March. On July 27, Biden administration officials told Congress that roughly 75,000 Russians had been killed or wounded, and on Aug. 8, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl told reporters that “the Russians have probably taken 70 or 80,000 casualties.”
A project run by the Russian opposition news site Mediazona and the BBC News Russian Service has documented 5,185 Russian deaths in Ukraine based on “social media posts by relatives, reports in local media, and statements of the local authorities.” These researchers don’t claim theirs is the actual death toll, just the number that can be independently verified.
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
Russian 10k-15k dead minimum based upon the confirmed destroyed equipment
Russia – 5207, of which: destroyed: 3345, damaged: 119, abandoned: 315, captured: 1428
Tanks (955, of which destroyed: 586, damaged: 37, abandoned: 50, captured: 282)
3 crew in a tank
Armoured Fighting Vehicles (508, of which destroyed: 348, damaged: 6, abandoned: 32, captured: 122)
Typically – 3 crew (+7 passengers)
Armoured Personnel Carriers (142, of which destroyed: 71, damaged: 3, abandoned: 10, captured: 58)
BTR – 3 (commander, driver and bow machine gunner) (+ 10 troops)
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicles (32, of which destroyed: 17, damaged: 3, abandoned: 4, captured: 8)
Command Posts And Communications Stations (109, of which destroyed: 60, abandoned: 7, captured: 41)
Engineering Vehicles And Equipment (179, of which destroyed: 64, damaged: 3, abandoned: 41, captured: 71)
Self-Propelled Anti-Tank Missile Systems (22, of which destroyed: 8, abandoned: 5, captured: 9)
Heavy Mortars (14, of which destroyed: 6, captured: 8)
Artillery Support Vehicles And Equipment (54, of which destroyed: 28, abandoned: 2, captured: 23)
Towed Artillery (75, of which destroyed: 24, damaged: 5, abandoned: 5, captured: 41)
Self-Propelled Artillery (154, of which destroyed: 83, damaged: 5, abandoned: 15, captured: 51)
Multiple Rocket Launchers (93, of which destroyed: 61, damaged: 1, abandoned: 2, captured: 29)
Anti-Aircraft Guns (7, of which destroyed: 2, captured: 5)
Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Guns (17, of which destroyed: 8, abandoned: 3, captured: 6)
Surface-To-Air Missile Systems (68, of which destroyed: 38, damaged: 1, abandoned: 8, captured: 21)
Aircraft (51, of which destroyed: 49, damaged: 2)
Helicopters (51, of which destroyed: 49, damaged: 1, captured: 1)
Naval Ships (11, of which destroyed: 8, damaged: 3)
1 Project 1164 Slava class guided missile cruiser ‘Moskva’: (1, sunk)
5 Project 03160 Raptor class patrol boat: (1, destroyed by Bayraktar TB2) (2, destroyed by Bayraktar TB2) (3, destroyed) (1, damaged by Bayraktar TB2) (2, damaged)
1 Project 02510 BK-16E high-speed assault boat: (1, destroyed by Bayraktar TB2)
1 Project 1171 Tapir class landing ship ‘Saratov (BDK-65)’: (1, destroyed)
1 Project 775 Ropucha class landing ship: (1, damaged)
1 Project 11770 Serna class landing craft: (1, destroyed by Bayraktar TB2)
1 Project 22870 SB-739 Vasily Bekh rescue tug: (1, destroyed by Bayraktar TB2 and Harpoon AShM)
Trucks, Vehicles and Jeeps (1385, of which destroyed: 1006, damaged: 27, abandoned: 60, captured: 292)
Infantry Mobility Vehicles (115, of which destroyed: 74, damaged: 2, abandoned: 4, captured: 35)
No foreign power has ever brought the US military to its knees.
Technically, however, Congress and the President are not defined as foreign powers, regardless of how it appears, sometimes.
That was in reply to John Keenes comment below, about how if the US can be brought to its knees etc.
This commenting system still leaves much to be desired.
It seems unlikely Russia will lose soon – there’s a LOT of territory yet for them to be pushed out of before getting back to their pre-war positions, let alone Ukraine’s stated goal of recovering all territory.
My guess is that the war will run at least until next spring, when Russia will get bogged down again and take heavy losses, the US/NATO will have achieve it’s primary strategic objectives (reducing the conventional war threat of Russa), and Europe will be tired of the war after a very hard winter – so everyone (except maybe Ukraine) will finally be ready to negotiate.
It’s turning out Europe doesn’t really matter though? It’s an Anglo-American-Polish alliance that’s actually delivering the vast majority of the war materials. Western Europe’s contribution is mostly their support of sanctions – and they’re not about to trust Russia with their energy security ever again so I don’t see that pivot changing.
If Ukraine is disinterested then that suits America’s strategic interests perfectly. Strategically what would be ideal from the USA’s perspective would be a full mobilization of Russia’s military where it is the entirely destroyed in a Ukrainian quagmire.
In the late 90s until 9/11, any pot boiler thriller had the baddies as renegade Russian generals and nationalists. Maybe those days will return.
Theres no great future for Russia. Either the autocrat Putin government continues, greatly reduced, or it returns to a Yeltsin-era semi-anarchy. Its hard to see how China can continue with Russia as an equal-partner, and not just look down on it as another Belt And Road bitch like Pakistan.
It is 3000 kmr. You are exrapolating numbers ever faster…
What the Russians should do it put all their efforts in destroying the Himars systems, like the British Radar systems along the U.K coast in WW2, this is what trumple them.
Russia has no control of the airspace where Himars is located. By the time Himars launches they have moved so return fire is useless because Russia cannot return fire with artillery due to inadequate range.
Russia can’t counteract Himars because their air force is geared towards defending Russian airspace, not controlling Ukraine’s airspace.
Himars is not a wonder weapon, it’s have strength and weakness as every weapon. Its weekness is expensive rockets while warhead is so small (cannot take down a bridge with many dozens of hits while you only need one hit using big missle). China has systems similar to himars with range up to 500km. Even Belarus have similar system with range up to 300km by working with China (if this a wonder weapon, why China share its reasearch with Belarus!???).
I could dismantle all of those claims as irrelevant; but I don’t have to because I can point out the current war and say: and yet it works.
HIMARS was used to hit logistic depots; field headquarters; and to DAMAGE not destroy bridges etc. Which is BETTER when the morale of the enemy is weak. Because damaged bridges will not allow heavy equipment to pass, foot soldiers can escape easily.
Russia has multiple times tried to take out bridges in Ukraine with their “big missiles” and failed. They simply don’t have the accuracy required to actually hit a small target like a bridge. HIMARS has taken out bridges repeatedly and consistently by just pounding them day after day and checking between each attack if they are destroyed yet. This is why Russian troops are stuck in Kherson and cannot be resupplied fast enough with barges or withdraw with their equipment fast enough to not give it to the Ukrainians.
Bridges are notoriously difficult to destroy; to do it requires special charges and rockets that fly under an angle and hit the columns; even a direct hit by nuclear weapons may not do the trick as well. A good bridge is like a fortress. However, the damaged bridge is in some cases as good as a destroyed one.
They’re even harder to destroy if you don’t hit them.
Repeated strikes with HIMARS have rendered several bridges inoperable. A direct hit with a ~100 kg charge will punch a ~1 m hole in a bridge like the one in antonovsky. In this hole rebar is exposed. Swiss cheese the roadway in a small section and destroy enough pre-tensioned reinforcement and nobody will be able to cross it with any kind of heavy machinery and it will take months to repair it. This is why Russia is reduced to using barges in Kherson; and these barges are being fired upon now and then.
thats not what i was arguing.
I would say the price is a feature not a weakness. By being gold-plated it is a perfect system to extract money from the US government. That’s why it is so hyped. In fact Ukraine has received several other comparable systems which are mentioned as footnote.
What is more important is that with NATO aid, Russia cannot use its aviation. There are anti-air missiles, satellites and such. But i suspect that there is more to it. Even if accept the theory that the Russian defence was quite hollow around Izum, even a squad of helicopters and airplanes would could easily destroy dozens of ground armored vehicles. We didn’t witness it. So something happened. Even if that something is extreme idiocy.
《Russia needs to be able to match Lockheed Martins HiMars》
HIMARS was deprecated at least 1 decade ago. IIRC
As was most of the equipment given to Ukraine. But that’s OK; most of the equipment they are fighting against was deprecated in the 1970’s.
Russia losing this war? You must be joking! Ukraine only has 1,569,800 (see link below) draft eligible men between the ages 18 to 27 compared to 9 million for Russia. Russia has a huge numbers advantage in artillery, ammunition, long range missiles (just destroyed the power grid in Kharkiv), has a functioning air force (Ukraine doesn’t), unlimited oil to supply their armed forces (Ukraine doesn’t) and tactical nuclear weapons (Ukraine doesn’t have these either). If Russia has lost 100,000 troops killed and wounded, Ukraine has lost 5 times that amount according to a Ukrainian soldier in the second link below.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ukraine-population
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/wounded-ukrainian-soldiers-paint-grim-picture-kherson-counteroffensive
This isn’t an RTS game. Ordinary russians don’t care about Ukraine; they are not enemies and the Russians are not fighting an external threat, but an elective war of conquest. If Russia initiates a draft now it will be 6 months before they can throw badly trained troops into the meat grinder with badly maintained 1970’s equipment using WWII-era human wave tactics. The officers who were supposed to train them have already died in Ukraine or are too busy fighting in Ukraine to train conscripts. Russia still has thousands of tanks on paper, but those tanks are only functioning on paper. Why do you think tanks in Ukraine have been found to have foam rubber in place of reactive armor? Even their flagship Moskva was in an advanced state of disrepair and barely servicable. Service was done on paper; upgrades were done on paper; in reality the money was stolen. Corruption has sucked the marrow out of the bone and there isn’t much left but an empty husk. Russia is quickly running out of equipment to the point that they are begging Iranians for drones and the North Koreans (!!!) for dumb shells. Their manufacturing capability is erroded by sanctions; they cannot get the chips nor can they get the advanced tools they were utterly reliant on the west for. The rot is so bad there are serious doubts they even have functioning nukes (they are a perfect target of corruption; never meant to be used; require repeated expensive maintenance and replacement tritium that is very expensive and can be siphoned off and sold on the black market etc).
This unmotivated, badly trained and tattered army will then be “asked” (at gun point) to perform suicide attacks dressed in rags in february against an extraordinarily motivated army defending their homeland against an existential threat with relatively modern weapons supplied by the west. Instituting this draft for the “limited special military operation” in Ukraine will reveal to even the most slow-witted that everything the news told them for the last 6 months was a lie. Already without instituting a draft there are growing calls inside Russia for Putin to resign and stand trial for treason; despite the fact that expressing doubt about the war; or even calling it a war; can carry a 20 year prison sentence. Institute this draft and attempt to press millions into service in Ukraine for an impopular war of aggression and it will be the end of the Russian federation. It is simply not possible; since it’s not possible; it won’t be tried.
Kontraktniki, russian contract soldiers, are busy trying to figure out how to surrender or escape. So much so that there are regular shootouts between russian troops and Kadyrov tasked with murdering people who try to escape.
The LPR and DPR troops that were possible to conscript to fight in Severodonetsk etc in the beginning of the “special operation” are dead. These guys had experience fighting an insurrection in Ukraine since 2014. They somehow believed Russia was their friend and they payed for it with their lives as Russia just squandered them as a meat shield on the front line in Severodonetsk. You can’t bring them back. Now they have to grab people from the street and force them into conscription at gunpoint; which they have been doing for months. These are some of the least motivated troops you can possibly find. These forced conscripts and Rosgvardia (military police not trained to fight against a military) where the ones routed.
The war will probably calm down for the next couple of months and the lines solidify. This is because the wet clay and mud will make it impossible to carry out large mechanized offensives outside of the roadnetwork until the ground freezes. Hungry and poorly dressed russian troops in places like Kherson likely will surrender to the Ukranians. In less isolated areas they may hold out much longer. Ultimately Russia must lose; the only choice is if they want to withdraw and accept consequences and rejoin the rest of the world or if they want to hold out until they become a grand North Korea style “self-sufficient” third world country. Russia won’t even keep Crimea in the most optimistic scenario thinkable.
Technically it is up to the age of 65. Look at the videos. A lot of the fighters from both sides have grey beards.
I am afraid, there will be many deaths/casualties in the following years. Like in the order hundreds of thousands.
There is the non-zero risk that the russians will actually learn from this. Getting really ruthless with the audit arm of the government, with regards to military procurement and asset management. Actually implementing a NCO focused, small combat team structured military. Upping their EW game. Possibly being much more aggressive on implementing AI equipped weapons with much less human oversight to overcome other disadvantages.
Even if the Russians learn a great deal from this. It won’t matter much.
It would be the work of generations to create an NCO layer in their military forces. Worse, they won’t be able to produce effective weaponry for generations, especially given the fact it will take them that long to repair their economy and bring industry up to what the modern levels will be at that time, which would be a first. And they would have to do both of those because they can’t buy it from China, India, or Iran, even if they can get the money.
And that’s all assuming their demographic descent into nothingness relents.
Hopefully, Putin will remain in power long enough for the Russian army in Ukraine to completely disintegrate, as it will. At that point, his successor will not be able to continue it and will have to demonstrate strength in some other way, probably by taking out a lot of frustration and anger on the current regime’s survivors. Blaming Putin and his cronies would also go a long ways towards getting sanctions reduced.
Putin will start calling in favors from his allies and ask them to start attacking Ukraine.
This will relieve the pressure on his forces.
Just don’t want that moron to
“push the button” if he gets backed into a corner.
“Russia has about 9 million men aged 18-27.”
I wonder how many of them can be spared from the oil and gas industry, the IT sector or other essential jobs.
As far as Russia after the war is concerned, I think that there will be a lot of fighting left to do. Ukraine’s recent performance has been outstanding but it won’t always go this fast and there will be setbacks. And I’m not certain that the Russian Federation will actually collapse in the next few years. That is certainly not out of the question but most predictions for the collapse of the Soviet Union were made decades before it happened and it only actually happened when many people started thinking it would last another 70 years. Making a plausible argument for a near-term collapse of a system like the Russian Federation, the USSR or any other system is much easier than actually getting the prediction right.
I agree that countries often last decades longer than external analysts would predict. Collapse can be staved off in dozens of ways.
And then, when they do collapse? They usually just put themselves back together within a handful of years. The USSR collapsed, and here we are facing the core of Russia still trying to aggressively rebuild their empire. The original Russian empire collapsed, and the USSR grew from the rubble within a couple of years.
China collapsed in the early 1900s. That didn’t stick either.
Very few cases are like the western Roman empire where it was permanently destroyed.
If you have to many officers and junior officers thinking independently it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself with a blindfold and your back against a wall.
“If you have to many officers and junior officers thinking independently it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself with a blindfold and your back against a wall.”
Might need to caveat that a bit. It hasn’t really been a problem in the U.S. and yes, there are reasons why it hasn’t been. But that’s kinda the point.
Neither it has been a problem in Nazi Germany. It was in fact their major strength.
As I recall the Hittlers demise came by his own hands. History does repeat and Putin on many levels appears to be a modern day Hittler. This repeat of history (given its similar characteristics to Nazi Germany and it’s leader) is potentially the best case outcome for Putin. Their myopic and corrupt agendas guarantee this best case scenario for Putin and worst case scenario for the world as a whole. After Hittler’s demise Germany with improved vision and leadership has grown into a responsible productive member of the global community that is respected and trusted. I imagine the free world is hoping for a better ending than that of Hittler’s, one that sees Putin imprisoned for the remainder of hopefully a very long miserable existence devoid of the luxury he has stolen from his people.
Can anyone tell me if Putin was eating cake at the opening of the world’s largest broken, ferris wheel? Being an autocrat can be risky, Queen Antoinette lost her head being one. Eating cake would, however, be better than eating bullets and HIMARS
At one time it would have been inconceivable to think Russia could lose in Ukraine. However after we suffered a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan with 2 trillion wasted, 80 billion in equipment left behind and a government we armed and trained collapsing within a week, I can’t count anything out. If a juggernaut like the US can be brought to its knees like this then Russia too can be beaten.
Trump always makes the best deals and he negotiated this t*rd.
The Buck Never Stops With Biden – even though he ensured the US ran away from Afghanistan with pants around ankles
“Throw your helpless civilians into the arms of your enemy, to distract him while you withdraw your forces”
– Sun Biden Tzu
And the election stealing lies never end with Trump, who also gave Putin a big smack on the lips at Helsinki. Oh, and don’t forget abandoning our ally the Kurds at Trump’s request.
Oh, and W Bush managed the trillions in a stupid war.
Oh, and Obama did the surge. Buck never stopped with him either
Oh, The Surge was originated by Bush (20 thousand troops) during the Iraq war nearly 4 Years after Mission Accomplished. But your short memory might have missed that?
But US was not defeated there. It simply lifted its skirt and run like a girl, leading to PR catastrophe. There was no military, strategic, economic or political defeat there. The ability of the US to attack any country, occupy it, and do whatever it wanted with it did not change. Whereas what happened in Ukraine is the decimation of Russian power and degradation to the status of Chinese vassal.
“The ability of the US to attack any country, occupy it, and do whatever it wanted with it did not change.”
I wouldn’t put it quite like that.
Attack? Yes, definitely.
Occupy? Well… it might be a lot more difficult with a large population and rough geography. China, Russia, India, even Iran and Nigeria might be a bit too big for the USA to occupy.
Do whatever it wanted? Not even close. It’s been shown time and again that the USA does not have the ability to do what it wants, which has repeatedly been to set up a western style, democratic, stable, and hopefully allied state.
See Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea.
From Vietnam to Afghanistan, the US has failed miserably. The last real success was South Korea, and even there the “democratic” bit took decades.
Nation building appears to be a lost art. I suspect the USA would be better off not even attempting it until they’ve worked out what they’ve got wrong.
If you cannot get the meaning of the whole and concentrate only on details it means that you have a problem with overdominance of the left hemisphere of the brain to the detriment of cognitive functions of the rights one. My comment is correct. The US has lost nothing but its self-respect.
Using Vietnam in this context also proves you know nothing, John Snow. Vietnam was an outstanding success for the US army, the US lost no major engagement, maintained control, and had a complete strategic advantage. It was a political decision to reverse this because there was no will to continue the fight due to social costs and optics of that situation domestically, as well as the fact that Vietnam was tertiary to US security, so it was unwise geopolitically to overcommit there, additionally, there was no theory of victory in Vietnam on the US side. The US has lost literally zero of its capabilities as consequence, they massacred their numerically superior enemy at will till the very end, broadening the scale of operation on the entire region. This sie the exact reverse of what Russia does-smaller and smaller in scope and goals. Vietnam is similar to the POLITICAL blunder of Iraq and Afghanistan: underestimation of how long and how costly the victory will be, therefore it was difficult to justify to the greater public blood and finances required-for what? Minor security gains that can be achieved cheaper and in a safer way? There is no comparison with what happened here with Russia. This is over for this country. It is done. For GENERATIONS. They just lsot the last people with whom any war could be conducted. Within the next decade their demographical collapse will end them. The decision to get in was a mistake, to continue was an error, and what is happening right now is just sheer stupidity, because next year the economy collapses. And you compare this to a minor bump in the road in the US? You are delusional as all rich, spoiled westerners. You confuse difficulty with catastrophe. Pray you will never have to go through one, you have no idea how collapse and defeat looks like and what it means. You know nothing.
You are writing as though you are disagreeing with me, but we actually agree on just about all points.
You shouldn’t assume an opposing viewpoint just because I point out one area of disagreement.
Nowhere in my comment did I say that I thought
– That this Russian war and the resulting smashing of the Russian forces (both physically and in reputation) was comparable to the USA’s war in Vietnam.
– That the US military was in any way destroyed
– That the US loss in vietnam was a military loss. The loss was, as I said, a failure to be able to build a stable democracy in that country. The same failure as in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s this part of the US system that is weak.
You’ve no doubt encountered people who DO think Vietnam was the USA getting beaten in battles, and somehow you’ve pattern matched me to that. But I’m not.
Brian, how is the power index calculated?
Just something made up by the global firepower website. Something like size of army. Air Force and navy and the size of budgets.
The finalized Global Firepower ranking below utilizes over 50 individual factors to determine a given nation’s PowerIndex (‘PwrIndx’) score with categories ranging from military might and financials to logistical capability and geography.
Our unique, in-house formula allows for smaller, more technologically-advanced, nations to compete with larger, lesser-developed ones and special modifiers, in the form of bonuses and penalties, are applied to further refine the annual list. Color arrows indicate year-over-year trend comparison