Escalating against a more powerful foe is usually a bad idea.
Ukrainians are finding this out now. There’s no denying that Ukraine’s strikes on Russia oil infrastructure, especially refineries have been effective, or that its strikes against Russian shipping had an effectbut that campaign led to Russia changing its strategy as well.
It has basically turned Ukraine into a landlocked country with massive strikes against Ukrainian ports. This is as the harvest needs to be sold.
A systematic attack on gas and diesel distribution in the country, by taking out gas stations, has made logistics within the country extremely difficult. It’s not just that Ukraine is landlocked, it’s that once you get into the country by land, it’s hard to move at all.
This has always been the problem Ukraine faces: Russia is just more powerful. Putin was very restrained for most of the war, not taking out dual use infrastructure, letting power stay on, etc, etc… This is the sort of stuff that the US usually takes out first, as it did in both Iraq wars. Russia didn’t.
But while Putin has been remarkably humane for a wartime leader, there is an implicit quid-pro-quo here: we leave certain things alone and you return the favor. Ukraine, knowing it was slowly losing by accepting that status quo has broken it multiple times and each time Putin’s release of constraints on the Russian military has meant that Ukraine was hurt worse than Russia.
It’s instructive to notice that in the Iranian war the US has actually been fairly restrained compared to its normal operations, for the simple reason that while Iran can’t hit the US homeland, it can hit US allies infrastructure. So Trump’s latest promise to turn off all the lights in Tehran came to nought, as have the past threats, because Iran can turn off the lights and water in the Middle East, and more importantly, smash oil production and refining in ways that would take a decade to repair, even as US petroleum reserves keep dropping.
John Arnold put together a good timeline:
March 23: Postponed announced attacks on Iran’s power grid, citing “very good and productive” negotiations March 26: Extended deadline by another 10 days; negotiations were “going very well.”
April 7: Two week ceasefire to give time to conclude a proposed 10-point plan April 21: Extended ceasefire indefinitely after mediators requested more time May 18: Held off a major strike because “serious negotiations” were underway
June 11: Canceled strikes hours after threatening to hit Iran “very hard,” claiming a negotiating breakthrough
June 17: Signed an interim ceasefire agreement ending hostilities and beginning a 60-day period to negotiate a final agreement
July 27: Paused bombing campaign to give diplomacy another chance
August 1: Canceled planned attack after claiming that Iran had agreed on parameters of a deal
Iran says there’s not only no deal, but they aren’t even talking.
So deterrence has, to some extent, worked in the Middle East, but it hasn’t worked in Ukraine.
Zelensky is now offering Russia an “air campaign” cease fire: they’ll stop hitting Russia’s oil infrastructure and ports in exchange for the same.
Too late is my guess. “Now that this strategy is hurting us more than you, let’s stop” isn’t likely to be all that convincing to Russia.
Ukrainians are resisting conscription massively, the Russian army’s advance is slow, but it continues to advance, and Ukraine’s almost out of interceptors, since they’re going to the Middle East and Israel. A promise to let Ukraine make its own patriot missiles is unlikely to work: if they build them in Ukraine, they can be hit. This isn’t like drone manufacture, you can’t farm it out to thousands of dispersed households: it’s need a real factory, and the Russians will find that factory and hit it. Oh, and Ukraine’s post-war population is likely to be ten million less than the pre-war population, with women massively outnumbering men.
Ukraine needs a comprehensive peace deal. Much like America in the Middle East, this is a war it cannot win and which hurts it more than it hurts Russia. When you can’t win a war, you make concessions and go to peace. Denial of reality is not a war plan, it’s a way of marching to doom. At some point the Ukrainian army will collapse, and the conditions that Russia imposes in an unconditional surrender scenario are a lot worse than those they’ll get, even now, in a negotiated peace.
The same is true in the Middle East. Yes, Iran can’t conquer America, but what happens when diesel and gasoline and fertilizer and plastic and medicine shortages all hit the US mainland? The deal America gets in that situation is worse than the deal it gets if it makes peace now.
When you’ve lost a war, you’ve lost the war. Making your opponent prove it across the board will never lead to a better outcome.
What I write here is for the benefit of everyone, but alas, I live in capitalism and I, and the site, take money to keep running. If you value the writing here and can, please subscribe or donate.
Feral Finster
Since Ukraine has no economy other than de facto unlimited western handouts and produces nothing other than warm live bodies to be press ganged onto the killing floor, who cares?
If Ukraine is truly out of air defenses, it is a true testament to Russian dithering and indecision that Russian aircraft are not running riot over Ukraine, destroying every transportation and infrastructure in the country.
spud
the civil war was one of the first of what’s called modern wars. it was a war against the idiotologies of free markets, and free trade, and all the goodies that accrue to a few, and poverty and slavery to the rest.
when you opponent is driven by those idiotologies, they fight to the death. the south blew it by going to gettysburg, i am sure if lee had it do do over, he would not. but davis egged him on to do ever more stupid stuff. he was driven by idiotologies, and lincoln finally got his generals and sidelined the wall street bootlickers.
and carved the south into small pieces. with massive damage to every corner of the confederacy. basically flattened the south, yet the idiotology still survives and has made a comeback 33 years ago.
so will the nazi’s running the ukraine act in a normal fashion and give up a lost cause, or will the russina have to do another flag raising over berlin? my guess is another flag raising.
the slow grind was necessary in the first few years, but by year three, it was obvious who was going to win, and the gloves needed to be removed in a more speedier fashion. but idiotology still ruled the day in the ukraine, and it still is today.
the nazi’s will just head to europe and the americas after the final carnage, just like they did before.
hand wringing is viewed by idiotologies as weakness.
the russian leadership should have known better, Chechnya and as feral finster has said, georgia in 2008.
bruce wilder
Russia is more powerful militarily than Ukraine, but not all-powerful.
War is always an exercise in persuasion. Who does Russia have to persuade? And, of what does Russia have to persuade them?
In contests between nation-states, persuading governing elites and constituent populations — two distinctly different albeit tenuously related tasks — at home as well as in the target and among the target’s allies — can be a tall order. I think Putin seems well-aware of the limits of his power and that the risks of counterproductive consequences for dramatic gestures bound his options severely. He’s had to resort to patiently waiting for things to change, which he has no good means to change by the force under his command.
Ukraine’s use of assassination inside Russia is an example of a provocative tactic that Russia has to be careful about countering. The Wildberry’s gambit is another.
Waiting for Ukraine to collapse from the effects of attrition seems to be Russia’s best option for “winning the war” but it does not guarantee a reliable counterparty at the end on whom to impose terms.
When Ukraine’s military capacity to defend its long front collapses, it is not clear to me what else collapses with it and what options Russia’s limited military and economic capacity will allow it. A helplessly prostrate Ukraine with failing state capacity along the Dneiper and the Bug could be a nightmare scenario for Russia. A dysfunctional rump state may be the best Russia can hope to achieve, but what a mess that could become, one a hostile EU could move to exploit.
In most wars, both sides are framing their argument-by-force with semi-implicit promises of a willingness to revert to mutually beneficial cooperation in peaceful co-existence on some terms. Zelensky has never to my knowledge since Istanbul ever offered any except a maximalist stance.
The Iran War is an even stranger situation. The U.S. has not had a brief of its own for a conflict with Iran for twenty or thirty years at least. The motivation has long been a compound of Sunni rivalry and Israeli madness. The dynamics of that plays out in the deep shadows of international relations, obscured and concealed lest debate or democratic scrutiny breaks out in the U.S. or Europe.
Feral Finster
Keep in mind that the only thing Russia by destroying Ukraine is doing is convincing the West that Russia will never attack them. It’s the equivalent of trying to scare one’s sociopath neighbor by kicking a dog that nobody cares about and nobody likes very much.
Even if Russia were to sign a peace treaty today, the british and french and germans and poles would keep the war going and.keep trying to wheedle the Americans into fighting for them.