Let’s lay it out.
First: the next while belongs to Ukraine. They have the initiative and new Russian troops will take time to arrive.
Second: Russia is almost certainly mobilizing more than 300K troops, the bill allowed for one million. The more they mobilize the more training time will be required; not just because there are more troops but because they are reaching deeper into reserves to people who have been out for longer.
Third: When enough of those troops reach the front, Russia will stop their territorial losses and go back on the offensive. The more Russia mobilizes, the stronger the offensive. If they go up to a million, they will have about 2:1 when added to current troops in Ukraine.
Four: Russia is not fighting just Ukraine. If it was, it would win. It is fighting Ukraine + NATO, and it’s clear that means that NATO officers are doing the majority of the planning and we now know that there are some NATO troops on the ground, we will find out there were more, and that a lot of volunteers were “volunteers.”
Five: Western propaganda has included a lot of declarations that the end-goal is regime change, recapturing Crimea and even breaking up Russia. It has been declared, over and over again, that there will be no negotiated peace with Putin. This means the Russians regard this war as existential.
Six: what Putin said was “all methods” not tac-nukes, that includes things like level bombing, taking out Ukrainian infrastructure (remember, power, water and sewage are on in most of Ukraine and Putin could turn them off tomorrow.) Tac-nukes are part of all-methods, but unlikely to be the first thing reached for. They will be used if necessary to defend Russian territory, which to Moscow includes the Oblasts that recently were declared part of Russia.
Seven: OPEC cutting oil production is, in fact, helpful to Russia. Understand clearly that outside the West and our client states like Japan, Korea and Taiwan, most of the world is not cheering for NATO to win, because for good reason they hate and fear Europe and the US far more than they do Russia.
Eight: The only country which has sufficient leverage over the Russians to force and end to the war is China. However China does not want Russia to lose the war, for their to be regime change, and so on. Russia is their satrapy, their junior ally and absolutely necessary to their security. A regime friendly to them must stay in power. With Russia China can survive a western naval blockade, without it China cannot. It is that simple.
Nine: there is nothing that Russia absolutely must have that it cannot get from China and India. They cannot be choked out economically without those two nations cooperation (though really, it’s about China) and China in particular will not cooperate, though it may make mealy mouthed statements as if it is.
Ten: Europe is suffering more from sanctions than Russia is: significantly more.
Eleven: However bad this war has been, it can be a lot worse. It hasn’t even reached Iraq war levels of destruction of infrastructure, for example, as pointed out in six.
Twelve: the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged so Europe in general and Germany in particular would have less reason to press for peace, especially as the winter makes clear how much they need Russian natural gas. It was done to keep the war going, and to help de-industrialize Germany and Europe so that America can maintain its hegemony.
Thirteen: because the Russians now see this war as existential, they will mobilize as much as they need to. If that is millions of men, it’s millions of men. Though there is clearly some resistance to mobilization, it is unlikely to be enough to stop it, and the more the West threatens to break up Russsia and so on, the less resistance there will be. Russia has traditionally been willing to bear huge losses in what it considers existential wars.
Fourteen: The war will go on until one side or another is actually defeated. That may be economic defeat, political defeat or military defeat, though they tend to go together.
Fifteen: peace can only be made in two ways: crushing your enemies entirely, or negotiating. You can’t make peace with your friends, only with your enemies.
Bonus Point: Kennedy negotiated because Russia then, and now, has enough nukes to end the world. Also the crisis was caused because the US put nukes in Turkey.
Carborundum
This would properly be 15 points – 12 is in there twice.
To my mind, the key questions are only touched on tangentially here and centre around internal regime stability and control. The regime properly sees this conflict as existential; what Russians writ large think about it is a lot less clear. How much daylight there is between the populace and the regime and what each is willing to do about that gap is central. All the rest is pretty much factors affecting that Schwerpunkt for quite some while (to change that, the regime will have to put some very big military wins on the board but I see little sign they have the expertise).
Given the masses of verbiage being pumped out by people with zero language or area knowledge but a great willingness to “hot take” based on worldview and whatever they can cobble together out of the various propaganda machines spewing fluff, this is pretty much guaranteed to be one of those analytical issues where commentary and reality diverge significantly. Most commentary on pretty obvious military realities has been face-saving crap aimed at clinging to previously expressed perspectives (seriously kids, analysts who can’t change their views with new data are much worse than useless), why would this be any different?
Tallifer
Concerning Points #1, 2, 3 and 12, I would seriously consider the analysis and conclusions made by Perun about Russian mobilization in this in-depth video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hXnQNU8ANo&ab_channel=Perun
Concerning the Bonus Point, I am less sanguine, but this essay by Timothy Snyder has unexpected food for thought. https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war
Jim Harmon
Not to be p(r)icky or anything, but you’ve got two point Twelves.
Very good list. And (I think) a much more realistic and helpful approach than displayed on DNC Hack sites like DU and Daily Kos.
Ian Welsh
My argument, from the beginning, has always been simple: Russia can mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so. Unless they are weaker internally/China than I think or NATO intervenes more than I think, they will eventually have a conventional military victory.
Of course, I could be wrong, but nothing which has happened yet has changed my view. What has happened is that NATO was willing to mobilize more resources than I expected, and that has made a Russian victory require more mobilization than I thought (though I always felt doing this with only 200k men was stupid.)
None of this changes the fundamental argument.
As for the internals, the Russia economy, as far as I can tell, is doing better than much of Europe. The fundamentals are simple: they have a food and fuel surplus and can get almost everything else they need from China and other sources. This is not the late USSR, constantly running food deficits.
Tallifer
In counter point, I do not think that Russia can effectively mobilize more men and women than the Ukraine can. I think Russia has oppressed her people so severely for the past twenty years under Putin, that his million men would be like the completely unmotivated (and prone to route and desertion) million that Xerxes and Darius mobilized vainly against the Greeks. I am not writing from the insane perspective of the movie 300, just from the outcomes of actual history and from the consequences of twenty years of horrific repression and looting in Russia ( see for example the Russian journalist Masha Gessen’s books including “The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin” and “The Future is History”).
Tallifer
As for the European ability to sustain sanctions and deal with the results thereof, I have more confidence in European resilience. I dislike the pro-capitalist and devil-may-care attitude toward the environment of Visual Politik, but this video does offer hope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiM2QICwGnk&ab_channel=VisualPolitikEN
Only wishing thinking on my part, but I hope that the same spirit of sacrifice which won versus Hitler will show itself again.
StewartM
Tangential to your points, but interesting, is this assessment of “Russian character” which we usually blithely ignore (from a Georgian)
Their human nature is no different than that of yours or mine.
But their psychology and behavior is a different question.
This will be a brief overview of some things I consider important, I couldn’t possibly go into all of the history/detail.
Russia as a whole is a country that has been traumatized by its past – whether it was from civil war, famines, the great terror, or from foreign invaders starting with the Mongol invasions to the seemingly never-ending European invasions. This caused a sense of insecurity in the country’s psyche that I believe acts as a large factor in the way Russians view their own sense of security and why they are so prone to blame external factors for any issues that may arise. This also shows why so many have resentment towards the West – they had been trying to be a part of it for so long, and constantly failed, and that in itself, is very discouraging (the West messed up here big time, I think).
In addition, their behavior and cultures have been shaped by their religion – Eastern Orthodoxy – ever since Vladimir I adopted this Christianity in 988, I believe. But here is an important aspect of this – Vladimir was the prince of Kiev and led Kievans to Christianity back when there was no distinction between Ukraine and Russia – and here starts one of the fundamental battles over Ukraine in the present day. This religion was then banned during the Soviet Union. Interesting fact: many were still secretly baptized “just in case,” including a certain current president of Russia.
Later, when serfdom was abolished in Russia, they still continued to live in a largely feudal society. There has always been a lot of poverty, lack of food and resources, and in turn Russians were forced (or wanted, depends on how you look at it) to live as a collective society, caring for one another, while also fighting to survive. With this, you are left with individuals with tough skin, but warm and caring hearts who will do anything for family and close friends (this sometimes perpetuates corruption as well).
This is why no Russian will smile at you when they walk by – why should they? They don’t know you.
But if you are someone they know, you will get the warmest and most welcoming greeting you have ever experienced.
All in all, this is a country and these are people who have been through hell and managed to come back – so no, they are not going to take any crap from you and they’re going to get straight to the point in a conversation, and if you don’t like it, well… they have enough problems to worry about and don’t need that kind of negativity in their lives 😀
Tallifer
On the other hand this horrific speculation/prediction: https://www.newsweek.com/desperate-putin-could-nuke-six-ukrainian-cities-try-win-war-1749796
If Russia got away with this, what would stop Iran, India and North Korea?
TimmyB
I can only agree. This war will end when Ukraine and NATO conquer Russia or Russia conquers Ukraine. I find the Russia conquers Ukraine scenario much more likely due to the various factors you mention.
What concerns me is what happens after Russia takes Ukraine. There are US ABM missile sites in Romania and Poland. Putin has demanded they be removed. If Russia uses force to remove them, we will have a much wider war.
anon y'mouse
Stewart M–
some, but very few Americans can relate to that kind of psychology due to personal factors and family history.
They make perfect sense to me!
all this blather about how “finished” they are and how oppressed and willing to desert they are, well….we shall see. doubtful, very doubtful.
i though it a genius stroke to send the dual citizens out. if you can’t declare your absolute loyalty at the time it’s needed and stand by that declaration, go where you will and shift as you are able. these deserters will be viewed the same way, most likely.
Ian–you’ve got nothing about the stated international aims—the multipolar world, the new trade regime, the potential fall of globalist neoliberalism? i really hope you’re giving us another post!
NR
Ian, I’m curious: how do we know this? I know Russia has claimed this, but to my knowledge they have not provided any actual evidence for this claim. There are some well-known cases of foreign soldiers fighting on Ukraine’s side, but none of them are currently serving in any NATO army.
What is the evidence that there are actual NATO troops fighting in Ukraine?
Ian Welsh
“There is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine than there were at the time of the Russian invasion in February, several current and former intelligence officials told The Intercept.”
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/
Carborundum
The direct American presence in-country will likely be pretty modest. Outside of presences in major centres removed from combat, I’d bet we’re mostly looking at something like a few ODAs and a B team from 10th Group and/or some folks from Special Activities Division (depending on whether they have Title 10 / Title 50 authorities, assuming that isn’t a quaint distinction these days). Most of the planning and int support (and I’d bet that’s actually by far the major non-materiel contribution) can be done via reach-back to better resourced and more secure locations outside Ukraine.
Given the realities of modern combat, I’m pretty skeptical that simply being able to press more warm bodies into service is determinative. It has some relevance when things are static but if you’re up against an enemy that is maneuvering effectively, unless you can match them you’re going to be playing an extended and very painful game of catch-up and be vulnerable to the types of reversals we’ve seen recently.
NL
@Ian
“My argument, from the beginning, has always been simple: Russia can mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so.”
Men is only part of the story. Industry is a bigger thing. Look how Russia did in WWI and what happened to it in large part because of WWI. The Czar could mobilize millions to the army but had no industry to equip or establish proper logistics. The bourgeoisie/capitalists ousted the Czar, pushed on with the war but had no industrial solution. End result – the Bolsheviks swept to power, cleared the corrupt and incompetent, won the civil war –> including reconquering Ukraine <–, industrialized the country and won WWII.
If we look at the present Ukrainian-Russian war as a civil war (supported by foreign intervention, which was also the case in 1917), then the play may be for a committed and competent force to knock out Putin's oligarchy, win the second civil war and begin rebuilding the country's industrial base.
NR
Okay. That’s pretty nonspecific as to what they’re doing, though. We already knew that they were in the country training Ukrainian soldiers, I don’t think this is confirmation that they’re actually fighting.
Lex
No arguments on any of these from me. Though I don’t think the Russians need the mobilization for an offensive since we’ve barely seen the Russian army and not since like April except in small doses. I think the mobilization is primarily for reserves and to prepare for further, western escalation.
What I don’t see is any panic in Russian leadership. That’s not to say everything is going according to their plans or best case scenarios, because it isn’t. But no panic. Of course I utilize Russian sources rather than relying on western media and open US intelligence assets like Gessen. (Nobody gets to run radio svoboda without being a US intelligence asset, of course she – it was she then – ruined it but whatever.)
What we can conclude is that Ukraine / NATO spent six months preparing for this counteroffensive which is still relatively lacking in heavy equipment and artillery support. It has gained a fair amount of vacated territory, but not enough to change the dynamic (only another 100K km2 to go for their goal) and is either in operational pause or petering out. It neither killed nor forced the surrender of significant Russian forces and now has long, exposed supply lines with lightly armed forces that are not dug in.
Also it’s hilarious that so many Americans believe the Russians live in some sort of totalitarian hellscape. Ain’t no propaganda like American propaganda.
Ian Welsh
Covert action needing Presidential authorization isn’t going to be just training. I’m quite confident we will learn they were fighting and that many volunteers were “volunteers”. Quite confident.
Ian Welsh
The most likely person to replace Putin will not come from the opposition parties but from the right wing in his own party.
Astrid
Ian,
Again, what does “right” even mean? You could say hard-line anti-Western, but that’s not the same as Right as we understand it from history or in the West. This also comes up in discussions on Iran, where the anti-Western and Islamist elements are described as “right” when they are often more socialist and communitarian in their overall outlook.
This is perpetuating the pattern of the West lecturing other countries on their polities without even understanding the very basics of those societies.
“Liberals” in Russia are compradors for the West and hated as such. They’re not centrist or left, they’re people who willingly sell out the rest of the populace to the West and think better of themselves for it. Understanding that dynamic might help understand the role of liberals and PMC in the West.
Trinity
“Eight: The only country which has sufficient leverage over the Russians to force and end to the war is China. However China does not want Russia to lose the war, for *their* to be regime change, and so on. ”
Should be *there*
NR
Ian, here is an article (from a pro-Ukraine POV) that details the kinds of things that require presidentially authorized covert actions. None of them involve direct fighting by Americans (though some do skirt pretty close to the line). So I don’t think it’s a given that that’s happening. The bottom line is that if there were large-scale military operations being carried out by the United States in Ukraine, I think it would be impossible to keep that a secret in this day and age. But I could be wrong of course, I am far from an expert.
https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/these-5-covert-actions-could-help-turn-the-tide-in-ukraines-fight-against-russia/
Trinity
“The war will go on until one side or another is actually defeated.”
I’m not sure about this, I don’t think either side can lose because it’s existential on both sides: US world hegemony on one side, Russia to remain a sovereign nation on the other.
This seems more like a forever war, because the US literally cannot lose, both in terms of their arrogance, and their fight (their right, in their minds) to rule the world. Failure isn’t an option for them, either. That’s how they’ve set this whole thing up. Armies of regular people may be fighting in it, but the Oligarchic and Elite existence depends on winning, and they have all the money. Existential issues aside, they are making even more money on the war and care nothing about the human genome tree getting trimmed.
It will be interesting to see when (or even if) the Elites lose patience given how rewarding (heads they win, tails we lose) and exciting and invigorating all this is for them. I see this becoming a world war to end all world wars before the smoke clears. The West running out of physical resources is all that may ever end this war , and partly why they are still trying hard to get to the moon and then Mars. They are even talking about reopening long dead mines using modern mining methods, wreaking even more havoc on the landscapes, polluting ground waters, but who cares? It’s all good for them and their profits.
The amount of cognitive dissonance that we the little people are enduring on a daily basis has its own effect on all of this, such as seeing southwest Florida wiped off the map, but the rocket to the moon will still go ahead as planned (now scheduled for 2024, apparently). We see really bad decisions being made daily in the West, promises being made that we know will never be kept, desirable assertions made to gather votes, then forgotten after the election. We have unwanted front row seats for the ultimate prize fight between war and climate change. (My money is on Nature.)
The only bright spot is that none of this is sustainable over the long term. Not much of a bright spot, to be sure.
Ian Welsh
NR.
I’m about 90% sure I’m going to be vindicated on this one. Give it a few years. Revisit it then, or I will and if wrong I’ll admit it.
And a lot of the “mercenaries” will turn out to be essentially sent by their governments, 100%.
StewartM
Astrid
Again, what does “right” even mean? You could say hard-line anti-Western, but that’s not the same as Right as we understand it from history or in the West.
Having read about (but not obviously directly from, as they write in Russian) the Russian “right”, I conclude they are:
1) Socially conservative–for obedience to THEIR kind of state (not necessarily to the state per se), and for ‘religion’ (not necessarily the Orthodox Church, but usually so). This translates to opposition to LGBT rights, to women’s rights including access to abortion and overall worship for authority.
2) Pro- pan-Russian empire. This is usually misinterpreted in the West as “restoring the USSR”, but these guys are far worse, as the USSR did genuinely try to mitigate the previous Tsarist mistreatment of non-Russians under Russian rule (just look at their leadership positions under the USSR, they were replete with ethnic non-Russians, even at the very top (Khrushchev was Ukrainian, for instance)). They want a return to the Tsarist empire with only Russians calling the shots.
3) Economic interventionism. This is the ONLY place they differ with the Western neoliberal right. However, they are NOT for a return to communism. Instead, they want a mixed economy, with the government in charge of important industries (energy and defense), but continuing private ownership. While they are ok with a mild form of redistribution of wealth to the poors, they are not overtly against the Russian billionaire class.
But like the US Trumpists, the fact that the Russian right is not really against the billionaire class (individual billionaires yes, but as a class, no), a class that depends on *looting* as its sole means of obtaining wealth, any Rightist regime that replaces Putin will continue being a regime of “crooks and thieves”. As such, they are far more akin to the Tsarist regime that lost WWI than the Soviet regime that one WWII and afterwards became a superpower, designing and manufacturing weaponry often equal to or better than the West, and being the first to put men into space.
The USSR accomplished this despite their admitted flaws and despite the fact of continued Western hostility (which now we can obviously see, there was no reason for the West to continue its anti-Russian position after the end of the USSR, but instead it ramped it up). This hostility did not give the USSR a respite to shift resources from the military to civilian economic development (even though Khrushchev tried).
Olivier
@Ian “Russia can mobilize more men than Ukraine and has reason to do so.” But can it equip them and train them? The reports filtering out of Russia so far have not been encouraging on that front! And without proper training and equipment these men are just cannon fodder
You can enumerate as many abstract points favoring Russia as you want, this is a war, not a diplomatic game. Thus unless Russia can field an *effective* army on the ukrainian theater it is toast.
StewartM
Trinity
The amount of cognitive dissonance that we the little people are enduring on a daily basis has its own effect on all of this, such as seeing southwest Florida wiped off the map, but the rocket to the moon will still go ahead as planned (now scheduled for 2024, apparently).
I actually think the rocket to the moon is a good thing, though I also think the current moon shot shows how much actual competence has been lost between the FDR economy and the Reagan economy. Moreover, I have serious reservations about ‘rebuilding’ destroyed terrain as it was–because in the absence of any attempt at climate change mitigation, it is futile.
I mean ALL of Florida will end up underwater again, so why rebuild it? So why are people still flocking down there to live? Not only are they putting themselves at-risk for increasingly stronger hurricanes, but also (as it is HOT in Florida and will only get hotter) it will increase the load on the power grid due to air conditioning use. This should be discouraged, not encouraged. Ditto with people moving to the arid and burning southwest.
I’ve been in favor of a ‘no rebuild’ policy. At least ‘no rebuild’ anywhere at-risk for strong hurricanes having storm surges up to 20 feet. The government should buy up the land to re-compensate the owners to build elswhere and then make the land public. Let’s have public beaches again.
This just in part of an overall land-use policy. Stop paving over forest lands or agricultural lands for subdivisions and businesses (usually in places that get plenty of rainfall) and instead force people to redevelop already-developed urban land that is often abandoned and unused and deteriorating. Abandoned lands need to be returned to nature. Encourage people to live in cities instead of in suburban sprawl (that means: make cities liveable and affordable again, which means tackling an artificial housing crises caused by our rich buying up homes/apartments, especially inside cities. This could allow us to shift population and agricultural production away from places that drain aquifers and are getting increasingly arid to places that still get plenty of rainfall, and allow us to abandon the unhealthy and polluting ‘car culture’ for a healthier mass-transit culture. It also allows a more efficient means of handling waste streams.
NR
Ian,
I am definitely not discounting the possibility, though I don’t know how likely it is. But we will see, I suppose.
Trinity
StewartM,
I agree with all you say, and I actually study land use. You are absolutely right. But that is the cognitive dissonance for me, because I know that we have passed the point where any “recovery” in places prone to major disasters is using up the same resources that would have kept those people who lost everything alive into the future. Relocating them won’t garner votes. Our leaders continue to make decisions that borrow from the future to maintain a fictive present, so I would posit the exact same argument against the push to get to the moon and Mars. Our leadership is laser focused on their own agenda, and we will all suffer for it moving into the future.
But I do understand why people, especially old people, move to Florida. It’s affordable, and there are jobs. I came very close to moving there myself for the same reasons: no personal income tax, electricity is cheap, affordable housing can still be found, especially away from the coasts, and the weather can be great in the northern part of the state.
Meanwhile, people are losing houses on the Outer Banks regularly, and not from major storms, but regular storms combined with sea level rise. There is no option to rebuild, the Atlantic shoreline continues to move west. Climate change effects are incremental, it’s just getting started, and it’s only going to get worse, not better, over time.