Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Ukraine War Page 4 of 7

Wagner Mercenary Company Chief Prigozhin Has Gone Over The Line

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On June 5, 2023

10 Comments

So, Prigozhin captured a Russian Colonel (after what appears to be a real firefight), and interrogated him and made him “admit” that Russia troops had fired on Wagner mercenaries.

He has also accused the Ministry of Defense (MoD) of not supplying enough ammunition and of setting explosives along the route that Wagner used to leave Bakhmut, among other things. What Prigozhin is saying, repeatedly, is “the bureaucrats are stabbing us in the back, that’s why the war isn’t going well.”

Soto Voce, of course, this is an attack on Putin, whom the hard right blames for not going full war economy, not retaliating against the West’s supply of Ukraine and keeping the gloves on (which he has, if he hadn’t, there wouldn’t be power on anywhere in Ukraine.)

Almost anyone but Prigozhin saying such things would have been in prison now, and I think Putin is making a mistake if he doesn’t make an example of Prigozhin: the kidnapping of a Colonel was over the line. Since Wagner has withdrawn from combat anyway (just in time to avoid the counter-attack, so that if Ukraine has a good counter-attack they can say “we took it, the MoD lost it), well, it’s time.

Wagner was useful because it was a prison-to-frontline piprline. It took heavy casualties of people whose deaths don’t matter to Russia. Prisoners are also ideal in that a normal person is often taken from a job. A prisoner was just an expense: if he gets dead, almost no one cares.

This is, of course, the truth behind Putin’s war: he keeps trying to fight it on the cheap: the right isn’t wrong about that. He doesn’t want to go “all-in”. Money isn’t expensive to Putin, it’s cheap. Actually doing another mobilization or moving to a war economy or putting in extended curfews to help avoid Ukrainian attacks, those are expensive, because at the end of the day, Putin does require popular support to stay in power.

Putin is popular, he has always been popular and he wants to stay popular.

But there are also attacks which can’t be allowed. When you rule, in part, by fear, as Putin does, you cannot allow someone to get away with really challenging you. That’s what Prigozhin is doing, and Putin needs to put him down and probably dismantle Wagner.

Mercenaries are always a bad idea anyway, for a variety of reasons. Putin may not need full mobilization, but he needs more than he’s done, and he should calculate the costs of a slow drag war vs. mobilizing and getting the war done by making real gains that force the Ukrainians to the table.

But leave Prigozhin to keep spewing his attacks and Putin will be seen as weak, and once seen as weak, some dog pack or another will tear him down.

(Oh, and if I were in the Russian army officer corp, I’d kidnap Prigozhin and “interrogate” him.)

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The US Endgame In The Ukraine

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On March 1, 2023

60 Comments

Seems to be what most of us thought it was before the war ever started: try to replicate Afghanistan in the 80s. Keep Russia tied down till Russia collapses, supplying weapons and letting masses of Ukrainians die, avoiding US casualties. The country will be in ruins and not recover for decades if ever.

There are a few problems with this.

Russia is not the USSR. In many ways the USSR was stronger, but Russia is far more resilient. The USSR had a food deficit, while Russia is a net food exporter: one of the world’s largest. They still have a vast market for hydrocarbons and for their weapons. There is nothing the West can sanction that they must have. This is especially the case because while China and India have pretended to go along with the sanctions, both countries are moving into Russia in a big way to replace the Western businesses which left.

In the 80s China was not a Russian ally, and even if it had been it was not the greatest manufacturing power and world’s largest exporter. The Chinese make noises about peace, and they don’t supply weapons, but they are happy to buy Russian oil and gas and to sell Russia whatever else it needs.

Russia has a population problem, but it still has a far larger population than Ukraine. It can feed men into the grinder far longer than Ukraine will. Weapons are great, but they must be used by soldiers.

Further, Russia is not trying to occupy the entire country, but only the parts which are Russian majority or close to it. These places are not anti-Russian. They are not ideal for guerilla operations, both because of the lack of support for them and because Ukraine is basically a large open plain, not mountain or jungle.

Internally, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, the Russian leadership cannot afford to lose. If Putin is seen by Russians to have lost the war, he will lose power and he may not survive that, nor may his family.

Further, people who think Putin losing power would be good for Ukraine or the West are deranged. The people who will replace him are to his right, and they will want another go. Their primary complaint is that Putin hasn’t gone all in: hasn’t full mobilized, hasn’t used all the weapons available (Russia has been far more restrained than the US was in Iraq), and hasn’t moved to a war economy.

Meanwhile, the West is becoming more unified, but not stronger. China continues its rise, and US reshoring efforts seem to involve taking industry from Europe and some week efforts at moving semiconductor production to the US. China produced more semiconductor patents last year than the rest of the world combined, the idea that the Western tech lead is durable is a joke.

Western power and leadership is a wasting asset. Russia is now firmly a Chinese satrapy, China and Russia and India are moving to their own payment system and OPEC is moving to sell oil in non-dollar denominations. Meanwhile climate change advances and it increases Russia’s advantage in agriculture: it improves their yields.

This is a fantastically stupid war, with no good end and it’s not going to replicate Afghanistan and the USSR because Russia is not the USSR, Ukraine is not Afghanistan and America is not the America of the 80s, still vastly dominant economically.

Negotiation should be the way out, but we are stuck in a maximal position: Russia must get nothing.

And that is not going to happen any more than Russian collapse.

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Dog Bites Man: The US (With Foreign Allies) Did Blow Up The Nord Stream Pipelines

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On February 9, 2023

37 Comments

I mean, I feel kind of lame for even posting about this because unless you were stupid (or on the payroll) you knew it was either the US or an ally, and if an ally the US was involved.

Turns out it was the US and Norway. Seymour Hersh.

Of course he had to post this on his substack because not a single mainstream outlet will publish it.

A Dalek commented how surprising the CIA’s competence was in this operation, but what I find interesting is how effective media control is now: if no one will cover it, did it even happen? The level of control over the media is astounding, and the majority of it is tacit, I doubt the CIA had to call outlets and say “don’t publish Hersh”, the people in charge know what their job is and do it without any threats, then see themselves on the same side as the CIA and if a truth is too inconvenient, well, it isn’t important.

It really does remind me of the early post 9/11 and Iraq War period, where you just couldn’t tell the truth and be heard on anything mainstream, and trying was a career death sentence.

And yeah, I do think this is worse than it was in the past. The old media was corrupt and often complicit, too often, but it wasn’t this bad. A combination of almost every media asset being owned by just a few companies and the Ivy League takeover of journalism jobs, which used to be working class, has made the vast majority of the media little more than collaborators with the powers that be.

I’m a bit of a broken record on this, but I still find it extraordinary that they lied about Corbyn about 80% of the time. Amazing.

Anyway, Norway (who made 40 billion more a year from taking sales from Russia) and the US who has also made a mint selling Europe natural gas, turn out to be the nations responsible for destroying Nord Stream, which I’d say was an act of war. Turns out the nations with the most to gain were the criminals. What a surprise. (Though I did think Poland might have been involved, as they had other things to gain. Turns out greed was the primary factor, not ideology.)

Dog bites man. It is tedious that this had to be proved. The amount of cycles wasted by intelligent people proving what is obvious to anyone who isn’t a moron or dishonest is pathetic. (And this nonsense is why I rarely bother proving the obvious any more. It’s just meant to waste cycles and anyone asking for proof of the obvious is not an honest interlocutor.)

Note: corrected “cover” to “publish”, which was my original intent.

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Is It Dangerous to Hit Targets Inside Russia?

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On December 1, 2022

20 Comments

Now, to be clear, a few targets have been hit in fairly minor ways, but let’s assume a real strike with Western-provided weapons.

The opinion below has been stated often.

So, thought exercise: During the Iraq war, another country gives Iraq missiles capable of striking within the continental US, and Iraq launches them and does significant damage to a city, say New York or Washington DC.

What is the US response?

Now, what is the Russian response in a similar scenario? It’s unlikely to be the same, but…

Put your answers in comments.

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How To Make Peace In Ukraine

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On October 17, 2022

63 Comments

The Ukraine war is steadily escalating. Strikes on infrastructure, the Russian mobilization of reserves (Ukraine has already mobilized multiple times) and increase NATO aid as well as economies stuttering around the world. Tac-nukes have been put on the table, though not used.

Peace is better than war, but there seems to be no route towards peace. The Ukrainians have passed a law stating they won’t negotiate while Putin is leader, both sides think they can win on the battlefield and so more refugees flood out of Ukraine, more people die, are raped or tortured or maimed for life.

It is in no one’s interest for this war to continue to spiral up the escalation chain, not even America’s. Europe is already locked in US satrapies, and America is shuddering under the effect of the sanctions plus Covid. For America the real enemy is China, not Russia; and for China the real enemy is America, but both nations need the other for now and neither of them wants a war, even as the US puts on further semiconductor sanctions and widens sanctions to aircraft.

Russia and Ukraine cannot make peace. The normal method would be to find a neutral third party, but there is none who is trusted and powerful enough to take on the task.

There are two nations who can force a peace, however. The US, as the lead nation in NATO and China, which is keeping the Russian economy going. China needs Russia for its future, since Russia makes it immune to a naval blockade choke-out by America and its allies. The US needs Ukraine a lot less, but Ukraine simply cannot fight the war without US/NATO support.

Both Ukraine and Russia need a victory. Any peace will have to give them something they can call a victory. In particular, Zelensky and Putin must be able to sell any peace deal as a win.

It is also important to recognize that some parts of Ukraine really do prefer to be in Russia. What the borders were drawn as generations ago does not change that fact and that Musk made it does not mean it is false. These regions will never truly be loyal to Kiev.

Since there is no neutral third party, the way to peace is to have China and the US negotiate the deal. Let them draw their lines, and then draw the final line in the middle. China is negotiating for Russia; the US for Ukraine.

An approximate deal which will work is:

  • At least Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea go to Russia. Perhaps somewhat more, in regions that are more Russian than Ukrainian.
  • Russia gets international acknowledgement of these areas as a permanent part of Russia, including from the Ukraine, US and the EU.
  • The land bridge to Crimea may go to the Russia. If it does not, then a joint Chinese/US force administers it, with no missiles, long range artillery, or military aviation beyond transport and a choppers allowed.
  • Ukraine gets guaranteed accession to the EU in 5 years if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs. Ironclad.
  • Ukraine gets to join NATO in 10 years, again if they meet some reasonable targets. No take-backs.
  • A large fund for rebuilding Ukraine. Perhaps matching from the money frozen from Russia and from the West. China might throw in some money as well, if they get to do some of the rebuilding. (China is arguably the best at the world at infrastructure right now.)

Russia might be able to take more land than it will get in such a deal, but it will not get international acknowledgment of what is taken and it will have to lose a lot more men. Given Russia’s demographics, further mobilization is not in its medium and long-term interests.

What Ukraine really wants is full integration with Europe and the West. It gets that, which it won’t get otherwise, since after a war it will be discarded, and it no longer has to fight over areas that really don’t want to be part of Ukraine.

The West gets an end to the war, which will help its economies, and will help the politicians in charge stay in charge. (Remember that Biden was begging the Sauds for enough oil to get him thru the mid-terms.)

China keeps its Russian satrapy and thus its strategic depth. If they negotiate a reasonable deal, the Russians are grateful, which will be helpful down the line.

The world ends an escalation cycle which could end in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, which is in everyone’s interest, including Russia’s.

And a hell of a lot less people die, are maimed, raped and tortured or lose their homes and livelihoods.

With this deal everyone gets something which can be considered a win, but no one gets everything they wanted.

It’s a lot better than the alternatives, likely even for the belligerents. Ukraine is NOT getting everything back by fighting a war, and the costs of a war are painful for Russia (that Europe is hurting more does not mean this is good for Russia) and won’t get it official acknowledgment of its gains.

Peace is better than war. Let’s make it happen.

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Russia Hits Power Infrastructure

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On October 10, 2022

17 Comments

Well. Maybe hitting the Crimean bridge was less smart than it seemed.

There are two possibilities here:

It’s a tit-for-tat. “You hit our key infrastructure, we’ll hit yours and we can hit harder.” If so, it’s actually a warning from Russia to end the escalation here.

It’s “gloves off” time. Russia has been very restrained going after power and water and sewage. Power is still on in Ukraine, they even kept shipping them gas. (Far more restrained than the US in Gulf I and II, by the way.) For Americans, think of this as “the heavy hand of war.”

If it’s the second, then what happens is another huge refugee wave to Europe. I’d expect it to be even larger than the last one, over ten million. This weakens Ukraine, damages Europe and warns NATO of the consequences of not keeping Ukraine on a leash. It may also lead to further Ukrainian and “Ukrainian” attack on Russian infrastructure, leading to a cycle of escalation.

I don’t know which it is. A lot of powerful people and a large part of the Russian population have wanted “gloves off” for a long time, and there’s a strong military case for doing so, though Russia wants to do it only when it seems justified, mostly because China is uneasy about escalation, and Russia needs China.

(This is also clearly a war crime as well as a tragedy, but it’s the sort of war crime which has become routine over the past 20+ years.)

We’ll see.

(Addendum: some indications Belarus is moving troops to the border.)

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Addendum To My Fifteen Points On The Ukraine War

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On October 7, 2022

21 Comments

Decided a little more needed to be added to the post, but email went out just before I added it, so I’m putting it here.

Addendum:

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 (and I always felt doing this with only 200k men was stupid.) However, absent sending in large numbers of NATO troops, the fundamental assertion remains.

As for the internals, the Russia economy, as far as I can tell, is doing better than much of Europe. The fundamentals are simple: Russia a food and fuel surplus and can get almost everything else they need from China and other sources and China needs Russia to not lose. This is not the late USSR, constantly running food deficits.

This leaves internal political instability, and my judgment is that if Putin loses power he is replaced by hard right wingers who will mobilize more, not less. There is no meaningful centrist or left wing opposition in Russia.

If you believe I’m wrong on any of these points and you’re right my argument may be wrong, but this is the argument.

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Fifteen Points About the Future of the Ukraine War

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On October 7, 2022

28 Comments

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.

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