I was reminded of this long post of mine from August of last year whilst listening to this fellow talking about the the Russian way of war and attritional war. He says,“If you have any idea about Russia’s history at war, you will see time and time again, from Charles the XII of Sweden to Napoleon to Stalin, the ability to absorb catastrophic initial losses over a number of years to then having large wins later on, and we are seeing this.”
I would simply add that the Russians trade space for time. Remember that Ukrainian Offesive in 2023 that was gonna end the war?
I recommend history. Read correctly history is much more like reading prophecy.
Tallifer
The Guardian has a great article explaining how both Putin and Netanyahu need to continue their destructive wars forever.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/25/donald-trump-netanyahu-putin-forever-war
Purple Library Guy
@Tallifer: That’s a stupid article. The political situations of Netanyahu and Putin are very different, both in international and domestic terms.
Domestically, Netanyahu is faced with a very difficult situation–he has many enemies, and it is very likely that as soon as the situation no longer constitutes an emergency they will be in a position to eject him from office, at which point he faces the resumption of a strong case in court that will probably land him in jail. He also is dependent on backing from various dangerous fascists, who could abandon him if he backs away from maximalist, genocidal goals.
Domestically, Putin has few enemies and is very popular; if he retires, he can probably enjoy a pleasant retirement as a grey eminence that current politicians continue to consult. If not, he can be elected to whatever position he wants whenever he wants, and could even if the election process wasn’t a bit dodgy. He has no domestic need for a state of emergency.
Internationally, Netanyahu is facing erosion of Israeli political influence due to the very atrocities that he needs domestically (and prefers personally). But that’s erosion starting from a very high level. The question is whether and for how long Israel can continue to manage international reaction to its genocidal actions. Probably at some point the erosion of influence will become so great that powerful countries stop supporting Israel and even start taking actions against them, but it’s unclear how fast the process is going. The question for Israel has always been, how much of their ultimately genocidal domestic agenda can they get away with before pressure from outside gets beyond their control. What’s changed lately is how hard they’re pushing it and as a result how fast the erosion of support is moving. But the pattern is one of nearly all countries shifting away from Israel over their actions.
The international reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has a quite different pattern. In general, countries that already didn’t like Russia and supported the United States intensified their dislike of Russia, while countries that didn’t particularly support the United States did not care and in some cases even improved their opinion of Russia. So international opinion of Russia has POLARIZED, rather than moving in one direction overall. And the fundamental question about international reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine has already been answered: Can Russia’s opponents do anything about it?
The answer turns out to be “no”.
The fundamental strategic objectives in the two cases are also very different. In the case of Israel, the strategic objectives, particularly when you take into account actions in Lebanon and Syria, are at the same time specific and vague. Specific in that what Israel seems to want is to commit genocide and/or ethnic cleansing against all non-Jews living in places near their borders that they consider to be theirs. Vague in the sense that it’s not clear just how they can accomplish this, OR just where the boundaries are of this ambition. Up until a year or so ago, nobody much thought they wanted any of Syria beyond the Golan Heights, but there they are now. It’s hard to say when they can ever consider the project complete.
The Russian case is very different. There are a few side goals, like the whole “Denazification” thing and protecting ethnic Russians in the breakaway Donbass area. But fundamentally, the invasion of Ukraine stems from Russian security fears with respect to NATO and its coup in, arming of and potential expansion into Ukraine. They consider a heavily armed NATO-oriented, let alone NATO-member Ukraine to be a dagger aimed at their heart. The invasion is to make it so Ukraine cannot be operated as a base for NATO attacks on Russia. Putin is not interested in ending the war right now, because he thinks that he is winning. He believes that if he ended it right now, he would not achieve his strategic objectives in starting it, but if he continues it he will probably be able to achieve them. So he will continue until he wins and can dictate an outcome that achieves his objectives.
And at that point, he will stop. He has no interest in endless war; he has an interest in war continuing until his fairly well defined strategic objectives, which he has stated repeatedly since well before the invasion, are met. So again, this is completely different from Israel’s situation. As to Britain and the EU in general and the United States, if they continue spending money and arms they can slow down this process, but it is very unlikely they can stop it. Their sanctions won’t help and there is no meaningful increase in them that they can do; if those were going to work, they would have by now.
So yeah, that article saying the two are the same because the author doesn’t like either Putin or Netanyahu so they must be the same, is rubbish.
Anon
@Purple Library Guy: I just wanted to thank you for such a clear-eyed and intelligent comment.
Tallifer
Leftists who defend dictators, genocide, military conquest etc discredit the Left and undermine those Leftists, socialists, humanitarians and other people who decry injustice no matter what the politics of the perpetrator. It only gives rhetorical cover for evil men like Trump: witness how he exploits antisemitism to practice violence against Muslims, poor and other minorities.
Tallifer
To clarify: the governments of Venezuela, China, Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Nicaragua (for example) are just as horrifically oppressive and worthy of condemnation and opposition as the governments of America, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and other darlings of the radical right.
Paul Damascene
Space for time is certainly one aspect of the Russian ‘way of war’, which I take as a reference to a book by this title by Col (ret) Jacques Baud, Swiss military intelligence.
Two good examples of ‘space for time’ were on the defensive, with Russian fighting withdrawals from Kherson and in the Kharkov region in 2022. In part these withdrawals happened because Russia had taken more space than it could hold with the available manpower, and which had only been captured as a gambit to force Kiev to put into action provisions of the Minsk Accords, and to show the West that Russia was serious about protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, in this case from an impending UkroNATO mass assault on Donbass / Crimea.
But one can also look at Russian ‘space for time’ on the offensive, since those withdrawals in 2022. Now Russia can be seen explicitly refraining from any large arrow attacks specifically to keep the fighting in the SE near Russia’s logistics, and as far as possible from NATO’s, and NATO air cover.
In effect, while Russia has been building up its combat power relative to NATO, Russia has been pressing forward only to the extent and in a manner to DISSUADE UkroNATO from retreating behind the Dniepr and forcing Russia to sustain its logistics across the river.
Giving space for time, and not taking space for time are two sides of a coin.
UkroNATO
elkern
The most interesting aspect of the Guardian article that Tallifer linked is that it shows that British MSM has turned against Netanyahu – proving one of PLG’s main points (that Israel is uniformly losing Western support). The article consistently equates Netayahu with Putin – the core message is that “Everybody knows that Putin is a Bad Man, and Bibi is just like him, so Bibi is a Bad Man, too”.
bruce wilder
if anything is interesting about the Simon Tisdall essay in the Guardian, it is that he thinks Netanyahu is already so universally discredited and disreputable that the comparison with Putin might be useful as a means of discrediting Putin.
Of course, UK participation in the Forever Wars project begun under the younger Bush makes one think a good deal of projection is involved.
Ian Welsh
China? They lock up far less people than the US and they aren’t engaging in a genocide, though there is some repression of Uighurs and Tibetans. I know people who have visited both regions and there are no concentration camps. Overall I’d see they’re a deal less repressive than India is. Likewise I understand Belarus isn’t as bad as its made out to be. Won’t defend North Korea. Doubt Venezuela is that bad.
Revelo
“Oppression” needs to be fleshed out with specifics. None of us can change the fact that we are “oppressed” by Mother Nature with mortality, illness, etc. And realistically, there will always be a social hierarchy and those at the top get special privileges and thus oppress those at the bottom in various wsys. Also, trying to overthrow the government will almost always bring trouble on your head, so almost everyone is oppressed to some extent by limits on actions threatening the government.
If you consider bottom tier inhabitants of different societies, what really constitutes oppression is grinding poverty (malnutrition, lack of clean drinking water, poisoned environment, lack of sanitation in general, no healthcare of the form that actually does good, horrible working conditions) combined with corruption, unfairness and abuse of power in interactions with police and other authorities, etc. I agree with Ian that China and Belarus score very highly on measures of how oppressive life feels at the bottom. Bottom tier in USA can be much worse than China or Belarus if you don’t have family support. Bottom tier jobs in China and Belarus are nasty, but at least there are bottom tier jobs for those who want them and such jobs will result in perfectly adequate nutrition, health care, decent housing, etc plus a few entertainment luxuries like television or smartphone. Whereas, no guaranteed jobs at bottom tier in USA, but rather homelessness and scavenging in dumpsters for food. Bottom tier in China, Belarus and USA can all expect fairness from the police and authorities regarding typical interactions, though USA probably scores worst. Regarding prisons, everywhere they mostly contain people who deserve to be there, though maybe not for the crime they were convicted of. Again, USA probably scores worst in terms of how many people in prison who are innocent of any crime.
Purple Library Guy
I know little about Belarus. And I don’t know enough about China to say anything too confidently about how things are there; it doesn’t seem like the Western propaganda is that accurate, but beyond that I get hazy. North Korea sucks by most accounts. Russia . . . is way better than it was in the 90s in almost every way, and Putin is not in fact a dictator. He was elected, and could certainly have been elected in free and fair elections because polls always show him as very popular. But it does seem to be the case that he has exerted some control over the media and is not above taking out political opponents who seem like they might become dangerous, and some of the accounts of elections being corrupt are pretty plausible–although most of it actually seems to be about lower offices.
Saudi Arabia is worse than, like, anyone.
But Venezuela and Nicaragua are, politically, maybe the best places on earth. Nicaragua just keeps on making things better for the Nicaraguan people and is moving rapidly to renewable power. Its economy grows rapidly and the growth is happening at the grass roots local small business level. The Ortega government is building infrastructure at a fast pace, they’re doing the health care, improving the education, roads, electrification, all the stuff. Sanctions have not yet made much impact. Their elections are free and fair–you can tell by the way nobody who claims otherwise ever sends any observers or otherwise uses any facts to back up their claims. Ortega is considered a “dictator” simply because the Nicaraguan people keep insisting on electing the wrong guy and to the US government and mainstream media, that’s what a “dictator” is.
Venezuela kind of sucks in practical terms because of the massive sanctions and the oil dependency which makes them particularly vulnerable to the sanctions. These crashed the economy big time, brought back the poverty that Chavez took away, caused masses of deaths. Economic growth only recently started again after a long freefall. But politically it’s amazing. So first, the election system is the best in the world–it’s freaking unspoofable. It’s electronic but it produces paper ballots as well so you can check that the announced results match the ballots cast. There are election observers from all parties at all stages. 54% of results are audited as part of the process, but parties can ask for a complete audit, which the opposition always does, so in practice all ballots are audited. Voters are identified by ID cards and fingerprint. People get the day off to vote, polling stations are open late and by law have to stay open if there’s a lineup when they would have closed. On and on. So every election, the opposition parties have observers at the polling stations. Every election, those observers see no problems. Every election, the opposition party leadership claims there was fraud anyway. Every election, when asked to come up with evidence for this, they refuse to give any–they often claim they have some, but they always refuse to present it in court. So, really good elections.
But that’s not the biggest part. The biggest part is the communal councils and the communes. Venezuela has laws and funding to help the public self-organize into neighborhood groups called communal councils, which vote on actions that need to be taken in the area and then arrange to do them, and get some government funding. So if there’s some construction or maintenance project that needs doing, the money is allocated and spent locally by people deciding what they need, typically hiring local people who have a stake in the success of the project. Over time, some of these communal councils began grouping together in what the Venezuelans call communes, which are sort of like communal councils writ large but also, especially in rural areas, start organizing local production. So if you have a commune with a bunch of farms, maybe it will get a communal industrial refrigerator and a truck, so the farmers can store their produce and get it to market and don’t have to sell cheap to a middleman. Maybe it will do seeds, maybe if there’s coffee farms they will get a communal roaster. But also maybe they’ll improve the local school or build a community centre with some wifi. There are tens of thousands of these communes, doing grassroots participatory democracy and the beginnings of bottom-up socialism. The communes have helped people survive the hard times of sanctions. Lately the Venezuelan government has started pushing the communes harder, and has started doing this thing where periodically every commune votes on what it wants to do with a grant of $10,000. The communal councils and communes make Venezuela by far the most democratic country in the world. Again, claims otherwise are because to Americans, people who keep electing the “wrong” people == “dictatorship”.
The big question about Venezuela is, to what extent will they be able to overcome the effects of sanctions? If they can do so, they’ll be an example to Latin America and the world.