This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
In Ukraine news: Russia to withdraw from city of Kherson
As said in the article, this seems like big news, since Kherson was the only "big city" Russia has conquered in this period of war. Even the pro-Russian sources I follow on Twitter aren't trying to spin this ("Feint! Planned withdrawal! Actually good for Russia!") any more.
Of course this means that the new defensive line is harder to crack, but really, at some point, you'd imagine sheer morale questions would make it hard for Russians to proceed, at least. Where will the Ukrainians push next?
Kherson, because bar any un-announced agreement between the Russians and Ukrains over the terms of withdrawal, this will be a fighting retreat. It remains in the Ukrainian interest to force the Russians to retreat under fire rather than in relatively good order. Some of the main crossings are within 10km from being in 'normal' artillery range, which would greatly increase the pain to the Russian retreat.
But for the rest of this winter? I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it's much lower tempo/scale meant to make the Russian conscripts miserable rather than make a major breakthrough. Winter is well and here, and while it's not been the worst winter, the Ukrainians have been having as much trouble as anyone else in the relatively favorable southern terrain. There's also plenty of media of the Ukrainians having shot through their artillery barrels from over-use, they have indeed taken significant attrition in the units that were committed to Kherson that will need to be reorganized/reset/retrained, and so on. Plus, it's November. I wouldn't say it will be a quiet winter, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukrainians take an operational pause of about a month just to reset from Kherson, and then they'll face the decision of starting something in the middle of winter before Christmas, and of course the potential season of mud.
Given the timelines, and the ongoing western training/equipping pipelines, I wouldn't be surprised for a major offensive after the season of mud (which is not the same across the country, and would support an earlier offensive in the south than the north).
More interesting to me is the Russian side of this.
For one, Putin actually capitulated to his leadership advocating the retreat. This was probably the influence of General Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Russian forces in Syria and who had (or retained) a good reputation with Putin and was brought in to take over last month. Surovikin succeeding where the Defense Ministry had failed for some time, but also overcoming the hardliners who had insisted escalation (which had included conscription) were needed to avoid the appearance of future defeats, is revealing.
For a second, just as the Ukrainians have reason for an overall pause, so do the Russians. The Russians have put conscripts around the fronts already, but many have also been put into training regimines as the Russians try to re-build their training organization infrastructure. A few months of relative lull can get the Russians from the embarassment of totally untrained conscripts to a maybe minimally trained, and have basic defenses prepared through the winter, etc.
Third and finally, an operational lull is likely the last/best chance Putin will have to force an armistice/truce/peace and turn this into a frozen conflict along post-Kherson lines. The Russians have been targetting Ukrainian energy infrastructure and are likely to continue, which hasn't yet caused a grid collapse but eventually would/could if they keep throwing enough drones at it. While the European energy card has failed to meet the pre-war expectations of what a cutoff would entail, being a major pain instead of a catastrophe, breaking the Ukrainian energy grid and leveraging that with other options might be seen as a way to compel the unicorn of European forcing a pro-Russia settlement at a point when Russia probably has the most relevant territory it has going forward.
This is a window, however, and I admit to being bear-ish on its prospects, because as the Europeans bring more energy and energy import infrastructure online in the coming months, the Russian leverage drops.
It currently doesn't seem to be a fighting retreat.
Indeed. It appears the fighting retreat was what was happening the last few weeks. And egg on my face for not raising that possibility either, despite some (admittedly contradictory) reports of partial withdrawals. It remains to be see how much was/was not withdrawn- there seems to be indications that some conscripts brought in to buffer the more experienced elements were left behind and told to basically do whatever, with many of them donning civilians and trying to go to ground in the city, but the consolidation of the west bank seems to be going on quickly. It remains to be seen how much was left behind, but... well, we shall see.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's a pretty big bar. It's the single best explanation for this combination of maneuver and publicity.
My guess is that it's part of initial secret diplomacy. The best evidence will be the ferocity (or lack thereof) of the Ukrainian attack now. If they smash the bridges and run six divisions into Kherson, capturing/killing large numbers of Russians, I'm wrong. If the fighting is light, but the Ukrainians make steady progress, then it's more likely talks.
I caution against the strength of this assessment. What we're seeing is compatible with this assessment, and it's not an unreasonable assessment, but it's also compatible with Russia having learned an important lesson from the retreat at Izyum, where they lost control of the narrative and received much more damage from an obviously pending issue because no one official could say what was obvious in the social media space, that the position was untenable. This combination of maneuver and publicity is absolutely taking control of the narrative in a way the Russians consistently try to influence, without the making-it-up-as-they-go-along that was a large part of what made Izyum a catastrophe.
A point to be made is that even if Kherson wasn't about to fall immediately but in the coming months, its nature of it as an untenable position has been generally recognized for some time. If even Putin can be made to recognize that- and implicitly this is a shared assumption in the negotiation hypothesis or else Putin wouldn't have a need to make a deal there- then even in the lack of an agreement, there would need to be maneuver and publicity to exit in as good order and with as much damage control as possible.
The issue with this test is that smashing and running six divicisions into Kherson may not be within their capability. The Ukrainians weren't exactly days or maybe even weeks from breaking into Kherson before this announcement, and have been trying to smash the bridges for months with mixed effects at best.
There is also a domestic Ukrainian political consideration to consider. Kherson has been a significant meat-grinder for some time, and while the Ukrainians have made it work (as obvious output is now obvious), there's always a balance between pure military optimization (destroy as many Russians as fast as possible), and military-political strategy (not lose political support, by politicians or public, increasing the casualties of an already 'won' engagement that won't end the war). If the Ukrainians ran six divisions at Kherson, and got a bloody nose for the trouble but no appreciable change to the strategic balance of power, that would be both an internal liability, but also an external diplomatic liability.
And this is without the third level of meta-strategy on how to deal with the people who do want to try and leverage this into talks/peace settlements. Regardless of whether this evacuation is part of a deal, there are significant parts of the Western governments backing Ukraine who will seek to make it the basis of a deal and compel an armistice. This goes into a rabbit hole of competing theories/counter-theories and distinction of positions, but a point here is that if you are a Ukrainian maximalist, the key to success in the longer war isn't destroying the Russian forces located in Kherson now, but to sustain Western support long enough for a long war, and so operational maximalism is in tension with strategic optimization.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link