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 -
Ukraine.
By now, wise people, people who avoid reading the newspapers (newspaper generally lie) have noticed that the news out of Ukraine is bad. After years of relentless and very stupid propaganda, even 'The Sun' ran an article which was basically fine. Torygraph ditto. A bit of lying around the end, some lies by omission but generally thoughtful and not grossly incorrect.
That's means something. Not at all clear what. Obsessive observers of the war believe Ukraine is likely to hold out until end of '26, early '27. However:
1- There's a financing issue, sure - Americans, unwilling since Trump inauguration to keep paying for what they started now only want to deliver weapons if Europeans, who were against it initially, pay for them.
Europe, as everyone knows, is mostly broke, with the exception of Germany, which isn't only because it typically doesn't shower money around. Paying through the nose for overpriced weaponry like e.g. Patriot or Aster 30 missiles ($ 2mil per unit) which then are going to be fired, best case, at cruise missiles of equal worth doesn't seem like a winning strategy, especially with the Geran spam being able to destroy anything that doesn't have a rare cannon SPAA sitting on top of it. If there's 50 of them in Ukraine, that's probably too much.
There was a plan of 'magicking' up money by making a loan to buy more weapons, covered by the frozen Russian assets, thus 'risk-free' because 'Russia is going to release those assets as war reparations'. Belgium, which would have ended up having jurisdiction over it refused to go along..
2- Materially, it's bad. We know the gist of the situation: Ukraine has too few men -line infantry is at 20-30% staffing , is outmatched in drones, artillery and air attacks. Russia, being larger, is able to mobilize troops and sustain operations. There is shortage of everything on the Ukrainian side. Civilian cars, drones, men. -save perhaps small-calibre ammunition which is barely used in this war. (allegedly <5% of wounds are from gunshot). Why there is a shortage of cars seems.. mysterious. Germany surely should be able to keep Ukrainians knee deep in cheap trucks. E.g. Dacia Duster cost €20k and there's 100k made per year. A mere 2 billion € a year could give Ukraine 1 4x4 car for every 5 servicemen. What gives?
Ukraine drops some bombs using their few planes, possibly even daily , but Russians sometimes delivers up to 300 a day, although the mean is 160 in 2025. Any bunker, HQ, supply dump close behind the front can be hit. That's pretty modest- just 40 sorties in an Su-34. Ukraine doesn't have what to use - France supplied 800 glide bombs... for the whole of 2024. Promised 1200 for 2025. 4 a day. If Americans have given more, we'd have heard about it. If GDP so high, why so few bombs? Where's the American UMPK? Does US have no huge pile of old bombs you can stick sheet metal & gps modules to? Are cheap, effective, good enough weapons only something despotic alcoholic nations can make ?
The true rate of attrition is unknown. Ukraine armed forces, internally seem to believe it's 8 Ukrainians for 10 Russians or something along those lines, if we go by the testimony of this International Legion guy who deserted earlier this year after being allocated to an especially dire 1st rifleman battalion with 50% odds of surviving one rotation. (or so he says). In any case, as Europeans and Americans have shown themselves unwilling to go and risk death, the required rate needed to have been something like 2:10 just to break even, demographics wise.
3- the front. right now, a some amount of troops is encircled at Pokrovsk. Supposedly very few (AMK_mapping, an autist who follows the war hourly says Ukrainians mostly withdrew), but then, it's unclear how dire the situation is, however GUR fed their spec-ops team to the front near Pokrovsk, in an effort to make evacuation easier, to probably little avail (there is an FPV montage of these guys getting blown up already). They operate 3 Blackhawk helos, one of them was apparently downed.
Overall, as you probably know, the situation on the front is bad. Ukraine cannot hold territory, cannot counterattack effectively. Previously, Russia was only being able to push one place at a time, now it's multiples. If you want an overview, here's an interview of AMK_Mapping, a rare pro Ukrainian OSINT account respected by people on both sides. Honestly he seems autistic. The 'mapping' means he's one of the people keeping track of the war online by obsessively reading Telegram channels, geolocating etc. The interviewer is pro-Russian, somewhat overly optimistic I think.
Going by the aphorism 'If you're reading this, it's for you', it looks like the American press is preparing the public for a closing act of the majestic capeshit arc that started with the Maidan massacre. Ukrainians are generally eager to negotiate, nobody believes in winning anymore, though the demands Russia has are not viewed as acceptable. I wonder what the frontline troops and officers would say in private.
There are a lot of links here, but at least the helicopter one seems to be a Russian psyop - Ukraine used helicopters close enough to the front for Russia to film, with footage released of their landing, this then became claims of helicopters lost in the comments with no footage, instead all I saw was grainy footage of FPV attacks on individual soldiers from another location? Have you got any footage of an actual blackhawk being downed or a clear continuity? Ukraine certainly loves to publish their helicopter kills.
Pokrovsk itself has been fought over for 1 year 3 months now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokrovsk_offensive (I hate Wikipedia too, but that start date seems pretty fair, surely?), and while pressure is mounting along the line there's hardly crazy breakthroughs considering Russia is still outside of Bakhmut (which was hoped to open up new offensive options), and the Donbass is ~10% Ukrainian? It seems like Ukraine is launching a limited counterattack, like with the 47th at Andriivka, where they use fresh elites to push up and hold a pocket open, and get the last men out before withdrawing - a pocket it should be stressed that is hardly Stalingrad.
I think it is still unclear how this will end as a war, Ukraine is under a lot of pressure but Russia is seriously underperforming and taking a lot of strategic hits with a base that might come apart over years more fighting (have you seen the refineries campaign? How many haven't been hit at this point?). However, you seem certain that this was all folly, and Ukraine will crumble with a situation worse than surrendering at letting Russia do what they will? This time next year, do you think there's going to be a lasting peace agreement? What broadly would be its terms - unconditional Russian wargoals from day 1?
Total collapse of the front and Russian annexation all the way to Lyviv. The 2014 fortifications are about to fall, after that it’s going to be very hard to prevent major collapses of the undermanned front line. Ukraine has no leverage left for a settlement. Insurgency is unlikely given the amount of casualties.
Once Severodonetsk/Popasna/Bakhmut/Avdiika/Chasiv Yar fall the kokhols will be shattered and they will fall back like the cornered rats they are. They totally won't fall back to the next defensive line that, undermanned and underprovisioned as they are, still managed to hold off the unsupported spears.
It'll work this time! This time the kokhols really are on the ropes and going to collapse! Once Kramatorsk falls then Russia will have finally achieved the territorial victory they achieved in 2014!
"And then the enemy will lose the will to fight" has got to be one of my favorite theories of victory.
It's such a refreshing evergreen classic, compared to the largely discarded 'Trump is going to force Ukraine to accept terms or else cut off all support,' theories, or the 'Ukrainian desertions will lead Russia's massive manpower to roll over the defenders like a tidal wave' predictions, or the 'Russia strike campaign will crush the Ukrainian power grid and leave them to freeze to death over the winter' variants.
And which outcome do you think is most likely to happen?
I know nothing of military, tactics and so on - but my impression is that the things are way more orderly on the Russian side than the Ukrainian in the last couple of months.
It's a fair question. Asking people to stake their position is reasonable, and it's been awhile since I have on Ukraine expectations.
Short version- none of the above. I believe the war is more likely to go on for political reasonings rather than end due to a military collapse. I think the more likely consequence of the next year is a continued general grind with advances but no decisive victory for Russia over the next year, with decisive being a front-wide collapse as opposed to the natural operational advancements following the fall of Pokrovsk or similar settlements. The dynamics that didn't lead to those decisive victories happening in previous years generally still apply. Russia has continued to de-motorize/de-mechanize which has negated their operational maneuver to exploit gaps or withdrawals. The drone military revolution continues to disrupt concentration of forces to a degree few appreciate for both offense and defense. Ukraine's key means of external supply were changed rather than cancelled by the Trump administration, and in a way that supports sustained support over time as long as key European capitals support it, which they are liable to.
I broadly concur with Michael Koffman that the war has transitioned from a war of attrition to a war of exhaustion. The war is no longer about depleting critical military capabilities (artillery ammo / air defense munitions / manpower) into such a shortage that it would lead to collapse via some critical overmatch (uncontested fires / close air support / fix-and-bypass maneuver), but is transitioning to a contest of long-term systemic support constrained by both internal and external factors. This is a contest where Russia still has various advantages, but not such a wideset spread at the ratios required as to crush/break as opposed to grind/push back the Ukrainian lines forever / until the front is pushed to the western border.
This doesn't mean attrition doesn't matter / collapses can't happen, as unlikely things still happen some times, but absent one it's liable to be a long-term grind, and the dynamics for that are closer than many people realize/accept. Ukraine's manpower is not as desperate or 'last bits of the bottom of the barrel' as the more popular anti-Ukrainian propaganda portrays, nor is Russia as awash in manpower as many believe, given its self-imposed limits on conscripts that have only grown clearer over time. Both states have relatively resilient but potentially vulnerable war-industry basis as this point, with Russia's better-known advantages being tempered by the steady depletion of its less-well-known transitory advantages, while the Ukrainian vulnerability to diplomatic cut-offs from not-guaranteed European support due to election turnovers mitigated by the fact that most European and American military-economic support to Ukraine remains beyond Russian ability/willingness to directly disrupt. There's enough vulnerability for either side to feel they could shift things in their favor / the other may collapse, which leads to the bargaining tension of mismatched expectations which complicates any peace prospects.
On the political front, the war remains in a political equilibrium. Putin maintains maximalist demands that the Ukrainian government cannot as much as will not agree to, but which are also beyond Putin's ability to compel by force of arms in the near or medium term. The war is ruinous for both Ukraine and Russia on national levels, but not politically dangerous to Putin on a personal level for the relevant time frame, which allows Putin's bad habits of sunk cost fallacy and strategic procrastination to manifest. No territorial gain or harm to Ukraine is self-evidently worth the material, economic, political, social, or strategic costs Russia is paying now and incurring for the long term, but Russian zero-sum-ism will frame any Ukrainian harm/defeat as a win and so cutting losses is for losers. There are and are likely to continue to be enough Russian visible wins (cities taken over time / favorable electoral cycles in Europe) that Putin is liable to variously feel he's in a position of relative strength that will get better over time if he waits / a position of relative weakness will get better over time if he waits, with no falsification metric outside Russian economic collapse (which is unlikely in the near or medium term). The wildcard of Trump's effect on Ukrainian support has largely played out, and with it the prospect of any near-term peace (particularly via Ukrainian concession), which I thought was possible but unlikely this year and believe is far less likely next year absent major changes beyond the current discussions of Pokrovsk or even all of Donbass falling. (Which- to be clear- I don't think will force a political end to the war.)
Again, fair question, and it could merit a far deeper response. But I've about two months left on my self-imposed sabbatical on Ukraine War effort posting, and this already pushed it. I may allow myself one end-of-year post to follow up some predictions from late last year (on the Ukraine front) and earlier this year (on the Trump-on-Ukraine front), but it could also be early next year.
Thank you for your awesome response. Just one question (if you decide to continue the sabatical, I will understand). Which will be the next Stalingrad in this war that already had 5 or 6 of those?
None, but that's because my view of what a Stalingrad is implies something distinct and I wouldn't view any of the fortress city battles to qualify.
The shorter version is that Russia's manpower limits are clear enough now that the Russian military isn't going to do the sort of Bakhmut storm/siege that they did in '22/'23 where Russia prioritized high-casualty urban operations to move the urban gains map forward. Instead, the model is more likely to be the Pokrovsk, where the strategy was to try and isolate the city by advancing around the edges, interdict the supply lines, and force the Ukrainians to withdraw or risk a closed pocket.
The advantage of the Pokrovsk approach is that it's a lot less casualty-intensive in the way that Bakhmut was. The downside of the Pokrovsk method is that it takes a long time as the ability to effectively push flanks to isolate a city, which means it's still a very bloody process it's just extended over a longer time, which is more sustainable in a force-generation perspective.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link