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In terms of ammunition and military supplies, Russia seems to have a clear advantage in the current conflict. Just to be clear, I'm of the opinion that starting this conflict with Russia was a terrible misstep on the part of the west, and the consequences of Western defeat are going to be nasty.
The point was about how any interventions designed to produce more people are going to take a very long time to bear fruit, and the personnel situation really can't be fixed at this point in time.
I don't think we're going to get credible or accurate information about the exact casualty numbers out of Ukraine - there's too much incentive to lie for everybody involved in the process. But every single other indicator we see shows Ukraine having serious recruiting issues, failing to meet mobilisation targets and sending women to the front - which are all things that would not be happening if they had a healthy pool of recruits and lots of manpower.
In terms of ammo and military supplies, yes Russia seems to have the advantage... because the West doesn't see Ukraine as a sufficiently galvanizing issue to make serious commitments. I think we're basically in agreement here.
On the other statement, we're in direct disagreement. I think the West, especially the US, could afford to lose most of Ukraine at relatively little cost. On the other hand, Russia's (really, Putin's) decision to invade has turned Russia's already bleak future even more unpromising.
Exact numbers are impossible obviously, although estimates are probably reasonable within an uncertainty band. I'd be surprised if Ukraine's casualties were greater than 175% of the estimates the US makes, for instance. US intelligence has been quite good in the war so far, correctly predicting that Russia could indeed invade when most European intelligence thought it was needless US warmongering.
Ukraine's manpower anecdotes are indicative of problems specifically of its recruiting pipeline being corrupt and leaky. I feel like you're doing a motte and bailey here of implying force quality issues (which are legitimate, and exacerbated by casualties) will become a decisive factor when Ukraine effectively runs out of men to hold the frontline (a goofy idea that won't happen).
I don't think the West is actually capable of spinning up their weapons and arms manufacturing capacities in time for it to be relevant. Even if the political will appeared overnight, there's a big lead time which would prevent this from being relevant on any timescale that would help Ukraine before Russia wins.
The problem is not that the west would lose Ukraine - the problem is that this would demonstrate that it is possible to stand against the hegemon and succeed. The sanctions which failed to destroy the Russian economy have succeeded in convincing the rest of the world that de-dollarisation is a great idea, and that trend has picked up speed since the conflict went hot. I agree that the Ukraine is largely worthless to the West at large, but the symbolic value of the US being defeated by Russia in an actual armed conflict would be extremely significant.
This conflict was instigated by the west - I don't think Russia particularly wanted this war, but they weren't given a realistic choice. They're not going to agree to any peace negotiations now either, seeing as how it has since come out that the Minsk accords were explicitly made in bad faith (well, that and the fact that they're currently winning and have no incentive to stop).
I will agree to this with a bit of hesitation - actual classified estimates that are meant for people on the inside would likely be more accurate, but anything released for public consumption deserves a more sceptical eye. I don't think the US is incapable of finding this out, but is motivated to paint an optimistic picture for the Ukrainians.
There are far too many stories for this to be a matter of "anecdotes". Conscription efforts are failing to meet 10% of their goals, and when you have to amend your conscription rules to allow more disabled and mentally ill people into the army that's a sign of serious crisis. You don't fire the head of every single regional recruitment centre if you don't have serious, systemic problems that go beyond the level of "anecdotes". Furthermore, knowing that the pipeline is corrupt and leaky doesn't actually fix the problem - and I don't think they have the time and resources to spare in order to fix it right now.
That's an understandable reading of my position and I wasn't as clear as I should have been - mea culpa. To state my position more clearly, I think that Ukraine's current manpower issues are severe enough that there is no realistic path to victory for them moving forward. They have lost too many experienced soldiers and their current training efforts aren't capable of producing enough qualified soldiers in time to make a difference. Right now, they don't even have a realistic hope of obtaining any concessions from Russia - all they can do is slow down the Russian advance and hope for some kind of eucatastrophe.
WW1 occurred over 4 years, WW2 occurred over less from the USSR/USA's perspective, the sides which produced an overwhelming amount of equipment (esp. the USA). Sure there's a spin-up time, but it's measured in years, not decades, assuming there's political will.
It's nonsense to think the West was the primary antagonist here, especially after Russia's invasion of Georgia effectively killed the Budapest Memo. Russia seized Crimea in 2014, but even after that the West was largely content to leave Ukraine in limbo. It was Russia who threw the dice in 2022. It's their troops who are invading. Saying the West is the primary instigator of this conflict is like saying the UK started WW2 in Europe, or that the USA started WW2 in the Pacific.
Also, Minsk died in large part due to Russia not following it.
This is just availability bias. You're likely plugged into the pro Russian information sphere, which will signal-boost any possible problem with Ukraine's recruitment to maximum effect, like how BLM did the same for police killing unarmed black men, which happened but all the stories made people thought thousands of cases happened per year. Extrapolating anecdotal stories to broader implications on population levels is extremely fraught.
This is indeed a far less ridiculous case than the one it seemed like you were implying, although I still disagree. I can see the population math preventing Ukraine from doing the "head-on, faceplant into the teeth of enemy defences" style of warfare that Russia's using to take tiny slivers of land. At least, not without other factors like supply bottlenecks in Kherson. It could still win fairly handily if the West really geared up for a war economy and treated this like Russia was attacking the West broadly and that Ukrainian soldiers just happened to be in the way. Ukraine could also win from a black swan event that toppled Putin and caused chaos in Russian leadership, which looks unlikely until it isn't.
Although I'm personally becoming more pessimistic about Ukraine's chances given the lack of urgency in the West. A negotiated settlement where Russia keeps most of what it currently occupies looks increasingly likely.
Agreed! I just don't think Ukraine has years left. The US is also going to have a bit more trouble now than it did in WW2 due to the rampant amounts of corruption in the MIC, as well as the DEI requirements currently being foisted on the military and their contractors - selecting for diversity over competence means you're going to have competence problems, and US contractors don't have a choice in the matter.
Russia's borders haven't moved nearly as much as NATO's have. I personally believe the reports that NATO promised Russia not to expand to their borders, but I know a lot of people don't - so instead I'll just say that I view this conflict as starting during the Maidan protests, and the US was deeply involved with those, helping to "midwife" a new regime that was more compatible with their goals. Talking about this conflict as being a war of Russian aggression feels the exact same to me as talking about how the Iraq war was justified by Saddam's WMD program, or how the Vietnamese started the war with the (imaginary) Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Please give me a source that doesn't just call people who aren't even communists "tankies" and uses stupid terms like "gasminsking". But none of that matters because we actually have a recording of Francois Hollande admitting in what he thought was a private conversation that the entire point was to let Ukraine arm up and prepare for war. If Russia wanted this war from the beginning, why wouldn't they simply attack then?
...
Wrong. The severity of the factual stories that have come out of the current situation reach far beyond the level of anecdote. Regions failing to meet 10% of their recruiting targets and the heads of every single regional recruiting group being fired are simply not things that happen when the situation is perfectly fine. Reduced standards for recruits are another - that's not an anecdote, that's official policy that covers the entirety of the country. Conscripting women, which is another official policy and not simply a matter of anecdotes, is a gigantic, flashing neon sign that the situation is desperate. Look at Ukraine's demographics right now - do you think they would be throwing any fertile women into the meatgrinder if they had any choice in the matter at all? If you want to make the argument that they're just really stupid and incompetent rather than desperate, I don't think that changes the impact on their chances of success.
No, Ukraine doesn't win in that scenario. In that scenario the Ukraine is reduced to a series of radioactive craters and future biologists get to talk about the Holocene extinction event (assuming any humans survive the resulting nuclear winter). Ukraine doesn't win if this becomes an all out war of Russia vs the West - the entire world loses.
I think the most likely outcome of the conflict is that the breakaway republics get subsumed back into Russia, and Ukraine gets reduced to a basketcase rump state. They've taken on vast amounts of debt, are going to have huge economic problems due to the existing corruption, have already started undergoing a demographic crisis thanks to the war/emigration and have also had huge swathes of productive infrastructure destroyed by the conflict. Russia is no doubt going to saddle them with a puppet/caretaker regime that makes sure to throw in regular tribute payments to Russia to boot. They would have been better off suing for peace earlier and simply accepting that Russia gets to keep Crimea and the breakaway republics - but that's just not an option anymore.
DEI is bad generally, but it's not even close to being decisive here. The problem was the US let its DIB atrophy during the 90s to 2010s, and the US had a massive turn away from manufacturing towards service jobs.
Besides Victoria Nuland and John McCain visiting during the events, the Maidan was almost entirely a grassroots Ukrainian movement. Every time I've pointed this out the pro-RU side has retorted with unfalsifiable narratives of the CIA being behind everything, effectively saying nothing in the world ever happens without the CIA having a hand in it. If that's the way you're going then we'll have to agree to disagree.
It's easier than that: whichever side has their troops on the land of the other side is the aggressor. The US was definitely the aggressor in Iraq + Afghanistan, and Russia is certainly the aggressor now.
Again, this is evidence of Ukraine's recruiting being corrupt, and possible issues regarding manpower quality, but not of a total lack of men to hold guns. It's not like Russia doesn't have recruiting issues of its own.
Escalating the conflict is strongly against Russia's interest up until both sides launch all their nukes at each other, which is just bad for everyone.
Agreed, and if the US manufacturing sector had a lot of overhead/spare capacity, it'd be totally fine. I only bring it up because right now the USA's military manufacturing sector is in a hole that will require years of investment to bring back up to the level necessary. DEI is a luxury that the US really can't afford in the military right now.
Don't worry, I don't believe the CIA has a hand in everything - but if you can listen to the Nuland call and seriously think about what the rest of that communication would have contained and the implications of it, the idea that the US wasn't involved is just farcical. When you take a broader look and go back into the history of events in the region, the idea that this is just Russia deciding to try and reform the USSR just becomes a joke.
As an aside, please don't take a reasonable claim of mine and then inflate it into some bizarre conspiracy - it feels like arguing to win rather than trying to get closer to the truth. I'm not going to intimate that you think Putin is a hypercompetent megahitler who runs the entire world because he made the decision to send the troops in.
There's a difference between a war of aggression and simply assigning blame and declaring one person the aggressor. If my nation shared a border with yours and elected a leader who promised to take over your nation, steal your resources and ethnically cleanse your people, would you consider your nation's strike against my slowly assembling Genocide Taskforce to be a war of aggression?
They do not have enough men to achieve victory barring some kind of eucatastrophe or black swan event, and these troop quality issues absolutely have an impact on the battlefield. Russia may be encountering issues, but to the best of my knowledge those issues aren't as severe as the ones facing Ukraine.
To bring those points back together, Ukraine's manpower issues mean that they would require NATO boots on the ground in significant numbers in order to stand a chance at winning. The moment NATO deploys in force, whoever loses presses the button and the world ends. I don't think NATO will deploy in force for several reasons (like needing to deal with the middle east and asia, loudly talking about how the support is coming to an end), but current western leaders are substantially more feckless and incompetent than I was hoping they'd be.
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I thought nuclear winter was a discredited theory?
I'm not exactly certain, but I'm not in any hurry to actually do the experiment and find out. If it turns out I was wrong about nuclear winter after we put the theory to the test... well if we still have access to the Motte in our fallout shelters, I'll change my flair to reflect that I was totally wrong on the internet.
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Stop calling it a black swan event. A 1-10% probability event, like say, the chess or tennis number one player losing to number ten, is not a black swan event. Putin could easily die, or he could lose support, as he is well aware of, hence his reluctance to mobilize. It's all very predictable, unlike a black swan event, which would be something like aliens invading, forcing ukraine and russia to work together to repel the outsider.
Do you have a better term for the phenomenon of a range of given high-impact events that can be envisaged beforehand, but which are very hard to predict which, if any, will actually happen?
Minority Reports?
A good film but I don't think it would really get the point across.
Why? It’s a minority, therefore unlikely, but not too unlikely, prediction, with fateful consequences. I’d get it. Anyway, all people remember about that flick is that it was blue, and Tom Cruise drinking green milk and running after eyeballs.
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