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You are saying that Russians do not consider Poland to be within the rightful Russian sphere of influence?
I think it barely matters. Even if article five isn’t invoked for some inexplicable reason, the resemblance to the interwar years is mostly superficial.
There’s a key difference; Poland would absolutely fucking shred a Russian invasion on a military level. Russia since the war began wasn’t even guaranteed on any given day to be the most powerful military in Ukraine.
Poland’s military spending and might is nowhere near the disparity that existed in the 30s when the Soviet Union was an emerging superpower.
If anything this war has revealed that the Russian military is a paper tiger riddled with incompetence and corruption. They’re laughable compared to the past, and demographics get worse for them each passing day.
They really are a third rate power at this point. If Ukraine, one of the poorest and most corrupt European nations, is giving them trouble even this deep into the third continuation war, then they don’t have a ghost of a chance at winning a war against Poland, or the Baltics, or Finland.
I’m very sympathetic to the DR in general but the Russia cope is absolutely bonkers, almost a perfect mirror image of the twitchy-eyed Ukraine boosters. That country is completely pozzed on almost every level.
It's funny how differently people see this war! I look at it and see the opposite- even with every single US-aligned nation around the world is sending Ukraine all the weapons they can spare, Ukraine is still steadily losing this war.
They've drafted basically every man they could find, sparing only the ones necessary to work the farms and keep their economy running, with patrols on the border stopping any man from leaving (but women are fleeing the country). Meanwhile, Russia has still not needed to send in the conscripts who make up the bulk of its army- it's still able to coast on just volunteers, prisoners, and foreign mercenaries, so the average Russian citizen isn't affected.
We laughed at how mighty the western GDP was- turns out GDP does not magically turn into real weapons. Instead, Russia and its allies continue to massively outproduce all the rest of us in artillery, which is what counts the most. The US makes something like 25,000 a month while Russia makes 250,000. Instead, Ukraine has to rely on what they can scavange from old Soviet nations- the big news lately was that Armenia has agreed to send them some stuff. Armenia, the arsenal of democracy! (meanwhile, North Korea is sending literally millions of shells to Russia)
We boasted about our high-tech superweapons that would make the old Soviet stuff look like a joke. It turns out that GPD-guided munitions are easy to electronically jam, long-range missiles are too expensive and few, and the wiz-bang F35 that's supposed to do everything is too precious to be risked in Ukraine. Instead, the most practical weapon seems to be cheap, simple drones manufactured in Iran.
It's not a quick, flashy war of maneuver, sure. It's a slow, grinding, war of attrition. But they're winning. It boggles my mind that people still seem to think that Ukraine is doing great and will be marching into Moscow any day now. We need to see the reality and adapt- either cut a deal that gifts Russia the donbass region, or massively increase the amount of aid going to Ukraine, and restructure the current arms industry to be suited for a serious war.
Tangent, but – it's not merely a question of production; the war has also revealed that Russian technology is able to adequately counter ours (usually, it seems, after an adjustment period). For instance, the Russians shot down our in-service anti-radiation missiles! That was perhaps predictable before the war, but I still think it's a BIG DEAL because US/NATO air superiority doctrine is premised around being able to destroy enemy SAM launchers with (among other weapons) anti-radiation missiles, and the Ruskies just...shot them down with the air defenses they were supposed to be targeting. And that's just one example of their ability to adopt to our drip-feeding them our most modern (surface) weapons systems at an inoculatory rate.
This really gets my goat since in a real no-holds-barred war with NATO where the first two weeks might be determinate, if it takes the Russians two weeks to adjust to our tactics, their ability to adjust eventually is no big deal. But if we give them that month to adjust now, they'll be better prepared if there's ACTUALLY a confrontation with NATO. And presumably so will Iran and China. (The one upside is that this knife cuts both ways; the West has a much better picture of Russian capabilities now.)
If you see the war as a way to manipulate NATO countries to US interests by ensuring they are weak and dependent on US military aid so that they do not develop their own, independent military and the foreign policy that is downstream from that, 'we' (the US) absolutely don't need to do either of these things. Letting Ukraine bleed dry and letting Putin station a massive, battle-hardened army rebuilt with modern technology on the Polish border is, from a certain point of view, a massive win for US foreign policy.
Whether or not that's actually the US goal here I obviously can't say but I can't help but notice that everything 'we' (the US) has done seems to be nudging things in that direction.
Nah, I don't believe that either side was that smart. The Russians thought they could drive into Kiev in a matter of weeks (which seemed to be what Western analysts also thought at the start of the war). Then Ukraine proved a lot more resolute than anyone expected. So then the US alliance showed up with hundreds of billions worth of high-tech military gear, and everyone thought that would be the end of the war as "orcs" led "human wave assaults" against our most expensive weapon systems. Turns out that didn't work so well either, like you said- they were able to find ways to, eventually, find ways to adapt and counter our weapons. So now we're stuck in this meatgrinder that no one ever wanted or expected, but it's a sunk cost and both sides still want to win.
On the one hand, I'm inclined to believe you! Everyone overestimates government competence.
On the other hand, here's some excerpts from a 2019 RAND report:
Obviously RAND hedges their bets here, and I don't mean to claim that they were clairvoyant, or anything. But while Western analysts underestimated Ukrainian resolve, RAND was able to correctly point out the very serious downsides to sending Ukraine more weapons well before the escalation of the conflict. And then...we sent them more weapons...and the war escalated exactly as RAND predicted it could.
Now, supposing that you are a member of the US diplomatic-security apparatus that is concerned about Russian strength (and, let's say, sharing the common belief that Ukraine will not stand up to Russian might), but also nursing the unspoken (but very defensible) belief that a united Europe with an independent foreign policy is more of a threat to the United States over the long term than Russia will ever be. Just going off of this report, all of the things that RAND outlines as "risks" might look to you like "benefits," since you suspect that Russia invading and annexing more of Ukraine will "spook" Europe and increase diplomatic pressure on Germany to stop placing nice with Russia. Now increasing military aid looks like a win-win: you either weaken Russia or you spook Europe and with any luck you manage to thread the needle and do both by making the Russians look boorish and violent without them actually committing. And, as a strategist, an option where the worst plausible scenario has hidden benefits is a good option.
Things, in this postulation, DON'T go to plan: you're not omni-competent, the needle isn't threaded, Putin actually invades instead of just suffering from the weapons you've been shipping to Ukraine. How do you spin that situation?
I think what we've seen out of DC is consonant with that – pressuring Europe to give away their arsenal to Ukraine and buy American-made weapons systems instead.
Now, to your point, I don't even know that it requires the level of conscious thought I've put into it, just a sort of self-advantage-maximalizing sensibility, to get the most for the least. Maybe there's no grand strategy, just a sort of shrewd subconscious impulse. But I do find it very interesting that the "US diplomatic and military failure" DOES seem to have turned out in a way to have maximized US leverage over Europe and weakened them considerably. We replaced reliance on Russia for natural gas with reliance on the United States. We persuaded our NATO allies to give away, what, 500 tanks (many in service) while we have a few thousand Abrams in storage, of which we sent...1% (31). (Incidentally, I believe the reason given for not using more Abrams was that the logistics tail was too long. And while I do believe the logistics tail would be long, if we take this at face value it seems to suggest that we wouldn't be able to support Abrams in Europe during a conflict with Russia, which seems...problematic if true!)
So while I'm very uncertain as to how much of what has developed was planned, and I definitely agree that neither side was smart enough to correctly foresee the exact twists and turns of all these events, the extent to which it's undercut Europe to the benefit of the US is worth asking questions about, I think, but I rarely see it discussed.
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You’ve missed my point entirely and in a hilarious way sort of made my point about the discourse surrounding Russia for me.
I never said Ukraine was winning, I never even implied it. I was really talking about the supposed other targets of Russia; Poland & The Baltics. I have no doubt that Russia could win this war given enough time and bloodshed, time and numbers are on their side.
The crux of my point was that Ukraine was an embarrassingly easy target and Russia still can’t manage it without enormous difficulty. They might win, they might not. If I had to bet money I’d bet money on Russia winning.
I have basically no dog in this fight but seeing Russia get its nose bloodied by Ukraine is like seeing a tatted up security guard getting their teeth knocked out by a 90lb twink; Turns out the muscleman was hopped up on bullshido and an inflated ego. Even with material support from the west, the arc of the war reveals a lot about the state capacity; all it took was a couple thousand mercenaries to turn around to legitimately threaten the regime. You’d expect that from some tinpot African authoritarian regime, but it was shocking to see that happen in Russia.
All your points on the desiccation of the western arms capability I fully agree with. But that has precedent; nothing reveals what technology is cost effective and practical like field testing in combat. And military spending in Poland and the Baltics are ramping up and have been for a while. Russia’s military capability or lack thereof has been largely revealed, and countries other than the USA and its satrapies and Russia have agency as well.
I think Russia winning the war might not actually improve the Russian position all that much. It’s not cope, I couldn’t give a fuck about the GAE. But every other country on Russia’s border are hardening against them, both politically and militarily. Aside from maybe Moldova, there are no easy targets left. Every other country that Russia wants to fuck with is much more dangerous than Ukraine.
Ukraine is not Liechtenstein! It is not Monaco! They have an army of 1.2 million men and women. When you figure in the aid they have something like a two trillion dollar military budget. They have a territorial area that’s equivalent to France and Germany combined, giving them significant ability to use defense in depth. They have been fighting Russia since 2014, which has given them a significant amount of combat experience that most NATO countries do not have. And those years allowed them to build up a fearsome network of fortifications and bunker systems all along the DPR/LPR border. There’s a reason they got picked to be the buffer state over Poland, and it’s not because they’re an easy nut to crack. To assume that Ukraine is the “easy mode” before having to take on the NATO final boss is foolishness.
Is it? Russia is almost five times the population of Ukraine and militarily supposedly one of the mightiest nations on earth. Russia is noticeably richer and more advanced than Ukraine, and incredibly it’s less corrupt which is absolutely wild.
Lots of smart people thought the Russians would crush Ukraine in a matter of weeks, it’s incredibly impressive on Ukraine’s part that they didn’t. And equally embarrassing for Russia.
Ukraine is largely flat and featureless. Afghanistan it is not. Yes it’s a buffer state but historically buffer states come in many flavors; Ukraine’s particular brew is the easily traversed crossroads type.
A lot has happened between now and then of course, but this whole excercise is, on my end, indicative of the relative weakness of Russia.
Poland, even without NATO protection, is obviously a huge problem for Russia. This whole thread stated with me basically saying that the idea of Russia throwing its weight against Poland is absurd, so I’ll spell it out.
Poland is roughly the same population as Ukraine, with tougher and more diverse terrain, and has had greatly heightened peace-time military spending for years. It’s much richer, more advanced, less riddled by corruption, more homogeneous, and has a much higher state capacity.
And there’s no reason to believe that the ramp up that Poland could achieve would be any less spectacular than Ukraine’s. In fact there seems to be sufficient evidence for the opposite conclusion.
While Russia is clearly not on the ropes and it appears to me that they’re winning, it also appears clear that their regime is pretty brittle and couldn’t sustain the heightened war state to even look seriously at directly messing with Poland or the Baltic countries, or even Finland.
Even in its current fake and gay state, NATO would absolutely eat Russia alive. I can’t believe this is even remotely controversial to stay.
I feel like this is a case where you just have to keep an open mind and be willing to update your views. The smart people who thought that were wrong, on both counts. Russia badly botched it's attempt at a fast, combined arms inivasion, yes. But Ukraine also hung on with much more tenacity and organization than anyone expected, and that counts for a lot. And now they've had 2 years worth of western aid and training, in a fairly large country that is all-out mobilized for war. At this point, like @ABigGuy4U said, Ukraine is not a soft target, and yet Russia continues to advance.
Now, if there were some hypothetical future war between all of NATO and Russia then, sure, Nato wins easy. Except that would never happen, because of nuclear weapons. I also don't see any particular reason why Russia would want to start such a war- there's no area of Poland that's like the Donbass, which has lots of ethnic Russians and a direct land connection to Crimea.
Only the ones in Europe. They're closer than ever now to China, North Korea, and Iran. Not sure about the former Soviet states in central Asia but I don't think there's any real tension there, either.
That said, I agree with your initial point that Russia isn't particularly a threat to Poland, even on its own. So I guess I'm cautiously arguing in favor of a peace deal where Russia gets to keep the Donbass, the other European countries stay vigilent and increase defense, and hopefully there's no more war after that.
Im not cuddles but i think i have. Have you? What if my "updated" view is that the russian military is substantially less capable than initially estemated.
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I basically agree with all of this.
My initial comment was mostly in response to the idea of Russia considering Poland / Baltic Countries / Finland part of their “sphere of influence”. To which I simply don’t find the idea of those countries coming under credible military threat from Russia to be a realistic prospect at all.
In regards to Ukraine, the motivation & justification for the Putin regime is more transparently obvious, even if you ultimately disagree with or oppose that regime. Which I sort of do, largely depending on my mood.
Ukraine has really outdone itself but I simply don’t see a way around them getting ground to dust eventually by the Russian war machine outside of a deus ex machina type situation where Putin chokes on a chicken bone and Russia descends into chaos. Hopefully they can settle before they run out of young men to fight.
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Pre-war, I assumed this would be true because of the EXTREMELY mediocre showing of Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Crimea. But (pretty obviously) the Ukrainians did a lot of work between then and the second Russian invasion.
And if you set aside the question of Ukrainian morale, I don't think they are an embarrassingly easy target at all, on paper. They had a very large inherited ground army, and a large population pool. They're more on the level of Poland, not a softer target (say) Estonia or Latvia or even a medium-hard target like Finland. It's true from what I can tell that their weapon modernization was fairly meh and that their air force in particular was probably lackluster (but see also Poland, which is still flying Su-17s!) but the fundamentals (lots of tanks, artillery, warm bodies) go a long way with proper morale. I think that, e.g. non-US NATO would have struggled to invade Ukraine the same way Russia did.
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While they lowered their top draft age recently to 25, the fact that 18-25-year-olds are still not getting drafted should by itself prove that Ukraine is, in fact, not drafting (even "basically") every man they can find.
Man come on, at least read the full sentence:
Ukraine is a low-tech economy and needs its young men to work the farms and mines. They're not being given a vacation. They're part of the war effort just as much as if they were fighting on the front lines.
Seems very unlikely that all the young men are still just in the farms and the mines, considering that the universities are still running and so on.
Of course not literally all of them, they can Always search harder and find a few. Even Russiain ww2 didnt conscript "all" their men. Like a tube of toothpaste, they can always squeeze harder and find a few more. But after so many rounds of drafting, it's become a political problem: https://archive.is/6TSk4
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