Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
So it seems that Kursk offensive is not going well for Ukraine
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/09/europe/russia-advances-kursk-ukraine-intl/index.html
Also it seems that the Russians are taking their time and try to put Zelensky in a bad situation. They seems to want to keep the Ukrainians inside the cauldron with theoretical possibility to be saved and re-supplied as not to surrender, but to kill them off slowly to maximize demoralization in the other parts of Ukraine army. They prefer it as a bleeding wound for Ukraine. I don't think that they will be allowed to retreat. All in all it was not a smart move to begin with.
If you forget to factor in the last six months, I suppose.
The fact that you are talking about troubles in a pocket on the Kursk front more than half a year after the initial offensive, and not some pocket on the Donetsk front like where the supposedly imminent fall of the strategic town of Pokrovsk at the time of the launch of the Kursk offensive was supposed to throw the Donetsk defensive line into shambles, is rather simple counter-point of why it was a good idea. The Russians are continuing to spend a considerable amount of their offensive capabilities trying to dig Ukraine out of Russia, which was not expected to be kept by the Ukrainians regardless, rather than out of Ukraine, where the Russians have very clearly demonstrated an intent use the front lines as teh boundary of control. Front lines where they could have been making greater advances with greater forces under the umbrella of the greater buildup of defenses on their side of the line, had strategic priorities not shifted more to the Kursk pocket.
Your article raises this point-
-and, low and behold, six months later resources are still being diverted from the front lines in the east, and Pokrovsk still hasn't fallen, despite its imminent fall being a reoccurring topic of discussion since late last summer.
Even if you want to present an argument that once the Ukrainians in Kursk are defeated the Russians will return and finish the job there (or elsewhere) and collapse the front immediately because the Ukrainians all died or lost the will to fight over Kursk, the fact of a six-month delay in not-taking a city on the 'cusp' of falling is a fact that there have been six months of additional time for fortification work along that front, and six more months of higher attrition against that entire front from the front not-collapsing while the Russians kept pushing (in part because they used continuing pushes there to drive propaganda that the Kursk front wasn't diverting any resources).
The value of diverting resources isn't lost even if another line of benefit (trading away Russian territory for Ukrainian territory at the negotiating table) is lost because the Russians prioritize taking back Russian territory over taking more Ukrainian territory. That is, in fact, the same effect- it's the same principle, regardless of whether that trade is at the negotiating table or the battlefield table.
At which point, whether it was a smart move to begin with is going to be a claim that has to compare with the alternative- and the alternative at the start of the Kursk Offensive about six months ago was a steady Russian grind under the cover of substantial advantages in airpower and artillery superiority due to its own pocket-effect that was, reportedly, about to throw the entire front into chaos.
Put another way- would you have expected fewer potential Ukrainian encirclements by this point had the Donetsk line destabilized further?
That seems like another instance of the "Western media proclaims that Russia has some internal milestone, then opines that it's a sign of weakness that the milestone was not met", which has been a recurrent strategy since the start - analogous to if the Russians said that the F-16s were supposed to stop Russian deep strikes, and the circumstance that the interception rate is lower than ever proves that F-16s are trash.
None of the Russian sources I follow seemed to be of the opinion that a fall of Pokrovsk is imminent, or even a high operational priority. Also, manifestly, the Kursk incursion did coincide with an increase of Russian advances, however small - we obviously can't access the counterfactual, but it's quite conceivable that without the Kursk incursion Ukraine could have by now conducted some successful larger-scale counteroffensives elsewhere.
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Bringing some less than stellar news out of Vietnam. Prominent journalist Truong Huy San (first name: San, family name: Truong) was indicted for "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights, and interests of organizations and/or citizens". To paint who Truong Huy San is, we can look at his wikipedia link. An army veteran that served in wartime for his country, was a fellow at Harvard, wrote a book that is called "perhaps the first critical, comprehensive history of Vietnam since 1975 by someone inside the country.", interviewed by Ken Burns (and others). Honestly, I like the guy even if I haven't read his blog, which I'm sure is not even dissident-writing but just critical of the government or the corruption he sees. It is a worrying sign, and I'm glad I'm in the US (unless they kick me out). But things seem to be clamping down in Vietnam, mirroring changes in China in the last decade. Again, I am reminded that ugly-authoritarian can very quickly rear its head. If you are a citizen in such countries, life is probably alright, generally, averagely. Things aren't good, but they aren't bad bad either. But then one day you can wake up and there's a policeman knocking on your door "inviting you to some tea". Personally, I myself notice that I self-censor for fear of somehow endangering the relatives I have at home. Journalists are probably even more fearful.
taken from 2024 Report — Censorship in Vietnam: State Media Under Unprecedented Attack
More could be said, but I guess I'm just sad for my home country.
This is disappointing. I notice despite skimming the report and some news articles I can't find a specific underlying motivation. Just references to suppressing dissent.
Many times, I think any explanation of the authoritarian regime, of trying to understand it, and therefore explains its actions, will just boil down to "because they want to keep their power" and "because they want to exercise their power". I don't think it's necessary to have to dive into youthful childhoods, psychological makeups, sociological contexts, religo-ideological-cultural histories, politico-economic analyses, and all the different litanies of explanation for why authoritarian regimes are the way they are because what they are and what they want are so nakedly obvious.
Musings on "because they want to keep their power"
In 2021, the Minister of Public Security To Lam ate some $1000 steak wrapped in gold at the height of the pandemic. Well, now that he's the most powerful person in the country, it would be nice if no one keep mentioning that anymore or else the people might actually go and remember that they're the People. And it doesn't have to be just that guy, there are more than 5.3million Party members, and all those military leaders, and industrial leaders. And they're all the same people, they hang out with each other, they go on vacations together, their kids marry each other. They too have a vested interest keeping the bad news off the minds of the masses. It's the same with China and Jack Ma really, "oh you want to get rich? sure sure, give us a cut, but always remember that it's under our whims". Unfortunate for Vietnam but we didn't have a Deng and we definitely did not get a Shenzen out of that deal.
Musings on "because they want to exercise their power"
Marcus Aurelius is a stoic. Marcus Aurelius also happens to be the Emperor of the greatest Empire West of the Himalayans in history (at the time). Through his Meditations, which is really only his diary, we see a man constantly repeating to himself multiple times the same thing, self-restraining himself, reminding himself of the core values of what constitutes eudaimonia. Now Rome was no doubt an authoritarian regime, and that's exactly why we still revere Marcus Aurelius. Because he could have been violent, he could have been depraved, he could have been egoistical, etc. and etc, but he didn't and continually refused to succumb to the baser instincts of man. Do I believe that To Lam is a smart man, absolutely, at the very least it has to be some kind of low cunning to beat out 5.3 million people for the top spot. Do I believe he is an effective leader, also absolutely, how could someone be not when they have to manage the hounds of a state, an authoritarian one at that. Let's even give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't choose to eat a golden-steak, it was a gift, a surprise by the restaurant owner. But did he succumb to his baser instinct? I bet goddamn he did. And now he and all the other golden-steak eating cadres just want to continue to be able to do that.
Last musings
Now of course, all those "litanies" mentioned in the beginning make for quite good reading, but I am not sure if all that matters in terms of real-life tactics and strategies. Fuel for propaganda, yes. Maybe even in a know-yourself-know-your-enemy kind of way if you're some kind of on-the-ground tactician. But in the end, the authoritarian motivations are very simple, no matter the trappings we or they heap upon themselves for why they do the things they do.
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