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Can they? I think they can't actually mobilize all those men. And if they could, they'd just be turning them into cannon fodder.
Ancient equipment which hasn't been maintained and quite possibly exists only on paper (long since sold for scrap to feather someone's nest) isn't going to help them
The Germans are of course idiots, but it's hard to see how Russia is benefiting.
International supply chains will not collapse over Russia and Ukraine. Aside from Europe's natural gas. If they'd execute a few Greens for treason they could probably solve that problem, but they won't.
Yes, war does that. But what else can they do, surrender? That's not better.
Russia holds important territory now, but they can't just declare victory and stop as long as the Ukranians can fight.
The trick is finding one which doesn't mean "We take Eastern Ukraine now, and the rest later". At this point I think it's off the table until Russia is exhausted or Ukraine is thoroughly beaten.
Fairly certain I’ve seen data that Russia no longer has a trade surplus since their not selling gas anymore and oil prices fell.
And that’s besides long term issues that Europe won’t trust Russia as an energy supplier or that Russia isn’t getting the imports they need to run their economy.
Also not sure how useful 1940’s tanks are today. Not many cars work from then. And they would be going up against HiMars and Javelins. Could be just canon fodder which I’m not sure how many Russians are willing to be.
Is that kind of analysis super relevant in a world where we're talking about mass mobilization of infantry? Russia feeds itself, if it can do that and produce weapons, the current account and living standards are kind of irrelevant if the government retains control.
That's like saying that the flammability of material is kind of irrelevant if it does not ignite.
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More than you'd think.
The reports I read on sustained warfare recently penned by French generals were surprisingly glowing of that old tech actually, if you can bring in the numbers and the industry to make the parts.
The basic scenario they have for a WW3 would be everyone blowing up all their fancy modern equipment in the first year or so (or not using them out of fear of destruction like the dreadnoughts of WW1 which is functionally the same) and then reverting back to primitive but reliable equipment that's about 40s levels of tech once the satellite communications and fancy gizmoes all run out.
Now this isn't WW3 so the parameters are not exactly the same, but Ukraine is in a situation that still makes large amounts of shit armor useful: for logistical reasons the West mostly gave them light equipment and they are running out of the complex weapon systems and vehicles by their own account.
Another thing to consider is how vulnerable armor has become on the modern battlefield. The people now clamoring that the tank is dead and we should ditch it for light vehicles and artillery may be going too far, but modern ATGMs (which is just what the Ukies have been given) do make the difference between modern and not so modern tanks less relevant. If your modern tank blows up all the same, you'd rather have two not so modern tanks.
I don't share your doubts that throwing a ton of troops with mediocre equipment as target practice to the western wunderwaffen would be acceptable to the Russians. This is what Russia does and has always done, after all. And it worked out for them so many times that it might actually be the right call.
All in all, I think people are overselling the materiel angle here. Manpower is a much more constraining factor in my opinion.
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They can force conscript, if Putin's willing to pay the costs he's gone to significant expense to avoid to date, but a major issue is that the Russians already cannibalized their mobilization and training infrastructure. The units whose job it is/would be to train new arrivals have already had their cadres raided to fill in at places like Kherson, and some reports of mobilized reservist training are of 1 week refresher before going to the front.
So, yes, probably cannon fodder, especially as the systems they would be meant to give mass to- and which in turn force-multiply them- have been extremely degraded, and the Russian supply system hasn't fixed its fundamental dependence on rail.
The crux of mobilization is that it would have been far more effective far earlier, when Russia still had its higher-tech precision strike capabilities and hadn't lost modernized tanks number in the multiple european nations. Even if mothball reserves still exist /work / get refurbished, they're at this point to replace superior equipment that already failed, even as Ukrainian capabilities have grown.
The argument generally rests on Russia's record oil import dollars from the energy price jump, while ignoring different metrics like the GDP slump or impacts to various non-oil industries like the airline sector (uh, not good) or vehicle manufacturing (97% car production decline in May 22 compared to May 21), on top of the implications of hundreds of thousands range of emmigration.
The general argument is that thanks to the fuck-off money the other impacts don't matter, and that the Europeans will cave and go back to buying Russian gas long-term instead of completing the gas import terminal projects, thus giving Russia a bumper crop of energy sales instead of functionally increasing the room temperature by burning down the house.
Supply chains no, food chains maybe, but the assumption to be challenged is why Assad would be stable in a food-insecure region, and how insecurity in the middle east actually benefits Russia beyond 'oil price stronk' arguments that resolve economic health to oil prices and assumptions that the US response to a Middle Eastern humanitarian crisis won't be to just sell the oil-rich countries more food at higher prices.
There isn't enough exports worldwide.
EU imports from RU were the size of the LNG spot market.
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Every war in history has ended in a negotiated settlement in which the winner keeps the territory and prizes they took. The exceptions are things like Troy, Carthage, and Berlin... and the Ukrainians aren't making it to Moscow.
The most likely scenario if Ukraine doesn't negotiate is this continues until America stops funding them, and Europes economic aid stops working... at which point they collapse, Russsia takes vastly more, and they become a warlord run failed state for the next several decades.
Wars are either won in the maneuver or the economics and logistics... the maneuvering has stopped and Ukraine's economic position is only going to get worse. America isn't going to give them another hundred billion dollars, perhaps even a majority of that disappeared into bribes, and what's left of their economy is going to collapse in the next 6 months.
Russia taking its land corridor and the republics, and crimmea now, and then Ukraine getting a few years to actually have an economy, rearm, and ideally set u psome trade ties so they aren't on constant edge with russia is a massively better idea than them fighting til they collapse on some lie Europe told them about an EU membership they were never going to give a country with nothing to offer and a GDP below 5k per capita (ask the Turks about that one)
Meta: I hope we can maintain norms that downvotes aren't for mere disagreement. This thread has some heavily downvoted comments that as far as I can tell aren't arguing in bad faith, breaking rules, or violating other norms. This is one such comment, there are many others.
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The opening premise is false and thus the rest of the argument is false.
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The UCDP Conflict Termination dataset (link, paper) has this data:
Most wars fizzle into low-level unresolved stalemates without formal concessions or recognitions. Only half or so of interstate conflicts end in a ceasefire or peace agreements (typically the former).
In suggesting a negotiated solution, one should also be aware of the statistics and factors regardings the durability of peace agreements, and particularly the tensions over incompatible interpretations of Minsk II that failed to be resolved in the Normandy format talks that initiated this conflict.
So a negotiated settlement or a defacto settlement which saves face by not signing a paper. the point remains: there is no way you magically get lost territory back by wishing, and unless you keep escalating til you lose everything you have to accept your enemy controls what they control.
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Certainly not. Troy, Carthage, and Berlin are not the only wars where one side was vanquished. There have been many successful wars of conquest.
America can fund them at these levels (tens of billions, not hundreds) indefinitely. There's no point in them negotiating until they can be assured it means more than "we'll take what we have now and the rest later". And there is another option -- the Russian invasion and occupation force collapses and Ukraine drives them out of the country. It is not a foregone conclusion that Russia wins.
Russia has made it clear that Ukraine is not a legitimate entity to them. If the war were somehow to stop now, it would be Russia which would take a few years to re-arm and re-group and then take the rest of Ukraine.
That seems highly unlikely given how poorly the war has gone so far, and could be prevented simply by inviting Ukraine into NATO.
What does that have to do with anything?
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No it is not, but it's important to remember that there a sizable contingent of Red Diaper Babies amongst the "Gray Tribe" who's belief in Materialism, IE a rational world ruled by inductive reason, requires the Russians to win.
Why is this?
Why are the Red Diaper Babies amongst the Gray Tribe? chock it up the the academic mindset and the shit I'm always going on about Hobbes vs Rousseau.
Why is it important? It isn't in the grand scheme of things, but it does explain why rationalists in general and mottezens in particular seem to skew pro-Putin and pro-CCP despite their ostensibly libertarian backgrounds.
you are aware my Seniors thesis was on Hobbes and I'm a biological determinist?(completely antithetical to Russeau)
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Note: I don't "Identify" as a biological determinist... I am a biological determinist. My biology is deterministically making my mind process the sum of all available evidence and conclude biologically deterministic conclusions.
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Ps. For those of you wondering how one could be a Hobbesian and a libertarian, Royalist in the 17th century would be think they naturally follow. Most absolutists hated Hobbes and described Leviathan as a "Rebel's Catechism" (Ie. Justification for almost all rebellion)
To give just one example Hobbesian analysis preclude conscription, or atleast allows that armed rebellion against conscription is justified and logical, unless the person being conscripted is in immediate danger of an opposing force (such as a besieged city or alien invasion)
...and, the definition of "biological determinism" you give in the following paragraph is so broad as to be functionally meaningless.
Nothing in it precludes you from being a member of the Rousseauian faction.
I didn't offer a definition of Biological determinism. You're just humourless.
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I meant more "why does Materialism imply support for Russia?"
Because the soviets were in many respects "the great white hope" and this vibe has been carried over to neo-soviets like Putin. Couple this with the rationalist attachment to inductive reason IE that the side with superior numbers/weapons must win. that the underdog must loose, and you explain the rationalist support for Russia.
That said, if I wanted to be uncharitable I'd explain it away as a general affinity for technocratic authoritarianism amongst the intellectual class.
This feels exactly backwards to me.
My survey of westerners who think Russia will/should win includes old school Chomskyites and the deep/distant/far/dissident-right types. Both for the same reaons: they like to think of themselves as realists and/but despise the American foreign policy establishment too much to think of them as competent.
Your invocation of Hobbes/Rousseau I'm either reading incorrectly or is really out of step with reality given the people affecting this belief in this very thread count some of the most radical Hobbesian libertarians we have (or likely, exist).
The people who even have a shadow of sympathy for the original soviets here to carry over would be the Chomskyites, but not only does it feel a bit harsh to accuse them of liking authoritarianism, the idea that they would be enamored with Putin seems delusional.
If you mean to say that the dynamic of dissidents being sympathetic to ennemies of the regime is similar to communists during the cold war, you do have a point, but the analogy stops there. The ideological reasons, class of the people involved and power dynamics outside of that are either completely different of straight up the other way around.
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