Ukrainian War Developments

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4Runner

4Runner

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taxiya said:
That is what 楚怀王 did, breaking alliance with Qi for the empty promise of Qin. He then ended up in prison of Qin and died there with Chu being annihilated few years later.

Taiwan is China's business, we don't trade it for anything. China and Russia's relationship is our business, not for trade. We don't care if US is happy or angry, they can cry about it in their bathroom.
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OK. I consider defeated: my sarcasm failed.

(1) The west would never declare in a top governmental communique that Taiwan is part of PRC (not China as was in US/China communiques). Western politicians could not survive from that.
(2) The west would never declare in a top governmental communique that they would not intervene in China's internal affairs. That would be a surrender.
(3) Hence my point that the west would never do for China what they are asking China to do for them.

I think I can rest my case now. And I am going to look for Youtube tutorials on sarcasm over this weekend.
 
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Bill Blazo

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james smith esq said:
What were Russia’s objectives? Guess Yanukovich, or whatever his name is, was called up from the bench for nothing, huh?
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It all comes down to what people mean by "winning" and "losing" for any given war. It's not always obvious in warfare who wins or loses, that's why we have ambiguous terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or tactical defeat and strategic victory (and vice versa). One way to think about whether you won or lost is to ask the following question: did you achieve the central objectives that you set out before the war started? For this war, I think Russia's central objective was converting Ukraine from the pro-Western satellite it was becoming to a Russian satellite under Russia's sphere of influence, analogous to Belarus or Kazakhstan. From that perspective, it's clear that Russia has already lost the war. Whatever remains of Ukraine will not become a Russian puppet regime. However, you can also adopt other perfectly sensible definitions of victory, such as the "old school" approach: who took more land once it's all said and done? Ukraine will have lost a lot of land by the time the dust settles in the summer. We still don't know how much exactly, but it's not hard to guess that they're going to be losing roughly 20% of their territory. That's catastrophic by almost any standard. I want you to imagine the US losing an area the size of Texas and California. And there are still many other criteria you can adopt, but you get my point: who wins or loses this war heavily depends on what standards of victory you choose.
 
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Richard Santos

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I think converting all of ukraine to a satellite state was never the major objective. keeping NATO, more importantly prospect of american nuclear missiles, out of ukraine was.

But so long as no NATO or UN troops set foot in ukraine, after this war that destroyed all reason for future moderation, ukraine, maybe in several pieces and in several steps, becoming a full blown russian satellite is also hard to avoid for long.
 
james smith esq

james smith esq

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Bill Blazo said:
It all comes down to what people mean by "winning" and "losing" for any given war. It's not always obvious in warfare who wins or loses, that's why we have ambiguous terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or tactical defeat and strategic victory (and vice versa). One way to think about whether you won or lost is to ask the following question: did you achieve the central objectives that you set out before the war started? For this war, I think Russia's central objective was converting Ukraine from the pro-Western satellite it was becoming to a Russian satellite under Russia's sphere of influence, analogous to Belarus or Kazakhstan. From that perspective, it's clear that Russia has already lost the war. Whatever remains of Ukraine will not become a Russian puppet regime. However, you can also adopt other perfectly sensible definitions of victory, such as the "old school" approach: who took more land once it's all said and done? Ukraine will have lost a lot of land by the time the dust settles in the summer. We still don't know how much exactly, but it's not hard to guess that they're going to be losing roughly 20% of their territory. That's catastrophic by almost any standard. I want you to imagine the US losing an area the size of Texas and California. And there are still many other criteria you can adopt, but you get my point: who wins or loses this war heavily depends on what standards of victory you choose.
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From my perspective, your first example was the only valid criterion, i. e., “did you achieve the central objectives that you set out before the war started”. Anything else is simply failure, if not outright defeat. The salient question, for Russia, I believe, is precisely who they were defeated by, Ukraine, or the ineptitude born of hubris!

I’m thinking of starting a new thread for Arm Chair strategists called “What Would Have Been Your Strategy For Russia In Ukraine”, now that we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
 
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siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
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taxiya said:
That is what 楚怀王 did, breaking alliance with Qi for the empty promise of Qin. He then ended up in prison of Qin and died there with Chu being annihilated few years later.

Taiwan is China's business, we don't trade it for anything. China and Russia's relationship is our business, not for trade. We don't care if US is happy or angry, they can cry about it in their bathroom.
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It's scary how you can find a corresponding anecdote from the Spring/Autumn and Warring States period for anything happening today. Scarier still is that even average Chinese know these anecdotes, having learned about them either in school or at home. Maybe Western politicians should start studying the Warring States period.
 
asif iqbal

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Bill Blazo said:
Tell that to the Grand Army in 1805, when Napoleon took 200,000 troops on a rapid forced march and trapped the Austrians at Ulm while bypassing almost everything. The Duke of Marlborough fought 30 sieges and like 4 pitched battles, simply because in the 18th century the average army size was too small to bypass major cities and fortresses. Doing so would leave an army's supply lines and communication lines badly exposed, as you said. But the French Revolution and the rise of mass conscription changed all that. France could suddenly put an army on the field larger than that of the Roman Empire, despite a much smaller population. That's why sieges declined in importance during the Napoleonic Wars. The French simply masked big targets with residual forces and continued on their way to destroy the enemy's field army. That has been the basic model ever since, but it hinges on a critical detail: you need a large army to pull it off, and some mobility in the war theater so you're not stuck in the trenches.

And that brings us to this war. The central problem with what the Russians did in this war isn't that they failed to capture places like Sumy and Chernihiv. It's that they failed to capture these places and kept advancing with a small army. They didn't bring enough troops for the kind of war theater they were facing. If they'd gone in with half a million troops, they could have easily encircled places like Sumy and Chernihiv and just bombed or starved them to death. Then there would still be enough troops in the rest of the Russian force to destroy the Ukrainian field army. Now they're stuck with the worst of all worlds: they haven't captured these cities and their supply lines are getting wrecked because they don't have enough troops to properly protect them. Also important to emphasize that this conclusion is very theater-dependent. Russian control in the eastern and southern territories is much more robust. Their stuff isn't getting raided like crazy over there. It's just the northern theater that has been catastrophic.
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But Surely by now Russia has realized that by now and can send in extra troops ?
 
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Abominable

Major
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Looks like some American generals are finally voicing in public what I've been saying for weeks. General Wesley Clark, who tried to start WW3 in Kosovo, points out if escalations continue then Russia may use a tactical nuclear weapon against Poland. He's crazy and actually wants a nuclear war, but he's right.
I imagine a lot of American generals are frustrated by the Biden's policy to pretend there isn't a nuclear standoff going on right now.
 
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Terrowyn

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Putin just applied classical socialist theory. The state needed to control the commanding heights of the economy i.e. energy, transportation, telecoms, and media. And if you think he is stuffing himself with money, what about Biden and his son? The fact is we have no proof Putin is stuffing himself with money. While the same is not true for Biden. I do not know how he has not been impeached already.
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How much do you want to bring up the United States? You seem to think that I'm pro-US because I dared to criticize Putin.

To make it clear. I like Putin in general and am not pro-US. I'm well aware their gov has corrupt officials all over, but the subject being discussed was corruption in Russia so why derail it with nonsense about Biden, Pelosi, etc which is common knowledge to most posters.

Putin is a patriot and has mode some progress in improving the living standards in Russia (wasn't hard with the economy Yeltsin left), but to outright deny he hasn't enriched himself and others for their loyalty is turning a blind eye to obvious corruption. When he came to power and dragged every oligarch on national TV he had the backing of the nation to get rid of them for good, even destroy them. Instead he chose to make allys of those that switched their loyalty and has allowed them to spend abroad in the manner they have, the very thing he moans about now sanctions have come to pass all happened under the 20 years of United Russia ruling the country.

Things hopefully change now (we will see how he cracks down on it) but the point is it shouldn't have happened in the first place. In contrast the CCP cracked down on this years ago, I don't see any Chinese investors looking to buy Chelsea FC and that's because the state simply won't allow such nonsensical spending.
 
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