Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
I wish you health, dear Ukrainians!
Today, I have held a regular meeting of the Staff. The main attention was paid to the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – those areas that are the hottest now.
Bakhmut and Soledar, Kreminna and Svatove, overall prospects in Donbas for the coming weeks. The battle for Donbas continues. And although the invaders have now concentrated their greatest efforts on Soledar, the result of this difficult and long battle will be the liberation of our entire Donbas.
I thank all our warriors who defend our Bakhmut and demonstrate maximum resilience! I thank all the warriors in Soledar who withstand new and even tougher attacks of the occupiers! It is extremely difficult – there are almost no whole walls left… Due to the resilience of our warriors there, in Soledar, we have gained additional time and additional power for Ukraine.
And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost: the whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like.
I thank all our defenders for every step forward in other areas on the frontline, for gradual advancement – very careful, calculated and therefore absolutely reliable.
Today, the Commander-in-Chief, commanders, chief of intelligence reported to the Staff… We integrate into our defense system new combat means and equipment that we receive from our partners. We do everything to ensure that there is as little time as possible between the agreement on additional support and the application of this support on the battlefield.
Today, I held four more stages of negotiations with partners – we continue our diplomatic marathon, which began last year with a visit to Washington. During this day – Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, President of Slovenia, Prime Minister of Portugal, Prime Minister of North Macedonia.
I spoke to all of them about the increase of defense support for our state, the necessity to bring Russian aggression to defeat this year and the implementation of all elements of our peace formula – from the restoration of territorial integrity of Ukraine to the punishment of terrorists for their actions.
There will be good news for our state, and it is very important that we reach an agreement with our partners right now, on the eve of the new “Ramstein”, and against the background of new brutal crimes of the occupiers.
Russian strikes on Kherson and Ochakiv, cities of the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, constant terror against border communities of the Sumy region… Constant terror against our people in the occupied territory…
The world knows that every day of Russian presence on Ukrainian soil means deaths, injuries, pain and suffering of people. Ukraine must get everything it needs to expel terrorists from our land and to reliably protect our people from any Russian escalation plans.
I am sure that our warriors will have these weapons and equipment at the front. Very soon.
Today, I met with the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the European Green Deal – for the renewal of European energy life on the basis of modern “green” energy. Such renewal is our goal as well, and it is a security goal. Modern and “green” energy for Ukraine, the use of renewable energy sources will significantly strengthen our resilience against any aggressive ambitions of Russia aimed at our and European energy sector.
We are also preparing for important events in our political relations with the European Union – for the EU-Ukraine Summit, for further institutional rapprochement of our state, our state system and the EU system, as well as for the beginning of membership negotiations. This is one of our most important tasks. I am grateful to everyone who brings the implementation of this task closer with their work.
I thank each and everyone who helps our country!
Glory to everyone who works for the victory of Ukrainians!
Glory to all who fight for Ukraine!
Tonight, I have signed decrees awarding our warriors. 573 warriors were awarded state awards. 283 of them – posthumously.
Eternal memory to each and every one who gave life for Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessment of the situation in Bakhmut:
BAKHMUT /1310 UTC 9 JAN/ In heavy combat, UKR forces continue counter-attacks against RU Wagner PMCs and RU units around Soledar. RU forces were driven back from Yokolivka. UKR’s 46th Air Mobile Brigade is reported to be advancing SE, in the vicinity of the mine complex. pic.twitter.com/H0UQeOR8W1
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) January 9, 2023
Dmitri who runs the WarTranslated site and Twitter feed brings us this update from some of the Ukrainian Soldiers in Bakhmut:
Update from Bakhmut 9 January.
P.S. As I was made aware, there will be another short clip from Kiyanyn for everyone who helped his unit raise funds for the essential equipment! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/Jm0dU3f1hc
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) January 9, 2023
On the morning of January 9, russian invaders launched a missile attack on the market in Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region. As a result, two people were killed and 5 people were injured. Among them is a child.
Again, no military targets. Pure terrorism. pic.twitter.com/ODYKdcQgXh— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) January 9, 2023
Last night in comments YY-Sima Qian asked:
On the latter, I have asked you this before when you brought 1st brought it up, but you may have missed it: I understand the logic of of needing to break apart the imperial entity that is the Russian Federation, & I don’t necessarily disagree, but what are you suggesting should be done to actually achieve that outcome? Are you suggesting the US & NATO should make it their policy goal (official or otherwise)? How far do you advise the US/NATO & other willing partners go to attain that goal? Do you think consensus can actually be reached inside of the US policy circles & among NATO & other partner nations to make breaking apart the Russian Federation a/the policy goal? How about mitigating the potential for misery at an extraordinary scale, which tend to follow the break up of such imperial entities, as we have seen in the aftermath of collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman, the Russian (post-1917), the Qing Empires, the Third Reich, the fUSSR & the former Yugoslavia. Likewise w/ the process w/ which European colonial powers withdrew from their colonies, & I am certainly not arguing against decolonization. Or are you merely suggesting that the US & others not try to keep Humpty Dumpty whole, should Russia start to fall apart from centrifugal forces?
The wars & the ethnic cleansing post-WW I, post-WW II, & post-Cold War largely became afterthoughts following those major globe spanning conflagrations, but not to those who suffer through them. A post-collapse scenario in the Russia Federation will be happening where there are over a thousand nuclear warheads in active service in the Russian military, & thousands (tens of thousands?) more in storage. The potential for calamity w/in the former territories of the Russian Federation, & for the calamity to spill over outside of it, is much higher because of the WMDs.
The short answer is I don’t know.
The longer answer is the reason I don’t know is that it is clear that Russia as it is cannot go on, but it is unclear to me what happens next. What happens when the war for Ukraine is over. Or what happens should Prigozhin or Patrushev or Kadyrov or someone we’re not even really focusing on challenges Putin. And what happens if that person is successful. I’m not even sure the end of the Soviet Union is much help as an example as the multitude of states that it separated into made a fair amount of sense given that they had been sovereign or semi-sovereign within other political entities prior to the creation of the Soviet Union.
Russia is a threat to its own people, its neighbors, and through subversion operations, information warfare, and organized crime to the entire world. For the past nine years I’ve not gone a day where I’ve not read something about Russia – books and articles about Putin and his rise; books and articles about Russia’s fall into oligarchic kleptocracy after the fall of the Soviet Union; books and articles about, as well as translations of Russian military concepts and doctrine, especially regarding Information Warfare, Psychological Operations, and Cyber Warfare; articles about Russian and post-Soviet organized crime; and books and articles on Russian history. I’m sure I’m missing something on this list. Despite all this reading, despite writing two professional publications that include significant sections on some of those topics, I do not consider myself to be a Russian subject matter expert and I am most definitely unsure what could or should happen.
I think we’d all agree that Russia’s ability to function as an empire, albeit one that is a middling power at best, needs to come to an end. I would expect this means that the ethnic minority “republics” within Russia, such as Dagestan and Tuvan as two examples, would separate out into either independent states or seek some sort of association with Mongolia as the ethnic Dagestanis and Tuvans are Mongolian. But what happens to the other Asian parts of Russia as a Eurasian state and society. Do the eastern portions in Siberia go there own way? Maybe. Does the PRC see an opportunity to expand north? Most likely. Are all we’re left with is some sort of rump Russia with Moscow and St. Petersburg, some smaller cities and towns, and a bunch of impoverished villages? I could see that happening.
I know everyone wants to know what happens to the nukes. There are only two powers with the ability to ensure that the nukes are safeguarded and removed: the US/NATO and the PRC. And that can only be done if they cooperate and work through the IAEA, which itself might provide an opportunity for cooperation that allows for the temperature between the US and its allies and partners and the PRC to be lowered. Here too, might is doing a lot of work,
Regardless, there is still a major problem: Russia’s political culture, its civic culture, its culture itself is sick. Don’t take my word for it, here’s Professor of Russian History Stephen Kotkin’s take that we covered way back in March 2022: (the bolded text is David Remick’s questions, the regular text is Kotkin’s response, though I’ve emphasized certain sections with italics:
We’ve been hearing voices both past and present saying that the reason for what has happened is, as George Kennan put it, the strategic blunder of the eastward expansion of nato. The great-power realist-school historian John Mearsheimer insists that a great deal of the blame for what we’re witnessing must go to the United States. I thought we’d begin with your analysis of that argument.
I have only the greatest respect for George Kennan. John Mearsheimer is a giant of a scholar. But I respectfully disagree. The problem with their argument is that it assumes that, had nato not expanded, Russia wouldn’t be the same or very likely close to what it is today. What we have today in Russia is not some kind of surprise. It’s not some kind of deviation from a historical pattern. Way before nato existed—in the nineteenth century—Russia looked like this: it had an autocrat. It had repression. It had militarism. It had suspicion of foreigners and the West. This is a Russia that we know, and it’s not a Russia that arrived yesterday or in the nineteen-nineties. It’s not a response to the actions of the West. There are internal processes in Russia that account for where we are today.
I would even go further. I would say that nato expansion has put us in a better place to deal with this historical pattern in Russia that we’re seeing again today. Where would we be now if Poland or the Baltic states were not in nato? They would be in the same limbo, in the same world that Ukraine is in. In fact, Poland’s membership in nato stiffened nato’s spine. Unlike some of the other nato countries, Poland has contested Russia many times over. In fact, you can argue that Russia broke its teeth twice on Poland: first in the nineteenth century, leading up to the twentieth century, and again at the end of the Soviet Union, with Solidarity. So George Kennan was an unbelievably important scholar and practitioner—the greatest Russia expert who ever lived—but I just don’t think blaming the West is the right analysis for where we are.
When you talk about the internal dynamics of Russia, it brings to mind a piece that you wrote for Foreign Affairs, six years ago, which began, “For half a millennium, Russian foreign policy has been characterized by soaring ambitions that have exceeded the country’s capabilities. Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Russia managed to expand at an average rate of fifty square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass.” You go on to describe three “fleeting moments” of Russian ascendancy: first during the reign of Peter the Great, then Alexander I’s victory over Napoleon, and then, of course, Stalin’s victory over Hitler. And then you say that, “these high-water marks aside, however, Russia has almost always been a relatively weak great power.” I wonder if you could expand on that and talk about how the internal dynamics of Russia have led to the present moment under Putin.
We had this debate about Iraq. Was Iraq the way it was because of Saddam, or was Saddam the way he was because of Iraq? In other words, there’s the personality, which can’t be denied, but there are also structural factors that shape the personality. One of the arguments I made in my Stalin book was that being the dictator, being in charge of Russian power in the world in those circumstances and in that time period, made Stalin who he was and not the other way around.
Russia is a remarkable civilization: in the arts, music, literature, dance, film. In every sphere, it’s a profound, remarkable place—a whole civilization, more than just a country. At the same time, Russia feels that it has a “special place” in the world, a special mission. It’s Eastern Orthodox, not Western. And it wants to stand out as a great power. Its problem has always been not this sense of self or identity but the fact that its capabilities have never matched its aspirations. It’s always in a struggle to live up to these aspirations, but it can’t, because the West has always been more powerful.
Russia is a great power, but not the great power, except for those few moments in history that you just enumerated. In trying to match the West or at least manage the differential between Russia and the West, they resort to coercion. They use a very heavy state-centric approach to try to beat the country forward and upwards in order, militarily and economically, to either match or compete with the West. And that works for a time, but very superficially. Russia has a spurt of economic growth, and it builds up its military, and then, of course, it hits a wall. It then has a long period of stagnation where the problem gets worse. The very attempt to solve the problem worsens the problem, and the gulf with the West widens. The West has the technology, the economic growth, and the stronger military.
The worst part of this dynamic in Russian history is the conflation of the Russian state with a personal ruler. Instead of getting the strong state that they want, to manage the gulf with the West and push and force Russia up to the highest level, they instead get a personalist regime. They get a dictatorship, which usually becomes a despotism. They’ve been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality. Eurasia is just much weaker than the Anglo-American model of power. Iran, Russia, and China, with very similar models, are all trying to catch the West, trying to manage the West and this differential in power.
You also have the genocidal rantings of the Russian government’s propogandists:
Along with that, Kremlin-serving Z-channels on Telegram are now aggressively spreading a “there can be no peace with Ukraine” narrative now.
Russia is preparing its population for a all-out total war of elimination in Ukraine, at any cost. https://t.co/D76c1O2B0B— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) January 9, 2023
And then you have the war crimes committed by the average Russian soldier:
Six.
That is how many types of serious violations against children during armed conflicts are listed in UN Security Council Resolution 1261 (1999).
russia has committed all of them. We must remember this and punish evil.#tribunal4russia
1/7— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) January 6, 2023
1st. Killing and maiming of children.
Since February 24, 2022 🇷🇺 had killed 453 🇺🇦 children and injured 877. However, real numbers are much higher. russia has been committing war crimes and has no plans to stop.#tribunal4russia
2/7 https://t.co/5e6CWFCfVA— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) January 7, 2023
2nd. Recruitment and use of children.
🇷🇺 tried to use 🇺🇦 children to unknowingly provide information about the location of strategically important objects through a mobile game.
This is not just a dirty trick, it’s a war crime.#tribunal4russia
3/7 https://t.co/5e6CWFCfVA— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) January 8, 2023
3rd. Rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence.
Dozens of 🇺🇦children faced this cynical 🇷🇺war crime as direct victims and/or witnesses. Inconceivable, how many of them still cannot talk about their pain…#tribunal4russia
4/7 https://t.co/5e6CWFCfVA— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) January 9, 2023
The types of atrocities that have been committed by Russian forces that we’ve seen documented over the past 11 months don’t just happen because war is corrosive. It doesn’t just happen because there isn’t a professional NCO Corps. Though both of those contribute to the problem. Rather, they happen because there is something systemically wrong with the Russian military and the Russian society from which that military draws its career, contract, and conscript personnel.
Even if we can work out a plan to devolve the current Russian state and polity into smaller and more manageable units, or a plan to manage it if it happens without our forcing the issue, and we have a plan to engage with the PRC through the IAEA to secure, remove, and destroy the nuclear weapons and related materials, what I don’t know the answer to is how to fix the political culture, the military culture, the economy organized around kleptocracy and organized crime, and the society organized around revanchist Russian ethno-chauvinism and built upon a fictionalized revisionist history. What’s more, I’m not sure anyone else does either.
I’m guessing that’s not a particularly satisfying set of answers, but that’s what I’ve got after working this problem set for nine years now.
Kids, don’t try to do DIY armoring in a war zone!
The use of a ZhZL-74 armoured vest made of aluminum scales did not save a Russian soldier from a mortal gunshot wound. pic.twitter.com/vMyz8ZTZ89
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) January 9, 2023
That’s enough for tonight.
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Open thread!
Adam L Silverman
I’m going to go workout and then walk the dogs. I’ll be back in a while.
West of the Rockies
Maybe this is a dumb question, but is Russia being called out in meetings of the UN? Are they being called on to explain their criminal activity? I hope the Russian UN ambassador is in constant misery having to explain and defend his/her government.
Ksmiami
But do tell me how we have to feel sorry for these monsters…
Ksmiami
@West of the Rockies: Russia needs to be expelled from the UN. Their presence makes a mockery of us all
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami:
Oh, please. You’re not the victim here, and no one is telling you that you have to feel sorry for Russians. Just don’t use violent rhetoric and you’ll be fine.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: I never said you have to feel sorry for them. I said you had to dial back the eliminationist rhetoric in the comments. Two different things.
Lee Hartmann
Before you say that you have a lot of respect for Mearsheimer, I suggest you read Chotiner’s interview with him in the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war
and also Eliot Cohen, Phillips O’Brien and others on the so-called “realist” school.
Adam L Silverman
@Lee Hartmann: I don’t, the person I cited did.
Dan B
It seems as though Russia is headed for disaster and their view of reality makes it impossible to change course. Since their views are so deeply entrenched there is no one that can persuade them of different paths forward to improve their prospects. If their economy collapses, for instance because there are not enough living workers to maintain their industries or agriculture, would this lead to internal strife or full on civil war, or revolution? Would they leave Ukraine before total collapse. It seems Putin wants to completely destroy Ukraine but will the Russian people decide that the difference between sending all their men to the meat grinder or dying in revolt has a better prospect?
ColoradoGuy
Adam brings up a very serious point: what do we do with a nuclear-armed state/society that has some of the worst features of both North Korea and the Imperial Japanese Army? What follows Putin?
I think most of the Foreign Policy specialists have given up the Nineties dream that “more markets, more capitalism” would alter the fundamental social structure of both China and Russia. What happened after WWII to Germany and Japan was unique, and clearly did NOT happen with economic reforms in China or Russia. So now what?
cain
I think absolutely they will see this as an opportunity. Depending on whether that land has valuable resources of course to be exploited. But PRC has constantly trying to cause trouble on the Indian border and so having an opportunity to expand their reach into these others might be too much of a temptation for them. If they have oil, uranium or any other thing that could feed their manufacturing prowess – game on.
ETA – thanks for a thought provoking post, Adam.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman:
That was the best damn answer to all the churn of previous segments of this GREAT series that I could imagine. Well done, sir.
In other news, he apparently thought he’d got himself some mithril.
HinTN
@Adam L Silverman: Reading with comprehension is an issue across the board these days. I encounter it all the damn time and it’s frustrating in the extreme.
MagdaInBlack
@Ksmiami: Are you seriously this obtuse??
Gin & Tonic
This bears repeating.
Fraud Guy
Not an expert at all, but the best follow I’ve done on explaining the Russian mindset and empire has been @kamilkazani. He has been fairly predictive of the breakdown of Russian motives and progress (and lack thereof) in the war. His predicition is that a breakup, should it happen, would be less likely to occur in the ethnic states (as they mostly have little economic activity not directed by Russian oligarchs), but in centered on regions that have maintained their own economies and could accrete territory around themselves.
Another Scott
@ColoradoGuy: IMO, we muddle through, as always.
The US is roughly 4.25% of the world population. We’re ~ 24-25% of world GDP. We can give our input, we can provide lots of (but not enough) assistance, we can use the military to break things if necessary, but we cannot solve Russia and we cannot bend her to our will.
The world is getting smaller, but ultimately Russia’s neighbors are going to have to do their share in any solution. If we learned anything at all in Afghanistan, it’s that any remaking of society over there is doomed without buy-in of the population, and if not buy-in then at least not actively working against our efforts.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike in NC
I hadn’t thought about David Remnick in a long time. His book “Lenin’s Tomb” was superb.
Annie
Adam, in your post you said “when the Ukraine war ends.” How do you think it will end? Do you think it will end in some clear-cut way? I’ve wondered if it will continue as a slow, grinding war of attrition.
And thank you for this and all your posts — I always learn a great deal. Thank you especially for admitting it when you don’t know something.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
Adam, the reformation of Russia you discuss is thoroughgoing and much-needed. But I’m not seeing how it’s achievable, or can even be considered, until/unless Russia is conquered. Russia, being jealous of its sovereignty, would never voluntarily undergo such a thing no matter how bad things got for its people. Losing in Ukraine would just give it one more beef with the West, one more national humiliation to avenge. Germany had to be conquered, Japan had to surrender unconditionally, so that WWII could end and the Marshall Plan could be put in place.
Amir Khalid
Oh dear. I seem to have killed the thread.
Wakeshift
I don’t pretend to know anything deep or perceptive about russian society or Ukrainian society, but I have been thinking about the path Ukraine has chosen for itself since 2014 (or 20__, or 1991, or 16__) and whether they can teach us something that might speak to this question of “what comes after the imperial russian federation, and how can russia become a peaceful neighbor that respects others and itself?”
From reading many commenters here sharing direct knowledge and experience, and from the various linked and cited articles and other writings, it seems like the inner russian sickness is always rooted in seeking to fill some missing respect or status, and this pattern seems to echo up and down all scales, all levels of society, and is always expressed by and through perceived power differential.
Ukraine and Ukrainians seem to have embraced and redoubled a commitment to cooperation and common purpose. I don’t know enough history to say if this characteristic has always been present or reflects a recent turning point, but either way I believe this aspirational and positive approach has done much to attract the degree of support and empathy from countries and individuals around the world who can identify with and celebrate a people pulling together and standing up to defend life, home, and right.
russia and russian society seem to cycle between lashing out and abuse, and then pouting recrimination; simultaneously abuser and victim. Both prevent lasting improvements and undermine even temporary ones.
The answer eludes me, how this cycle may be broken. I do not mean to suggest that it is somehow Ukraine’s burden to solve the problem, but i look to their experience and recent history for clues as they stand up so clearly as a role model for global citizens.
Thank you Adam Silverman, and thank you jackals
Slava Ukraini
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Not to worry, Amir, no thread is dead until J R in WV comments in it. :-)
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Not to worry. These threads usually run into the next morning.
But how is Malaysia’s coalition government working out? Are people satisfied with it?
Adam L Silverman
@Annie: I think it will grind on, in places it’ll look frozen, until it starts to move quick. The Ukrainians are clear: Russia must be removed from every inch of Ukraine. They have shown their resilience. I don’t think the Russians can match that. I also don’t think this is going to be over quickly. Russia is going to try to bury Ukraine in Russian conscripts. Ukraine is going to make sure they will have to be actually buried when they get back home. And that’s likely to slow things down.
FelonyGovt
What’s the difference between a “conscript” and a “draftee”?
And thanks again for these posts, Adam.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: There is no argument from me. I expect you are right.
Adam L Silverman
@FelonyGovt: Different words for the same thing.
gene108
I’m not sure these Asian provinces can turn into self-governing regions or independent nations. It’s one thing to have a local government, but setting international borders, joining international trade, etc. is a huge step up in terms of the caliber of people needed in government.
Also, there were ethnic clashes in the central Asian republics, in the 1990’s, as they settled border disputes and engaged in some level of ethnic cleansing. The dissolution of the USSR had its share of violence.
Ultimately, the Russian people have to decide what kind of country they want to have. No outside influence can change this.
@cain:
PRC has been pushing into land in Russia’s far east for a few decades now.
More at the link.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50185006.amp
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
It’s still early days. But the unity goverment shows no sign of collapsing in disarray, nor has it conspicuously fucked anything up. So far, so good. Fingers crossed.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Na. It’s just on a break.
I have a question. What has Russia earned as a nation? I’m not talking money for petroleum or any thing else. I’m talking what has Russia earned for itself, let’s say from the end of WWII.
Pride? Not one molecule.
Respect? Other than the ability to wage nuclear war which I do not see a respectful to the rest of the world. Again, not one molecule.
Money? They pump oil out of the ground and sell it. What else ya got?
Power? They never earn that, not even from their own people, they take it. Again not one molecule.
Their structure? It is a fancy dictatorship. And not that fancy. Once again, not one molecule.
Land? I said earned. And once again, not one molecule.
So what has Russia earned? Not one ruble, dollar, pound, euro, yen, etc or pride or respect or honor or really anything else. They take what they want, hell they take what isn’t theirs to take. They are power, not in the modern mode of earning it, but in the eon old mode of stealing it. It permeates everything they do, every intention they have, all the upper levels of their “government,” they earn nothing.
And while the rest of the world isn’t always a lot better, at least most of the world attempts and manages to be better, however little they try or manage.
jackmac
@HinTN: Ah, Mithril! As Gandalf described it in The Lord of the Rings:
“Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim”
But not available in Russia (or Mordor).
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Also, American society as it exists is too sick to be any kind of model. (“Better than Putin’s Russia” is a very low bar.)
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: Conquering Russia is a thing that has a long history of not happening.
Geminid
@Amir Khalid: Thanks. Hope the government is productive and durable.
Amir Khalid
@Matt McIrvin:
True, alas. And I am not optimistic that Russia, as it is now, has the power to reform itself from within.
Mallard Filmore
@Amir Khalid:
These Ukraine threads stay active for at least 12 hours. Go rest (or get busy) for a while and come back for more comments.
Anoniminous
Oligarchs want money and have raw resources, China has money and wants raw resources. With the rest of the world boycotting Russia China can get everything they want at marked down prices.
Why invade?
Mallard Filmore
@Ruckus:
They were a peer of the USA in the early space race.
lee
Another variable to think about:
By a lot of a accounts Russia is dancing around a demographic collapse. IIRC they did well is the late 90s early aughts but started slipping again. Now with this war they are losing a significant number of their young men. I would think that this would make any sort of recovery post putin very difficult.
Chetan Murthy
@Fraud Guy: Some thoughts:
In that vein, these well-respected authors like Kotkin, Snyder, and others, are valuable. I thought I’d add a blog:
Window on Eurasia: http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/
I forget Paul Goble’s history, but I think he was a journalist covering Russia for a long time. WoE cover Russia and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and republishes tons of interesting articles from other blogs and news sources. I’ve been reading it since before covid, and have consistently found it to be reliable. And they even have periodic humor from Tatyana Pushkaryova! (Russian jokes)
Again, I also like Kamil Galeev. I’m just suggesting WoE b/c it’s a way of diversifying your sources, and I think they’re reliable. Maybe I’m wrong about that. In any case, they don’t seem to differ from Galeev. Which makes me think maybe Galeev’s detractors are a little blowing smoke, but again, I can’t truly judge.
Ruckus
@Mallard Filmore:
I know.
Were being the operative word.
JanieM
@Wakeshift:
All the abusive individuals I’ve ever known are like this: they think *they’re* the victim of one thing/person or another, and out of that flows the justification for whatever they do to other people.
@Wakeshift:
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: Galeev appears to have blocked every legitimate, known Russian subject matter expert on Twitter. Last week he picked a fight with Christo Grozev of Bellingcat. Doesn’t make him wrong, but if makes one wonder.
As for Goble, here’s his bio from the bottom of the page you linked to:
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Here’s the latest article Goble published: http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/kremlin-talk-about-abolishing.html
Kremlin Talk about ‘Abolishing’ Ukrainians Leading Some to Talk about Doing the Same to Jews, Georgians and Others, Shablinsky Says
More at the link.
More articles: http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/systemic-opposition-parties-irrelevant.html
Systemic Opposition Parties Irrelevant in Russia Today, Rodin Says
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/war-in-ukraine-seen-pushing-russian.html
War in Ukraine Seen Pushing Russian Birthrate Down to Its Lowest Level in Russian History by End of Year
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/nine-signs-russian-economy-in-deep.html
Nine Signs Russian Economy in Deep Trouble
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/more-than-one-russian-in-hundred-still.html
More than One Russian in a Hundred Still Lives in a Communal Apartment and Many More Don’t have Indoor Toilets
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/only-14-percent-of-declared-russian.html
Only 1.4 Percent of Declared Russian Orthodox Believers Attended Christmas Services This Year
And finally, some humor! http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/russia-may-always-ready-for-nuclear-war.html
Russia May Always Ready for Nuclear War but It is Never Prepared for Cold Weather, Muscovites Say
As of January 1, the Putin regime is offering an 80 percent discount to Russians purchasing rose-colored glasses.
Chetan Murthy
oof, looks like I got stuck in moderation! (links!) uh, help? please?
Omnes Omnibus
Like most other people, I don’t know how the Russia problem will be resolved. What I can say is that it should not be let back in to the good graces of the world until its war crimes have been dealt with.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s what I’d seen reported. Since I’m not a Twitter user, I can’t see his blocks, so I didn’t know whether to believe it (but was inclined to do so). Which is why I thought I’d suggest WoE. Goble seems solid, and I’ve noticed nothing that I found biased in the many years I’ve read his blog.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid: I was excited and optimistic in about 1988-2000. Not so much any more.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: You know what you did and don’t do it again!//
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: One of the things I like about WoE is that he regularly publishes work discussing the situation in the various regions of Russia and the FSU. So stuff about strife between Dagestan and Chechnya, about regional politics in Ingushetia, about the Tatars and their struggle for cultural continuity in Baskortostan, the Karelians and how they view Russia, and on and on. Russia is an entire world, with many different nations, and from outside we have a tendency to view it as a unitary thing. From reading his work, it has become clear that isn’t unitary, and the subject peoples of Russia really do have their own aspirations and histories.
Which last thing, Kamil Galeev has also stressed. But again, I don’t need to know what Galeev writes, to believe these things, b/c I’ve read so many different perspectives on it, via Goble.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: They’ve still got good (world-class, especially given the limitations they work under) scientists and engineers.
RD-180 rocket engines are one example.
Scientific, and all sorts of other, talent exists everywhere including in Russia. Horrible things are being done in and to Ukraine, and have been done in many other places, by VVP. And that needs to stop. But, …
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Another Scott:
Indeed, Russia would have done far better for itself by building up its schools and universities than it has by building up its military.
Fraud Guy
@Chetan Murthy:
Thank you for the recommendation; read through the first several pages and it seems to reinforce Galeev’s stories, or just drawn from similar sources.
Mallard Filmore
@Ruckus: Now I wonder how much of that success was due to contributions from Ukraine as opposed to what came from Russia proper.
Anoniminous
Going to throw this out …
David Glantz on soviet contribution in world war 2
Colonel David Glantz (Ret) is one of the top 3 acknowledged global experts on the military history of the Ostfront/Great Patriotic War. Can’t understand modern Russia without some understanding what it went through in World War II.
Adding – this should NOT be taken as an excuse for what Russia is doing to and in Ukraine.
Carlo Graziani
Adam, I think there is one key distinction that is missing from your analysis, which I otherwise agree with (and thanks for the extended Kotkin bit btw, he’s always a key resource).
There’s Russia the perennial historical headache to be managed, which Kotkin describes to perfection, and which, after all is also the subject, with not so many alterations, of Kennan’s Long Telegram and Foreign Affairs X Article.
But then, there’s also Putinism, which is a totally separate phenomenon, and is associated with the spectacular kleptocracy that is today’s Russia — and was not a characteristic of, say, the Soviet Union (corrupt, yes, but the qualitative form of societal corruption was different, in a way that matters), and is really the source of the shorter-term acute threats presented by Russia to its neighbors and to the West in the past two decades.
The distinction matters, in my opinion, because while it is true that dimembering the Russian empire is not a realistic goal that the West can set for itself, dismembering Putinism may well be, if a catastrophic defeat by Russia in the war in Ukraine should result in a total political discrediting of Putin and the people most closely associated with him.
Such an outcome is not a historically uncommon one. It would almost certainly not result in a new regime that was much more palatable to us in the West, at least in the short term. However a much weakened Russia is a certain outcome, and one driven inwards by internal political divisions is highly likely in that case. That would have to count as as a win from a Western perspective, at least for the sake of not having a determined sapper of democracy actively sabotaging elections as Putin has habitually done.
Dealing with Russia is the same headache of Centuries, though. It will be a Chinese headache too, this Century.
Ben Vernia
Since I doubt that regime change is likely (and even if it were), I hope that someone is giving serious consideration to how to prevent the rise of a “Dolchstoßlegende” (stab-in-the-back myth) in post-war Russia. Emmanual Macron was not as wrong in June as he was made out to be when he said that Russia should not be humiliated (though he was speaking of negotiations to end the war, not of post-war Russia). After a Ukrainian victory, the Russian people must perceive an option of greater integration as a reward for transforming their state. Since Ukraine is Russia’s victim, it can’t be expected to bear that burden, but its western allies should be planning for that future. That’s not at all to say that there should be no accountability to individuals responsible, but the lesson of the Prussian War/WWI/WWII cycle of revenge is that it’s no way to achieve either peace or justice.
Traveller
I have posted the following political cartoon around with my Russia discussions, and while I do not know the exact provenance of this work, (I suspect 1900’ish), it seem particularity relevant to the current discussion…(I’ve never posted a link here, so I hope to avoid Mr Murthy’s error…who knows? We must try), still, the world standing and holding a road…made me sit up and think…”Russia, always thus?” Best Wishes to all
https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/52618558759/in/dateposted-public/
Chetan Murthy
@Mallard Filmore: I read recently that 40% of USSR WWII casualties were suffered by Ukrainians. Arguably, they were not 40% of Russia’s population. IIRC, it was tweet arguing that Ukraine should inherit the USSR’s security council seat, b/c they’d contributed disproportionately to the victory.
Gin & Tonic
@Anoniminous: “Soviet” and “Russian” are not the same thing. Note that much of the “soviet” contribution to WWII in both men and materiel came from Ukraine and Belarus. The way you casually slide from “the soviet contribution” to “understanding modern russia” is a big part of what today’s “russian federation” exploits in their flawed historiography.
Another Scott
@Anoniminous: Galeev had a giant thread a few months ago arguing that the USSR only defeated Hitler (and Napoleon) because of support by Western powers.
Thread:
True? No idea, but he has lots of tweets to support his thesis. ;-)
Seriously, I don’t know enough to know counterarguments. But I get nervous when explanations of complicated human events are too pat.
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Anoniminous: Kotkin and others have pointed out that this Russian obsession with “buffers” at its borders is much older than WWII. And that “buffer states’ inevitably turn into new provinces, which then in turn need their own buffer states. Here’s Putin making a joke about it: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/vladimir-putin-jokes-that-russian-borders-dont-end-1629868
I’ve read wittier versions of that joke, but can’t find ’em right at this moment.
Chetan Murthy
@Another Scott: Philips P. O’Brien has a book (How The War Was Won) about this very subject, and has opined at length both on twitter and in his substack ( https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/misunderstanding-soviet-power-in-761 ) about this. I think he’s a pretty well-respected historian: he gets invited on all the news shows, that’s for sure.
Jager
Like everyone else, with a few exceptions, I don’t know shit about Russia, I grew up during the Cold War, the Space Race, and the warming of the relationship, and now here we are with Putin. What I do know for sure is this: Two guys I did business with over the years, met and married beautiful Russian women. Both women took these guys for a ride, cost them houses, and chunks of their businesses, and strangely enough, once the looting and the divorces were final they both had long-time Russian boyfriends that appeared like magic. One of the guys had met his “wife’s” boyfriend, he was introduced to the guy as her brother. He lived with them until his visa expired. Not that this doesn’t happen to non-Russian marriages. But, the MO in both cases was so similar it was like the women had gone to school to learn what to do. I introduced the two guys, they talked on the phone, one of them said, “Jesus it was like they were following a script.”
PJ
@Matt McIrvin: Muscovy paid tribute to the Mongols for a long, long time. And have you ever heard of Crimea? Japan? In more recent times, the Russian Army fell apart during WWI. The Germans still had a war to fight in the West, but if they hadn’t, do you think they would not have organized Russia into various subject states? And, per Stalin, were it not for lend/lease, the Soviets would not have lost WWII. The Russians can win against smaller, less developed states, but their record against peer states is not good. They beat Napoleon, good for them, but it’s slim pickings otherwise.
Carlo Graziani
@Another Scott: I have had, and continue to have, many Russian scientific colleagues in the US, at one time in astrophysics, now in computational science and applied mathematics. There has been a continual stream of such immigrants, well before the war began. They are excellent scientists as well as good people.
PJ
@Ben Vernia: The lesson of the Franco-Prussian War, WWI, and WWII, is that Germany had to be defeated decisively, in such a manner which it could not pretend it did not happen, and it had to be occupied, disarmed, and reeducated into democracy. The reparations the French demanded after WWI were in no way out of line – the Germans occupied, looted, and destroyed eastern France for four years. The problem was that the French lacked the will to enforce the peace. If they had marched into Germany after Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland, that would have been the end of Hitler. But they didn’t, so they, and the rest of Europe, got WWII.
Chetan Murthy
@PJ: I read a french tweet by a guy saying that the reparations demanded of Germany between 1921 and 1938 were equivalent to what France paid between 1871 and 1873. Don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, those reparations weren’t out-of-line. I also remember Tooze pointing out that those reparations weren’t really such a problem: Germany was able to borrow on international markets (from the US) to pay them.
Urza
That ‘scale mail’ armor is exactly why metal body armor went by the wayside when guns came on the historical scene. If its thick enough to stop a bullet you can’t move (before kevlar). Best to be able to move at least a little to avoid the relatively small object sometimes.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: It may well be true that the Soviet Union could not have defeated Nazi Germany without material assistance from the US. However, that framing obscures the question: Could the West have defeated Germany, had the Germans succeeded in destroying the Soviet Union? In my opinion, the answer is pretty clearly “no”, or at least not until such a time as it was possible to destroy Germany by nuclear bombardment.
The West did not aid the Soviets out of charity. No conventional victory over the Wermacht would have been imaginable, had half of that force not been tied up in the East. The essential premise of the entire OVERLORD operation was that German forces were to be dispersed away from the landing zones by deceptions and by continued operations in the Mediterranean to protect the lodgement for weeks, after which they would be ready for some kind of large engagement, and their schedule proved insanely optimistic. Had an additional 100 or so German divisions been loitering in France instead of locked in a death-struggle with the Russians on the Eastern front, the whole thing would have totally hopeless.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: here we go
I’m not a historian, can’t judge if this true. But Araud is no lightweight (from his twitter bio): Fmr French Amb. to the UN and the US. Chroniqueur
@LePoint
. Trustee
@CrisisGroup
Sen. adviser
@ASG
. Dist. fellow
@AtlanticCouncil
.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: IIRC, O’Brien’s argument is that while *bodies* were sent East, the *industrial production* was aimed West. Most of it.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Also, I remember reading elsewhere (but also by O’Brien) that while, sure, getting German divisions tied-up on the Eastern Front helped for our landings, by the same token we spent bomber crews like water in order to tie up anti-air guns in Germany, to prevent them from going to the Eastern Front.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Greatly appreciate your reply!
Unfortunately, getting China to coordinate w/ the US on securing nukes in a post-collapse Russia is probably not happening. For 2 decades China has been extremely reluctant to engage in such discussion re North Korea, for fear of words leaking to Kim Jong-un (or his father before that) & making him even more paranoid & difficult to manage. China is still counting on an intact Russia, however diminished, to provide as counterweight to US pressure. Also, I don’t think the Chinese leadership trusts the US not to leak such discussions to drive a wedge between China & Russia. The complete lack of trust between Beijing & DC, worsening by the day under the Cold War Lite dynamic of “intense competition”, is in fact the key impediment to cross-Pacific coordination on urgent topics such as the pandemic or Climate Change, let alone edge case scenarios such as securing WMDs in a post-collapse Russia.
Should the Russian Federation fall apart, it will be a free for all for Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, & probably the US & EU interests in the Russian Far East. I highly doubt China or anyone else will invade to grab more land, but certainly to grab resources & gain influence over the regional authorities.
Also, in such a scenario, we also need to keep in mind the direction that the 4 Krais & Oblasts closest to China & the Korean Peninsula go. They are by far the most populous & developed (relatively speaking) regions in the Russian Far East, & all are > 90% ethnic Russian. I don’t think the populations there would savor the prospects of being an island of white Christian Europeans surrounded by a sea of East Asian Buddhists/Taoist/atheists. I personally would not be surprised if they try to help Moscow suppress separatism in other regions of the Russian Far East.
Anoniminous
@Another Scott:
The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis with help from the US and UK. Lend-Lease was negligible during 1942 compared to the Soviet production of 12,661 T-34s, 2,635 of the KV series, 27,000 pieces of artillery (including Anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns,) millions of rifles and other small arms, and uniforms and boots and web equipment and millions of liters of POL, 25,436 aircraft & etc. It was in 1942 the Red Army brought the last major German offensive of WW 2 Fall Blau to a standstill and then counterattacked with Operation Uranus, a.k.a. “Stalingrad.”
YY_Sima Qian
@gene108: The BBC article from 2019 is already dated, & the phenomenon it described even more so. Even before the pandemic, the number of Chinese working in the Russia Far East was falling, due to fewer opportunities & less welcoming environment. The vast majority of Chinese visiting the RFE were tourists, followed by seasonal labor. Very few have put down roots. 3 years of travel restrictions during the pandemic has cut downs the flow of Chinese visitors to Russia to virtually nil.
Western media & Russia media tend to point to anecdotes of Chinese buying up property or renting farmland from Russian owners as a sign of a purported Chinese “takeover”, really playing the “Yellow Peril” theme hard. However, every Chinese & Russian statistic says otherwise. When we visited the Irkutsk region in early 2017, we had learned that several dozen Chinese immigrants had bought large houses at the picturesque Lystvyanka, on the shores of Lake Baikal, to convert into guesthouses to cater to Chinese tourists. That caused enough Sinophobia among the local population that the regional authorities soon prohibited selling of properties to non-Russian citizens.
It is telling that few Chinese in Manchuria are motivated to seek out their fortunes in the RFE, considering Manchuria is notorious as China’s Rust Belt. No, the young people on Manchuria are all heading south, to the Beijing-Tianjin Corridor, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, & rising inland cities such as Wuhan/Zhengzhou/Chongqing/Chengdu. If they are moving overseas, they are going to Australia, North America, & Western Europe. The retirees from Manchuria are settling in the tropical Hainan.
Ben Vernia
@PJ: I’m no historian, but it seems to me that Germany was, in fact, defeated decisively in WWI– they wouldn’t have accepted Foch’s terms in the forest at Compiègne if that weren’t the case. (Matthias Erzberger, one of the German signers of the armistice, was assassinated just two years later by right wingers driven by/promoting the stab-in-the-back myth.) Germany bears enormous guilt for what it did prior to and during WWII, but if you know of reputable historians who say that the war resulted from inadequately harsh treatment of Germany after WWI, please direct me to their works.
Anoniminous
@Chetan Murthy:
After the Third Partition of Poland Russia expanded its Empire by its Manifest Destiny in the East by invading and slaughtering the indigenous inhabitants just as the US achieved its Manifest Destiny by invading and slaughtering the indigenous inhabitants in the West. “Buffer Zones” were the excuse to come in and steal everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Feathers
I started my college years as a Russian studies major, washed out in 3rd year Russian, have followed it with varying degrees of closeness since. Mom was Russian major and taught it in high school until kids. Don’t feel I can really tell which side is correct on the analysis, but I have also worked in faculty support at high end research universities for over two decades, so have seen how intellectual fights play out.
I basically read here and what Adam links, along with other mainstream analysis from Twitter links and folks here. I also follow Galeev, as my only full time Ukraine account. Why? Because there seems to be a consensus, and he seems to be making a pretty strong counter argument. If things go along without a huge disruption, the consensus people will be “correct,” if there is some sort of crash and political rupture, the consensus will have been proven “wrong,” and I suspect some major part of what Galeev’s theories will prove to have been predictive.
I’m not looking to know what is going to happen, I just don’t want to be surprised. I like knowing the counter arguments to what the “important” voices are saying, and Galeev is currently filling that spot for me.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: I just read the O’Brian piece that you linked to, and to be honest I’m a little shocked. I think he got carried away because he has a bee in his bonnet about Max Hastings, who writes powerfully and popularly, but not very carefully. But this:
…is nonsense. Professional historians of war writing analytically about the comparative performance of the US, British, and German armies in North Africa, Italy, Southern France, and Northwest Europe, have a great deal to say about effectiveness, culture, experience, relative tactical acumen, and so on, and they are pretty unanimous in their view that the Wermacht (and, regrettably, the Waffen SS) were the most fearsome army that the world ever saw, far outclassing the US and British Armies in tactics, resilience, individual bravery, initiative, and other military qualities; and that the Western allies needed all their material superiority (and their battlefield superiorities in cryptology, air supremacy, and artillery technique) to finally put them down.
The dean of US Army military historians of that period is Russel Weigley (The American Way of War, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants). Carlo D’Este has Decision in Normandy, Bitter Victory (on the invasion of Sicily) and Fatal Decision (on Anzio). David Eisenhower, a grandson of Dwight D., wrote Eisenhower At War, 1943-1945. These are just from a pass at my bookcase.
I strongly suspect that O’Brian knows better–comparing the USAAF to the German Army (whut?) is kind of a tell that he’s playing fast-and-loose, in a way that he wouldn’t in an academic venue.
Chetan Murthy
@Anoniminous: There’s a wonderful historian blog I used to read where I read a series of posts about this very subject: here’s one of them: https://thestrangecontinent.com/the-wild-east-part-3-hell-freezes-over-yermak-timofeyevich/
Basically, precisely as you say: Russian Manifest Destiny was to conquer everything to their East, and they did it using the same tactics we did: subjugate, and kill those who would not bow down.
That blog, btw, is just *lovely*. Great writing, with lovely illustrations.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anoniminous: Yeah, the concept of buffer zone is familiar to every imperial endeavor in history, as is the process of buffer zones becoming provinces that require still more buffer zones to protect. (i.e. The only reason the British Empire sent expeditions into Afghanistan, & played the Great Game w/ Russia in Central Asia, was to protect its colonial possession of India.)
In fact, the extraordinarily rapid territorial expansions driven by “Manifest Destiny” that the US, the Russian Empire (& I would argue the Third Reich, & perhaps the Mongol Empire) underwent are relatively rare.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: I think you’re right, and that most historians also agree, that man-for-man, the German Army was more effective. But that’s not really what he’s arguing, is it?
P.S. Also though, I remember over at LG&M I asked about a related issue: German tank superiority. And somebody pointed me at a blog where a guy basically compares after-action reports from German and Soviet archives and lo! it turns out that the Germans systematically oversold the effectiveness of their tanks. Also turns out that they were *fantastically* unreliable and hard-to-maintain, b/c even within a particular model, there were so many variations that it was hard to get spare parts that actually fit. American tanks didn’t have that problem.
Jay
Anoniminous
@Chetan Murthy:
No.
The fact 8.8 cm PAK were kept in Germany due to UK and US bombing was NOT the reason for the UK and US bombing. The reason was to conquer Germany from the Air a la the Air Power Theorists of the 1920s and 1930s. Keeping the FLAK in Germany was an externality.
NutmegAgain
@lee: I think this is one reason they are stealing Ukrainian children (and also some young women), no? I mean besides the straight up devastating effect of having your kids stolen by an invading country, in furtherance of genocidal goals.
The Pale Scot
Like I’ve said before, the war will end when Russia runs out of Russians. Young, old, infirm, all will be shoveled into the gaping maw of Putin’s narcissism and Russian chauvinism until there is nobody left to actually do anything productive
Reverse tool order
Adam,
Not knowing is a perfectly satisfactory answer. Had you expressed even some confidence in knowing how to proceed, I think it would mean either you are a fool or you take us for fools. So, provisionally, maybe we’re not being foolish.
Whatever the path forward, it is not knowable beforehand. There are hazards, risks, uncertainties, impending losses all around. I think the situation is more likely to get worse for all of us rather than resolving favorably if we sit back and do too little.
Right now we’re providing tools & money for Ukraine to use working this shit from Russia. About all we can see to do is keep stressing Russia until something breaks and keep on with that until we can live with what’s left. Which will include Russian people and places, so have to bear that in mind too. We may have to get more deeply involved.
Chaos is a given. Pay attention to risks and rewards and probably most of us will come out the other side. Better outcome and better odds than quitting. Chaos both gets at least familiar and seems a precursor to new order.
PJ
@Carlo Graziani: You might want to check out Phillips O’Brien’s work – his argument is that it was not the number of soldiers that won or lost WWII, but industrial capacity, and it was the Western Allies’ ability to destroy German materiel that won the war. He wrote a book on this, but he summarizes the argument here: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/misunderstanding-soviet-power-in?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
(There is a part 2 to that piece on his substack that came out more recently.)
Anoniminous
@Carlo Graziani:
That has to be one of the stupidest fucking things I’ve ever read.
PJ
@Ben Vernia:
My point was that a huge number of German citizens did not think that Germany had been militarily defeated – because there had been minimal fighting on German soil, at least in the West – which made it easier to swallow the lie that they had been “stabbed in the back”. The end of WWII did not allow any such illusions.
Anoniminous
@Chetan Murthy:
Even the German Army didn’t believe the tank kill claims from their tank crews.
Generally speaking anecdotal evidence from an average soldier – of any side – of World War II should be taken with many hundreds of pounds of salt.
NutmegAgain
@Chetan Murthy: It’s important to put the hyperinflation of the early1920s in Germany in any calculus for how much reparations hurt, or not (certainly politically speaking). Much of my mother’s family was German, wealthy intellectual non-military types. (She & my GF had moved to the USA in 1910–I always feel like to need to add that for obvious reasons.) The stories of coping with the loss of currency that had any meaning still resonate. I think it truly sucked. My grandmother used to substitute teach all the modern (and classical) languages they taught for $5 for a week. It’s what her extended family in Germany subsisted on.
JimBob
@Carlo Graziani:
How do measure the individual bravery of an army?
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
Yuri Pasholok, “Lying With Statistics”, an ongoing series based on origional documentation from both German, Allied and Soviet archives, posted quite often at the Tank Archives blog.
More than a few historians have noted that German tank production was “individual”. As improvements and redesigns came down the pipeline, they were incorporated into individual tanks in production, as opposed to holding back improvements and redesigns, until a model change. Serial production. As a result, in for example a Tiger 1, it was often not as simple as just swapping in a new or reused transmission, because dependent on the individual tank, it might take as much as 16 hours of machining to adapt it to fit.
Then of course, there are tank vs. tank comparisons, by actual tankers, based on actual employed tactics and doctrine.
One example is The Sherman, the “Ronson Lighter”, because “it light’s every time”, you know, other than tank crews in Shermans had the highest survivability and the lowest casualty rates of any of the infantry roles in WWII, even better than the artillary.
Chetan Murthy
@JimBob: I think what Carlo is referring to is more than simple bravery. I remember reading in multiple different places about how the WWII Wermacht had “third generation warfare” down to a science. They understood maneuver warfare better than their adversaries, and they also understood how to devolve decision-making down to the lowest level (I remember the term “strategic corporal” from these readings). IIRC, the USMC decided after WWII to adopt a lot of Wermacht doctrine.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Can you restate that last paragraph? I fear there are typos, and I really do want to understand what you wrote. The two parts of the para seem to be at odds.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: The “easy to maintain” thing is one thing that historians of war mention as one of the “cultural” advantages of the US army—mechanical aptitude extending throughout the force (the invention of “Rhino” tanks in the Bocage country is a frequently cited example), pragmatic engineering, excellent logistics, excellent maintenance and repair practices.
But Weigley, in The American Way of War tells the story of the blinkered, preconceived notions of the cavalrymen whose predilection for mobility over all other considerations — due to the US Army’s historical experience as a border constabulary chasing Mexican bandits, and the assimilation of the existence of tanks and the lessons imparted by the German Army’s use of them since 1939 only to the extent of fitting them into that experience — resulted in the thin-skinned, undergunned design of Sherman tanks. Of which five were required, on average, to kill one Tiger tank, and which fought at serious disadvantage to all other Panzer types as well. The fact that a Sherman could be produced in a fraction of the time that it took to produce a Tiger was of little comfort to the crew of a Sherman that saw the rounds of its 75″ popgun bounce off the hull of the advancing monster.
Carlo Graziani
@JimBob: The claims were about individual acts of bravery of infantrymen.
And without wanting to start a wildfire here: I will freely state that what infantrymen are supposed to do for their regular battlefield activity sound like the scariest, stupidest fucking thing in the world, and I might well shit myself if told to stand up and run from point A to point B when there are literally sheets of metal traveling at the speed of sound two feet above the ground. Hugging the ground seems like far the more advisable course. And yet, real infantrymen get up and run to point B when ordered to do so. And do even more dangerous things, even though routinely they wind up with an acquaintance’s brains on their clothing.
It is extremely difficult to inculcate this kind of discipline. Historians of WWII tell us that the Germans excelled all other armies at it. That is what I meant.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
CW is that the Sherman was a lousy tank, blew up at the slightest excuse, caught fire all the time, and was only effective because they hugely outnumbered the German tanks they faced.
The reality was that the .75 Sherman was a brutal infantry killing machine and the .76 Sherman could defeat on equal ground any German tank except the King Tiger, (also known as the Royal Tiger). Then of course, there was the Sherman Firefly. Because the Shermans were on the offensive, and the German tanks and SPG’s were on the defensive, yup, a lot of Shermans got shot up. In most cases, the crew walked away and got another tank. At Ornato, Sgt. Milbank and his crew had 5 Shermans shot from under them, with just a single flesh wound as a result.2nd LTG Monk of the 2’nd Calgary and his crew took their tank from Normandy to Holland, getting shot and repaired several times. In Holland, in for repairs from getting shot up again, (by 20mm flak from across a canal), both they and the repair crew were weirded out by the 20mm shells stuck in the armour, like porcupine quills. When the QuarterMaster checked the serial number, they discovered that they had somehow been issued a “mild steel” tank that was only supposed to be used for training purposes in England. They stuck with the same tank after the repairs, because it was “lucky”.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Oh, interesting. I didn’t know that the Germans were better at inculcating discipline, too.
Wombat Probability Cloud
@WaterGirl: New rotating tag, please?
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
the key reason that it took on average 5 Shermans per German tank or SPG, is because the Germans shot from defence, while the Shermans were advancing. Even a King Tiger can take 5 aimed shots in 60 seconds. Even today, compared to the Mark I eyeball on a swivel, tanks are relatively “blind”. It’s a lot easier to have the range, target the route, than take incoming fire and try to figure out where it is coming from, and good luck trying to spot a Hetzer unless it is moving from inside a Sherman.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: It does not necessarily take conquering an empire to force it to reform. The shock of the loss of the imperial periphery, or the empire’s dissolution, will necessarily force changes in the remaining rump. We saw it w/ Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, we saw it w/ Austria & Hungary after the fall of the Austro Hungarian Empire, we saw it w/ the Weimar Republic after the fall of the German Empire, we saw it w/ the USSR after the fall of the Russian Empire, & we saw it w/ the Beiyang government after the fall of the Qing Empire. We have seen it, to an extent, in the former former colonial powers, post-decolonization (such as the French Fifth Republic after loss of Algeria).
The direction & efficacy of the reforms, OTOH… Polities often “reform” toward the more malevolent direction.
Ivan X
@Lee Hartmann: holy crap, even if one doesn’t have the stomach for Mearsheimer’s proclamations supported only by his self-declared authority, everyone should scroll to the end and read his answers to questions about his visit to Hungary and meeting with Orban. Choitner does a pretty impressive job of getting him to discredit his own character.
JimBob
@Carlo Graziani: I’ve never read any historian claim any army was
braver than or less brave than any other, except for TDOS Confederates. All the other factors on your list are debatable but to say braver seems, Emotional.
Chetan Murthy
https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/12/regional-elites-will-play-greater-role.html
Regional Elites will Play Greater Role than Peoples in Promoting Approaching Disintegration of Russian Federation, Yakovenko Says
First of all, when the process begins, even peoples and elites who have never thought about independence will follow those who are take the lead, the Russian opposition journalist says. Consequently, dismissing the role of republics and regions without serious national movements is a mistake (apostrophe.ua/article/world/ex-ussr/2022-12-03/rossiyu-posle-porajeniya-v-ukraine-jdet-klassika–rossiyskiy-jurnalist/49215).
Before 1991, it was the three Baltic countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine who were most active; but soon places where no one ever thought a nationality movement existed were making similar demands. Something like that is going to happen again, regardless of what anyone expects.
Second, this process will be driven by elite calculations rather than popular attitudes. The population in many places may not be thinking about pursuing independence, but elites are constantly making calculations about what will benefit themselves most. Once they conclude that they will benefit by seeking independence, that is what they will do.
Again, the same thing was true in the lead up to the demise of the USSR. It was the party leaders in republics in Central Asia who pushed for leaving then; it will be senior officials whom Moscow has appointed who will do the same thing this time around. It won’t be ethno-nationalism that drives them but elite calculations.
And third, precisely because ethno-nationalism wasn’t the primary driver 30 years ago and won’t be again, areas that many assume will remain in Russia because they have ethnic Russian pluralities are likely to pursue independence too. Indeed, this time around, they may play a disproportionate role.
Carlo Graziani
@Jay: I am of course not claiming personal expertise here. Here is Weigley, from Eisenhower’s Lieutenants:
Incidentally, there were numerous engagements outside of the bocage that were by no means defensive on part of the Germans. One thing that German doctrine drilled in at all levels was the importance of using initiative to launch local counterattacks wherever the enemy has made gains without waiting for word from more senior commanders, and allied units learned to expect—and even dread—such counterattacks whenever they seized any objective. I’m trying to find (and failing, at the moment) a village name in Normandy where a single Tiger counterattacked through the town and destroyed a platoon of Sherman’s. Can’t do full-text search through paper…
JimBob
@Carlo Graziani:Villers-Bocage?
YY_Sima Qian
They are happening because atrocities are tolerated & condoned at the highest levels in Russia. I think that is the material difference between current dynamic of Russian behavior in Ukraine & individual/small unit US/NATO behavior in Iraq/Afghanistan. Other militaries at least subscribe to the official constraints of the Geneva Convention & the spirit it espouses at the highest organization level, even if lower level leadership may create an environment where such atrocities regularly occur due to their negligence & indifference.
The previous times we have seen such dynamic were the USSR in Afghanistan, the Soviet Army across East Prussia, the IJA across the Asia Pacific, the Wehrmacht & the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front, the colonial powers in their colonies (such as the US in the Philippines), & numerous insurgency/counterinsurgencies (Indonesia being one of the most notorious). That is also why I tend to push back against language that dehumanize Russians (or anyone). Capacity for atrocity, at the individual/small unit/national state levels is inherently human.
So, to answer how Russia (or a post-collapse rump) might be reformed, it might be more instructive to study how the other polities have reformed, & what motivated the reforms.
Carlo Graziani
@JimBob: Ok, fair enough, it was a shorthand for a certain military quality that is better captured by a phrase like “discipline under fire of enlisted men”. The consensus, among several serious historical works of the period that I have read (so, not trumpet-blowing, monument-erecting, national-consciousness-affirming opuses, but the work of careful scholars, who may make errors, but probably not from closed-minded bias) is that in the modern era, no military has been more successful at imparting such discipline on its raw recruits than the German armies of the early Twentieth Century.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian:
They are *encouraged* as a tactic of war by all levels of command. The culture of dedovshchina further guarantees that such atrocities will occur, since soldiers practice them on each other when not in combat. From all over the countries that have borne the brunt of Russian and Soviet war since WWII, we have the same reports of these sorts of atrocities — Germany, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Georgia, Syria, and now Ukraine. Everywhere the same thing. Everywhere, “hide the girls, the Russians are coming”. Everywhere the torture chambers. Everywhere, the looting.
This isn’t merely due to “toleration”: it’s encouraged
ETA: I haven’t seen any such reports from AFG, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen there too. I haven’t seen any reports at all about how Russia conducted its war there.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: And further: remember that [ETA: early during the war] video interview of the three OMON POWs ? They described on camera their roles — crowd control, rounding up rioters, and *public executions*. These were sent in as part of the first wave. And we also know that the Russians came in with lists of all notable Ukrainians in all parts of Ukraine — and were hunting them down. This wasn’t an aberration: it was part of their order of battle, part of their *plan*.
To obliterate any possible Ukrainian leader, any cultural leader, any political leader, of any kind, that was their *plan*.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Yes, encouraged as well, like the historical examples I cited.
The US in Vietnam is somewhat grey, specifically in terms of the use of Agent Orange. Unlike My Lai or other incidents, that was a decision made at the highest level. It wasn’t done specifically to maim the rural Vietnamese population, but it was done to damage the ecosystem they lived in. Using chemicals in such quantities was sure to have massive side effects, but the powers that be did not care.
JimBob
@Carlo Graziani:
Good answer, thanks. You are WAY more deeply read in this subject than I, but that original phrasing stuck out a bit.
BTW, do you know the work of “the Chieftain” on Youtube
vis a vis Shermans?
Cathie from Canada
What terrifies me is this: as Ukraine succeeds over the spring and summer – taking most of its territory back — and as Russia’s army fails and it realizes it cannot win a conventional war, then the pressure will increase enormously for Russia to use nuclear weapons, to bomb Kviv and force Zelenskyy to sue for peace. I just don’t know what would stop Putin from doing this if he gets desperate enough.
I keep thinking of the metaphor of this war as a riderless horse galloping across the landscape — we have no idea where it will go or what can stop it.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: I’d put the carpet-bombing of Japanese cities in the same list. I do think there’s a difference between using Agent Orange / firebombing Japanese cities, and the encouragement of Russian soldiers to rape, loot, pillage, torture, and murder. They’re both war crimes, but the latter implicates the entire culture of the military as a social organization, where the former mostly implicates the leadership.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: from timothy snyder, who reminds us of the “filtration camps” — again, *a policy of atrocities* implemented on the ground: https://snyder.substack.com/p/russias-eugenic-war?r=1fref4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
livewyre
@Chetan Murthy: In the part you quoted:
…could be a key distinction that might lead us out of this dilemma.
I went off about cultures before, and the importance of not ranking them morally, but what I may have glossed over is a distinction between national culture (language, literature, arts…) and institutional culture and its implied power structures by which laws can be imposed or ignored and atrocities can be tolerated, condoned, and encouraged.
Those structures and their leading figures may well see some vicious gain in perpetuating that conflation by portraying their dominance as indispensable to, if not synonymous with, Russian identity as a whole. If removing them from power would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing, then any political dissent can be argued as an existential threat. They practically admit as much themselves with accusations of “Russophobia” and the like.
But what if we don’t play that game? I think something we can actually do from here is to make that distinction and conceptually slice away the institutions of abuse from the networks of identity and heritage that society is actually made of. That’s what we gain by holding them to the same standard of international law as ourselves. We show the institutions as a corruption of society rather than a definition of it, and show that we expect better by prosecuting them as adults. No more tantrums or nuclear blackmail. For every crime, a charge.
Traveller
Well, Cathy from Canada, that is not a very nice bedtime story to put us to sleep on. However, reading all of these war posts, yours is about the only one that actually frightened me.
However, I will note that there are supposed to be sufficient disincentives to Putin even using a low grade tactical nuke…. And yet, you’re extremely visual metaphor of a riderless horse galloping without direction across an open plain has taken hold in my consciousness and is possibly equally true also.
Not so sweet bedtime dreams!
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
On the specific attributes you are focusing on, I will put up the Chinese Communist forces (the Red Army, later renamed as the People’s Liberation Army) of the 30s – early 50s up for consideration, despite its limitation as a primarily leg-borne light infantry army w/ limited firepower & logistical sophistication. (I am not intending this as a contest, more of an introduction to those might be interested but who might otherwise know nothing about the history of the PLA, its ethos & esprit de corps.)
As a revolutionary fighting force that was perpetually outgunned & out-supplied (when facing the Nationalists, the warlords, the IJA, & the UN in Korea), who fought from base areas & partisan zones scattered across China that had tenuous linkages w/ each other & limited means of mutual support (as was the case facing the Nationalists & the IJA, until 1948), the Chinese Communist forces by necessity operated w/ a very high level of independence & initiative at the individual, small unit, large unit, & theater/operational levels. It also practiced “military democracy” pre-battle, whereby even individual soldiers were educated in the tactical objectives of the unit & the operational objectives for the battle, & were allowed to provide feedback on the former, some of which incorporated as adjustments to the pre-battle plan at the tactical level. The Communist rank & file were filled w/ desperately poor peasants from the countryside (including captured POWs who had been press ganged into the Nationalist Army), who had benefited from the land reforms/redistributions in the Communist held areas, so both revolutionary zeal & self-interest motivated them to fight w/ determination & high tolerance for casualties. It was not uncommon for companies & battalions at the point of attack or focus of defense to suffer 70% casualties & continuing to fight on, ending a battle w/ nearly 90% casualties.
(Incidentally, the best Nationalist forces, including the best former warlord forces, had often continued to fight the IJA in the 2nd Sino-Japanese War despite regiments/brigades/divisions suffering 70 – 80% casualties in battle, such as in the Battles of Shanghai in ’32/’37, the Battle of Xinkou in ’37, the Battle of Tai’erzhuang in ’38, the Battle of Wanjialing in ’38 the Battles for Changsha in ’39/’41/’42, the Battle of Kunlun Pass in ’39, Battle of Changde in ’43, & Battle of Mount Song in ’44. You can find summaries for these battles on Wikipedia. However, this was rare in the Chinese Civil War of 1946 – 49.)
Contrary to the myth of the Chinese Communist forces mindlessly charging machine gun nests in human waves a la WW I, they actually excelled at maneuver warfare both at the operational level & the tactical level, taking advantage of the fact that both the Nationalists & the IJA (after ~ 1943) were largely tied to major transportation arteries (roads & railroads) as well as large cities & towns, leaving the countryside a vacuum for them to fill. Consistently outnumbered & outgunned the Chinese Communist forces could not afford the human wave tactics that the Soviets employed (& sometimes the Nationalists, too.)
In Korea, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) fought via maneuver warfare during the early stages of its intervention, pushing the UN forces back to the 38th parallel. They favorite maneuver was attacking the weak South Korean formations 1st, causing them to rout, then maneuver through the vacated gap to get behind the positions of the tougher US/UN units to surround them, & ambush both the relief columns & the surrounded units trying to withdraw. Given the limitations in PVA’s C&C, advancing units necessarily had to operate on their own initiative, & were culturally expected/encouraged to do so.
Unlike the during the 2nd Chinese Civil War, OTOH, the PVA had much greater difficulty eliminating relief columns & reducing surrounded positions, because it suffered even greater disadvantage in firepower, operational mobility (legs in the mountains vs. wheels/tracks on paved roads) & staying power (PVA soldiers could only carry ~ 7 days of supplies, which limited the lengths of campaigns). The worst US/UN defeats were during the early stages of the Chinese intervention, as isolated & surrounded units panicked & lost cohesion in their attempts to flee. Gen. Ridgeway figured out the PVA’s limitations, & instead planned for units at the front to be surrounded, asked them to defend in place in well stocked & prepared positions, to serve as anvils against which reserves could try to smash the assaulting PVA against. Even so, while the US/UN were able to badly bleed the assaulting PVA forces using superior firepower, it was very rare for a large PVA formations to be surrounded & reduced, as the PVA tended to break contact as soon as supplies ran low and/or its commanders sensed danger of encirclement.
Such culturally encouraged initiative at the small unit level continued to show through during the border clash w/ India in ’62, the disastrous attack into Vietnam in ’79, & certainly the decade of border skirmishes & clashes w/ Vietnam throughout the 80s. In ’79, the PLA performed quite well at company & battalion levels, continuing w/ its historical heritage, but large formation coordination at the operational level was very poor, evidence of the damage from the decade of Cultural Revolution.
Both the IJA & the US/UN forces noted the stark differences in discipline, fortitude, tactical acumen, & esprit de corps between the Chinese Communists they faced & the Chinese Nationalists. Treating POWs well physically was established early on in the history of the Chinese Red Army as a central tenant that would enable them to win in a civil war setting. Throughout the 2nd Chinese Civil War, the PLA was able to quickly convert Nationalist POWs to replenish its own ranks, so much so that a PLA field army could suffering tens of thousands of casualties in a major battle, & yet emerge more numerous in the immediate aftermath. Toward the end of the 2nd Chinese Civil War, Nationalist POWs taken in one battle during the campaign would be integrated into the PLA & fight against the Nationalist Army in the next battle of the same campaign. The treatment would not always be humane, as the Chinese Communists (who never were/are humanists or humanitarians) emphasized propagandizing the prisoners to convince them to serve their cause, which Western POWs experienced as brainwashing or psychological torture. Nonetheless, the US/UN noted how differently the PVA treated prisoners compared to the North Koreans, or indeed the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War.
There were times when the discipline fell apart w/ the Chinese Communist forces, often after a period of rapid expansion where the battle hardened core was diluted, followed by significant battlefield reversals. This happened in 1938, as the IJA swept across the northern Chinese plains, & the CCP leadership recognized that the best course of action for them was to wage guerrilla warfare in Japanese occupied areas (the degree of Japanese or puppet government control often being nominal), rather than being bled dry on the frontlines as Chiang Kai-Shek wanted. They rapidly incorporated the scattered Nationalists or warlord troops left behind, independent resistance forces, & bandits, as well as rapidly expanded the areas they controlled. When the IJA woke up to the threat the Chinese Communists presented following the Hundred Regiments Offensive, the Japanese instituted a systematic campaign to deprive them of support & sustenance in the countryside – the Three All Policy (as in Burn All, Kill All, Loot All). The retaliations were absolutely brutal, everything the Russians are doing in Ukraine but much much worse, but they also proved effective in inflicting huge casualties on the Chinese Communists & squeezing the areas they controlled.
Another such instance was in 1946, when the PLA rushed to Manchuria to fill the vacuum before the Nationalists, as the Soviet Army withdrew. In the process, the PLA incorporated tens of thousands of former Manchukuo puppet army troops & mountain bandits in a bid to rapidly expand ranks. The best US equipped Nationalist formations arrived, defeated the PLA in several set piece battles in Lower Manchuria, & chased them to Upper Manchuria.
In both instances, the Chinese Communists saw combat effectiveness diluted & discipline weakened during the rapid expansions. They suffered huge desertions & betrayals, saw many units turn to banditry that cost them popular support, & the viability of their positions placed in doubt, during the later reversals. In both instances, the Chinese Communists responded w/ retrenchment, sending the riff-raff elements home, & launched internal campaigns to restore discipline, reinforce the will to fight, & improve combat proficiency in all spheres.
There are very few scholarly works in English wrt the Chinese Communist forces from its inception to revolutionary success. The best one I have found is Gary J. Bjorge’s Operational Art in the PLA’s Huaihai Campaign, a detailed study of the PLA at the operational level in the largest of the Three Great Campaigns (alongside Liaoshen & Pingjin Campaigns) that sealed the Community victory of the Nationalists in the 2nd Chinese Civil War. As background to the campaign, Bjorge included a discussion of the PLA’s history, organization & war fighting philosophy. I highly recommend it.
Cathie from Canada
@Traveller: Yes, its quite a metaphor, isn’t it. I read about it back in April, in an interview by Tom Nichols at the Atlantic and a Russian expert Thane Gustafson.
http://cathiefromcanada.blogspot.com/2022/04/todays-news-galloping-riderless-across.html
Gustafson said:
“…This is one of those moments when history suddenly goes into overdrive and outcomes become unpredictable, mainly because at such times they are driven by the actions of individuals. I rather like the metaphor once used by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González, who said that history seems to be “galloping riderless across the landscape” .”
YY_Sima Qian
Looks like I have another long comment in moderation again, I would appreciate it if Adam or WaterGirl will wave it through.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
On the specific attributes you are focusing on, I will put up the Chinese Communist forces (the Red Army, later renamed as the People’s Liberation Army) of the 30s – early 50s up for consideration, despite its limitation as a primarily leg-borne light infantry army w/ limited firepower & logistical sophistication. (I am not intending this as a contest, more of an introduction to those might be interested but who might otherwise know nothing about the history of the PLA, its ethos & esprit de corps.)
As a revolutionary fighting force that was perpetually outgunned & out-supplied (when facing the Nationalists, the warlords, the IJA, & the UN in Korea), who fought from base areas & partisan zones scattered across China that had tenuous linkages w/ each other & limited means of mutual support (as was the case facing the Nationalists & the IJA, until 1948), the Chinese Communist forces by necessity operated w/ a very high level of independence & initiative at the individual, small unit, large unit, & theater/operational levels. It also practiced “military democracy” pre-battle, whereby even individual soldiers were educated in the tactical objectives of the unit & the operational objectives for the battle, & were allowed to provide feedback on the former, some of which incorporated as adjustments to the pre-battle plan at the tactical level. The Communist rank & file were filled w/ desperately poor peasants from the countryside (including captured POWs who had been press ganged into the Nationalist Army), who had benefited from the land reforms/redistributions in the Communist held areas, so both revolutionary zeal & self-interest motivated them to fight w/ determination & high tolerance for casualties. It was not uncommon for companies & battalions at the point of attack or focus of defense to suffer 70% casualties & continuing to fight on, ending a battle w/ nearly 90% casualties.
(Incidentally, the best Nationalist forces, including the best former warlord forces, had often continued to fight the IJA in the 2nd Sino-Japanese War despite regiments/brigades/divisions suffering 70 – 80% casualties in battle, such as in the Battles of Shanghai in ’32/’37, the Battle of Xinkou in ’37, the Battle of Tai’erzhuang in ’38, the Battle of Wanjialing in ’38 the Battles for Changsha in ’39/’41/’42, the Battle of Kunlun Pass in ’39, Battle of Changde in ’43, & Battle of Mount Song in ’44. You can find summaries for these battles on Wikipedia. However, this was rare in the Chinese Civil War of 1946 – 49.)
Contrary to the myth of the Chinese Communist forces mindlessly charging machine gun nests in human waves a la WW I, they actually excelled at maneuver warfare both at the operational level & the tactical level, taking advantage of the fact that both the Nationalists & the IJA (after ~ 1942) were largely tied to major transportation arteries (roads & railroads) as well as large cities & towns, leaving the countryside a vacuum for them to fill. Consistently outnumbered & outgunned the Chinese Communist forces could not afford the human wave tactics that the Soviets employed (& sometimes the Nationalists, too.)
In Korea, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) fought via maneuver warfare during the early stages of its intervention, pushing the UN forces back to the 38th parallel. They favorite maneuver was attacking the weak South Korean formations 1st, causing them to rout, then maneuver through the vacated gap to get behind the positions of the tougher US/UN units to surround them, & ambush both the relief columns & the surrounded units trying to withdraw. Given the limitations in PVA’s C&C, advancing units necessarily had to operate on their own initiative, & were culturally expected/encouraged to do so.
Unlike the during the 2nd Chinese Civil War, OTOH, the PVA had much greater difficulty eliminating relief columns & reducing surrounded positions, because it suffered even greater disadvantage in firepower, operational mobility (legs in the mountains vs. wheels/tracks on paved roads) & staying power (PVA soldiers could only carry ~ 7 days of supplies, which limited the lengths of campaigns). The worst US/UN defeats were during the early stages of the Chinese intervention, as isolated & surrounded units panicked & lost cohesion in their attempts to flee. Gen. Ridgeway figured out the PVA’s limitations, & instead planned for units at the front to be surrounded, asked them to defend in place in well stocked & prepared positions, to serve as anvils against which reserves could try to smash the assaulting PVA against. Even so, while the US/UN were able to badly bleed the assaulting PVA forces using superior firepower, it was very rare for a large PVA formations to be surrounded & reduced, as the PVA tended to break contact as soon as supplies ran low and/or its commanders sensed danger of encirclement.
Such culturally encouraged initiative at the small unit level continued to show through during the border clash w/ India in ’62, the disastrous attack into Vietnam in ’79, & certainly the decade of border skirmishes & clashes w/ Vietnam throughout the 80s. In ’79, the PLA performed quite well at company & battalion levels, continuing w/ its historical heritage, but large formation coordination at the operational level was very poor, evidence of the damage from the decade of Cultural Revolution.
Both the IJA & the US/UN forces noted the stark differences in discipline, fortitude, tactical acumen, & esprit de corps between the Chinese Communists they faced & the Chinese Nationalists. Treating POWs well physically was established early on in the history of the Chinese Red Army as a central tenant that would enable them to win in a civil war setting. Throughout the 2nd Chinese Civil War, the PLA was able to quickly convert Nationalist POWs to replenish its own ranks, so much so that a PLA field army could suffering tens of thousands of casualties in a major battle, & yet emerge more numerous in the immediate aftermath. Toward the end of the 2nd Chinese Civil War, Nationalist POWs taken in one battle during the campaign would be integrated into the PLA & fight against the Nationalist Army in the next battle of the same campaign. The treatment would not always be humane, as the Chinese Communists (who never were/are humanists or humanitarians) emphasized propagandizing the prisoners to convince them to serve their cause, which Western POWs experienced as brainwashing or psychological torture. Nonetheless, the US/UN noted how differently the PVA treated prisoners compared to the North Koreans, or indeed the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War.
There were times when the discipline fell apart w/ the Chinese Communist forces, often after a period of rapid expansion where the battle hardened core was diluted, followed by significant battlefield reversals. This happened in 1938, as the IJA swept across the northern Chinese plains, & the CCP leadership recognized that the best course of action for them was to wage guerrilla warfare in Japanese occupied areas (the degree of Japanese or puppet government control often being nominal), rather than being bled dry on the frontlines as Chiang Kai-Shek wanted. They rapidly incorporated the scattered Nationalists or warlord troops left behind, independent resistance forces, & bandits, as well as rapidly expanded the areas they controlled. When the IJA woke up to the threat the Chinese Communists presented following the Hundred Regiments Offensive, the Japanese instituted a systematic campaign to deprive them of support & sustenance in the countryside – the Three All Policy (as in Burn All, Kill All, Loot All). The retaliations were absolutely brutal, everything the Russians are doing in Ukraine but much much worse, but they also proved effective in inflicting huge casualties on the Chinese Communists & squeezing the areas they controlled.
Another such instance was in 1946, when the PLA rushed to Manchuria to fill the vacuum before the Nationalists, as the Soviet Army withdrew. In the process, the PLA incorporated tens of thousands of former Manchukuo puppet army troops & mountain bandits in a bid to rapidly expand ranks. The best US equipped Nationalist formations arrived, defeated the PLA in several set piece battles in Lower Manchuria, & chased them to Upper Manchuria.
In both instances, the Chinese Communists saw combat effectiveness diluted & discipline weakened during the rapid expansions. They suffered huge desertions & betrayals, saw many units turn to banditry that cost them popular support, & the viability of their positions placed in doubt, during the later reversals. In both instances, the Chinese Communists responded w/ retrenchment, sending the riff-raff elements home, & launched internal campaigns to restore discipline, reinforce the will to fight, & improve combat proficiency in all spheres.
There are very few scholarly works in English wrt the Chinese Communist forces from its inception to revolutionary success. The best one I have found is Gary J. Bjorge’s Operational Art in the PLA’s Huaihai Campaign, a detailed study of the PLA at the operational level in the largest of the Three Great Campaigns (alongside Liaoshen & Pingjin Campaigns) that sealed the Community victory of the Nationalists in the 2nd Chinese Civil War. As background to the campaign, Bjorge included a discussion of the PLA’s history, organization & war fighting philosophy. I highly recommend it.
YY_Sima Qian
Oops, looks like my 2nd attempt went through, but the 1st went through moderation, as well. My apologies for the 2 long comments.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Not to sound like the Russophile here, but the thing that kills me about all this is that Russia’s contributions to the arts and sciences are genuinely astounding and this continued at least through the Soviet era. They have a lot to be proud of. These are the people who produced Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and Tolstoy and Mendeleev and Malevich and who (together with other Soviets) put the first satellite and the first human in space.
What they have never really had is a decent government or a decent political culture to support it. And it’s sometimes hampered their accomplishments in other things. And, yes, it’s hard for an American to throw stones here, but I think this is an area where for all our faults we’ve done better than that.
Still, it’s not a land or a people that it makes sense to write off. Seeing them act like a bunch of genocidal gangsters is a genuine tragedy.
Hango Kex
@Amir Khalid: @WaterGirl: I thought killing these threads was my job (with the advantage of my European time zone :). At any rate thanks, once again, to Adam & commenters (especially interesting & thoughtful discussion in this thread; I have a ton of links set aside for later. :).
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: This is excellent stuff. As you say, one would not encounter much on PLA in English-language historiography.
Kayla Rudbek
@Carlo Graziani: and the WW2 German Army was also, as a rule, high as a kite on meth. See https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/ or the book Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany https://www.amazon.com/Blitzed-Drugs-Germany-Norman-Ohler/dp/0241256992