Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[Emperor Tippy]

All things considered, the West really cocked up when we made Ukraine agree to that deal.

Not really. The US cocked up when it elected Clinton instead of re-electing Bush.

The eight years of Clinton was the most critical time period for moving Russia from enemy to ally. Post Soviet collapse the US should have thrown its full might into rebuilding Russian society and fully integrating it into our global order. Instead we elected the domestic President and Clinton had like a months worth of foreign policy over his eight years in office so we just let Russia do whatever and set the stage for the current mess.

Bush's whole second term was basically supposed to be deciding and laying the ground work for US grand strategy in a post Soviet world.

Instead the US has, realistically speaking, had basically zero foreign policy for the past thirty years. Or to be more precise, outside of the War on Terror, US foreign policy has continued basically on inertia with no coherent strategy or plan.

---
As for chemical weapons; Ukraine would be fools to use them even if they had them. You do not fight a WMD war with Russia, especially not as a minor power that Russia has already invaded.

Give Putin the excuse and he will hit Kyiv with Sarin (VX is too persistent).

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

And no, none of the other world powers would retaliate in kind. The US, France, and UK are not going to risk WW3 over the elimination of Ukraine. Of course, Russia would have their exports even further curtailed as Russian shipping is stopped from transiting the Med or Baltic seas.

 

[Cherico]

Not really. The US cocked up when it elected Clinton instead of re-electing Bush.

The eight years of Clinton was the most critical time period for moving Russia from enemy to ally. Post Soviet collapse the US should have thrown its full might into rebuilding Russian society and fully integrating it into our global order. Instead we elected the domestic President and Clinton had like a months worth of foreign policy over his eight years in office so we just let Russia do whatever and set the stage for the current mess.

Bush's whole second term was basically supposed to be deciding and laying the ground work for US grand strategy in a post Soviet world.

Instead the US has, realistically speaking, had basically zero foreign policy for the past thirty years. Or to be more precise, outside of the War on Terror, US foreign policy has continued basically on inertia with no coherent strategy or plan.

---
As for chemical weapons; Ukraine would be fools to use them even if they had them. You do not fight a WMD war with Russia, especially not as a minor power that Russia has already invaded.

Give Putin the excuse and he will hit Kyiv with Sarin (VX is too persistent).

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

And no, none of the other world powers would retaliate in kind. The US, France, and UK are not going to risk WW3 over the elimination of Ukraine. Of course, Russia would have their exports even further curtailed as Russian shipping is stopped from transiting the Med or Baltic seas.

Ukraine can win the war in theory.

But in order to do it they have to kill a lot of russian conscripts, not wound but kill, you have to bleed them white, that means killing half a million ethnic russians at minimum. Forcing a Ethopian style famine in Crimea would do that.

 

[Bacle]

Not really. The US cocked up when it elected Clinton instead of re-electing Bush.

The eight years of Clinton was the most critical time period for moving Russia from enemy to ally. Post Soviet collapse the US should have thrown its full might into rebuilding Russian society and fully integrating it into our global order. Instead we elected the domestic President and Clinton had like a months worth of foreign policy over his eight years in office so we just let Russia do whatever and set the stage for the current mess.

Bush's whole second term was basically supposed to be deciding and laying the ground work for US grand strategy in a post Soviet world.

Instead the US has, realistically speaking, had basically zero foreign policy for the past thirty years. Or to be more precise, outside of the War on Terror, US foreign policy has continued basically on inertia with no coherent strategy or plan.

---
As for chemical weapons; Ukraine would be fools to use them even if they had them. You do not fight a WMD war with Russia, especially not as a minor power that Russia has already invaded.

Give Putin the excuse and he will hit Kyiv with Sarin (VX is too persistent).

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

And no, none of the other world powers would retaliate in kind. The US, France, and UK are not going to risk WW3 over the elimination of Ukraine. Of course, Russia would have their exports even further curtailed as Russian shipping is stopped from transiting the Med or Baltic seas.

This pre-supposes the US could change the fundamentally treachorous and strong-man oreinted nature of the Commie-led Russian nation with some trinkets and a little bit of a helping hand in a time of weakness. That is rather naive I think, and even Bush Sr couldn't change that, nor could any US action at any point.

We've seen very well you cannot change Russia as a nation from the outside, you can only contain it, and I think people elected Clinton because they felt that Russia was contained and now was too weak to be a real threat in the long term, and wanted a 'peace dividend' from the Cold War.

Also, do not act like domestic desires are less important than play the geo-political long game to the majority of the US public. The MIC and military really need to stop talking down to civies when they make decisions the Pentagon and it's contractors don't like, and get better at communicating the actual state of the threats our nation faces to the people at large.

 

[Cherico]

This pre-supposes the US could change the fundamentally treachorous and strong-man oreinted nature of the Commie-led Russian nation with some trinkets and a little bit of a helping hand in a time of weakness. That is rather naive I think, and even Bush Sr couldn't change that, nor could any US action at any point.

We've seen very well you cannot change Russia as a nation from the outside, you can only contain it, and I think people elected Clinton because they felt that Russia was contained and now was too weak to be a real threat in the long term, and wanted a 'peace dividend' from the Cold War.

Also, do not act like domestic desires are less important than play the geo-political long game to the majority of the US public. The MIC and military really need to stop talking down to civies when they make decisions the Pentagon and it's contractors don't like, and get better at communicating the actual state of the threats our nation faces to the people at large.

Honestly Russia is on its last legs just a decade more at the current pace and their done as a treat to the outside world.

That said since Russia has decided that National boarders are a mutable thing maybe we should think about how the country should be partitioned once it all collapses.

Which parts should go to Japan china which should go independent and which should be annexed by Europe.

Personally I think giving koinesburg to Poland would make for a nice Christmas gift.

 

[LordsFire]

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

There's two potential win conditions for Ukraine.

The first is that continued military failure destabilizes Russia's government enough to cause civil war, coup, etc. As the weekend demonstrated, this isn't very far off.

The second, is that if Ukraine can drive Russia all the way out of its borders, it becomes eligible for NATO membership. Pushing Russia back across the rest of the border is also likely to be a tipping point for Russian stability, so it could be a two-step to victory.

How likely are either of these outcomes? That I'm not sure of, but internal Russian collapse is certainly more likely than I'd thought before the Wagner thunder-run.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Not really. The US cocked up when it elected Clinton instead of re-electing Bush.

The eight years of Clinton was the most critical time period for moving Russia from enemy to ally. Post Soviet collapse the US should have thrown its full might into rebuilding Russian society and fully integrating it into our global order. Instead we elected the domestic President and Clinton had like a months worth of foreign policy over his eight years in office so we just let Russia do whatever and set the stage for the current mess.

Bush's whole second term was basically supposed to be deciding and laying the ground work for US grand strategy in a post Soviet world.

Instead the US has, realistically speaking, had basically zero foreign policy for the past thirty years. Or to be more precise, outside of the War on Terror, US foreign policy has continued basically on inertia with no coherent strategy or plan.

---
As for chemical weapons; Ukraine would be fools to use them even if they had them. You do not fight a WMD war with Russia, especially not as a minor power that Russia has already invaded.

Give Putin the excuse and he will hit Kyiv with Sarin (VX is too persistent).

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

And no, none of the other world powers would retaliate in kind. The US, France, and UK are not going to risk WW3 over the elimination of Ukraine. Of course, Russia would have their exports even further curtailed as Russian shipping is stopped from transiting the Med or Baltic seas.

I really like this video on the topic (although apparently, and I literally just found this out, he's a leftist):

According to it, Clinton's lack of experience wasn't the big problem. Indeed, foreign policy experts at the time were closely divided at the time on the right course of action. His biggest mistake was arguably caving to Polish political pressure to expand NATO.

But, he says, US foreign policy didn't coast on inertia through Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Rather, it vacillated between trying to be friendly between Clinton and Yeltsin, needlessly hostile because of Bush, and Mearsheimer-style realism under Obama.

But, while many of these US foreign policy developments were stupid, none of them could really have avoided the biggest problem: Russia.

I think the world would react more than you think to Russia nuking Ukraine "defensively" in response to Ukraine performing a limited invasion aimed at crippling Russian logistics for its operations in Ukraine. However, I agree that they would not respond "in kind" (i.e., intentionally turn Russia's nuclear annihilation of Ukraine into a global mass nuclear exchange). In the end, I think Ukraine will push Russia back to its own borders without nuclear war. Once that happens, it is hard to imagine that Russia would refuse to recognize the futility of further conflict, but stupider things have happened.

 

[ATP]

Honestly Russia is on its last legs just a decade more at the current pace and their done as a treat to the outside world.

That said since Russia has decided that National boarders are a mutable thing maybe we should think about how the country should be partitioned once it all collapses.

Which parts should go to Japan china which should go independent and which should be annexed by Europe.

Personally I think giving koinesburg to Poland would make for a nice Christmas gift.

Thank you !
People there probably would prefer it,too.
About other states - Tatars once had their own state destroyed by Ivan the terrible coward.They could have it again.
I only pity Siberia,they would go to China - and according to what i read,it is last people when old russians partially survived and do not get turned into soveks.

Now chineese would eat them.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Honestly Russia is on its last legs just a decade more at the current pace and their done as a treat to the outside world.

That said since Russia has decided that National boarders are a mutable thing maybe we should think about how the country should be partitioned once it all collapses.

Which parts should go to Japan china which should go independent and which should be annexed by Europe.

Personally I think giving koinesburg to Poland would make for a nice Christmas gift.

A partition would be the worst thing we'll ever do. Think of the geopolitical ramifications and the precedent it would incur.

I'm not kidding that doing that would ensure that every future war will be one of the knife.

 

[ATP]

A partition would be the worst thing we'll ever do. Think of the geopolitical ramifications and the precedent it would incur.

I'm not kidding that doing that would ensure that every future war will be one of the knife.

It would be true,if Russia still existed.But,we have soviets 2.0
Remember what happened,when soviet state fall?


Notching,nul,zero.Brave commies hide and run,and nobody was trying to die for their masters.
See how many russian units faced Wagner ?
Now,it would be the same - only problem would be with warlords getting nukes.

But,since they use them on themselves,maybe China or turks - not our problem.

 

[Cherico]

A partition would be the worst thing we'll ever do. Think of the geopolitical ramifications and the precedent it would incur.

I'm not kidding that doing that would ensure that every future war will be one of the knife

Id like to note that Russia has partitioned poland multiple times, Id like to note that they took historically chinese lands when china showed weakness, that they still have disputes with Japan over several islands and Id like to note that they basically spent generations trying to undermine our country, stole nuclear weapons tech from us and threatened us with nuclear anhilation for generations.

Russia historically speaking has been a fucking terrible neighbor to have, and they have a very long history of breaking any agreements with outsiders, cheating outside investors and generally just being horrible to outsiders, to ethnic minorities and to their own people.

I am at this point just sick of their shit, they keep talking about how their the third rome.

Well maybe the only way to make them stop to to show them that their the second carthrage.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Return St Petersburg to Sweden for the lols.

At this point, Moscow has earned it.

 

[Skallagrim]

The best case scenario is that Russia ceases to exist. This is also the most likely scenario, and it already was before this war began. Only at that point, the expectation of alert observers was that Russia would collapse into chaos once Putin croaked. Most people don't really grasp how close Russia already came to collapse during the '90s. In effect, Putin's strongman rule has been a temporary arrest of that process.

Now, in a very short period, he's undoing all the 'emergency stabilisation' he enforced over his two-decade reign. This war in Ukraine is once again speeding the collapse of Russia.

The people who object to partition are not seeing the big picture. If and when Russia goes tits-up, you won't need to partition it so much. It'll fall to pieces all by itself, no help needed. The only question is whether you allow it to become a mess of warlords with nukes and nerve gas. China will certainly not allow that; they'll step in, even if we won't. Which means that if you say "no" to partition, you're effectively saying "yes" to a de facto Chinese hegemony that borders on Ukraine and Poland. (Because if Russia goes down, Belarus goes down with it.)

It is vital that we at least secure that European Russia stays out of Chinese hands. This means that when this senseless war ends and Russia falls into ruins, we must not only rebuild Ukraine-- but European Russia, too. We'll have to give them Marshall Aid, and in return they'll have to relinquish all their nukes and other weapons of mass destruction (and the means to produce such).

That's the only path to stability and reasonable security.

 

[Tiamat]

The best case scenario is that Russia ceases to exist. This is also the most likely scenario, and it already was before this war began. Only at that point, the expectation of alert observers was that Russia would collapse into chaos once Putin croaked. Most people don't really grasp how close Russia already came to collapse during the '90s. In effect, Putin's strongman rule has been a temporary arrest of that process.

Now, in a very short period, he's undoing all the 'emergency stabilisation' he enforced over his two-decade reign. This war in Ukraine is once again speeding the collapse of Russia.

The people who object to partition are not seeing the big picture. If and when Russia goes tits-up, you won't need to partition it so much. It'll fall to pieces all by itself, no help needed. The only question is whether you allow it to become a mess of warlords with nukes and nerve gas. China will certainly not allow that; they'll step in, even if we won't. Which means that if you say "no" to partition, you're effectively saying "yes" to a de facto Chinese hegemony that borders on Ukraine and Poland. (Because if Russia goes down, Belarus goes down with it.)

It is vital that we at least secure that European Russia stays out of Chinese hands. This means that when this senseless war ends and Russia falls into ruins, we must not only rebuild Ukraine-- but European Russia, too. We'll have to give them Marshall Aid, and in return they'll have to relinquish all their nukes and other weapons of mass destruction (and the means to produce such).

That's the only path to stability and reasonable security.

I agree with what you say. However, the main stumbling blocks to this, though not necessarily barriers depending on how much one is willing to invest is:

A: Securing the nukes, chem and bio weapons which if in the hands of the Russian military and various warlords is going to be difficult and tricky to say the least.

B: Marshalling (no pun intended) enough force decisively to make the Chinese back off from any adventures in Russia, which will take a combined effort from the US, NATO, and allied nations such as Australia, Japan and S. Korea.

C: Getting enough people willing to contribute to such an idea as a Marshall Plan which will cost quite a bit of money, manpower and materials. Not to mention enabling that such an effort is secured and the allocated funds and materials don't go to waste.

Probably the most efficient way to enable all this, IMO is to have a considerable number of Western boots on the ground in Russia...and that's obviously a rather thorny issue in itself.

 

[ATP]

Id like to note that Russia has partitioned poland multiple times, Id like to note that they took historically chinese lands when china showed weakness, that they still have disputes with Japan over several islands and Id like to note that they basically spent generations trying to undermine our country, stole nuclear weapons tech from us and threatened us with nuclear anhilation for generations.

Russia historically speaking has been a fucking terrible neighbor to have, and they have a very long history of breaking any agreements with outsiders, cheating outside investors and generally just being horrible to outsiders, to ethnic minorities and to their own people.

I am at this point just sick of their shit, they keep talking about how their the third rome.

Well maybe the only way to make them stop to to show them that their the second carthrage.

From 15th century they made their territort 46 time bigger.All becouse they fear neighbours,so they conqered them.
Soviets are doing the same - you could either fight them,or become their slave.

Which is horrible option,becouse they not only treat their slaves horribly,but also are incopetent.

Our King,Stefan Batory,could finish them in 1586,but they promised become catholics to pope,and pope made us to stop attacking.As a result,Poland cease to be in 1795.

About those who tried deals with them - Napoleon could win in 1812,but he tried to made deal with tsar.He died 8 years later in exile.

USA made many deals with soviets later:
1.In 1923 soviets promised not take Siberia,so USA made Japan widraw their forces .Soviets take Siberia.
2.In 1933 USA take soviet Embassy in exchange for stop spying on USA.They never did it.
3.In 1945 USA agree for soviet control of Poland and other countries for free elections there.Soviets faked it all.
4.In 1972 USA widraw from Vietnam and cut aid for them in exchange for soviets doing the same for North.In 1975 North Vietnam take over South.


There was of course more,but if USA made deal with Moscov now,they would broke it,too.

I undarstandt,that politics is dirty,and countries care only about themselves - but,they sometimes hold agreement.Moacov must break them.
That is why you could not made any deals with them.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Ukraine has definitely entered it's 'Bakhmut will fall any day now!' phase of the offensive

I'm not sure what you mean; the video seems to be describing Ukrainian preparations for an eventual major crossing, but it's clearly just preparatory work and not a major assault on its own (denying Russian attempts to disrupt Ukrainian control of the river).

 

[lloyd007]

I'm not sure what you mean; the video seems to be describing Ukrainian preparations for an eventual major crossing, but it's clearly just preparatory work and not a major assault on its own (denying Russian attempts to disrupt Ukrainian control of the river).

You're a whole lot more optimistic than I am considering how long this offensive has been going on and how glacial its pace is. There's also the fact that that the eastern bank of the Dnipro in that region would be as much a 'self encirclement' for any large UAF force as the west bank was for the Russians.

 

[Megadeath]

You're a whole lot more optimistic than I am considering how long this offensive has been going on and how glacial its pace is. There's also the fact that that the eastern bank of the Dnipro in that region would be as much a 'self encirclement' for any large UAF force as the west bank was for the Russians.

It really hasn't been going that long?

 

[Zachowon]

Not really. The US cocked up when it elected Clinton instead of re-electing Bush.

The eight years of Clinton was the most critical time period for moving Russia from enemy to ally. Post Soviet collapse the US should have thrown its full might into rebuilding Russian society and fully integrating it into our global order. Instead we elected the domestic President and Clinton had like a months worth of foreign policy over his eight years in office so we just let Russia do whatever and set the stage for the current mess.

Bush's whole second term was basically supposed to be deciding and laying the ground work for US grand strategy in a post Soviet world.

Instead the US has, realistically speaking, had basically zero foreign policy for the past thirty years. Or to be more precise, outside of the War on Terror, US foreign policy has continued basically on inertia with no coherent strategy or plan.

---
As for chemical weapons; Ukraine would be fools to use them even if they had them. You do not fight a WMD war with Russia, especially not as a minor power that Russia has already invaded.

Give Putin the excuse and he will hit Kyiv with Sarin (VX is too persistent).

It's one of the big problems with seeing an end state for this war that is good for Ukraine. Ultimately, Ukraine can't win without going after the infrastructure and logistics in Russia proper. And to deal with those targets, Ukraine would need to send in substantial forces (not just a handful of drones or missile strikes). Violate Russian territorial integrity and under basically every nuclear powers ROE, Russia would be justified in going nuclear. Turing every Ukrainian city into a radioactive crater is an acceptable end state for this war for Russia.

And no, none of the other world powers would retaliate in kind. The US, France, and UK are not going to risk WW3 over the elimination of Ukraine. Of course, Russia would have their exports even further curtailed as Russian shipping is stopped from transiting the Med or Baltic seas.

The US has said we would respond in kind to nuclear use.
NSNW that is.
Strat nukes is ww3

This pre-supposes the US could change the fundamentally treachorous and strong-man oreinted nature of the Commie-led Russian nation with some trinkets and a little bit of a helping hand in a time of weakness. That is rather naive I think, and even Bush Sr couldn't change that, nor could any US action at any point.

We've seen very well you cannot change Russia as a nation from the outside, you can only contain it, and I think people elected Clinton because they felt that Russia was contained and now was too weak to be a real threat in the long term, and wanted a 'peace dividend' from the Cold War.

Also, do not act like domestic desires are less important than play the geo-political long game to the majority of the US public. The MIC and military really need to stop talking down to civies when they make decisions the Pentagon and it's contractors don't like, and get better at communicating the actual state of the threats our nation faces to the people at large.

Hey now, the military often seeks to better itself for protection of the nation.
defemse through offense.

The best case scenario is that Russia ceases to exist. This is also the most likely scenario, and it already was before this war began. Only at that point, the expectation of alert observers was that Russia would collapse into chaos once Putin croaked. Most people don't really grasp how close Russia already came to collapse during the '90s. In effect, Putin's strongman rule has been a temporary arrest of that process.

Now, in a very short period, he's undoing all the 'emergency stabilisation' he enforced over his two-decade reign. This war in Ukraine is once again speeding the collapse of Russia.

The people who object to partition are not seeing the big picture. If and when Russia goes tits-up, you won't need to partition it so much. It'll fall to pieces all by itself, no help needed. The only question is whether you allow it to become a mess of warlords with nukes and nerve gas. China will certainly not allow that; they'll step in, even if we won't. Which means that if you say "no" to partition, you're effectively saying "yes" to a de facto Chinese hegemony that borders on Ukraine and Poland. (Because if Russia goes down, Belarus goes down with it.)

It is vital that we at least secure that European Russia stays out of Chinese hands. This means that when this senseless war ends and Russia falls into ruins, we must not only rebuild Ukraine-- but European Russia, too. We'll have to give them Marshall Aid, and in return they'll have to relinquish all their nukes and other weapons of mass destruction (and the means to produce such).

That's the only path to stability and reasonable security.

Honestly, that is not that far off

 

[Sailor.X]

You're a whole lot more optimistic than I am considering how long this offensive has been going on and how glacial its pace is. There's also the fact that that the eastern bank of the Dnipro in that region would be as much a 'self encirclement' for any large UAF force as the west bank was for the Russians.

For historical context. It took the Allies in WW2 over 2 months the break out from Normandy. And The Ukranians have to travel about the same distance. So this is on par with History.

 

[paulobrito]

The allies in Normandy have almost absolute air dominance and a massive arty superiority.
Ukraine has none of these, not even close. In reality, is the weak side of both.
A bit difficult to win a counteroffensive with these limitations.