peter Zeihan 2020

[JagerIV]

I'm saying the irrationality is in how they built their military and at least a significant part of their intelligence apparatus in a self-defeating way.

On top of that, they further goofed by not rapidly shifting their war objectives to securing Donetsk and Luhansk, then declaring victory and ending the war. If they hadn't insisted on taking Kherson, on fighting Mariupol down to the bitter end, etc, and focused on those two areas when it was clear that their military wasn't remotely capable of what they thought it was, they probably could have ended the fighting in weeks.

Call it job done, claim you were only ever there to secure the DNR and LNR from Ukrainian 'aggression,' and you can present a lesser fait accompli before the international community has largely hardened against you.

Further, they've continuously failed to address the systemic structural problems in the Russian military. They still have the culture of lying, they still repeatedly commit to wasteful and stupid attacks because they can't tell each other the truth, etc, etc.

There are multiple levels at which Russia is still acting irrationally.

Eh, this more seems to me more failures and constraints, rather than irrationality.

They seemed like they were trying to build up a modern army, that didn't really work out as they hoped, and had to revert to a management style that they could do. Lightning offensive operations are always rather risky, and they rolled wrong here.

Taking Kiev brings a rapid end to the war. Grinding forward on Donestsk and Luhansk does not: it gives you the same situation they had for 8 years prior, but with more casualties. If a big part of the goal is securing Crimea, Kerson and maripol are clear and obvious targets: Kerson remember was taken basically without a fight, not taking it would have been a stupid plan, and taking Mariupol would be critical to practically securing Crimea, securing the right flank of Crimea's water supply.

It would seem irrational to not try for a war winning move instead of a slow attritional grindfest if you think it could work, and Kerson and Mariupol were the two great successes of the initial invasion: if anything those should have been focused on more (though its hard to see at this point how much the northern attacks cost vs gained).

Doubling down on Donestsk and Luhansk seems the least rational place, because your focusing on the most heavily fortified part of the front, and where taking ground doesn't really bring you much closer to victory: the only way for example Bakmut as the current fight is bringing victory closer for Russia is to the degree to which its inflicting attrition on Ukrainian forces, which seems to be the current strategy more or less from a lack of ability to do anything else.

Your plan to me sounds less good than the one they actually implemented. Mixed with complaints that the Russians aren't perfect angels. The Russian army is going to have a bunch of drunk corrupt people, because Russian society is full of drunk and corrupt people. The irrational thing is to build a military built on the assumption that it won't be manned by Russians, which may be part of the initial failure (combined with traditional Russian hubris which can get them in trouble). Ideally they would have adapted faster, but, well, institutional issues. The US can take quite a while too to come to major consensus on major operational changes.

But, the fact that we come to different conclusions on the optimal start of the war, and what the Russian military could reasonably be expected to achieve, does not make me think your irrational. Thus my general warryness of applying such a word. It generally doesn't fit.

 

[LordsFire]

Eh, this more seems to me more failures and constraints, rather than irrationality.

Snip.

Your plan to me sounds less good than the one they actually implemented. Mixed with complaints that the Russians aren't perfect angels.

You're missing my point.

It isn't just that Russians are drunk. It's that they're lying to each other, knowing that they are lying to each other, and still passing on those lies.

It's that even after the opening stages of the war revealed just how bad problems are, they still have not moved to overturn the rotten elements of the military and force it to some semblance of competence.

It's that they keep trying new plans and new operations where they make the same mistakes and get defeated in the same ways.

The Russian military, as an institution, does not show signs of changing to better fight the war.

I'm certain some units, some officers, some enlisted, have learned. I'm certain that they've tried to pass word up the chain, etc.

Things have not substantially improved.



I'd also contest your idea of 'securing Crimea.' Before the war, Ukraine was not attacking Crimea. It was not preparing to attack Crimea. It showed no ability to mount such an offensive in the near future, and perhaps most importantly, before the Russian military showed itself to be a paper tiger, they probably never would have been able to work up the national will to do so.

Now, with the entire West pouring arms and supplies into Ukraine, there's a very serious chance that they will try to do just that, and even succeed. Crimea has gone from being under functionally no threat, to being reaonably likely to fall.

 

[JagerIV]

You're missing my point.

It isn't just that Russians are drunk. It's that they're lying to each other, knowing that they are lying to each other, and still passing on those lies.

It's that even after the opening stages of the war revealed just how bad problems are, they still have not moved to overturn the rotten elements of the military and force it to some semblance of competence.

It's that they keep trying new plans and new operations where they make the same mistakes and get defeated in the same ways.

The Russian military, as an institution, does not show signs of changing to better fight the war.

I'm certain some units, some officers, some enlisted, have learned. I'm certain that they've tried to pass word up the chain, etc.

Things have not substantially improved.



I'd also contest your idea of 'securing Crimea.' Before the war, Ukraine was not attacking Crimea. It was not preparing to attack Crimea. It showed no ability to mount such an offensive in the near future, and perhaps most importantly, before the Russian military showed itself to be a paper tiger, they probably never would have been able to work up the national will to do so.

Now, with the entire West pouring arms and supplies into Ukraine, there's a very serious chance that they will try to do just that, and even succeed. Crimea has gone from being under functionally no threat, to being reasonably likely to fall.

Eh, I disagree generally. Mostly though I think it comes down to expectations: the Russians have more or less performed as expected to me, in line with their historical performances for at least the last 30 years, if not longer. And while its not great for them that they adapt slowly, I also work as a bureaucrat and know how long and difficult changing actually is. Once was a small part of a project to change payroll systems, at it really took 3-6 months for the to be fully complete. Working on reports it takes 3 months to tell if a trend is real, 3 months to argue about what needs to be done, and 3-6 months to implement the change, depending on its complexity.

For corruption and incompetence, well, I'm sure its already illegal for officers to write incorrect reports. Putin writing another order that its doubly illegal to do so won't by itself do anything, if serious you have a long, difficult process of investigation and punishment, further complicated by a probably shallow pool of expertise: Vlad the railway officer might take 1% off the top in logistics, but 99% still gets through. Replacing Vlad with young inexperienced Nicolas who doesn't actually know what he's doing might eliminate that corruption, but logistics capacity might fall to 70% of prior: competent minor corruption there is better for the war effort than honest incompetence. Though you have no promise Nicolas won't also be corrupt, and maybe even greedier. So your replacing competent and corrupt with incompetent and even more corrupt.

Russia has been famously corrupt for literally hundreds of years, and its army has also generally been defined by at its best a couple of geniuses in in a sea of mediocrity. It would be unreasonable to expect Putin would fix in 3 months problems the Russian military has had for at least decades.

Its also I think a bit harsh to say they haven't adjusted to new situations and tried to get better. They clearly have. Though once again your defining imperfection as irrationality: Russia however has to fight with the army it has, and fighting is going to slow down the rate reforms can happen, since avoiding disaster this week takes precedence over becoming a bit better run 6 months from now. And these kinds of reforms your talking about are generally on the scale of 5 year plans in peace time, when not much else has to get done: fixing these issues in, what do you expect, 2 months in the middle of war while suffering a manpower shortage is, well, unreasonable. America would have an extremely hard time doing so under such conditions.

Crimea I recall had some water issue that made securing the other bank more pressing, but securing it permanently would require some level of Ukrainian acceptance of its annex. That likely would require some military operation.

Like I said, potentially a miss calculation, not an irrationality. Not being perfect is different than being irrational.

 

[LordsFire]

Russia has been famously corrupt for literally hundreds of years, and its army has also generally been defined by at its best a couple of geniuses in in a sea of mediocrity. It would be unreasonable to expect Putin would fix in 3 months problems the Russian military has had for at least decades.

Like I said, potentially a miss calculation, not an irrationality. Not being perfect is different than being irrational.

And here we come to the crux of it.

The current Russian military is not 'a sea of mediocrity,' it's a 'sea of utter incompetence' with a few modest islands of reasonable competence, and no islands of genius whatsoever.

It's not that they aren't perfect, it's not even that they're just decent, it's that their best forces aren't up to the standard of average forces in the West.

War is not a time for multi-month long each steps of 'analyze problem, discuss problem, consider solutions, implement solutions.' War is a time for 'people are dying right now, we are losing the war because of this, and everybody already knows exactly what the problem is.'

The Russians have used the exact same failed tactics, attacking the exact same places, for days and weeks on end, resulting in heavy losses repeatedly. At every level and at every front, they have struggled to rise to the level of mediocrity, and only achieved it sometimes.

Their newly-mobilized forces are largely (though not entirely) being sent out even worse-equipped and worse-trained than those that came before. Months ago they were sending their training officers to fight, something that any student of military history knows is immensely self-destructive and not at all constructive.

I'm not calling them irrational for being imperfect. I'm calling them irrational for refusing to learn.

Besides, the war has been going on for almost a year now. Even if your argument that it's a process of months to implement changes held weight, we should be seeing major improvements by now.

We haven't.

 

[Bacle]

And here we come to the crux of it.

The current Russian military is not 'a sea of mediocrity,' it's a 'sea of utter incompetence' with a few modest islands of reasonable competence, and no islands of genius whatsoever.

It's not that they aren't perfect, it's not even that they're just decent, it's that their best forces aren't up to the standard of average forces in the West.

War is not a time for multi-month long each steps of 'analyze problem, discuss problem, consider solutions, implement solutions.' War is a time for 'people are dying right now, we are losing the war because of this, and everybody already knows exactly what the problem is.'

The Russians have used the exact same failed tactics, attacking the exact same places, for days and weeks on end, resulting in heavy losses repeatedly. At every level and at every front, they have struggled to rise to the level of mediocrity, and only achieved it sometimes.

Their newly-mobilized forces are largely (though not entirely) being sent out even worse-equipped and worse-trained than those that came before. Months ago they were sending their training officers to fight, something that any student of military history knows is immensely self-destructive and not at all constructive.

I'm not calling them irrational for being imperfect. I'm calling them irrational for refusing to learn.

Besides, the war has been going on for almost a year now. Even if your argument that it's a process of months to implement changes held weight, we should be seeing major improvements by now.

We haven't.

Any argument that Russia is a rational actor is completely undermined by the fact their entire society is set up as to reward lying to your superiors.

No society or military can be called rational when they knowing and willingly perpetuate a endemic level of lying, false reporting, and personal graft to the level the Russian state exists in.

 

[Terthna]

Any argument that Russia is a rational actor is completely undermined by the fact their entire society is set up as to reward lying to your superiors.

No society or military can be called rational when they knowing and willingly perpetuate a endemic level of lying, false reporting, and personal graft to the level the Russian state exists in.

Meanwhile, the west has more of a top-down system of lying.

 

[Bacle]

Meanwhile, the west has more of a top-down system of lying.

The west, for all our faults, will still allow a peon to give the boss bad news, without said peon necessarily taking the blame for said bad news.

Not so much in Russia; if you deliver bad news to the boss, you become responsible/accountable for that bad news happening to begin with, unless the boss can use that bad news for their own gain (and then your boss might just kill you to hide to hide what they are doing/planning).

 

[Cherico]

The west, for all our faults, will still allow a peon to give the boss bad news, without said peon necessarily taking the blame for said bad news.

Not so much in Russia; if you deliver bad news to the boss, you become responsible/accountable for that bad news happening to begin with, unless the boss can use that bad news for their own gain (and then your boss might just kill you to hide to hide what they are doing/planning).

While this is true the Russians can still potentially win this war through shear brutality and raw numbers. This has become a war of genocide and murdering all of the civilians is a win condition for them.

 

[Cherico]

Chinas system is seizing up.

 

[f1onagher]

Chinas system is seizing up.

There's a piece of the puzzle we're missing and one I don't think Zeihan's connections in the technocracy will admit to. I have no proof, merely my experience with bureaucracy and the military, but it's entirely possible that these balloons were slipping through a hole in American air defense and the military is scrambling to cover its ass as it's a pretty big and embarrassing failure.

Simply chalking it up to 'hurr durr China dumb' feels far too flippant to me.

 

[hyperspacewizard]

The balloon is one thing I want to know what the three or four other objects we shot down are. I wonder why he didn’t bring those up at all.

 

[Cherico]

There's a piece of the puzzle we're missing and one I don't think Zeihan's connections in the technocracy will admit to. I have no proof, merely my experience with bureaucracy and the military, but it's entirely possible that these balloons were slipping through a hole in American air defense and the military is scrambling to cover its ass as it's a pretty big and embarrassing failure.

Simply chalking it up to 'hurr durr China dumb' feels far too flippant to me.

Oh I think they are fucking up the thing is china's diplomacy is moving way too slowly and weirdly because it's a one man show that's not working out

 

[JagerIV]

And here we come to the crux of it.

The current Russian military is not 'a sea of mediocrity,' it's a 'sea of utter incompetence' with a few modest islands of reasonable competence, and no islands of genius whatsoever.

It's not that they aren't perfect, it's not even that they're just decent, it's that their best forces aren't up to the standard of average forces in the West.

War is not a time for multi-month long each steps of 'analyze problem, discuss problem, consider solutions, implement solutions.' War is a time for 'people are dying right now, we are losing the war because of this, and everybody already knows exactly what the problem is.'

The Russians have used the exact same failed tactics, attacking the exact same places, for days and weeks on end, resulting in heavy losses repeatedly. At every level and at every front, they have struggled to rise to the level of mediocrity, and only achieved it sometimes.

Their newly-mobilized forces are largely (though not entirely) being sent out even worse-equipped and worse-trained than those that came before. Months ago they were sending their training officers to fight, something that any student of military history knows is immensely self-destructive and not at all constructive.

I'm not calling them irrational for being imperfect. I'm calling them irrational for refusing to learn.

Besides, the war has been going on for almost a year now. Even if your argument that it's a process of months to implement changes held weight, we should be seeing major improvements by now.

We haven't.

Eh, I somewhat disagree, but haven't been following too closely, and we do clearly have a degree of difference in expectations, and likely scale of the issue.

You may be right, we will see once everythings clears up a bit post war.

 

[Bacle]

 

[Bacle]

 

[Cherico]

to clarify Russias on americas shit list.

 

[f1onagher]

to clarify Russias on americas shit list.

They got off of it?

 

[Cherico]

They got off of it?

There are different levels of being on our shit list.

They used to be at LA levels of shit, now their level is sanfrancisco.

 

[Cherico]

so the russians are out of the start treaty.

That means america can no make pretty much as many nuclear weapons as we want, I don't think the Russians really thought about the fact that the us now out numbers them, has more industry then them, has a much bigger economy then them, has a much larger military then them and has more allies then them.

This is not a arms race their capable of winning.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

Sure, the US could massively out produce Russia when it came to nuclear weapons. But the political will really isn't there.

You think that Biden is going to go to Congress and ask for funding to drastically increase the US nuclear arsenal? Or that Congress would give it to him at the moment even if he asked?