RE: Russian lawmakers authorize Putin to use military force outside the country, Part II
10-31-2024, 03:04 AM
10-31-2024, 03:04 AM
I haven't done an update for a while, and thought I should as there's a bit of gloom and doom in the news lately about Ukraine, because Russia has been making significant gains in strategic areas lately. But, not that significant:
The short version is that while the advance around Vuhledar is a defeat for Ukraine, it's still a long front with little movement. Operations are picking up speed to try to lock in some gains for Russia before winter sets in — any momentum will be seasonal and thus short-lived.
General-interest media continues to cover this war terribly, much worse than they cover other topics -- and almost like they cover sport, but without the great columnists. Wars of attrition don't have turning points very often, which makes for three possibilities: boring coverage, depressing coverage, or hyperbolic coverage. Guess which one gets picked the most. Military-focused publications have boring coverage, which is what I tend to like — I can't handle too many stories from the front line.
Geopolitics has a big influence on attritional warfare, since how long you can endure depends a lot on outside aid. So it's worth noting that The People's Best Republic of North Korea has sent soldiers to fight for Russia, at numbers of around ten thousand according to intelligence sources. The DPRK is perhaps the most militarized society on Earth. South Korea has its men do a year of national service, nearly all in the military. North Korea has its men do eight years of military service, and its women do five years of military service. It's a country that is always at full mobilization. Korean lives being lost instead of Russian lives takes pressure off of Russia, and reduces their attrition. So it's not surprising that South Korea is now looking for ways to help Ukraine and weaken their own enemy. So Ukraine is now really just a proxy war of the Korean War, which has never officially ended.
Also, now that Russia is relying on foreign armies, it opens the door to other countries directly aiding Ukraine. So far no one has stepped up (/me looks at Poland), but the precedent has been set. Russia of course will say it will nuke any countries that help Ukraine, but eh, he's not gonna. Lukashenko is still finding excuses for Belarus not to join.
Next door to Ukraine, Moldovans voted to seek entry to the European Union, in a mirror image of the Brexit vote -- that is to say, a very narrow vote seeking entry. Transnistrians were allowed to vote as well, which when combined with the customs of the area led to the expected level of corruption — the BBC managed to catch one voter asking the poll worker where she could get paid for the vote she just cast. All of which is to say it's a long road ahead to accession. But bringing some trade rules into harmony with the EU has already been profitable.
Across the Pontus, Georgia also had an election of its own, where the government says that the government won a clear victory, and they will be tilting away from Europe. Basically all of the other parties pulled together to fight the authoritarian Georgia Dream party, like recently happened in Poland... and the coalition lost. So now a pro-Russia party won, despite the fact that Russians, er I mean Ossetian seperatists are occupying part of their country. There have been fairly large protests saying the election was rigged. I don't know enough to say. Only recently have I started caring about Georgia as I began writing a fanfic about a Georgian character (Caster from Fate/stay night), though obviously I made "Georgia on my Mind" jokes prior to this.
All eyes are on America at this point, with next week's election. If Harris becomes President, we can expect resumption of arms and aid to Ukraine, which has been on hold most of this year. A Trump presidency would likely mean that the US would begin backing the Russians instead of the Ukrainians, though in the next couple months, I'd expect to see a lot of military equipment being declared "obsolete" and therefore worth $0, and so shipped on to Ukraine by Biden. Ukraine could still win without US support, but it would be much harder. Countries in Europe should definitely consider doubling their military spending if Trump rises again, as a hedge against the US leaving NATO. Just because it would be history's greatest strategic blunder doesn't mean he won't do it.
ISW Wrote:The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has increased in recent weeks but remains slow and consistent with positional warfare rather than with rapid mechanized maneuver—emphasizing how generally stagnant Russian advances have been after over two and half years of war. Recent Western reporting linking the Russian rate of advance in September 2024 with Russian advances at the start of the war is highly misleading.
source
The short version is that while the advance around Vuhledar is a defeat for Ukraine, it's still a long front with little movement. Operations are picking up speed to try to lock in some gains for Russia before winter sets in — any momentum will be seasonal and thus short-lived.
General-interest media continues to cover this war terribly, much worse than they cover other topics -- and almost like they cover sport, but without the great columnists. Wars of attrition don't have turning points very often, which makes for three possibilities: boring coverage, depressing coverage, or hyperbolic coverage. Guess which one gets picked the most. Military-focused publications have boring coverage, which is what I tend to like — I can't handle too many stories from the front line.
Geopolitics has a big influence on attritional warfare, since how long you can endure depends a lot on outside aid. So it's worth noting that The People's Best Republic of North Korea has sent soldiers to fight for Russia, at numbers of around ten thousand according to intelligence sources. The DPRK is perhaps the most militarized society on Earth. South Korea has its men do a year of national service, nearly all in the military. North Korea has its men do eight years of military service, and its women do five years of military service. It's a country that is always at full mobilization. Korean lives being lost instead of Russian lives takes pressure off of Russia, and reduces their attrition. So it's not surprising that South Korea is now looking for ways to help Ukraine and weaken their own enemy. So Ukraine is now really just a proxy war of the Korean War, which has never officially ended.
Also, now that Russia is relying on foreign armies, it opens the door to other countries directly aiding Ukraine. So far no one has stepped up (/me looks at Poland), but the precedent has been set. Russia of course will say it will nuke any countries that help Ukraine, but eh, he's not gonna. Lukashenko is still finding excuses for Belarus not to join.
Next door to Ukraine, Moldovans voted to seek entry to the European Union, in a mirror image of the Brexit vote -- that is to say, a very narrow vote seeking entry. Transnistrians were allowed to vote as well, which when combined with the customs of the area led to the expected level of corruption — the BBC managed to catch one voter asking the poll worker where she could get paid for the vote she just cast. All of which is to say it's a long road ahead to accession. But bringing some trade rules into harmony with the EU has already been profitable.
Across the Pontus, Georgia also had an election of its own, where the government says that the government won a clear victory, and they will be tilting away from Europe. Basically all of the other parties pulled together to fight the authoritarian Georgia Dream party, like recently happened in Poland... and the coalition lost. So now a pro-Russia party won, despite the fact that Russians, er I mean Ossetian seperatists are occupying part of their country. There have been fairly large protests saying the election was rigged. I don't know enough to say. Only recently have I started caring about Georgia as I began writing a fanfic about a Georgian character (Caster from Fate/stay night), though obviously I made "Georgia on my Mind" jokes prior to this.
All eyes are on America at this point, with next week's election. If Harris becomes President, we can expect resumption of arms and aid to Ukraine, which has been on hold most of this year. A Trump presidency would likely mean that the US would begin backing the Russians instead of the Ukrainians, though in the next couple months, I'd expect to see a lot of military equipment being declared "obsolete" and therefore worth $0, and so shipped on to Ukraine by Biden. Ukraine could still win without US support, but it would be much harder. Countries in Europe should definitely consider doubling their military spending if Trump rises again, as a hedge against the US leaving NATO. Just because it would be history's greatest strategic blunder doesn't mean he won't do it.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto