Great Power contentions

[spmetla]

His reaction as certainly been lighter than what appears to be the reaction by Russian citizens and milbloggers.

I agree that for Russia, realistically this incursion is really a none factor, it doesn't take anything strategically significant at all, really a diversion. However, I think the internal pressure in Putin's regime will need to crush this incursion quickly just because it is recognized Russian territory.

Side point that I'd noticed though, given how weak the border areas were, the lack of preparation by the Russians, the factor of surprise and so on it's actually a surprisingly small initial push. Really shows me how naïve I was about the ability of Ukraine to do anything significant against prepared defenses in last year's counter offensive.
The initial EW superiority (amount of EW jamming, drone use, new frequencies) was a major win but something that they'll struggle to replicate again so hopefully this incursion is worth it.

I too wonder what Ukraine has left for its strategic reserve.

[Montmorency]

With RuFOR reinforcements (some of them interdicted by HIMARS) gradually streaming into the region, we'll see how resilient the UFOR op plan is. That will also determine the needed level of commitment by RuFOR. So far UFOR doesn't seem to intend to dig in on hostile territory, but the longer it operates in such conditions, even defensively, the less favorable the attrition ratios will be. (I wonder if Zelensky was thinking he needed a bargaining chip ahead of a potential Trump reelection, and/or that Ukraine had nothing left to lose vis-a-vis American support. Holding the territory for months and months is a challenge in itself.)

Ukraine basically did the same sorts of things it did in Kharkiv 2022, and that Russia did in February 2022. On the former, it built up forces in a soft area - OPSEC was better than Kharkiv 2022, some of the best of the war even, but they were still evidently observed - and took advantage of GSRU's inflexibility in order to maintain that buildup unilaterally until go-time. GSRU famously ignored all warnings coming from Kharkiv in August 2022, and it seems like an institutional problem. (Note that very similar flaws befell the Israeli process leading up to Al Aqsa Flood, which perhaps leads to a more general lesson about the corruption of military information synthesis and reporting under authoritarian civlian control.)

On the latter, Ukraine increased opsec this time in part by just doing what Russia did when it opened the invasion, which is relying on pretext and internal deceit/information-withholding to reduce attention. Russia had a "military exercise" pretext for assembling near the international borders, and Ukraine had a pretext of speculation that Russia was about to launch a buffer operation into Sumy province, just like it had into Kharkiv; officials were warning of this since April/May. (This also rhymes with the very public Ukrainian messaging/advertising throughout summer 2022 of a coming main effort in Kherson, which left Russia comfortable drawing down the Izyum axis.) Putin kept his plans secret from almost all of RuFOR until just about zero-day 2022, and so Syrski/Zelensky kept the plan secret from the Kursk task force (enlisted and many/most officers) until early August. Some soldiers were seemingly rotated in from other assignments around the theater with no briefing of where or what they were going to participate in.

So sure, surprise is still possible in 21st century LSCO, but it's risky and depends on very specific circumstances and opfor behaviors.

As for the size of the task force in Kursk currently, to my knowledge it is thought that there was a minimum of one brigade-equivalent maneuvering in Kursk in the first 24 hours, then a minimum of 2 brigades after 3-5 days. The floor could be higher now. But it's mostly mechanized and airborne/mobile units, and in that case the border guards and conscripts that UFOR overran early on performed better than one might expect, given they were largely armed with just MGs, RPGs, and the like, and had largely never seen real combat, yet still succeeded in holding up the UFOR advance significantly at places like Sudzha and Korenevo in the first day or two. Even if up to a whole battalion surrendered in the initial time period, against a US Army incursion (air force handicapped) I would expect them all to just melt away.

By the end of last week, we saw the increasing force level of RuFOR in terms of the participation of tanks, IFVs, and artillery (which was initially absent as RuFOR had little idea of where the opfor was). Here's an example of a Ukrainian vanguard BTR-4 getting obliterated by what looks like autocannon.


BTW, check your PMs.

[Shaka_Khan]

[Shaka_Khan]

[spmetla]

Crazy to think that DPRK is having its troops fight in Ukraine. Will certainly boost ROK support for Ukraine. Does make me angry that two and a half years later and the "west" is still not supporting Ukraine enough.
Kills me that they haven't been given hundreds of Abrams and Bradleys.

Was interesting to read about the Russians wanting to use tactical nukes in Ukraine over their Zaporozhe sabotage and being told off by Austin.

[Shaka_Khan]

[spmetla]

While the drone sightings are overblown and it's clear a lot of folks don't know what aircraft look like they are certainly a security risk. Low cost, often single use, able to fly about anywhere and requires very updated defenses to do soft or hard kills which is not suitable for so many public institutions.

Allowing so many Chinese students that are hostile to the West to study in the West is pretty stupid too. The old days of them learning to love their adopted country don't apply so much now that the PRC can have its plain clothes 'overseas police' to ensure loyalty and support of espionage. While the majority of the Chinese immigrants are probably safe I could see that militant minority being a major security risk in event of a conflict.
Would be a shame to have to do 'detention camps' like they did for the Japanese during WWII, if that's something even doable in today's political climate.

[Montmorency]

Expropriating and incarcerating fully-loyal citizens and redistributing their property on behalf of their envious neighbors turned out to be an exorbitant waste of wartime resources, as some clear-sighted individuals predicted at the time. Yes, it was a shame. But it would be in keeping with the theme of repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again, until we discover just how much ruin there is in a civilization…

[Shaka_Khan]

While the drone sightings are overblown and it's clear a lot of folks don't know what aircraft look like they are certainly a security risk. Low cost, often single use, able to fly about anywhere and requires very updated defenses to do soft or hard kills which is not suitable for so many public institutions.

From what I've seen of the drone videos from the war in Ukraine, it seems difficult to aim at the drones, especially when they move fast in large numbers.

[spmetla]

The large numbers of small drones are usually very vulnerable to air burst munitions. Check out some videos of Germany's Skyranger SHORAD system, it's anti drone swarm is a start in the right direction. Of course 'hard kill' is not something that'd go over well in populated areas.

Even the soft kill has limits due to freq hop, limited AI capabilities for when contact is lost and then flying by wire with fiberoptic cables which are EW proof but much shorter in range.

Expropriating and incarcerating fully-loyal citizens and redistributing their property on behalf of their envious neighbors turned out to be an exorbitant waste of wartime resources, as some clear-sighted individuals predicted at the time.

I completely agree about the fully-loyal citizens being locked up as a waste of time, resources, and more likely to turn people away from the US.
I mean more the openly pro-PRC or very close ties to the PRC folks that for some reason are still permitted jobs within our government and key positions in private and public owned research groups.
At the very least these pro-PRC 'drone hobbyists' should face significant jail time for espionage related activities.

[Montmorency]

There have been a lot of reports about Chinese and Russian espionage activities in the West over the past decade, and my uninformed impression is that there's still a lot of 'gentleman's courtesy' in operation. Not that Russia and China have had a soft touch with Western agents, but that Western leaders fear they may have more to lose from a more aggressive tit-for-tat.

EDIT: Interesting tangential coverage.

[spmetla]

Seeing as China seems to just kill US spies I don't think there's much of a gentlemen's agreement. They just take advantage of the 'the West's' soft approach to national security. Same as they use gray war tactics in the South China Sea knowing there's nothing we can do about it seeming like bad guys.

The CIA falsely believed it was 'invincible' in China — here's how its spies were reportedly discovered and killed in one of the biggest blows to the agency
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-...es-leak-2018-8

Though it's from the last Trump presidency I think it's something the CIA has likely not been able to recover from. The Chinese language/ character system are sort of a natural barrier to more US recruitment and make it hard for casual intercepts as well as that there's not that many westerners in the PRC and those that are, are under close scrutiny by a very 1984-esque state security infrastructure.

[Montmorency]

By gentleman's courtesy I mean that analysis I recall indicated that Russia, China, and the US are all to some extent aware of the domestic moles and foreign operatives each country has in the other at a given time, but don't crack down on them all at once in order to limit retaliation. I acknowledged that Russia and China are tougher on this than the US (the big China breach happened in the early 2010s btw). On top of the covert spies that get caught, sooner or later, such as Victor Manuel Rocha, and on top of the agents who are manipulated into feeding back disinformation, such as was common during WW2 and the Cold War, it just seems to be documented that governments - maybe Western ones more so - will also prefer to let some spies continue with some mitigation in a type of informational MAD. Maybe this is most visible in the work of embassies and consulates, which generally speaking each large country runs as information posts of some kind. Note all the Russian diplomats expelled from EU countries in the past couple years.

Beyond spies, IIRC this dynamic was all but officially confirmed with respect to Chinese police in the US and Europe a few years back.

[Shaka_Khan]

[Furunculus]

The large numbers of small drones are usually very vulnerable to air burst munitions. Check out some videos of Germany's Skyranger SHORAD system, it's anti drone swarm is a start in the right direction. Of course 'hard kill' is not something that'd go over well in populated areas.

or fried with RF:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/b...for-first-time

[Shaka_Khan]

[spmetla]

Perhaps Chinese rising strength doesn't make this the best time for cutting the DoD by 40% over the next five years as proposed by SecDef Hegseth

[Seamus Fermanagh]

This Trump administration is different then the last on foreign policy. His first term was mostly devoted to his personal negotiation with strongmen leaders and an emphasis (admittedly with some legitimacy behind it) of trying to get NATO to pick up its share of the costs in defense (Putin's invasion of Ukraine was more successful than Trump's pressure/shame tactics in doing this).

Trump's second administration was elected with a substantial core of voter support that is firmly neo-isolationist. This cadre of support views Ukraine as a kleptocracy not worth our time or treasure and certainly no worthy of coming under article 5 commitment. And while Trump has said comparatively little regarding Taiwan, nothing he has said so far this term clearly shows support for the idea that he would defend it against a Chinese invasion. Source

Hegseth and the rest of the administration assume that some of the defense costs will come from scrapping DEI (which they view as racist and as diminishing capability) and reducing waste/fraud (some of which probably does exist, especially waste). But I think they are viewing a reduced "World's police officer" role for the USA in favor of a more isolationist stance -- which means less that must be paid for.

So, if you aren't going to defend Taiwan, you certainly don't have to keep the budget big enough to do so.

[spmetla]

I don't think Trump has any intention to defend Taiwan or even deter China from attacking them. Looking at how we've closed one of our bases in Greece because Erdogan asked Trump too just shows our foreign policy is now just up to which totalitarian state is willing to pay the most.

Trump and so much of MAGA just want the Army to be a border patrol force and throwing our weight around the American continent so that who knows what the DoD's future is.

Taiwan's defense without US support is doomed because unlike Ukraine, there's no way that the rest of the Quad could break a blockade and help resupply/reinforce Taiwan if the US reneges on our promises.

At least Ukraine has roads and railroads to the rest of Europe that allowed its economy to survive until the Black Sea fleet was reduced to irrelevance. Short of major and quick investments by Taiwan in anti-ship and anti-air of everything from shoulder fired to semi mobile batteries I don't see how they would survive militarily much less economically (just food water and fuel for example) on a blockaded island.

[Shaka_Khan]

[spmetla]

Any thoughts on this 'peace process' sought out by Trump?

I can't in my right mind thing that there's anything Trump could do to achieve peace aside from getting Ukraine to capitulate.

The Russians certainly don't want peace under any terms short of victory, there's not much pressure the US can put directly on Russia via sanctions etc at this point as so much has already been done. The only leverage against Russia that the US really has in in how much it supports Ukraine.

This is of course played out by Trump's weakening of NATO. China has been able to step into European politics as the mature and stable partner now that the 'leader of the west' has decided to go rogue against its own partners and allies.

Deterrence against an invasion of Taiwan is certainly weakened.

I just hope that the supposed planning for an 'invasion of Panama' to seize the canal never happens. There're no guard rails around Trump anymore and I don't think the military brass would ever refuse even without explicit support for war from Congress.
If the US were to do that it would be the final nail in the coffin of the 'rule-based world order' as though the US has done wars in the past (post-WW2 i mean) it's never done so for conquest. Additionally, a guerilla war against the US would likely happen in Panama for years which would destroy any economic 'benefits' of outright US ownership.

A US war against Panama would also outline the vulnerability of Canada and Mexico. Canada at least has the rest of NATO as a deterrence. Mexico however is without formal allies. This could lead to it joining NATO (a positive development) or to partnering with the PRC (less likely but still possible due to money available).

[Montmorency]

Unless Trump durably shuts down the USAI contracted pipeline (unfortunately Biden left billions on the table here and was generally extremely slow, Euro-slow, on actually settling contracts, notwithstanding even their relevance/soundness, which is more technical to comment on), there's not really any difference in the long-term prospect we observed for Ukraine a year ago compared to now or a year from now. Russia's industrial, economic, demographic, and materiel limits remain what they are (another 1-1.5 years of hard press in LSCO), Ukraine will never develop the skills and heavy formations necessary to have any hope of retaking territory (though they seem to have gotten wiser about dynamic defense this winter), and their morale remains comparable to Russian morale, or maybe worse.

Same situation as a year ago regardless of who's in office. This is actually analogous to the Israel-Palestine situation, where both a Biden/Harris or a Trump admin also seemed poised to entail the long-term destruction of the Palestinian state project in the long-term. It wasn't even clear which government would result in less human suffering before the 'final solution', though I'd suggest Trump is worse for Palestinian lives and livelihoods in aggregate.

The one wildcard a year ago was just how low Ukrainian morale could go. Too low and there was a serious risk of an operational collapse occurring somewhere, and spreading into a strategic collapse that took down UFOR east of the Dnieper, or even the government itself. But by late last year it was pretty clear that Ukrainian morale had stabilized, as had the government's legitimacy - despite sinking fast after the failed 2023 campaign, by the end of last year Zelensky still maintained majority approval, which is quite a feat in a democratic system nowadays. So in other words, it's far from obvious that the Russians have such a surfeit of will as to outlast Ukraine. Maybe the Kursk Offensive even supported this resolve, I don't know. Also this winter the RuFOR operational tempo has declined dramatically, in part due to more effective UFOR spoiling attacks against their salients. To be fair, part of the picture is probably just waiting for clear decisions by the new Trump admin, as well as the exhaustion of reserves following a ridiculously protracted and intense year-plus-long campaign. And combat activity remains elevated far above 2022-3 averages overall. On the other hand, the UFOR equipment pipeline and stockpile from EU/US donations, arms contracts, and domestic production remains very ample for defensive purposes, as long as Ukraine can manage its manpower situation properly.

But TLDR: Stalemate. Same as always. It's hard to see Ukraine collapsing, but Russia won't stop until it's convinced there's no further point for the time being. It can aspire to taking the rest of Donetsk, most optimistically continuing to roll up the old southern front to the Dnieper, but not really any more.

I'd be more worried about Chinese influence in Africa and Latin America now that the US has gone fully rogue.

[Shaka_Khan]

[Shaka_Khan]

[Montmorency]

So it's finally happened. Israel has wiped out Iran's air defense network and has been begging the US to stabilize the situation and/or finish the job (the long-term process remaining murky as always). Trump is mulling over how much of a geopolitical 'free pass' this situation constitutes, for the sake of the immediate news cycle at least.

In reference to former general Petraeus' comments on demanding unconditional surrender from Iran with the threat of "the complete destruction of your country and your regime and your people", after which we "reluctantly we blow them to smithereens", someone posted the following:

Old-time conservatives are people who are desperate to convince themselves that it is absolutely necessary to behave barbarously in this unfortunate circumstance, reluctantly of course.

Trumper conservatives are people who openly want to hurt others in as many ways as possible.

[Shaka_Khan]

[Montmorency]

12 (14?) bombs and an automatic insistence on severe damage in the immediate aftermath suggests to me Trump and JCS conceive of this strike primarily as a negotiating tactic, as opposed to a genuine attempt to neutralize Iranian nuclear facilities and materials. 12 GBU-57 is an expensive demonstration though, and if Iran holds firm, Trump may have locked himself into expending the majority of our inventory in successive gestures. The problem of Israeli and American disalignment on the issue - the Israelis have for decades sought generational outcomes, that would allow them to dominate future relations with any party in the region into the long-term, while before the Israeli escalation even Trump has signaled he would be satisfied with an enhanced JCPOA - complicates projections. But at least, they don't really have the capabilities for additional provocations at scale.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

BDA is going to be difficult. The initial assessment that the bombs hit where they were targeted and penetrated appropriately means that, if it worked, the underground demolition effect would collapse tons of earth on the target and obscure any resulting damage. I suspect we are going to have to rely on satelite recon photos of Iranian efforts at the sites, trace measurements of radioactivity v normal background radiation (I will presume they have a baseline from before or my tax dollars have been horribly mis-spent), and probably humint passed along by Mossad to get a real sense of the results.

[Montmorency]

The question may be moot, as the evidence is that most things of importance were evacuated prior to the American raid, so hitting those sites again, as well as the newer, deeper ones being built, is a waste of money and goes against Trump's rhetoric*. Iran is defenseless as it is, and Netanyahu - maybe too early to say - seems satisfied in proving his point. Israel has escalation dominance throughout the region, the US can potentially be invoked as a trump card at any time, and the Iranian nuclear program will struggle to establish itself beyond its preexisting level of progress until it can address its extensive infiltration (the overhead surveillance was already a fact of life).

*I know, I know, but Trump actually has a long and consistent record of limited, symbolic bombings and attacks in the Middle East in the pursuit of ostentatious "peace." He would have done it to North Korea too, had they not already had a longstanding nuclear arsenal, and/or had Kim not won him over.