Great Power contentions

[spmetla]

It is quite crazy how the Houthi 'rebels' now have cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with the ability to launch strikes on the Saudis and Israelis.
Glad the DDG was there to detect and stop those missiles while transiting the Red Sea. Not a friendly neighborhood as the USS Cole remembers.

[Montmorency]

It is quite crazy how the Houthi 'rebels' now have cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with the ability to launch strikes on the Saudis and Israelis.
Glad the DDG was there to detect and stop those missiles while transiting the Red Sea. Not a friendly neighborhood as the USS Cole remembers.

Houthis fired 19 missiles and drones in a single salvo. Precision strike capability is proliferating and is accessible to more & more states and groups (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3752391
). Any country not investing in air-defence systems now is in for a world of trouble in a few years.

At least we know our destroyers can intercept 19 targets in a single engagement.

[Montmorency]

At least we know our destroyers can intercept 19 targets in a single engagement.

Hmm, now there are some claims that the USS Carney could not have been where the US claimed it was in the Red Sea at the time of engagement, and that if it were, it could not have been engaging Houthi missiles, none of which have the range to strike Israel - so to the extent there were Houthi missiles being launched, it was KSA intercepting them. Not going to take the effort to check the facts against primary sources and raw data for something like this, but worth pointing out the controversy.

[Shaka_Khan]

[spmetla]

Thought Perun did a good piece on the crisis there. Seems unlikely that Venezuela will actually invade though, fingers crossed they don't. Though if they do I think a US carrier group off the coast would be able to wreak havoc upon the long supply lines and everything that is bigger than a 4x4 truck that I doubt an attack would come.

I think rather than a military invasion that Maduro will just use the gray zone tactic of acting likes it's their territory by allowing loggers, miners, and oil exploration to start and see if anyone will dare stop it.

It's the lesson learned from 2014's Crimea invasion and the reef building campaign by China, at levels short of war the ability of the US and friends to influence events is extremely difficult. With the internet our opponents are allowed to and do excellent information warfare to create discord about policy or distracting domestic problems (perpetual immigration problems for the US and Europe for example). When it's aggressive merchant marines, coast guard forces or paramilitiaries such as Russia's "little green men" there's too little outright conflict to draw the US in decisively. This allows the opponent to rise the stakes or just act as if the territory is theirs and force an reversion to the previous status quo to require the victim to resort to outright force.

We see this with the Philippine coast guard. If they start shooting at Chinese "Blue and White Hull" ships it starts a war they can't win and would allow the US to weasel out of its defense agreement as China would paint the Philippines as the aggressor using force to change the status quo.
I see the same will likely happen in Guyana. Maduro will simply just start to use the territory as if it belongs to Venezuela. Guyana is too weak to do anything outright and isn't guaranteed outside support to assert claims over its territory so it will eventually lose de facto control over its territory. An outright invasion by Venezuela would be too risky, costly, and potentially bring in outside forces which could spell defeat or internal instability.

Though Maduro would be right to gamble on the US willingness to intervene or not. Looking at the Houthi actions in the Red Sea and the complete lack of action by Biden in a military manner along this major sea artery shows the US as weak, divided, and for the moment impotent as any foreign war further risks Biden's reelection chances.
The actions of the Houthis should have compelled a powerful intervention up to essentially a giant raid against the Houthis by the USMC to destroy their ability to attack ships in the Red Sea with the backing of the Saudis and the rest of Yemen. No one in the US wants another war in the middle east but the actions of the Houthis demand a response.

Perun's video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWSE9dPEx6Y

[Montmorency]

The White House strategy throughout most of the Gaza War, albeit awfully gently and tentatively, has been to press Israel to deescalate in Gaza and find a non-final solution. Our relations with Egypt and the Saudis, among others (Muslims in general really), are diving due to their dissatisfaction with our role. The Palestinian Authority may not even survive beyond 2024, with polls suggesting its unpopularity is at or near record heights. The Iranians and Hezbollah have pretty clearly signalled since the start that they want this situation to wind down without any side attempting to change the status quo. We don't have to accept that it's trivial to shrug off Houthi actions, but spreading the war to peripheral actors by our own hand has near-unlimited downside, and for what? A temporary degradation of the capabilities of a group we have no real truck with other than trying to get the Saudis to make peace with them over the past 5 years.


Speaking of Perun, he did point out with respect to Ukraine last winter that the long-term progression of the war would see Ukraine and Russia equalize on soldier and unit quality and motivation or morale. We could see that already in play in October 2022. The Texeira leaks in April were of course cast an incredibly dour picture of UFOR, which indeed was accurate, but I believed even then that there was a long-term possibility of reclaiming the South and negotiating back close to prewar borders, assuming UFOR had spent the time training their assault corps to drive forward at a main effort (broadly the Azov Uplands) regardless of losses (30%, 40%, whatever) just to break the defensive belt somewhere and compromise it progressively. Thus they could make an argument to NATO for guaranteeing concrete support toward a limited goal, say over the next two years. But by July, as we learned that the Ukrainian leadership was rejecting as too risky large-scale operations for small-unit infiltration - the tactic Russian defenses are best equipped to absorb - I understood it was a near-hopeless situation.

It's incredible that reporting has consistently indicated most in the US and UA general staffs were convinced underequipped green brigades with on average 3 months of cumulative training would blow past the best-rested RuFOR formations in the best fortifications outside the Korean DMZ at a ~1:1 strength ratio. All prior evidence indicated that an offensive operation in such conditions could only proceed with great difficulty - again why I assumed GSUA planned for a bloody Hail Mary just to take some modest territory in order to make the point and enable future operations. In reality, UFOR and RUFOR have been converging on largely the same offensive tactics and structures since Summer 2022, and only a comprehensive remodeling of UFOR to the General level would be enough to offer some sort of edge. Meanwhile, increasing Ukrainian conscription woes have been reported since at least 12 months ago, whereas Russia again surprised even me by constructing a good enough incentive and shadow mobilization scheme to add at least 250-300K new personnel this year, to a total net size of the VSRF of as many as 1.5 million (12 months into the war the VSRF + separatists undergoing absorption, less PMC, were probably at least 1.3 million heads). I haven't seen up-to-date data on the average age of members, but it may even be a little lower than UFOR's current average age of 43 (per the Zelensky Time interview). In other words, notwithstanding the obvious point that if NATO was ever prepared to make the financial and resource commitment to see through restructuring their partner's military that chance was lost in 2022, it is too late for Ukraine itself to attempt such a task itself. Their best human resources have been recruited, or expended, or are outside the country.

Equipment attrition has been steadily declining for the past year, implying that the Russian storage and production of equipment will be sufficient to sustain parity with UFOR's level for a good three years if necessary. The vast majority of RuFOR losses overall, notably, come from their own inefficient attacks, which they could presumably finally choose to cease at whichever point it became too stressful for them. The balance of Western aid looks set only to allow Ukraine to survive.

Economically, the Russian sale price of petroleum products has recovered in the second half of the year, and the global capitalist paradigm is so complex and robust that not even the likes of Poland can, or is willing to, keep its companies from selling vital machine parts and tools quasi-directly to Russia.

In August I was predicting that RuFOR would launch an offensive during the winter to attack the Orikhiv salient. I think they still will, but it bespeaks Russian confidence that they've been willing to take some of their worst equipment and personnel losses of the entire year in South Donetsk this fall for the less strategically-relevant Avdiivka salient (personnel exchange ratios seem to be tolerable for Russia here, but the equipment exchange ratio may almost be the worst of the whole war).

The reported March 2022 truce proposal, coupled with a bilateral alliance with Poland, looks to have been the best case for Ukraine.

I might as well post this obscure blogger who dropped a handful of posts last fall and disappeared. I read these at the time they were published, and pretty much agreed with the whole. If our political and military classes had shared his interpretations however, they might have declined to support Ukraine in the first place, anyway. But I do have contempt for the blindness of the commentary class who got high on their own supply.

[Shaka_Khan]