I plan to pick up a paper copy tomorrow and read it.
This conversation occurred in my email:
Other Party:
Brutal. A Potemkin military...but you knew that. ... Everything about this war is bringing out the worst in Russia and its national character. Another Russo-Japanese war.
Me:
I remember reading. a long time ago, about a battle that the Russians fought with the Turks in the early 1870s or so. The Turks had bought a bunch of Winchester repeaters. Back then, those rifles fired a .44 rimfire cartridge. Nowhere near as powerful as a muzzleloading rifle, but a lot more firepower.
The Turks issued them to two-man teams, each team getting two rifles. One man was to shoot, the other was to load. The Russians attempted to storm the Turkish positions. When the Russians closed to within 100 or so yards, the Turks opened fire with their Winchesters. The Russians got slaughtered. The next day, they tried again, with the same result.
The kicker was that Russian intelligence had reported that the Turks had those rifles.
Back in the 1980s, a few Soviet generals were given a tour of Gettysburg. At the end of the tour, one of the Russians asked how many men had been killed. When he was told about 50,000, he waved a hand dismissively and said "skirmish."
The Russians don't care how many men they lose. They are heedless of the suffering within their own ranks. (Kind of like Hitler, in that regard.)
Unlike the one time in the last two hundred years when their way of fighting prevailed, they don't have a large industrial power feeding them trucks, tanks and airplanes.
If that wasn't bad enough, Russia is facing a demographic collapse and, when it hits home how much the Russian war draft has landed on minorities, rather than ethnic Russians, all it may take is a spark to set off civil unrest.
None of this is carved in stone, but the augeries are not good for Russia. Nor for Ukraine, either, for the short term, but there are a lot of nations who will help them rebuild. For Russia, not so much.
9 comments:
China is licking their chops to be the new nuclear umbrella. China's neighbors are arming themselves. Cold War 2.0. The DPRK are with the Chinese now
https://www.38north.org/2022/12/inspector-o-and-the-days-of-our-lives/
It’s interesting that Putin is leading Russia to effective national suicide by demographically drafting the young men from the most prolific minorities in Russia. With ethnic Russian women having 1.5 or fewer children, and the ethnic Russian population comprising about 81% of the population, they are bleeding out. In an attempt to salvage something the Russians started a program to encourage ethnic Russian immigration from former Russian states. Once you pull the more prolific minorities from that 1.5 number, it’s likely that the true number is closer to 1.2…and Russia’s population, exclusive or immigration and emigration, is dropping by roughly 2800 people a day, or about a cool million a year.
Add to that the most recent population minimum is in current 20-21 year-olds…
Or stealing Ukrainian children.
But: contemplate the eventuality of Russia as a failed state....regional warlords with decrepit nuclear weapons of uncertain accuracy and stability, China grabbing the riches of Siberia.
It would be like the chaos of China in the days leading up to Mao and Chiang Kai-shek, but with higher stakes.
I wonder how the equation will change when the the trump chorus cuts off the funding in January? Maybe they'll go as far as sending MTG, Goetz and Gosar to Moscow for a photo op of them hand delivering all the intel from the last 2 years to Vlad. That'll own the Libs.
Couldn't edit my comment. Well said Stew.
the Dumpf Chorus, seriously?
I can see that trio trying but right now they can't seem
to get a speaker going. My call is they will manage to
nullify each other while arguing with each other.
As one called it they are not a force, they have o
keep from being a farce.
Eck!
I'll permit myself a yeah but seriously, Look at who's fighting over the speakership? I know it's out there, but they're starting to lose the base!!!
I don't know, Stew, that hits close to home ...
A Yahoo commentor has got it right
Who would have ever thought the US could systematically destroy the Russian military, it's economy, and it's imperial aims... with out firing a single shot nor suffering even a hangnail... Salve to the brave Ukrainians paying the price in blood. The EU will suck up the economic discomfort. This is the greatest investment in combat America has made in its history.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/democratic-lawmakers-vote-to-release-former-president-trumps-tax-returns-010402442.html
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