Generational Dynamics World View News

[Navigator]

I understand your point but I don't think you're going to see any real Russian enthusiasm for war. This is(n't) 1940 and the people of Russia aren't the same. And war isn't the same. The days when you could round up bunches of peasants, hand them a rifle and point them in a direction are past. Despite problems, people under 40 in Russia have no memory of communism and were adopting many of the same beliefs and mannerisms as other European peoples. While they may feel some happiness over Mother Russia gaining some territory or prestige, I don't think they have any real desire to die for it.

And modern warfare is different than 80 years ago. Russia as shown that it has not learned the lessons and doesn't have the equipment needed to fight it. Its doctrines are shown to be sadly wanting and its supplies of modern equipment are lacking. Being the Army of 1941/42 is a fast road to defeat. It needs to at least be the Army of 1990 and I'm not seeing it.

On the other side, Europe is finally waking up and realizing that Russia is not just a grumpy neighbor to avoid, its a nasty neighbor and needs to be defended against. Rearmament is taking place with equipment that Russia neither has available nor can afford.

In transit right now. Will respond at length tomorrow.

[Guest]

- The US and the EU actually defaulted on their obligations to Russia, freezing its reserves - now everyone knows that the reserves of the state can simply be stolen

Sounds like an act of war to me. Let’s Go Brandon.

I can see the pro Kremlin brigade are out in force on these comments. Sorry to say to you all, it is a pity the dogs are eating Russian corpses, however if the Russians weren’t there, then no corpses of either soldiers or civilians. More body bags returning to “The Motherland” might just apply more pressure to stop this.

[Tom Mazanec]

US, Filipino forces start war drills in region facing Taiwan
https://www.defensenews.com/news/2022/0 ... ng-taiwan/

[Guest]

Russia's military failures in Ukraine 'have prompted China to review its armed forces and delay a possible invasion of Taiwan by up to four years'
President Xi Jinping will analyse Vladimir Putin's failures before making a move
Taiwan intelligence chiefs believe China will now not invade until after 2026
Island is now increasing the length of compulsory military service in preparation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic ... years.html

[Tom Mazanec]

You know, back in the day Europe was about the only "low risk" green label on the world threat chart.
It is ironic that it looks like WWIII will (or even has) start thesre.

[Bob Butler]

Russia's military failures in Ukraine 'have prompted China to review its armed forces and delay a possible invasion of Taiwan by up to four years'
President Xi Jinping will analyse Vladimir Putin's failures before making a move
Taiwan intelligence chiefs believe China will now not invade until after 2026
Island is now increasing the length of compulsory military service in preparation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic ... years.html

Given the Chinese economic problems, I'm not even sure if Xi will still be in power by 2026.

[Guest]

Russia's military failures in Ukraine 'have prompted China to review its armed forces and delay a possible invasion of Taiwan by up to four years'
President Xi Jinping will analyse Vladimir Putin's failures before making a move
Taiwan intelligence chiefs believe China will now not invade until after 2026
Island is now increasing the length of compulsory military service in preparation

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic ... years.html

Given the Chinese economic problems, I'm not even sure if Xi will still be in power by 2026.

Mao killed off millions of Chinese through starvation in the 1950s and remained in power until he died. China is not Italy.

[Navigator]

I understand your point but I don't think you're going to see any real Russian enthusiasm for war. This is 1940 and the people of Russia aren't the same. And war isn't the same. The days when you could round up bunches of peasants, hand them a rifle and point them in a direction are past. Despite problems, people under 40 in Russia have no memory of communism and were adopting many of the same beliefs and mannerisms as other European peoples. While they may feel some happiness over Mother Russia gaining some territory or prestige, I don't think they have any real desire to die for it.

And modern warfare is different than 80 years ago. Russia as shown that it has not learned the lessons and doesn't have the equipment needed to fight it. Its doctrines are shown to be sadly wanting and its supplies of modern equipment are lacking. Being the Army of 1941/42 is a fast road to defeat. It needs to at least be the Army of 1990 and I'm not seeing it.

On the other side, Europe is finally waking up and realizing that Russia is not just a grumpy neighbor to avoid, its a nasty neighbor and needs to be defended against. Rearmament is taking place with equipment that Russia neither has available nor can afford.

I believe the Russian people are still extremely nationalistic. I think that most feel that their country has “been done wrong” and that it should have the place in world affairs that it once had (even if they were not alive when it did). The current war has, I believe, made Putin more popular than ever at home.

Yes, Russia today is economically and politically different than the days of the USSR. But Russian culture, in its most deep-seated respects, is still the same. This includes, as has been voiced here, the idea that if your neighbors have a nice house and you don’t, you burn your neighbor’s house down so they don’t have a nice house either.

As their economy tanks, and it will, thanks to the sanctions and the loss of food production by the Ukraine, the Russians will get increasingly mad. But they won’t get mad at Putin. They will get mad at the West and at NATO for “causing this” and “prolonging the war” due to their support of Ukraine, who they view should be permanently subjugated by them.

We in the US consistently make bad calls about the cultures of other societies. They are NOT like us. They don’t think the same way. The fact that they might really like McDonalds hasn’t changed this. In Russia’s case, I think that they are fine with going through extreme hardship so long as they can inflict the pain they feel on others (like those smug former Nazis the Germans who are now living the high life “thanks” to all the resources Russia is providing for them). I would love to hear from non-Putin loving Russians who visit and post on this site about this.

Modern warfare is extremely different than 80 years ago. Russia should in fact know this, since they were an original developer of groundbreaking anti-tank weapons like the Sagger and the RPG. Their tactics (as ours) should have radically changed. The heyday of the tank is over, and the current conflict is just more proof.

But their actual tactics have been ABYSMAL. I am not a tank guy, my background is artillery, but even I know that if you are in a road convoy in an armored vehicle and the one in front of you gets hit, you GET OFF THE ROAD. Even non military people on this board have pointed out that they know you don’t just send tanks down the road, there should be infantry on the sides of the road to deal with anti-tank teams.

I think that they were so sure that they could drive into the Ukraine like it was Czechoslovakia in 1968 that they fully committed to acting the same way. There were no supplies since it was all supposed to be over in less than a week. The resupply has been extremely difficult because the Russian Army’s supply lines are railroad based, not truck based, and they never had enough trucks, plus they (again) were driving them down the roads without adequate protection. The Ukrainians evidently did a great job of destroying the Russian/Ukrainian rail connections and the Russians originally went in in too many divergent thrusts in order to sort it out.

They may now be trying to figure out what to do tactically, but they need to disengage their units and put them through retraining in better tactics. For this reason, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I think they will try to negotiate a settlement with the Ukrainians that gives them the two “breakaway” provinces in full, plus most of the Zaporzhzhia and Kherson provinces that will give them a land corridor to Crimea, and give them the full Sea of Azov coastline.

I used the contrast of the 1939/40 and 1941/42 Soviet armies as an example of what they might be able to do in the short term (not that they should actually “be” these armies, but that they could make similar rapid changes). The 39/40 Soviet army was completely incompetent and a disaster, as shown by the Winter War with Finland. The 41/42 Army had difficulty fighting the Germans early on, but quickly got better, due to changes in military culture, leadership, equipment, and support.

The conventional wisdom is that Russia is now proven as a “has been” paper tiger, and that they are incapable now, and thus will be incapable for the foreseeable future to project military power outside of their borders, with the exception of threatening people with their big nukes.
Again, I hope this is true, as I don’t want more war.

But I am afraid that the Russians will be very stubborn, and will decide to throw in with Putin and do whatever it takes to attempt to regain their glory and standing in the world.

As for Western Europe, I have had friends “in the know” tell me that 75-80% of NATO’s antitank weapons are now in the Ukraine. They will not be given back if the war ends. And that NATO’s voiced “rearmament” is just a lot of posturing that won’t be realized for years, if ever. Because what social programs are they going to cut to pay for it? They are still much more worried about “Global Warming” than they are about Putin (who they now believe is a paper tiger who has bled himself out in Ukraine).

Getting back to Russia re-vitalizing their army, they can do it effectively and on the cheap. (and as I have mentioned before, if you do a national mobilization, you DON’T NEED MONEY – you either are in the Army, working in an armaments factory, or you are producing food for the other two groups – no other economic activity takes place). As mentioned before, you don’t need vast fleets of tanks, you need lots of infantry, and rocket artillery (with drones for targeting) and mortars for close in work (a couple of tanks are used in support of each company, but in more of a defensive role than anything). NATO does not, and cannot, field a continuous front line of ground combat units. They could use a much larger infantry-based force to slide between the gaps and work slowly forward; the isolated mobile units they outflanked have to retreat to protect their supply lines. In fact, this is EXACTLY what the Ukrainians are doing!

On top of all of this, there is the unanswered question of how the coming world economic/financial meltdown is going to affect not only Russia, but China, the West, and everybody else. Economic disaster will only accelerate chaos. But that discussion requires much more writing than I can do right now.

[John]

Great analysis!

[Navigator]

However, I have to say that I still
have my doubts how well the Russian army will perform outside of
Russia. As I've previously said, Russia's army in the past has done
well defending inside of Russia, but there is no clear history of
successful offensive expeditionary wars that I'm aware of.

I think that the exceptions are after a "triggering" event that we have discussed previously.

The Russian Army did quite poorly in Europe fighting Napoleon until after the French invasion of Russia. After that, they did quite well outside of Russia, a competent contribution at Leipzig, and they followed the French all the way back to Paris in competent fashion.

The Russians were up against almost no opposition in Poland and the Baltics in 39/40, and were as abysmal versus the Finns at that time as they are today versus the Ukrainians. After they finally pushed the Germans out, they were certainly competent in the Balkans, Poland, Hungary, and Germany itself in 1944/45.

I think a perceived "loss of face" in the Ukraine could be the trigger (it will be blamed on NATO interference, not incompetence).

Also, I have seem some reports of Ukrainian missile attacks into Russia. This could do it, as could any kind of misguided Ukrainian attacks across the border into Russia.

Even "false flag" attacks, like the ones the FSB used to egg on the Chechen war could do it. Or even economic disruption based on the sanctions.

Putin is very bad, but not stupid, and a good student of Russian history. He will do everything he thinks necessary to "trigger" his people before going all out.