I'm writing this post in response to my friend @zuerich's post The End of Russia as we know it.
I started writing a comment and then it got too big and raised too many other issues which I wanted to comment on, so now it is a post.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Response to @zuerich
I'm quite surprised that you (still) think Ukraine can win.
As a relatively neutral observer (I'm Israeli Australian) I think that you are actually quite wrong on the facts on almost every point.
Russian Empire bouncing back
The Russian Empire is expanding from its smallest size (in 1995) in 500 years.
It is not over-stretched, it is fighting close to home and bouncing back.
West is overstretched
It is The West that is terribly over-stretched, fighting far from home and being massively out-produced.
What is even worse is that NATO has lost technological superiority in many key areas of military tech.
This is dealt with in detail in the 2018 book Losing Military Supremacy by Andrei Martyanov.
Virtue Signalling by NATO countries risks access to key Israeli miltech
In fact it is only Israeli military technologies that are keeping The West competitive at all.
Israel has a huge range of war winning high tech defence products that are the difference between the WWI attrition warfare of Ukraine and the rapid breakthrough and manoeuvre and ultra low casualties of Israel's Gaza campaign.
Israel has the best drones, the best anti-drone tech, the best missiles, the best missile defence systems (from tank to town to country sized), the best tanks, the best equipped infantry and special forces the best and most precise firepower integration and the fastest sensor to shooter cycle and much more.
However countries like Canada, Italy, Australia, UK and Finland seem intent on pissing Israel off with virtue signalling arms boycotts, ultimatums and restarting funding of the terrorist group UNWRA that they risk retaliatory actions from Israel that will deprive them of weapons crucial to their defence against Russia.
Countries on Israel's shit list
For example Canada just announced an arms boycott of Israel, but in fact supplies Israel almost nothing (0.05% of Israeli defence imports) and relies on Israel for large drones and missile systems that defend Canadian troops posted near the Russian border in Europe.
Finland signed a massive billion dollar deal for Israeli missile defence systems a couple of months ago (mid-war) but just yesterday announced it was re-starting funding to UNWRA which Israel wants gone because it is utterly infested with Hamas terrorists (over 2500 employees with strong evidence of Hamas involvement).
Australia also relies on Israel for many important military technologies but also announced restart of funding to UNWRA.
The UK just threatened an arms boycott unless Israel allows Red Cross access to Oct 7 terrorists in Israeli gaols (while the Red Cross has made no effort to get access to Israeli hostages). Yet Israel is the UK's third largest arms supplier (2.7% of spending) while Israel gets little from the UK.
This sort of arrogant virtue signalling by NATO countries while Israel is fighting and winning an existential war against the greatest evil the world has ever seen, is not playing well with the Israeli public.
If Israel starts restricting access to its war winning miltech then NATO is in even bigger trouble than it is already.
If The West pisses Israel off so much it turns East, toward Russia, India and China, then NATO and The West is utterly finished.
Israel has far more to offer Russia than Iran does and has no historical beef with Russia (unlike almost every other advanced nation which has invaded or fought Russia at some point).
While Israel is more comfortable with The West (and Judaism is a key source of 'western values"), it is not historically part of The West. About half its population (Sephardim, Ethiopians and people from the former Soviet Union) are not from The West.
Israel could switch sides if its supposed Western allies keep betraying it.
But the virtue signalling idiot leaders of most NATO countries seem oblivious to the potential consequences of their actions.
Which brings us back to Ukraine.
Status of Ukraine War
From what I see Russia is clearly winning an attritional war with Ukraine short on manpower, weapons and ammunition. Ukraine has now lost key massively entrenched defensive strongholds and has no strong defensive positions East of the Dnieper River.
With the fall of Avdeeka (after Maripol and Bakhmut) Russia has unlocked Ukraine's defensive line and is advancing all along the line of contact.
Slow pace of Russian advance
It is true that Russian advances are slow.
Israel conquered 6 far larger and more heavily entrenched cities in Gaza in a fraction of the time Russia has taken to conquer just one of the above small cities.
But Russia has deliberately adopted the attritional warfare with which it is most historically comfortable and competent after its early rapid manoeuvre was exposed from having insufficient forces and had to withdraw in some places.
Rapid manoeuvre of large armoured forces now seems impossible on the Ukrainian battlefield (for both sides).
Without Israeli tech this is the way it will stay.
The Ukraine war is far more like WWI than WWII.
The German surrender in WWI was caused by large scale combined arms breakthroughs (a pre-cursor of Bliztkrieg) at the Battle of Amiens (first conclusive British victory of the war) conceived and implemented by the Australian, Jewish (of German descent) General John Monash leading Australian and US troops.
It appears to me that the Ukrainian Army is close to breaking point and Western support is both massively insufficient and declining.
At some point, maybe this year, Russia will make big breakouts through exhausted and undermanned positions and Ukraine will have nothing left in reserves.
Russia is stronger than NATO demographically, financially, economically, morally and politically
@zuerich said:
Russia is done, demographically, financially, economically, morally and politically
Let examine the facts on each of these points.
Demographics
I've already posted updated 2023 figure on Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
Russia's TFR is 1.41 which is bad.
But the US's TFR is only 1.62 which is not much better.
Germany's TFR is 1.35 which is worse.
Poland's is 1.18 and Spain's is 1.14 which are much worse.
Ukraine's was 1.28 in 2021 and is far far worse now.
The overall TFR of European NATO is around 1.4, same as Russia.
All are suffering catastrophic demographic decline and none has a demographic advantage.
Result: Draw
Financial and Economic
Sanctions against Russia have utterly failed and Russia's economy is doing better than that of European NATO.
Germany is massively de-industrialising because of high energy prices and shortages of skilled labor (see demographics).
The US economy is doing better (because of cannibalising EU business) but not particularly well.
The overall economies of the US and European NATO are much larger on paper, but when it comes to military production Russia is able to produce far more weapons far more cheaply and thus is massively outproducing NATO in weapons.
The NATO countries have still not been able to address these very dangerous deficiencies despite almost two years of trying and there is no evidence that they will succeed in time to save themselves.
Result: Slight advantage Russia in the military industrial complex
Politically
Putin is far more popular in Russia than any NATO politician is in their own country.
Putin just won an election with 87% of the vote and all polls, even by opposition groups, show him to be extremely popular in Russia.
NATO politicians by contrast are in fact extremely unpopular, with some of the lowest popularity ratings in their own political histories. Many NATO states have completely dysfunctional governments beset by infighting.
There are huge popular protest movements against the government in many NATO countries.
What too many people fail to understand is that a politician's popularity outside their own country is utterly irrelevant.
It doesn't matter how many foreigners hate Putin (or Bibi). It only matters that they are popular with their own people.
Result: Large advantage to Russia.
Morally
There is no evidence that superior morals, whatever that means, leads to victory in warfare or in the general competition between nations.
Indeed the success of the most cruel and bloodthirsty leaders throughout history may suggest the opposite.
But even more importantly, Putin is very moral by the traditional moral standards of Russia.
He is defending his country from what Russians see as an existential threat and is conducting warfare in the traditional way.
He is not known for philandering or improper behaviour with children like some western leaders.
He is a genuine patriot.
How many NATO leaders can the same be said about?
Result: Slight advantage to Russia.
Conclusion
Russia is far from finished. It has only just begun.
Indeed the question is how much more of Ukraine it will conquer and whether it will conquer NATO countries.
If NATO does not massively and quickly re-arm, prioritise weapons and ammunition production and obtaining war-winning weapons systems (esp. from Israel) and change its culture so that military service is valued, Russia will not be deterred from continuing the war into NATO territory.
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Thank you for your long reply, @apshamilton!
Here just a short answer (I'll address your arguments tomorrow):
I do not say that Ukraine will win. I say that Russia will lose. This is about more than semantics.
Did France win WW2? I‘d say they were on the winners‘ side, but after the war France was devastated. Germany was rather quickly rebuilt and was economically better off for decades. In my opinion Ukraine and Russia are both losing badly.
Even if Russia wins this war, it will probably never fully control Ukraine, and the costs (economic and casualties-related) to control it would be immense, and this would destroy Russia over the long term. That’s why I hope that Israel eliminates Hamas very quickly, send Arabs from Gaza to Egypt or Jordan or Syria, can then go home and enjoy long-term peace. Long-term wars destroy all participants.
It is true there are substantial costs for all sides in a long term war but I think Europe is suffering more than Russia and has worse long term prospects.
Both Europe and Russia are facing demographic oblivion as is China (even sooner).
Totally agree that Israel needs to finish Hamas. This delay in taking Rafah trying to keep Biden happy is pointless and bad for the hostages.
Exactly, add the Russian anti-Putin troops fighting on the borders, and now you are going to see attacks in the heart of the Russian capital.
Russia's worst enemy is Putin.
Nothing good comes from war and Russia will win because they have the numbers on their side. I think the surprise is how long it has taken them thus far, but they don't seem to be in a huge rush mainly because they are controlling it. I do think it will be over within 12 months because Ukraine cannot carry on losing the numbers they have been. The end will happen quickly once the defenses are breached and there is nothing left.
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