“Russians Do Break: Historical and Cultural Context for a Prospective Ukrainian Victory”
“For major wars like the one being fought between Russia and Ukraine, the military, the people, and the state interact with one another to constitute a collective national will to fight. In most wars, one side loses its will to fight and is forced into an unfavorable negotiating position; it accepts a defeat short of annihilation.
Russia can be broken in Ukraine and thereby forced to accept this kind of negotiated defeat. I argue here that the approach Ukraine and its Western allies are taking — the combined attrition of Russia’s military and the compression of its economy — has a good chance of succeeding if it can be sustained.
To understand how Russia can be brought to its knees, policymakers and the public first need to understand the historical and cultural influences that strengthen Russian will to fight. These admittedly discouraging factors go a long way toward explaining why Russia has not yet quit more than two years into this extraordinarily costly war.
But all people have limits. Despite benefitting from the longstanding historical and cultural strengths I describe in this article, Russia quit in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and it quit in Chechnya in the 1990s. History informs forecasting. In the case of the Ukraine War, a realignment of historical factors suggests there are good prospects for Ukrainian and Western victory.”
Someone with a hopium addiction is getting high on his own supply.
The front keeps moving west ever more rapidly. Russia’s army fully occupied the critical Ukrainian town of Vuhledar today, after more than two years pressing to capture the Donetsk region stronghold.
“Russians Do Break”
They mention Afghanistan and Chechnya, but WW1 was also a doozy for Russians breaking.
We have been counting it down on this thread, as Putin has wasted the old Soviet arsenals and Russia’s treasure of financial reserves. Those are both on track for hard breaks in 2025.