Posted on 03/01/2022 11:09:12 AM PST by Kaslin
Although Russia and Ukraine have captured the world’s attention, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of what exactly is going on. But despite the info ops, elitist jibber-jabber, and declarations that Russia has lost, we can know one thing for sure: This war is nowhere close to being over.
That hasn’t stopped the self-appointed “experts” in foreign policy and media from making sweeping declarations about the outcome, namely that Russia is losing or has already lost, just a few days in.
“Russia has proved unable to secure air superiority over the tiny Ukrainian air force — despite having the second-largest air force in the world, Pentagon officials say. Its troops have yet to take control of any significant city or meaningful chunk of territory, a senior U.S. defense official said Sunday,” The Washington Post announced on Sunday.
Headlines in both The Guardian and The New Republic reinforce the “Russia is losing” message. “With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that Putin’s gamble is failing. The Ukrainian people are resisting with all their heart, winning the admiration of the entire world — and winning the war,” wrote Yuval Noah Harari in the former.
That self-assured narrative pervades Capitol Hill and the Twittersphere as well, with even some foreign policy realists saying Putin has “lost this war.” In essence, it goes that because Russia is substantially bigger and badder than Ukraine, a failure to dominate Kyiv in 72 hours shows that Putin’s regime is floundering.
If recent history gets a word, however, we should know better. Consider the fall of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, a country that today has a population roughly that of Ukraine.
During that conflict some 20 years ago, Iraq was a mess and Baghdad was going up against the United States and Britain, two of the most powerful militaries in the world. We had air superiority, employed weeks of bombardment, and it still took 21 days to take the capital city and another 21 to wrap up our major combat operations.
Meanwhile, Russia’s military strength doesn’t match that of the United States, and Ukraine has a much more legitimate army than Iraq did, complete with top-of-the-line military equipment supplied by the U.S. In other words, Kyiv has a lot more going for it than Baghdad; it should be much harder for Putin to take Ukraine than it was for the U.S. to take Iraq. Yet we’re still more than two weeks out from day 21 of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which won’t be until March 16.
Recent history provides an array of other examples too. In Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War, it took 43 days (Jan. 17 to Feb. 28, 1991) to liberate Kuwait. The invasion of Poland, marking the beginning of World War II, took 35 days (Sept. 1 to Oct. 6, 1939), and the Battle of France the following summer lasted 46 days.
As Research Program Director of Russia Studies at CNA Michael Kofman wrote on Twitter: “[T]his is barely a few days into the war. Ukraine has done remarkably well, but no analysts (except maybe in Moscow) expected Russia to defeat the largest country in Europe within 4 days, especially given UKR military capability.”
Bottom line, he continued, “The bulk of the Russian military has yet to enter the fight,” and “Sadly, I expect the worst is yet ahead, and this war could get a lot more ugly.”
It’s no disrespect to the remarkably brave men and women holding their ground in Ukraine to point out that conclusions about the Russo-Ukrainian war outcome are premature at best — Russia appears to be upping the ante around Kyiv on Tuesday — and historically ignorant at worst. Unless the two countries can negotiate a settlement, history shows the path forward through war will be brutal and long. It certainly won’t be wrapped up in less than a week, nor can it be summed up in a tweet or soundbite based on who might appear to be “losing” at a given moment.
War is messy and complex, and going on network television to say “big guy isn’t immediately dominating small guy” doesn’t a foreign policy expert make. Russia and its aggressive bully tactics very well might fail, but it’s impossible to know this early.
For the last two years, everyone has been a virology expert, and in the past five days, everyone became a foreign policy expert. In our fast-paced mediascape, it can be hard to know what’s true and even harder to pump the brakes. But take a lesson from conflicts past: Five days in, this war is nowhere close to over.
If his people don’t stop him I’m afraid Putin will nuke the world.
One thing that made no sense to me is that foe several hours yesterday we were hearing reports - including aerial photos - of a 40-mile-long convoy of Russian military vehicles headed for Kiev. It seemed it would have been an easy thing to dispatch a few jets and blow up the whole caravan, or at least make the road impassable. If no NATO country wanted to claim responsibility, they could say the jets were flown by Ukrainian pilots. Why wasn’t that done?
What did you do with that kill switch Hillary?
Yep, people in Ukraine are going to start to get Hungry in some weeks to months.
And you can bet China will help him.
They’re all in on it?
The fight inside Kiev and Kharkiv are going to be brutal. Maybe this is why so many Russian tanks are, “running out of gas”.
After the urban house to house, then the insurgency begins. Russia will leave with their tails between their legs. After that, we need to send MLRS and Harpoons in. The next time, they can obliterate these staging areas and horrid lines of tanks.
Harpoons can easily sink Russian Amphibious ships with hundreds of young Russian conscripts.
It gets complicated.
NATO isn’t going in directly, because if they do we have to, and we’re in we’re violating the first rule of the Cold War: never have two countries with nukes shooting at each other. Keep it proxy. There’s no “saying” it was somebody else’s jets, not in this modern world of radar coverage and IFFs, everybody will know where the planes come from.
And also, ignore all those reports. It’s a war zone, things are chaotic and 90% of what we’re hearing in the moment turns out to be BS an hour later. Maybe there was a convoy, maybe not. Probably not. Not one 40 miles long anyway, that would be tactical suicide, nobody on either side of this war is that stupid.
It’s intended for this war to drag on for as long as possible, we’ve been training Ukrainians for months for their upcoming role in the insurgency that is expected (and encouraged by the US) to arise. The strategy is to keep the demonization of Russia going for as long as possible so we can continue with sanctions that limit their international trade and economic growth.
Listen. Those Politician’s Pockets ain’t gonna just line themselves!
All Hail The Military/Industrial/Grifter Complex!
*SNORT*
I really hate that beotch.
I hope their common history natural closeness will lead to a quick negotiated settlement.
At this point I think negotiations are both sides pointing middle fingers at each other.
I remember strategies from the Cold War, Russia would ruin Ukraine in three weeks. It’s a big country.
Now can we get back to problems in America please?
A fairly good take on things, but it should be pointed out that in the Iraq war the U.S. had a leadership that was desperately casualty-avoidant.
Seriously? Why would America get involved?
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