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Putin Has Already Lost the War
Townhall ^ | 03/04/2022 | Ivan Eland

Posted on 03/04/2022 10:16:50 PM PST by SeekAndFind

The war in Ukraine is still in its early stages, but Russia has likely already lost. The famous war theorist Carl von Clausewitz told us that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.” The key word here is “means.” In other words, wars should have a clear political objective on what the use of force is supposed to achieve. Vladimir Putin’s war aims seem muddled. Similarly, the West’s retaliatory economic sanctions attempt to use economic coercion to achieve a political end (Russian policy change). However, in applying violence or economic coercion, humans, even though the stakes are usually high, can get distracted by whose winning the war on the ground or how much economic suffering the sanctions have caused, only to lose sight of whether the policy end is being achieved.

In the case of economic sanctions, historically, no matter how severe a bite they have economically, they are not usually very successful in achieving substantial policy change in the target nation—such as, regime replacement, significant societal change, or a dramatic change in foreign policy--for example, motivating Saddam Hussein to withdraw from his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Thus, the bad news is that any expectations that tough sanctions on Putin or Russia will motivate a withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine probably will be disappointed.

The good news is that Putin has likely already lost the war politically, no matter if he finally subdues Ukraine. Much of human satisfaction or grievance arises from the mismatch of reality with expectations. In this case, the capable Russian military was expected to quickly overpower the much weaker Ukrainian military and territorial defense forces and likely decapitate the Ukrainian government. The Russians may eventually do both, but the operative word here is “quickly” and that did not happen. Days into the invasion, Russian forces have been slowed by more fierce Ukrainian resistance than expected. Also, the vaunted Russian military was not able to rapidly establish air superiority over the battlefield; has not seemingly been able to fight at night; has lost many armored vehicles because its conscripts won’t get out of the vehicles to suppress Ukrainians with shoulder-fired anti-armor missiles; has pursued an overly complicated battle plan of attacking on many fronts, each one of which requires fire support from the ground and air and a separate logistics train; and has had logistical troubles, with stalled vehicles that ran out of fuel or broke down, seemingly because the Russians expected a speedy victory and failed to bring enough supplies. 

Thus, Russia’s (at least initially) unexpected subpar military performance and Ukraine’s equally surprising scrappy underdog resistance has elated Ukrainians and the world and made the defenders fight harder, while reportedly infuriating Putin. The Russian military is still expected to triumph in the end, but the degree of Ukrainian societal mobilization may portend a long and vicious guerrilla war ahead—like one conducted by the Afghan Mujahideen, which drove the Soviet Union from that country in the late 1980s. If the war moves into guerrilla phase, the advantage could well turn to the Ukrainians, who are fighting for their homeland and can outwait Putin, who already apparently has an unpopular war on his hands--even before the costs lives and money start to mount the longer it lasts.

But even if the Russians eventually prevail, the Ukrainians have already won the expectations game. This would not be the only time when a great power won the war militarily and lost it politically. The French won a counterinsurgency war in Algeria in the early 1960’s but Algeria got its political independence anyway. Similarly, in South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, the British used brutal tactics to militarily win a war against Dutch-descended Boers, only to be compelled to grant their independence shortly thereafter. Of the three wars that confounded the British in trying to subdue Afghanistan in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, they won the third one militarily but lost politically—with the Afghans gaining control of their foreign policy. The vaunted Israeli military won the 1973 war against the Arabs, but the Egyptians did better than expected, winning politically. Finally, it can be said that the North won the U.S. Civil War militarily but lost the peace politically, dooming Reconstruction, and relegating African Americans to an entire century of oppression--ameliorated only through the largely peaceful Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Most recently, initial wins in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military, the best in the world, ended in disastrous long warfare against guerrillas—the most political kind of warfare. 

Thus, Russia’s (at least initially) unexpected subpar military performance and Ukraine’s equally surprising scrappy underdog resistance has elated Ukrainians and the world and made the defenders fight harder, while reportedly infuriating Putin. The Russian military is still expected to triumph in the end, but the degree of Ukrainian societal mobilization may portend a long and vicious guerrilla war ahead—like one conducted by the Afghan Mujahideen, which drove the Soviet Union from that country in the late 1980s. If the war moves into guerrilla phase, the advantage could well turn to the Ukrainians, who are fighting for their homeland and can outwait Putin, who already apparently has an unpopular war on his hands--even before the costs lives and money start to mount the longer it lasts.

But even if the Russians eventually prevail, the Ukrainians have already won the expectations game. This would not be the only time when a great power won the war militarily and lost it politically. The French won a counterinsurgency war in Algeria in the early 1960’s but Algeria got its political independence anyway. Similarly, in South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, the British used brutal tactics to militarily win a war against Dutch-descended Boers, only to be compelled to grant their independence shortly thereafter. Of the three wars that confounded the British in trying to subdue Afghanistan in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, they won the third one militarily but lost politically—with the Afghans gaining control of their foreign policy. The vaunted Israeli military won the 1973 war against the Arabs, but the Egyptians did better than expected, winning politically. Finally, it can be said that the North won the U.S. Civil War militarily but lost the peace politically, dooming Reconstruction, and relegating African Americans to an entire century of oppression--ameliorated only through the largely peaceful Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Most recently, initial wins in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military, the best in the world, ended in disastrous long warfare against guerrillas—the most political kind of warfare. 

If Putin is smart, he will try to cut his losses and immediately withdraw his forces from Ukraine. However, that probably will not happen. In his rage, if attempts to fully subdue the second largest land mass in Europe containing 44 million Ukrainians, especially by using scorched earth tactics that kill many civilians by shelling cities or employing thermobaric (extremely powerful) bombs, he clearly will face a long guerrilla war with apoplectic Ukrainians and nearly complete isolation from the world. He may even be politically wounded at home or even ousted from power. Therefore, as experienced by many arrogant great powers in the past, even an initial Russian win militarily will be a loss politically. 



TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: ciaagitprop; clownhall; ivaneland; propaganda; putin; russia; ukraine; vlad; windowlicker
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To: MAGAthon

oh no’s Nazis.


61 posted on 03/05/2022 1:35:44 AM PST by rbmillerjr (Defeating China is impossible without understanding that Russia is our enemy)
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To: All

https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1499648943520727042?t=l6bGj6ftL7ZbYt6pWHXMng&s=19


62 posted on 03/05/2022 2:02:49 AM PST by rbmillerjr (Defeating China is impossible without understanding that Russia is our enemy)
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To: JME_FAN

Bravo!
Well said.


63 posted on 03/05/2022 2:05:37 AM PST by boxlunch (10th Amendmt: nullification or Texit? PS We're in a hot war: globalists, CCP, media, Dems, RINOs)
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To: MAGAthon

Baloney! What a crock of lies.
But hey if a comedian youtube blogger says it, it must be true.

You people constantly say this whole thing is set up by the globalists. What do globalists do against anyone they want to destroy? They lie and call them Nazis.


64 posted on 03/05/2022 2:14:15 AM PST by boxlunch (10th Amendmt: nullification or Texit? PS We're in a hot war: globalists, CCP, media, Dems, RINOs)
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To: Tipllub

There are reports that he has fled the Capitol city.


65 posted on 03/05/2022 2:18:04 AM PST by mad_as_he$$
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To: alexander_busek

Yep.


66 posted on 03/05/2022 2:23:33 AM PST by one guy in new jersey
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To: one guy in new jersey

https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1499648943520727042?t=l6bGj6ftL7ZbYt6pWHXMng&s=19

Young Russians get to go home to cheer Putin.


67 posted on 03/05/2022 2:25:56 AM PST by rbmillerjr (Defeating China is impossible without understanding that Russia is our enemy)
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To: chajin

Very astute.


68 posted on 03/05/2022 2:51:23 AM PST by BiglyCommentary
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To: Angelino97

“True. I was saying over 15 years ago that the U.S. has no clear objective in its “War on Terror.” Nobody could tell me what victory was supposed to look like, or how invading Afghanistan, then Iraq, was supposed to “end Terror.”

Just wait...


69 posted on 03/05/2022 2:55:01 AM PST by Does so (Americans had no desire for war between 1939 and 1941. Rheinland? Sometimes War Finds YOU!)
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To: JME_FAN

Bravo! Encore!


70 posted on 03/05/2022 2:56:22 AM PST by BiglyCommentary
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To: rbmillerjr

Yeah...But we still have Biden to screw things up!


71 posted on 03/05/2022 2:58:43 AM PST by Does so (Americans had no desire for war between 1939 and 1941. Rheinland? Sometimes War Finds YOU!)
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To: Equine1952

In my day all the action was at the ROCs and Herres was king.


72 posted on 03/05/2022 3:28:03 AM PST by The Duke (Search for 'Sydney Ducks' and understand what is needed.)
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To: Peter ODonnell

What did Milosevic do that Abraham Lincoln didn’t?

When the American engineers of the Vietnam War later admitted various errors in its implementation, they should have been arrested as war criminals; we can’t kill a few million people without consequences/repercussions - yet that is exactly what happened.


73 posted on 03/05/2022 4:04:32 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kiryandil

I doubt anybody hates cucks and neocons more than I do, but I think this cat is right about Putin facing a Pyrrhic victory at best.

Putin better have his fun, before an America First president replaces that election stealing jackass and racks him in the balls. Unleashing our pipeliners and roughnecks will bankrupt Putin’s war machine with affordable energy!


74 posted on 03/05/2022 4:28:47 AM PST by Big Brother Go to Hell
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To: SeekAndFind

He not only “lost the war”, the retards in Hollywood have cancelled all of his tickets to see the new Batman movie. Geez. That’s what I call punishment.


75 posted on 03/05/2022 4:33:41 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer ("You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas." - Col. David Crockett to the U.S. Congress.)
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To: antceecee

(So the new world order has won?)

That is the final outcome according to Revelation. But that is still 11 years away.

Putin can’t stand against the full force of NATO but he has calculated that NATO does not have the stomach. This is the hill to die on. It’s a gut feeling, the irrational knowledge of faith. God help us.


76 posted on 03/05/2022 5:01:07 AM PST by thepoodlebites (and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.)
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To: MAGAthon

RE: neo-Nazis in Ukraine

How numerous are they and how influential are they?

If they’re so influential, how did
a Jewish guy like Zelensky get to be tge leader of Ukraine?


77 posted on 03/05/2022 5:36:34 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

My message from earlier:

Even IF Russia succeeds in occupying the Ukraine, it will never be a stable or productive ‘province’.

Vlad needs to understand that, no matter how large, well equipped or experienced, conventional forces lose if they don’t WIN. Guerrillas always win, when they DON’T LOSE...even if they are outnumbered, ill equipped or starving.


78 posted on 03/05/2022 6:17:01 AM PST by SMARTY (Republics decline into democracies & democracies degenerate into despotisms. Aristotle)
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To: kearnyirish2

I wouldn’t disagree with either point. World War I was also a shocking waste of human life that could very easily have been avoided. About the only just war I can accept is the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany, and Israel’s various wars of survival. Korean War possibly. A lot of other wars were just pointless bloodbaths that could have had less bloody diplomatic solutions — like this current one which is perhaps the most ridiculous yet.


79 posted on 03/05/2022 6:19:28 AM PST by Peter ODonnell (back to Gog and Magog, after these messages from FauciGates Diet Supplements and Erexia, yeah baby)
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To: SeekAndFind

Two territories within Ukraine declared independence
Russia recognized the two territories as independent states.
Russia stepped up to defend their soverign status, as allowed under international law

So far, that is the limit of Russia’s activity.


80 posted on 03/05/2022 6:24:45 AM PST by Steven Tyler
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