War on the Rocks

> Ukraine -- I would squarely put this on Russia, nothing to do with the U.S.

Every kinetic reaction by Russia in Georgia and Ukraine is downstream of major destabilizing non-kinetic actions by the US.

You don't think the US fomenting revolutions in Russia's near-abroad was in any way a contributing factor to Russian understanding of the strategic situation on its western border? [1] You don't think the US unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty[2], and then following that up with plans to put ABMs in Eastern Europe[3], were factors in the security stability of the region? You don't think that the US pushing to enlarge NATO without adjusting the CFE treaty to reflect the inclusion of new US allies had an impact? [4][5] It's long been known that the Russian military lacked the capacity for sustained offensive/expeditionary operations outside of its borders.[6][7] Until ~2014 it didn't even possess the force structure for peer warfare, as it had re-oriented its organization for counter-insurgency in the Caucasus. So what was driving US actions in Eastern Europe? This was a question US contrarians and politicians such as Pat Buchanan were asking as early as 1997. We've had almost 3 decades of American thinkers cautioning that pissing around in Russia's western underbelly would eventually trigger a catastrophic reaction[8], and here we are, with the Ukrainians paying the butcher's bill.

In the absence of US actions, the kleptocrats in Moscow would have been quite content…

I was worried about this earlier, so I spent some time searching this out. Here are some good analyses:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/23/little-military-sense-for-nuclear-weapons-ex-russian-general

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ukraine-post-12

https://www.iswresearch.org/2022/09/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment_21.html

The TL;DR is that most experts don't think Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, but there's still a substantial non-zero chance. 10%? 25%? Much higher than anyone would like, that's for sure, and dependent on factors that are out of control of anybody but the Russian government and military. I have not found any sources saying the opposite, though some have higher degrees of confidence than others. The consensus appears to be that this sense of uncertainty is being created by Russia on purpose, and therefore, that it's probably (but not guaranteed to be) a bluff.

I have also seen very mixed opinions on whether Russia's tactical nuclear weapons are in suitable condition for use. But I think it is best to assume they are.

The odds of Russia intentionally using strategic nuclear weapons, the kind you would target at foreign cities across continents or oceans from you, remain nearly zero. Unlike tactical nuclear weapons, which have theoretical uses in ensuring one wins a conflict, strategic nuclear weapons remain a guarantee of mutual and probably worldwide destruction with no purpose except to deter would-be attackers. The only time I can…

In addition to military history visualized (mentioned by another commenter), I recommend:

* The Chieftain: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch . He has a series on the development of Armored doctrine for various nations prior to WW2 which is a very interesting dive into what military doctrine is and how it is formed.

* Battle Order https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder covers how troops are organized and divided into squads/platoons/companies/battalions/etc in various countries and at various times.

* If you are interested in World War 2, the World War 2 in real time series on YouTube is also fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo .

* For getting the perspective of national security experts dealing with current events, I would take a look at https://warontherocks.com , which has a mix of articles and associated podcasts. The war on the rocks podcast has been doing weekly updates on the state of the war in Ukraine with Michael Kofman, director for the Russia Studies Program at CNA. I've found those very informative.

* Arms Control Wonk (https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ ) the blog and podcast are interesting for looking at the military from the point of view of strategic stability.

* https://acoup.blog/ is run by a professor of military history. He covers a variety of topics; he does several series analyzing the historical realism of video games and movies for example. But he also discusses some of the fundamentals of military theory, and tends to…

I think it's premature to say it would be a step in the right direction, unless Mauritius publicly promises that they would immediately evict the US base (turning down the rent payments and weakening the presence of a strategic ally in the region). From what I've read: "Although Mauritius wishes to gain sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, its government, and that of its diplomatic supporter India, favor an American military presence there."[0]

Also, the status of the British Indian Ocean Territory is not a clear historical wrong, or at least it's only wrong due to being a by-product of the original policy of colonialism. Legally speaking, "Council of Ministers [of Mauritius] confirmed agreement to the detachment of Chagos Archipelago"[1], so the objections to this policy are based on the fact that Mauritius was not fully independent from the UK at the time (and therefore under duress), and that a country can't legally be split in two unless both pieces agree (and no one asked the Chagossians specifically if they were happy with the arrangement).

However, given the non-viability of the territory as a self-supporting entity, and assuming that Mauritius would not have wanted to support the unemployed population there after Britain closed the plantations, it's likely that much the same outcome would have happened even if all of our 21st century principles had been followed back in the 1960s. The only difference would have been that the Chagossians wouldn't have…

I left the same comment on another thread about the Crimea attack:

The war in Ukraine while tragic has been fascinating. I have curated a list of seemingly intelligent and informed open source intelligence (OSI) people on twitter that I have followed since early on. Most of them favor Ukraine and have been a bit optimistic. Still it is fascinating to follow a war in real time, with real reports. It is easy to see "the fog of war". An event will happen and a couple of weeks later you will understand that event in context.

Ukraine has performed incredibly well in this war for being so outmatched. Russia has done poorly. The asymmetric warfare should make much of our military industrial complex quake in their boots. To my understanding, in addition to drones, sea drones (sea baby) and western military hardware, Ukraine has innovated with tactics and software. They have apparently developed advanced counter battery fire (firing at their howitzers) software that allows geographically dispersed units to coordinate.

For this specific attack a couple of things are interesting. Over time Ukraine has eroded Russian anti aircraft batteries and radars, particularly in Crimea. This has forced Russia to either deploy more to Crimea or risk assets to slow moving missiles like this storm shadow attack. This attack was also well timed, happening late Christmas night at a period of presumably reduced readiness.

My personal list of Ukraine twitter people…

Lawfare blog, and especially its podcasts: https://www.lawfareblog.com/topic/podcasts

Close second, "War on the Rocks" podcast: https://warontherocks.com/podcasts/

Lot of "National Security / Foreign politics" content has been a breath of fresh air, because while this is clearly biased toward an American viewpoint, there is an intellectual respect toward other peoples/states situation, objectives, and possibility of getting to those objective.

In practice, that means that when talking about Putin, they debates around why Putin is doing that, and why Putin would be doing it that way, what are the possible outcomes, and how the US/NATO/other parties can try to act or react in a way that's beneficial for them.

Another example: Lawfare where highly critical of the Trump administration, but they always approached their analysis by asking "What is his thought process" and "What is he gaining by doing that".

Once you get used to hear a bunch of smart people articulating their thought in that way, it's painful to listen back to a discourse centered around "our good values vs. their bad intentions", which is unfortunately the norm.

Totally different subject, but if one is interested in religions, I highly recommend the Youtube channels "Religion for Breakfast" and "Let's talk religion", who goes deep into a variety of subjects, while disclosing what is still contentious in the academic term, and try to be as unopinionated as possible.