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This might be a little tougher than Putin thought...
- Thread starter Nole Lou
- Start date
Looks like I missed the excitement as the quoted posts appear to have been removed.
I had forgotten about Guck, he would have fit in with several on the board here.
As for threats - I've had a several people challenge me to fights over the years, but seeing as though I'm on the other side of the country from most of them I just found it funny. UCLA received many more and many of them much more descriptive. People felt embolden because they felt they knew more about him - felt he was a soft target. That's what weak bully types like to go after.
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Not sure I agree with some of the analysis here, but definitely some points worth pondering:
www.nytimes.com
Opinion | What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
It’s always wiser to treat an adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.
You might also remember they called his job, at UCLA, trying to get him fired.
Mind paraphrasing? Pay wall...Not sure I agree with some of the analysis here, but definitely some points worth pondering:
Opinion | What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
It’s always wiser to treat an adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.
Lolol I could see this being true I could also see this as Putin's way of denying culpability
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The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.
He thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would welcome his troops. They didn’t. He thought he’d swiftly depose Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. He hasn’t. He thought he’d divide NATO. He’s united it. He thought he had sanction-proofed his economy. He’s wrecked it. He thought the Chinese would help him out. They’re hedging their bets. He thought his modernized military would make mincemeat of Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainians are making mincemeat of his, at least on some fronts.
Putin’s miscalculations raise questions about his strategic judgment and mental state. Who, if anyone, is advising him? Has he lost contact with reality? Is he physically unwell? Mentally? Condoleezza Rice warns: “He’s not in control of his emotions. Something is wrong.” Russia’s sieges of Mariupol and Kharkiv — two heavily Russian-speaking cities that Putin claims to be “liberating” from Ukrainian oppression — resemble what the Nazis did to Warsaw, and what Putin himself did to Grozny.
Several analysts have compared Putin to a cornered rat, more dangerous now that he’s no longer in control of events. They want to give him a safe way out of the predicament he allegedly created for himself. Hence the almost universal scorn poured on Joe Biden for saying in Poland, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The conventional wisdom is entirely plausible. It has the benefit of vindicating the West’s strategy of supporting Ukraine defensively. And it tends toward the conclusion that the best outcome is one in which Putin finds some face-saving exit: additional Ukrainian territory, a Ukrainian pledge of neutrality, a lifting of some of the sanctions.
But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the West is only playing into Putin’s hands once again?
The possibility is suggested in a powerful reminiscence from The Times’s Carlotta Gall of her experience covering Russia’s siege of Grozny, during the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s. In the early phases of the war, motivated Chechen fighters wiped out a Russian armored brigade, stunning Moscow. The Russians regrouped and wiped out Grozny from afar, using artillery and air power.
Russia’s operating from the same playbook today. When Western military analysts argue that Putin can’t win militarily in Ukraine, what they really mean is that he can’t win clean. Since when has Putin ever played clean?
“There is a whole next stage to the Putin playbook, which is well known to the Chechens,” Gall writes. “As Russian troops gained control on the ground in Chechnya, they crushed any further dissent with arrests and filtration camps and by turning and empowering local protégés and collaborators.”
Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).
Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.
“Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist,” said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg. As for what’s left of a mostly landlocked Ukraine, it will likely become a welfare case for the West, which will help pick up the tab for resettling Ukraine’s refugees to new homes outside of Russian control. In time, a Viktor Orban-like figure could take Ukraine’s presidency, imitating the strongman-style of politics that Putin prefers in his neighbors.
If this analysis is right, then Putin doesn’t seem like the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be.
It also makes sense of his strategy of targeting civilians. More than simply a way of compensating for the incompetence of Russian troops, the mass killing of civilians puts immense pressure on Zelensky to agree to the very things Putin has demanded all along: territorial concessions and Ukrainian neutrality. The West will also look for any opportunity to de-escalate, especially as we convince ourselves that a mentally unstable Putin is prepared to use nuclear weapons.
Within Russia, the war has already served Putin’s political purposes. Many in the professional middle class — the people most sympathetic to dissidents like Aleksei Navalny — have gone into self-imposed exile. The remnants of a free press have been shuttered, probably for good. To the extent that Russia’s military has embarrassed itself, it is more likely to lead to a well-aimed purge from above than a broad revolution from below. Russia’s new energy riches could eventually help it shake loose the grip of sanctions.
This alternative analysis of Putin’s performance could be wrong. Then again, in war, politics and life, it’s always wiser to treat your adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.
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I do think it strains credulity to think he purposely wanted his military to look that incompetent and to lose that much manpower and equipment. Yes, I know casualties themselves don't bother him morally, but it seems to be a bit of a strategic stretch to me to think Russia threw all that military might at Kyiv and other areas as just a "feint"
Was watching CNN....
They were showing aerial photo's of Mariupol.....looks like WW2 carpet bombing type damage.
Russians don't care about the city/infrastructure. They just want that land bridge to the Crimea...
They were showing aerial photo's of Mariupol.....looks like WW2 carpet bombing type damage.
Russians don't care about the city/infrastructure. They just want that land bridge to the Crimea...
Well, they want to cleanse the land, too. No people no need for infrastructure.
If this analysis is right, then Putin doesn’t seem like the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be.
Oh, they miscalculated.
Unquestionably.
The moves on Kiev and Kharkov weren’t feints. They were just stopped cold.
He will have to settle for less than he set out for.
The performance of the Russian military makes this a Pyrrhic victory for Russia regardless.
NATO will be stronger going forward and Russia will be materially and psychologically weaker in the eyes of everyone.
Oh, they miscalculated.
Unquestionably.
The moves on Kiev and Kharkov weren’t feints. They were just stopped cold.
He will have to settle for less than he set out for.
The performance of the Russian military makes this a Pyrrhic victory for Russia regardless.
NATO will be stronger going forward and Russia will be materially and psychologically weaker in the eyes of everyone.
Great point....but I think he'd be satisfied with the end goal the article pointed out. I think he wanted the whole enchalada but would be satisfied with the below scenario...
Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).
Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.
“Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist,” said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg. As for what’s left of a mostly landlocked Ukraine, it will likely become a welfare case for the West, which will help pick up the tab for resettling Ukraine’s refugees to new homes outside of Russian control. In time, a Viktor Orban-like figure could take Ukraine’s presidency, imitating the strongman-style of politics that Putin prefers in his neighbors.
UCLA was only on this board for a bit. Seemed like a pompous asshole, even by HROT standards. The thing that stands out was his mocking condescension toward people who wear shorts, because in his mind, only children should wear them.
It would be a shame if some of these ships disappeared forever...
"As the war in Ukraine drags on, Russian tankers carrying crude oil and petroleum products are increasingly disappearing from tracking systems.
So-called dark activity, where ships' transponders are turned off for hours at a time, has in the past been viewed by US officials as a deceptive shipping practice that is often used to evade sanctions.
Dark activity among Russian-affiliated crude oil tankers is up by 600% compared with before the war began, predictive intelligence company Windward, told CNN.
"We're seeing a spike in Russian tankers turning off transmissions deliberately to circumvent sanctions," Windward CEO Ami Daniel said in an interview. "The Russian fleet is starting to hide its whereabouts and its exports."
www.cnn.com
"As the war in Ukraine drags on, Russian tankers carrying crude oil and petroleum products are increasingly disappearing from tracking systems.
So-called dark activity, where ships' transponders are turned off for hours at a time, has in the past been viewed by US officials as a deceptive shipping practice that is often used to evade sanctions.
Dark activity among Russian-affiliated crude oil tankers is up by 600% compared with before the war began, predictive intelligence company Windward, told CNN.
"We're seeing a spike in Russian tankers turning off transmissions deliberately to circumvent sanctions," Windward CEO Ami Daniel said in an interview. "The Russian fleet is starting to hide its whereabouts and its exports."
Russian oil tankers are vanishing off the map
Russia's invasion of Ukraine made the country a pariah in the global energy market. Since the war started, a de facto embargo on Russian oil has emerged, with oil companies, trading houses, shippers and banks backing away, all at the same time.
www.cnn.com
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Yeah, I can see the author's scenario being the Plan B if Plan A didn't work.
However, I still think Putin and the Russian leadership DID wildly underestimate both Ukraine's resolve and ability to defend itself and the united response from the West.
Except he’s killing Russians and Russian speaking people every day. He doesn’t care.
Yep...I think they've obviously moved to "plan B" already.
Seems everybody overestimated Ukraines resolve/capability and overestimated Russia. Just hope this doesn't devolve into stalemate with the Russians obliterating Ukrainian cities for months...
You can't judge people, for the most part, by how they are on here. I despised UCLA for a long time but eventually grew to appreciate him. Goldy, as I said in another thread last week, is very nice in person. I've never met Trad but other people, whom I've known in real life for a long time, have met him and said he is a really good guy.
My dad grew up in a western pa coal mining town in a ukrainian community. Because many of the miners were essentially high functioning alcoholics, the orthodox church had a bar in the basement to help them get through the long masses.
I don't play a character on here or have more than one handle, and I generally post my actual thoughts. About the most assholy thing I've done is use the word "poor" as a noun, although in actuality I couldn't care less how much money one makes or what one's standard of living is.
It’s a bad analysis. He didn’t plan to lose close to 20k troops in the first 30 days of the war. He didn’t plan to lose seven generals and a hundred more officers of varying rank. Shoigu didn’t have a “heart-attack” because things were going well.Not sure I agree with some of the analysis here, but definitely some points worth pondering:
Opinion | What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
It’s always wiser to treat an adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.
Kyiv wasn’t a feint. He wanted Zelensky dead. They missed their timeline and ran out of fuel. The whole thing was disaster. This is clearly their plan B and a terrible way to go about it.
He left the Ukrainian army well situated to contest the Donbas. He ate tons of sanctions he probably wouldn’t have faced if he were just supporting regions he recognized as independent. He also wouldn’t have needed to pull troops out of Syria, Eastern Russia, and Azerbaijan.
Oh, he certainly wasn't a down to earth midwesterner, but he wasn't really a California elitist as people tried to make out. He grew up poor in alabama IIRC.
He did have strong views on shorts as casual wear though.
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I tend to agree.
But I also think it's wise to not underestimate him or presume he's nuts or stupid either.
I wear shorts routinely, but don’t GAF how others choose to wardrobe. Ian was pushy in that way, but was solid in most other respects.
Like my grandfather, he did not suffer fools willingly.
All that you say is true but....if Putin gets his land bridge to the Crimea, takes Ukraines natural gas fields when all is said and done....who's the "winner" in that scenario?
For the things you pointed out I would say neither BUT....5 years down the road a case could be made Russia "won" because their position would be better than when they started. Ukraine is without their money making natural gas production and much of their coast line taken.
The world will still need russian natural gas and oil....they'll eventually worm their way back into the worlds good graces as memories fade...and they need that energy supply.
Pessimistic outlook for sure...
The author of the bomb in the playground tweet, reposted so people don't have to go looking for it, isn't saying to expand the war but rather to stop sending money to Russia that funds their war machine.
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But the East isn’t settled. The Ukrainian military isn’t going to just give up that area.
That was really a stupid analysis. Lord almighty. Like so bad I guess Bret too is taking Russian money to launderNot sure I agree with some of the analysis here, but definitely some points worth pondering:
Opinion | What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?
It’s always wiser to treat an adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool.
- Sep 13, 2002
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True, but if Russia is able to keep bombing the shit out of cities, displacing millions of civilians and can dig in without giving up ground, they could force Zelensky to the negotiating table and wring concessions he doesn't want to give. That's why it's important that the West begins to supply the type and quantity of arms that would allow the Ukrainians to truly go on the offensive and begin pushing the Russians out of the country.
As noted in that OpEd, there are many in the Western "intelligentsia" that are already clamoring for Ukraine to basically trade territory for peace so things can go back to BAU.
