Pro-Ukrainian soldiers near Lyman, Ukraine, December 2022. Viacheslav Ratynskyi / Reuters
Barry R. Posen, Foreign Affairs: Russia’s Rebound
How Moscow Has Partly Recovered From Its Military Setbacks “
All the dumb Russians are dead.” So said Ukrainian officials in July 2022 as they sought to explain why the Russian army had abandoned the overambitious strategy and amateurish tactics that defined its conduct in the early weeks of the war. It was probably too early to make this quip. The Russians continued to do many dumb things and indeed still do. But broadly speaking, the Ukrainians’ intuition in the summer now appears correct: when it comes to overall military strategy, Moscow seems to have gotten smarter.
Russian strategic decisions are finally starting to make military sense. The partial mobilization of reservists that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered in September has strengthened Russian forces at the front. The bombing campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure that began in October is forcing Ukraine and its allies to divert resources toward the defense of the country’s urban population, vulnerable to bitter winter weather in the absence of electricity. And the withdrawal of Russian forces from the city of Kherson in November has saved capable units from destruction and freed them for action elsewhere.
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Ukrainian artillery firing back at Russian positions in the Kharkiv region. December 24, 2022. Evgeniy Maloletka / AP / Scanpix / LETA
Meduza: The true war of attrition begins
Meduza sums up what happened on the battlefield in 2022 — and what it portends for the year ahead
Late in 2022, the war in Ukraine reached a new turning point. Russia conducted its “first wave” of mobilization and partially eliminated the personnel deficit that contributed to its numerous military defeats in the fall. Now, the Russian army might face a shortage of a different resource: artillery ammunition. Meanwhile, Ukraine is experiencing a shell shortage of its own. Overcoming the deficiency won’t be easy: the West, which is assisting Ukraine with supplies, has largely exhausted its available stockpiles. It is against this backdrop that Russia and Ukraine are fighting a protracted artillery battle around the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut, which is rapidly eating away at the remaining ammunition on both sides. Increasingly, it seems the true “war of attrition” — as many began referring to the war in Ukraine almost as soon as its hot stage began — will take place in 2023. The outcome of this stage will hinge primarily on which side is better able to adapt to its worsening ammunition shortage.
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Foreign Affairs sure does love to use that photo of the tankers from the Carpathian Sich Battalion.
ReplyDeleteSo WNU loves a CFR Foreign Affairs article written by a Russian Jew. Poser about as smart as Dick Morris?
ReplyDeleteI forgot that god's chosen people NEVER advocate for empire. Great point!
ReplyDeleteI am just tied of Jews being overrepresented in DC and academia. Posen might be conservative based on history; however I have seen way too many liberal Jews advocate for crap. So many that can't keep an eye on the New England blueloods, who are terrible also.
ReplyDeleteUntil the recent wave of conservative, practicing Jews in New York, if a person is Jewish and ancestors are from Russia, they tend to vote Democrat and espouse stupid liberal views, which is really annoying. So many Russians Jews supported the Bolsheviks and 40 years later the communists wanted to wipe out the Russian Jews (Doctor's Plot). Did the Democrat left leaning wanna be communist of Russian Jewish extraction learn anything? Nope.
Ultimately the guy's ethnicity is irrelevant. 6:47 brought it up as a typical deflection in defense of the tankers in the photograph, who chose to name themselves after a Nazi battalion that invaded Poland in 1939 and was quickly disbanded for it's extreme ethnic repressions, even by Nazi Germany's standards.
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish author almost certainly doesn't know any of this, he just thought it was a cool photograph and I hold no ill-will towards him for it; I thought the article was actually pretty decent for Foreign Affairs. I merely pointed it out because the editorial staff, the true propagandists, continue to use the worst photographs which make it very easy to expose their narrative for it's buffoonery.
I am always amazed when so many places in the media and elsewhere refer to a citizen of this or that nation as a "Jewish Russian," but never note a Catholic American unless the religion is a part of the issue being discussed. Is it unusual for a Frenchman to also be Jewish as it is for "a Frenchman"?
ReplyDeleteWhy single out a person's heritage when referring to his citizenship if that heritage is not relevant to the issue discussed?
Why single out? Because R squared is around .9
ReplyDeleteIf it is fair to speak of neocon, then the rest is fair too.
All through the 70s and 80s you heard WASP this and WASP that. The term was thrown around longer than that but I cannot vouch for the 60s or before. I would have to research using Lexis Nexis.
Sociologist John W. Dykstra in 1958 described the "white Anglo Saxon Protestant" as "Mr. Bigot."[118] Historian Martin Marty said in 1991 that WASPs "are the one ethnoreligioracial group that all can demean with impunity."[119]
In the 21st century, WASP is often applied as a derogatory label to those with social privilege who are perceived to be snobbish and exclusive, such as being members of restrictive private social clubs.[87] Kevin M. Schultz stated in 2010 that WASP is "a much-maligned class identity....Today, it signifies an elitist snoot."[120] A number of popular jokes ridicule those thought to fit the stereotype.[121]
I was made acutely and chronically ethnically conscious by the culture (mainly leftists) and remains so to today.
If you don't like it, think of it like a boomerang you threw at others.