Senate Intelligence Committee Hears Testimony On Worldwide Threats To The U.S.
* Putin is playing the long game in Ukraine, according to CIA chief Bill Burns.
* "He's convinced that he can make time work for him," Burns told House lawmakers.
* Putin still thinks he can win, Burns said, even though the war has been disastrous for Russia.
Between heavy casualties on the battlefield and crippling economic sanctions, the war in Ukraine has been disastrous for Russia. But CIA Director Bill Burns said that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains convinced he can win the fight because he believes that time is on his side.
"I think he's doubling down," Burns, a former US ambassador to Russia, said during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday. "I believe he's convinced that he can make time work for him, that he can grind down the Ukrainians through this war of attrition, that he can wear down Western supporters of Ukraine."
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WNU Editor: The CIA Director is right. I do not see President Biden focused on Ukraine as much as President Putin is focused on the war. And there is a precedent that Putin will play the long game. Putin was Russian President for the second Chechen war, and that war lasted 9 years.
9 comments:
in 2001, the USA enacted an anti-terrorism policy that allows the president the ability to fight terrorism wherever. we are in Syria, Iraq, was in Afghanistan, attacked Iran, Libya and more. We were in Nam for 10 years. Point is, the USA is good at long war also. I guess that puts eastern Europe between a rock and a hard place.
The problem for Putin is that 1) Ukrainians definitely think Ukraine is more important to them than it is for Putin, 2) that the former nations of the Warsaw Pact think Ukraine is equally important to them as it is for Putin, and 3) collectively those countries are an important voice in the EU and can force Germany and France to take it seriously.
This isn't the case where Russia has to hold out long enough for one country to give up. It has to hold out against many countries who collectively can support, encourage or shame each other to keep helping Ukraine.
The committed anti-Russian eastern Europeans have a GDP around 2/3 to 3/4 of Russia. And they are committing serious resources, as a percentage of their economy, to helping Ukraine and boosting their own defense. In terms of practical help, if not total dollars, they are probably doing more to help Ukraine than any country other than the US.
The fact is Russia has to commit all of its resources to win while the West doesn't have to commit much to equal or outweigh Russian resources. Furthermore, Russia has shocked the West to the point that everyone is finally treating their security and defense seriously. Russia has been acknowledged as a dangerous long term security threat. This is not a mere inconvenience that the West hopes will go away. It is driving long term policy change.
In a ten year period, Poland alone will probably have an economy over half that of Russia, and combined with the rest of the anti-Russian eastern European countries will be greater than Russia.
The window for Russian success is not a long term (nine year or so) period. In that time period Russia is going to be buried by the West. It is a relatively short to medium term where they can marshal their resources faster than the West can (because of neglect of defense investment in the past twenty years). In order to prolong this from a 3-6 month period of contention to an additional 1 or 2 years, they'll need to defeat the Ukrainian spring/summer offensive. If they don't and Ukraine seizes comparable territory that they won back in Kharkiv and Kherson, Russia's medium term advantage disappears.
A nine year war will probably mean 1 million Russian dead and 3-4 million Russian wounded. Ukraine will also suffer much, but they are defending their own country. In contrast NATO will have zero casualties except for those who volunteer to fight in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and those will still be minimal and can't be blamed on their governments. The West will pay a much lower price than Russia. The only question is at what point do the costs to Russia cause political instability. It's probably going to be less than nine years.
Chris
USA won World Wars 1 & 2 due to the US Army's & US Navy's ability to field great warriors of the calibre of Douglas Fairbanks, James Cagney, Erroll Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas & John Wayne. Minus those fine fighting men, the USA lost the wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam & the War of 1812 after failing to capture Canada & with the likes of Sullivan, Milley & Crazy Joe, will lose the proxy war in Ukraine. Still there's always war with China. Keep ducking.....
"WE are in Syria, Iraq, was in Afghanistan, attacked Iran, Libya"
All those countries attacked us directly or indirectly through sponsored terrorists.
I have a problem with Libya, because they gave up terrorism and WMDs under GWB. Then Obama rolled in and smashed the country into tiny pieces. Like McKinley Obama hemmed and hawed a little but and then did the wrong thing anyways.
The French president the Italian PM and Samantha Powerful dragged the weak willed Obama into war.
Until the Wifes start protesting.
keep ducking means hide from his bullshit
Boasting about our long-war fighting capacity while screaming about ammo shortages and the possibility of China determining the outcome of the war with a single decision to supply weapons.
Putin himself won't outlast a long war, which leads to the question: what comes next? Does "Russkiy mir" follow the same arc as "bushido" or "fascism"? Hitler didn't have access to gene-edited bio-war weapons, but the next Russian leader will. Hope he isn't the leader of a death cult with a burning hatred for haplogroup R-M269.
Putin has impacted Russia negatively with his invasion. I think the costs for the younger Russians will continue to increase and they will become a factor of increasing size that will grow more negative towards putin's adventure in Ukraine.
This is not the Russia of stalin struggling for survival against a German invader.
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