Where? I spot-checked his newsletter and what little he says outside the paywall is hedged well enough, e.g.
[June 22, 2023]
> Of the two ways are looking at this conflict so far, the silliest is that we have any idea of how the Ukrainian campaign this year is going to unfold. It has now been approximately 2 weeks since the first significant western-equipped and trained Ukrainian forces showed up in the front lines (and suffered losses). What have we seen since. Well, the Ukrainians first suffered some losses in engaging with Russian front line forces—though after a few days they changed what they were doing and since then the losses of their most important equipment seems to have slowed significantly. Instead, Ukraine seems to have made the first of what will probably be a number of tactical adjustments this summer. They are now being careful about sending vehicles forward, and instead seem to be focussing on destroying Russian forces from the front lines back to the rear.
Historically all the countries involved in WWII had to carefully balance how many people they drafted versus how many they left home to engage in industrial production, sometimes doing things like taking away men and replacing them with woman who had to be trained up in things like riveting before they could be fully productive. Some countries, like Russia, had to cut much deeper than others like the US.
It seems the book is arguing that this was a mistake and that if they'd just gathered up whatever spare manpower was unemployed they'd have been better off? I'm skeptical.
Does the book argue that the US should have rounded up unemployed people for factory work, rather than lessening the draft? Im not getting that from the review.
WWI was different. There was basically no possibility of bombing factories. The only way to affect production as such was to blockade overseas shipments.
Not sure what your point is, but at the war's peak over a third of factory workers in the US were women. The unemployment rate dropped to about 1 percent by 1944. Behind the lines, there were more jobs to do than people to do them. Not sure what the numbers of work-capable males in the US who weren't in the military, and who remained unemployed, but I doubt they could have picked up the slack if all the women workers were told to go home and keep house.
Employment of the critical 18-55 YO males was around 98%. Which means everyone except the truly handicapped were working. It was a pride thing. There was almost no social safety net in those days, and if you were begging for food, no one would feed you, they'd point you to the war effort.
During the war, if you were driving through the Sierra Nevada, the US Forest Service rangers would stop cars and 'press the males' into service fighting fires. In the same way, technically its legal for a trial court bailiff to press people right off the street to serve on a jury.
I think we didn't need the draft, we had volunteers who almost didn't make it in to fight the war. An elderly man I knew in the 90s told me that he went down and joined line at the Navy recruiting office on December 8th. He was called up, completed training, and served just one mission as a submariner when the war ended.
Reading this with Ukraine in mind makes me even more pessimistic. Russia’s industrial power is out of reach for Ukraine (the West makes that a condition of aid). Technically, a significant part of Ukraine’s industry is out of reach for Russia, since we’re making their shells, but we’re an unreliable partner.
The minor waggling of the front costs a lot of lives but can’t win the war.
The western economy is much much larger than Russia's, but not mobilized in any meaningful way. Neither Germany nor the US is likely to prioritize fighting Russia over maintaining social insurance schemes or green energy.
It would be very helpful if we *really* tried to defeat the Russians by increasing our production and getting serious about harming Russian military production (and logistics) by hitting targets in Russia. The one saving grace of the current strategy of "give Ukraine just enough stuff to slow down the Russian advance to a crawl" is that Russia is rapidly burning through its immense Soviet stockpiles. Those stockpiles will run low starting in mid-to-late 2025 (see: Covert Cabal videos). After that, the continued (pyrrhic) success of Putin's invasion will depend on whether he can boost Russia's domestic production enough to exceed the West's half-hearted efforts. (Hopefully, of course, he just says f**k it and makes a much more reasonable peace offer than he's willing to do at the moment)
I can’t see this war lasting beyond 2025. Ukraine is spent. I was hoping the political cost to Putin would be enough to force him to cry off or even topple him entirely. I don’t believe that anymore.
I suspect that the West (including the Biden Admin) isn't really committed to a Ukrainian victory/Russian defeat. Russia losing the war might destabilize the government, which would be a very dangerous situation with unpredictable risks for the West. I think they would be content with a forever war that permanently weakened the Russian military without actually toppling them. So--just enough aid to keep the war going, but not enough to bring it to an end.
I agree. Rumor has it that Antony Blinken in particular has been extremely concerned about nuclear escalation for the whole war, leading to a very slow increase in things Ukraine is allowed to do, e.g. only after Russia re-invaded near Kharkiv this year did the U.S. allow Ukraine to hit Russian territory with U.S. weapons, and even then only to a depth of ~80 km or something. So they want Russia not to lose too badly lest Putin follow through on his vague nuclear threats, or lest Putin be toppled by less predictable people who could also do something... nuclear.
But this approach puts Ukraine in a very tough spot. A loss of aid could be much worse[1], but in the current situation a lot of Ukrainians die for want of an armored APC, or of permission to hit airfields that launch planes that vaporize Ukrainians with KAB-500 glide bombs, or of enough shells to hit available targets.
[1] Remember the ICC's initial indictment for kidnapping children en masse? Or Bucha or the devastation in Mariupol (and Russia's claims that Bucha didn't happen, that they don't fire on civilian targets, etc)? Or consider this Z-warrior's commentary on the need to kill 10% of Ukrainians on Russian State TV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5yvjyJdDW0). No, most Ukrainians really really REALLY don't want Russia on their land, and western weapons mostly stop them, if only barely.
The Russians certainly know about the second strike *capabilities* of the West. They probably also have strong opinions backed up by professional intelligence about the *will* of the West to engage in a second strike.
In your opinion, what sort of second strike do you actually think the West would actually implement, if Putin were to launch half a dozen thermonuclear missiles against logistical centers in Ukraine, while telling the West, "Note that we have carefully not attacked any targets in the United States, France, or England. And we won't, so long as none of you attack any targets in Russia. Otherwise your cities burn with ours"?
Would it change if Russia attacked logistics targets in Poland or Romania? Do you think the US is going to trade San Diego for Katowice?
How confident are you that Vladimir Putin shares your opinion and your certainty on this?
Zelensky has openly complained about it a few times.
It's not an especially radical idea: anyone looking at the amount of military equipment Western countries sent compared to their available stocks can see that Ukraine's allies are doing the bare minimum to keep it alive.
For quick comparison, Al Jazeera claimed that NATO had spent roughly $80 billion on total aid in February 2023 (so after on year of war). NATO's 2022 budget was $1.18 *trillion*. That's 6% of NATO's yearly budget spent on defending Ukraine, a lot of it in the form of surplus equipment that would have been replaced anyway.
That's not nothing, but it's nowhere near "existential war" levels of expenditure. If I was Ukrainian, I would have some fair amount of resentment towards my supposed allies.
Ukraine isn’t in NATO, so NATO Allies doing the equivalent spending of 6% of the NATO budget to aid Ukraine is pretty generous.
I don’t really think Ukraine could govern those eastern provinces (without some nasty ethnic cleansing), and a push by Russia towards Kiev would cause escalation, so probably inevitable the war ends somewhere along the lines Kissinger predicted in 2022, no matter when it ends. Dragging this out just to set Russia back a few more years, when they weren’t much of a real rival to begin with, seems rather dubious. But I suppose the western leaders may have thought Russia was poised to become more important in the near future. Or everyone’s crooked and Ukraine is a grift, like some on the American right say. In most of those scenarios, a Ukrainian would certainly feel used and abused by the West, more so than had we pushed for a quick peace to my way of thinking, but national pride is important so maybe there was no great option.
NATO is spending 6% of the NATO budget to help Ukraine destroy the Russian Army, without any NATO blood being shed. Since more like 60% of the NATO budget is devoted to making sure NATO can destroy the Russian Army at need, and with much bloodshed, that's actually a bargain.
> more so than had we pushed for a quick peace to my way of thinking
Let's not mince words here: when you say "pushed for a quick peace", you mean "either strongarmed Ukraine into accepting massive loss of territory or refused so send them weapons and let Russia annex them".
This isn't a "both sides are making this worse" situation, despite how much nationalists like to pretend it is. Russia could have had peace at any point by pulling its troops out. Ukraine is fighting an existential war.
Do you think Biden/Harris is possibly capable of calibrating aid with that degree of precision? The problem with complex machinations is that they assume levels of competence rarely found in practice
Under existing conditions, neither side can materially affect production of war materiel for the other side. Nor can they affect shipping and distribution of the materiel to the front. Note that a lot of the battles have centered over just that.
The remaining means of changing the balance in a large way would be to kill or otherwise render unusable enough of the fighting population (mostly men) on one side or the other that the materiel goes unused for lack of operators.
More like 1/7, last official census was in 2001, and population was steadily declining (due to migration and low birth rates) since the collapse of the USSR
Let me stand corrected - below I would argue that the total population ration is 1:5.
The 1:7 ratio is (my opinion) applies to 'fighting population / men ages 18-60' (and thus more relevant to this discussion; but harder prove with easily accessible sources).
So, the data:
- The most recent census in Russia was in 2020, and so 2023 Russian statistical yearbook (https://eng.rosstat.gov.ru/Publications/document/74811) is fairly accurate; it puts Russian population at 146.5 million, notably excluding Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Per Russian census, Crimea (+ Sevastopol) is about 2.4 million, we can estimate Donetsk + Luhansk (+ other Donbass towns) population at ~2 million, and subtract it from Ukraine total: 35.6 - 2.4 - 2 = 31.2 m
Then, there are a lot of refugees - Germany and Poland have about 1 m each, other EU countries combined probably have another million (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/). So seems fairly reasonable to subtract at least ~3 m (out of total ~4.5 refugees who went to countries other than Russia) from Ukrainian total: 31.2 - 3 = 28.2
Also we need to add Donetsk+Luhansk to Russian side: 146.5 + 2 = 148.5 m
Thus, the total population ratio (within the country / on the government-controlled territory) is 1 : 5.2
As to why I think (but can't prove) that 'fighting age' population ratios are closer to 1:7:
1) war losses - probably, both Ukraine and Russia lost ~0.7m men each (killed and severely wounded), which percentage-wise affects Ukraine more
2) a lot of Ukrainians were semi-permanently/seasonally working (sometimes, illegally) in the EU, with their families living in Ukraine - so the population (and men population in particular) probably was over-estimated in the first place
Worth noting not all Western countries have given that same set of conditions - some say Ukraine can do whatever it wants with their weapons/equipment - and the US has already relaxed their guidelines somewhat.
No, they are not. Russia bought a certain type of drone (Shaheed) earlier in the war, then improved the design and started producing the more advanced versions (Geran) domestically.
Or the West could say to Iran "instead of selling to Russia, sell them to us, we'll pay 20% more". This not only reduces Russian supplies but increased Ukrainian supplies at the same time.
"This just gives Iran money it can use to build more factories" -- this is not true, as "just" implies that it's the only effect it has. Clearly it has other effects too, such as reducing the supply of weapons to Russia and increasing it to Ukraine.
" In general giving your enemies money to make missiles is a bad idea."
Russia is *right now* invading a European country. The last time Iran did that was over 2400 years ago. I don't see Iran as an enemy of Europe, certainly not as much as Russia is. I see it as a country currently loosely aligned with Russia and China but which could possibly be persuaded to act differently. That's why it was non-optimal when Trump tore up the Iran unclear deal.
You think the country that calls America "the great Satan", bombs American troops across the world, bombs American allies and (via proxies) western container ships in the red sea, and has ceremonial government "death to America" chants isn't an enemy? Whut
If you look at the history of the Iran-US conflict, they have every bit as much reason to think that we are unapproachable and hostile as vice-versa. It's so pathetic to see people on this supposedly rationalist adjacent blog swallow propaganda wholesale.
>Russia is *right now* invading a European country.
Iran attacked Israel with drones in April and gearing up for the real deal right now. Yes, here in Europe Ukraine seems more important than Israel, but I think seen from the US it is not so.
...and Hitler could have said to Roosevelt "Don't ship stuff to the Brits. We'll pay more for it."
No, I don't think that would work. Some elements in the West are fine with Iran having more money, but a lot aren't. I mean, why have sanctions against Iran if you're just going to give them money instead?
In fact they were such good friends the Soviets parked their army in Iran to make sure they had access to allied lend-lease goods, killing hundreds of Iranians in the process. Then they trained and supplied Kurdish and Azerbaijanian separatists who killed several thousand more Iranians. Only after the Allies applied significant political pressure did the Soviets pull out.
google it ... my college prof who grew up in a Siberian Gulag when released to fight against the west, was taken to Iran where the Soviets planned to assemble an army. He promptly defected to the west.
Such total BS. Read a single book on the history of Iran in the 20th century and get back to me. If you don't know about a topic, you shouldn't just repeat the line you've been told over and over.
If you got such America, in 10 years you'd be ranting about how invading Iran was a globalist neocon dream, *real* conservatives have always been isolationists, "just asking questions" on whether pride parades is Teheran was worth killing so many country boys, talk about globohomo etc.
The state dept mostly acts on the premise that you can't just fight your way to your desired outcome, bc such is reality, and when people like you chose to ignore it, it went so badly you had to rewrite history and pretend it was never your idea
The Ukraine-Russia war looks more like WW1. Both parties can feed new armies into the meat grinder forever. Since none are able to take out the other's production of new war material, or the delivery systems (roads and rail mainly).
With the important difference from WW1 that none of the antagonists has the ability to starve the population on the other side into submission, either.
Estimates I've seen posit that at the current rate of attrition, Russia will run out of even Soviet-era tanks within two years.
The war will not last forever simply because the belligerents don't have the resources to keep it up. Ukraine can compensate by leaning on foreign donations (and so far western powers have managed to prop it up with mostly spare equipment), Russia has no such luck.
What Russia has in excess is *manpower*, but once they run out of air defense systems that will only mean more meat for the meat grinder.
Only in the sense that Putin considers mobilization politically sensitive and so is relying mostly on "volunteers" (who are willing to fight because they're poor, and are paid $2000/month plus bonuses -- so concepts akin to Bryan Caplan's "make desertion fast" may still be relevant even today). If you're trusting Ukraine's numbers for Russian casualties―don't. This video provides good casualty estimates:
(Edit: hopefully Putin is either correct about mobilization destabilizing Russia, or believes it strongly enough to not do very much of it and to stop the war in the next year or two. If Putin does destabilize Russia via mobilization though, that could be a major future headache, e.g. due to nukes falling into the hands of random Russian rebels)
Yes, agreed. Though it might be wishful thinking, I also wonder how many if any Russian nukes are operational, given Russia's problems with maintenance and corruption.
Believing that requires believing that the side with a huge overmatch in artillery, both by barrel count and shell production, is taking ~3x as many casualties. Artillery has been the single biggest cause of casualties in modern war, and the Ukraine war is much more stationary and advantageous to artillery bombardment than most modern wars. By the same token, if you believe Russian sources, they are inflicting something along the lines of 6-10:1 casualty ratios, which would mean something like ~1 million dead Ukrainians. The point being you shouldn't believe official estimates from either side, especially when they are contradicted by well known evidence.
NATO artillery has longer range and higher precision than Russian artillery.
This is (part of) why Russia has been shelling cities that hard: they don't have the accuracy to hit a single target reliably, so they need saturation bombing to reliably destroy enemy positions.
By contrast, NATO 155mm canons often fire rounds which deploy guided submunitions (eg BONUS shells) which can accurately hit small targets at long distances.
The artillery gap does exist (especially during the period where Ukraine suffered from a shell shortage), but the accuracy difference makes up for it.
As for the casualty ratios, I don't know what to tell you. There have been extensive OSINT reviews on the subject. Photos of blown up tanks on Twitter don't leave much to interpretation. Neither do filed inheritance claims on deceased Russian soldiers.
According to OSINT loss ratios, Ukraine was inflicting massive disproportionate casualties while defending in Bakhmut. But then it needed to carry out the 2023 summer offensive because this gave it an opportunity to inflict disproportionate casualties on the Russians. But then it made more sense to be on the defensive because Ukraine was inflicting massive, disproportionate casualties defending in the Donbass. But actually they needed to attack near Kursk because that let them inflict way more casualties than in Adviika.
Have you looked at Russian-collected data on Ukrainian losses? And Ukrainian claims for inheritance / petitions to award medals posthumously (which incidentally makes family eligible for higher payout)?
Also note that Ukraine has a strictly enforced ban on publishing anything that can help the enemy (including any losses), and that Twitter/Facebook are not easy to access from Russia (so for Russian drone footage you need to go to Telegram / subscribe to the right channels there).
My personal impression is that losses are roughly 1:1, with Ukraine having less (but somewhat better) artillery and more drones, and Russia having cruise/ballistic missiles that can strike anywhere in Ukraine, plus JDAMs close to front lines...
This is misleading for several reasons. Russia is obviously using up old stockpiles(why wouldn't you?), but they are also steadily increasing production of new tanks. They are already producing huge numbers, and so by the time the old soviet stockpiles run out, they are already meeting the demands with new production. Secondly, the demand is highly flexible. Tanks are useful, but not as essential as things like drones and artillery. Russia has a ton of tanks, so it's happy to spend them generously. They'd rather lose tanks than men. If tanks became scarce, a more conservative use of tanks on the frontline would not be disasterous.
This is all assuming that the war will last for years, which I highly doubt. The Kursk offensive is the ukrainian battle of the bulge. Unless something massive happens, the ukrainians are pretty much done.
"They are already producing huge numbers, and so by the time the old soviet stockpiles run out, they are already meeting the demands with new production"
If you think those sources you are providing are credible, then I'm not sure there is really any point in talking to you. I will make one attempt though.
If we stick to western propaganda, I have seen western propaganda ridiculing Russia for only producing 250 new and 600 refurbished tanks per year in 2022. These were not Russian numbers, they were western propaganda, and the lowest estimates I can remember seeing. Even assuming that was accurate, they have since opened new production lines and are working on increasing production further. Tens of tanks a year is like a stupid joke.
If you look at whatever source of losses you want, disregard the numbers, but look at the proportions. What you are seeing is that more and more of the tanks lost are new T-90M. So Russia is still throwing tanks around like candy, unlike the Ukrainians who rarely use them, but they are increasingly of new production. This should tell you all you need to know.
As to the exact number of losses, it's hard to know for sure, but keep in mind that you can take a picture of a banana and send it to oryx, and they will count it as a russian tank lost, not just once, but multiple times.
The Ukrainians make sure to publish videos of any and all destruction of Russian material they have video of. Furthermore, most destruction is done by FPV drones, and so they do have footage of most if not all. Btw, it often requires multiple FPV drones to destroy a tank, and they often publish multiple videos of the same tank. Many tanks that are seemingly destroyed are later recovered and repaired. Anyway, judging from this footage, it seems the Russians lose a few tanks a week. They almost certainly lost at a higher rate early in the war, when Ukraine had more weapons left, such as javelins.
All things considered, it seems highly likely that the losses are proportional to production, which would fit well with the Russian strategy of waging a long term, limited, war of attrition.
As a more neutral party, I have to say links were provided, and the pages don't seem to be grossly wrong in any way I can see. Perhaps it is obvious to those more familiar with them, but I don't know that Oryx or IISS have reputations which one should take into account, such as tabloid sites. Are they tabloids?
On the other hand, you're saying, un-cited, that Russia is producing 250 new tanks per year. Could you cite something that has a different number?
It makes sense, of course, for Russia to use its least useful tanks first, if they will do the job, so you have more useful types in reserve.
Here is the source for the 250 + 600 claim. Note that I do not believe this to be accurate even for 2022, certainly not in 2024, but as you can see from the article, this is a very anti-Russian article. If even these kind of articles claim these numbers, then suggesting anything lower is pretty ridiculous.
Oryx is purportedly keeping track of losses, but they are explicitly anti-Russian. They famously require very little evidence to count something as a Russian loss.
Lostarmour is the Russian equivalent, not sure how accurate they are.
The IISS page you linked states the annual Russian production of new tanks is between 250-350, depending on how many are refurbished from stocks that can't be verified by satellite imagery. Top of the line T90Ms are not the only tank that exists in the Russian arsenal. Pre-war figures show Uralvagonzavod MBT production at 1,291 units from 2007-2014, or ~160 per year. So I think roughly doubling that for war time production is reasonable.
Every reliable source I've looked at also says that Russia's production of new armored vehicles is far lower than their loss rates in Ukraine. Once Russia runs out of old Soviet era tanks, they won't be able to launch any more major ground offensives, so militarily, it makes sense to prolong the Ukraine War because the tide could turn in 1 - 2 years.
Putin is very reluctant to use conscripts in his war. He's no doubt aware of what happened to a previous Russian leader 3 years into an unpopular war in 1917.
Ok, if you read between the lines, of both articles, it's pretty clear that China is succeeding in getting the Russians what they need and that the Russians are succeeding in bypassing Western sanctions. If they aren't directly supplying weapons for the war to Russia (which is debatable), they are helping them even more by helping to build a Chinese-backed Defense industry inside Russia. The only way Western sanctions could stop this would be if the US elites were willing to let the shelves in Walmart go empty (which they are not). This is actually pretty bad for the West because it will make separating Russia and China impossible in the future.
The idea that trade sanctions could ever do much harm to determined adversaries with the resources of Russia and China is so obviously wrong on its face. It's all just filling a need for Western leaders to look like they're doing something even if nothing they do can meaningfully affect Russia's ability to supply itself. Sanctions can hurt the economy and state capabilities of countries like Cuba and Venezuela. They are a mere annoyance, if that, to countries that have the natural resources of Russia and are backed by China, which accounts for 35% of the world's industrial production.
I think you're overestimating Russia's production capabilities right now. Russia is heavily reliant on North Korea for shells, China for microelectronics, and Iran for drones. Their industrial power is in shambles due to neglect, corruption, and no access to Western talent and capital to fix it thanks to the sanctions. There is no question Russia has much more people and Soviet equipment, but their economic dysfunction is quite apparent.
This is pure delusion, western propaganda of the worst sort. China, yes, everyone is dependant on china, especially the US. This is only a problem in so far as your relationship with China is poor, or your supply lines to China are vulnerable.
North Korea? Russia bought some artillery shells. Definetly useful, yes, but not vital.
Iran and Turkey, no. They bought a few Iranian drones early on. That's about it. They are sending weapons to Iran now, not recieving them.
Overall, Russian millitary production is far superior in efficiency to the western one. Look at the recent example of the 52 000 dollar thrash bin. The MIC is made to suck money out of governments and transfer it to shareholders. They produce ridiculously expensive boondoggles in tiny amounts. This is why NATO is out of artillery shells and unable to produce them in sufficient quantities.
The sanctions are a minor incovenience at worst. In many ways, it has helped improve things in Russia. The 2014 sanctions were more of a problem, then, but now sanctions are a non-issue for the millitary.
Not a net good, no. But there has been positive effects as well as negative. Overall, the 2022 sanctions have not had a very significant effect, in part because the 2014 sanctions warned and helped prepare and train Russia in how to deal with them. Ultimately, Russia has every natural resource there is, as well as a large, well educated work force. There is very little they can't make themselves, and they share a land border with China. Sanctions are never going to break them, certainly not while non-NATO countries keep trading as usual.
Apparently, Russia can't produce semiconductor chips, and next year they may be able to produce chips equivalent to those we made in 1996. This seems like a significant thing they can't make themselves.
It's true that they can't produce the state of the art chips used in the newest phones and PCs. Afaik, they are only produced a couple of places in the world. These kind of chips are irrelevant to the war. They do produce the kind of chips used in their weapons though. Additionally, so does China.
Embedded in Sanctions is the assumption that neoliberal economic ideas regarding free trade are correct. If they aren't, then yes, sanctioning a country like Russia, which contains every conceivable resources within its own borders doesn't do much to break their ability to produce what they think it important to produce.
Also, if China, which makes pretty much...let me check...everything at a lower cost than most others is still willing to trade with you, then what does it matter anyway?
Well, whatever truth there might be to it, it certainly isn't enough of a crisis to stop them from being very effective on the frontline. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and so on. If there were so many troubles with production and transport, you would think it would have an effect on the battlefield. I guess you can argue that it is having an affect, and that they would would defeat the Ukrainians even quicker if it didn't have.
I lean towards most of these supposed issues being vastly exaggerated by wishful thinking from western propagandists.
Set aside the unreliability of the West for a moment. If the industrial capacity of both sides is out of reach, then the question is which threshold is reached first: (1) Russia killing so many Ukrainian soldiers that Ukraine literally can’t fight anymore, or (2) Ukraine killing so many Russian soldiers that Russia folds for political reasons. I would think (2) happens quicker than (1) if industrial capacity is out of reach.
Of course, the West IS unreliable, so the real question is whether Russia can outlast Western support before it must fold for political reasons. A lot of that turns on the next US election (IMO) and not on any other consideration.
Huh? The question is which side suffers enough manpower losses that it loses the will to fight any more. Why would Russia politically collapse before Ukraine, a country that has 1/3rd the fighting age male population? Western support is also largely secondary to this, because the West is not supplying Ukraine with the most critical resource in a war of attrition, manpower.
“Folding for political reasons” doesn’t require outright collapse. Compare with the Vietnam War - the US’s position was still viable when it exited, but political pressure at home led it to fold earlier than its position in the war dictated.
Ukraine’s threshold for losing the will to fight is necessarily much higher than Russia’s, because the war is an existential risk for Ukraine and mere empire building for Russia. Russia’s large manpower advantage counteracts this, but only so far.
The Russian people are behind Putin to a large extent and many of them consider this fight existential. The US government couldn't control its own press in Vietnam (they've gotten better since) the way Russia can today.
The west is not able to supply a number of important systems regardless of willingness. Stocks have been depleted, and production is designed for peacetime, with very low volumes. The US is out of effective, low investment methods of supporting Ukraine. They either have to do some very serious escalation, or give up.
Ukrainians are now losing 5 men for every Russian, and "recruiting" is so unpopular that recruiters are attacked and harassed by civilians, and hundreds of military veichles are being burned by them. While Russian attitudes towards the war have been somewhat tepid so far, the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk is really helping bolster Russian support for the war. There is little chance of Ukraine outlasting Russia in any way that matters.
I have no idea why you would think this unreasonable, unless you are ideologically motivated and bought into the frankly racist idea of the slavic untermensch mindlessly throwing themselves into the meat grinder in endless meatwaves or whatever you call it.
As for evidence, well, very roughly 5:1 seems to be where a number of different sources and approaches converge, although it should be said that there are large error bars, and obviously it also varies somewhat over time.
The best evidence is probably from sources that study things like the names on war memorials, mentions in social media, graves in graveyards, data from hospitals etc. This alone would be a little weak perhaps, but it matches well with numbers of dead bodies exchanged, proportions of POWs on each side etc, numbers of casualties in various units given by ukrainians in interviews, official Ukrainian numbers given combined with the fact that about 9 in 10 are listed as MIA instead of KIA, and someone who did the math on the budget for payment to wounded and dead soldiers in Ukraine. It also what you would expect given the relative disparity in firepower, with the Russians having at least a 5 to 1 advantage in artillery and drones, which together produce the large majority of casualties. Add to this the well known difficulties of the Ukrainians in evacuating wounded from the frontline.
Finally, all this lines up with a statement from Putin in a recent interview. Now I know you are not going to take his word for it, many people genuinely seem to think that everything said in Russia is a lie, but he actually has a pretty good record of being truthful in direct statements of facts like this. I would perhaps not place too much emphasis on it alone, but in this case everything adds up.
Which part? Putin being honest? "They're not there" (Russian troops in Ukraine in 2014), "We're not going to invade, what garbage is that" - that Putin? "Western propaganda", "racism" as the first "argument" he goes for?
There's no argument there, just a gish gallop of shit, which is typical for a pro-Russian troll. They are not here to have a reasoned back-and-forth with you, they are here to keep throwing shit at the wall until everything is covered in it and you no longer know where up or down is. The only way to win is not to play.
"the West makes that a condition of aid" -- Britain doesn't. Britain is quite happy fro Ukraine to fire Storm Shadow missiles into Russia, for example.
The burn rate of Russian AFVs is an order of magnitude higher than their current production capacity though. Or their estimated 2025 production capacity.
Especially tanks are nowhere near as dominant or indestructible on the battlefield as they were in WW2. They are vastly more vulnerable now.
A high burn rate of tanks ultimately means that a high tempo offensive would simply have to be paused until more tanks are built up. Few commentators consider it this way and assume a temporary tank shortage would mean an immediate end to the war.
At current production rates, rebuilding even half of their tank losses would take Russia about thirty years. If a "temporary" tank shortage results in an immediate thirty-year pause in the war, I think Ukraine would count that as a win.
> A high burn rate of tanks ultimately means that a high tempo offensive would simply have to be paused until more tanks are built up.
Unless Ukraine forces the tempo to stay up. The Kursk offensive is a good example of a maneuver that *imposes* a high-tempo response from Russian forces.
Nothing from the Ukrainian side suggests they were benefiting from enduring high tempo operations either, given their material and manpower constraints.
But Ru is highly dependent on RRs. Notice that Ukraine has systematically been attacking transport and communication infrastructure in western Ru. Also, Ru has focused on extractive technologies. They don't make their own machine tools. And they don't have the capabilities to manufacture critical items like ball bearings. They were getting machine tools and ball bearings from Europe, especially Germany, until the embargo took effect. They're still getting machine tools through a chain of cutout countries and companies, but their manufacturing capacity can't keep up with their war needs (witness them bringing 1950s-era tanks out of mothballs to push into the meat grinder).
Where? I spot-checked his newsletter and what little he says outside the paywall is hedged well enough, e.g.
[June 22, 2023]
> Of the two ways are looking at this conflict so far, the silliest is that we have any idea of how the Ukrainian campaign this year is going to unfold. It has now been approximately 2 weeks since the first significant western-equipped and trained Ukrainian forces showed up in the front lines (and suffered losses). What have we seen since. Well, the Ukrainians first suffered some losses in engaging with Russian front line forces—though after a few days they changed what they were doing and since then the losses of their most important equipment seems to have slowed significantly. Instead, Ukraine seems to have made the first of what will probably be a number of tactical adjustments this summer. They are now being careful about sending vehicles forward, and instead seem to be focussing on destroying Russian forces from the front lines back to the rear.
Historically all the countries involved in WWII had to carefully balance how many people they drafted versus how many they left home to engage in industrial production, sometimes doing things like taking away men and replacing them with woman who had to be trained up in things like riveting before they could be fully productive. Some countries, like Russia, had to cut much deeper than others like the US.
It seems the book is arguing that this was a mistake and that if they'd just gathered up whatever spare manpower was unemployed they'd have been better off? I'm skeptical.
Does the book argue that the US should have rounded up unemployed people for factory work, rather than lessening the draft? Im not getting that from the review.
This happened from time to time in WWI.
WWI was different. There was basically no possibility of bombing factories. The only way to affect production as such was to blockade overseas shipments.
Not sure what your point is, but at the war's peak over a third of factory workers in the US were women. The unemployment rate dropped to about 1 percent by 1944. Behind the lines, there were more jobs to do than people to do them. Not sure what the numbers of work-capable males in the US who weren't in the military, and who remained unemployed, but I doubt they could have picked up the slack if all the women workers were told to go home and keep house.
Employment of the critical 18-55 YO males was around 98%. Which means everyone except the truly handicapped were working. It was a pride thing. There was almost no social safety net in those days, and if you were begging for food, no one would feed you, they'd point you to the war effort.
During the war, if you were driving through the Sierra Nevada, the US Forest Service rangers would stop cars and 'press the males' into service fighting fires. In the same way, technically its legal for a trial court bailiff to press people right off the street to serve on a jury.
I think we didn't need the draft, we had volunteers who almost didn't make it in to fight the war. An elderly man I knew in the 90s told me that he went down and joined line at the Navy recruiting office on December 8th. He was called up, completed training, and served just one mission as a submariner when the war ended.
Reading this with Ukraine in mind makes me even more pessimistic. Russia’s industrial power is out of reach for Ukraine (the West makes that a condition of aid). Technically, a significant part of Ukraine’s industry is out of reach for Russia, since we’re making their shells, but we’re an unreliable partner.
The minor waggling of the front costs a lot of lives but can’t win the war.
Isnt it rather helpful, because the western economy is much much larger than the russian one?
The western economy is much much larger than Russia's, but not mobilized in any meaningful way. Neither Germany nor the US is likely to prioritize fighting Russia over maintaining social insurance schemes or green energy.
A lot of that gdp advantage is tied up in cheese exports and real estate rather than productive industry.
You don’t think production of cheese is productive?
I don’t think anything in the cheese production process can be easily turned into manufacturing weapons.
Maybe not, but it can be turned into money, which can be turned into weapons.
Weapons made by whom, exactly?
It would be very helpful if we *really* tried to defeat the Russians by increasing our production and getting serious about harming Russian military production (and logistics) by hitting targets in Russia. The one saving grace of the current strategy of "give Ukraine just enough stuff to slow down the Russian advance to a crawl" is that Russia is rapidly burning through its immense Soviet stockpiles. Those stockpiles will run low starting in mid-to-late 2025 (see: Covert Cabal videos). After that, the continued (pyrrhic) success of Putin's invasion will depend on whether he can boost Russia's domestic production enough to exceed the West's half-hearted efforts. (Hopefully, of course, he just says f**k it and makes a much more reasonable peace offer than he's willing to do at the moment)
I can’t see this war lasting beyond 2025. Ukraine is spent. I was hoping the political cost to Putin would be enough to force him to cry off or even topple him entirely. I don’t believe that anymore.
I suspect that the West (including the Biden Admin) isn't really committed to a Ukrainian victory/Russian defeat. Russia losing the war might destabilize the government, which would be a very dangerous situation with unpredictable risks for the West. I think they would be content with a forever war that permanently weakened the Russian military without actually toppling them. So--just enough aid to keep the war going, but not enough to bring it to an end.
This is just speculation on my part, though.
I agree. Rumor has it that Antony Blinken in particular has been extremely concerned about nuclear escalation for the whole war, leading to a very slow increase in things Ukraine is allowed to do, e.g. only after Russia re-invaded near Kharkiv this year did the U.S. allow Ukraine to hit Russian territory with U.S. weapons, and even then only to a depth of ~80 km or something. So they want Russia not to lose too badly lest Putin follow through on his vague nuclear threats, or lest Putin be toppled by less predictable people who could also do something... nuclear.
But this approach puts Ukraine in a very tough spot. A loss of aid could be much worse[1], but in the current situation a lot of Ukrainians die for want of an armored APC, or of permission to hit airfields that launch planes that vaporize Ukrainians with KAB-500 glide bombs, or of enough shells to hit available targets.
[1] Remember the ICC's initial indictment for kidnapping children en masse? Or Bucha or the devastation in Mariupol (and Russia's claims that Bucha didn't happen, that they don't fire on civilian targets, etc)? Or consider this Z-warrior's commentary on the need to kill 10% of Ukrainians on Russian State TV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5yvjyJdDW0). No, most Ukrainians really really REALLY don't want Russia on their land, and western weapons mostly stop them, if only barely.
Do you think the Russians do not know about Second Strike capabilities of the West?
The Russians certainly know about the second strike *capabilities* of the West. They probably also have strong opinions backed up by professional intelligence about the *will* of the West to engage in a second strike.
In your opinion, what sort of second strike do you actually think the West would actually implement, if Putin were to launch half a dozen thermonuclear missiles against logistical centers in Ukraine, while telling the West, "Note that we have carefully not attacked any targets in the United States, France, or England. And we won't, so long as none of you attack any targets in Russia. Otherwise your cities burn with ours"?
Would it change if Russia attacked logistics targets in Poland or Romania? Do you think the US is going to trade San Diego for Katowice?
How confident are you that Vladimir Putin shares your opinion and your certainty on this?
ETA: Obligatory Yes Minister Ref: https://youtu.be/QgkUVIj3KWY
Zelensky has openly complained about it a few times.
It's not an especially radical idea: anyone looking at the amount of military equipment Western countries sent compared to their available stocks can see that Ukraine's allies are doing the bare minimum to keep it alive.
For quick comparison, Al Jazeera claimed that NATO had spent roughly $80 billion on total aid in February 2023 (so after on year of war). NATO's 2022 budget was $1.18 *trillion*. That's 6% of NATO's yearly budget spent on defending Ukraine, a lot of it in the form of surplus equipment that would have been replaced anyway.
That's not nothing, but it's nowhere near "existential war" levels of expenditure. If I was Ukrainian, I would have some fair amount of resentment towards my supposed allies.
Ukraine isn’t in NATO, so NATO Allies doing the equivalent spending of 6% of the NATO budget to aid Ukraine is pretty generous.
I don’t really think Ukraine could govern those eastern provinces (without some nasty ethnic cleansing), and a push by Russia towards Kiev would cause escalation, so probably inevitable the war ends somewhere along the lines Kissinger predicted in 2022, no matter when it ends. Dragging this out just to set Russia back a few more years, when they weren’t much of a real rival to begin with, seems rather dubious. But I suppose the western leaders may have thought Russia was poised to become more important in the near future. Or everyone’s crooked and Ukraine is a grift, like some on the American right say. In most of those scenarios, a Ukrainian would certainly feel used and abused by the West, more so than had we pushed for a quick peace to my way of thinking, but national pride is important so maybe there was no great option.
NATO is spending 6% of the NATO budget to help Ukraine destroy the Russian Army, without any NATO blood being shed. Since more like 60% of the NATO budget is devoted to making sure NATO can destroy the Russian Army at need, and with much bloodshed, that's actually a bargain.
> more so than had we pushed for a quick peace to my way of thinking
Let's not mince words here: when you say "pushed for a quick peace", you mean "either strongarmed Ukraine into accepting massive loss of territory or refused so send them weapons and let Russia annex them".
This isn't a "both sides are making this worse" situation, despite how much nationalists like to pretend it is. Russia could have had peace at any point by pulling its troops out. Ukraine is fighting an existential war.
Do you think Biden/Harris is possibly capable of calibrating aid with that degree of precision? The problem with complex machinations is that they assume levels of competence rarely found in practice
There are some very smart people working in the field of military intelligence.
No it just makes the war last much longer.
Under existing conditions, neither side can materially affect production of war materiel for the other side. Nor can they affect shipping and distribution of the materiel to the front. Note that a lot of the battles have centered over just that.
The remaining means of changing the balance in a large way would be to kill or otherwise render unusable enough of the fighting population (mostly men) on one side or the other that the materiel goes unused for lack of operators.
Which is a problem for Ukraine because its population is 1/4 that of Russia.
More like 1/7, last official census was in 2001, and population was steadily declining (due to migration and low birth rates) since the collapse of the USSR
Source?
Both Russia and Ukraine have been losing population the past couple decades, but I don't believe either has lost 15% of their population and I'm skeptical that the decline has been significantly greater for Ukraine. The CIA World Factbook, which I am pretty sure does not just quote 20-year-old census reports, gives Russia's prewar population as 142,320,790 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220218220950/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/russia/) and Ukraine's as 43,745,640 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220220235402/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ukraine/)
That's 3.3:1 in Russia's favor, not 7:1.
Let me stand corrected - below I would argue that the total population ration is 1:5.
The 1:7 ratio is (my opinion) applies to 'fighting population / men ages 18-60' (and thus more relevant to this discussion; but harder prove with easily accessible sources).
So, the data:
- The most recent census in Russia was in 2020, and so 2023 Russian statistical yearbook (https://eng.rosstat.gov.ru/Publications/document/74811) is fairly accurate; it puts Russian population at 146.5 million, notably excluding Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
The CIA Factbook for Ukraine (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ukraine/#people-and-society) gives total population as 35.6 mullion - but that seems to include Crimea (footnote for the population pyramid), as well as Donetsk / Luhansk ('Major urban areas - Population' section).
Per Russian census, Crimea (+ Sevastopol) is about 2.4 million, we can estimate Donetsk + Luhansk (+ other Donbass towns) population at ~2 million, and subtract it from Ukraine total: 35.6 - 2.4 - 2 = 31.2 m
Then, there are a lot of refugees - Germany and Poland have about 1 m each, other EU countries combined probably have another million (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312584/ukrainian-refugees-by-country/). So seems fairly reasonable to subtract at least ~3 m (out of total ~4.5 refugees who went to countries other than Russia) from Ukrainian total: 31.2 - 3 = 28.2
Also we need to add Donetsk+Luhansk to Russian side: 146.5 + 2 = 148.5 m
Thus, the total population ratio (within the country / on the government-controlled territory) is 1 : 5.2
As to why I think (but can't prove) that 'fighting age' population ratios are closer to 1:7:
1) war losses - probably, both Ukraine and Russia lost ~0.7m men each (killed and severely wounded), which percentage-wise affects Ukraine more
2) a lot of Ukrainians were semi-permanently/seasonally working (sometimes, illegally) in the EU, with their families living in Ukraine - so the population (and men population in particular) probably was over-estimated in the first place
Worth noting not all Western countries have given that same set of conditions - some say Ukraine can do whatever it wants with their weapons/equipment - and the US has already relaxed their guidelines somewhat.
A lot of Russia's drones and missiles are actually made in Iran, which is out of reach for Ukraine but not the US, if it chooses.
No, they are not. Russia bought a certain type of drone (Shaheed) earlier in the war, then improved the design and started producing the more advanced versions (Geran) domestically.
FWIW I did a blog post about this: https://pontifex.substack.com/p/scottish-defence-policy-4-drones
https://m.jpost.com/international/article-814085
Or the West could say to Iran "instead of selling to Russia, sell them to us, we'll pay 20% more". This not only reduces Russian supplies but increased Ukrainian supplies at the same time.
This just gives Iran money it can use to build more factories. In general giving your enemies money to make missiles is a bad idea.
"This just gives Iran money it can use to build more factories" -- this is not true, as "just" implies that it's the only effect it has. Clearly it has other effects too, such as reducing the supply of weapons to Russia and increasing it to Ukraine.
" In general giving your enemies money to make missiles is a bad idea."
Russia is *right now* invading a European country. The last time Iran did that was over 2400 years ago. I don't see Iran as an enemy of Europe, certainly not as much as Russia is. I see it as a country currently loosely aligned with Russia and China but which could possibly be persuaded to act differently. That's why it was non-optimal when Trump tore up the Iran unclear deal.
You think the country that calls America "the great Satan", bombs American troops across the world, bombs American allies and (via proxies) western container ships in the red sea, and has ceremonial government "death to America" chants isn't an enemy? Whut
I believe I was being clear when I used the phrase "enemy of Europe". America isn't Europe.
If you look at the history of the Iran-US conflict, they have every bit as much reason to think that we are unapproachable and hostile as vice-versa. It's so pathetic to see people on this supposedly rationalist adjacent blog swallow propaganda wholesale.
>Russia is *right now* invading a European country.
Iran attacked Israel with drones in April and gearing up for the real deal right now. Yes, here in Europe Ukraine seems more important than Israel, but I think seen from the US it is not so.
...and Hitler could have said to Roosevelt "Don't ship stuff to the Brits. We'll pay more for it."
No, I don't think that would work. Some elements in the West are fine with Iran having more money, but a lot aren't. I mean, why have sanctions against Iran if you're just going to give them money instead?
Iran and Russia are very old allies, going back before WWII.
In fact they were such good friends the Soviets parked their army in Iran to make sure they had access to allied lend-lease goods, killing hundreds of Iranians in the process. Then they trained and supplied Kurdish and Azerbaijanian separatists who killed several thousand more Iranians. Only after the Allies applied significant political pressure did the Soviets pull out.
Really? When's the last time they fought on the same side in a war, then?
google it ... my college prof who grew up in a Siberian Gulag when released to fight against the west, was taken to Iran where the Soviets planned to assemble an army. He promptly defected to the west.
The West would have to basically accept the existence of the Islamic Republican, which it has never done before. Why would they turn now?
The Islamic Republic of Iran exists, and the west has not tried to overthrow it by force, thus accepting its existence.
Such total BS. Read a single book on the history of Iran in the 20th century and get back to me. If you don't know about a topic, you shouldn't just repeat the line you've been told over and over.
Heh, US act against Iran, that's a good one. The State Department has been an Iranian intelligence op since Obama was in the White House.
We can dream of an America where the state department actually acts against America's enemies.
If you got such America, in 10 years you'd be ranting about how invading Iran was a globalist neocon dream, *real* conservatives have always been isolationists, "just asking questions" on whether pride parades is Teheran was worth killing so many country boys, talk about globohomo etc.
The state dept mostly acts on the premise that you can't just fight your way to your desired outcome, bc such is reality, and when people like you chose to ignore it, it went so badly you had to rewrite history and pretend it was never your idea
I was thinking the same thing.
The Ukraine-Russia war looks more like WW1. Both parties can feed new armies into the meat grinder forever. Since none are able to take out the other's production of new war material, or the delivery systems (roads and rail mainly).
With the important difference from WW1 that none of the antagonists has the ability to starve the population on the other side into submission, either.
> Both parties can feed new armies into the meat grinder forever.
Both parties have a below-replacement fertility rate (even if we don't count the losses in war), so they can't.
Estimates I've seen posit that at the current rate of attrition, Russia will run out of even Soviet-era tanks within two years.
The war will not last forever simply because the belligerents don't have the resources to keep it up. Ukraine can compensate by leaning on foreign donations (and so far western powers have managed to prop it up with mostly spare equipment), Russia has no such luck.
What Russia has in excess is *manpower*, but once they run out of air defense systems that will only mean more meat for the meat grinder.
Crazy as it sounds, trends would have Russians running out of men first.
Those “trends” sounding suspiciously similar to old Wehrmacht propaganda about loss ratios.
Only in the sense that Putin considers mobilization politically sensitive and so is relying mostly on "volunteers" (who are willing to fight because they're poor, and are paid $2000/month plus bonuses -- so concepts akin to Bryan Caplan's "make desertion fast" may still be relevant even today). If you're trusting Ukraine's numbers for Russian casualties―don't. This video provides good casualty estimates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeB4OLF14lw
(Edit: hopefully Putin is either correct about mobilization destabilizing Russia, or believes it strongly enough to not do very much of it and to stop the war in the next year or two. If Putin does destabilize Russia via mobilization though, that could be a major future headache, e.g. due to nukes falling into the hands of random Russian rebels)
Edit 2: another video on casualties & stuff just dropped on a different channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bnuUy71Qik
Yes, agreed. Though it might be wishful thinking, I also wonder how many if any Russian nukes are operational, given Russia's problems with maintenance and corruption.
I do wonder how much they would have to worry about mobilization being the occasion for a coup.
Believing that requires believing that the side with a huge overmatch in artillery, both by barrel count and shell production, is taking ~3x as many casualties. Artillery has been the single biggest cause of casualties in modern war, and the Ukraine war is much more stationary and advantageous to artillery bombardment than most modern wars. By the same token, if you believe Russian sources, they are inflicting something along the lines of 6-10:1 casualty ratios, which would mean something like ~1 million dead Ukrainians. The point being you shouldn't believe official estimates from either side, especially when they are contradicted by well known evidence.
NATO artillery has longer range and higher precision than Russian artillery.
This is (part of) why Russia has been shelling cities that hard: they don't have the accuracy to hit a single target reliably, so they need saturation bombing to reliably destroy enemy positions.
By contrast, NATO 155mm canons often fire rounds which deploy guided submunitions (eg BONUS shells) which can accurately hit small targets at long distances.
The artillery gap does exist (especially during the period where Ukraine suffered from a shell shortage), but the accuracy difference makes up for it.
As for the casualty ratios, I don't know what to tell you. There have been extensive OSINT reviews on the subject. Photos of blown up tanks on Twitter don't leave much to interpretation. Neither do filed inheritance claims on deceased Russian soldiers.
According to OSINT loss ratios, Ukraine was inflicting massive disproportionate casualties while defending in Bakhmut. But then it needed to carry out the 2023 summer offensive because this gave it an opportunity to inflict disproportionate casualties on the Russians. But then it made more sense to be on the defensive because Ukraine was inflicting massive, disproportionate casualties defending in the Donbass. But actually they needed to attack near Kursk because that let them inflict way more casualties than in Adviika.
Have you looked at Russian-collected data on Ukrainian losses? And Ukrainian claims for inheritance / petitions to award medals posthumously (which incidentally makes family eligible for higher payout)?
Also note that Ukraine has a strictly enforced ban on publishing anything that can help the enemy (including any losses), and that Twitter/Facebook are not easy to access from Russia (so for Russian drone footage you need to go to Telegram / subscribe to the right channels there).
My personal impression is that losses are roughly 1:1, with Ukraine having less (but somewhat better) artillery and more drones, and Russia having cruise/ballistic missiles that can strike anywhere in Ukraine, plus JDAMs close to front lines...
This is misleading for several reasons. Russia is obviously using up old stockpiles(why wouldn't you?), but they are also steadily increasing production of new tanks. They are already producing huge numbers, and so by the time the old soviet stockpiles run out, they are already meeting the demands with new production. Secondly, the demand is highly flexible. Tanks are useful, but not as essential as things like drones and artillery. Russia has a ton of tanks, so it's happy to spend them generously. They'd rather lose tanks than men. If tanks became scarce, a more conservative use of tanks on the frontline would not be disasterous.
This is all assuming that the war will last for years, which I highly doubt. The Kursk offensive is the ukrainian battle of the bulge. Unless something massive happens, the ukrainians are pretty much done.
"They are already producing huge numbers, and so by the time the old soviet stockpiles run out, they are already meeting the demands with new production"
Citation very much needed. Everything I've seen, says that Russian tank production is in the low to mid *tens* per year. E.g. https://www.iiss.org/en/online-analysis/military-balance/2024/06/russian-t-90m-production-less-than-meets-the-eye/
Meanwhile, photographically confirmed Russian tank losses now stand at 3,309. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
If you think those sources you are providing are credible, then I'm not sure there is really any point in talking to you. I will make one attempt though.
If we stick to western propaganda, I have seen western propaganda ridiculing Russia for only producing 250 new and 600 refurbished tanks per year in 2022. These were not Russian numbers, they were western propaganda, and the lowest estimates I can remember seeing. Even assuming that was accurate, they have since opened new production lines and are working on increasing production further. Tens of tanks a year is like a stupid joke.
If you look at whatever source of losses you want, disregard the numbers, but look at the proportions. What you are seeing is that more and more of the tanks lost are new T-90M. So Russia is still throwing tanks around like candy, unlike the Ukrainians who rarely use them, but they are increasingly of new production. This should tell you all you need to know.
As to the exact number of losses, it's hard to know for sure, but keep in mind that you can take a picture of a banana and send it to oryx, and they will count it as a russian tank lost, not just once, but multiple times.
The Ukrainians make sure to publish videos of any and all destruction of Russian material they have video of. Furthermore, most destruction is done by FPV drones, and so they do have footage of most if not all. Btw, it often requires multiple FPV drones to destroy a tank, and they often publish multiple videos of the same tank. Many tanks that are seemingly destroyed are later recovered and repaired. Anyway, judging from this footage, it seems the Russians lose a few tanks a week. They almost certainly lost at a higher rate early in the war, when Ukraine had more weapons left, such as javelins.
All things considered, it seems highly likely that the losses are proportional to production, which would fit well with the Russian strategy of waging a long term, limited, war of attrition.
As a more neutral party, I have to say links were provided, and the pages don't seem to be grossly wrong in any way I can see. Perhaps it is obvious to those more familiar with them, but I don't know that Oryx or IISS have reputations which one should take into account, such as tabloid sites. Are they tabloids?
On the other hand, you're saying, un-cited, that Russia is producing 250 new tanks per year. Could you cite something that has a different number?
It makes sense, of course, for Russia to use its least useful tanks first, if they will do the job, so you have more useful types in reserve.
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/11/02/the-barren-barrels-en
Here is the source for the 250 + 600 claim. Note that I do not believe this to be accurate even for 2022, certainly not in 2024, but as you can see from the article, this is a very anti-Russian article. If even these kind of articles claim these numbers, then suggesting anything lower is pretty ridiculous.
Oryx is purportedly keeping track of losses, but they are explicitly anti-Russian. They famously require very little evidence to count something as a Russian loss.
Lostarmour is the Russian equivalent, not sure how accurate they are.
The IISS page you linked states the annual Russian production of new tanks is between 250-350, depending on how many are refurbished from stocks that can't be verified by satellite imagery. Top of the line T90Ms are not the only tank that exists in the Russian arsenal. Pre-war figures show Uralvagonzavod MBT production at 1,291 units from 2007-2014, or ~160 per year. So I think roughly doubling that for war time production is reasonable.
Every reliable source I've looked at also says that Russia's production of new armored vehicles is far lower than their loss rates in Ukraine. Once Russia runs out of old Soviet era tanks, they won't be able to launch any more major ground offensives, so militarily, it makes sense to prolong the Ukraine War because the tide could turn in 1 - 2 years.
Putin is very reluctant to use conscripts in his war. He's no doubt aware of what happened to a previous Russian leader 3 years into an unpopular war in 1917.
Russia is backed by Chinese production, which outstrips anything the West has. They aren't running out of anything, the copium here is pathetic.
China has refused to sell Russia weapons for use in Ukraine.
But it still sells them weapons, and then what…you think that they check and make sure that they aren't used in Ukraine?
Read this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/60571253
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2024/05/behind-the-scenes-chinas-increasing-role-in-russias-defense-industry?lang=en
Ok, if you read between the lines, of both articles, it's pretty clear that China is succeeding in getting the Russians what they need and that the Russians are succeeding in bypassing Western sanctions. If they aren't directly supplying weapons for the war to Russia (which is debatable), they are helping them even more by helping to build a Chinese-backed Defense industry inside Russia. The only way Western sanctions could stop this would be if the US elites were willing to let the shelves in Walmart go empty (which they are not). This is actually pretty bad for the West because it will make separating Russia and China impossible in the future.
The idea that trade sanctions could ever do much harm to determined adversaries with the resources of Russia and China is so obviously wrong on its face. It's all just filling a need for Western leaders to look like they're doing something even if nothing they do can meaningfully affect Russia's ability to supply itself. Sanctions can hurt the economy and state capabilities of countries like Cuba and Venezuela. They are a mere annoyance, if that, to countries that have the natural resources of Russia and are backed by China, which accounts for 35% of the world's industrial production.
I think you're overestimating Russia's production capabilities right now. Russia is heavily reliant on North Korea for shells, China for microelectronics, and Iran for drones. Their industrial power is in shambles due to neglect, corruption, and no access to Western talent and capital to fix it thanks to the sanctions. There is no question Russia has much more people and Soviet equipment, but their economic dysfunction is quite apparent.
This is pure delusion, western propaganda of the worst sort. China, yes, everyone is dependant on china, especially the US. This is only a problem in so far as your relationship with China is poor, or your supply lines to China are vulnerable.
North Korea? Russia bought some artillery shells. Definetly useful, yes, but not vital.
Iran and Turkey, no. They bought a few Iranian drones early on. That's about it. They are sending weapons to Iran now, not recieving them.
Overall, Russian millitary production is far superior in efficiency to the western one. Look at the recent example of the 52 000 dollar thrash bin. The MIC is made to suck money out of governments and transfer it to shareholders. They produce ridiculously expensive boondoggles in tiny amounts. This is why NATO is out of artillery shells and unable to produce them in sufficient quantities.
"and Iran and Turkey for drones" -- which drones is Turkey supplying Russia with?
That was a dumb mistake, Turkey is only supplying Ukraine with drones. I updated the post.
Strongly disagree. The West can --- and has --- limited Russia's production. Not with bombs, but with sanctions.
The sanctions are a minor incovenience at worst. In many ways, it has helped improve things in Russia. The 2014 sanctions were more of a problem, then, but now sanctions are a non-issue for the millitary.
Wait your argument is that sanctions have been GOOD for Russia?
Not a net good, no. But there has been positive effects as well as negative. Overall, the 2022 sanctions have not had a very significant effect, in part because the 2014 sanctions warned and helped prepare and train Russia in how to deal with them. Ultimately, Russia has every natural resource there is, as well as a large, well educated work force. There is very little they can't make themselves, and they share a land border with China. Sanctions are never going to break them, certainly not while non-NATO countries keep trading as usual.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2024/01/14/7437218/
Apparently, Russia can't produce semiconductor chips, and next year they may be able to produce chips equivalent to those we made in 1996. This seems like a significant thing they can't make themselves.
It's true that they can't produce the state of the art chips used in the newest phones and PCs. Afaik, they are only produced a couple of places in the world. These kind of chips are irrelevant to the war. They do produce the kind of chips used in their weapons though. Additionally, so does China.
"and next year they may be able to produce chips equivalent to those we made in 1996."
Which is plenty good enough for military hardware, using their GLONASS system, that is designed to explode or get destroyed anyway.
Sanctions haven't even stopped them from being an energy exporter. To *Europe*, even, as well as the rest of the world.
Embedded in Sanctions is the assumption that neoliberal economic ideas regarding free trade are correct. If they aren't, then yes, sanctioning a country like Russia, which contains every conceivable resources within its own borders doesn't do much to break their ability to produce what they think it important to produce.
Also, if China, which makes pretty much...let me check...everything at a lower cost than most others is still willing to trade with you, then what does it matter anyway?
Look up the ball bearing crisis that is crippling Russian railroads. They have shit for roads, so that is massively important.
Well, whatever truth there might be to it, it certainly isn't enough of a crisis to stop them from being very effective on the frontline. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and so on. If there were so many troubles with production and transport, you would think it would have an effect on the battlefield. I guess you can argue that it is having an affect, and that they would would defeat the Ukrainians even quicker if it didn't have.
I lean towards most of these supposed issues being vastly exaggerated by wishful thinking from western propagandists.
Set aside the unreliability of the West for a moment. If the industrial capacity of both sides is out of reach, then the question is which threshold is reached first: (1) Russia killing so many Ukrainian soldiers that Ukraine literally can’t fight anymore, or (2) Ukraine killing so many Russian soldiers that Russia folds for political reasons. I would think (2) happens quicker than (1) if industrial capacity is out of reach.
Of course, the West IS unreliable, so the real question is whether Russia can outlast Western support before it must fold for political reasons. A lot of that turns on the next US election (IMO) and not on any other consideration.
Huh? The question is which side suffers enough manpower losses that it loses the will to fight any more. Why would Russia politically collapse before Ukraine, a country that has 1/3rd the fighting age male population? Western support is also largely secondary to this, because the West is not supplying Ukraine with the most critical resource in a war of attrition, manpower.
“Folding for political reasons” doesn’t require outright collapse. Compare with the Vietnam War - the US’s position was still viable when it exited, but political pressure at home led it to fold earlier than its position in the war dictated.
Ukraine’s threshold for losing the will to fight is necessarily much higher than Russia’s, because the war is an existential risk for Ukraine and mere empire building for Russia. Russia’s large manpower advantage counteracts this, but only so far.
The Russian people are behind Putin to a large extent and many of them consider this fight existential. The US government couldn't control its own press in Vietnam (they've gotten better since) the way Russia can today.
The west is not able to supply a number of important systems regardless of willingness. Stocks have been depleted, and production is designed for peacetime, with very low volumes. The US is out of effective, low investment methods of supporting Ukraine. They either have to do some very serious escalation, or give up.
Ukrainians are now losing 5 men for every Russian, and "recruiting" is so unpopular that recruiters are attacked and harassed by civilians, and hundreds of military veichles are being burned by them. While Russian attitudes towards the war have been somewhat tepid so far, the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk is really helping bolster Russian support for the war. There is little chance of Ukraine outlasting Russia in any way that matters.
"Ukrainians are now losing 5 men for every Russian"
This is unbelievable, in a literal sense - not to be believed. Got a source for this outrageous statistic?
I have no idea why you would think this unreasonable, unless you are ideologically motivated and bought into the frankly racist idea of the slavic untermensch mindlessly throwing themselves into the meat grinder in endless meatwaves or whatever you call it.
As for evidence, well, very roughly 5:1 seems to be where a number of different sources and approaches converge, although it should be said that there are large error bars, and obviously it also varies somewhat over time.
The best evidence is probably from sources that study things like the names on war memorials, mentions in social media, graves in graveyards, data from hospitals etc. This alone would be a little weak perhaps, but it matches well with numbers of dead bodies exchanged, proportions of POWs on each side etc, numbers of casualties in various units given by ukrainians in interviews, official Ukrainian numbers given combined with the fact that about 9 in 10 are listed as MIA instead of KIA, and someone who did the math on the budget for payment to wounded and dead soldiers in Ukraine. It also what you would expect given the relative disparity in firepower, with the Russians having at least a 5 to 1 advantage in artillery and drones, which together produce the large majority of casualties. Add to this the well known difficulties of the Ukrainians in evacuating wounded from the frontline.
Finally, all this lines up with a statement from Putin in a recent interview. Now I know you are not going to take his word for it, many people genuinely seem to think that everything said in Russia is a lie, but he actually has a pretty good record of being truthful in direct statements of facts like this. I would perhaps not place too much emphasis on it alone, but in this case everything adds up.
I don't have the time to give you links for everything, but here is a discussion of some of it: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/bombshell-report-claims-russian-casualties
Oh, ok. No further questions.
If it would have been 1:1 loss ratio, what would you think of the rest of the argument?
Which part? Putin being honest? "They're not there" (Russian troops in Ukraine in 2014), "We're not going to invade, what garbage is that" - that Putin? "Western propaganda", "racism" as the first "argument" he goes for?
There's no argument there, just a gish gallop of shit, which is typical for a pro-Russian troll. They are not here to have a reasoned back-and-forth with you, they are here to keep throwing shit at the wall until everything is covered in it and you no longer know where up or down is. The only way to win is not to play.
"the West makes that a condition of aid" -- Britain doesn't. Britain is quite happy fro Ukraine to fire Storm Shadow missiles into Russia, for example.
The burn rate of Russian AFVs is an order of magnitude higher than their current production capacity though. Or their estimated 2025 production capacity.
Especially tanks are nowhere near as dominant or indestructible on the battlefield as they were in WW2. They are vastly more vulnerable now.
A high burn rate of tanks ultimately means that a high tempo offensive would simply have to be paused until more tanks are built up. Few commentators consider it this way and assume a temporary tank shortage would mean an immediate end to the war.
At current production rates, rebuilding even half of their tank losses would take Russia about thirty years. If a "temporary" tank shortage results in an immediate thirty-year pause in the war, I think Ukraine would count that as a win.
Going by OSINT predictions Russia has already lost the war three times from their “massive losses”.
> A high burn rate of tanks ultimately means that a high tempo offensive would simply have to be paused until more tanks are built up.
Unless Ukraine forces the tempo to stay up. The Kursk offensive is a good example of a maneuver that *imposes* a high-tempo response from Russian forces.
Nothing from the Ukrainian side suggests they were benefiting from enduring high tempo operations either, given their material and manpower constraints.
But Ru is highly dependent on RRs. Notice that Ukraine has systematically been attacking transport and communication infrastructure in western Ru. Also, Ru has focused on extractive technologies. They don't make their own machine tools. And they don't have the capabilities to manufacture critical items like ball bearings. They were getting machine tools and ball bearings from Europe, especially Germany, until the embargo took effect. They're still getting machine tools through a chain of cutout countries and companies, but their manufacturing capacity can't keep up with their war needs (witness them bringing 1950s-era tanks out of mothballs to push into the meat grinder).
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-railway-collapse-sanctions-ukraine-war-1935049