Ukraine Predictions

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , was written by for on January 1, 2015

Reprinted from Facebook (2017/12/31):

Geopolitically, 2015 will be crunch time for the Poroshenko regime. Short of massive Western support, a fiscal crisis is virtually certain.

How will Poroshenko deal with it? A new assault against Novorossiya can’t be excluded; military spending is rising to 5% of GDP. That’s higher than any industrialized nation bar Israel. Totally mad for semi-bankrupt country like Ukraine, unless it’s done for a specific, concrete purpose in mind. (The argument that it’sjust for defense against Russia is bogus. The DNR/LNR have no real offensive capability. The decision against invading Ukraine by Russia proper was taken back in April 2014 and since then the conditions for it have vastly deteriorated).

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Why Asia Won’t Sanction Russia for MH17

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , was written by for on August 2, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15):

This map is instructive:

Relations with China and India are excellent. China is fast becoming a semi-ally. Korea relations are fine. Relations with Japan are frosty, but even they are less enthusiastic about serious sanctions than the West. The main reason for this is Japan’s not unfounded fear that Russia will get too close to China – a fear that the US, half a world away, isn’t obligated to share.

Singapore couldn’t care less for democratist claptrap and will be quite happy to steal London’s custom.

If the ban on duel-use technology exports is to be rigorously enforced, the main sources of advanced tech transfer (needed for modernization) will become China, possibly Korea, and various entrepots like Singapore and Hong Kong via front companies.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/why-asia-wont-sanction-russia-for-mh17/

Was MH17 Terrorism?

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on July 20, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15):

Let’s say that the SBU recordings are genuine and the NAF was directly responsible for shooting down MH77 on the mistaken impression that it was a (valid) military target. Should this then be classed as terrorism? Would it invoke NATO’s Article 5, as some of the most heated rhetoric is suggesting?

(See http://www.spitsnieuws.nl/…/nederland-en-vs-bereiden-invasi…)

Well, I suppose you *can*. But then for consistency’s sake you would also have to label the US and Ukraine (ironically enough) as terrorist states themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 – US tried to avoid responsibility, never apologized to Iran. Eventually paid up some blood money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812 – Ukraine tried to avoid responsibility, until the Russian investigative team came up with definitive proof that they did it. Never apologized, though did eventually pony up blood money.

If you do not support declaring the US and Ukraine to be terrorist states on this basis, with all the consequences thereof – massive sanctions, pariah status, etc. – then you have no ground to do so either for the DNR or Russia. However, if it is found that they were responsible – either the DNR directly, or Russia for supplying the Buk in question – then it would be appropriate to expect them to pay off the relatives. If that is the official finding, then I would strongly support it myself.

Of course, this would not apply if the DNR shot down MH77 on purpose. However, that possibility is disproved by the junta’s purported evidence itself.

The Fall of Slavyansk

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , was written by for on July 6, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15):

1) The fall of Slavyansk is mainly a political problem, not a military one. In military terms, it is, if anything, a success, with Strelkov managing to successfully exfiltrate the great bulk of his forces from encirclement.

2) Donetsk has almost ten times the population of (pre-war) Slavyansk. Having aquired the great bulk of its population during the 1930-1990 period, it is like most Soviet cities of this profile a veritable warren of massive concrete blocks. A further defensive “bonus” is that its population has dropped by almost 20% from its 1992 peak, so I assume this means it will be relatively easy to locate abandoned apartments to serve as bases, lookout stations, etc. The experience of Grozny shows the damage that even a pretty small band of motivated fighters with Kalashnikovs and RPGs can inflict on a poorly trained conscript force wading into a concrete metropolis, even if they have plentiful access to artillery and heavy armor. Look at the problems even the world’s most advanced COIN force, the US Army, had in Baghdad and Fallujah. Donetsk will not be an easy nut to crack; any attempt to do so will produce more casualties amongst the Ukrainian Army than the NAF (whereas the current ratio is about 2:3), and massive casualties amongst Donetsk civilians caught in the bombardments.

3) Cynical as it is, I strongly suspect that this is precisely the plan: To see thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of civilians die, before mounting a humanitarian intervention that a) the West will find much more difficult to credibly condemn than would be the case if it were to be carried out now; b) will estrange even more future Novorossiyans from Kiev; and c) eat up a large chunk of Ukrainian armor and whatever still remains of its air force in the interim.

Alternatively, Poroshenko might realize this is a losing proposition, and return to the negotiating table… If the Maidan lets him (which it probably won’t).

4) Unlike certain more hot-blooded pro-Russian analysts, and Maidanists who are rushing to celebrate way too soon, I still see no credible argument that Putin has ditched the Donbass resistance. To the contrary, the lack of *direct* intervention is more likely just the product of a series of cold calculations that show it more likely to be effective in a few months than today, when: a) The Ukrainian Army has become weaker and more demoralized; b) Photos of bisected, bloodied, and burnt corpses have been filling the Russian and international airwaves for a few months; c) The resolve of the West and its unity are weaker; d) The Russian economy is more prepared for any sanctions that are forthcoming; and e) Austerity is biting Ukraine hard, and (gas-less) winter is coming. Too bad that it is the residents of Donetsk who will be playing the blood price for this.

On Ukraine/Syria

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on June 6, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/14):

It struck me a while ago that what Russia is doing so far as the Ukrainian borders in the east are concerned is essentially the same as what Turkey and Jordan are doing in relation to Syria’s borders.

Both Turkey and Jordan keep the borders open, allowing jihadists from across the world and arms (which in today’s globalized world must at some level have the blessing of the US) to keep flowing into Syria to maintain the insurgency against Assad.

Russia likewise allows imports of arms as well as pro-Russian volunteers across the ex-USSR into Eastern Ukraine.

Yet the US and indeed the entire West turns a blind eye to (and indeed quietly supports) the former, while lambasting Russia for the latter, threatening it with sanctions, and some even going so far as to support labeling it as a state sponsor of terrorism. No matter that the Donbass resistance has not – unlike the West’s/Saudi’s pet Islamists, which have wiped several Alawite and Christian villages off the map – committed any widescale atrocities against the civilian populations.

The Donbass Referendum

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on May 11, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/14):

Preliminary reports turnout is going to be high in Donetsk and Lugansk, with most people voting Yes to independence (though I’ve seen photos with a few No’s). I expected this (https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/465366857189310465) and it seems to have turned out correctly.

Independence enjoyed 33% support in Donetsk and 25% support in Lugansk in opinion polls taken before the putsch. After the Odessa massacre, and the punitive expedition to Mariupol, Kiev has only itself to blame for losing the Donbass.

The question now is whether it will pause, think, and reconsider – or try to make Kharkov, Odessa, and even Dnepropetrovsk defect too.

Russia’s Game Plan in Donbass

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on April 14, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/14):

Quick piece I scribbled off for RIA:

First off, an elementary observation: Donbass is not Crimea.

Crimea features prominently in Russia’s historical memory, having undergone two epic sieges over two centuries. It was only given over to Ukraine as a pure formality, to mark 300 years since the Treaty of Pereyaslav that was to usher in Russo-Ukrainian unity, and the overwhelming majority of Crimeans have wanted back ever since Ukraine became an independent state. It hosted Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and Ukraine hadn’t shied from using it as a lever to extract more favorable gas terms from Russia. Finally, though it needs major investments to lift it up to the level of neighboring Krasnodar, once that happens it can be reasonably expected that it will stop being a net drain on the budget and will become the major tourism center for all Russia that it was during the Soviet era.

Donbass has no such significance in the Russian cultural imagination – one doubts that a majority of Russians can find Lugansk, let alone Sloviansk, on a map. It was always part of Ukraine, or to be more precise, Novorossiya – though separatism is not entirely foreign to it (recall the short-lived Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic). Though it is nominally rich, the coal mines – the mainstay of Donetsk’s economy – are antiquated, and unlikely to survive far into the future; and in any case, they are not much use shorn from the neighboring industrial powerhouses of Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Poltava, where separatist sentiment is much more subdued relative to the Donbass. Though the latter provinces might support a federal Ukraine, they will almost certainly be very much against joining Russia outright. And Russia itself doesn’t need the Donbass, especially by itself.

Now, bearing this in mind, I will draw two conclusions:

1) Any help or coordination that Russia provides to the separatist militias in Donbass and other cities in the east isn’t a prelude any unification, as in Crimea, but is meant to exert pressure on Kiev to agree to wide-ranging federalization. Ukraine was “lost” to the Eurasian Union when the Maidan overthrew Yanukovych in their coup. The plan now is to win at least half of it back.

2) Short of truly massive bloodletting on the part of the Kiev regime – and I do not think it will come to that, though I have learned not to be surprised to the downside by those folks – the Russian Army will NOT intervene. The ball will be in Kiev’s court. It can either leave the separatists in control, and they will proceed to carry out referendums that Russia could then exploit to cajole Kiev into federalization. Or it will – inevitably, violently – try to wipe out the “terrorists,” which will totally alienate eastern populations that are already very much unhappy with it. Given the mass defections to the separatist cause amongst the eastern siloviki, and the fact that Kiev can only truly rely upon Western Ukrainian units, the chances of success are low. If it were to pursue this route, it may well truly get a civil war on its hands, as historical Novorossiya rises up against the regime.

What If?: Ukraine vs. Russia

This about Geopolitics, tagged , , , , was written by for on March 9, 2014

Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/14):

I’m almost certain it won’t happen, but it’s always fun to consider these what-if military scenarios.

Namely, Ukraine vs. Russia.

In terms of numbers, it will be about 100K vs 150K – Russia has more, of course – 300K in the ground forces – but can only devote a certain percentage of its forces to one theater (so divide by two for air and armor too). Ukraine will of course try to call up reservists, but their military worth is negligible and in any case the reported response rate (1.5% from the Orange provinces) is minimal anyway. Most of Russia’s soldiers here will be kontraktniki; most of Ukraine’s soldiers are its last crop of conscripts, halfway through their one year draft, and a sprinkling of professionals.

As many people have pointed out, the loyalties of these troops – especially in the east – are questionable. Even a few cases of desertion can wreck morale across the board.

For all intents and purposes Ukraine now has no navy.

It has 120 modern fighters, but of these, only 40 can be classed as active. Russia has 500, of which almost all are active. Due to budget problems, Ukrainian pilots have enjoyed fewer flight hours than Russian ones, and as such will also be less experienced. Russia will have total air superiority after the first few days.

Tanks are the one area in which Ukraine isn’t totally outmatched. Ukraine has around 350 of what can be considered active, modern MBT’s. Russia has 1,300, plus a further 1,500 upgraded T-72’s. Ukraine also has many T-72’s, but they are all rusting away in storage and will be unusuable. It does have 700 active upgraded T-64’s, yet even upgraded, they are still rather obsolete.

The critical big unknown is Ukraine’s air defense. If it holds its own, then Ukrainian and Russian armor can clash on equal ground, at least for some time. Georgia’s air defense, likewise Soviet legacy, wracked up an impressive (for their small scope) set of kills in 2008. A lot will depend on whether the Russians have managed to draw lessons from that episode. If however it turns out to be ineffective, then Ukraine’s armor will consist of smoking hulks of metal within two weeks, and Russia’s entrance into Kiev within the month.

I am assuming no NATO intervention, which is politically very unlikely even in this extreme case. In any case, it will take months to effect the necessary buildup, by which time – even in the best case scenario for Ukraine – the campaign will have been long over.

#warnerd #armchairgeneral