The war in Ukraine is the strangest war history has ever seen. A much, much larger opponent with shockingly incompetent leadership and preparation invades a smaller country that has been aggressively preparing for exactly this outcome, armed with the support of many of the world’s strongest economic and military suppliers’ middle tier gear and top tier intelligence.
Indeed. And Ukraine doing absolutely amazing propaganda work to pull the entire developed world firmly onto its side. I don't mean to take anything away from the suffering Ukraine is experiencing, or the justness of its cause. I mean, they're presenting all that in an incredibly persuasive way, across essentially all media.
For example, early on in the invasion, we saw pictures of new highway signs, where the directions to different cities had been replaced with (in Russian), "Fuck Off", "Also Fuck Off", and "Fuck Off Back to Russia." Or, when a brewery switched to creating Molotov cocktails, they had already printed labels, with fun graphic design, an the title "Putin is a dickhead." That wasn't spontaneous. They had an entire portfolio of stuff like that, which they'd been planning for years.
Tsar Nicholas starts an imperial war of aggression with Japan to obtain a warm-water port, while the Japanese Navy (supplied with last-generation ships from the British Navy) surprises the world and proves to be able to fight the Russians on the world stage.
Turns out that those old British ships were still pretty good, and the Japanese have learned how to use Western guns and tactics by the early 1900s (despite being a Samurai/Sword society just 40 years prior).
What is so weird about that? Proxy wars have been a thing since the Roman empire. It's just that Russia forgot to do it by proxy this time, but NATO certainly seems to be regarding it as such.
Seems like a gross exaggeration. Larger RU experiencing some difficulties annexing one her smaller neighbours with foreign support is history rhyming, down to both sides thoroughly entrenched in their own propaganda. This is regression towards mean in terms of typicalness of peer war. Note scale, paper deals with insurgencies.
I'm really curious if Ukraines years of preparation was a big factor in Russia's hesitation to use the airforce (besides helicopters) in the initial days of the war.
Yeah, thanks for amending this 1975 date. It made it all the more
interesting. Still only half way through but this is a great analysis
by Andrew Mack.
So, it leans heavily on Vietnam for its arguments as it was written
before Afghanistan (a fail for the Russians and Allies).
What I'm getting is a combination of two factors in conventional
asymmetrical conflict;
1) For the superior force, not winning is basically losing
2) There's a sort of "Overton window" for winning, after which you
lose at home, politically.
Vietnam played out at home via television and newspapers. The US tried
to avoid that mistake during Iraq-I by massively managing the news
media and images. Iraq-I happened on CNN and was carefully scripted.
Even now we're only just getting documentary accounts of how it really
went over there, things that surprise even those who served.
Putin is trying that. But in the internet age I think it's failing.
Someone who read the PDF and didn't just use the headline as a jumping off point to talk about Russia!
Agreed, it seems to be talking about terrorism-style wars like Algeria and guerilla wars like Vietnam. The Ukraine war is far more conventional and both parties are a strong existing nation state.
Bigger nations have (rightfully!!) stopped being willing to kill or enslave everyone if there is any form of uprising or resistance. It's not like the Gauls or the British or the Jews didn't try to rise up against the Romans, or Native American groups against the US, they were just incredibly brutally put down.
I wonder if really winning a war and properly suppressing its people long term just requires a level of barbarism towards its populous that countries can no longer do? It certainly seems that the "winning hearts and minds" approach didn't really accomplish anything.
I don't think this is true. Wars have been successful at those goals without the hundreds of thousands or millions of souls lost to unsuccessful wars.
There was no real hearts and minds in, say, Afghanistan. A real hearts and minds campaign would see at least as much on improving the quality of life as in destruction, yet in Afghanistan or Iraq, enough money was spent that the US could have provided every single family with a car, modern electronics, built a brand new house, and more - what was spent in Afghanistan was 350 000$ for each Afghan family!
And yet the average Afghan saw war, devastation, death, and famine. The level of material investment is so bad that, adjusted for inflation, the average Afghan was significantly richer during the Soviet-Afghan war as during U.S. occupation.
I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that real effort was spent on hearts and minds when so much money was spent on war when the living condition of the average Afghan only got worse.
If you want hearts and minds, you need to materially and significantly improve the life of whoever you are occupying at the bare minimum. You can't impoverish a population that's already massively impoverished and claim that you're doing hearts and minds.
On the contrary, Rome was able to conquer most of Europe thanks to its hearts and minds approach. You can rule yourself, keep doing your thing, get some nice roads and towns, move on with life. All you have to do is swear allegiance to Rome and pay some taxes. No more than that. You didn't even have to change your religion if you didn't want to.
If you said no, that's when the pain started of course.
You can conquer people by force, but you can't occupy by force. Occupation only works with hearts and minds.
>"winning hearts and minds" approach didn't really accomplish anything.
Agent orange, Mỹ Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, hundreds of thousands of dead, millions of maimed, displaced, financially ruined, starved (check heartwarming reply of Madeleine Albright in regards to 500,000 kids dead by starvation and desease). Well the list can go on and on.
I fail to see even a trace of "winning hearts and minds" approach here.
Russia is only "losing" because they can't justify being barbaric to the world, US justified that with fighting terrorism, so "collateral damage" was allowed.
I lived enough that I made it to 2021 to see that even Israel starting to care about that, when they let people know what buildings they are targeting before launching the attack.
> when they let people know what buildings they are targeting before launching the attack
This is not a new thing in 2021. They have been calling families to evacuate their homes before the home's scheduled bombing for a long time (I think more than a decade now).
I managed to get through the PDF and it certainly dances around the vietnam war. Stanfords shouldering the bulk of the wound-licking here as vietnam ended in futility in 1975, which is a little early for a comprehensive academic assessment if you ask me. the article also flogs 'asymmetry' to the point of using it to scapegoat US culpability of leadership. Congress and Senate couldnt agree on a daily basis what to target or when to attack, and insisted on the micromanagement of the entire affair in some cases to a deleterious objective of just "fighting the communism" and "winning" without any meaningful performance indication. conscripting americans resulted in desertion and decline of morale to the point most soldiers didnt care, and lying to the public about casualty and progress made it equally untenable at home.
im sure after defeat it was comforting to consider it a small war, but it wasnt. vitenam had the full backing (albeit proxy) might of the soviet union. it killed or wounded nearly 200,000 US troops and at a surge point of 3.5 million enlisted troops spelled the precipitous decline of enlistment to less than half that number over the next five decades.
> spelled the precipitous decline of enlistment to less than half that number over the next five decades
That was why, as a teenager, I refused to consider any kind of military involvement. The whole Vietnam war appeared an abuse of the draft and the goodwill of people who joined voluntarily.
I still lean towards a belief that militaries should be all voluntary.
So, if the political will had been there at home, they could have sent a lot more.
I also think what you describe in “Congress and Senate couldnt… made it equally untenable at home.” is precisely the argument this paper made: that war was lost in the USA, not in Vietnam.
Agreed on the last point - Vietnam was no small war, at all. For comparison, the Ukraine war is not small either, and has around 1/10th as many troops on the attacking side!
>> Congress and Senate couldnt agree on a daily basis what to target or when to attack, and insisted on the micromanagement of the entire affair in some cases to a deleterious objective of just "fighting the communism" and "winning" without any meaningful performance indication.
Ultimately the administration needed Congressional backing, but the Pentagon reports directly to the president.
Today Russia is forcing oil payments in rubbles to unfriendly countries. This will shore up their currency and with the price increase in oil I'm not sure Russia is losing the economic war.
Military wise they are afraid to go in and out right kill and level cities which is how they normally wage war. It makes sense because they share a genetic history where they had no issue leveling separatist southern provinces when needed.
[+] [-] oneoff786|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ProjectArcturis|4 years ago|reply
For example, early on in the invasion, we saw pictures of new highway signs, where the directions to different cities had been replaced with (in Russian), "Fuck Off", "Also Fuck Off", and "Fuck Off Back to Russia." Or, when a brewery switched to creating Molotov cocktails, they had already printed labels, with fun graphic design, an the title "Putin is a dickhead." That wasn't spontaneous. They had an entire portfolio of stuff like that, which they'd been planning for years.
Absolutely genius preparation by Ukraine.
[+] [-] dragontamer|4 years ago|reply
Tsar Nicholas starts an imperial war of aggression with Japan to obtain a warm-water port, while the Japanese Navy (supplied with last-generation ships from the British Navy) surprises the world and proves to be able to fight the Russians on the world stage.
Turns out that those old British ships were still pretty good, and the Japanese have learned how to use Western guns and tactics by the early 1900s (despite being a Samurai/Sword society just 40 years prior).
[+] [-] WJW|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dirtyid|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|4 years ago|reply
That plus not getting strong air supremacy.
[+] [-] nigerian1981|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewmd5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] donpott|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badRNG|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonrandomstring|4 years ago|reply
So, it leans heavily on Vietnam for its arguments as it was written before Afghanistan (a fail for the Russians and Allies).
What I'm getting is a combination of two factors in conventional asymmetrical conflict;
1) For the superior force, not winning is basically losing
2) There's a sort of "Overton window" for winning, after which you lose at home, politically.
Vietnam played out at home via television and newspapers. The US tried to avoid that mistake during Iraq-I by massively managing the news media and images. Iraq-I happened on CNN and was carefully scripted. Even now we're only just getting documentary accounts of how it really went over there, things that surprise even those who served.
Putin is trying that. But in the internet age I think it's failing.
[+] [-] dimitar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|4 years ago|reply
Agreed, it seems to be talking about terrorism-style wars like Algeria and guerilla wars like Vietnam. The Ukraine war is far more conventional and both parties are a strong existing nation state.
[+] [-] wins32767|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thatguy0900|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudosysgen|4 years ago|reply
There was no real hearts and minds in, say, Afghanistan. A real hearts and minds campaign would see at least as much on improving the quality of life as in destruction, yet in Afghanistan or Iraq, enough money was spent that the US could have provided every single family with a car, modern electronics, built a brand new house, and more - what was spent in Afghanistan was 350 000$ for each Afghan family!
And yet the average Afghan saw war, devastation, death, and famine. The level of material investment is so bad that, adjusted for inflation, the average Afghan was significantly richer during the Soviet-Afghan war as during U.S. occupation.
I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that real effort was spent on hearts and minds when so much money was spent on war when the living condition of the average Afghan only got worse.
If you want hearts and minds, you need to materially and significantly improve the life of whoever you are occupying at the bare minimum. You can't impoverish a population that's already massively impoverished and claim that you're doing hearts and minds.
[+] [-] excitom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|4 years ago|reply
If you said no, that's when the pain started of course.
You can conquer people by force, but you can't occupy by force. Occupation only works with hearts and minds.
[+] [-] FpUser|4 years ago|reply
Agent orange, Mỹ Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, hundreds of thousands of dead, millions of maimed, displaced, financially ruined, starved (check heartwarming reply of Madeleine Albright in regards to 500,000 kids dead by starvation and desease). Well the list can go on and on.
I fail to see even a trace of "winning hearts and minds" approach here.
[+] [-] Animats|4 years ago|reply
Ukraine with most of the people dead may be an acceptable outcome to Putin. Mariupol with most of the people dead is happening right now.
[+] [-] danamit|4 years ago|reply
I lived enough that I made it to 2021 to see that even Israel starting to care about that, when they let people know what buildings they are targeting before launching the attack.
[+] [-] bigthymer|4 years ago|reply
This is not a new thing in 2021. They have been calling families to evacuate their homes before the home's scheduled bombing for a long time (I think more than a decade now).
[+] [-] nimbius|4 years ago|reply
im sure after defeat it was comforting to consider it a small war, but it wasnt. vitenam had the full backing (albeit proxy) might of the soviet union. it killed or wounded nearly 200,000 US troops and at a surge point of 3.5 million enlisted troops spelled the precipitous decline of enlistment to less than half that number over the next five decades.
[+] [-] gwbas1c|4 years ago|reply
That was why, as a teenager, I refused to consider any kind of military involvement. The whole Vietnam war appeared an abuse of the draft and the goodwill of people who joined voluntarily.
I still lean towards a belief that militaries should be all voluntary.
[+] [-] Someone|4 years ago|reply
At the peak, there were about 550,000 US troops in Vietnam. In World War Two, they eventually fielded 10 million persons (https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/06/26/us-involvement-...).
So, if the political will had been there at home, they could have sent a lot more.
I also think what you describe in “Congress and Senate couldnt… made it equally untenable at home.” is precisely the argument this paper made: that war was lost in the USA, not in Vietnam.
[+] [-] sudosysgen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cafard|4 years ago|reply
Ultimately the administration needed Congressional backing, but the Pentagon reports directly to the president.
[+] [-] ipaddr|4 years ago|reply
Military wise they are afraid to go in and out right kill and level cities which is how they normally wage war. It makes sense because they share a genetic history where they had no issue leveling separatist southern provinces when needed.
[+] [-] BipolarCapybara|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]