Crisi ucraina

[Davy_Jones]

The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine (rusi https://www.rusi.org: The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank. Our mission is to inform, influence and enhance public debate to help build a safer and more stable world. awesome.)

If the West is serious about the possibility of a great power conflict, it needs to take a hard look at its capacity to wage a protracted war and to pursue a strategy focused on attrition rather than manoeuvre. (...) In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational manoeuvres. The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win. The West is not prepared for this kind of war. To most Western experts, attritional strategy is counterintuitive. Historically, the West preferred the short ‘winner takes all’ clash of professional armies. Recent war games such as CSIS’s war over Taiwan covered one month of fighting. The possibility that the war would go on never entered the discussion. This is a reflection of a common Western attitude. Wars of attrition are treated as exceptions, something to be avoided at all costs and generally products of leaders’ ineptitude. Unfortunately, wars between near-peer powers are likely to be attritional, thanks to a large pool of resources available to replace initial losses. The attritional nature of combat, including the erosion of professionalism due to casualties, levels the battlefield no matter which army started with better trained forces. As conflict drags on, the war is won by economies, not armies. States that grasp this and fight such a war via an attritional strategy aimed at exhausting enemy resources while preserving their own are more likely to win. The fastest way to lose a war of attrition is to focus on manoeuvre, expending valuable resources on near-term territorial objectives.

questo e' quello che troveremmo in una guerra con la RF in ukr nel prevedibile futuro. (e' anche quello che i russi fanno li' da quasi 2 anni ma vallo a far capire a chi da 2 anni fa un circle jerk ogni volta che kiev "riconquista" un m^2.) spero che le decisioni vengano prese da menti fredde. pero' ovviamente non mi sorprendero' se ci infileremo mani e piedi in una roba del genere. non sarebbe la prima volta che una parte d'europa fa suicidio collettivo. (per esser chiari, non parlo di macron che (ri)manda mercenari in ukr per posizionarsi meglio nell'arena per combattimenti di cani che sara' la EU dopo novembre. parlo di un intervento diretto su grande scala.)
poi: se vogliamo credere che fra 5 anni avremo "sistemi evoluti di deterrenza nucleare" (?) che cambieranno lo scenario (attuale, come se gli altri resteranno congelati fino a che il "sistema evoluto" non sara' pronto) siamo liberissimi di farlo, come abbiamo creduto alla unprovoked aggression, ai "sistemi evoluti di deterrenza economica" (alias sanzioni), agli ucraini che cacciano i russi da kiev, ai missili russi che stanno per finire, alla RF isolata, ai patriot che intercettano ipersonici, all'idebolimento militare della RF (facepalm), ecc ecc.
secondo me, credere cose del genere presuppone una cognizione diciamo limitata della realta' non della RF (o della cina o dell'iran) ma di noi stessi, delle ns economie, delle ns industrie, delle ns risorse, di come ce le procuriamo, di come funziona una guerra prolungata, dei rapporti che abbiamo col resto del mondo, delle scale di tempo e denaro che certi processi richiedono, di cosa certe decisioni implicherebbero in concreto, ecc ecc. non dubito che cose come "fra 5 anni avremo" si possano leggere nel mare di analisi esperte in cui siamo immersi. ma e' propaganda. non ci si va lontano, secondo me.

detto in sintesi: negli ultimi 2 anni l'occidente si e' indebolito e la RF si e' rinforzata e non c'e' finlandia che tenga (10BEur per cominciare), e secondo me questo trend con alta probabilita' proseguira' per i prossimi 5 anni, tranne in un caso che pero' pare andare oltre le nostre capacita' intellettive.

giusto per chiudere con una ventata di positivita', in questo momento per me le armi "migliori" nel nostro arsenale (occidente) sono
1.  le operazioni covert: attentati terroristici (check), assassinii mirati (check), tentativi di destabilizzazione (check), farsi governi "amici" che mandino stuoli di loro cittadini a farsi ammazzare per noi (check), colpi di stato (coming soon, chissa', sarebbe un grande ritorno) ecc ecc. nel campo abbiamo esperienza pluridecennale tutt'altro che arrugginita (al contrario delle attrition wars). non credo ci si faccia molto ma problemi puoi crearli di sicuro.
2. il ricatto vs paesi che ancora detengono tanti dollari e/o sono ancora troppo legati a noi (sauditi in primis, poi la cina ma sempre meno).
3. il ricatto vs paesi che hanno prestiti attivi con IMF, world bank e BIS (latam, africa, s-e asia).
per me punteremo molto su queste 3 cose.

[Davy_Jones]

I soliti guerrafondai inglesi hanno invaso l’Ucraina 2 anni fa.
Si imparano un sacco di cose

ma infatti. sti georgiani me sa che non hanno letto kennan (e sospetto non siano i soli)

[Aquila1979]

Tu dici che la guerra in UKR l’hanno fatta gli inglesi? Interessante

[mr_steed]

"[...] ripeto che le truppe ex sovietiche che arrivano a Kiev sarebbero un elemento totalmente destabilizzante per l’Europa e per il mondo."

ma che davero? 

ok l'anticomunismo del governo lo conosciamo... ma (ingenuamente) pensavo che crosetto non fosse ai livelli del ministro della cultura...

https://www.open.online/2024/05/06/crosetto-avvertimento-putin-vuole-kiev-guerra-europa/

comunque stamane a "tutta la città ne parla" sentivo alessandro politi, analista e ricercatore militare direttore di "nato defense college foundation" dire che l'europa non ha né esercito né le munizioni per sostenere un attacco di terra, dato che non ha più neppure armi da dare all'ucraina...

alla luce di ciò vorrei capire il senso di tirare ogni giorno di più la corda...

per chi volesse recuperare la trasmissione
https://www.raiplaysound.it/audio/2024/05/Tutta-la-citta-ne-parla-del-06052024-670f9046-668b-4f32-bcf8-36e4ce1ce69e.html

[Aquila1979]

tu ci hai cliccato sul link?

[Davy_Jones]

tu ci hai cliccato sul link?

si ci ho cliccato, ma e' archive.ph, postano pezzi che stanno dietro firewall o pwd ma le cose vanno e vengono e a volte lo fermano. ora e' andato. cmq l'articolo e' sul sito dell'economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/09/the-liberal-international-order-is-slowly-coming-apart
free trial o ti registri e lo leggi. oppure lo leggi direttamente.

[Il nostro Giorgione]

Tra un po' si ricomincia in Georgia. Dopo le balle sul Donbass, gli eorici separatisti russofoni, i fascisti ucraini che sparavano sulle famiglie in fuga dalla Patria, i manichini di Bucha e il missile sbagliato su Kramatorsk. Belle cazzate. Adesso gli agenti stranieri infiltrati in Georgia renderanno necessario una ulteriore operazione speciale. Ma il modo giusto per evitare l'escalation e lasciare fare a Putin quello che vuole a 700 km da Varsavia.

[cartesio]

l'articolo e' sul sito dell'economist: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/05/09/the-liberal-international-order-is-slowly-coming-apart
free trial o ti registri e lo leggi. oppure lo leggi direttamente.

 

Interessante. Estraggo un paio di brani.

In many of these scenarios, the loss will be more profound than many people think. It is fashionable to criticise untrammelled globalisation as the cause of inequality, the global financial crisis and neglect of the climate. But the achievements of the 1990s and 2000s—the high point of liberal capitalism—are unmatched in history. Hundreds of millions escaped poverty in China as it integrated into the global economy. The infant-mortality rate worldwide is less than half what it was in 1990. The percentage of the global population killed by state-based conflicts hit a post-war low of 0.0002% in 2005; in 1972 it was nearly 40 times as high. The latest research shows that the era of the “Washington consensus”, which today’s leaders hope to replace, was one in which poor countries began to enjoy catch-up growth, closing the gap with the rich world.
.....
Middle-income countries such as India and Indonesia hoping to trade their way to riches are exploiting opportunities created by the old order’s fragmentation, but will ultimately rely on the global economy staying integrated and predictable. And the prosperity of much of the developed world, especially small, open economies such as Britain and South Korea, depends utterly on trade. Buttressed by strong growth in America, it may seem as if the world economy can survive everything that is thrown at it. It can’t.

[Aquila1979]

Tra un po' si ricomincia in Georgia. Dopo le balle sul Donbass, gli eorici separatisti russofoni, i fascisti ucraini che sparavano sulle famiglie in fuga dalla Patria, i manichini di Bucha e il missile sbagliato su Kramatorsk. Belle cazzate. Adesso gli agenti stranieri infiltrati in Georgia renderanno necessario una ulteriore operazione speciale. Ma il modo giusto per evitare l'escalation e lasciare fare a Putin quello che vuole a 700 km da Varsavia.

Proprio come nel caso di Boris Eltsin, che i servizi segreti russi hanno usato internamente per silurare Gorbaciov (e il Partito Comunista), anche se al prezzo di una perdita, temporanea ai loro occhi, di parte dell’impero sovietico, i servizi segreti hanno fomentato o sostenuto i movimenti separatisti in Transnistria, in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, Ossezia del Sud e Gagauzia, con l’obiettivo di creare future leve di destabilizzazione per mantenere un poter di condizionamento sulle ex repubbliche sovietiche di Azerbaigian, Moldavia, Armenia e Georgia. Nel Nagorno-Karabakh e in Armenia, il piano dei servizi funzionerà particolarmente bene. Tanto più che questo patto è stato suggellato nel sangue con il massacro di Khodjaly del febbraio 1992, durante il quale furono massacrati duecento azeri. Una triste eco del pogrom di Kirovabad del 1988, che portò alla morte di un centinaio di armeni e all’esodo forzato di altri quarantamila, del pogrom di Sumgait del 1988 e del pogrom di Baku del 1990.

https://www.linkiesta.it/2023/10/nagorno-karabakh-pulizia-etnica-turchia-azerbaigian-integrita-territoriale-armenia-meridionale-unione-europea/

la strategia di mosca è ovvia.
quando si fa il paragone con i sudeti si dice un'ovvietà.
anche perché la difesa della propria popolazione oppressa in un paese straniero è uno strategemma universale, non riservato a putin o hitler.

la presenza di russofoni, tra l'altro spesso esportati durante la russificazione dei vari territori, risponde a un'esigenza teatrale: il casus belli.

come dice l'articolo:
anche se al prezzo di una perdita, temporanea ai loro occhi, di parte dell’impero sovietico

[Davy_Jones]

qualche altro estratto dall'economist (TLDR miei - scusate... )

> [TLDR: Riassunto delle puttanate che vi abbiamo raccontato]
At first glance, the world economy looks reassuringly resilient. America has boomed (...). Germany has withstood the loss of Russian gas supplies (...). War in the Middle East has brought no oil shock. Missile-firing Houthi rebels have barely touched the global flow of goods. (...), trade has bounced back from the pandemic (...).
> [TLDR: Purtroppo ora dobbiamo dobbiamo darvi una brutta notizia]
Look deeper, though, and you see fragility. For years the order that has governed the global economy since the second world war has been eroded. Today it is close to collapse. A worrying number of triggers could set off a descent into anarchy, where might is right and war is once again the resort of great powers. (...).
> [TLDR: Non e' uno scherzo]
(...) the disintegration of the old order is visible everywhere. Sanctions are used four times as much as they were during the 1990s; America has recently imposed “secondary” penalties on entities that support Russia’s armies. A subsidy war is under way, as countries seek to copy China’s and America’s vast state backing for green manufacturing. Although the dollar remains dominant and emerging economies are more resilient, global capital flows are starting to fragment, (...)
> [TLDR: Il rules-based order e' veramente morto (cosi', senza motivo)]
The institutions that safeguarded the old system are either already defunct or fast losing credibility. The World Trade Organisation turns 30 next year, but will have spent more than five years in stasis, owing to American neglect. The imf is gripped by an identity crisis, (...). The un security council is paralysed. (...) supranational courts like the International Court of Justice are increasingly weaponised (...)
> [TLDR: E questo (mica quello che e' successo negli ultimi 16 anni) danneggera' l'economia]
So far fragmentation and decay have imposed a stealth tax on the global economy: perceptible, but only if you know where to look. Unfortunately, history shows that deeper, more chaotic collapses are possible—and can strike suddenly once the decline sets in. The first world war killed off a golden age of globalisation that many at the time assumed would last for ever. In the early 1930s, following the onset of the Depression and the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, America’s imports collapsed by 40% in just two years. In August 1971 Richard Nixon unexpectedly suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold; only 19 months later, the Bretton Woods system of fixed-exchange rates fell apart.
> [TLDR: Detto in breve, siamo sull’orlo del baratro]
Today a similar rupture feels all too imaginable. (...)
> [TLDR: Ovviamente il declino Usa riportera’ morie di bambini, poverta', guerre, ecc, tutte cose che con gli Usa al comando erano sparite]
In many of these scenarios, the loss will be more profound than many people think. It is fashionable to criticise untrammelled globalisation as the cause of inequality, the global financial crisis and neglect of the climate. But the achievements of the 1990s and 2000s—the high point of liberal capitalism—are unmatched in history. Hundreds of millions escaped poverty in China as it integrated into the global economy. The infant-mortality rate worldwide is less than half what it was in 1990. The percentage of the global population killed by state-based conflicts hit a post-war low of 0.0002% in 2005; in 1972 it was nearly 40 times as high. The latest research shows that the era of the “Washington consensus”, which today’s leaders hope to replace, was one in which poor countries began to enjoy catch-up growth, closing the gap with the rich world.
> [TLDR: Insomma senza rules based order, per il mondo E' LA FINE]
The decline of the system threatens to slow that progress, or even throw it into reverse. Once broken, it is unlikely to be replaced by new rules. Instead, world affairs will descend into their natural state of anarchy that favours banditry and violence. Without trust and an institutional framework for co-operation, it will become harder for countries to deal with the 21st century’s challenges (...).
> [TLDR: E la colpa e' tutta della Cina e di Putin (lui in persona)]
In the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party, Vladimir Putin or other cynics, a system in which might is right would be nothing new. They see the liberal order not as an enactment of lofty ideals but an exercise of raw American power—power that is now in relative decline.
Gradually, then suddenly
> [TLDR: Peggio per loro e per chi gli va dietro, perche' gli faremo ancora molto male]
It is true that the system established after the second world war achieved a marriage between America’s internationalist principles and its strategic interests. Yet the liberal order also brought vast benefits to the rest of the world. Many of the world’s poor are already suffering from the inability of the imf to resolve the sovereign-debt crisis that followed the covid-19 pandemic. Middle-income countries such as India and Indonesia hoping to trade their way to riches are exploiting opportunities created by the old order’s fragmentation, but will ultimately rely on the global economy staying integrated and predictable. And the prosperity of much of the developed world, especially small, open economies such as Britain and South Korea, depends utterly on trade. Buttressed by strong growth in America, it may seem as if the world economy can survive everything that is thrown at it. It can’t.


a parte il consueto self-blowjob sui meriti dell'occidente ("an enactment of lofty ideals", scritto adesso (mag-24), fa veramente ridere i polli), la cosa piu' incredibile di questo pezzo (e del report che segue), per me, e' che non dicono una parola ne' su come siamo arrivati qui ne' su come se ne esce. del tipo: e' un terremoto, nessuno se lo aspettava, non possiamo farci nulla...

[Warp]

Ukraine was a magnet for foreign fighters. After 2 bruising years, many are disillusioned or dead.
Cameron Manley
May 11, 2024, 12:28 PM CEST

Three days after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a clarion call for "friends of peace and democracy" to join the fight from abroad.
Zelensky's International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine (ILDU) was born, echoing the International Brigades that fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.
Many answered. Outside Ukraine's embassy in London Business Insider found men lining up to serve.
"If they need to shove a rifle in my hands and put me on the front, then that's what they need to do," said one, a nightclub worker.
"It's better than sitting with my thumb up my ass."

The Legion emerged from these recruits — some with military experience, some without.
It has been deployed across the front lines in some of the war's toughest battles, where any of its members died.
Carl Larson, a US veteran who served in Iraq, spent three months fighting around Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv in the summer of 2022. He told BI his comrades' motivations were mixed.
"Many of us were there for the right reasons, to defend democracy," he said.
"Lots of others," though, "were there for the wrong reasons: adrenaline junkies, people looking for a surrogate family, or because they had personal problems back home."
Studies from in July and September last year by the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) reached a similar conclusion.
Some parleyed their postings into fame on social media, issuing impassioned dispatches from the war zone.
BI's coverage of the International Legion since its inception found that recruits were a mixed bag of qualified veterans, glory-seekers and people trying to give their often chaotic live meaning but totally unsuitable for a military role in a war zone.
In one case, a Legion volunteer from Alabama even defected to Russia.
Some volunteers barely lasted a week. A Russian missile strike in March 2022 hit a base near Lviv being used for foreign fighters.
According to Ukrainian officials, dozens of Ukrainians were killed and more than 100 foreign volunteers injured, ending their campaigns before they began.
Marco Bocchese, assistant professor of international relations at Webster Vienna Private University and an author of the September RUSI study, called the attack a "watershed moment" for many foreign volunteers.
Ukraine originally said 20,000 foreign volunteers had signed up to fight. Bocchese told BI that this figure was "pure propaganda."
In January last year, The Washington Post estimated that the figure was likely closer to 3,000.
Four experts contacted for this report estimated the May 2024 strength of the legion at between 1,000 and 2,000.
Some foreigners have found other homes in the Ukrainian military: in the intelligence services, or in separate Ukrainian units, such as the elite Chosen Company — a reconnaissance and assault unit composed of US and Australian volunteers within the 59th Motorized Brigade.

Matteo Pugliese, a researcher at the University of Barcelona who authored the July study, told BI that Ukrainian intelligence coordinates its own branch of foreign volunteers.
"This includes three Russian groups, Belarusian units, the Georgian Legion, and Western veterans with better combat skills," he said.
All told, this might add another 1,000 or 2,000 soldiers, for a total of 3,000-4,000 foreigners fighting in Ukraine.
They are at best a small fraction of Ukraine's 800,000-strong military.

Killed in action

International fighters proved "more expendable than Ukrainian soldiers for high-risk operations," Pugliese said.
Indeed, Larson, who headed a 25-man platoon of legionaries in 2022, said he and his men were a "sacrificial unit."
"We were a speed bump," he said. "If the Russians had come, we could have held them up for maybe an hour."
Larson said that many foreign volunteers, especially those who had fought in places like the deserts of Iraq, struggled to adapt to both the terrain in Ukraine as well as the weapons used there.
"We lost many guys to drones," he said.
The Legion's press service declined to comment on its strength, citing security reasons.
A spokesman, Oleksandr Shahuri, said that more than 100 nationalities had joined up.
A report by Task and Purpose in February of this year concluded that at least 50 of those who died were US citizens, a figure that is likely an undercount.
Of those 50, most had served in the US military, including 20+ Army veterans and 12 ex-Marines.
There was a Green Beret and a Navy SEAL. Some had conventional military careers, others left after getting into trouble.
A US State Department spokesperson said there is no official tally.
"Our ability to verify reports of deaths of US citizens in Ukraine is extremely limited," they said. "In addition, not all US citizen deaths may be reported to US authorities. For these reasons, we are unable to provide a definitive number of all US citizens who have been killed."

The Legion's future
Earlier this year, Zelenskyy issued a decree allowing foreign nationals legally in the country to enter its National Guard. He also proposed legislation making it easier for foreigners defending Ukraine to receive citizenship.
That could prove "very enticing" for some foreign volunteers, Bocchese said. "Many want to make Ukraine their future home."
In some states, fighting for Ukraine means giving up your freedom back home. Austria, Montenegro, Kosovo, and India made it illegal to join up.
"Some will be facing criminal sanctions upon returning home for the fact that they enlisted in a foreign unit," Bocchese said.
For that reason, many hope to gain citizenship and "put roots down," said Larson, the US veteran.
Ukraine's efforts to draft its own men mean the Legion is "no longer decisive or relevant in strategic terms," Pugliese said.
An April 2024 increases payments for Ukrainian volunteers, adds new punishments for draft dodging, and seeks to compel Ukrainian men living abroad to come home.
According to Larson, who continues to help recruiters for the Legion, sign-ups have dwindled by two thirds since the flood of March 2022.
"Half the signups are from Latin America now," he noted, a big shift.
In the fall of 2023, the Legion began admitting Spanish-speaking applicants, many of whom were inadmissible before, Pugliese told BI.
Some had made it in but were mistreated by their officers, he said.
The new Bolivar Battalion, for example, was formed by fighters from Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, and Colombia and was is led by a Venezuelan anti-government fighter.
Many are former professional soldiers from Colombia, battle-hardened fighting drug cartels and rebel groups in their homeland.
Experienced non-commissioned officers can earn four times as much as back home, or even more, the Associated Press reported.
Latin Americans "have different motivations from typical Western soldiers," Larson told BI.
"They're there for the money."


http://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-international-legion-is-still-fighting-but-not-many-left-2024-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T