On the one hand, whatever the 'outcome', Russia will still be there and Ukraine will not be able to stand down its army.
On the other, its overall manpower problem has been dire from Day 1. If Zelensky has dropped any balls at all, the biggest has been his failure to crack on with a proper conscription plan: so Ukraine has been fighting the war with men (and women) predominantly of age 30+, some a lot older still, when everyone knows that (infantry) warfare is a business for 18+. Those 30+'s have fought magnificently - much, much better than the Russian rabble** they have faced - but there is a limit. Meanwhile, back on the home front, a large percentage of the remaining male population has been (a) bribing the local commissar to keep themselves out of the recruiting office, and/or (b) skipping abroad. There is only so much that can be delegated to a fleet of drones, across a battlefield as large as Ukraine's.
The demographic problem resulting from this is acute, and can only get worse; and I haven't seen much sign of it being addressed. Well, there's a helluva lot else going on.
The precise details of how this plays out will depend upon exactly how the current conflict is "frozen". There are of course many scenarios - too many to legislate for every possibility. There are just two strands I think will feature in any case.
1. For many years forward the EU (and prob the UK) will be sending huge amounts of cash to Ukraine for civil reconstruction and societal rebuilding (a dismal proportion of which will be swiftly embezzled, as has been the case throughout) - it's the only thing the EU really knows how to do;
2. There will be very many violent men roaming the world, offering their services as mercenaries or enforcers for organised crime, either as thugs or as expert hackers and drone operators. As regards the thugs, go back to the first post: that's what happened after Russia / Afghanistan; it's what galvanises Putin; and that was small beer by comparison.
Per the earlier post again: at least Putin is thinking about it. He has that luxury. It will take a worldscale genius to solve Ukraine's manpower issues: and if no such person emerges, the legacy will be long and baleful. Brave, brave Ukraine deserves something better.
ND
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* I first met Russian soldiers in the flesh in 1985 at a conference in Potsdam. They were an unutterable rabble, the officers and men of the proud Soviet Army. The officers wandered around in public with their tunics raffishly unbuttoned and their hats at rakish angles, a parody of caddish behaviour. The men were pathetically thin and unsoldierly in their ill-fitting, coarse uniforms and bizarre outsize flat caps. And this was 3rd Shock Army, the tip of the spear! Forty years on, nothing much seems to have changed: it was troops like this that were humiliated in just a few weeks in Feb-March 2022, and driven off the field in full rout during Ukraine's Kharkiv counter-offensive in the September of that year.
16 comments:
Are there still any old-style Germans tempted to say "Slavs? What do you expect except heroic levels of corruption and stupidity?"
Which would be a bit rich coming from a German.
So, your knowledge of Russian soldiers is 40 years out of date and harks back to when the Communists were still in control. You call them a “rabble”, just like Nazi Germany did, 40 years prior to that. And yet that “rabble” beat the Nazis in Germany, and it is consistently beating the Nazis in Ukraine - despite them being supported by the whole of NATO.
The Ukrainian problem strikes me as more of an opportunity, those drone operators would be of use within NATO, and the hackers could be turned into our own equivalents of the likes of Fancy Bear, or whatever moniker they're using these days. We've been a lot more reticent than Russia or China in using such groups, time for that to change.
As for the more purely thuggish, it'd be a lot cheaper for the West to make use of them, then it would to handle the consequences of others making use of them.
OT, we have finally had solar installed and so far the result has been quite impressive. Even in the back end of September a sizeable house has been self sufficient, and I'm looking forward to the SEG payments over the course of next summer, especially as we'll be off out fixed term deal with our current supplier, and shift to Octopus and engage in a bit of arbitrage, and I'm going to be a lot less bothered about the air con being on full blast.
Even on an overcast day, such is the efficiency of the panels, we were just charging the battery less.
Nothing quite cries middle age then a sense of satisfaction of watching an electric meter not increase!
O2 pt.2 - Starmer has pulled the ID card lever! What he hasn't done is mention about it being used when non-UK nationals use UK services, such as the NHS, which would be the real key to it being a deterrent.
So either he's keeping quiet on that, as the left of the party would doubtlessly go berserk over it, or is going to have it fall flat. Maybe the amount of time it'll take to implement means he views it as something that won't be his problem, having been replaced with Burnham/Streeting/Mahmood long before the first one is installed.
Be interesting to see how the physical ones are for those without smartphones, if easily counterfeited/clone, then I see an uptick in use of mobile OSes that aren't Android or iOS, as I'm not sure the government will end up supporting those. Been meaning to move from Android now Google plan to charge local developers for having the temerity to write and install their own apps.
I don't like ID cards from an ideological perspective, but from a pragmatic one, if it works, and doesn't suffer from data overreach, then it's something I can swallow.
Are we having bets on how long it takes for it to be hacked and all the data stolen? My money is on inside 5 years.
The beauty of its being a government project is that it will be delayed for so long that by the time it is "delivered" it will have been pre-hacked.
I just wonder ... the ISR is from NATO aircraft and satellites, the terrain data that enables long range drone attacks likewise, the targets selected at that airbase in Germany, "all Ukrainians have to do it press the red button"... but do they even need to do that? If operations can be carried out by robotic arms, with the surgeon half a world away, why can't someone in Germany or Montana - or Berkshire - press the tit?
Similarly drones, not artillery, are the main threats to infantry - and the main threat to artillery too. Surely it would almost be dereliction of military duty if British soldiers - and Chinese on the other side - weren't learning this new warfare? I would lay a pound to a pinch of s*** - as they say in the Black Country - that somewhere on the Dneiper a Ukrainian is launching a drone while in Berkshire or Montana someone crouches over a joystick.
Drone warfare is as new as air warfare was over a century ago. But it's developed so rapidly that I can't work out if we're in 1917 - the Fokker Monoplane (Bayraktar) has been conquered and new craft developed - or 1937 and Spitfire and Lancaster are in test status.
WRT "The rabble":
Many years ago, we were due to have a blue plaque unveiled in our village to commemorate a some Russians who had crashed just outside the village during WWII. Various local worthies were there and a delegation of Russian Air Force personnel were expected from the embassy. I was there as a Cub leader with the local Cub pack as we all stood in the rain waiting for the Russians to arive. Eventually someone had to be sent to fetch them from the village pub. Not a huge issue in the scheme of things but didn't leave a great impression.
I'm intrigued - where were Russian pilots flying over the UK in WW2? I know we sent a few squadrons to Russia to cover Arctic convoys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._151_Wing_RAF
Relevant - "The aircraft were flown to Vaenga on 12 September, except for two Hurricanes, whose pilots succumbed to Russian hospitality at a refuelling stop and had to continue the morning after."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Benedict
"One crate (of supplies) was emptied to accommodate the wireless section and then the men found that some types of specialist tools had been omitted from the maintenance kits but that tropical insulation covers for the engines had been included."
So it's not just the Russians whose organisation sometimes falls short...
There was a story a little while back about Russian pilots in Scotland. Training to fly the RAF transport to Russia.
Wiki
The Soviet Air Force placed a contract for delivery of 200 Albemarles in October 1942. An RAF unit – No. 305 FTU, at RAF Errol near Dundee – was set up to train Soviet ferry crews.During training, one aircraft was lost with no survivors.
The Albermarle was one those designs rushed into production in the post Czech annexation panic. Not actually bad. But no better than what had already been produced. The Wellington.
Ended up as a transport and glider tug and basic parachute dropper. And target tug. Which is an acknowledgment of how ‘meh’ it was.
Russia’s own transport planes were few. And large. And much older designs.
Found it. Very sad - the Albemarle had an internal weight which moved on a pulley to adjust trim depending on undercarriage being raised or lowered. Someone disconnected it and didn't reconnect, it slid into the bow and the plane went into the ground with its Russian crew.
https://fearnanvillageassociation.com/2016/03/04/the-fearnan-air-crash-1943/
Guardian comment today...
"Well done Streeting for telling immigrants Britian is their home...Most immigrants and their families send remittances back home to help their families... "
Er ... repetition of "home" ?
@anon - perhaps the comment was from Rayner? After all, she is quite comfortable with the concept of multiple homes.
CH
Watched the circus today
Noted no Ulster flags !!!! every other. Was Northern Ireland minister absent. Miliband did not have flag or windmill or woodchips and looked miserable.
Only Cities and towns get the goodies no mention of Villages anti country ?
Sparkies rewiring ship - did they get it wrong first time ?
Cast iron guarantees to Ukraine - cast iron shatters under stress.
Or am I hyper critical?
vast numbers of US tankers headed to Qatar. Is Trump about to do something really, really stupid?
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