[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

@Skybird So you say they will not. Then I wonder what the west's or the US's strategy is?

Boiling the frog, slowly, so that he does not jump out of the water while he still has time. Weakening Russia as much as possible to have a weak Russia and a stable Europe in their back when they turn away to face China.

Let Ukraine die a slow death?

States have no friends, states have interests.

But I think some in Washington also indeed want to have Ukriane "winning". But they are basing on illusions. They think if they deliver this or that wonder weapon, then a military miracle will happen all by itself. But the quantity does not support that view, its simply is too little they give, still. War is won by big numbers, if your numbers do not support your effort, you loose. Possible that Washington in parts is in panic mode seeing what has come of the offensive, they now want to speed up the delivery of F-16s. Another wonder weapon that should do the trick. But it seems that the ukrainians fell back to running military operations the Sovjet way, its no combined arms they try to run anymore, no simultaneous attack of all weapon branches, but they get send one after the other, and they have suicidal deficits especially in air defences.

Russia always tried to compensate lacking quality with overwhelming quantity, I have hammered home this since over a year. And you know what? It works for them. They also always were an artillery-heavy army, more than any other army int he world. And we see that they again were right with that assessment.

In chess it does not matter how many pawns you sacrifice and how many figures you lose if in the end you checkmate the opposing king. Thats the only thing that counts. But the West is busy with counting pawns, and finding supertheoretical constructions to excuse why it ignores this simpel truth.

Would be a quite perfidious strategy but even if, who would that serve? Not the US, not NATO, not Ukraine.

Paris and BVerlin, as I often said, do not ewant the baölanc eof power shiofting from these two to Warsaw and Kyiv, which would happen if ukriane wins and enters the eU and NATO. Washington wants to boilö the Russian frog as much as possible. All are concerned about the Russian nuclear threat. Well, I am , too. But I come to totally different conclusion than them. We shall not be too pressing in trying to checkmate the enemy king: Putin.

You will not bleed Russia dry with this.. "strategy".

My words exactly. Since over one year. Tell them. Not me. But I must ask (again): where should more material come from? More artillery rounds? Air defences? To cover that long a front? The Bundeswehr has enough tank and artillery rounds for two days of warfare of the inetnbsity we see in Ukraine. Does anyone think other European nations like Britain, France, Italy are so much better off? A bit maybe, but not that much more in ammo reserves they have.

The West is weak. Weak in military numbers. Weak in determination. Weak in courage. Its big in words, financial greed, opportunism. We have superior tehcnolgocla wepaons, but we do nto have them in the quantity we need, since we fell to the illusion that technologically advanced weapons were not needed in higher numbers. That was wrong. And dumb ammunition we have declared almost useless, almost. We do not need atllerywhen w ehave drones and loitering ammuntions and all that, right? No, not right, but wrong again. But we worry about ecology-friendly ways of fueling tanks and jets.

There is no magic spell to cure this from one day to the next. But there seems to also be no will, in Germany at least, to change this in longer terms, nothing but Scholzian smoke screens behind which the little irrelevant dwarf can hide from his responsibility, and train his grinning muscles.

In last december, Colonel Reisner warned that Russia tries to provoke and wants to force Ukraine to attack. Thats the warfare that favours Russia: fixed frontlines, war of attrition, artillery-heavy warfighting, wide open plains, air superiority over the front. Nothing better could have happend than Ukraine starting to attack. Ukraine on the other hand was increasingly under pressure to launch the offensive. Time and season of the year was runnign out, diplomatic patience was running thin, the West demanded to see results for its delivered material. What is clear by now is this: it nevertheless was too early, and maybe should have not gotten started this year. Individual training, doctrinal training of formations for combined warfare, ammunition stockpiles, number of tanks, preparatory efforts - it all left much to be desired, but in the end Ukraine was not given another choice. Any further delays also would have resulted in the Russian having dug in themsleves even deeper.

Back then already Reisner had doubts that the offensive planned for later the year could be successful with the material delivered and the tight time tables set or expected back then. He says it time and again: It's no use trying to gloss over the situation. What we have been doing so far is simply not enough.

We have overestimated the quality of the Russian army. But we underestimate the relevance of its big numbers. And I think Putin living or killed has no real relevance here, if he is deleted, Russia still will be what it always was and will produce another typical Russian Tzar-like Führer like Putin and so many others before him have been.

We are probably witnessing a pre-decisive battle, and its outcome is likely to join the chain of general symptoms that illustrate the fall of the West, of Europe at least: its cultural degeneration, its slow march into global irrelevance. Or as I often summarized: Rome is burning. Every single house is on fire. Our politicians act as if nothing were wrong.

Thats not what you want to hear. But its the only thing you will get to hear from me. Things are not going well down there. The desperate explaining on TV that the offensive just moves slow because they have changed tactics (and indeed have slighty reduced their losses, it seems), I do not buy.

It still could be won. But preconditions for that would be a total and dramatic change of Western policy and the willingness for a dramatic rising of stakes, as well as a total change in inner politics, away from this mad green deal industry madness and excessive social wellfare industry towards war production. And I cannot see that happening. Rome is in flames.