Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

[Laser101]

It's pretty simple. The goal of destroying the energy infastructure of Ukraine is to terrorize the population, by causing as much suffering as possible, in the hope that it would cause them to pressure their government to surrender, or alternatively become refugees in the hopes that European governments would buckle under the pressure of a growing number of refugees and would then cut their support for Ukraine. Russia is open about these goals. This is terrorism. Plain and simple.
Russia is a terrorist state.



Most of any European state's neighbours aspired to gain parts of their territory at some point or another. Be it France, Germany, Romania, etc. And Russia aspires or aspired for territory from literally every state it borders. In turn, most states bordering Russia have some claim to its territory. That's just life.

The Trump admin also ended the designation of a state as a sponsor of terrorism: Sudan.
As for the US not designating Russia as a sponsor of terrorism, unlike the EU the US's declaration wouldn't be toothless, and would punish not only Russia but also every state that trades with Russia, namely the EU. Once the EU is sufficiently independent that it no longer has to rely on Russia for its energy needs I imagine the US will take this step. The US senate already voted in favour, because Fascist Russia is a terrorist state.

Well, for the US at least, considering their actions in Iraq and elsewhere, such an accusation is basically invoking the old adage about the pot and the kettle (although the Balts have a better leg to stand on).

[Coughdrop addict]

Well, for the US at least, considering their actions in Iraq and elsewhere, such an accusation is basically invoking the old adage about the pot and the kettle (although the Balts have a better leg to stand on).

That is completely false.

The US in Iraq did not have a policy of using rapes and massacres of civilians as a weapon of war or tool of genocide. They did not intentionally target civilian infrastructure in the hopes of terrorizing them into surrender. They did not kidnap millions of Iraqis and sent them to the US as slaves. They did not wildly threaten to use nuclear weapons on Baghdad, or on any nation that dared voice disapproval. They did not say that Iraq was now part of the US.

There is no comparison at all between anything the United States has done and Russia.

[Kyriakos]

If civilian deaths by US in Iraq are not comparable to civilian deaths by Russia in Ukraine, it would be the other way around.

[Laser101]

If civilian deaths by US in Iraq are not comparable to civilian deaths by Russia in Ukraine, it would be the other way around.

To be fair, that's total casualties, not just those caused by US/Coalition forces.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

It’s also over the course of 8 years.


As for Ukraine, these are only estimates. We don’t know how many more mass graves will be found in the territory occupied by Russia.

[Mithradates]

The Russian siege of Mariupol alone killed more than 20,000 civilians.

[PointOfViewGun]

Asking if separatist Ukrainians and Russian soldiers in Donbas did not kill a single civilian in over 8 years makes no sense. This kind of fallacious question is completely absurd, as far as what happened, and why it happened. At that time, the new US backed regime did not find legitimacy in Donbas and they were illegitimate in the eyes of Donbas people because they adopted brute force approach to overthrow Yanukovych’s regime.
The US backed Revolution provoked the destabilization of Donbas. At that time, other very important factors contributed to this destabilization,
1) Kiev’s decision to integrate nationalist groups in fighting.
2) Kiev alllowed the Ukrainian regular army to use unlimited force in areas where people densely located. In fact, according to the Amnesty International, most of the civilian deaths were in separatist-held territory in Donetsk, and were caused by Ukrainian government forces.
The Russia-centric explanation is myopic. The origin of separatist tendency of Donbas region should be sought in historical developments of Ukraine, in the political and cultural dichotomy between the West and the East of Ukraine
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Charap and Shapiro emphasize that the USA should adopt more constructive policy towards Russia. How to Avoid a New Cold War - Brookings Institution (2014)
And now ( July 2022) they are saying, The US and Russia Need to Start Talking Before It's Too Late NYTimes
In this interview, political scientist Serhi Kudelia expresses his concern about "Zelensky's authoritarian tendencies", "...und zeigt sich über dessen autoritäre Tendenzen besorgt",
“The Longer the War Lasts, the Greater is the Threat to Ukraine’s Democracy,” Interview with Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German), May 11, 2022.

That's too many words that address too little. Earlier you blamed all civilian deaths in Donbas to the Ukrainian government. Now in your offhanded passing statement its down to most of them. A few posts more and we'll likely go down to equal responsibility for the civilian deaths...

It makes no sense to compare the sporadic, occasional bombing of Gaza (a quasi-colony of Israel), designed to liquidate insurgents, with the bombing that occurs in conventional wars, which is the case here, just as was the case with Allied bombing in World War II, which was devastating and incomparably more lethal to civilian populations. In doubt, just ask Harris.
If there is any comparison to be made, it is this one.
And let’s keep in mind that Yugoslavia was bombed back to the stone age. In Serbia, caused more than 1 million refugees. Enjoy, lovers of double standards, because it matters, The ICTY Prosecutor and the Review of the NATO Bombing

Just because you use different terms for the two cases doesn't change their nature. Though we can argue that Russia's bombing is even more intentional terrorism of the Ukrainian public as they are directly targeting civilian infrastructure to cause death.

What is a civilian target is no a linear question, the answer is not straightforward, read attentively the link provided in my last posts. It's about the Ukrainian war.

Strange that this was not a concern when you went back decades to push the spotlight on other conflicts. This is a rather weak tactic to defend Russia's raping of Ukraine.

[Muizer]

There is no comparison at all between anything the United States has done and Russia.

The war in Ukraine and the Second Gulf War are comparable in the sense there was no credible justification whatsoever in both cases, only obviously fabricated pretexts. If you want to condemn the first and defend the latter, your moral high ground isn't actually that high.

[conon394]

The war in Ukraine and the Second Gulf War are comparable in the sense there was no credible justification whatsoever in both cases, only obviously fabricated pretexts. If you want to condemn the first and defend the latter, your moral high ground isn't actually that high.

That's not entirely so black an white. Its not a good feeling defending what was a an epic blunder by the US of the first order... So there is that. But the US did work hard to to hang its had on UN resolutions. And it did have the somewhat in retrospect suicidal miscalculation of Saddam to help with that. But also in the longer view the US left. And its saying something that Iraq as essentially drifted toward and Iran orbit. Also no matter how inefficient the US rebuilding of Iraq was I am rather sure whatever parts of of Ukraine Putin does not want won't see dollar one for rebuilding and the money spent on his kept parts if that happens will be less.

[Alwyn]

The comparisons with the past behaviour of NATO countries are interesting. Russia's strategy in Ukraine seems to be strategic bombing - to damage the morale of the population and to hinder Ukraine's production and military forces. Bret Devereaux discusses how British and American air forces in the Second World War tried to use strategic bombing to disrupt German industry and lower the morale of the population.

The idea, informally called ‘Industrial Web Theory,’ was that an enemyÂ’s industrial capacity was a fairly fragile web which could be disrupted by striking key nodes and that these disruptions would cause military production – ammunition, weapons, fuel and all of the other necessary things for ground warfare – to come to a near-halt, depriving the enemy of the ability to field a modern army and thus forcing them to surrender. - Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

Did strategic bombing reduce German industrial production?

Instead of falling, German production continued to rise – indeed, it tripled – until territorial losses to the advancing Soviet and Allied armies finally curtailed production. Overy argues, persuasively, I think, that bombing did serve to stunt German production growth, but the strategic effect of disabling German industry to the point that the war couldn’t be continued was wildly, overwhelmingly out of reach. The opponent could, after all, react, dispersing and protecting industry, limiting the impact of bombing campaigns. - Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

Did strategic bombing reduce the morale of the German population?

Finally, in the aftermath of the war, efforts to survey the morale impact of the bombing largely concluded that – wait for it – being bombed hardened civilian will to resist. Together the allies had dropped some 2,500,000 tons of bombs – eight thousand times⁸ the quantity Douhet predicted would induce surrender – and the net effect of this was to increase German resolve to resist. - Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

What about the Vietnam War - did the strategic bombing by the US reduce North Vietnam's industrial capacity and the morale of the population?

Nevertheless over the course of the operation the United States dropped some 643,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam, a fraction of the even larger total used during the entire war (though the great majority of that larger total, around 8,000,000 tons, were dropped on targets outside of North Vietnam). The net effect on the industrial basis of the war effort was not significant. Meanwhile, Mark Clodfelter has argued (inter alia), in The Limits of Air Power (2006) that the campaign actually harmed US political objectives and helped North Vietnamese goals, securing North Vietnam’s firm support from both its populace and its international sponsors while at the same time dividing the American public and thus sapping support for the war. Once again – wait for it – being bombed hardened civilian will to resist. Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

This doesn't mean that strategic bombing has no effect on the enemy - but it doesn't seem to be the war-winning move that Britain and the US hoped it would be in the Second World War, or that the US hoped it would be in the Vietnam War. What about more recent strategic bombing, with more accurate weapons? NATO used strategic bombing in response to Serbian ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999 - did it work?

At the same time, while the bombing campaign was happening, Serbian forces accelerated the ethnic cleansing campaign; efforts to slow down that process with strikes from the air largely failed due to difficulty in targeting the Serbian ground forces in the absence of a ground presence. - Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

He concludes that "the repeated mistake militaries have made is attempting to use airpower as the lever to force major concessions or even total capitulation". Just as Britain, America and the NATO alliance made this mistake before, Russia's armed forces seem to be making the same mistake now - and Russia's forces seem to have the same difficulty that American forces had in Vietnam:

At the same time, industrial bombing – which also has, at best, a somewhat mixed track record – isn’t an option for Russia for the same reasons it wasn’t an option for the United States in Vietnam or Korea: the industrial production which sustains the Ukrainian war effort is largely happening outside of Ukraine. Ukraine’s entire GDP pre-war was $189bn nominal. As of October 3rd, 2022, Ukraine has commitments of over $93bn in aid; $52.3bn of that is from the United States, a country against which Putin has very little leverage and which he most certainly cannot safely bomb. - Collections: Strategic Airpower 101

This seems to suggest that, while strategic bombing will cause a lot of people to suffer in Ukraine's winter, it's also likely to harden the resolve of Ukraine's population and strengthen the support of countries which are sending supplies to Ukraine - which would undermine rather than improve Russia's ability to win the war.

[conon394]

Its a bit of cheat to refer back to Douhet for the US and UK in WW2. Yes in absolute terms his ideals put into practice failed absoultly. But the CBO was what the allies could do and it did have war winning implications. No it didn't break German moral but it constrain and pervert their war effort Simply put Germany had the more constrained supply of material and manpower and the response to the CBO was a cost they could ill afford but had to spend. Critically that was less effort on the only from front that could possibly change the economic balance of the war the war in Russia. The heavy and light guns for AA and the fighters to intercept bomber were needed on the eastern front. The ammunition expenditure for AA fire was vastly more than that of a land battle. Even the V projects were and the mini blitz were not just driven by Hitler but by the SS determination of the public mood thay will might not have been broken by the allied bombing but the German people wanted payback for it. Sure industry could be dispersed, put under ground but that came at a cost you did not get to willow run chucking B-24s out at one an hour every day all day. Germany did increase production but basically by locking outdated designs or stuff of shoddy quality.

NATO used strategic bombing in response to Serbian ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999 - did it work?

But it did convince Serbians that the war was not worth it.

[Alwyn]

I see your point about the diversion of resources in WW2 which could have otherwise been sent to the Eastern Front. To be fair to Devereaux, he wasn't saying that strategic bombing is completely useless. He acknowledged that it helped the Western allies to wear down Germany's air force in WW2 (calling this "perhaps the most useful thing strategic bombing accomplished in the war").

Do you think that the value (for Russia) of damaging Ukraine's infrastructure will outweigh the hardening of Ukrainian resolve and the strengthening of support for Ukraine in other countries? For example, the EU is sending 200 transformers and 40 heavy generators and NATO sent fuel, medical supplies and winter equipment (Financial Times).

Do you think Russia's attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure will persuade Ukrainians that the war isn't worth it, rather than hardening their resolve?

[conon394]

I would argue minimization of the impact of the CBO to just a diversion is still understating the impact... In any case to your second question.

I'd say Putin has to go all in with winter. When his decapitation attack failed and Ukraine did not collapse not sure he has to worry about resolve. Attacking infrastructure is what he can do and it will make life rather less than pleasant for Ukraine and he needs to see how Europe fairs as well with energy shortages. Probably his best bet is that if NATO does not significantly upgrade the gear Ukraine is getting - range of rocket artillery, quality of tanks and and armored vehicles, air defense and for f-sake planes he could well finally manage a solid force for invasion mark two come spring.

[Boudicca]

I am rather worried that Putin will not go "all in" in winter. He will trie to continue the conflict and drag it out, just like he did since 2014. He will mobilize Russia further, trie to replenish reserves in some way - especially since there is always some money to be had from oil and gas and resources. He will not take into account how all the people in Russia will get along with this - I suppose that human lives have very little meaning for him. Even if Russia should only be barely hanging on, he will not surrender. So he will eventually have to be removed or die from some kind of "natural causes..."

[PointOfViewGun]

The sight of Russian bars empty of any men is a truly bizarre sight to hold as a side-effect of this conflict.

[Laser101]

I see your point about the diversion of resources in WW2 which could have otherwise been sent to the Eastern Front. To be fair to Devereaux, he wasn't saying that strategic bombing is completely useless. He acknowledged that it helped the Western allies to wear down Germany's air force in WW2 (calling this "perhaps the most useful thing strategic bombing accomplished in the war").

Do you think that the value (for Russia) of damaging Ukraine's infrastructure will outweigh the hardening of Ukrainian resolve and the strengthening of support for Ukraine in other countries? For example, the EU is sending 200 transformers and 40 heavy generators and NATO sent fuel, medical supplies and winter equipment (Financial Times).

Do you think Russia's attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure will persuade Ukrainians that the war isn't worth it, rather than hardening their resolve?

It's a bit of a moot point though. The other major goal of WW2 bombing campaigns (which were far larger in magnitude than the Russians' current actions) was to destroy an enemy's industrial base and hence their capacity to sustain the war effort. Since Ukraine is relying mainly on external deliveries, their arms supply base is out of the Russians' reach (a similar situation applied to American bombing in North Vietnam).

[Stario]

That doesn't address the glaring hypocrisy in your arguments here.

What hypocrisy!?😬

[Ludicus]

I do not understand the hypocrisy of double standards. To NATO, everything is forgiven, justified in Serbia with western pro-NATO newspaper headlines such as "bombing for peace" !

Effects of NATO's bombing in the Balkans - The Lancet

The NATO bombings of Yugoslavia have damaged many clinical and hospital centres and caused new health problems. The maternity hospital in Belgrade, and the biggest hospital in the Balkans (Military Medical Academy Hospital), the orthopaedic hospital of Banjica, the hospitals in Cuprija and Aleksinac, and the medical centres in Pristina and in many other towns, have all been damaged. When the hospital of Dragisa Misovic in Belgrade was bombed, on May 19, three people were killed and the operating theatres destroyed.
The destruction of bridges ruptures the water mains and has left many communities and institutions without water. The destruction of all the three bridges in Novi Sad left the largest Yugoslav centre for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases without water.
NATO leaders acted in open violation of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva

NATO's Latest Target: Yugoslavia's Economy

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 25, 1999;

As the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia enters its second month, allied bombing has achieved one significant result: the destruction of large chunks of the country's economic infrastructure. By some estimates, the bombing has set Yugoslavia back one or even two decades.
"Nobody can understand why our plant was hit," said Radoslav Savic, director of the coal-fired heating plant, which supplies heat to 50,000 people. "We were not a military target. There was not a single gram of oil inside the plant. The only purpose is to make our people suffer."
part of the rationale for attacking these targets was to cause the civilian population to bring pressure on the Belgrade government to terminate the conflict

When compared to Ukraine, civilian casualties in Yugoslavia were even higher, never smaller. The 78-days-long NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia between March 24 to June 10, 1999 caused the death of around 2,000 people, Bombing to Bring Peace | Wilson Center. In Ukraine, nine months into the war caused the death of around 6,500 people.

Even the wiki knows,

NATO bombing destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, private businesses as well as barracks and military installations. It was the first time that NATO had used military force without the expressed endorsement of the UN Security Council and thus, international legal approval. The bombing caused damage to bridges, roads and railway tracks, as well as to 25,000 homes, 69 schools and 176 cultural monuments.^[180] Furthemore, 19 hospitals and 20 health centers were damaged, including the University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović.^[181][182] NATO bombing also resulted in the damaging of medieval monuments, such as Gračanica Monastery, the Patriarchate of Peć and the Visoki Dečani, which are on the UNESCO's World Heritage list today.^[183] The Avala Tower, one of the most popular symbols of Belgrade, Serbia's capital, was destroyed during the bombing.
Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as an act of "brutal interventionism

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The EU, considering Russia a state that promotes terrorism, obviously states that there is no room for any peace negotiations and that the only option of war is the total defeat of Putin through the continuous supply of arms to Ukraine until victory.
Take note, this after nine months of war, the destruction of 50% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, the ruin of its industrial fabric, an unprecedented crisis of refugees (about eight million) and internally displaced persons, the 33.4% reduction of its GDP, more than five million unemployed, and hundreds of thousands of human lives taken, all of this to start talking about peace. It seems to me that these winter months are the last chance for the Kiev regime to sign a peace agreement.According to Mark Milley, "the probability of a Ukrainian military victory is now extremely low”, and he knows what he says.

After all, Russian missile attacks do not stop, as Russia goes for the "Yugoslavia’s option" (I could have said "Syrian option") of trying to bomb Ukraine into the Middle Ages. Ukraine's infrastructure has already been almost completely destroyed.
Unsurprisingly, Milley's words were poorly received in Kiev, provoking the opposite reaction to the one intended.
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Ukraine should size the wisdom of what is written here, but I am afraid it is an impossible task for a country that is being encouraged to fight to the last man, and cannot even admit any other possibility than an impossible victory,

Bring Russia and Ukraine to the Negotiating Table - NYTimes Nov. 2, 2022

the risk of a wider war between NATO and Russia is rising by the day, as is the risk that economic blowback from a prolonged war could undermine Western democracy. It is time for the United States and its allies to get directly involved in shaping Ukraine’s strategic objectives, managing the conflict, and seeking a diplomatic endgame.

Sooner rather than later, the West needs to move Ukraine and Russia from the battlefield to the negotiating table, brokering a diplomatic effort to shut the war down and arrive at a territorial settlement. A hypothetical deal between Russia and Ukraine would have two main components. First, Ukraine would back away from its intention to join NATO — an objective that has for years provoked strong Russian opposition. Russia has legitimate security concerns about NATO setting up shop on the other side of its 1,000-mile-plus border with Ukraine.

Ukraine would continue to receive arms and economic support from the West and work toward membership in the European Union, but it would formally embrace the neutral status that it adopted after separation from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Diplomacy could then focus on the ultimate disposition of Crimea and the chunk of the Donbas that Russia occupied in 2014.

Both sides would need to compromise: Moscow to abandon its recently announced intention to annex a major slice of eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv to settle for an outcome that could entail less than regaining all its land.

Helping Ukraine defend itself is worth a quite significant effort, but not one that leads to World War III or fractures Western democracy.

[antaeus]

I do not understand the hypocrisy of double standards. To NATO, everything is forgiven, justified in Serbia with western pro-NATO newspaper headlines such as "bombing for peace

Seems straight forward. If one country attacks another, and refuses realistic dialogue or compromise, then the alternative is forcing that dialogue through coercive action.

Or are you whataboutering here? The legitimacy of NATO's actions in the 1990s doesn't have any bearing on the legitimacy of their actions now. Each case should be considered on it's own merits.

[Kyriakos]

Seems straight forward. If one country attacks another, and refuses realistic dialogue or compromise, then the alternative is forcing that dialogue through coercive action.

Or are you whataboutering here? The legitimacy of NATO's actions in the 1990s doesn't have any bearing on the legitimacy of their actions now. Each case should be considered on it's own merits.

He was talking about the 1999 3 month bombing of Serbia. In that, Serbia didn't attack any other country; Kosovo was a region in Serbia, that had a lot of people who didn't want to be in Serbia - you might say like Crimea and Donbas.