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Andrew Erickson also had a recent piece: https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/eight-new-points-on-the-porcupine-more-ukrainian-lessons-for-taiwan/
To be honest, before I posted that question on birdsite, I did not realize Aella did long form writing at all. My impression of her, based of whatever went viral enough to get into my feed, is that she was popular for being edgy, sexual, and controversial in a rationalist-coded way.
On the question of abridgements-
Depends on goals and schedules, and also the nature of the work in question. An abridgement of Dream of the Red Chamber would be a travesty; it all matters. But an abridgement of Water Margin would be fine. Many of the stories are very repetitive and episodic, and you don’t lose much by taking the less important ones out.
Though less repetitive, Journey to the West is similarly episodic. Every three chapters is one self contained short story–think the way stories are put together on sitcoms. So you can abridge the novel and not lose anything important in the broader story being told, just as you could by watching the ten best opening, finale,a dn ten best episodes in between of your favorite procedural or sitcom. (This is also true for The Scholars).
Three Kingdoms is not organized like this, and strikes me as a much more difficult abridgement challenge. Events in Three Kingdoms are not episodic–although there are peripheral side characters and side plots that could probably be cut or summarized. I’m less inclined to do it for this one.
I think the retreat would be to Dnipro. This is still plausible.
Re: earlier statements about Syrians — they would likely take the place of Dontesk paramilitary folks as a scouting screen. That is how the current BTGs are set to operate, and this is the role that makes most sense for them here.
My current predictions on the war:
1) For Putin to go to the negotiating table–or, frankly, Zelensky–one of two things will need to happen:
>Kiev must fall
>The Ukrainian divisions stationed on the Eastern front /wDonbas will either be a) surrounded or b) retreat to a more defensible position.The DIA estimates that Kiev has two weeks worth of food; I suspect it will take somewhat more time than that to starve it into submission. Cutting off the eastern forces from their supply lines seems like it will depend either on the fall of Kharkiv or Zaporizhzha. Urban warfare is slow. These could be six week operations.
Putin will not come to the table before hand b/c, even if he wants to end this war, he needs something to negotiate with. On the flip side, as long as the Ukranians are able to maintain the status quo they have no reason to terminate the war either. The interesting questions are what happens if: 1) Kiev and Kharkiv simply do not fall. I do not consider this especially likely, but it is the sort of defeat that might end the war.
Were I betting, I might place %70 odds on Kiev and Kharkiv falling by June, and serious negotiations for war termination only beginning after that.
Thoughts?
This post is for March 1st.
BROAD REVIEWS
Major General Mich Ryan has a daily thread on the events of the day. You can see today’s here.
The Institute for the Study of War also has a daily review of where the situation on the ground stands. It is by far the most impartial and best sourced analysis of that kind. You can read their entry for March 1st here.
TACTICS & MILITARY EFFECTIVENESS
One of the most important things to be understood is why the Russians have underdeployed their air assets. Military analysis that does not attempt to answer this question is missing something important. Justin Bronk provides one plausible theory over at RUSI. Samo Burja in City Journal and David Berman on his substack. (Berman’s piece also has an interesting interpretation of the Russian understanding of the war’s origin point).
There has also been valuable things written about the cohesion and command incentives of the Russian force. This twitter thread by Stanimir Dobrev and this analysis by Mark Antonio Wright in National Review are the most interesting things I have seen on this front. Henrik Paulson has written the most useful thread on logistics.
FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS
Adam Tooze is my go-to man on these questions. He has written up two extremely useful Chartbook notes on the crisis and did a podcast with Ezra Klein that is worth listening to.
Over at Bourse and Bazaar an extremely good essay on what the Iranian sanctions can teach us about the likely contours of a Russian economy under pressure.
Henry Farell has a thread linking to the academic studies most important for understanding the weaponization of finance. Rob Pearson’s thread looks at the likely effects of shutting down the Russian central bank. Lilian Li has a thread on the potential Chinese replacement of SWIFT. (See also this thread by Tuvia G.) In his own thread, Michael Pettis poo-poohs the idea.
RUSSIAN INTENTIONS
Thomas de Waal puts up a thread looking at mistakenly published Russian articles that provide insight into where they wanted this to go.
Russian nationalist Anatoly Karlin writes an essay that provides a perspective otherwise hard to get in English.
Last year Putin himself wrote a long essay on his view of Ukrainian nationhood that lays out why he views this as a crisis requiring a military solution. You should read it if you have not.
WATCHING THE RUSSIA WATCHERS
Both Kori Schake and Richard Hanania have written pieces admitting their predictions for this war were wrong, and try to figure out why they made the wrong predictions. This is a good practice that should be celebrated and emulated!
DOWNSTREAM EFFECTS
Nicolas Glinsman has a piece that looks at the possible inflationary effects of this conflict and the sanctions that came with it.
Peter Zeihan looks at Ukrainian and Russian product exports the rest of the world is soon going to be missing.
Ryan Peterson has an important thread on how this war will roil the global airborne logistics system.
DARK HUMOR
Finally, a fun thread that looks at all the crazies trying to convince you the war in Ukraine is REALLY about the pet issue they care about most.
A few additional thoughts based off of my current read of the situation.
1) Russia certainly overestimated Ukrainian resolve, seemed to think Zelensky would run away as Ghani did in Afghanistan, leading to a collapse on all fronts.
1.a The best explanation I have seen for Ukrainian resolve: the Ukr has been drafting soldiers to fight in Dobansk for the last five years; a far larger % of the Ukrainian armed forces are combat veterans. The Russians, in contrast, are more green overall and less prepared for the realities of war.
2) Greatly worried that we are boosting Ukrainian odds far beyond what is realistic. Iranian precedent points to the limits of a central bank shutting down sanctions regime. The Russians are in a far better place economically than the Iranians were a decade ago, but the Iranian government is still here. Russians can overcome the tactical flaws of the last few days with the sheer weight of numbers that the Ukrainians just do not have. The range of possible outcomes are weighted towards the fall of Kiev and the defeat of Ukrainians Eastern armies.
3) What I would like to see more thought on, but have seen precious little thusfar, is the end game. What outcomes could we accept in exchange for ending sanctions? What does war termination look like? How does the United States in particular balance these problems with Ukraine with our security commitments in the Pacific?
Good book list,
One of the interesting thoughts I had about the Miller book when I read it: the time it took for invested interests to slow the Soviet system down from their origin in the ’40s,,,, was 40 years. If we understand the Cultural Revolution as a great reset that wiped the Chinese political scene clean…. then we are just about 40 at that 40 year point.
it puts a different spin on articles like this:
https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/is-xi-a-failure-plus-older-gentlemen
Ask my friend, and ye shall receive: https://scholars-stage.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-civilizations-a-reader-course/
Louis, thanks for writing this. Just saw it today (took a blog vacation over Christmas break). It means a lot to me!
So the model here is something like Northern Ireland during the Troubles, not the U.S.-Civil War. Urban terrorism and perhaps mobbing, not tank battles.
I can imagine a scenario where Trump narrowly wins or loses a disputed election, following which there is large scale street action, which turns into street battles, which are put down by the military, which leads to state of exception rhetoric and the neutering of the other side, which leads to assassination or bombing tactics. The question I don’t have an answer to is where the stable equilibrium point is for this sort of thing. Is it something like 1960s level bombs, state-on-protestor violence? That was stable for about a decade. But for the reasons laid out in my post “On Sparks Before the Prairie Fire”I don’t think that is sustainable today [https://scholars-stage.org/on-sparks-before-the-prairie-fire/]. Either we will slide down to something worse or state power will be used to snuff it all out.
LOTR is tragic on the grand historical scale but not on the personal scale. Frodo, Aragon , and the rest have a happy ending. R3K is tragic on the personal scale–all the good guys are defeated–but not on the grand historical scale.
Thats my take I think, in a sentence.
“A blockade of Taiwan, followed by a military victory in which a US aircraft carrier is sunk, would probably mean the Chinese could land in Taiwan with little military resistance, right?”
I do not think so. The problems with a blockade include:
1) The longer it goes on the longer international pressure grows and the chance of successful Japanese/American intervention increases
2) You still have to get people across the strait and onto a landing beach. Blockade itself does not reduce Taiwanese capabilities to resist a beach landing, except perhaps on the morale front.Command of the air is different, and it is difficult to imagine a scenario where the PLA will head across the strait without first degrading the Taiwanese IAD and shooting their planes out of the sky/off the runways.
My 2c
@Maanas–
My reading of AmMind comes almost entirely from their written pieces; I have only listened to the Micahel Anton podcasts. Do you think there is a significant difference in tone between the written version and the spoken persona?
Note the parallels to my arguments earlier in this piece: https://scholars-stage.org/questing-for-transcendence/
