8 ms·

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

by blast 5y ago

anramon 5y ago
Right now an "expert" is whoever says something that is aligned with media retoric.
- thera2 5y ago
- gpm 5y ago
  The expert they are quoting is a pretty well known figure, who has been saying lots of things often not aligned with media retoric. To borrow his twitter bio as an introduction > PhD student @warstudies (Department of War Studies at Kings College). Senior Fellow @FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute). Previously @USMC (US Marine Corp), @ColumbiaSIPA (Columbia School of International and Public Affairs), @CentreAST (Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies), and @AlfaFellowship. Focused on Russian defense policy. To imply that they're just pulling in random people is flat out wrong. This is a person who has been studying Russia from a military standpoint for many years.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    You can nearly always find a qualified individual who already is saying what you want said, just needing a microphone to say it louder or at the right time. That's how expert witnesses tend to work for instance.
nomel 5y ago
I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known. And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent. There's an active war. If history has taught us anything, psyops is as sure as death, in war.
- gpm 5y ago
  > I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known. That explains the anonymous officials not agreeing with this stance. That doesn't explain the non-government experts not agreeing that this is the reason though. They don't have any special knowledge and wouldn't be telling the Russians anything they didn't already know. > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent There's probably a degree of this, but from what I've seen it also seems to be legitimately the case that they are somewhat incompetent. Besides which, the Russian's letting that psyop succeed, would itself be direct evidence of incompetence.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Re: psyops, Russia has many of the same weaknesses as China, in that their practitioners cannot conceive of an independent, actively contradicting and adversarial infosphere. Inside Russia or China, psyops is muting whoever says something you don't like, and deciding on and disseminating the message of the day. Outside of Russia or China, that looks very different, with everyone opining on your message whenever they feel like it, in addition to virality being a huge component of message reach. That's a very different skillset to navigate successfully.
- eitland 5y ago
  > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent. Given their unencrypted radio communication they have done a fair effort to support that idea themselves.
  - nomel 5y ago
    I don't see how that's a sign of incompetence, rather than a sign of aging military equipment. Incompetence would be relaying important, uncoded, information over an unencrypted signal, in a way that would result in some disadvantage. For example, saying "shoot here" then having a tank round go through the wall 5 seconds later wouldn't benefit from encryption.
gamblor956 5y ago
The "stumped" is not actually in the article. FTA: the issue is that Russia made a huge show of force at the start of the invasion but has apparently held back from actually using much of it (by air or ground). This war could have been over the day it started if Russia had used maximal force, and the conservative approach their actually using maximizes risks and casualties. And that's what has the experts confused: they can't figure out why Russia is going with this strategy, given the overwhelming technological and numerical superiority of the invasion force and their apparent willingness to accept casualties as the cost of conquering Ukraine. It doesn't appear to be cost, because the invasion has "cost" Russia hundreds of billions. It doesn't appear to be casualties/morale, because Russia has suffered 500+ casualties in 3 days (its worst losses since Afghanistan), and is still invading. It doesn't appear to be doctrine, because their actions don't match what is known of Russian ground or air doctrine. And so experts are trying to figure out what calculus went into Russia's invasion planning (assuming there was a coherent strategy going in, which is not a given in the post-Trump world).
- dymk 5y ago
  It's not really fair to say it's not in the article - it's the title of the article.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    The author of the article does not choose the title, the editor does, based on what they think will draw more views/clicks.
    - dymk 5y ago
      I don't really care if it's the editor or the author - it's part of the article. Similarly, I don't care if it's served up over HTTP1 or HTTP2, it's irrelevant to the content of the document served up.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  I think it's like this. Russia eventually wants to bombard Kiev with heavy weapons like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9A52-4_Tornado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9A52-4_Tornado which can use ammunition at an absolutely insane rate. It takes time to move this stuff into place and more time to take the ammunition in, set up resupply paths, etc. So Russia attacks Kiev with a small force with light weapons, some Spetsnaz, mostly to keep the fight away from the main body of the force which will strike hard when it is ready.
ed_balls 5y ago
Depends on what you mean by experts. The strategist I know said this is a political decision. They don't want to inflict too much damage to avoid bloody insurrections in the future. Russian aircrafts are not that precise. What is more, UA army received manpads. It's not worth it.
- sofixa 5y ago
  I don't see how that excuses their failure to achieve air superiority. The Ukrainian Air Force still manages to fly manned and unmanned missions and harass Russian equipment and logistics.
- stouset 5y ago
  MANPADs are only effective at very low altitudes (AGL), fundamentally due to the inability to put much propulsion on a rocket intended to be carried by hand. Su-27s, Su-34s, and Su-35s should fly significantly higher than this altitude during strike and interdiction missions, but doing so exposes them to radar-guided SAM systems like the aforementioned Buk (SA-11 / SA-17) or S-300 (SA-10 / SA-12 / SA-20).
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    You can see on some clips how low there were flying - well within the range of manpads. As I said, it could be because they don't have a good high precision munitions.
- alexanderchr 5y ago
  > They don't want to inflict too much damage Have you seen what they have done to Mariupol and Kharkiv the last few days? Maybe this was the original plan, but with that botched there seems to be no consideration for damage to civilians.
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    yes, it seems they changed the strategy to Aleppo/Grozny
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
IncRnd 5y ago
There are many possible explanations, so latching onto the first one that sounds plausible is not necessarily the correct one. Otherwise, we would all be like those pundits on TV. Several reasons might also be simultaneously true. Some simple examples: Russia might be testing NATO. Russia might not want to escalate in certain ways. There have been many countries whose leaders want to minimize the numbers they kill, while still killing many people. Russia might not want to reveal otherwise unknown capabilities. They might be preparing their air to strike elsewhere, possibly unrelated to Ukraine. There might be a revolt inside Russia's military. And so forth. But, what's likely? Maybe they just don't want to kill everyone or create dissent.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  It wouldn't be unhelpful to increase the sortie rate of Baltic air policing missions and extend them over the Finnish border (with Finnish permission). Potentially hostile assets require matching defensive stationing, even if they aren't doing anything aggressive. Fighters in Murmansk / Severomorsk aren't in Ukraine. "Fleet in being" works for air forces too.
consumer451 5y ago
The explanation which I have not seen discussed here is that this is a secret war, in Russia. Putin called it a "special operation." Use of the term "war" in reference to this action has been banned in Russia. This secret war aspect may have had practical effects on command and control. It is possible that by not declaring this more than a limited special action, Putin's deployment options are actually limited.

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

by blast 5y ago

If that is the case, why would officials and experts be "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.

anramon 5y ago

Right now an "expert" is whoever says something that is aligned with media retoric.

thera2 5y ago
gpm 5y ago
The expert they are quoting is a pretty well known figure, who has been saying lots of things often not aligned with media retoric. To borrow his twitter bio as an introduction > PhD student @warstudies (Department of War Studies at Kings College). Senior Fellow @FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute). Previously @USMC (US Marine Corp), @ColumbiaSIPA (Columbia School of International and Public Affairs), @CentreAST (Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies), and @AlfaFellowship. Focused on Russian defense policy. To imply that they're just pulling in random people is flat out wrong. This is a person who has been studying Russia from a military standpoint for many years.
- monocasa 5y ago
  You can nearly always find a qualified individual who already is saying what you want said, just needing a microphone to say it louder or at the right time. That's how expert witnesses tend to work for instance.

nomel 5y ago

I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known. And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent. There's an active war. If history has taught us anything, psyops is as sure as death, in war.

gpm 5y ago
> I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known. That explains the anonymous officials not agreeing with this stance. That doesn't explain the non-government experts not agreeing that this is the reason though. They don't have any special knowledge and wouldn't be telling the Russians anything they didn't already know. > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent There's probably a degree of this, but from what I've seen it also seems to be legitimately the case that they are somewhat incompetent. Besides which, the Russian's letting that psyop succeed, would itself be direct evidence of incompetence.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Re: psyops, Russia has many of the same weaknesses as China, in that their practitioners cannot conceive of an independent, actively contradicting and adversarial infosphere. Inside Russia or China, psyops is muting whoever says something you don't like, and deciding on and disseminating the message of the day. Outside of Russia or China, that looks very different, with everyone opining on your message whenever they feel like it, in addition to virality being a huge component of message reach. That's a very different skillset to navigate successfully.
eitland 5y ago
> And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent. Given their unencrypted radio communication they have done a fair effort to support that idea themselves.
- nomel 5y ago
  I don't see how that's a sign of incompetence, rather than a sign of aging military equipment. Incompetence would be relaying important, uncoded, information over an unencrypted signal, in a way that would result in some disadvantage. For example, saying "shoot here" then having a tank round go through the wall 5 seconds later wouldn't benefit from encryption.

gamblor956 5y ago

The "stumped" is not actually in the article. FTA: the issue is that Russia made a huge show of force at the start of the invasion but has apparently held back from actually using much of it (by air or ground). This war could have been over the day it started if Russia had used maximal force, and the conservative approach their actually using maximizes risks and casualties. And that's what has the experts confused: they can't figure out why Russia is going with this strategy, given the overwhelming technological and numerical superiority of the invasion force and their apparent willingness to accept casualties as the cost of conquering Ukraine. It doesn't appear to be cost, because the invasion has "cost" Russia hundreds of billions. It doesn't appear to be casualties/morale, because Russia has suffered 500+ casualties in 3 days (its worst losses since Afghanistan), and is still invading. It doesn't appear to be doctrine, because their actions don't match what is known of Russian ground or air doctrine. And so experts are trying to figure out what calculus went into Russia's invasion planning (assuming there was a coherent strategy going in, which is not a given in the post-Trump world).

dymk 5y ago
It's not really fair to say it's not in the article - it's the title of the article.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  The author of the article does not choose the title, the editor does, based on what they think will draw more views/clicks.
  - dymk 5y ago
    I don't really care if it's the editor or the author - it's part of the article. Similarly, I don't care if it's served up over HTTP1 or HTTP2, it's irrelevant to the content of the document served up.
PaulHoule 5y ago
I think it's like this. Russia eventually wants to bombard Kiev with heavy weapons like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9A52-4_Tornado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9A52-4_Tornado which can use ammunition at an absolutely insane rate. It takes time to move this stuff into place and more time to take the ammunition in, set up resupply paths, etc. So Russia attacks Kiev with a small force with light weapons, some Spetsnaz, mostly to keep the fight away from the main body of the force which will strike hard when it is ready.

ed_balls 5y ago

Depends on what you mean by experts. The strategist I know said this is a political decision. They don't want to inflict too much damage to avoid bloody insurrections in the future. Russian aircrafts are not that precise. What is more, UA army received manpads. It's not worth it.

sofixa 5y ago
I don't see how that excuses their failure to achieve air superiority. The Ukrainian Air Force still manages to fly manned and unmanned missions and harass Russian equipment and logistics.
stouset 5y ago
MANPADs are only effective at very low altitudes (AGL), fundamentally due to the inability to put much propulsion on a rocket intended to be carried by hand. Su-27s, Su-34s, and Su-35s should fly significantly higher than this altitude during strike and interdiction missions, but doing so exposes them to radar-guided SAM systems like the aforementioned Buk (SA-11 / SA-17) or S-300 (SA-10 / SA-12 / SA-20).
- ed_balls 5y ago
  You can see on some clips how low there were flying - well within the range of manpads. As I said, it could be because they don't have a good high precision munitions.
alexanderchr 5y ago
> They don't want to inflict too much damage Have you seen what they have done to Mariupol and Kharkiv the last few days? Maybe this was the original plan, but with that botched there seems to be no consideration for damage to civilians.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  yes, it seems they changed the strategy to Aleppo/Grozny

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

IncRnd 5y ago

There are many possible explanations, so latching onto the first one that sounds plausible is not necessarily the correct one. Otherwise, we would all be like those pundits on TV. Several reasons might also be simultaneously true. Some simple examples: Russia might be testing NATO. Russia might not want to escalate in certain ways. There have been many countries whose leaders want to minimize the numbers they kill, while still killing many people. Russia might not want to reveal otherwise unknown capabilities. They might be preparing their air to strike elsewhere, possibly unrelated to Ukraine. There might be a revolt inside Russia's military. And so forth. But, what's likely? Maybe they just don't want to kill everyone or create dissent.

ethbr0 5y ago
It wouldn't be unhelpful to increase the sortie rate of Baltic air policing missions and extend them over the Finnish border (with Finnish permission). Potentially hostile assets require matching defensive stationing, even if they aren't doing anything aggressive. Fighters in Murmansk / Severomorsk aren't in Ukraine. "Fleet in being" works for air forces too.

consumer451 5y ago

The explanation which I have not seen discussed here is that this is a secret war, in Russia. Putin called it a "special operation." Use of the term "war" in reference to this action has been banned in Russia. This secret war aspect may have had practical effects on command and control. It is possible that by not declaring this more than a limited special action, Putin's deployment options are actually limited.