this is a map from april 3 but honestly it hasn't changed a whole lot
uh step one uh a northern invasion down to kiev now we all know this kind of fell apart
but different sides took different lessons now i know that the folks at dod when they saw this
and they saw the convoy that was coming the 40 mile long convoy and how it stopped after day
because they forgot to bring fuel i know there's this initial bit of euphoria that holy crap we
can totally take the russians in a fight and then everyone had a nap and thought about it
and then confidence went to fear because now we know that if there's ever a direct confrontation
between nato forces and russian forces the russian forces will be completely obliterated
and the russians will have a choice between a broad-scale retreat at all points of contact
probably back to maybe even beyond the pre-war borders or escalation so we now know we have to
prevent that conflict from ever happening so any system that we can send the ukrainians anything
they can operate themselves or that can be handled with like 48 hours of training no more than that
they're getting and people nato countries are emptying out their stores the canadians have
already run out of stuff to send which and i know i know i know canada doesn't have much
of a military anymore but still uh we can't send them anything with a logistical tale
because a logistical tale would require american forces to defend it and then we
would have that direct confrontation so there's a handoff in nato countries the
ukrainians drive it or train it or truck it or whatever happens to be from there and that's now
policy because we're brightly horrified of what will happen if we have that direct confrontation
next uh starting in the separatist territories in the east and crimea the convergence upon mariopol
uh mariopol is important for more than just a land bridge uh there is a road nexus there that
connects russia proper into crimea and on into the rest of ukraine and if the russians fail to secure
mariopol to their liking then the only way that the forces in crimea can be resupplied is
through a single bridge over the kirch strait and now that the united states is sending
longer-range weapons into ukraine that bridge is not long for this world which means that mario
paul will be the only way that the russians can supply crimea keep in mind that crimea is
not an agricultural region so all the food for the entire population there has to be imported
via russia and once they lose that one rail line over that one bridge mariopol is it so if there's
going to be a counter-strike that matters by the ukrainians that's where it has to go
and so the russians feel they have to take that as thoroughly and as quickly as possible
we're going to have a couple of interactions in attempting to hive off the regular ukrainian army
from everywhere else i'd say that the russians are actually doing a decent ish job of doing that
right now and then the push that i'm most concerned about personally would start in
crimea and go over to odessa this probably can't happen until marriott poll is completely secured
but once they get to odessa they will have shut off all ukrainian exports of all type any chance
of reinforcement from the sea and then it's a short push to moldova where they already
have forces and then romania is just right next door so that's kind of where i see the war going
for about the next two months ukrainians are definitely overperforming and the russians are
definitely underperforming but the war in eastern ukraine now is a uh it's an artillery battle
and this is literally what the russians have preferred in their wars going back to world war
one and if they don't win that then we can talk about a war scenario where the ukrainians might
actually win this uh but everything in the war right now in my opinion is plain to russia's
strengths rather than its weaknesses and i don't think we've begun to see the level of devastation
that is really in store here because the lesson that the russians took away from kiev
is that they can't capture this going softly and so we're seeing a civilian obliteration program
for all infrastructure the idea being that if you level an urban area people will fall into
one of two buckets they self-segregate one group becomes refugees and they leave and you never have
to worry about them again and anyone who remains behind is a soldier and you can shoot them on site
and we know from german radio intercepts that the bucha massacres were not a one-off that's happened
dozens of times in russian occupied territory the russians know they don't have the population
at home to repopulate this area once they take it and so they really don't care what happens
to the civilian infrastructure we've seen them going after absolutely everything with a special
emphasis on cold chain logistics for food uh grain storage and they don't done what they
can to damage the port of odessa already in terms of their offloading facilities
so when they're done there is not going to be a whole lot left in any of the zones they've
gone through that's just what artillery wars are like okay the american people find ukraine
interesting i don't see it as a threat yet they're just curious about it because it's
the first time since 1989 that something has come across the foreign policy screen that
is more than playing whack-a-mole with islamic terrorists and that's almost refreshing i guess
if our goal is to hold up the civilizational ceiling in some meaningful way
that means some version of a return to de facto subsidizing the security of a large number of
countries the question is who makes the cut and that again requires first that conversation about
what it is we want so the reason i'm so certain that biden is going to end the oil export band
this year sorry reinstate the export ban this year is we haven't had that conversation
and so the very concept of economic after effects isn't even entering into policy at the moment
and while i'm glad that the biden administration has engaged on the ukraine war i was i had my
doubts there is not even the start of the process of doing more and if you look at what we're
doing with ukraine there's no economic aspect whatsoever especially as relates to the allies
so the russians are going to have this challenge to the german system very soon and the americans
are going to have a challenge to the energy system very soon and we're going to have a very clear
idea of what our trajectory is going to be by september and i can't say i'm hopeful from a from
a globalization point of view from a military point of view i would argue the ukraine war
is going swimmingly it's going to be a long time till we prevent the russians from being able to be
functional in a military sea a scheme but the fact that the ukrainians have done what they've done
with the weapons that they've had and now they're getting some seriously heavy gear i'm optimistic
you