Episodes
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There’s something really interesting happening in Ukraine. The few and far between Russian victories seem to be making them weaker. Yes, you read that right. Russian victories are draining the life out of their soldiers, making it harder to win the battles that come next. On the other hand, Ukrainian victories have been swift, dramatic, and devastating - with each win seemingly making them stronger.
The big question is, why is it that Ukrainians gain momentum with every win, but Russia can’t seem to build on their victories? Well, it all comes down to asymmetric momentum. And there are 6 major reasons for this.
Tune in to hear what these 6 reasons are and how the recent Ukrainian victories mark a critical juncture that will determine the course of the war.
Topics Covered Include:00:00 Introduction
02:40 What is asymmetric momentum?
04:49 Ukrain’s positional warfare
06:55 Understanding Ukraine’s offensive and defensive strategies
08:16 Russia’s unintelligent retreat
10:37 How Russian political interests are affecting their progress
14:54 The poor discipline and lack of drive in Russian forces
16:42 Is the Russian army competent enough to win this war?
18:00 How Russia’s desire for a quick war is slowing their progress
20:40 Ukrainian motivation and their willingness to die for the right reasons
24:58 The impatient side of Russians uncovered
28:30 Many Russian conscripts will die due to lack of training and morale
29:36 The psychology behind Putin’s destructive Soviet-style leadership
32:04 Ukraine is playing the patient game
34:07 Summary
35:36 Parting thoughts
Ukrainian victories on the ground have been swift, dramatic, and devastating. And each win seems to make them stronger.
Russian victories (back when they happened), seemed to be slow and grinding, and wear the Rusisans down, making them weaker.
Why is it that Russians lose momentum with each victory, but Ukrainians gain it? Why such asymmetric momentum?
I see 6 (or 7, depending) major reasons:
1. Russian Politics (“quick war”): impatience -> meat grinder, not admitting defeat, vs Ukraine’s patience2. Russian Politics (show territorial progress): territory vs. Ukraine’s “defeat the enemy” -> meat grinder3. Russian Politics (don’t let Ukraine show territorial progress): no retreat allowed -> break and rout4. Morale, espirit de corps, discipline, "why are we here" vs fighting for home and life -> Ukrainians will die for the right reasons, Russians are drunk, will break and refuse to fight5. Russian atrocities: hardens Ukrainian morale and turns them into 24/7 machines of war who get smarter and become veterans6. Soviet vs. NATO style: NATO style allows for initiative and invests in training; Soviet style mass forces of limited training and centralized command means they are very predictable7. Putin: total centralized control by someone who has clearly lost touch with realityLinks and Resources:Reconsidermedia.com
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Mitchell Orenstein is a professor of Central and East European Politics in the Slavic department at the University of Pennsylvania and an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard. His research focuses on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe.
This episode is the latest installment to the four-part series on Reconsidering Russia, where we try to dig into Russia's historical and geopolitical context to help you better understand some of their moves today and what's going on in their country today.
Tune in to hear Eric, Xander, and Professor Orenstein dive deep into Russia's real objective in Ukraine, Eastern Vs. Western-leaning periods of Russian leadership, why Russia really needs to diversify its economy, and so much more.
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Why Geopolitics is not about reforms or democracy
03:49 What does Russia really want?
05:49 Understanding Russia's national interests and foreign policy preferences
12:59 Eastern Vs. Western-leaning periods of Russian leadership
16:33 Comparing Russian perceptions to the American interpretation
20:10 What does the 'Near Abroad' mean?
20:54 The democratization of Russia's 'Near Abroad'
24:12 Consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union
28:10 The strategic and fundamental importance of Ukraine
32:14 Russian interests in Finland
34:57 The Nature of Germany's relationship with Russia
39:01 Caucasus as a region of strategic importance to Russia
44:15 Chinese and Russian interests in South-East Asia
47:15 China-Russia relations: Eternal rivals or emerging alliance
50:41 Russia's views on China's growth in power and influence
52:38 Russia-Japan dispute over Kuril Islands
54:50 Thoughts on Russia's domestic politics and foreign policy
58:35 Why Russia really needs to diversify its economy
01:01:58 What to expect from Russia in the next 5 to 10 years
01:05:18 Russia - a gas station with nuclear weapons
01:08:03 Parting thoughts
Links and Resources:
Reconsidermedia.com
Mitchel's website - https://www.mitchellorenstein.com/
Mitchel's profile on the Foreign Affairs Magazine - https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/mitchell-orenstein
Reconsider Media on Twitter - https://twitter.com/reconsidermedia
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Missing episodes?
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Time in Kyiv: 9am, Tues, Sep 13th.
Kharkiv Oblast is free.
Zelenksy announced about 6 weeks ago that a major counter-offensive in the South would take place. After a month of attacking bridges, rail depots, ammunition depots, C&C, bases, etc etc etc, the offensive started in earnest. 2 weeks in, they haven’t gotten a ton of territory back.
But, as all of us paying attention know, the Southern offensive may have been the greatest diversion in warfare since WWII itself.
Over the last week, Ukraine launched the most dazzling counter-blitzkrieg I can think of. We’re going to go over all of that in its glorious detail here.
There’s so, so, so much we don’t know. Lots of opsec, lots intentionally hidden from the public. What I can say with certainty is there will be many a movie made about this in Hollywood -- this is one of the great moments in military and geopolitical history, period. It is very, very likely the tide of the war has turned, and for good. David is now on top of Goliath, pummeling him.
Please excuse the sound. I wasn’t planning to record while on break here but I just couldn't help it. I don’t have my mic!
Connect with MarkRussian History on Facebook
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Mark Schauss is the host of Russian Rulers History and Battle Ground History. Known for being heavily well-versed with the history of Russia, Mark Schauss joins us in today’s episode to talk about the Russian history in its most authentic form. Mark shares everything from Russia’s first invasion to how all these historic events reflect on how Russia moves socio-politically in today’s world.
Join the ReConsider PatreonTopics Covered What made mark start his podcast and how it’s currently going. The history of the first invasion and the second invasion of Russia. The geography of Russia and why it’s easy to invade Russia but why it’s difficult to stay. How Russia was able to balance European powers and how they were able to to set up alliances to protect their borders. Mark shares all about the Napolean and Crimean war.The casualties of the Russian Civil War. The transition period between 1917 to the World War 2. How Russia came back from the 2nd World War as a superpower country. Connect with MarkRussian History on Facebook
Resources MentionedRussian Rulers Podcast
Russian Rulers History
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Hot Updates
Severodonetsk fell slowly as expected, but then Lysychansk fell quickly because Russian troops surrounded it, and Ukrainian troops had to retreat rather than be destroyed. It’s possible the Ukrainians were out-gamed by Russian mid-level commanders.So far, Russians have not been able to break out of Donetsk city -- that part of the original Feb 24 defense line is holdingRussia appears to have deployed nearly 100% of its conventional combat capabilities to Ukraine, and is still getting clobbered.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/25/ukraine-russia-balance-of-forces/ Russia is trying to recruit “volunteer” regiments to deploy in Ukraine to relieve Russian troops -- they will be low quality, and so their use would be to hang tight in certain areas and try to pin down Ukrainian units. Not useless, but not super useful.Once again we have returned to slow movement along the front lines now that Severodonetsk and Lysychansk fell. Ukrainians fell back to the 2nd of 3 highly defensible urban areas in Donetsk oblast, with Siversk and Bakhmut the big towns there. Bakhmut is under a lot of pressure; Russians are trying to surround it, but so far to no avail.Russians attempting to attack directly on those two towns, but also continuing to try the end-around from Izium toward Sloviansk to try to create a pocket that can be cut off. So far it’s really not working. It looks like Russia might be deprioritizing that angle as of July 31.WHAT IS HIMARS? WHY DOES IT MATTER?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/reconsiderpodcast.
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Lots of ways we can split this. Much has been discussed about decoupling of wages from productivity.
Also note we are absolutely not going to get into 2022. But it’s clear the price increases since the pandemic (due to supply shortages, super aggressive monetary policy, gasoline ,and other drivers of inflation) are really eating into real wages.
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OR, a tale of ups and downs
Lots of things seem to be getting worse, at least if you read the internet ever
This is not an episode to say, “nothing is getting worse,” but that what you hear about is probably not very correlated with what’s going on.
I’m leaving abortion out of this because honestly I can’t even deal with this shit right now.
Major problem with talking about trends: how long are we talking here? A lot of stuff goes up and down. If you just look at this year and extrapolate, then the stock market trends down, which it obviously doesn’t. So we’ll do our best, I’m focusing on the current adult generation (Millennials/GenX), but keep all that in mind.
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Updates
Situation in SeverodonetskHUGE numbers of troops from both sidesArtillery war“Road of life” from Bakhmut to Severodonetsk has 1km clearance from Popansa salient and has been a huge fight -- if it goes down, UKR at risk of losing >10k troops in that pocketAmmo situationUkraine out of Soviet ammo; now fully on NATO100% dependent on Western shipments Would have literally run out of ammo without that support -- possible insight into why Russia thought it could win DonbassUKR National Guard troops who are basically there to eat shells and prevent a breakout are losing moraleRussia has blown up the bridge between Severdonetsk and Lysychansk -- this is a major problem for the troops in Severodonetsk, but they could in theory make a river crossing“US General says Elon Musk’s Starlink has totally destroyed Russia’s information campaign” UKR seriously needs more heavy guns -- especially artillery. Losing 100-200 troops/day (to death; likely 500/day to wounds), mostly to artilleryOVERALL:
Game’s far from over, as it turns out. Ukraine could totally win, Russia could totally win.
My past assessments didn’t take ammo into account. Turns out the Russians just have a ton of old ammo they’re willing to use indiscriminately. Ukrainians are low on it.
Ukraine has the will and skill and people to win if it’s supplied.
The crazy situation and bold strategy in East Donbass
Zelensky correctly called that Russia was so obsessed with getting a symbolic victory in completing the “liberation” of the Luhansk oblast, that it would pour everything into urban warfare to pull it off. Putin has his own obsessions, but also has to demonstrate progress on the current stated aims of the war -- liberation of those two provinces. So they’re throwing everything they can at Severodonetsk.
Russia is not good at urban warfare. Most assaults, everywhere, are getting repelled (and when that happens, it means Russia lost a lot of troops, stuff).
BUT -- and big BUT here -- Ukraine is out of Soviet ammo. Which means a whole shitload of their artillery just went silent. Fully dependent on NATO sending even more, which seems to be a slow thing. And would love to have heavy armor, but NATO is against it. Ukraine has to do an artillery duel with a massive (at least 10:1) disadvantage, trying to use superior intelligence and western radar to precision-target Russian artillery and take it out, bit by bit. Long work, lots of ammo. Need more ammo.
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First, war update:
Mariupol fell after 2.5 months of truly insane holding out. Gosh dang. 1900 surrendered and there is a POW complication that I”m not going to get intoUkraine has mostly booted Russia out of Kharkiv, though there is still some fighting and the Russians have not given it up entirely the way they did Kyiv/Sumy/etc, so there’s no obvious way to free up those troops for UkraineRussians trying really hard to cross the Siversky Donets river by pontoon, in order to encircle Ukraine’s core defense force in the Donbass (largely around a city called Severodonetsk and one called Lysychansk). It seems at least twice the Ukrainians knocked out entire BTGs trying to make that crossing, which is incredible.https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1528116469619367940Apparently Russia is generally short of pontoon type equipment…but Russia has a breakout of sorts, actually right in the northern part of the original Donbass battle lines, through a town called Popansa. TONS of troops moving through thereIt’s both a breakout……and a salient, which means significant risk for them. Somewhat exposed.Ukrainians are pretty good at mobile defenseJust not at all clear if they are running in open space (and just taking time to stage properly) or if they are running against really significant resistance at this pointThe original breakthrough at Izium seems to have stalled entirelyRussian troops also massed on the western side of the Siversky Donets (the northern part) to prevent the Ukrainian counter-attack there from threatening the supply lines and etc to Izium -- if that happened it’d be a total disaster(Ukrainians had temporarily broken across the river but had to withdraw)Russian tactics seem to be: just unload with artillery for days and days, then attempt an assaultUsually failBut rinse, lather, repeat, and you get some breakthroughsRussians seem to be planning to do this in the south, north of KhersonRussia may be running out of dronesWill hurt reconDomestic manufacturing capacity limited so they can’t build ‘emThings are moving SLOW, and will continue to do so IF the Popansa breakthrough is containedOK so how does this end?
Well here’s where Russia blew it big time.
The Ukrainians believe they can win.
Russians could have had a settlement where they get Donbass and likely even Crimea as concessions. Now the Ukrainians believe they can win, and want to win.
Ukrainians are also just full of morale, manpower, and money.
-Zelenskyy says 700k soldiers now fighting for Ukraine -- 3x those of Russia. Can definitely win a war of attrition
-Ukraine just got $40B promised from the US, and the G7 promised another $38B
Russia on the other hand is having trouble manufacturing new weapons, and is losing tons of money from sanctions and withdrawals -- 45% of its GDP was made up from sales and operations from the companies that left Russia (which doesn’t, I think, mean a 45% GDP contraction, but it means a lot). So there’s just an economic slowdown generally, and a lack of ability to manufacture advanced weapons.
Russia depends more and more on tube artillery, so it’s just blasting the Donbass to hell.
And for Russia?
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What happens when you start really believing your own bullshit?
What happens when you’ve created a yes-man bubble where everyone only tells you what you want to hear?
First a war update:
Russia’s focus on the east and Donbass, which started a month ago, has made a bit of progress in a few places, but is now pretty stalledThey do seem to be regrouping from Mariupol, but they’ve also been going into a meat-grinderUkraine has made marginal advances towards Kherson and away from KharkivSOMEHOW, Mariupol’s troops still stand in the Azovstal steel plant despite months of constant bombings and stormings -- there’s really nothing like it in modern military history (Alamo has absolutely nothing on it, not even a tiny bit close)It REALLY seems like the vast majority of Russian attempts to advance are getting repelled, and that is going to grind them down and make them combat-ineffective…and now Ukraine is getting tons of heavy weapons:TanksBig, advanced howitzersRadar systems to aim at Russian artilleryRocket artilleryDronesThis is going to help them dislodge low-morale Russian troops and drive offensivesVisit ReConsiderMedia.com
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The Russians are hoping to encircle Ukraine's defensive lines in the Donbass. If they do, they might be able to declare victory.
The Ukrainians are racing east, not only to defend their territory, but might just also be able to counter-attack.
Let's break it down.
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So much has changed over the past month -- Ukraine is on the offensive. Kyiv is safe. The war moves east. Air superiority actually matters more than ever.
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On this episode, Erik interviews Lindsay Graham of American History Tellers and History Daily. They talk about the similarities and differences between today's political and economic climate and that of the Civil War and the Gilded Age.
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The war should have been short and decisive. And as it drags out, Russia looks ever-more inept. What's wrong with its military? What's wrong with its chain of command? Will its economy collapse?
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While this war is far from over... well, it's far from over! And nobody expected that. In this episode we talk about why Ukraine is winning, what it could mean for Russia and the world if they do win, and how warfare is changing as we watch it unfold.
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Erik explains why Russia is invading Ukraine, what their war aims are, what the West is doing, how geopolitics plays into all of this, and a little bit of what might happen next. Get a little sanity of clarity amidst the livestream chaos.
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"Another cause which kept the plebeians in as state of poverty was the unjust distribution of the public land (ager publicus) which had been acquired in war..."
William C. Morey, Outline of Roman History
The Optimates:
Represented the Elites in the run-up to, and the middle of, the Roman Civil Wars
Believe the mob wasn’t really fit to rule, wanted to rule for them
Also represented special interests who benefited personally from a lot of laws that led to unsustainable economic conditions -- such as the (not) Lex Agraria
(Lex Agraria: redistribution due to the landlessness of soldiers during the Punic Wars)
Who are the Optimates Today?
We might think they’re just the rich, or megacorporations (or sometimes, lobbyists). Those are certainly Optimates, but we forget that those with Special Interests are everywhere.
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Antiwork had a really bad day
Source Article
“Laziness is a virtue in this society” - r/antiwork moderator
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220126-the-rise-of-the-anti-work-movement
“Supporters of the anti-work movement believe people should self-organise and labour only as much as needed, rather than working longer hours to create excess capital or goods.”
USA is a tough crowd for this kind of pitch. See: bad branding.
What does Antiwork stand for?
Many people tried to give Erik the answer… and many were different
-Worker’s rights / labor unions
-Economic inequality
-Surplus Value
-Same standard of living for fewer hours
-4-day week
-Abolishing capitalism
-etc
Antiwork freaks out
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se7b86/how_do_you_fuck_up_this_bad/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se59eu/can_be_overworked_to_exhaustion_if_you_sleep_on/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se4gfp/based_af/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se418m/i_didnt_think_this_sub_was_literally_antiwork/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se4nf9/mods_are_trash/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se5cit/im_glad_the_21_year_old_mod_has_the_funds_to_be/
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/se3v15/does_anyone_think_we_would_better_off_with_a/
An interesting conversation with my friend Austin
You have to stand for something if you want a movement… not just against
See: Civil Rights
See: Gay Marriage
See: Women’s Suffrage
Other problems:
Tea party rise-and-fallOccupy Wall StreetBLMThis applies to our Revolutions episode, too -- being against something is only a short-term uniter.
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Today we talk about something I've reconsidered lately: Antiwork
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Erik’s initial take
-labor organization and rights are a great thing
-Not putting up with crappy work conditions, and forcing companies to compete, is a great thing (and this is my opinion as an employer)
-saying “I want stuff - someone has to make it- and I don't want to work in exchange” seems crazy
-”Ending work,” part of the motto, is very explicitly about not working, even though antiworkers will sometimes say they're not actually about that. At the very least it’s terrible marketing.
What do they say the’re about?
"A lot of people mistake antiwork for being lazy, and like nothing has to ever get done," one moderator of the subreddit, who goes by u/rockcellist, told Business Insider.
"But the truth of the matter about antiwork — and everything surrounding it — is that obviously things have to get done, but the current structure in which things get done and the way that capital flows as they get done is unfair and should be nonexistent."
Many posts are about pushing back against, or at least calling out, what seem like unfair or ridiculous practices by companies/management…
..but others get really weird.
#3 post all time is a disgruntled employee, telling one side of the job, who went and deleted thousands of hours of work they did (they happened to still have access).
Erik sees…
Again among some stuff about labor organization, work standards, sharing some amazingly awful stuff that employers and managers have done, sharing pay rates, tips to negotiate, other stuff that actually seems pretty good:
The sense that money isn’t earned - it’s just this ritual/token task you have to do to be allowed to live/surviveThe sense that suckering a company to get paid to do nothing is good40 hours is way too much workSo this doesn’t fit with my own model or experience or biases.
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