OSINT (Open Source Intel) look at Russia-Ukraine

There are many truisms about logistics in the military.
Most of them are written in blood.

One of my favorites is:
Armatures study tactics.
Professionals study logistics.

I’ve been thinking that Ukrainian propaganda has exaggerated Russian difficulties thus far.
HOWEVER (comma!!)
Aaron and others offer evidence that I not only underestimated Ukrainian resolve and ability, but also OVERestimated Russian logistical ‘throw weight.’

Submitted for your approval…..

 

Yeah… I hope whoever came up with that is burning in hello.

And CNN?

Soviet citizens used to read Pravda and/or Izvestia and pretty much be able to tell what’s happening DESPITE the spin.
What rotted out the Sovs was the fact that the party didn’t reward messengers carrying bad news, and so there was a powerful incentive to keep telling them what they wanted to hear.

This AM:
CNN is saying that we’re working on a deal to provide fighter aircraft to the Ukes.
FNS says we’re waffling.

Personally?
I think that if team Biden IS waffling then it's (another) mistake.
The Rooskies will have solidified their hold on Ukraine before the first Flankers (Poland has a lot of MiG 29s) get into theater, even from Poland……obviating the deal, and so (once again) we will have blinked when we did not have to.
I’m hoping that some of the pretty planes that @tochatihu was looking at flying race-tracks in the opening hours were ELINT birds OVERTLY providing direct intel to the good guys, and a phallic gesture to the forces of evil.
THAT would have been a welcome….er…….signal of Western resolve…and it would have helped the good guys in the fight at the same time.
If you’re a BULLY…you PUSH where there’s MUSH.

THIS guy has ‘skin in the game’:
Starlink won't block Russian news media outlets, says Elon Musk | Business Standard News

Musk recognizes that the solution to bad speech is MORE speech, and he IS putting his satellite company into harms way by letting the Ukes use them in theater.
The Russians are not stupid….nor are they weak.
They have internet skills too……

 

Counting today?

Opinion | Biden Should Bring the U.S. Military Back From Iraq - The New York Times

BTW: I passionately disagree with the NYT.
We don't need to kill additional US servicemembers (to say nothing of wiping out a non-combatant local family) so that an enfeebled US President can look like he's gettin' stuff done.

HOWEVER (comma!!!) If you look at a map you might want to consider keeping access to some of the infrastructure in the Republic of Iraq.
We're getting to drop another plane load of cash on their neighbors.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2022/iran-220305-irna03.htm

 

No.
I meant that I disagree with the nyt.

Their position is and always has been that we should not be there.
That position might have been the correct one in 2001 (P44 is one of the FEW people who called that turn correctly) but ...ah....."times" they are a changin'.

 

Kuwait wasn't Kuwait when we 'assisted' them.
They were Southeast Iraq....and we DID cut a deal...only not the kind of "deal" that P45 might have engaged in where you only help somebody getting mugged for the reward money.

You help people who are getting mugged to STOP the muggER as much as the muggING.

There were certain nations that could not engage in direct action because of "other reasons" (Germany/Japan) who contributed non-lethal aid and MONEY.

The House of Saud also increased energy output to keep oil from doing then what it is doing now.
There was still a price spike, but it was moderated, and the sharp fall in oil prices AFTER the (first) Gulf War led, in part, to the end of the Cold War.

 

Putin.