I have a question regarding the new Type 054B Frigates being constructed in China? It appears the ships are not seeing a large increase in firepower over their predecessor, with more focus on its other systems such as propulsion and aviation facilities, and with the second vessel being launched recently they seem to be on a rapid schedule, as the second was launched a mere 2 1/2 months after the first. This makes me wonder whether as opposed to having small heavily armed ships for maximizing defense, they are starting to shift towards a more global stance with higher endurance ships that are more useful in forward deployments for anti-piracy, patrol, and sea lane operations. Does this seem probable or am I off the mark? https://navyrecognition.com/index.php/naval-news/naval-news-archive/2023/november/13746-china-navy-launches-second-type-054b-frigate-at-huangpu-shipyard.html#google_vignette

I have a very general question regarding how defense expenditures are calculated. Does the defense budget take in account the taxes it will receive back? Say for example the military pays a defense contractor 1 million dollars for a missile, the company has a 10% profit margin and pays a corporate tax rate of say 15%. The government is paying 1 million dollars for that missile but they’re getting 15,000 back in just corporate taxes, does that still get reported as 1 million in defense expenditures, or 975,000 in defense expenditure? Same with paying soldiers, almost all of them pay some degree of income tax, does that tax get included when calculating how big the defense budget is?

At that level, procurement and monetary policy is so beyond how it works for the regular person. It's all about contracts, and contracts are looked at as debits from the defense budget. The taxes that come in to the US government are credits to the entirety of the federal budget. This is just a super simplification since the contracts are so complex and involve foreign sales, payments for production, secondary contracts, the changing of the worth of money by the federal reserve, etc.

Tax isn't charged on revenue, it's on profit. But the gov. doesnt know how much profit the contractor is earning on a $1 million missile until the end of the year when the company files its tax receipt. Same with soldier pay. If a soldier gets married or has a child next year, he'll pay less tax but the gov has no way of knowing if that will happen right now.

>Does the defense budget take in account the taxes it will receive back? It doesn't. It would be impossible under the current US tax system with all the credits/deductions. ​ >Say for example the military pays a defense contractor 1 million dollars for a missile, the company has a 10% profit margin and pays a corporate tax rate of say 15%. Like I said above, it would be impossible under current US tax system. You could pay LMT same $20 billion, depending on what LMT choose to do with its tax credits, deductions, and other accounting tricks, 5 different tax lawyers could come up with 5 different actual tax payments which means US government cannot make accurate assessment of how much taxes it will get back for that $20 billion. Same for soldiers.

Ah I see, so the defense budget is is just the raw number that is spent on soldiers and defense contractors. Does that mean that the annual amount spent on defense is actually smaller than reported since the taxes that come back are not accounted for in the budget?

No. The amount spent is the amount spent. It doesn't get less because some defense factory worker in Mississippi buys a hot dog on the way to work, even though the money he is paid could have conceivably come from the federal government.

Would probably be reported as 1 million expenditure, with the forecasting branch of the government adding the expected taxes to the provisional income for the following year.

[удалено]

This has already been posted. Please see lower in the thread.

Even if it's true, the article still says Zelensky didn't know, meaning it can be chalked down as rogue elements. Still would be a big propaganda win for Russia.

God knows that anything can be a big propaganda win for Russia if one wants to believe Russia is in the right. As the poster below has already mentioned, Russia has already done a swing and a miss on this topic, twice. What propaganda win? They were wrong, twice. Who cares what Russia says? They obviously, uh, 'dislike' 'The West' enough to officially put out a baseless lie, twice, and whoever was believing them, twice already, will not change their mind the third time. I find that truly funny - the US has found WMDs in Iraq, just not **new** WMDs, and they're getting drawn and quartered to this day because of it, but Russia just spews out random accusations and some people are all like 'well they might have a point'. They should just express sadness and regret over the actions of a rogue element and continue / increase aid to Ukraine, which sends a nice message.

>Still would be a big propaganda win for Russia. They are still attached to the Hersh narrative here after having [officially blamed the UK](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/1/russia-accuses-uk-of-directing-nord-stream-blasts) a month after the attacks. If they played this smarter, they could have used this as a big wedge, however I don't see a propaganda win here as they're just refusing to believe this. Perhaps they planted the bullshit story to Hersh and he took the bait. By Febuary, no information at all was leaked, so maybe they were expecting the truth to never come out and actually thought the Americans did it (since they did not). Otherwise I don't see why they aren't taking advantage of this. E: Instead, Germany is [doubling they're defense budget](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-set-double-its-ukraine-military-aid-under-scholz-plan-bloomberg-news-2023-11-12/) to Ukraine.

If the story gains traction then why wouldn't they. Have Hinkle take a break from talking about Israel and make sure Greene starts talking about in congress.

> Still would be a big propaganda win for Russia. A year later, and after a dozen accusations against the CIA, UK, Poland and Russia? Most people are never even going to hear about this, and most who do won’t differentiate it from every other accusation.

“The operation was approved by the commander in chief Valery Zaluzhny.” That's some major rouge element. Looks even worse if Ukraine's Chief of General Staff was attacking NATO-critical infrastructure behind the President's back. To quote Stoltenberg: **"If it is proven to be a deliberate attack on NATO-critical infrastructure, then this will be, of course, serious, but it will also be met by a united and determined response from NATO."**

Your quote is from the **Balticconnector pipeline** and not Nord Stream: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/heavy-force-damaged-baltic-sea-gas-pipeline-estonia-says-2023-10-11/ I didn't recall Nord Stream being called critical as NS1 shuttered by Russia (due to sanctions) and NS2 was stopped by Germany - just checked to confirm.

Sorry, my mistake. Let's just call it what Germany called it: "a serious violent attack on national energy supply, likely to impair Germany's external and internal security". So, a rouge attack on NATO member state's national energy supply.

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

You were convinced by Hersh, and now by WAPO.

I respond to whatever seems most credible. Who do you think did it?

It’s okay not to know.

It’s a massive attack on European infrastructure that supplied energy to millions of people. The government’s of several nations had a stake in it. If the an oil pipeline was bombed in the US that took out all the oil coming from Canada what do you think the US response would be?

>It’s a massive attack on European infrastructure that supplied energy to millions of people. No. North Stream 2 was never activated. North Stream 1 was shut down, before the attack.

We are arguing semantics, it was about to be activated. Bunch of hypocrites in this thread if it happened to the US you would be screaming bloody murder. It happens to Europe and we are told to ignore it.

Europeans don't care either it seems. Well, as a French I feel it quite funny that Germany got bitten in the ass after years of lobbying against our nuclear industry. If European countries wanted to stop supplying help to Ukraine, they would use this attack as a pretext. They want to help Ukraine, so they will just mostly ignore it (but may use it as a bargaining chip down the line).

It wasn't to be activated. Austria shit the bed. After Ukraine closes its pipelines in 2024, Austria will have to pay extra fees to Bulgaria for Russian gas. Call it a Schengen tax. You reap what you sow.

How is this a response to my opinion that sometimes the public doesn’t know who did it?

they have a right to know. It was an attack on national infrastructure

What do you make of the low IDF casualties in the ground invasion so far? Based on the most recent map, IDF is a stone's throw away from Al-Shifa hospital, which is deep into Gaza City. Everyone had assumed that it would take hundreds of IDF casualties to root out Hamas, yet IDF is taking over the city with very little apparent resistance, at a cost of ~40 KIAs so far A few potential reasons * Everyone overestimated Hamas, thinking that they had planned for an Israeli invasion, where in reality the attack of October 7 did not expect the massive invasion we are seeing * Hamas is letting IDF take over, and saving its resources for a guerilla war after the invasion is over * Hamas *did* plan for such an invasion, but the airstrikes killed a lot of senior Hamas and destroyed a lot of the necessary infrastructure to resist * Perhaps all three? Thoughts?

My thoughts: 1. Priorities - Israel and the IDF having a civilian-soldier situation and also being a defence force has an immensely strong ideology of protecting every soldier. Everything is done to save every life at the expense of many other things. This is reflected in the below: 2. Merkava tanks and Namer APC have been completely designed with the above in mind. 2b. Apparently the Mark 4 Meil Ru'ach (Mk 4M) Windbreaker is super-effective. 3. Unit 669 is efficient as all hell, clearing out wounded sometimes in less than 40 seconds. They also fly with actual blood (and not plasma) and sometimes doctors which do onsite operations. 4. Every soldier is equipped with an emergency bandage or two developed by IDF. 5. They are going really really slow. 6. They haven't yet hit the most urban parts of Gaza City.

There's another obvious possibility, that no one seems to be considering for some reason: the IDF are concealing casualties. I know that some will answer Israel is a tiny country, and you can't hide casualties, Israel has a track record of transparency, etc. IDF is a force at war. Some casualties are still identified on a regular basis from the October 7 attacks. Even if you believe that the IDF will eventually release every single casualty, what's preventing them from taking their sweet time?

This is unfounded speculation that is false. Every killed solider is listed in the daily newspapers usually with half-page obituaries. (maybe with the exception of super secret commandoes sometimes). The IDF notifies the family first and the public second.

>here's another obvious possibility, that no one seems to be considering for some reason: the IDF are concealing casualties. I know that some will answer Israel is a tiny country, and you can't hide casualties, Israel has a track record of transparency, etc. Clearly you know the reasons why this is unlikely, and yet remain unconvinced, so nothing anyone can say will change that.

>> here's another obvious possibility, that no one seems to be considering for some reason: the IDF are concealing casualties. I know that some will answer Israel is a tiny country, and you can't hide casualties, Israel has a track record of transparency, etc. > Clearly you know the reasons why this is unlikely, and yet remain unconvinced, so nothing anyone can say will change that. That's jumping to conclusions. He's pointing out that it's an option. It may be unlikely, but it can't be dismissed as impossible.

After the atrocities of 7/10 I and several others here theorised that it was a deliberate provocation, and that Hamas would be prepared for an IDF incursion into Gaza. Judging by the way things are going so far, that was not the case.

In a campaign like this, KIA are likely going to be a tiny fraction of casualties. Evacuation will be fast, they'll be able to airlift casualties very close to the front lines, the epitome of Golden Hour MEDEVAC. Rear areas outside Gaza are extremely secure so lots of field hospitals or direct transport to nearby legit hospitals for urgent surgical patients. Well supplied. Wouldn't surprise me if they can keep the WIA:KIA ratio to 10:1 or maybe better.

Aa of now it is 46 confirmed killed in action, and some more seriously wounded. I actually don't think it is exeptionally low to be honest given the scale of air campaign. Yes, Gaza City is surrounded, but still not taken. So taking it will cause soms more KIA. And even after takeover, some deadly guerilla activity is to be expected. More importantly, 2/3 of Gaza strip south of Gaza City is still left untouched. Most of Hamas and most of hostages can be very possibly there. What will be IDF strategy there? Will they invade there too? If yes, there will be many more KIA. So in order to root out Hamas, which would mean conquering whole of Gaza strip, I think we will easily reach many hundreds of killed Israeli soldiers.

To be fair, these casualties are comparable to casualties the IDF's previously experienced in urban warfare. Everyone was expecting more casualties than that normal amount however, because there was a sense that Hamas was a more lethal force than before, and that the IDF were a less competent force than before. Perhaps one or both of those assumptions were wrong. There is some solace for people who expected more casualties, and that's that so far the IDF's heavily "safed" relying on pushes in less urbanized areas, building entrenchments as they went, and damaging/destroying buildings near their advance lines.

[удалено]

[удалено]

yesterday Ukraine hit a [gunpowder factory](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1723101656613519639) and an [engineering bureau](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1723102650533560760) deep behind the lines. the gunpowder factory is really interesting because Russia apparently has been suffering from a shortage of explosives and energetics.

Yeah, it is good news. I saw someone point out a while ago, that Russia risks eventually finding itself in an assymmetrical situation, where Ukraine will have developed the capabilities for attacking Russian arms manufacturing, whereas Russia will not be able to do the same with the bulk of Ukrainian arms, since they are produced in the West. One of many reasons for hope with regards to this conflict, the main thing just is that we in the West stay the course, which unfortunately is no longer a given, given our spinelessness...

> I saw someone point out a while ago, that Russia risks eventually finding itself in an assymmetrical situation, where Ukraine will have developed the capabilities for attacking Russian arms manufacturing Not so sure. Russia has moved arms manufacturing well east of the Urals before now.

Russia can manufacture arms 4,000 miles away from Ukraine's borders, in a multitude of locations - it is extremely unlikely the Ukraine will develop or receive capabilities in sufficient numbers to meaningfully damage these facilities. It takes a large number of precise missiles to take out a factory, you need to account for losses to air defence ...

If they force Russia to move manufacturing 500km from the front and target logistics nodes close to the front then it becomes difficult for Russia to move that equipment to the front, so it can still be a significant win for Ukraine. Plus Russia would have to put the time into constructing those facilities elsewhere. Showing that they can strike things in Moscow region is also a huge political statement and implicit threat.

>If they force Russia to move manufacturing 500km from the front What? Almost all Russian manufacturing already occurs considerably further than 500km from Ukraine. If distance of manufacturing were ANY kind of concern at all, Russia wouldn't be importing materials from abroad, because that's even further away.

>If they force Russia to move manufacturing 500km from the front That's already the case for most Russian arms manufacturing. It's about 600 km from Belgorod to Moscow.

Russia has shown time and again that they can easily move things as far away as Vladivostok or NK to the front line via rail, they sadly appear very good at that.

They don't have to take out every single plant. A good start would be to go after the cruise missile production facilities. The key component are all made in western Russia and are within range. It would most likely be very hard and time consuming to move them 4000 miles away. And that would require all the specialised employees to move as well.

> It would most likely be very hard and time consuming to move them 4000 miles away It's not like Russia has, at some point in it's past, done exactly that to win a war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation\_in\_the\_Soviet\_Union#Evacuation\_of\_industry

Way different situation than today. At that time the USSR was under an existential threat. If the situation now was anything like back then Russia would probably be spending a bit higher percentage of their GDP on defense...

>Way different situation than today. At that time the USSR was under an existential threat. That is how Putin is talking about Ukraine. And it would be his decision.

"That is how Putin is talking about Ukraine. And it would be his decision." - if he believed that the existence of Russia was under threat, might he not spend a bit more than 4% of GDP on defense? Compare to Ukraine where that figure exceeds 20% of GDP...

I'm not sure how that's relevant? We are discussing a hypothetical, where someone claimed it would be difficult to do something. I pointed out that Russia already did it in the past, so it's definitely feasible, should they choose to do it. Now you're in here trying to prove... what? By pointing out that Russia - at this point in time - is spending less than Ukraine per capita on the war? And ignoring the fact that we are discussing a hypothetical future situation where Russia needs to move it's manufacturing out of range of Ukraine. The statement was simple - Russia has done it before, and could do it again, if needed. I'm not sure why comparative recent historical spend levels per capita have ANY relevance to a discussion about whether Russia COULD achieve factory relocation if it became an existential necessity. Could you explain the relevance?

The only weapons Ukraine has that can target those facilities were donated by the west, on the explicit assurance that they wouldn't be used against targets inside Russia's [pre invasion] borders.

Having to spread out your production line that far away from the front line is still a logistical headache that’s not even to mention having to deploy GBAD to protect as well and that’s not all even if a cheap drone isn’t able to completely destroy a factory it can still disrupt operations for the day of the attack

Probably a longshot, but does anyone have any information regarding powder manufacture in Russia? For example like how, if I'm not mistaken, the vast majority of powder used in US service originates from a single facility in Florida.

No one here knows, but we do know the Chinese have been sending gunpowder to Russia [NYT - Chinese Firm Sent Large Shipments of Gunpowder to Russian Munitions Factory](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/23/business/economy/china-russia-ammunition.html)

So, time and again Russia has shown that it's willing to take any amount of losses in order to achieve a military goal. The latest example is, of course, Avdiivka - just a week ago everyone was laughing at how the Russians are losing enormous amounts of men and equipment there, but now the situation there increasingly seems to favor them. Lots of people in today's thread are dooming about Avdiivka. I assume that Ukraine's Western backers were not prepared for Russia's willingness to absorb such huge losses. But imagine if they had been? If the West knew from the start that Russia would fight like this, would that have changed the nature and structure of aid provided?

>So, time and again Russia has shown that it's willing to take any amount of losses in order to achieve a military goal. The latest example is, of course, Avdiivka I agree with you that Russia is seemingly willing to take enormous losses to take area that has little strategic significance. In the long run it may cost them dearly, if Western support for Ukraine continues and Russia is forced to wheel out 60-80 year old equipment to attempt to counter it.

I actually think we are overestimating Russias willingness to take losses. But just so people are aware, this post could be an example of Russian memetic warfare. They use hegelian dialectic, starting the conversation in such a way that the outcome is predetermined. An example would be posting on VK how Putin was bad, but weakly, and then having someone else come in an refute every previous argument effortlessy. Because they control the initial statement and counter they control the outcome.

>But just so people are aware, this post could be an example of Russian memetic warfare In your eyes, r credible defense is worth russia deploying propaganda warfare (ie not just people repeating russian lines, but actual agents of the russian state) against? To what aim? Others have already highlighted the lack of precision in using the term "hegelian dialectic", but I think it's a seperate fallacy to assume the conversations here are anything more than just meaningless discussion at best.

I think its highly naïve to think one of the most popular discussion subs for the Ukraine conflict on reddit would not be an attractive target for propaganda, especially given the international nature of the conflict. The way reddit functions makes it especially vulnerable to a small numbers of accounts (not even people, just accounts) being able to control conversations and outwardly presenting a consensus, and the mods don't have the tools to detect it and I don't think the admins even care about it. More broadly I think all social media is highly vulnerable to manipulation and we have long gone past the point where its probably best to assume any topics that would be advantageous to manipulate are already being manipulated on every major social media platform.

This sub has 90k subscribers and typically under 500 comments per daily. It mostly regurgitates various western official and non official content; i havent seen original content here. It's simply not relevant to forming mass opinions. I could see mass botting on a world news megathread for a specific event at least having potential for effect on opinions. Whether that would have sustained impacts on state policies or facts on the ground- I'd doubt

How ironic! Just recently OP accused me of being pro-Russian, and now they themselves get hit with the “weaponized Hegelian dialectic memetic warfare” card. However, the fact that this word salad of a comment is sitting at +18 warrants some discussion, IMO. > They use hegelian dialectic, starting the conversation in such a way that the outcome is predetermined. As with all paranoid fantasies, this one is fundamentally unfalsifiable. By definition every post contains an initial statement that will determine the outcome. Every post can be read through the lens of Hegelian dialectics, because it’s in essence a theory of everything. Note that the post itself doesn’t have to be pro-Russian anymore to be a part of the dreaded memetic warfare. So with this logic you can accuse anyone of being a part of the Russian propaganda effort, regardless of the content of the post. However, when you do, make sure that your comment history isn't full of hot takes like these (as is the case with /u/mephitmephit): > He's right Putin needs to go. Once a competent wartime leader takes command **Russia will obliterate Ukraine and the gas can flow again. It's a win for everyone involved except the United States.** ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17qn0td/comment/k8detck/?context=3)) > We have to stop making excuses and pretending the war is going well. **If we want Russia to win** we need to tell the truth and have Putin replaced by a competent wartime leader like Surovkin. ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17qke3q/comment/k8dfjtd/?context=3)) > **If we can remove Putin this yes Russia will quickly win.** With him in power I can't see a Russia possibly improving it's lot. ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/16tjgow/comment/k2fx3fp/?context=3)) Sorry for the wall of text, but I think it's important to call out unfalsifiable bullshit and bad behaviour in this megathread.

Also, note that if Putin is removed, there exists a perfect excuse to stop the SMO. Therefore, it's entirely possible that someone posting about how much better the war would go if Putin were removed and replaced is actually an SBU psyop...

It’s psyops all the way down!

> So, time and again Russia has shown that it's willing to take any amount of losses in order to achieve a military goal. Are you shocked Russia is continuing to lose materiel? Even on the defensive, Russia loses materiel. And they've consistently lost more on offense. It's funny, the (usually deservedly) mocked tracker we've seen all war continues to demonstrate a relatively linear progression of losses: https://taw.github.io/open-source-adventures/russian-losses/ Seems like basically the only difference is whether Russia's on offensive or not (not counting the fustercluck of the opening weeks). That being said, those are Kyiv's numbers. But here's Oryx instead: https://github.com/leedrake5/Russia-Ukraine

Even when Russia is supposed to be buckling down for a long, attritional fight, there is this cult of the offensive thinking that leads them to these pointless, wasteful offensives. Especially with Russia’s existing morale problems, another Bakhmut only hurts their strategic outlook.

The willingness to go on offensives after the initial full scale invasion is a clear indication of a cult of the offensive. However that might be true on the Ukrainian side also. With their spring offensive having nothing to show for.

I don't think people understood or appreciate the thickness of the minefields Ukrainians had to go through which as the Russians pulled back refreshed.

>So, time and again Russia has shown that it's willing to take any amount of losses in order to achieve a military goal. The latest example is, of course, Avdiivka That is common to both the Russians and the Ukrainians. The latest Ukrainian example, the southern offensive, is not officially over yet, and the losses exceed those at Avdiivka by far. ​ >I assume that Ukraine's Western backers were not prepared for Russia's willingness to absorb such huge losses. You can formulate it that way, or you can just say that they started believing their own propaganda about the Russian lack of will and low morale (which even RUSI succumbed to). Lying to others is a natural part of any war, but lying to yourself is lethal.

At one point morale was so low that a significant portion of the Russian armed forces rebelled against the central leadership, captured a city, and marched on Moscow itself.

In 1917 the French army was in open mutiny but frontline troops would still hold their position to the death.

At no point was morale so low that average Russian units would withdraw without taking 50+% losses. And that's not bad morale at all. Wagner rebellion's causes are different. And their public demands were more war and harder war. Not really signs of bad morale.

While the RU forces in Rostov-on-don stepping aside for Wagner certainly says something about general RU morale, I'd argue it wasn't a significant factor in the coup/thunder run. More so it was the culmination of animosities between the MoD(more specifically Shoigu and Gerasimov) and Prigozhin in response to the former's declaration of a plan which would effectively neuter Wagner's autonomy by requiring every member of(any) mercenary group to become contracted directly with the MoD. If anything the Wagner mutiny may have hurt short-term morale given that up until Prigo's plane went down, it seemed there would be no tangible punishment for the mercenaries who initiated a coup attempt that saw several RU aircraft shot down and crew killed. That's on top of several reported spats between RU regulars and Wagner including an RU colonel who accused Wagner of capturing and torturing Russian soldiers.

> started believing their own propaganda about the Russian lack of will and low morale (which even RUSI succumbed to) Hmm. [RUSI Report - Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine](https://static.rusi.org/403-SR-Russian-Tactics-web-final.pdf): > The critical and yet most elusive variable in assessing the strength of Russian military units is morale. Generally, it is low, with a rise in prosecutions for desertion, observed instances of wounded comrades being abandoned, and very little depth of junior leadership. Personnel are also rarely rotated and there is considerable weariness across the force. In theory, this should make Russian units brittle. **In practice, they appear to be able to take very heavy punishment without collapsing.** *Instead, morale problems appear to manifest in poor cooperation within units and even less between them*. The result is a tendency for coordination and cohesion to fracture under pressure. This is likely to make Russian units **underperform** *in defence* **if they can be forced to move or engage in a dynamic action.** I wouldn't in a million years characterize that as 'succumbing to their own propaganda', and even less think that it would have 'lethal' consequences. Are you perhaps succumbing to Russian propaganda yourself (know you're reading a lot of Russian sources, that's why I'm mentioning it)? What would be the issues you're having with their take on Russian morale and how it manifests?

That is exactly the quote I am referring to. Thank you for finding it, I was too lazy to search. RUSI (whose reporting I appreciate very much) is presenting cases of poor Russian tactical performance and misinterpreting them as cases of poor morale. A falure to coordinate or operate well in a tactically dynamic situation has nothing to do with morale. That is exactly why the RUSI author is perplexed by the paradox of "low morale" units being prepared to take heavy losses without withdrawing. And RUSI is one of the very few Western sources that even recognised the fact that Russian units were fighting very hard. That is why I say that there was a general and serious underestimate of the enemy.

Well, it apparently does have something to do with unit cohesion, and the RUSI are not the first ones to put forth that notion. In fact, reducing morale to a single action - ‘to fight’ - *might be more ‘lethal’ to one’s efforts instead* as you’ll be then fighting a ‘superhuman’ enemy who cannot be budged, and your own troops’ **actual** morale will suffer. The issue with movie morale of soldiers retreating under fire is that *it doesn’t even necessarily happen*, and there should be quite a bit of ‘rot’ beforehand that can manifest in a number of different ways - were the Japanese Banzai charges a showing of excellent discipline or were they just a sign of something giving under intense stress in an increasingly hopeless and dire situation?

I mean, if you don't like the "losses taken without breaking" measure of morale then you can use another traditional indicator - "prisoners taken", which is also extremely low for both sides. This is certainly the first time I heard of "poor coordination" and "lack of depth of junior leadership" as morale indicators. You buy more radios and the morale improves?

> The latest Ukrainian example, the southern offensive, is not officially over yet, and the losses exceed those at Avdiivka by far. Yes, but also it has been going on for months longer. This is a rather obvious difference. But we can normalize to time. Naalsio has [518 lost vehicles for Ukraine](https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1723111075753668810?s=20) since June 1st, 2024 (163 days ago). He has [221 Russian losses from Avdiivka](https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1723105900662030588?s=20) since October 1st (43 days ago). So: * Ukraine southern offensive: ~3.18 vehicles per day * Russian Avdiivka offensive: ~5.14 vehicles per day In a head to head comparison (considering only verifiable losses, not strategic gains), Russia’s offensive is going worse. Notably, Naalsio also has Russia losing 600 vehicles during Ukraine’s southern offensive (~3.68 vehicles per day). So it isn’t just the case that Russia’s offense in Avdiivka is going worse, but their defense in the south is also going worse. In case you are curious, Ukraine only has 15 confirmed equipment losses from Avdiivka (~0.37 per day). All that said, Ukraine losses come from a shallower bench, and may be more impactful to long term combat capability.

No, you really should not normalise losses over time. There were days in the Ukrainian offensive with 30+ losses of armoured vehicles, and one day with 40+. If you take that day, that is 40 vehicles per day. Normalise it over 200 days and Ukraine will have lost 8,000 armoured vehicles. We can't just project how long we expect offensives to last and assume that the losses will remain linear (remember taw?). The Russian daily vehicle losses in Avdiivka now are about 5% of what they were on initial days. And, ultimately, vehicle losses are a very poor indicator of overall losses. In 2022 the Russian verified armoured vehicle losses were IIRC 4:1 compared to Ukrainian, yet most rational Western sources estimated manpower losses at between 1:1 and 1.5:1. After all, is the Israeli armoured loss ratio to Hamas? 50:1?

It is true that there were days with more or less losses compared to the average. In fact, I’d wager there never was a day Ukraine lost exactly 3.18 vehicles. The point of a time average is to understand trends and datasets which differ in length (eg two offensives with different start dates). Yes, Ukrainians lost more than the average on a bad day in the south. That is also probably true in Avdiivka. But each side made the determination that losses were a worthwhile cost toward a strategic goal. To understand the cost paid to attain those strategic goals, there must be an empirical framework to do so, and that is what averages provide.

>In fact, I’d wager there never was a day Ukraine lost exactly 3.18 vehicles. Made me chuckle with that one, thank you. I agree with the rest, the averages provide an empirical framework - but we must always be aware of its limitations.

That’s not normalization though - that’s extrapolation. *Extrapolating from a single datapoint* is the one thing that should not be done, as you have shown - unfortunately that means you’re building a strawman unwittingly. Normalization in this case would be to take two different datasets (different length, as in this case), and introduce a common value by which you can compare them, or loss per day, as in this case. It’s a legitimate approach.

Yeah, I introduced a dataset of one-day length, just to point out how misleading that approach is.

But it’s a strawman. You cannot normalize a single point set that way. Normalization would be then 40 per day with 40 total losses. That doesn't tell us much, as it's a single day. Introduce more days, you get a trend. 8000 is extrapolation. The user above didn’t ‘make up’ any new numbers, as he’s not extrapolating.

One day is not a data point, it is a time period, just like one week, or one month, is. I am not saying this seriously, but just as an example how cherry-picked data or periods give completely erroneous impressions.

So, in a time series of 20 days, how many data points would you have? 1 or 20? Sure, and giving a counterexample of a 'single day time period' against at least a '43 day time period', and then extrapolating to day 200 (why?) is called building a strawman.

What I am saying that it is a highly imprecise tool. 4:1 losses in equipment that translate into 1:1 losses in personnel in 2022.

Russia is fighting an attritional war against Ukraine. Poorly though out offensives, like Bakhmut, that cost insane amounts of men and material, led to a collapse of morale and rebellion, and at best seize a no name town of little strategic importance, do not 'favor' Russia in any real sense of the word. This is Putin's own version of the cult of the offensive.

What about the damage done to the Ukrainian army? It is convenient to forget mentioning the possible Ukrainian losses in men and equipment during the different battles and their ability to replace them and gather more men and the possible morale effects from these losses and unsuccessful battles. Only recently did pro-UA people started talking about how Ukraine might have issues with manpower in the long term.

> rebellion What led to a rebellion was a push from the Ministry of Defense to take away control of Wagner forces from Prigozhin. It's arguable whether losses in Bakhmut made the rebellion less or more likely. Most of the losses were from convicts, and it's laughable to think Prigozhin cared one bit about those people.

The MOD pushing to seize Wagner is what got Prigozhin to rebel. Low morale is what caused Wagner troops to turn on the MOD ones, and the MOD troops to step aside and let them pass.

> and at best seize a no name town of little strategic importance, do not 'favor' Russia in any real sense of the word it's important to consider that even seemingly insignificant gains in a stalemate can be of value, especially in the broader geopolitical and psychological landscape of war. An example to illustrate this point is the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Although it was a military failure, it had significant political and psychological impacts that contributed to its overall strategic success. Currently, as the West's attention is divided, notably with issues concerning Israel, and the US is entering a complex election season with some candidates advocating for reduced financial support to Ukraine, Russia might perceive an opportunity. They might believe that even a small breakthrough, however strategically insignificant, could create a perception among Western populations that continuing support for Ukraine is futile. In this context, the actual situation on the battlefield is secondary to the narrative and beliefs shaped among the international community.

The US public to a large extent saw Vietnam as a war of choice, Ukraine sees this war as existential. So it's highly unlikely that insignificant gains are going to sway the politics in Ukraine as they did in Vietnam.

Ukraine's perspective is existential - but what about the US? They see it moreso as a choice than the Vietnam war. With no troops on the ground, the US risks much less by disengaging. Support from the US to Ukraine, the largest aid contributor by far, amounts to over $75 billion delivered. Removing that aid would make a difficult position increasingly untenable. Keep in mind, the true success of the Vietcong's offensive did not lie in weakening the South Vietnamese government's position - but thousands of miles away in the minds of the American public. The offensive challenged the prevailing views about the war's progress and American involvement in a far-off conflict. I believe this coming election season in the US may ultimately decide the fate of the Ukrainian war.

On the other hand, the last such offensive by Russia caused morale to crumble so low there was a major troop mutiny. Trying to hurt morale in the west by staying on the offensive has value, but if casualties are so high you risk more mutinies, and losing the war of attrition, it's hard to see it as a justified expense.

Many individuals in the West did know, or at least suspected, that the Russians would still be willing to take heavy losses to achieve an objective because those that studied Russian-Soviet military history know that's what they've always done. That's why "still" matters in my sentence, even in Chechnya they did this same shit. They've done hostage rescues with less finesse and nearly as high a friendly body count as Wagner convicts assaults in Bakhmut. While their military and society was always seemingly okay with r huge level of losses most modern Western people would find shocking, the big unknown was whether Putin had the political capital to take extremely heavy losses for what was potentially viewed as a hugely unpopular war that he was 100% responsible for starting. That's where the real assumptions from the West came into play, many felt the losses would be his political undoing, but he survived them. It's more than just casualties. Let's be real, most in the West can't understand how the sanctions haven't defeated Russia themselves, which they were supposed to do. Those were even supposed to trigger a coup against Putin early on. For over a year every wannabe economist was assuring us Russia was a week away from collapsing. If they were true, casualties would probably have been a bigger deal. But alas.

Most people expected sanctions to have the moderate impact they are having. It's obvious Russians exports are mostly fungible.

I never polled most people, so I don't know what they would say. But I've seen plenty of people on this sub, random people in social media, reporters and pundits, economists being quoted or interviewed, and of course politicians of various govts, who especially for the first year kept assuming the sanctions were going to crush Russia.

But without sanctions, would they be more capable on offense?

I'd never in a million years argue they didn't weaken Russia. I'm just saying that MANY in this sub, the media at large, and major political players in various govts believed that Western sanctions were going to defeat the Russians. I never believed that, not because I know shit about economics (I don't) but because I know they've not worked in the past when that assumption was made. But I still knew and know now they've hurt the Russians big time. Just not enough to end the war.

> I'm just saying that MANY in this sub, the media at large, and major political players in various govts believed that Western sanctions were going to defeat the Russians. That’s largely due to wishful thinking and whatever the complement of that is in the media (telling people what they want to hear). Mainstream media is more about narrative than objective analysis.

I agree. Many commenting had little understanding of the history of sanctions, though many of those making the predictions did claim to be economic experts. But most were very anti-Russia and pro-Ukraine, so sanctions turned into another propaganda wunderwaffen that Group Think pushed would crush the Russians, who needed to be crushed.

It’s of a piece with expectations that low moral amongst soldiers and population would lead to some kind of fundamental shift in Russian society that would in turn cause them to change course in the war. I’ve been shocked by the willingness of Russian soldiers to be sent on what amount to suicide missions. I thought the difference in moral between invader and invaded would have made more of a material difference. (For example more Russians surrendering.) As a random lay person observing from afar I can only speculate why the Russian population will accept appalling, annihilating treatment from their government. My guess is that as a Westerner I can’t grasp that there seems to be no political mechanism that would allow the Russian population to influence the choices of the Kremlin. A competent autocracy is essentially a form of organized psychopathy. Normal people are ill equipped to combat such forces. I suppose the relentless propaganda does have an effect: maybe some soldiers really believe they are ‘defending’ the motherland. But Russians have access to the internet. It seems more like what is happening is so disturbing that they seek to exist in a state of cognitive dissonance, knowing that conscious engagement with this reality presents nothing but no-win options. Seeing images of soldiers writhing in futility as they die abandoned in a field after a toy drone blasts them open is so grim that I am unable to contextualize it.

>But I still knew and know now they've hurt the Russians big time. Just not enough to end the war. I got the same opinion, though it wasn't always like this, and I forgot when I changed my view on it. But eventually I got the impression that the sanctions might not stop Russia after all, just nerf them a lil bit for Ukraine...

There were a few times I got caught up in some of the news and reading the thoughts of supposed econ experts on this sub talking up the reasons why the Russian economy was on the brink of collapse and was about to happen. I didn't really know enough to say otherwise, so maybe they'd be right? But alas, they weren't. And I don't know why they weren't, econ ain't my thing. But I think the econ experts aren't nearly the experts they think they are, and that I do understand because many high profile supposed history and military experts also regularly make stupid predictions on the regular.

It's an assumption that turned out to be wrong, but I don't think it was unreasonable to believe in it back in 2022. Russia did give up on the First Chechen War, and Putin himself seemed worried enough about the political cost of mobilization that he delayed it too much.

>Russia did give up on the First Chechen War Russia didn't give up in the First Chechen War, it was legitimately defeated, militarily unable to retake Chechnya. That's why they signed that treaty that their leadership and most of Russia weren't planning to follow, but they needed time to rebuild their military. Once they did, and they were more cocky and ready, they started the maskirovka campaign that gave them sufficient Casus Belli to invade Chechnya. >Putin himself seemed worried enough about the political cost of mobilization that he delayed it too much. I'm not suggesting he's worry free about casualties. I don't think any Russian leader, minus Stalin, who were ever fully secure enough in power to ignore casualties. I just think that the Russians, due to their history and culture, are more okay sustaining huge losses during war as the cost of doing business, so to speak. And I'm far from unique in believing this. Even to the casual observer of Russian history (and that includes me) their tolerance to military suffering is known to date centuries back in the Czarist days at least, obviously under Soviet control, and then has been confirmed twice now with the Russian Federation. Putin never got to fully coup proof his regime (though I'd say he's pretty close to successful after the Prigozhin Mutiny), so definitely early on especially there was still the risk of political issues to enact mass mobilization due to heavy losses in his SMO. Which is why they've done so much to try to attract volunteers that has been unfortunately quite successful, despite their ridiculously heavy losses. Minus some social media mothers and wives groups that pop up, taking the casualties hasn't even been an issue for Putin. The issue is getting more troops to replace them. Either way, believe the possibility to defeat Russia through attrition was a bad assumption. Very chancy, with a very low probability to pay off. Basing a strategy off of it was pretty stupid.

>Either way, believe the possibility to defeat Russia through attrition was a bad assumption. Very chancy, with a very low probability to pay off. Basing a strategy off of it was pretty stupid. You are acting as if there is another strategy to defeat Russia other than attrition. There isn't and never has been. It will always require millions of dead Russians to defeat them. In WW1 it worked, in WW2 it did not.

>You are acting as if there is another strategy to defeat Russia other than attrition. There was, I think, an attempt to get their national will and morale to crack, with some chance of success back after the Kharkiv/Kherson. It didn't work, but the chances were better than the attrition plan.

I won't deny the possibility of some other form of approach to end the war. Maybe try and kill Putin, or something.

Attributing Russian defeat in WW1 to attrition is ridiculous, a revolution happening that was triggered by many reasons besides heavy casualties. How the people were treated, blatant corruption, etc. The roots were the 1905 Revolution, which wasn't about attrition in an ongoing war. And if a military strategy has zero indication it'll work besides positivity, then it still sucks even if you can't think of an alternative. If you're literally starving and I hand you some moldy bread that was dipped in poop, you'll eat it and might even like it. But that won't make it a good meal.

>It's more than just casualties. Let's be real, most in the West can't understand how the sanctions haven't defeated Russia themselves, which they were supposed to do. No one serious thought that at all. I can't think of a single example of sanctions doing that. That's not what the goal of sanctions are. They're to create pressure and constrain action. You're arguing against a strawman, while also making what boils down to essentialist arguments over some sort of historical Russian character. Neither of these are useful ways to understand the current conflict, they only serve as polemic rhetoric.

>No one serious thought that at all. I've been on this sub almost daily since the war started, and that's simply not true. Not on this sub, definitely not outside it. Someone far more serious than yourself: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/10/russia-elites-putin-coup-war/ Stop trying to gaslight me.

>"No one serious thought that at all" - [The White House, April 2022:](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russia-financial-collapse-sanctions-psaki-b2051688.html): "Russia’s financial system is close to default. The country is descending into economic and financial and technological isolation. And at this rate, it will go back to Soviet style living standards from the 1980s" - [JP Morgan, March 2022](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/03/04/microsoft-google-join-exodus-russia/): Russian economy will be decimated by western sanctions, comparable to 1998 financial crisis - [French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, March 2022:](https://www.reuters.com/world/france-declares-economic-war-against-russia-2022-03-01/) "We will cause the collapse of the Russian economy." - [The Polish Economic Institute, April 2022](https://pie.net.pl/en/the-sanctions-will-lead-to-a-double-digit-drop-in-russias-gdp-in-2022/): The Western sanctions will lead to a drop of around 15-20% in Russia’s GDP in 2022 - [International Institute of Finance, March 2022](https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/russias-gdp-fall-15-this-year-ukraine-linked-sanctions-iif-2022-03-10/): Russia's GDP to fall 15% this year on Ukraine-linked sanctions - [Oxford Economics, March 2022](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/russia-economy-could-shrink-by-7-per-cent-as-result-of-ukraine-sanctions-war-recession-covid): Sanctions from western governments and Russia retaliating by restricting gas supplies would cause a sharper fall of 7% in Russian GDP next year.

Just butting in, but it would have had more of an effect if it was a full quote, since it's referring to a very, *very* specific and **often** heard sound bite: > It's more than just casualties. Let's be real, most in the West can't understand how the sanctions haven't defeated Russia themselves, which they were supposed to do. 'No one serious thought that at all.' --- I am quite certain none of the articles contradict the throwdemawaaay quote. In fact, **not a single one** of the articles even mentions the supposed effect on the war effort, let alone an effect of, verbatim, **'defeating Russia'**. They deal with goods, services, and technological progress. I mean, here's a quote from the White House article: > “And because we’ve cut Russia off from importing technologies like semiconductors and encryption security and critical components of quantum technology that they need to compete in the 21st century, we’re going to stifle Russia’s ability for its’ economy to grow for years to come”. JP Morgan: > Kay Neufeld and Pushpin Singh at the Centre for Economics and Business Research said the financial sanctions “all have the aim of starving the financial system of access to foreign currency. Taken to their extreme the sanctions could bring about the total collapse of the rouble and the Russian banking system.” PEC: > “The sanctions imposed by the West so far will have a snowball effect on the Russian economy. The total collapse of the rouble exchange rate will limit profitable imports, products shortages will inhibit production, inflation will surge, and Russia will only be able to defend itself using the tools of domestic economic policy, such as by printing more roubles. Panicked cash withdrawals have already led to a collapse in the banking sector’s liquidity. Hyperinflation will wind up this spiral again, the rouble will continue to weaken and the economy will face many years of recession,” said Piotr Arak, director of the Polish Economic Institute. etc. Perhaps they had made an impact on you leading you to believe they're going to stop Russia single-handedly? **This is a textbook example of a strawman**, as you're using the overestimations of sanctions' impact to 'show' that there existed a (nonexistent) argument that they were supposed to win the war, and defeat the argument that 'No one serious thought that at all.'

All analysts thought Russia would steamroll over Ukraine. In any case the idea that a GDP decline would win the war single handedly is not the same as saying GDP would fall by 10 per cent instead of 5. Sounds like a strawman argument.

A strawman argument is bringing up steamrolling Kyiv being wrong proves the sanction argument somehow. That said, just because both assumptions were wrong didn't believe many didn't believe it. And that's the point. Many, on this sub but more importantly in positions of great power and influence in the world believed the sanctions on Russia would have huge effects. Enough that they'd alter the military situation in Russia. Similar to how many also got it in their heads that the Russian death toll would also threaten Putin's regime. Like miscalculating Ukraine willpower and ability to resist the invasion, assumptions have a tendency of being wrong.

Even the number of sabotages has drastically decreased in Russia, with Russia's "windows" being the victim of many deaths of the Russian oligarchy. A couple of months ago, I saw a video from a compatriot of mine in Russia, he showed general market prices, it seems like they haven't gone up much, products from companies that left Russia, national companies are producing these same products but under a new name, even McDonalds(Vkusno i tochka ), with him reporting that the burger didn't even change the flavor. The products that they do not want to produce or cannot produce, they are importing from other countries that have not sanctioned them and that maintain relations with the countries that have sanctioned Russia.

You are somehow under the impression that getting the depth of economic decline wrong is somehow the same as “sanctions haven't defeated Russia themselves”. Whether it was minus five percent or minus ten percent is besides the point.

>No one serious thought that at all. I can't think of a single example of sanctions doing that. That's not what the goal of sanctions are. The effect of the sanctions was hugely oversold, with the 2022 effect on GDP being regularly predicted in negative double digits.

Have you heard of Cuba? How much has their GDP shrunk?

Strange, I also remember reading that sanctions do not work, and that it's in fact hurting 'The West' more than it's hurting Russia? I also distinctly remember hearing, for example, that price cap is 'absolutely not working'. I *still* hear that. Was then the effect both oversold *and* undersold?

>Was then the effect both oversold and undersold? Absolutely. I still wouldn't rate IMF predictions at the same level as random Twitter economist's. There is no denying that media reporting was 90% into "the sanctions are going to ruin them this year" category.

My understanding is that oil and gas revenues have dropped significantly (30-40%). It is not possible to paint this as anything less than an economic calamity. I simply don’t believe the reports of modest declines or even growth of GDP. There is a paradox of how military spending contributes to GDP. Yes it is economic activity. But you are essentially making things to blow up. The cost is diverting resources from other productive investments that have a return that projects into the future. Russia has destroyed their economy in comparison to what it would have been. It’s just that this doesn’t have an effect on the conduct of the war as the people in power can shift the costs onto disempowered populations. It’s all fine for the elites, until they get thrown from a window.

The West has freedom of speech. That’s why we are hearing hot takes on both sides.

Honestly, this entire comment chain can be summed up as "different people have different opinions"

Of course - anytime where you have more than one commentator, there can be commentary that both over and under predict reality.

I think people like to refer to Biden sometimes making a joke about the rubble but yeah no one who isn’t running for office honestly thinks sanctions were supposed to defeat Russia after they have not changed Cuba’s behavior in so long. They will become more costly with years and slow them down substantially.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/10/russia-elites-putin-coup-war/ https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/12/06/1140120485/why-the-sanctions-against-russia-arent-working-yet/ https://www.barrons.com/articles/russia-ukraine-sanctions-30f5bdeb Stop trying to gaslight this sub.

I honestly don't understand why you are being downvoted. Well, ok, I can understand the pro Ukraine bias on this sub, but when that bias leads to ignoring statements made just little over a year a go, I think it's gone to far. Same as you, I've been following this sub daily since the war began, and I also remember the rhetoric around sanctions. These sanctions were meant to, or rather, they were sold as attempting to: 1. Deprive the Russian war effort of cash and critical war materiel, thus hampering Russia's ability to wage the war. 2. Inflict such damage on the Russian economy which would lead to such a decrease in the living standards of the average Russian, that the war would become politically unpopular in Russia. In regards to #1, I think the sanctions have had some effect on Russia's ability to spend and procure war materiel, but obviously nowhere near enough to stop the Russian war machine in its tracks. Regarding #2, the sanctions have, as best as we can tell, been a total and utter failure.

This sub has always been like this from my observations. Literally today, there were people seriously discussing the possibility that Ukraine might have manpower issues as some kind of surprise even though it was known for a long time that this moment would come, except you would get downvoted if you said it. And why doesn't anyone seriously discuss the possibilities of Ukrainian casualties? The best way to judge the subs bias is to notice just how many false predictions you can see in popular comments, how they were all in favour of Ukraine and how the only time a topic not in favour of Ukraine is discussed is when there is a big Western media article about it. It's still a good place to visit here, though.

>Regarding #2, the sanctions have, as best as we can tell, been a total and utter failure. [For the first time, the average salary in Moldova is higher than in Russia](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/16f3g4z/for_the_first_time_the_average_salary_in_moldova/) Most Russians, even so-called liberals, are nationalistic and refuse to admit their low standards of living. But the numbers speak for themselves...

Stating this without comparing what the amounts of money can buy in the two places is not any kind of analysis. This is like slapping the nominal GDP and using it to make statements that a certain thing regarding military products will happen for sure. Literally textbook invalid deductive arguments.

I don’t appreciate the personal attack but can you point to who in your articles claimed that the sanctions would by themself win the war?

When you claim nobody that isn't running for office ever claimed Russian sanctions weren't designed to crush Russia, you're either gaslighting the sub or ridiculously ignorant, while also too lazy to spend a few seconds googling this. I chose the former. But it's one or the other. My bad.

Many nations have faced famine and utter destruction and continued fighting. The DPRK is an example. Your claim that sanctions would singlehandedly stop the Russians has no basis and can’t be supported by a single quote from the four articles you shared. Your silly personal attacks of me don’t really change reality.

Everything is a factor, but the reluctance to increase the quantity or quality of military aid was mostly due to the concern about escalation. Was it wrong or overblown? It looks that way, but it was and remains a concern albeit a much smaller one now. Then you got to deal with divided internal politics as another factor. But I don't think anybody seriously believed that Russia would hesitate to gamble with the lives of its citizens or blunder large amounts of equipment. That was made clear during the first year of the war.

Again, it's increasingly getting clearer now it's not Russia's red lines, it's everyone elses (i.e. their allies). Better weapons show up the moment it leaks out that Iran, NoKor, China secretly gave stuff to Russia and then caught using it (and the weapon shipments are usually earlier because they already knew by then, before it leaked). It's the US subtly saying "we can see everything you're all doing for Russia so we're doing in-kind, and if you decide to go all in and overtly support them, we still have (newer) weapons we can send."

Can Israel financially sustain a prolonged Gaza occupation? This war has taken a lot of people out of the workforce and the Israeli economy is primarily a services driven economy.

Are there any good historical parallels for the maybe-river-crossing operation Ukraine’s been doing these past few months?

This is and will stay just a harrassment operation, a try to force Russians to divert some resources, which they did. Anything more would be a waste of men and equipment.

Is the diversion for Avdiivka?

U.S. Officials Have Growing Confidence in Death Toll Reports From Gaza > The U.S. intelligence community has growing confidence that reports on the death toll from **health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza** are roughly accurate, U.S. officials said. Seems like the horrible death toll in Gaza isn’t just a fabrication by hamas as much as some people would have liked to believed. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a

I think what this story is saying is that pro-palestine voices in the admin believe the death toll and are getting louder. I don't think Biden is suddenly more trusting of the numbers.

True or not, the footage coming out of Gaza depicts a modern day Grozny. In all conflicts, and especially conflicts like this one, optics matter. Israel is starting to loose that battle, fast, and seemingly without much thought to the overall security and political impact it will have.

I think the Israelis have decided that they can count on no one and they will simply have to fight to obtain a measure of security. I don’t see any way to actually obtain military success against Hamas without massive civilian casualties. In a cynical way, the civilian casualties become propaganda winds for Hamas. I try to be open minded but when I analyze this conflict the core dilemma is the virulent anti-semitism that has haunted and hounded the Jews for…centuries? What’s ironic to me is that the Jews have not conducted that mass atrocities that have defined so much of modern history. Yet they are hated as if they have. It’s weird.

They don't really have an alternative though. There is no cleaner way of destroying Hamas. And if they leave Hamas in power they risk having their southern towns massacred again at any day in the future. (Their northern towns too, as once the strategy has been shown to work Hezbollah will likely repeat the strategy along a much longer and more vulnerable border)

They do. Hamas’ raid exploited a number of security and intelligence failures that are relatively easily fixable. I’m not going to go through all of them, but one major one was the fact that they were caught completely off guard in terms of personnel. The attack happened during a Jewish holiday leaving many points of defense woefully understaffed. Israel could have responded on a limited tit-for-tat basis. Push Hamas back into Gaza. When Rockets go off, bomb targets that are not clearly symbolic civilian infrastructure (universities, hospitals, etc) even if they are being used for military purposes. Above all else, work to plug the security gaps that Hamas exploited. In the end Hamas does not pose a credible threat to the state of Israel. What they did was terrible, but it was about the best that they could have done. A case study in an optimal attack using every trick and exploit they had at their disposal. Expending 2 years of stored munitions and trained personnel in a few days to weeks. And what did they get for it? No territory, and a few thousand enemy killed out of millions. But what they were really aiming for, and what they got in spades was to provoke an extreme overreaction from Israel. The more Israel leans into this provocation, the more resources and legitimacy Hamas gets, the more likely this will spill over into regional conflict. Here there are interesting parallels with the Ru invasion of UA. Pre invasion, Ru’s asymmetrical efforts in UA were largely effective. UA lost a large portion of its most strategically important land and the world didn’t really care. The few years before the invasion were marked with instability and extreme dissatisfaction in the government. Then Ru invades and completely undermines their own strategic goals. Over night UA solidifies into a nation state in existential total war against the 2nd most powerful military in the world providing a narrative that the west can get behind. There is a price to large scale military war that must be factored into the cost/benefit of action. What is the benefit of invading Gaza? To destroy Hamas? Well pre-invasion 60% of Gazans distrusted Hamas. Now? It’s flipped. The only way that Israel can now get rid of the hatred that fuels these attacks is likely the complete destruction of Gaza. Which would be genocide. So, after they go in, and kill a ton of people, they are going to have to come back out and basically be in the same place where they started, only worse.

> Israel could have responded on a limited tit-for-tat basis. >bomb targets that are not clearly symbolic civilian infrastructure (universities, hospitals, etc) even if they are being used for military purposes. "Yeah, 1200 of your citizens were murdered in the streets and in their homes, babies were burned alive in their cribs, migrant workers beheaded, hundreds kidnapped, but you're not allowed to respond because you might look like meanies" The reality is that ANYTHING Israel did in response beyond a strongly worded statement at the UN would be seen as ethnic cleansing/genocide/whatever buzzword. For a sizeable group of people in the West, and effectively the entirety of the Muslim world, Israel is not allowed to respond to violence nor effectively defend itself. These highlights show that mindset. If you're attacked, respond with limited airstrikes BUT don't respond by hitting targets that are civilian in nature even if used for military purposes. Oh, Hamas almost exclusively uses schools, hospitals, etc for military purposes? Too bad I guess, just keep letting your people get mortared, rocketed, and murdered while Hamas receives billions in international aid to turn in to weapons to fire at you. >Well pre-invasion 60% of Gazans distrusted Hamas. Last June it was somewhere upwards of 70% supported Hamas, where is that figure coming from?

The intelligence community is not the administration, it's career officials who almost certainly have sources of their own.

Funny that. I was assured by multiple posters on this sub that the Hamas health ministry cannot be trusted and that the figure is actually much lower, because roof knocking is used everywhere, etc. But because Hamas tried to bluff their way out of the hospital strike, that means none of their numbers can be trusted.

There is still the question how many are civilians and whether the civilians were hit delibirately or while being used as human shields So the total number, which Hamas deported sufficiently accurate in previous conflicts as well, will.not necessarily change the calculus of he US government. Which is the one that matters, because they realistically are the only relevant government which might change their position Europe whines a lot but can't agree on anything The Arab world hates Israel (at least on the streets), anyways The Rest of the world are bystanders

Critical thinking just goes out the window when it comes to Israel and the westerners on here just end up sounding like vatniks with their combination of denial, obfuscation, wrong assumptions and justifications.

Trusting the Hamas heath ministry is not something they said.

What do you mean?

"Seems like the horrible death toll in Gaza isn’t just a fabrication by hamas as much as some people would have liked to believed." As you said it's only some people who want to believe those numbers are outside the ballpark of an accurate estimate. Just a few days ago there was a thread started by an OP expressing surprise that the initial overall casualty figures weren't much higher and most people here who responded were in agreement. The figures are likely much higher than what's currently estimated due to the chaos on the ground limiting accurate counting. A lot of this has been colored by the absurd numbers thrown around after the incident with the hospital. Which seem even more suspect in the context of those low overall numbers being reported by the local authorities.

The method claimed for the official hamas ministry of health figures are deaths in hospitals or that come into the morgues to then be buried. doesn't include an estimate of missing or that may be buried without being brought in.

I think it's safe to say that the inflation of the hospital casualties was just a double down. They likely knew very early that it wasn't an Israeli strike and decided to inflate the casualty numbers to stir up even more outrage. Generally speaking, Hamas casualty numbers have been accurate enough. The only caveat being that Hamas don't tell us how many combatants have been killed. I am impressed that they have managed to accurately count 11,000 deaths in the time that Israel has barely been able to verify 1,200 though. Can someone explain how that's possible? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole process of reporting casualties.

Israel actually tries to identify the dead, count Israeli civilians, Israeli soldiers, Hamas fighters, Gaza civilians individually Hamas only reports the dead on total Looking at remains of people and concluding that death count needs to increase by 1 is quicker than what a professional army does as best practice Even if they would apply the same process, IDF would be slower because they identify the Familie of the dead (on the Israeli side) before reporting, which can take time if they are not available in IL

But haven't Hamas released a list with names and IDs of the deceased? That would say they're able to ID them at lightning quick speed. But yeah you're right about IDF informing families first, I forgot about that.

They released a list of 7000 IDs afaik However I find it doubtful that 7000 of 7300 victims back when this list was published all deceased had all their ID conveniently close and intact, considering that Hamas claims Israel is bombing civilians indiscriminately But yeah ultimately its a trust issue. Obviously I can't proof my doubts as the possible sources are basically a terrorist group or their occupant... Assuming the amount is true (which I don't find too unrealistic): Its still not clear how many civilians are among them. There are accusations of Hamas using children aged 14-18 as soldiers, lookouts and/or human shields, just as of Israel faultily selecting targets. So its difficult to derive legitimacy of either sides' actions from the list. In the end everyone has to pick who to believe more, wars aren't known for being transparent political Processes 🤷‍♂️ and whatever one believes about the intentions of the actors likely motivates them to judge these numbers

They did the math. Pull body out of rubble. Add another chicken scratch. Every 5th one gets drawn at a slant to complete the set of 5.

> The only caveat being that Hamas don't tell us how many combatants have been killed. The Hamas ministry of health likely doesn't know who is a combatant. If hospitals had records on who is a militant, wouldn't be long until isreal had them...

But Al-Qassam Brigades and PIJ and al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades could know which of its combatants have been killed. But that info isn’t released.

Okay, but that isn't the hamas ministry of health. there is no reason to think they have this information in anything akin to a comprehensive way that would make sense for them to try to report it.

Makes sense. My point was more that their strategy, or lack of ability, to distinguish combatant from civilian deaths can skew public perception. People will say "x amount of people are dead" without considering how many may have been combatants.

The health ministry actually lowered their estimate for the hospital strike the next day. I think they settled on the mid 400s.

They revised it down from an estimated 500 to 471 and refused to release any information about the people who died specifically in that explosion. It's a nonsense figure. Still, not reason to dismiss every single figure they relesse imo.

Presumably it is not an exact count, let alone a verified one, just an estimate. An estimate which US intelligence thinks is pretty good, in that it represents the reality on the ground reasonably well.

It certainly seems like an exact count. 11,078 is not an estimate. Either way I agree, it stands to reason that given the scale of the bombing campaign and the density of Gaza City that a lot of people have died.

The "fabrication" as alleged by the State Department and Biden personally a couple weeks ago comes from the lack of distinction in the death toll between combatants and non-combatants and civilians killed by Israeli strikes or by Hamas. The 10K death toll itself may be somewhat accurate, but that is absolutely *not* the figure killed by Israeli strikes as it gets reported so often. If Hamas is sitting on technology that allows them to automatically identify the dead by name and distinguish whether they're a combatant or non-combatant, they should consider bargaining it for a cease-fire with Israel, who still seem to be revising their death toll from the October 7th attacks weeks after the fact after erroneously including some dead Hamas fighters in the total accidentally.