Russian invasion of Ukraine

From "The Analyst"

ZELENSKY - THE WAR LEADER

In the past day or so President Zelensky has been sounding the alert over a number of clear red lights flashing, on what Stanley Kubrick called in Dr Strangelove, ‘the Big Board’; a giant map in a deep bunker of the potential war.
The concern is that Ukraine neither has the manpower or the resources to defend from possible attacks on new parts of the frontline - namely Kharkiv - not really aimed at taking the city but at outflanking Ukrainian positions further south.
Having sanctioned the raids into Kursk and Belgorod for nothing more than propaganda purposes, even Zelensky seems to have realised these might have been a mistake. Rumour has it that the recent departure of Danyilov from the Security Council leadership role is linked to this.
The fact that the president seems to have recognised the downside of these attacks - which look as though they maybe have attracted more attention from Russia to stop them permanently than was wise, is not a small thing.
Zelensky has become far more willing to command strategic planning and decision making than he was at the start of the war. It was this self belief that the generals should be left to get on with the tactical aspects of the war - which he never claimed to understand - that saved Ukraine. Later he was proved right when he insisted on the northern front offensive as a strategy- against the generals advice. It was, in the end, the military resistance to political oversight of military strategy that led to the change at the top. It seems we are now at a stage where (and Sun Tzu would approve- it’s an essential component of his theory of successful military action, that strategic leadership from politicians guides success), Zelensky has his ideas for strategy but also a receptive military leadership that will carry them out.
A great deal of strategic thinking is about ‘gut’ instincts coupled to understanding the psychology of your enemy and his most likely responses. You have to understand how humans react under pressure and specifically how the ultimate command authority reacts to a set of circumstances.
Then you shape your strategy accordingly, outline your principle goals and what you want to achieve, and leave the generals to come up with how you get there.
Zelensky was a very sharp and very successful businessman in entertainment. Media entertainment especially requires you to know what your audience wants. He has a ‘sixth sense’ about how things look and how actions make people react. That’s a skill few of us ever learn. It’s surprisingly easy to correlate that ability into playing your enemy, often doing the last thing they’d ever expect of you.
Zelensky has moved more into this role as the need to be selling Ukraine to the world has dwindled. Those nations behind Ukraine are there, they don’t need to be sold the need for support - they just need to know what Ukraine needs next.
Besides which the war has long slipped from the headlines and the ‘brave nation with its fearless leader’ routine has been in media terms, done to death. And Zelensky gets that, so he changes his pace and his methods to match the current realities.
He has also learned a great deal. All Ukrainians have. He is not the naive leader of 2019. He came to power aiming to solve the Donbas issue peacefully. Putin was having none of it. Now we are where we are.
Not everyone agrees with him. He doesn’t take criticism easily and never has by all accounts, but he absorbs it and changes incrementally, and if you explain why x is x and what it means, he takes that onboard- but it doesn’t mean you’ll change his mind completely.
All leaders make mistakes. Never forget that. Zelensky is often superficially compared to Churchill - something he dislikes as he sees Churchill as the arch-imperialist -
the very type Ukraine is fighting against. And he’s not wrong. But it was Churchill as inspiration to stand and fight that is the real comparison.
Churchill as a strategist is one thing, but as a military leader some of his failures were horrendous - and there were many.
But that’s not what he’s remembered for. And it won’t be what Zelensky is remembered for either.
Zelensky is still the right man in the right place. Yet he is dithering over mobilisation and fully 110% driving Ukraine to the maximum. As though somehow it will change the soul of the country for ever and never bring it back. That’s already happened. Russia has changed Ukraine forever. There is no going back. Only Victory is the way forward.
 
Great Good Friday evening listen for those interested in the development, nature, and tactics, and absurdities of dictatorships, including Putin’s escalation to invading Ukraine and his farcical efforts to assuage his mysophobia. And Queen Elizabeth’s detest for Nicolae Ceaușescu.

This is one of my favourite podcasts, from Tim Harford, one of my favourite popular nonfiction writers and economic journalists, so I highly recommend other episodes, as well as his articles and books.

 
If the reports of the US telling Ukraine not only to stop attacking Russian infrastructure but that they now won't supply long range ATACMS because of the attacks are true then the US have proved they aren't a reliable partner. Hopefully our government will wake up to the fact that the "special" relationship only works in one direction and that the Americans simply can't be trusted. We need closer relationships with European countries, build up so we can defend ourselves as a bloc and leave the US to themselves. The US don't want Ukraine to win, they want Russia to be irreparably damaged for their own benefit.
 
Irwell said:
If the reports of the US telling Ukraine not only to stop attacking Russian infrastructure but that they now won't supply long range ATACMS because of the attacks are true then the US have proved they aren't a reliable partner. Hopefully our government will wake up to the fact that the "special" relationship only works in one direction and that the Americans simply can't be trusted. We need closer relationships with European countries, build up so we can defend ourselves as a bloc and leave the US to themselves. The US don't want Ukraine to win, they want Russia to be irreparably damaged for their own benefit.
Click to expand...
If the US wants Ukraine to stop attacking Russia then they need give it the weapons to defeat Russia in Ukraine and protect Ukraine from Russian Missile and Drone attack.
It's that simple.
Biden may be better than Trump but the US is still not enabling Ukraine to push Russia out.
 
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