Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

^From my visit to Denmark a few months ago I learned that the Danes, to this day, are embarrassed at how well the German invasion went. They are still extremely sensitive about the whole thing.

[MengJiao]

I believe they were thinking of along the lines of Nazi Germany attacking Denmark.  I wonder if the Nazi's actually expected it to work that well or did they have a plan for resistance?

  Maybe, but the analogy would be closer if Denmark had half the population of Germany, roughly the same weapons systems as Germany, had been fighting a low-intensity war with Germany for
8 years, had been trained by time-traveling US Army troops and if Germany had sent a lot of its air force and anti-air weapons to Syria and if the stated German aim had been to
exterminate Nazis in Denmark and if a large armed Alliance including most of Europe had formed against Germany.  Possibly a scenario with some twists.  Especially the Nazi part.  Even an
Amteur might well suggest an actual war plan of some kind.

[FarAway Sooner]

^From my visit to Denmark a few months ago I learned that the Danes, to this day, are embarrassed at how well the German invasion went. They are still extremely sensitive about the whole thing.

Yeah.  The Danes have always been a bit sheepish about that.  They mostly cooperated with the Germans, and were (for the most part) so easy to rule, that they actually kept greater personal freedom than most occupied peoples.  Their common genetic heritage played a factor, but so did their pacifism. 

There was talk of not admitting Denmark into the United Nations when it was formed, because they'd done so little to resist German rule.  Ultimately, their primary contribution to humanity during WW II was smuggling a ton of Jews out of German-controlled territory (mostly into Sweden).  Since that time, they've been welcomed into NATO (even if they never contributed much) because of their strategic location as the stopper in the Baltic Sea.

The Danes are good people and thoroughly Western.  They just haven't done much effective fighting since the Vikings took the horns off their helmets...

[MengJiao]

^From my visit to Denmark a few months ago I learned that the Danes, to this day, are embarrassed at how well the German invasion went. They are still extremely sensitive about the whole thing.

Yeah.  The Danes have always been a bit sheepish about that.  They mostly cooperated with the Germans, and were (for the most part) so easy to rule, that they actually kept greater personal freedom than most occupied peoples.  Their common genetic heritage played a factor, but so did their pacifism. 

There was talk of not admitting Denmark into the United Nations when it was formed, because they'd done so little to resist German rule.  Ultimately, their primary contribution to humanity during WW II was smuggling a ton of Jews out of German-controlled territory (mostly into Sweden).  Since that time, they've been welcomed into NATO (even if they never contributed much) because of their strategic location as the stopper in the Baltic Sea.

The Danes are good people and thoroughly Western.  They just haven't done much effective fighting since the Vikings took the horns off their helmets...

  They did reasonably well in the 30-years war sort of I Guess..  The mad Halberstadter managed to get his unpaid Danish mercenaries to charge 10 times at Fleurus in 1622
(where he lost an arm) and that was against
a first-rate Spanish Tercio.  Plus maybe the Mad Halberstadter was optimistic in his reporting as usual.  Christian (the Halberstadter mad or otherwise) was the
secular (Lutheran) bishop of Halberstadt and perhaps this inspired his Danish unpaid mercenaries.  Or Plunder or a desire to be paid by the Dutch if they
could break through.  IRC some did break through and some did get paid eventually in a brief tour with the Dutch.

[bobarossa]

Wow, did that go off topic (what else is new?).  I was just wondering if Russia was expecting the kind of walkover that Germany had vs Denmark?  German ship docks in copenhagen and offloads a few hundred troops who head for palace.  War over.

[Sir Slash]

It could be a man like Putin with an enormous ego really believes everyone loves him and lives for the moment he comes to liberate them from their ineffective rulers and make them one with himself. Also if all the people around him climb the ladder of advancement by telling him just what he wants to hear, that he could come to believe conquering his neighbors would be easy. It may be just that simple. Maybe.

[Gusington]

Last about Denmark, I promise: from my visits to the palaces and military museums in Copenhagen, the Danish narrative explains how there was some early resistance to Germany in 1940 (a few Danish soldiers were killed) and then they were basically absorbed by the Reich and treated very well, as FarAway explained above.

But since WWII they have tried to have as strong a military as possible, deploying to Iraq and other warzones, and are proud of what they have been able to do militarily since then. They are repenting for what they perceive as terrible mistakes in the 1940s. 'Never again.'

[Sir Slash]

I read a book about the 1940 invasion of Denmark and Norway and there was a good deal about how both countries as well as Sweden, made sure they would not be involved in WWI by fully mobilizing as soon as that war began and maintained their troop levels throughout the entire 4 year conflict. I can't remember how many men they had under arms but it was considerable for such small nations.

There was open resistance to doing the same thing in 1939 because of the cost involved. Also some leaders in those countries wanted a sort of Scandinavian Mutual Defense Treaty including Finland but it came to nothing in the end.   

[Crossroads]

What an extraordinary article by NYT. Any subscribers who can post a gift link, I was able to access this only once.

https://twitter.com/john_sipher/status/1604111821471993856

[Staggerwing]

If you manage to open the link again you can save the web page text for later reading. You will lose the pix and the formatting might be off but still cheaper than subscribing.

[JasonPratt]

On the corruption point, probably related to the idea of Russia being beyond corruption (because corruption can only go so far before the corrupted system crashes into dysfunctionality rather catastrophically): something similar can be said for Ukraine, which was also highly corrupted -- and yet they have pulled together, with help, into a disproportionately successful defense.

Corruption levels were qualitatively different? -- quantitatively different? What was being corrupted was a foundation which could respond with increased effective coherence against its own inherent corruption?

Probably a combination of those factors along with external ones (NATO being willing to provide support help). But a comparison of the corruptions and results seems worth thinking about. I am sure I barely have enough accurate information to even begin thinking about it!

But from everything said by Putin before and during his war so far, as well as how he has waged it from the "knock on all doors" "shock and awe" approach onward, he clearly expected the corruption of Ukraine (fostered by himself where possible) to tend to catastrophic disintegration under enough applied force.

[MengJiao]

On the corruption point, probably related to the idea of Russia being beyond corruption (because corruption can only go so far before the corrupted system crashes into dysfunctionality rather catastrophically): something similar can be said for Ukraine, which was also highly corrupted -- and yet they have pulled together, with help, into a disproportionately successful defense.

Corruption levels were qualitatively different? -- quantitatively different? What was being corrupted was a foundation which could respond with increased effective coherence against its own inherent corruption?

  Corruption can be a sign of adapting to new circumstances.  The most obvious case would be the not-very-corrupt regime of the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution.  After
the Thermidorian reaction (summer 1794), the resulting regime (the Directory) was incredibly corrupt, but much more functional than the not-very-corrupt regime of the Terror.

  Putin might be said to have made the basic error of rationalizing corruption rather than letting it run amok and thereby rationalizing the Russian economy the hard way (ie via letting
corruption do its work).  It looks like nothing is worse for resource allocation than corruption controlled from above (as with Putin).

[Crossroads]

If you manage to open the link again you can save the web page text for later reading. You will lose the pix and the formatting might be off but still cheaper than subscribing.

I am registered but do not subscribe currently, this gives me a couple of free articles per month. They had a really nice monthly offer for a year, so I re-subscribed.

Does this link (gift article) work for you guys? Eight Takeaways From The Times's Investigation Into Putin's War:

[bobarossa]

Worked for me. Interesting article although shorter than I expected.   Especially the part about the US trying to stop Ukraine from bombing a top Russian General.

[fran]

I was listening to the Battleground: Ukraine (Goalhanger Podcasts) over the weekend. In the episode the spoke the CEO of the HALO Trust about what they are doing in regard to mine and ordnance clearing in Ukraine and the rest of the world.

HALO Trust got its 5min of fame when Princess Diana was photographed in Angola many years ago...

In the episode they mentioned:

• Confirmation that there are UK special forces active in the Uk
• Partriots will be provided
• Russian forces fire approximately 20k shells daily vs the Ukraine's 2k. Russian fire a lot more indiscriminately (no sh**), focusing on infrastructure, etc...and about 10% of it is duds...