Big serge substack

In the last 72 hours or so, the pro-Russian side of the internet has been sent into an tailspin of panic over a new Ukrainian counteroffensive which is currently being launched in the Kharkov region, with the intention of compromising the Russian army grouping at Izyum. The panic was triggered by claims that Ukraine was advancing unopposed, encircling - or perhaps even capturing - the city of Balakliya - and on the verge of cutting off supply lines to Izyum. A celeb johad city with a prewar population of perhaps 50, people, Izyum was always slated to be a focal point in this war, due to its location at a critical intersection. The topography of northeastern Ukraine is dominated by a few critically big serge substack features which determine patterns of movement, big serge substack.

As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. The nature of the war changed dramatically after a kinetic and mobile opening phase. With the collapse of the negotiation process whether thanks to Boris Johnson or not , it became clear that the only way out of the conflict would be through the strategic defeat of one party by the other. Thanks to a pipeline of western support in the form of material, financial aid, and ISR and targeting assistance which allowed Ukraine to transcend its rapidly evaporating indigenous war economy, it became clear that this would be a war of industrial attrition, rather than rapid maneuver and annihilation. Russia began to mobilize resources for this sort of attritional war in the Autumn of , and since then the war has attained its present quality - that of a firepower intensive but relatively static positional struggle. The nature of this attritional-positional war lends itself to analytic ambiguity, because it denies the most attractive and obvious signs of victory and defeat in large territorial changes.

Big serge substack

Check this out me korosho drugies: bigserge. This guy is fucking hilarious. Kyive was a trap. Kharkiv was a trap. Lyman was a trap. Kherson is a trap. He never gives up! And he's kinda funny. I love it. Like Kos' son, I wanna be an airborne Ranger, I wanna be a living danger, I wanna be a flamewar troll, I wanna rock n roll but I can't caussa dk flag policy. The Ukrainians have winter uniforms that weren't corrupted away. They have washing machines and the best armaments of the most advanced economies on earth.

What on earth is or was the Kakhovka dam and what was its relation to the larger geography of the surrounding steppe? Ukraine is facing strategic defeat, big serge substack, and the only way out is to go all in - not only for Ukraine, in the form big serge substack a more radical and totalizing mobilization plan, but for its partners too, who will have to adopt a quasi-war economy and devote radically more resources to arming and training the AFU.

Military history writer Big Serge has published an excellent essay that explains much of what has puzzled observers of the conflict in Ukraine—why does Russia appear to be hanging back, what happened to that much touted offensive, and some other matters as well. First, however, here are some basic points that will serve as guide posts. Russia, for political reasons, has not yet declared war on Ukraine—the conflict remains, legally, a Special Military Operation. Legality is very important to him, as we know from his criticisms of the Rules-Based Order, in which the rules are unilaterally made up on the go. A declaration of war may or may not happen, but the lack of such a declaration at this point places constraints on the Russian military. The Russian military is composed of a professional military—personnel who are on contract—and conscripts. Conscripts serve only for a limited time and are mostly trainees for most of their service.

Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest written records of identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia from around to BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy , and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity , whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes, while further advancements, including the introduction of the Hindu—Arabic numeral system , were made during the Golden Age of India. Some Greek manuscripts lost in Western Europe were preserved and expanded upon in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age [19] and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek manuscripts from the dying Byzantine Empire to Western Europe in the Renaissance. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived " natural philosophy ", [20] [21] [22] which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century [23] as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems. The word science has been used in Middle English since the 14th century in the sense of "the state of knowing".

Big serge substack

The Phalanx CIWS SEE-wiz is an automated gun-based close-in weapon system to defend military watercraft automatically against incoming threats such as aircraft, missiles, and small boats. This is essentially the ships last layer of defense against any incoming attacks. A smart commenter asks the right question, which leads to this exchange:. What I don't get is why aren't the Houthis shooting salvos? Single missiles have very little chances of success. Just a matter of time before we lose a ship. This is more like pot shots. A Houthi missile recently put a US destroyer's close-in weapons system to the test, a report said. A warship's CIWS is usually considered its last line of defense and is for close-range intercepts.

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First they deny, as this would unduly provoke Russia. The most important of these is the Crimean canal, which carries Dnieper water to Crimea, but there are also a series of irrigation works which are vital to agricutlure in Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts. Third, we need to note the effects that this will have on a potential amphibious operation. The window of opportunity for an easy encirclement or interdiction of supply to Izyum ended when Russia cleared all the Ukrainian forces from the north side of the Donets river. To achieve this, they are attempting a thrust toward Kupyansk, with the aim of cutting the line connecting Izyum to Belgorod in the north. This runs into an additional, follow on problem, which is that simply pumping shells into Ukraine is not enough. Russia, for political reasons, has not yet declared war on Ukraine—the conflict remains, legally, a Special Military Operation. It's destroying the Ukrainian Military, including their reserves and equipment, at a steady rate. The leak yesterday about British troops being already in Ukraine simply reflects what has long been an open secret. A salient is a classically vulnerable position - a glaringly obvious operational focal point, because simultaneous attacks at the base of the bulge can easily cut it off and trap the forces inside. Remember, the implications of the dam breach are not just downstream flooding, but also the draining of the resevoir, and this is particularly bad for Russia. Thats my more reasoned comment.

With the Russo-Ukrainian War now rolling on into its seventh month, I thought this might be as good a time as any to put together a more extensive analysis than the twitter format allows. What follows will be my assessment of what exactly the Russian Armed Forces have achieved, why they made specific operational choices, and the general shape of the battlefield today. But first, I will indulge in a brief paragraph about myself.

Any consideration, debate or ratification is just a stage-managed rubber-stamp. The dam is leaking. The current Theory of Ukrainian Victory is exhausted, intending as it did to leverage western ISR, training, and surplus equipment to deliver disproportionate casualties on Russia. Ukraine attempted to nullify this tool with a limited breach of the dam of the sort which they rehearsed last December but the dam failure cascaded beyond what they intended due to A the resevoir being at extremely high levels, putting excessive stress on the strucure, and B previous damage to the structure from prior Ukrainian shelling and rocketry attacks. In short, this is the phase where an offensive is exploited. At the estimated long-run availability of 3, per day, Ukraine can have some basic functionality, but they will find it difficult to accumulate a stockpile to allow higher intensity offensive operations. When Spengler warned against any invasion of Russia for reasons of space, he was, as we have since seen, right. He never gives up! In other words, the current pace of Russian operations supports the overall attrition of Ukrainian manpower and implies that there is no need to rush an ambitious operation until organizational issues have been sorted out. The issue for Ukraine now goes beyond the loss of Avdiivka and the opportunities that this will create for Russia. However, in recent weeks they closed up the gates and filled the resevoir up to the top. With the collapse of the negotiation process whether thanks to Boris Johnson or not , it became clear that the only way out of the conflict would be through the strategic defeat of one party by the other.