Comments by "Sean Cidy" (@seancidy6008) on "Anders Puck Nielsen" channel.

  1. Russia has not had a another mobilisation because Putin wants to remain popular but also because he knows it would provoke America into giving more and better equipment. As many Ukrainians as needed to hold the Russians back can be equipped and will be equipped by America. The Russians understand that every move they made will be countered by US donating more and better equipment. Both Russia and Ukraine are instituting tough military discipline, so the troops are not going to have any choice but to fight. It is said that the Russian trenches are being constructed so the troops cannot withdraw from them safely. RusFed is not a polyglot empire like the USSR it is much more an ethic overwhelming majority nation state, and the Russians are going to benefit from patriotism no less than the Ukrainians. The Russian may lack will, but he is willing perhaps more than willing to suffer (Dostoevsky's Russian 'soul'). Breaking the morale of the populace Putin rules would be a challenge.
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  2. North Korea is a Chinese sockpuppet. Just look at their obviously Chinese ICBM!
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  3.  @evgeniya7853  'It is not impossible' that Ukraine wins if the West backs it 100%, it is also not impossible that the US would have won in Vietnam if they had been determined to.
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  4.  @evgeniya7853  Neither Putin or Zelensky can end this war and survive as leader. So Trump will have to make them.
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  5.  @Princip666  We do our best then they tell us what we still owe them. The money is needed at home.
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  6. ​ @Princip666  There is an escalating stalemate with the cost of keeping Ukraine in the war climbing inexorably. Western countries can't borrow for military spending, because it's consumption, so there will have to be cuts or new taxes. Continuing this way would be directionless.
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  7. My impression is he is saying Russia will win and the Washington establishment have come to understand that now although it is still a publicly unspoken understanding. The forces Putin had poised on the border in 2022 were totally inadequate for what Putin seemed to expect them to achieve. Now he is using mass effect for lesser objectives
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  8. That is why the West is not willing to give Ukraine what it needs to win. They want the Russians to be discouraged, not desperate.
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  9. Can Russia win the military production race? The the West even trying to push Russia that hard; they do not dare.
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  10. Unfortunately, the single issue crowd are all about taking pro social issues and going one step beyond common sense to draw pushback and counter pushback donations from BILLIONARES (Musk is not a typical billionaire).
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  11. The Russians want to overstretch the Ukrainian army; encircling their cities, would overstretch the Russian army.
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  12. Long term thinking in Washington is Russia may well not stand for certain things. The US is not trying to help Ukraine to defeat the Russians; America is just tying to keep Ukraine in the war. Ukraine has to start doing badly to be given effective arms like F16s or ATACMS . So the F16 will be eked out in direct proportion to how dire Ukraine's situation is. Right now Ukraine is doing reasonably well, so the number of F16s will given will be designed for PR rather than victories over the Russians; just enough to keep Ukrainians from getting too discouraged. If Ukraine wants the really effective US arms, then the best thing Ukraine can do is start retreating.
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  13. The original invasion was a mistake by Putin, and badly organised in keeping with that supreme leadership without delegating style. But in 2024 you have to say the Russian effort is quite methodical and coordinated. This is the Russians as a group we are seeing now, not a capacious individual. The Russian Federation as a state is what Mearsheimer's theory would try to explain foreign policy continuities in
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  14. I think because Russia is now going all in and staking its great power status on something it can present as a victory, America does not want Russia to be faced with a total defeat in Ukraine, because the Kremlin might consider alternatives that Washington does not want Russia considering.
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  15. The forces used in Bakhmut are highly specialised convict cannon fodder Wagner units; indeed they seem to have been created precisely for the purpose of the Bakhmut campaign . I don't see how they could easily be employed elsewhere in the front. The Russian artillery may be weakened elsewhere because of Bakhmut, but I don't see it as an overall economy of force operation for Ukraine
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  16.  @baronvonlimbourgh1716  Wagner methods in Bakhmut require massive artillery support for tiny assault groups, which get preceded by expendable screens of convicts there simply to draw fire, and aren't scalable to the whole theatre. Anyway, the Russian army effort want to do what they have trained and equiped to do; in the Vuhlidar operation there was a standard mobile warfare advance using elite formed up regular units and it failed miserably. I think such attempts to advance by Russia are a boon for Ukraine. The Americans would have liked Ukraine to stop fighting in Bakhmut in the hope that the Russian army would try major offensives using the outdated maneuver over distance with large motorised formations method.
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  17. like the ICC would indict Ukraine.
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  18. The ultimate outcome has never been in doubt.
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  19.  @leopoldbloom4835  The German army was good. Russia's is not.
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  20. Professor Jonathan Haslam, author of a large book on the subject says Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were the main NATO members insisting peace would be secured by Ukraine becoming a full member of NATO, but Denmark was the foremost advocate for Ukrainian membership of NAT0 among West European countries, and it pushed hard for military cooperation with Ukraine in peacekeeping operations all over the globe to qualify it as a NATO partner. What the Russians might think was behind all this was not much considered. The suspicion was mutual nevertheless; as Mearsheimer says countries can never be certain of each others intentions, or of what those intentions might become.
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  21.  @oliversissonphone6143  Zelensky didn't think Russia was actually going to do it.
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  22. There had been a war in Donbass since Russia invaded in 2014.
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  23. Journalist understand the importance of perceptions though, and how are the Russians going to be persuaded to stop if as a result of tactical victory they think things are going well. strategically?
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  24. Every border in the world was formed by the balance of forces on either side of it.
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  25. it is and it isn't. The trajectory of the war seems to indicate Russia has the advantage, but they are going to pay an enormously heavy price if they press on.
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  26. The territory can be regained but the dead are gone forever. Russia has 100 million more people that Ukraine. Nuff said.
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  27. Kofman is a land power guy. O'Brien is more enamored of sea power as determinative in the grand scheme of things. Anders is a naval officer of course.
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  28.  @ChucksSEADnDEAD  Thanks, that explains why the Russian used the Z convict storm units when forced to fight where they originally didn't want to, but it doesn't explain why the Ukrainians did not stage an economy of force fighting retreat when it became clear the Russians were driving an inexhaustible screen of expendable goons in front of the actual professionals of Wagner that were supported by fires. Currently the Ukrainians are advancing on Bakhmut, which indicates it does have value to them as a point from which to mount a deep penetration and exploitation. Furthermore the Ukrainians are methodically arttriting Russian artilleries by extensive use of HIMARS then slowly advancing in the latest offensive, which is a lot cleverer than trying to defend against Russian cannon fodder convict screening the adept professions of Wagner while they are being given massive fire support, which is what the battle of Bukhmut was in the latter part of it,. Kofman was critiquing a failure of Ukrainian flexibility and subordinating everything else to the main effort. I don't see there was a pinning of Wagner as they won and Ukraine could hardly have predicted the rebellion, could they? Wagnerites would have been available if not for Prig's mutiny. In fixing them the Ukrainians were fixing their own troops and the loss of morale after Zelensky announcing it would be defended was sapped the troops fighting spirits somewhat surely.
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  29. Twitter was quite important for cancel culture. It got completely oit of control and was electorally irresponsible because as Michael Lind said to Klein, US elections are won by 'Big Tent' coalition parties. The Dem;s candidate for pres was espousing crazy stuff as a result (biological males in school female sports teams and defund the police).
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  30. Germany was compelled to admit they were solely responsible for WW1, thereby totally demoralizing the political class.
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  31. I don't think the US wanted this; there were a long series of miscalculations by Russia and Ukraine that America was powerless to prevent.
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  32. Mearsheimer had no influence on the diplomacy and knew less than Biden; US intel very successfully predicted the Russian invasion before it happened. The problem was that America could warn the Kremlin not to, but not prevent the Russians from following through with putting their invasion plan into action regardless. Mearsheimer has an explanation why the Russians were so determined in early 2022. And almost three years and hundreds of thousands of dead Russians later they still are determined, for reasons that are nothing to do with Mearsheimer trying to explain and comment on the war..
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  33.  @evgeniya7853  Mearsheimer said if Ukraine had been admitted to NATO as a full member then Putin would not have invaded Ukraine. But Mearsheimer is not infallible, he may have been proved wrong about that too
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  34.  @rawnukles  Not the issue. Ukraine is a signatory to the non proliferation convention and has agreed to renounce nuclear weapons forever. If Ukraine first used a nuclear weapon on Russia, then Russia would retaliate against America for Ukraine's first use, because America's hands would not be clean. It is on America if it supports Ukraine while it builds a nuclear weapon to use in a conventional war, because American intel will know if Ukraine starts building one.
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  35.  @yellowtunes2756  The problem for Ukraine was not being in Nato as a full member it was that the Russians knew they were trying to get into Nato and decided to forestall that possibility. Similarly, the problem for Ukraine is the Russians would destroy any facility capable of creating a nuclear weapon were they aware that Ukraine was actually trying to make a . nuclear weapon.
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  36. He told them in 1994 they needed a nuclear deterrent against Russia. Wasn't wrong.
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  37.  @olenmees9150  It was not Mearsheimer who told Ukrainian politicians to renounce nuclear weapons, quite the opposite. The Germans and Americans paid Ukrainian officials off in 1994.
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  38.  @StunBuns  It was not mrely giving back Siviet nukes to Russia. Ukraine renounced building their own nukes, which they had the expertise and resources to do. In 1994 Mearshimer said it was was terrible idea for Ukraine to not have an independent nuclear deterrent to a Russian invasion and Mearsheimer was right. The West paid off Ukrainian politicians to agree Ukraine would never have its own nukes.
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  39.  @steemlenn8797  He, and virtually only he, already has the credit for saying Ukraine needed its own nuclear weapons. He said that thirty years ago.
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  40. You have to read between the lines, as with any source.
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  41. After watching this carefully I have to say Denmark's greatest military thinker ever is Sven Hassel.
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  42. Not clear how Russia can be made to feel so hard pressed on the battlefield that they feel the need to compromise, but not use their battlefield thermonuclear weapons.
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  43. Why are Ukraine leaving the 18-26 year olds out of the call ups and at the same time squealing for aid? If you cannot or will not help yourself then no one else can and no one else will.
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  44. Given his title focusing on whether there is a military rationale, his analysis being that this benefits Ukraine militarily, and Ukraine having came into control of one side of the dam in November, it is not clear why Anders does not even canvass the possibility the Russians did not demolish the dam. It turned out they did not do the NordStream pipeline demolitions contrary to what he assumed, so the likelihood is he is wrong again. Pretty remarkable considering he is a naval officer with expertise in riverine and undersea operations.
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  45.  @andrzejbarcelonafrlk6416  He was too busy to inform his viewers that the prime suspects are clearly nonRussian individuals operating in an unobtrusive way from a yacht , making a Russian state operation most unlikely. Morover, Russia would have did such a slick frame up and let everyone think that Russia had blown the pipelines for several weeks? Come on!
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  46.  @andrzejbarcelonafrlk6416  Nothing much was made of the destruction of the pipeline by Western governments .One might have expected uproar if it was Russia. as the sabotage was in Nato waters. As I recall. Anders had some convoluted counter hybrid provocation explanation for Western governments remaining tight lipped. But the truth is Western governments knew it was done by Ukraine not Russia.
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  47. It is missing the fourth and in my opinion most likely type of escalation.: that the Kremlin realise the tide has turned against them nd they cannot possibly hope to win or even survive in the long run with their current conventional strategy. In that case they would have to actually do something riskier. Or quit.
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  48. It is not clear that Russia's war machine is operating at anywhere near maximum capacity. The US intel briefings to Biden and soon Trump may be to the effect that a flood of extra support to Ukraine would not necessarily lead Putin to end the war and might leave him an option to put Russia into higher gear.
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  49. Denmark was the first country to support Ukrainian membership of NATO. Tail wagging the dog.
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  50. Russian took Bakhmut and did not follow up so no, it was not somewhere Russia wanted as the basis for an advance. I think the Russians thought the Ukrainians could not be left in posession of Bakhmut because it was somewhere Ukraine would find ideal to launch an attack into the Russian rear area, which were favourable for exploitations..
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