Tenchu's Thoughts: The Quantity IS the Quality
I think it's a mistake to assume that RuZZia will lose militarily.
"Partial" Mobilization, LOL ...
First of all, the word "partial" in "partial mobilization" is a complete lie. RuZZia isn't going to stop at 300K additional warm bodies to throw into the meat grinder. The word "partial" is meant to sell this move to a RuZZian public that rightly fears the draft. But the reality is that the RuZZians want to keep drafting as many as 1M conscripts.
This is also backed up by reports that the RuZZians are drafting anyone and everyone they can get their hands on. They claim that only reservists who have experience serving in the military will be called up, but that's complete bullshit. Students, protesters, political prisoners, and others who have absolutely no experience whatsoever are getting drafted. The drafting offices are being told to get as many people ASAP, so they're going to break their own rules (which in RuZZia are pretty much "guidelines" anyway) to meet short-term goals.
The Quantity IS the Quality
Second, yes, the new RuZZian conscripts will be lacking basic supplies like boots and fresh (i.e. not expired) rations. They will be taking orders from incompetent leadership. And they will be highly motivated to desert their positions.
There's a lot of talk about how quality will win over quantity, but never forget that quantity does help. If you doubt me, just ask the 1.5M Chinese soldiers who turned the tide during the Korean War and is now the subject of a recent Chinese propaganda movie that ended up VERY popular among Chinese citizens. Those Chinese soldiers did not have the advantage of air power, or armor, or artillery. But they did successfully draw Gen. MacArthur into a trap and push the allies back to the now-infamous 38th parallel.
I recently heard a saying that "the quantity IS the quality." And although PooTin is desperate, anywhere between 300K and 1M additional conscripts WILL make a difference on the Ukrainian battlefield.
But what can they do?
Occupying a Foreign County Is Hard Work
They can help with support and logistics, from digging trenches to building supply lines to running ammunition to front-line soldiers. In the American military, there is a ratio of 4 support troops to 1 front-line troop. We can assume that ratio for the RuZZian military is somewhere between 2.5:1 and 3:1.
They can also help subjugate the citizens in occupied cities. Stuff like shooting suspected Ukrainian sympathizers in the back, torturing grannies, converting schools into military barracks and HQs, and putting up propaganda posters is hard work, and Mad Vlad will need all the help he can get.
Furthermore, they can fill holes in the defensive lines so that embarrassments like the collapse of Kharkiv don't happen again.
In short, these new conscripts can turn the war back into a war of attrition. They can take the momentum away from Ukraine and turn the war back into a meat-grinding stalemate.
Which of course was PooTin's desperate goal all along.
But PooTin Can Still Lose
You might be asking now, "So now what, Tenchu? Does that mean RuZZia will eventually win?"
Not so fast.
PooTin is already paying a heavy political price for drafting the entire RuZZian population. Protests are everywhere despite the heavy penalties. People would rather spend time in jail than get drafted (even though prisoners are getting drafted anyway). Lots of RuZZian men are trying to GTFO.
( There was also a school shooting by a neo-Nazi RuZZian, but it's not clear whether this guy was motivated to kill children because of the draft.)
In short, the RuZZian population that was previously depoliticized in order to allow for PooTin to become a totalitarian is now realizing that the s--t just got real. And that is causing cracks in PooTin's political stronghold that I'm not sure can be contained.
There was a reason why even a "partial mobilization" was resisted by PooTin until now. We are seeing that reason in action.
And the more RuZZians die in Ukraine, the more the population will not see PooTin as the only viable institution for political and national stability.
The Economic Question
The other way for PooTin to lose is via a collapse in the RuZZian economy, which is now a possibility. I didn't consider this a possibility before, but I do now.
First of all, sending up to a million able-bodied RuZZian men to their deaths (or dismemberments) is going to have a HUGE impact on the RuZZian GDP. Fewer factory workers, fewer farmers, fewer maintenance guys, fewer vendors, fewer technologists, fewer of every productive citizen in the entire economy.
That, combined with an economy that is trying to shift toward supplying a military quagmire, is going to lead to significant inflation, even more than what the average RuZZian citizen is already experiencing.
Second, the price of oil keeps coming down, and that trend isn't likely to be reversed anytime soon. Major banks all across the world, especially the Federal Reserve here in the U.S., are raising interest rates in an effort to control general inflation.
That will necessarily lead to reduced demand for oil. And RuZZian oil is more expensive to pump and transport than oil from other sources like Saudi Arabia. If the price of oil goes below $60/barrel and stays there for a significant period of time, RuZZia is fucked big time because they have to sell their oil at a discount to market prices.
Third, the rest of the world is adapting away from RuZZian energy. "wInTeR iS cOmInG," according to the trolls from Cyber Front Z, but that's more likely to hurt RuZZia than the rest of Europe. After this winter, Europe and America will build up the infrastructure and the economic partnerships to reduce dependence on RuZZian energy.
Plus I believe that every year there will be a significant increase in the number of EVs, solar and wind generation, and other alternatives to fossil fuels that will further reduce overall demand for RuZZian oil. Even China and India is going in that route, because who wouldn't want to be more self-sufficient in their energy needs?
Miracles from the Jewish Comedian
But I wouldn't rely on Zelensky to continue creating miracles for Ukraine and the rest of the free world.
He created one miracle by resisting RuZZia's initial push toward Kyiv, and that was before assistance from the West really picked up.
He created another miracle with that rope-a-dope strategy in the southern battlefront of Kherson, thereby opening up a huge opportunity in the northern battlefront of Kharkiv.
And he's creating a miracle by uniting NATO and disunifying RuZZia's Axis of Evil 2.0.
But on the military front, let's be real here.
Ukraine is making just slow progress in Kherson. That's probably intentional in order to conserve manpower, but it shows what 25,000 trapped and poorly-supplied RuZZian soldiers are still capable of.
RuZZia is still making very slight progress on the eastern front. They still press their advantage in terms of sheer quantity, and you can bet that those gains, however miniscule, will be magnified tenfold by the Kremlin and Cyber Front Z.
And neither side has any air superiority to brag about. That means any significant changes to the front-line will be sporadic and inconsistent.
Bottom Line
Thanks to RuZZia's "partial (LOL) mobilization," the war will likely turn back into a stalemate.
But now RuZZia's political and economic ability to continue PooTin's war of choice is now compromised.
And short of any more miracles from Zelensky, the best and most likely way RuZZia will lose is through political instability caused both by a crisis in public confidence combined with an economic collapse.
Tenchusatsu |
