Thread by @BretDevereaux

So, perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that, from a strategy-between-great-powers point of view, Russia passed over into the 'losing' column pretty early in their now-five-week-long 72-hour invasion of Ukraine.

And maybe we should be talking more about that?
1/

To be clear, I don't want to say that the policy space isn't talking about this - they are. But I haven't seen that as much filter into the public-communications/journalism space.

There's still an understandable focus on what this all means for Ukraine. 2/

And it shouldn't be minimized that Putin's war is very bad for Ukraine; it means mostly suffering for Ukrainians. It sucks, even if it has produced a US/NATO strategic victory. It sucks a lot.

But strategic ramifications are going to happen anyway. 3/

So, first off, Russia's ability to meaningfully project power is now very much tied up with Ukraine. The percentage-scale of Russian commitment here is much higher than, for instance, US commitments during the GWoT.

And they could be there for a day or half a decade. 4/

Meanwhile, estimates for Russian losses vary, but they're not small. Perhaps 10k KIA so far, which might suggest another 30k WIA, a lot of that concentrated into Russia's c. 170 BTGs (not all deployed in Ukraine).

It's not clear how many BTGs are ineffective, but a bunch? 5/

Tank, AFV and IFV losses (300, 232, 302) visually confirmed (oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack…) is enough to have mulched more than a dozen BTGs.

Of course some of those losses aren't in the BTGs, but the point here is attrition in the 'tooth' of RU is high. 6/

Now the war's scale isn't enough to be demographically significant for Russia - they're not going to run out of military-aged men who could potentially serve (c. 3m eligible in Russia).

But actually getting those folks into uniform is going to be tougher. 7/

Contract soldiers - the professionals of the Russian army - are already fairly expensive and wages are already the largest line-item in the Russian military budget despite the fact that the conscripts, unlike contractors, are paid basically garbage. csis.org/blogs/post-sov…
8/

But obviously the greater the sense of danger for being in uniform, the greater the incentives necessary to get people to sign up (something you saw in recruitment issues in the USA during the GWoT). Recruiting w/ 'Do war crimes!' will appeal to some, but not many and also 😬. 9/

And simply going all-in on conscripts or Rosgvardia isn't an option if Russia intends to project any kind of real power - if you can't handle Ukraine now with at least some professionals, you surely won't be able to do it after near-totally deprofessionalizing. 10/

All of which means that once this conflict ends, freezes or at least chills, Russia is going to be posed with some serious problems: they'll need to replace a lot of expensive military equipment and a lot of munitions and also begin rebuilding BTG personnel. 11/

In this, it's going to be hard for Russian leadership to rely on 'reserve stocks' of tanks and other equipment: most of the stuff in reserve would need, at bare minimum, to be modernized, on the *heroic* assumption it has been minimally maintained.

https://twitter.com/iAmTheWarax/status/1508494099456065538

12/

What resources will they have? Estimates of impact of sanctions vary, from 'very bad' to 'utterly catastrophic.'

Oxford Economics thinks 7%, which is 2x great recessions.

The IIF estimates 15%, which is 1x great depressions.
tinyurl.com/5n4v4ma8
tinyurl.com/3s2n22fk 13/

Meanwhile a lot of the stuff Russia is going to need to replace or upgrade this equipment - they may, for instance, have noticed how a lack of nightvision gear is really bad, it turns out - is going to require imports.

And, uh, the ruble is not doing great. 14/

The ability of the Russian economy to 'bounce back' is also probably going to matter significantly on how on the conflict and its sanctions last.

Some costs are baked in, but a lot of them escalate over time. 15/

The longer Russian gas isn't flowing into Europe, the more European economies are going to pivot to other energy sources or other suppliers, meaning Russia may emerge from sanctions with gas to sell, but fewer interested buyers. 16/

Giving the US and NATO a security reason to decarbonize was a bad idea for the 'gas station with nukes.'

Meanwhile, restarting manufacturing is also going to be fraught - a lot of the costs here are losing access to spare parts and maint. equipment. 17/

So the lifting of sanctions isn't suddenly back to business in some cases - it is back to first making capital investments in parts, then workforce investments in repairs, then lining up buyers, THEN back to business...assuming you're still in business.

You may not be! 18/

Russia was already spending something like 4% of its GDP on its military - already pretty high. It is hard to see a lot of space for increasing that percentage by a lot.

But Russia's spending needs are about to go way up, and its GDP has just gone down. 19/

And that 'money crunch' is going to, in turn, ripple out through everything else Russia does - including the cyber and hybrid ops - because everything is competing for the same scarce resources: the money. 20/

The upshot, it seems to me, is that Russian power projection is going to be pretty dramatically reduced not merely for the duration of the conflict, but probably for some time afterwards.

I legitimately think we're probably watching RU fall out of 'great power' status again. 21/

Lots of unpredictable strategic effects, especially if Russian satellites and allies begin to look for other patrons, but on the whole having one of your major strategic challenges trip over itself and break its own nose is generally a good thing, strategically. 22/

None of which, of course, is to say this war was 'good' even if it probably will end up being 'good for US interests.'

Still, it's hard for me not to see the US/NATO achieving significant strategic goals here at a very low cost to themselves. 23/

And that is likely to matter going forward even if the big story is - and should remain - the terrible costs Putin's war has inflicted on Ukraine.

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