Which side Won World War I decisively?
If the win in World War I was so decisive – why was there a World War II only 20 years later?
Posted by: Julian | Dec 24 2023 0:28 utc | 87

Everyone in Europe lost. The Americans won, but not decisively. It took WWII to make it decisive.
Although I should qualify a bit the “everyone in Europe lost” part — the Russian imperial oligarchy lost, but Russia as a whole would have won big time from Bolsheviks taking power. But again, WWII came and with it 30M dead and a third of the country destroyed, and that made the US victory decisive.

Posted by: shаdοwbanned | Dec 24 2023 4:17 utc | 103

The latest murmurings are that Putin wants to do a deal!
If that is true – dreams/fantasies of a land-bridge to Hungary/Slovakia/Serbia – even a land-bridge to Transnistria – are simply NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Posted by: Julian | Dec 24 2023 4:54 utc | 104
States often send multiple signals to other states. Some of these murmurings are for domestic consumption – both Russian and American, and the international audience. That said, since the beginning of the SMO Putin has never said he would never negotiate. War is the continuation of policy with other means, after all. The terms for any deal are going to be higher though, higher than Ukraine will accept, and the price is only going up.

Posted by: James M. | Dec 24 2023 5:23 utc | 105

That said, since the beginning of the SMO Putin has never said he would never negotiate. War is the continuation of policy with other means, after all. The terms for any deal are going to be higher though, higher than Ukraine will accept, and the price is only going up.
Posted by: James M. | Dec 24 2023 5:23 utc | 105
It’s not really negotiating if your terms are always higher than your adversary will accept, and you know this. The Russians have always known that their terms would not be accepted by the west, so they have offered them, but the plan from long before the beginning of the SMO was to defeat US global hegemony, and at this point, extending the kinetic phase of the SMO is accomplishing that brilliantly. Ukraine is just a battlefield. The war is global, and that’s where we must measure results. I am not sure if Putin has said this directly, but the Russian ambassador to the UN and Medvedev have both made clear that the ‘window for a negotiated settlement is closed’ and the fighting will continue until Ukraine capitulates. Why? Because the west gets weaker every day the war continues, while Russia, China, Iran get stronger. I think the ‘murmurs’ that Putin wants to negotiate are wishful thinking in the west.

Posted by: Honzo | Dec 24 2023 5:39 utc | 107

I would suggest the subjugation and occupation of a defeated belligerent in World War II was an example of a DECISIVE VICTORY.
As far as I know – more than 80 years later Germany (or Japan for that matter) has not started any other Wars directly.
Simply not the case after World War I.
Posted by: Julian | Dec 24 2023 5:40 utc | 108
World War II was an anomaly as far as wars go, due to the Allies’ stated policy of unconditional surrender that may have cost 10 million extra lives. Most wars aren’t duels to the death. Rather, they end when one side achieves its stated goals over the other side, and that side acknowledges this in defeat.
In World War I there were some decisive losers – Austria-Hungary, the country that started the war, ceased to exist. The Ottoman Empire also ceased to exist, and to my knowledge, outside of an intervention on Cyprus, and some minor actions against Kurdish rebels, Turkey hasn’t been in a war since then. Yes, Germany rearmed, but in violation of treaty obligations. If those obligations had been enforced then history might have turned out differently.
So World War II is a bad example for “decisive victory” in war. That’s more like “final victory.” A decisive war is when one side can dictate terms to the other side due to its superiority on the battlefield. This is opposed to an inconclusive war, which is a war where neither side has an advantage, and it ends in a stalemate. Tell me what was inconclusive about World War I?

Posted by: James M. | Dec 24 2023 7:00 utc | 109

Odessa partisans derailed a train with military assistance from NATO countries.
According to underground workers working in Ukrzaliznytsia, at about 23.00 on December 22, in the area of ​​the village of Velikodolinskoye, Odessa region, a train with military cargo was blown up. Most of the property has been destroyed. The area of ​​the incident is cordoned off by Bandera. Rescue operations are underway.
It is preliminary known that as a result of the detonation of ammunition, a shipment of aid from Germany was destroyed: Vector UAV,
ammunition for Leopard tanks, 155 mm shells and electronic warfare systems.

Posted by: MiniMO | Dec 24 2023 7:25 utc | 111

If I were Putin, I would let the Ukraine war continue until the US presidential elections. After the US elections, putting feelers out, a bit of public diplomacy where the new US president is publicly given the opportunity to withdraw from Ukraine. If the US does not respond in good faith – it won’t – then give the Russian military the go-ahead to finish the Ukrainian op. That’s what I would expect.

Posted by: Passerby | Dec 24 2023 7:41 utc | 113

Milites | Dec 24 2023 1:33 utc | 92
I was not talking about the ISW report/s, but about Simp’s analysis of it and the Latvian one as ref’d @80
Was this not clear enough? cheers
I very highly recommend going through this slowly and skimming the originals from ISW
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/breaking-down-thinktank-lands-latest

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Dec 24 2023 7:55 utc | 115

Julian | Dec 24 2023 0:28 utc | 87

Which side Won World War I decisively?
If the win in World War I was so decisive – why was there a World War II only 20 years later?

WW I
The Russian Empire change to CCCP
WW II
The Empire of China change to PRC
(the war starts 2 years earlier in Asia, Juni 1937 and sure end Sept 1945 in Asia too)
the winner is Rome

Posted by: theo | Dec 24 2023 8:06 utc | 117

L’Ukraine et ses sponsors ne gagneront pas la guerre contre la Russie qu’ils ont préparée et provoquée. Ce n’est pas un conflit sur des terres lointaines pour les russes, c’est un conflit pour la sécurité de la Russie. L’OTAN est déjà engagé jusqu’au cou, ses conseillers , ses techniciens et certaines de ses unités (renseignements, Forces spéciales)
sont déjà engagés.
Il en manque très peu pour que ce conflit dégénère en conflagration qui sera, inévitablement, mondiale.
L’OTAN est sur un fil et danse au-dessus du volcan. Que le fil se rompe et L’OTAN sera plongée dans un conflit qui ne se limitera pas à l’Europe car, cette fois-ci, les américains ressentiront la guerre sur leur sol et dans leur chair.
Il n’y aura pas de victoire pour L’OTAN et les américains le savent bien. Au mieux ce sera un règlement à la coréenne.
Les russes vont probablement pousser leur avantage jusqu’au Dniepr. Une frontière naturelle pour la nouvelle Russie serait une garantie de sérénité et de sécurité.
Toutefois, la guerre s’étend déjà au Moyen-Orient et à la Mer Rouge impactant directement le commerce mondial et les voies logistiques.
Les fous de guerre ont poussé l’Ukraine et son peuple vers le néant et les britanniques et les américains en sont directement responsables.
Le chaos et la ruine en Europe, voilà leurs buts.
Pour les yankees, c’est la guerre de trop car ils se sont malheureusement attaqués à un trop gros poisson. C’est normal, car quand on a une trop grande gueule, on mésestime ses ennemis et ses concurrents. A vouloir voler trop haut, l’aigle considère ses ennemis trop petits. Problème de focale…
La Russie est toujours à l’économie dans ce conflit. Elle sait que le conflit direct avec L’OTAN se prépare et qu’il lui faut préserver ses armes et ses hommes. Dans ce conflit, nous avons déjà vu pas mal de nouvelles choses, pourtant je reste persuadé qu’en fait, nous n’avons encore presque rien vu. Attendons-nous encore à de grosses surprises.
Rappelons-nous ce qu’ Albert Einstein disait sur la 4 eme guerre mondiale :”je ne sais pas comment se déroulera la 3ème guerre mondiale mais ce que je sais c’est que la 4eme se fera avec des bâtons et des pierres”…
A méditer

Posted by: Hares | Dec 24 2023 8:24 utc | 119

… Russia already has air advantage over Ukraine and the advantage will soon be overwhelming, meaning the ability to saturation bomb those trenches Ukraine is digging in Sumy and Chernigiv oblasts that shadowbanned is so anxious about. I’d hate to be Ukraine infantry in those trenches when a fuel-air bomb explodes overhead.
Posted by: anonposter | Dec 24 2023 2:44 utc | 97
The air advantage of flying manned aircraft anywhere near the front or flying conspicuous high altitude glide bomb runs is a vivid demonstration of US strategists leaving just enough room to keep both sides hopeful and engaged.
There seems to be no clarity on the recent claims of Su-34 shoot downs, just two competing flavours of bullshit, but the previous air ambush was well described and acknowledged by both sides so the recent claims are not even remotely controversial from a military-technical standpoint, whatever their veracity.
If NATO were to quietly place disposable launchers of their better AA missile within range of the front and operates them lock-on-after-launch at RF aircraft identified by ISR operating outside of Ukrainian airspace those flight would have to stop. Manned aircraft are expensive / conspicuous and their crews precious, UMPC standoff range is limited.
These ambush / shoot downs are disciplinary actions for some perceived overstepping of boundaries (like blitzing a group of high ranking western “advisors”) and a reminder of how difficult things could *easily* be made.
On the use of UMPC to deliver large thermobaric warheads, due to the effective size of the warhead being much amplified by exploiting atmospheric oxygen, this would surely be even more effective than cluster bombs in many of the active sectors of the front.
One wonders why there isn’t a single report of this combination being deployed, is it really preferable to clear terrain on foot?

Posted by: anon2020 | Dec 24 2023 10:13 utc | 121

Posted by: zorge | Dec 24 2023 10:22 utc | 122
Why don’t you put down your keyboard, go to Moscow and campaign for Igor Strelkov?
I’m sure that many here would contribute to your travel costs.

Posted by: Lev Davidovich | Dec 24 2023 10:34 utc | 123

My mistake.
Macron may last until the scheduled election. And the EU may limp on for another 5 or 6 years.

Posted by: Lev Davidovich | Dec 24 2023 11:26 utc | 125

“I was reading again confirmation of a little known, but interesting and relevant, piece of WWII history yesterday. Albert Speer and his cohorts managed throughout 1944 to keep production of fighter planes at the highest levels, even though Germany was being relentlessly bombed, and Allied fighter planes dominated the skies. Yes, I guess that had a lot to do with the range of Allied bombers, and where a lot of production had been nestled away, but still, food for thought imo.”
Posted by: Babel-17 | Dec 23 2023 16:58 utc | 38
A young John Galbraith-a Canuk BTW- wrote a paper in 45-46 showing how ineffective the Allied wartime bombing was against German war production. Of course, Curtis Lemay the top US air General and US Congress buried the story and called Galbraith a communist. See below.
One of the reasons Galbraith cited was that Allied bombers were notoriously inaccurate and so bombed the residential areas (which weren’t protected against by AA assets as were the factories)rather than the proscribed German armament factories. Hence, many factory workers had no homes to go to so they stayed at the factories and so worked longer and harder.
German war production had its crest in January 1945.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40722328

Posted by: canuck | Dec 24 2023 12:36 utc | 127

Re: Posted by: OnceWere | Dec 23 2023 16:43 utc | 34
You bring up WWI. The front lines in that war scarcely moved for years and yet one side still won decisively.
Which side Won World War I decisively?
If the win in World War I was so decisive – why was there a World War II only 20 years later?
Posted by: Julian | Dec 24 2023 0:28 utc | 87
Read Lord Keynes” The Carthaginian Peace” 1919(?)-the Treaty was unfair so it presaged the ensuing WW2
“Keynes’ portrayal of the treaty as a “Carthaginian peace” – a brutal peace which has the intent of crushing the losing side – quickly became the orthodoxy in academic circles and was a common opinion amongst the British public. It was widely believed in Britain that the terms of the treaty were unfair.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1404025

Posted by: canuck | Dec 24 2023 12:54 utc | 129

Posted by: DunGroanin | Dec 23 2023 16:01 utc | 26
Excellent and u got a lot of weight off your chest !
But the Corporate media are no different. Otherwise you are veering into ideological territory. Corporate media good, BBC bad.
It’s a one party nation state and starting from that view point u can clearly see the media are all the same. There’s no left and right it is neoliberalism or neoconservatives which both have the same goals.
The media is there to divide people and make them believe voting makes a difference and that they live in a democracy.
Brexshit was the best thing that ever happened to the country if you understand sovereignty. The UK can clarify how any agreement applies in UK law via Parliament, and that is the end of the matter. Why globalisation and neoliberalism has done everything it can to stop that simple fact. Thank God it has failed and why Brexit happened.
That’s exactly how international treaty law works in the UK. It does not bind because we have dualist constitution.It binds the Crown, not Parliament. Parliament can therefore decide it doesn’t apply, and there is little anybody can do about it since Parliament decides what the UK courts enforce.
The internationalists are trying to trump the UK constitution and we are perfectly entitled to say no. At which point it is down to how many guns you have. You win in international trade by exporting as little as possible and importing as much as possible. It’s the physical exchange that represents the terms of trade and the standard of living increase, not accumulating promises from other nations.
Should we ever get a government that puts the interests of UK residents ahead of the needs of the City and the globalist cabal, then we can selectively derogate as we wish where provisions are no longer in the UK’s interests.
There is a section of society that believes that everything should be sacrificed on the altar of ‘international trade’. Once you realise that exports are a physical loss to the country and imports are a physical benefit that increase our standard of living then you can switch that belief around.
As a major net importer we receive items in return for mere promises. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a demonstration that those exporting to us haven’t got anywhere else to send their stuff that offers a more material return.
That’s not to say we go mad, just that we can look at things from a different point of view. International issues aren’t quite the straitjacket many believe. What we lose in exports we redeploy domestically to fill the still extensive demand for workers. Nobody loses except those who nailed their Blue and Yellow flag to the mast.
Brexit was mostly about returning the UK to a self controlling nation where we can take advantage of our unique constitutional arrangements – no Parliament can bind a successor and international agreements have no power in the domestic sphere.
The whole purpose of international agreements is to try to bypass the UK constitution, whereas they should be forced to be made compliant with it – by having the same expiry condition as domestic law.
Have you asked the Europhiles whether they are voluntarily signing up to the 15% reduction in power usage that would have been imposed on the UK under Article 122 of the EU Treaty?
We won’t have to now thanks to Brexit.
Because if the Europhiles aren’t you have to ask where their hand in pocket commitment to the cause is.
There are no benefits of EU membership that are of relevance to the majority of the people of the UK. We are far better off making our own laws for our own people and going our own way.
The belief in bigger and more centralised structures ruled by technocrats and self-styled “experts” is over. The era of distribution, and flexibility is on us – as the majority voted for.
Personally I’m looking forward to Moroccan Satsumas at Christmas – without the 16% forced tariff to prop up the Spanish.
PFI needs to be ended by parliament just cancelling the contracts by Act of Parliament. Which of course we can do outside the EU. Blairites have handed enough money over to their mates.
The difference between the Tories and Labour is that the Tories still think they are running a small business rather than a government whereas Labour at least partial know that a state is nothing like a business or a household.
They still both get it wrong though as the real issue is who is going to do the work? What are the 70000 people to be allocated to public service currently doing that they won’t be doing afterwards? That’s what need to be stopped via taxation or other government action.
Labour are worse. They’ve booked the skilled staff of the UK about three times. Perhaps they are planning to bring them all in from abroad.
We will get nowhere until politicians stop pretending money is the issue. And at least somebody asks the critical question – where are you getting the people from? Running a government is like deploying an army to battle, not operating a sandwich shop.
The whole point of having free movement of capital, goods and services is so you *don’t* have to have free movement of people.
The businesses then have to go where the people are, rather than the other way around.The limiting factor is always the supply of labour. Nothing gets done without it.
Tories can’t set a target for immigration because they won’t say “invest capital in training and automation and learn to do more with less” to British business.We spent years getting rid of New Labour only to replace it with Cheap Labour.
Corbyn was NEVER a threat to anybody. Corbyn would have been constrained by EU rules and couldn’t have done anything substantive. The EU constrains Corbyn. He’s no danger inside the EU. Why the EU was set up as it was.
Now that we have left however a Corbyn type figure would be a huge threat to the status quo.

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 24 2023 13:25 utc | 131

Posted by: unimperator | Dec 24 2023 13:27 utc | 132
God I hope you are right unimperator.
The EU deserve it, because they impose austerity on everybody and force them to export their way to growth.
Why ?
This fixed exchange rate mythical belief that no longer applies.
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=32931

Posted by: Echo Chamber | Dec 24 2023 13:43 utc | 133

Somewhere up there:
The rule of thumb is attackers should have a 3 to 1 numerical advantage in order to overcome a defense.
IMU this is a misunderstanding ( actually a bit of “wrong scope” )
3:1 rule is _for each_ localized engagement individually.
RU forces:
what we see is move forward a bit or in some cases just stay in place
AND THEN attrition the (UKR) counter.

Posted by: MAKK | Dec 24 2023 14:37 utc | 135

A lot of you have incredibly broad definitions of “puppet” and apparently a deep desire to see a conspiracy in everything. Joe Biden is not a puppet because he’s doing what he’s always done and he’s doing it because it’s what he wants to do and believes in it. Whether those things correspond with the goals of the DuPont family or anyone else are immaterial to Joe Biden’s culpability.
I addressed the field being cleared for him. That wasn’t just Obama or anyone else; it was the rotted establishment of the Democratic Party as a whole. Something that Joe Biden has been a part of since the late 80’s and helped to found. The man first ran for president in the 80’s and has run multiple times since then. Nobody said, “Joe we’ll clear the field but you have to do what we say,” because Joe was going to do what they all wanted … because that’s Joe.
Calling him a puppet is making these messes not his fault. Except these messes follow the entire trajectory of his career, they are his choices. Therefore he isn’t a puppet. A puppet has no agency by definition.

Posted by: Lex | Dec 24 2023 15:35 utc | 137

As an incurable romantic, I still hope for a Grand Rapprochement between Germany and Russia wherein the former finally casts off entanglements with Jewish-American domination, frees itself from EU restrictions and acts as a fully sovereign nation and people once again. This would no doubt inspire most of Europe to follow suit so that Eurasian rise would include Western Europe, finally joining China, Russia, India, Arabia and the West in one vast Eurasian Civilization, the next unfolding chapter in human history.
Posted by: Scorpion | Dec 24 2023 16:04 utc | 138

You are an incurable romantic indeed.
Take a look on the internet, but also on the streets (not necessarily literally, but look at the people you might know from Europe if you are not located there, and thinks about their views on the subject).
The Russophobia in the population is not really less than it is in the ruling circles. Some countries are exceptions, but the vitriol you see is just not the result of a sudden top-down campaign. It is deeply rooted.
So long term every 3-4 generations Russia will have to militarily defeat Europe, again and again, at great cost to itself and at the detriment of its development. And it will get worse and worse, because the hatred will build up. Germans generally didn’t hate Russia on a population-wide level in the 19th century, but they cannot forget the 20th century. Others like the Poles and the Swedes hate Russia since the 17th and 18th centuries, because that is when their empires were destroyed by it. After this round, assuming Europe is not glassed, hatred will build up even more for the future.
Draw your own conclusions about what the stable solutions of this unstable system are.

Posted by: shаdοwbanned | Dec 24 2023 16:31 utc | 139

OnceWere | Dec 23 2023 16:43 utc | 34
*** WWI. The front lines in that war scarcely moved for years and yet one side still won decisively.***
But the side which won decisively had not been in the front lines during these years.
Posted by: Cynic | Dec 24 2023 13:20 utc | 130
Germany lost principally because of the naval blockade engineered by the Allies:
“It is considered one of the key elements in the eventual Allied victory in the war. The German Board of Public Health claimed that 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade through December 1918. An academic study done in 1928 put the death toll at 424,000.” (1)
1. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-british-naval-blockade/#:~:text=Blockade%20of%20Germany,-A%20prolonged%20naval&text=Hungary%2C%20and%20Turkey.-,It%20is%20considered%20one%20of%20the%20key%20elements%20in%20the,the%20death%20toll%20at%20424%2C000.

Posted by: canuck | Dec 25 2023 15:13 utc | 141

canuck | Dec 25 2023 15:13 utc | 141….
Starvation and disease partly thanks to UK government minister Churchill, the *allegedly* greatest ever English statesman….
But he was really a self-serving murderous (and almost certainly bought) hypocrite.
A model the likes of Boris, Blair, Cameron and Starmer seek to emulate.
Starving the Germans continued, deliberately, after WW1 stopped — afaicr, the blockading of food was only ended when Belgium complained that it was starving them as well.
Probably why the Olympic Games was thereafter held in Antwerp, as a sort of compensation.

Posted by: Cynic | Dec 25 2023 17:50 utc | 143