War will always be with us. Conflict is as old as civilization itself. It can be "cold" wars of feints and bluffs, or it can be actual physical wars of bombs, tanks, and guns.

The levels of war:

Policy

Grand Strategy

Strategy

Tactics

Operations

The principles of war:

Objective

Offensive

Mass

Economy of Force

Maneuver

Surprise

Unity of Command

Security

Simplicity

Let this thread be discussions about any global conflict that is currently clear and present, contemporary. You may use poker, sports, historic, biology and business analogies. You may include diplomacy and economics, but only as they pertain to war and conflict.

GTO strategy for global domination:

it's all war, dude

been known for like 50+ years at this point

https://weaponizednarrative.asu.edu/

Remember season 3 of The Wire when Avon knew you can't let Marlo take corners because then he will take more? It will never end.

That's the issue with Russia, you can't just sit back and let them take Ukraine because then they will take Poland or someplace else. It will never end.

So you send Poot, Bodie, etc (in this case, the US military) and you just gotta bump until they get the message.

Isn't that Russia's exact argument wrt Ukraine joining NATO?


I think you missed the point of that show.

"A good offense is the best defense."


If they are near 100% positive that Russia is going to attack anyway, attacking may be Ukraine's best action to take. It may be the dominant strategy, while sitting and waiting is the dominated strategy. Think "prisoner's dilemma".

Go big! Go all in on an all out full scale air assault targeting the central government in Moscow and go for the top officials, maybe Putin himself! When Alexander the Great was able to hit the command and control portion of the Persian army (where their supreme commander Darius III was physically situated) the entire enemy army got demoralized once Darius fled and many of his top commanders got killed. The enemy army collapsed.

It would be a historic masterstroke if Ukraine could pull off an attack. A surprise Bruce Lee oblique kick to the knee followed by a combo.

Surprise has been the centerpiece principle in many of military history's greatest triumphs. Genghis Khan in Samarkand. MacArthur in Inchon. Scipio Africanus in Carthage. Ali in Zaire.

How do you even proceed to attack Moscow. Isn't it one of the most heavily defended city with modern SAMs. You really want to just send 20 B2's and have like 5 make it home

https://youtu.be/3MVGgfYypuY?t=1289

The only winning move is, not to play.

I made the above post on February 18.

Now 90% of Ukraine's 170 plane airforce is gone. Destroyed while still parked on the ground.

Even if they only had 2% chance of killing Putin at the time I made the above post, it would have been worth it. I'm sure they would have killed top generals and politicians even if they missed Putin himself.

Your 2% estimate is several magnitudes higher than the actual success odds (maybe 1 in several million if that) of your silly strategic master plan, though if they did as you suggest then they would be the aggressor and that would make it much more tricky for them in terms of support later. Your suggestion definitely would be exactly what Russia would have loved for marketing and financial purposes, so there is that. You may not be the guy to go to for military strategic planning.

I agree that Reggie's suggestion would have been dream scenario for Putin. The chances of killing Putin would have been wayyy less than 2%. I also have no idea why he is so confident that Ukraine could have taken out key generals with a preemptive air strike.

Regardless, gambling with 170 airplanes (maybe half having the capacity to be used for a preemptive mission) still beats gambling with rifles while getting holed up trapped inside two blocks in downtown Kiev with no food. It's a long shot gamble either way. But not waiting until there's not even 1 big blind left is a better gamble. They don't even have a small blind now. Not even.

As to propaganda and marketing, the whole world knows Putin was gonna attack ANYWAY. He announced it in that speech that he recorded in which he implied that he wanted the old Soviet Union back. The Ukrainian leadership would have had a good case for "self defense".

p.s. What's the odds of killing Putin now?

Approximately the same as they were two weeks ago.

BTW, Mods: This is a general strategy thread not a Ukraine specific thread. It just so happens that the Ukraine thing is going on now.

China/Taiwan...Taliban...Iran nuclear....Israel....Pakistan/India....tribal wars...

It's a general purpose strategy thread.

Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia should be requesting that the United States and NATO establish full scale war capacity permanent bases there, with a carrier battlegroup on permanent standby.

Do you think the Western NATO powers would not honor the core commitment of the organization? That the Eastern NATO countries think that?

Or do you think that Russia has the cards to beat US & the rest of Europe in a full scale fight?

NATO only had 3,400 troops in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia at the beginning of the year. I believe they're adding a little more but not much more.

They need to have a carrier battle group there too. Doesn't have to be U.S.

Finland needs to join NATO asap.

If your point is that you cannot win the lottery if you do not buy a ticket, than fine.

But in the real world you are not winning that lottery whether you buy the ticket or not. And that reality matters.

There is a difference between a slim chance at success and taking that when you face assured death anyway, and having no realistic chance of success.

What is that difference? It is the ability of the world to rally to your defense. That is what Ukraine had to hope for and count on. They had to hope that world pressure would be enough. That was the only gamble they realistically could take. And your method destroys that option.

As much as you might say, with hindsight reason, world pressure was not enough, it was the far better bet to with, prior.

Great news!!!!!

Aircraft Carrier group headed to Latvia. Yes!!!

In the mid-1980s in the Philippines, nuns knelt in front of the tanks of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and it stopped the tanks from going forward.

In the late 1980s at the Tianenmen Square, a man stood in front of a tank and it stopped the tank.

Just sayin'...

On the other hand, Putin is a bid like Avon; he needs to have his corners. So let's hope there's a Stringer Bell who understands it's all about the product and stabs him in the back...

How do you feel about the China/Taiwan invasion war game where the US only needed multiple things like fully integrated 6th gen fighters with loyal wingman radar sharing things that we don't currently have in order to maybe stop an invasion. I do like how China took something over 100 really old migs and turned them into drone swarming weapons plat for. No chance a US CSG can survive a 50+ drone swarm while trying to also shoot down incoming DF15 missiles

Sun Tzu warned:

"When you surround the enemy leave an outlet free. Don't press a desperate foe too hard."

As I type this, Putin has been isolated from the rest of the world mainly with economic sanctions, bank account and asset freezes, and the banning of all Russian flights going in and going out.

The risk is that this might turn the Killer into a trapped animal who may not have no choice but to take the rest of the world down in flames with him by implementing nuclear war.

But what Sun Tzu said in the above quote is easy to say but the details would be difficult to identify (so far, I can't even figure out where to begin) and then implement. But the advice has to be taken and acted on somehow.

He's a kleptocrat, though, and if he does anything that would trigger Western nuclear retaliation he loses all his stuff.