Go, Ukraine, Go!

The more Ukraine shows the shortfalls and incompetence of Vladimir Putin, the better for the United States.

Only the Republicans think Russia means anything but harm to us. 

The Republicans think we need a strongman like Putin.

Ukraine unleashes attacks on Russian airfields amid Kursk offensive

More than 130,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk and Belgorod since last week.

Ukraine’s surprise incursion last week, taking advantage of Russia’s thin defenses in the Kursk region, has boosted flagging Ukrainian morale and altered calculations in the slow, grinding war of attrition that has seen massive casualties on both sides.

Ukraine’s attack has tested President Vladimir Putin and humiliated Russian military officials, with nationalist military bloggers calling for the dismissal of the commanders who were responsible.

C’est magnifique: Ukraine’s Russian incursion  

If this is what now happens, what effect have the Ukrainians achieved? The Russian government and defence establishment has been roundly embarrassed, tactical redeployments from Donetsk and Luhansk to reinforce the Kursk area are changing the terms of engagement in Ukraine’s eastern provinces and Russian domestic and international opinion is being re-shaped in a way which might prefigure diplomatic negotiations. Perhaps most crucially, Russian planning can no longer assume that the 1,000-kilometre-long international border it shares with northeastern Ukraine can be considered a dormant front; rather, military resources, revised command and control arrangements and the constitution of in-depth reserve forces will be required for its defence. In turn, this will have implications for the entire Russian campaign plan, and, in a seminal example of an economy of force operation, a tactical level raid might achieve strategic level consequence.

Strong men do not bluster. Strong men do not advertise their strength.

 Autocrats enslave their countries to the incompetency and stupidity of "strong man". Is this what we want for America?

sch 8/16 12:22 AM