"You didn't wait six months for a feasibility study to prove that an idea could work. You gambled that it might work. You didn't tie up the organization with red tape designed mostly to cover somebody's rear end. You took the initiative and the responsibility. You went around end, you went over somebody's head if you had to. But you acted. That's what drove the regular military and the State Department chair-warmers crazy about the OSS."

- OSS veteran and DCI William Casey

"I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people."

- Edmund Burke

"Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel . . . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth."

Mark Twain

• Russian forces pushed Ukrainian defenders from the center of Severodonetsk and reportedly destroyed the remaining bridge from Severodonetsk to Lysychansk on June 13, but Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces are not encircled in the city.
• Russian forces carried out unsuccessful ground assaults in an attempt to sever Ukrainian ground lines of communications (GLOCs) near Popasna and Bakhmut.
• Russian forces launched unsuccessful offensive operations southeast of Izyum and north of Slovyansk, and are likely setting conditions for an assault on Siversk and northwestern Ukrainian GLOCs to Lysychansk.
• Russian forces are likely conducting a limited offensive directly northeast of Kharkiv City in a likely attempt to push Ukrainian forces out of artillery range of Russian rear areas and secured some successes.
• Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaging in ongoing fighting for Davydiv Brid in northwestern Kherson Oblast.
• Russian occupation authorities likely staged terrorist activity in Melitopol and Berdyansk for Russia Day on June 12.

• Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and three supporting efforts);
• Subordinate Main Effort—Encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the cauldron between Izyum and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts
• Supporting Effort 1—Kharkiv City;
• Supporting Effort 2—Southern Axis;
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

• June 13, 2022

• What's behind the China-Taiwan divide?
• China and Taiwan: A really simple guide
• What is the 'One China' policy?

• What does China want from the Ukraine crisis?

In the end though, China’s sustained economic cooldown and Xi’s crisis of confidence will result in the very outcome he, the CCP, and Chinese nationalists feared most: broad recognition that China may be incapable of competing with the United States at all.

In short order, European leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel emerged who were much less sympathetic to Turkey, and Turks have long since written off the EU accession process as Erdoğan’s increasing authoritarianism has taken Turkey farther and farther away from European standards of democracy and rule of law. But even without an active EU accession process, alienating traditional supporters in Europe is foolish and short-sighted by any standard. The anger and hostility this has engendered in Northern Europe (and not just in Sweden and Finland) is palpable and will not be forgotten for a long time. Moreover, Erdogan’s insistence on using the Nordic candidacies for bargaining purposes will reinforce every existing bad stereotype that regards Turks not as Europeans but as Middle Easterners more interested in haggling in the souk than in policy outcomes. It is a high bill to pay for the autocrat’s several minutes in the sun at Madrid and his pathetic efforts to demonstrate his relevance and importance to Turkish voters in the run-up to elections in 2023 at the expense of Europe’s larger security needs as it faces the biggest war on the continent since 1945.

"A soldier is he whose blood makes the glory of the general."

--Adapted from Henry G. Bohn--

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Bertrand Russell

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

Georges Clemenceau

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

Jean-Paul Sartre

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

Jeannette Rankin

Oddball: [groans] Don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning.

But this leads to the fourth condition. The ability to act effectively at any level of command requires a commitment to the mission and an understanding of its political purpose. These elements were lacking on the Russian side because of the way Putin launched his war: the enemy the Russian forces had been led to expect was not the one they faced, and the Ukrainian population was not, contrary to what they had been told, inclined to be liberated. The more futile the fight, the lower the morale and the weaker the discipline of those fighting. In these circumstances, local initiative can simply lead to desertion or looting. By contrast, the Ukrainians were defending their territory against an enemy intent on destroying their land. There was an asymmetry of motivation that influenced the fighting from the start. Which takes us back to the folly of Putin’s original decision. It is hard to command forces to act in support of a delusion.

The taking of Crimea confirmed Putin’s status as a shrewd commander.

An unbroken string of poor command decisions left Putin with few options.

If Ukraine’s safety is to be guaranteed, then the message must be sent that Russia cannot transgress against Ukraine without affecting its interests elsewhere. If it wants a settlement, it must pay for it — with Iran, ideally. But somewhere. That would indicate that Ukraine is inextricably linked to our other bilateral issues with the Russians, and they cannot conduct business as usual if they throw their weight around in the east. That linkage is the best way — maybe the only way — to ensure Ukraine’s safety in the future.

1. Assess what Ukrainian force would have been sufficient to reach a sufficient correlation of forces with Russian forces to deter an invasion. Although this would not necessarily provide an answer for what is needed to prevent a Russian attack against NATO’s eastern member-states, given the potential protection offered by NATO membership, it would give an initial net assessment of the needed deterrent forces to prevent aggression.
2. Analyze what capabilities a deterrent force would require if its primary mission was defense, rather than offense.
3. Determine which Russian and Ukrainian capabilities were important in this war and how the Army will specifically provide itself with like capabilities as well as approaches to counter these capabilities. Foremost among these are drones, air defenses, combat vehicle (tank) survivability, and indirect fires.
4. Understand potential Russian reactions to operational and strategic attacks into Russian territory.
5. Assess the vulnerabilities of key Army systems, given Russian and Ukrainian losses in this war, in order to determine mitigating approaches, both technical and tactical.
6. Examine the ability of the U.S. industrial base to keep up with munitions expenditures and materiel losses if a war with Russia is protracted.
7. Assess the NATO theater medical system to understand its potential shortfalls if casualties approach those by both combatants in Ukraine. I led a RAND research effort before Operation Iraqi Freedom in this area and the results were sobering.

– Yogi Berra