Last night, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to both Houses of Congress, both parties, and all of us.  He spoke eloquently and passionately, describing the suffering of his people and their total commitment to defeating Russia and reclaiming all Ukrainian lands stolen by Putin.

What Zelenskyy knows – and I mean KNOWS – is the more Putin bombs Ukrainians, the stronger those Ukrainians become, and the more committed they are to seeing this through to Putin’s bitter end.

Net – Putin’s attack on civilian targets will strengthen Ukrainian resolve, not weaken it.

Here’s why.

I had long thought that the horrific bombing campaigns of World War II helped bring the war to a close by battering Germans and Japanese into submission. [full disclosure – my father was a machine gunner, bombardier, and armorer in the 8th Air Force in England during the second World War.]

Boy was I wrong.

Credible research indicates German production actually increased during the war; while it didn’t reach planned levels (which were likely overly optimistic) it did exceed pre-bombing campaign volumes. Research by the US Strategic Bombing Survey came to the opposite conclusion, however there’s a) big time confirmation bias and b) no evidence that the Survey captured civilian morale data.

Research conducted during Germany’s Blitz (aerial bombing) of UK cities concluded…

the Germans gained nothing from their investment in bombing British civilian targets as part of “The Blitz” (1940-41). Before “The Blitz”, they may not have been happy about having their air force destroyed by the Nazis, but they were also not eager to put their lives on the line to support a hereditary aristocracy that just over 20 years earlier had wasted a substantial portion of a generation of young men in a senseless war. However, as their homes were being destroy and their neighbors killed or wounded by German bombs, ordinary British men and women did not all rabidly support Churchill’s exhortation, “We shall never surrender“, but they continued to work, and they took action to ensure that essential services were provided when their official leaders failed to do so.

long as I get my cuppa tea, dearie…

TO be sure, this was NOT the whole story; there were many instances of looting, bigotry and finger-pointing, panic and social conflicts. That said, definitive research into civilian morale during the Blitz found the bombing produced:

a people who became actively committed to the project their leaders put before them, who cooperated with the drastic re-ordering of daily life that this entailed, and who, on the whole, did so in a spirit of stoical endurance that did not exclude good humour’. [emphasis added]

Further research on the impact of aerial bombing from 1917 to 1999 found:

(1) air power coercion attempts are more likely to work if they exploit military rather than civilian vulnerabilities, (2) the regime type of the target affects the chances of success, and (3) success is less likely if the attacker demands that the target change its leadership. Results show that coercion is more likely to work if the target’s military vulnerability is higher, but higher levels of civilian vulnerability have no effect on the chances of coercion success; that target regime type has no effect; and that success is less likely when the attacker demands the target change its leadership

In his book TRIBE, author Sebastian Junger details how people react to  having a common enemy, using examples from the Serb-Croat war’s effects on teenagers in Sarajevo and data on depression, anxiety, suicide among British citizens during the Blitz…the net is those issues declined rather significantly. Junger concludes that a common enemy draws people together, all working as one to defeat a single threat.

What does this mean for you?

Ukraine will win.

The more support we give them, the sooner this happens and the fewer Ukrainians will suffer and die. 

It’s been four months since we talked about Ukraine, a period during which Russia put scores of thousands of poorly-equipped, pretty-much-untrained, and wholly incompetent civilian men into army uniforms (or facsimiles thereof) and fed them into the meat grinder that is Donetsk, Kherson, Bakhmut and surrounding areas.

With this result.

With things on the front lines pretty static, it’s time to think through the factors that will decide who wins. In layperson’s terms, I’d say there are three main drivers

People to do the fighting – today’s topic

Will to fight

Stuff to fight with

Yes, this is pretty basic, but stick with me here.

The “people” need to be found, trained, equipped, clothed, fed and led. These are all hard to do – especially in winter, in Ukraine, after 10 months of often-brutal combat dominated by death-by-artillery.

In addition to the usual recruiting efforts focused on patriotism and duty, Putin has resorted to two primary sources – poor men from far eastern Russia, many of whom don’t speak Russian, have never traveled outside their immediate area, are poorly educated and according to some reports not really interested in fighting.

Prisoners who, in exchange for a release from jail, agree to enter the army, often in mercenary units set up by the Wagner Group make up a large portion of the new recruits.

Reports from these new “soldiers” indicate they are mostly cannon fodder, placed on the front line to be killed by Ukrainian forces while the regular Russian army sites in relatively safe trenches in the rear.

This is typical (from Ukrayinska Pravda)

Quote from Agafonov: “We were dumped into the forest and ordered to entrench; we had only three shovels for the battalion, and there was no support at all. We entrenched as best we could, and in the morning the [Ukrainian] attack started. [Ukrainian forces used] artillery, Grad MLRS, mortars and copters; we were just shot.

What is disturbing is the lack of information about casualties and replacements in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). After way too much time spent searching the interwebs I was unable to find any credible data on recent losses, replacements, or changes in AFU manpower.

It’s highly likely that Russia has more men, even after both sides have suffered horrendous losses. (while there are women in both countries’ armed forces, men make up the vast majority of the fighting forces) It’s also clear that many new Ukrainian recruits are not exactly fully trained.

However, 5 weeks training by professional soldiers in Britain is a lot better than a few days with minimal training on how to actually shoot, load, and clean a rifle, bandage a wound, use a radio, read a map, and recognize a Russian or Ukrainian fighter jet.

Oh, and the UK and other European countries supporting the training give every trainee “combat clothing, body armour and ear defence, waterproofs and sleeping bags plus a fully stocked individual first aid kit and extreme cold weather kits…”

(for more on this I suggest you review multiple sources, as this will enable you to question each of them and arrive at your own conclusions…  War on the Rocks, Phillips Payson O’Brien, Institute for the Study of War are three I’ve found useful)

Tomorrow – the will to fight.

Those who continue to deny the results of the 2020 elections are anti-American; they seek to reject any result they don’t like. That is incredibly dangerous and a threat to our Republic.

Across more than 60 cases in 12 states, final rulings in every court case – including every one overseen by Trump-appointed judges – rejected allegations of fraud and confirmed the results of the election. 

If you care about democracy, you need to know which candidates are election deniers – or more accurately anti-American.

here’s just a few…

To find election deniers running for office in your state; just click on this link, then your state to identify those who refuse to accept the will of the people.

Need more info?

Trump’s own Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity disbanded having discovered nothing.

The Heritage Foundation Election Fraud Database has compiled every instance of any kind of voter fraud it could find since 1982. It contains 1,296 incidents, a minuscule percentage of the votes cast.

A study of results in three states where all voters are mailed actual ballots, a practice some allege to be rife with fraud, found just 372 possible cases of illegal voting of 14.6 million cast in the 2016 and 2018 general elections — 0.0025 percent.

After seven months of brutal, grinding war, Russia’s military is nearing collapse.

The net – Russia is in deep trouble, so deep that its collapse may well lead to regime change. 

Ukraine has retaken over a thousand square miles of its territory in the past few days.  In the process it has captured hundreds of vehicles, Russian locomotives and rolling stock (freight cars etc), thousands of Russian soldiers, and untold quantities of ammunition and supplies.

First minutes after the liberation of Vovchansk by the Ukrainian defenders; Russian flag comes down, Ukrainian goes up.

you gotta watch this video of a Ukrainian farmer…he’s complaining there are dozens of abandoned Russian tanks but he doesn’t get to keep any…:(

You won’t find much support for that prediction (Russian military collapse) in your usual news feeds, but hear me out. (my past discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is here)

1. Russia is running out of troops and there are reports it will NOT/cannot send any more to Ukraine.
   1. very scary thought – Putin may threaten to use tactical nuclear weapons…
2. Russia’s vaunted military turned out to be a paper tiger due to:
   1. lack of maintenance,
   2. poor training,
   3. very low morale,
   4. awful supply situation,
   5. terrible lack of communication security
3. Western support (except for Germany, which has been pretty damn unhelpful) and commitment to suffering through energy cutoffs has been critical to Ukrainian successes.
4. US and other NATO nations are undoubtedly sharing intelligence from intercepted Russian signals, intelligence that ensures the Ukrainians know what Russia will do before their field officers do.
5. Even if Russia goes to a full-scale mobilization to dramatically increase the size of its military, that won’t work because:
   1. it won’t happen in time to stop the ongoing destruction of its forces in Ukraine
   2. there aren’t enough experienced, veteran, capable officers and soldiers to train up the new recruits
   3. there isn’t equipment, vehicles, ammunition supplies, and a logistical infrastructure and capability to supply new troops and no ability to build/buy/manufacture and transport everything they need to fight.

The net – Russia is in deep trouble, so deep that its collapse may well lead to regime change. Meanwhile, Putin is celebrating the biggest Ferris Wheel in Europe…which promptly broke down a day after Putin’s speech.

Metaphor, anyone?

What does this mean for you?

Hang in there.  Ukraine deserves your support.