son of witless

Russia's dismal military performance in Ukraine demonstrates the problems dictators face. Vladimir Putin was not a military man. He was in intelligence, the KGB. He lacks military experience and training. Therefore he must rely on his military advisors to tell him what is going on and what is feasible militarily. However, Putin is a suspicious man.

He fears anyone beneath him in positions of power who could o*******w him. As military advisors he has tended to appoint men he could trust, but who were not necessarily competent. He shares this paranoia with the infamous Joseph Stalin, whose purges of talented Soviet generals and colonels in the 1930s contributed to the 1941 defeats of the Red Army.

The Wagner Group was one of the few Russian military units that performed relatively well in the Ukraine War, and it's leader, for all of his faults was a competent general. His r*******n against Putin once again shows why Putin can never trust a successful general.

This has lessons for Xi's leadership in China if it wants to launch a successful invasion of Taiwan. Xi and the C*******t Party keep a tight rein on the Chinese military. They do not allow any one general or admiral too much power. However, a successful invasion of Taiwan will involve a combined air, land, and sea military command. They will have to give their best military officer overall command, similar to Eisenhower commanding D-Day in WW2.

If that officer is successful, he will become a threat to the C*******t Party. If they do not trust in a unified command, and instead use the model Russia is using in Ukraine they risk having the same result.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Interesting analysis...
I can follow the logic...

I think this is another reason that China is unlikely to resort to a military invasion of Taiwan...
Xi prefers the economic and political approach...

son of witless

I confess I did not come up with my analysis on my own. I listen to talking heads and if they sound logical I adopt what they say. I am interested in the difference between Democracies and dictatorships when it comes to military organizations.

In the 1930s the dictatorships definitely were superior to the democracies of America, Britain and France. In WW2 the democracies in partnership with the Soviet dictatorship defeated the Axis dictatorships. Dictatorships tend to do well early in wars. They generally are always on war footings. Hitler and Tojo were several years ahead of the allies going into WW2.

I like to focus on the relationships between the political leaderships and their military subordinates. Hitler early on trusted his generals, but as the war continued he increasingly took power away from them and it hurt the German war effort.

One thing Churchill and Roosevelt did not worry about was their generals and admirals over throwing them. Thus they could give Eisenhower in the German theater, and Nimitz and MacCarther in the Pacific full power to make strategic decisions.

In the first Gulf War the first President Bush gave Gen. Schwarzkopf over all unified command. Dictatorships do not seem able to trust their generals to that extent. Someone mentioned an incident in China during the C*******t rule where a trusted military leader did use the Chinese military against the C*******t Party, and said that since then the party has been paranoid about trusting the military. I have not been able to find out what he was talking about.

My point is that unless China and Russia can fully trust their generals, they are at a disadvantage in any skirmish with Democracies. You need professional military men running your wars. Neither Chinese nor Russian top leadership are military men. Thus they need military advisors who are not yes men.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Gang of Four perhaps... Although none of them was a general...

newbear Loc: New York City

uusus

son of witless,

I would like to remind you, that just a few months after the signature of the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty", the Czechoslovak intelligence, friendly to the Soviet Union at the time, informed Stalin of secret meeting between the Soviet general Tuchachevsky and the German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop. This was, obviously, a plant by a German intelligence designed to awaken the famous Stalin's paranoia. It worked - Tuchachevsky and many others in his "clicque" were executed, to clear the way to the "Operation Barbarossa" with the significantly weakened Soviet military staff.

son of witless

I was unaware of that.

son of witless

In functioning democracies, a popular successful general cannot jump directly into political leadership. Generals like Grant and Eisenhower became Presidents years after their military service and were never a threat to the Presidents they served under. Stalin was always concerned about his generals becoming too popular. His best General Marshal Zhukov was always concerned that his great victories would arouse the wrath of Stalin.

Putin seems to have no competent upper echelon military officers. Just a bunch of corrupt yes men, who will steal anything not nailed down. Yevgeny Prigozhin constantly complained about the logistical incompetence from the Russian Army that hampered his operations in Ukraine.

Xi did not come from the military. I don't know of any senior leaders in China who did. There do not seem to have been any hero generals under the C*******ts, as there have been under the Western Democracies, and even under the F*****ts.

Kevyn

China made a choice several years ago. They decided to abandon the one nation two systems agreement in Hong Kong to instal their dictatorship over Hong Kong. In doing this they insured a free Taiwan will never reunite with China until China is a free nation.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

R****ded...
Demonstrates a complete ignorance of the issue..
Hong Kong v****g on laws for Hong Kong equates to China abandoning nothing...
Grow up..

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

China has a number of hero generals...
They just aren't welcome in politics...
Old lessons learned long ago...

son of witless

Not in the way British and American Generals are. I am ignorant as whether Xi's top military advisors are any better than Vladimir Putin's are. China has not been engaged in any meaningful military operations in decades, so they are untested.

Time is not on China's side. China is aging rapidly. The way things are going, China will not be able to count much on Russia if it moves on Taiwan. Of course there is always N. Korea.

F.D.R.

The problem I see with our military after WWII is that it's been hamstrung by political 'rules of engagement' of trying to limit 'collateral' damage which resulted in long drawn out wars and high casualties.

son of witless

That is one way of looking at it. War is also a part of diplomacy. Conducting a war limiting collateral damages can make it easier after the war to make peace with all of the various players afterward. The US was able to put together coalitions to fight wars and put sanctions on it's foes. Limiting collateral damages can be instrumental where you have allies fighting with you against nations they are ethnically linked to.

The US had Arab allies when they fought Iraq. Those allies did not want to see fellow Arabs needlessly slaughtered. By the same token, look at the Russians in Ukraine. Russians and Ukrainians are ethnically close and Russians slaughtering fellow Slavs does not play well with the average Russian citizen or soldier.

SeaLass Loc: Western Soviet Socialist Republics

Regrettably, in the US the current powers to be are not replacing competent military leaders because they fear that they will size power, but because they lack the mandatory degree of political correctness or wokeism. Different reason, same result?

son of witless

Biden obviously has incompetent military advisors. Example Afghanistan. He does not fear a military c**p, like Putin or Xi. I think he just wants a military over run with q***rs.