三体问题Can you solve the strategic problem?
Map of Ukrainian drone strikes.
The CIA, Strategy, and China
CIA runs like this: we want win-win solutions.
We win, or we win big.
It's hardly my fault if China is doing the exact same thing now, is it?
What I mean is: in an optimal strategy every outcome is a win for your side, and you can compel the other sides to positions favorable to you. Both China and the USA are currently in such a situation globally speaking. China has no down side to any of these wars. Nor does the USA. Yet, each of them can compel the other. China can compel the USA to keep trading and investing. The USA can compel China not to invade Taiwan. The USA cannot compel the ouster of the CCP. China cannot compel the USA to abandon Taiwan. This is one of the themese that "the three body problem" is getting at. We may call that "a stable strategic equilibrium" since each challenger is deterred, neither challenger destroys the other.
Incidentally, in Chinese history they once thought there were ten suns in the sky, and China had a ten day week. What became of suns 1 through 7?
Don't be sun 1 through 7.
This is how I can constrain you all to the inevitable outcome, but get you where you would eventually wind up anyway on the quickest path possible with the fewest deaths and least loss of wealth possible.
It's still fucking horrible. Care to wade through the images of gore with me? War is expensive, costs an arm and a leg all right. :/
I didn't think so. Don't worry, none of them will survive, maybe blame you, and become your next enemy. Just ask Osama Bin Laden about that.
So yeah, I have reasons. You might not like them.
Putin thought it was a war for Germany and Ukraine, but it was really a struggle between the USA and China.
CIA left to its own devices would, well, let's just look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Syria and Libya and a half dozen other countries you may never have heard of. We win or we win big doesn't always work out so well for the other fella.
But all those wars cost the USA three trillion dollars (at least) and exhausted a fair amount of economic power and political will, during which China quietly rose to economic parity with the USA.
DGSE, BND alike, left to their own devices, would likely both do so little as possible and milk the bloodshed for cheap oil and cheaper grain. And who could blame them in the face of ham handed American "leadership".
If you don't have a wolf you get lazy, weak, stupid, and lose.
So ... be glad for the challenge. 你好!好久不见!
Now do as I suggest, it will go better for you that way.
FABIANS
The Fabian strategy is a military strategy where one side avoids direct confrontation with a stronger opponent and instead employs tactics of harassment, attrition, and wearing down the enemy over time. This approach is named after Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, a Roman general who famously used this strategy against the Carthaginian general Hannibal during the Second Punic War in the 3rd century BC. Fabius recognized that engaging Hannibal's superior forces in direct battle would likely result in defeat for the Romans, so he chose to employ delaying tactics, avoiding pitched battles and instead focusing on disrupting Hannibal's supply lines and wearing down his forces through guerrilla warfare and skirmishes.
In broader terms, the Fabian strategy has been applied beyond military contexts, often referring to any strategy that involves avoiding direct confrontation or decisive engagements in favor of more gradual and indirect methods of achieving one's goals.
Fabian strategy can be combined with scorched earth to deny the enemy supplies leading, eventually, to victory.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Did you ever notice? The American colonies had no coherent military strategy to defeat the British. Yet, they won. In contrast, the British repeatedly had good strategies, yet lost. What does this teach us about revolutionary war? One thing to understand is that the British strategic superiority was military, not political. The British military strategies were reactions to rebellions, that sought yet consistently failed to quell the rebellion. At first, in various Boston engagement, over-reaction with force coupled with inadequate political reactions. Later, the military strategies (split the colonies in three, then in two) likewise failed to address the underlying political issues.
The colonists position was "self governance" or at least "representative taxation" as opposed to "virtual representation" or "indirect representation". Their position was also 1. anti-taxation generally, 2. anti-Indian generally 3. pro-industrialization. Britain never really offered alternatives to these three core claims which were underneath the claim to self-representation. Though, neither the British nor the colonies came up with policies addressing slavery.
In any case, the colonists military strategy was defensive and reactionary, but their political strategy was fairly well thought out. Unlike the later confederate rebellion they did not plan from the start to obtain foreign intervention, which is correct because strategy must work regardless of other actors choices.
UKRAINE
Why it matters? Just like the U.S. colonists had a reactive military strategy but an irresistible political strategy so also do the Ukrainians have a defensive military strategy in pursuit of an irresistible political goal. There is no way the Russians can ever convince Ukraine to surrender, since any surrender would be merely a pause to rearm and train before the next war where Russia would try to take whatever remains of Ukraine.
Putin started his war thinking he could out-last Western resolve. Putin believed all he needed to do was let the petroleum pain take hold and eventually Europe then the USA would tire of the war and throw Ukraine under the bus. I think he was wrong about that, but even were I mistaken -- Ukraine can and will out-last and exhaust Russia.
You see, for Russia this is a war of choice. They can stop any time they want. But for Ukraine and Ukrainians it is a war for survival. Ukraine cannot surrender and will either be exterminated in Holodomir 2.0 or will exhaust Russia.
People still like to imagine wars having negotiated solutions. They do not. This is because of the "escalation of commitment" and "the sunk costs" fallacy. People "double-down" regularly and "throw good money after bad". But negotiation in war is also impossible because each side is literally trying to kill the other and has already killed more than a few of Them.
You don't negotiate when being raped. You don't negotiate when being stabbed. You don't even negotiate when being robbed.
Just like the clueless colonists in America with their amateur army eventually won just by outlasting the Crown so also will Ukraine win and, if necessary, in the same way. I am simply telling you how to reach the inevitable conclusion as quickly as possible with the least bloodshed possible.
Feel free to disagree with me.
After all, I am just an addict. I'm addicted to plane. Where's my next hit of plane coming from?
Jacobin Strategy:
Jacobin strategy is a political and military approach associated with the radical Jacobin faction during the French Revolution. This strategy aimed at achieving revolutionary goals through the centralization of power, the use of revolutionary terror, and the promotion of radical social and political reforms. The Jacobins advocated for the use of state power to suppress counterrevolutionary forces, purify society of perceived enemies of the revolution, and establish a revolutionary dictatorship to guide the nation's transformation. The Jacobin strategy involved the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety, led by figures such as Maximilien Robespierre, which wielded dictatorial powers and oversaw the Reign of Terror, a period of mass executions and political purges aimed at eliminating internal opposition to the revolution. While the Jacobin strategy succeeded in consolidating the power of the revolutionary government, it also generated widespread fear, violence, and resistance, ultimately contributing to the downfall of the Jacobin regime.
Graham Allison
On the one hand Allison is right to look at past great power conflicts to try to prevent a future one between the USA and PRC. On the other hand he really niches down on Athens versus Sparta to the detriment of other conflicts
Another “Russian” Civil War
Like you can see people with a lot of money are gaming out Russian Revolution 2.0
Many of the Russian "exile" "nobility" were in fact Russian spies, obviously, in other words not really in exile, and not really nobility.
The risk with this sort of discourse is equating the USSR with China. They are not much alike in fact. Putin's horrible system of mafia-as-governance will keep failing right on to the dissolution of the "Russian" Federation, but China faces no such similar fate. The USA has spent 30+ years seeking to deradicalize and liberalize the PRC. It's not so much that "the genie is out of the bottle" as it is "they're just not that bad". Sure, China could be plunged into Yet Another Civil War with literally millions of dead, maybe a few nuclear explosions, and you would wind up with ... war lord China. Oh, and to get there would cost trillions of dollars/pounds/euros and at least a few precious European lives. "The game's not worth the candle". This without mentioning obvious cultural ties: Mitch McConnel, Bill Bishop, Louis Alford, Bill Gates and many other whiteys are happily married to Chinese people. Don't bother trying to convince me they love Taipei and hate Beijing, that's just a super obvious lie/rationalization/wishful thinking.
China is militarily outnumbered and their equipment, even when copied from Western sources is inferior. China has a lot of great Blackhawk and Apache knock-offs! Too bad the Ukraine war proves helicopters are a lot morelike flying technicals than flying tanks. You can't put sufficient armor plate onto a "bird" and still have it fly. Close-in tactical support with rotary aviation against a peer competitor is not the future of close air support. Meanwhile, all that other Chinese kit is ... copies of Russian kit. Which we can all plainly see is what-rhymes-with Kit.
But what do I know? I am just a dumpster diving trash panda who would eat anything.
Anything!
Map of Ukrainian Drone Strikes
More drone strikes in Russia. Moscow, Kursk, the list is Long.
https://www.fontanka.ru/2024/04/03/73417157/
Mysterious explosion in southern Moscow leaves people powerless.
Targeting Russian energy infrastructure
https://radio1.ru/news/proisshestviya/na-transformatornoi-stantsii-v-podolske-proizoshyol-vzriv/
Kursk https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/3/7449394/
Meanwhile in China…
Chinese Espionage Films
Usually Chinese spy dramas are set in Shanghai circa 1937. This one is set later in Hong Kong circa 1942. What lessons can we learn from these experiences for occupied Ukraine and occupied "Russia"?
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/02/us-russia-terrorism-warning-00149954
If this were print journalism I would use it as fish and chips wrapping paper. Not because it is wrong, rather because it is pointless: and there's nothing like fission chips in greasy paper.
FBI take note
For those who need Encouragement...
Can you solve the problem?
Three men are locked in one room. There are two guns on the table.
What happens next?
OSINTBRIEF is free as in free Ukraine so feel free to
Nice work, Eric. In a perfect world one guy turns the table over,while the other two grab the guns and kill each other. Then the guy who turned the table gets two guns.
The winner still has to deal with whomever locked the guys in the room.