On another issue that has been discussed only briefly in the news and in banter among people in the know... This goes to why Putin would have launched the war without being aware of the true state of readiness of his army. Putin may be deluded by delusions of grandeur and an overestimation of the greatness and wealth of the country in its present state. Sure. He nursed all of these outrageous grudges and grievances against Ukraine. He probably started to believe his own propaganda that any country that wouldn't joyfully want to be a puppet state of Russia was probably being run by fascists, Nazis and drug addicts.
While he has certainly made some stupid and irrational decisions, because he has too much power and he's surrounded by sycophants... I don't believe that he is a stupid person. So why did he delude himself into thinking that his army could launch a successful Blitzkrieg against a large country like Ukraine, and achieve victory in 2 or 3 days? And then capture large swaths of the country to add to the borders of Russia itself within a week or so?
Maybe that's because part of his misunderstanding of the Russian army's true capabilities is because he's been lied to about the combat readiness of the country's military for many, many years. Putin made the modernization and renewed funding for the military a signature issue of his from the time he came to power. He knew that after the fall of the Soviet Union that the Russian military was in a sorry and weakened state. So over the last 22 years he's been in power he has made it a personal mission to pour the equivalent of many billions of dollars into the military's budget. After all, a strong modern military that can be perceived abroad as having similar capabilities to that of the United States, along with a large nuclear stockpile, is the only real claim to superpower status that Russia has. It's a national priority to be perceived as strong.
So we get to the fact that Russia and its society is riddled with rampant corruption. Putin himself is on the take. There are suggestions that he could secretly be the wealthiest man in the world. Some estimates put his hidden wealth at north of $200 billion.
Russian society has a whole subculture of paying bribes for seemingly every little thing and service you want done. So bribes, "tips", kickbacks, embezzlement and even outright theft of funds is ingrained as just an accepted part of the culture. Then you put a pot of money in the billions of dollars every year into the hands of people living in that society. So you automatically lose a high percentage of that money to theft and corruption. The government accountants have a finger in the pie. The generals who get to spend that money on the military have a finger in the pie. And it goes all the way down the line from the top down. If you're some battalion commander and you're told on paper that you are to be receiving 50 brand new planes, and when they arrive you know you have only 20... What are you to do? The first honest person in the accounting process that a financial or inventory discrepancy lands on is highly discouraged (under threat from the thieves of higher rank above him) to lie and sign off on the doctored billing and/or the shady inventory count.
Another analyst on tv made the same point recently. He said that in Russia you may have a hypothetical beginning contract for a company to build 150 tanks. A huge pile of money is on the table to pay for this. But by the time the contract and assembly has gone through the whole process it may turn out that only 50 tanks were built. But on paper, the contract was completely fulfilled by all, and the company delivered 150 tanks.
So Putin himself has been lied to and misled for decades about the true strength in materiel, along with the combat readiness of his armed forces. The generals would never dare tell him that probably 30% or more of the miliary budget was being stolen regularly by err...the generals themselves...and other dirty hands on down the line of the procurement processes.
To use a car analogy, Putin knew when he came to power in 1999 that with his army and armed forces after the Soviet collapse he had something close to an Edsel. He knew he would have to throw some serious money at it to build it back up. So he did and he has. Every year. Twenty two years later he's been told and he believes that the days of the Edsel are long gone, and he now has something closer to a Maserati or a Mercedes. So he feels very confident in taking it for a test drive. He fully expects to be very impressed. Then reality hits. He finds to his horror that instead of a Maserati, he has a Chevy.
Now a Chevy can eventually get you to where you what to go. Eventually. But its equivalent militarily is not going to do supernatural things on the battlefield and bring you victory in days or even a couple weeks. So Putin is stuck with an unexpectedly long war in Ukraine that could possibly drag on for months or years. It was a huge miscalculation in military terms, even setting aside how he deluded himself into thinking that Ukrainians would welcome the Russians as saviors and liberators. Plus again, a prolonged war with 60% (or more) of its standing army bogged down in Ukraine, is not something Russia can afford. They'll go broke.
While he has certainly made some stupid and irrational decisions, because he has too much power and he's surrounded by sycophants... I don't believe that he is a stupid person. So why did he delude himself into thinking that his army could launch a successful Blitzkrieg against a large country like Ukraine, and achieve victory in 2 or 3 days? And then capture large swaths of the country to add to the borders of Russia itself within a week or so?
Maybe that's because part of his misunderstanding of the Russian army's true capabilities is because he's been lied to about the combat readiness of the country's military for many, many years. Putin made the modernization and renewed funding for the military a signature issue of his from the time he came to power. He knew that after the fall of the Soviet Union that the Russian military was in a sorry and weakened state. So over the last 22 years he's been in power he has made it a personal mission to pour the equivalent of many billions of dollars into the military's budget. After all, a strong modern military that can be perceived abroad as having similar capabilities to that of the United States, along with a large nuclear stockpile, is the only real claim to superpower status that Russia has. It's a national priority to be perceived as strong.
So we get to the fact that Russia and its society is riddled with rampant corruption. Putin himself is on the take. There are suggestions that he could secretly be the wealthiest man in the world. Some estimates put his hidden wealth at north of $200 billion.
Russian society has a whole subculture of paying bribes for seemingly every little thing and service you want done. So bribes, "tips", kickbacks, embezzlement and even outright theft of funds is ingrained as just an accepted part of the culture. Then you put a pot of money in the billions of dollars every year into the hands of people living in that society. So you automatically lose a high percentage of that money to theft and corruption. The government accountants have a finger in the pie. The generals who get to spend that money on the military have a finger in the pie. And it goes all the way down the line from the top down. If you're some battalion commander and you're told on paper that you are to be receiving 50 brand new planes, and when they arrive you know you have only 20... What are you to do? The first honest person in the accounting process that a financial or inventory discrepancy lands on is highly discouraged (under threat from the thieves of higher rank above him) to lie and sign off on the doctored billing and/or the shady inventory count.
Another analyst on tv made the same point recently. He said that in Russia you may have a hypothetical beginning contract for a company to build 150 tanks. A huge pile of money is on the table to pay for this. But by the time the contract and assembly has gone through the whole process it may turn out that only 50 tanks were built. But on paper, the contract was completely fulfilled by all, and the company delivered 150 tanks.
So Putin himself has been lied to and misled for decades about the true strength in materiel, along with the combat readiness of his armed forces. The generals would never dare tell him that probably 30% or more of the miliary budget was being stolen regularly by err...the generals themselves...and other dirty hands on down the line of the procurement processes.
To use a car analogy, Putin knew when he came to power in 1999 that with his army and armed forces after the Soviet collapse he had something close to an Edsel. He knew he would have to throw some serious money at it to build it back up. So he did and he has. Every year. Twenty two years later he's been told and he believes that the days of the Edsel are long gone, and he now has something closer to a Maserati or a Mercedes. So he feels very confident in taking it for a test drive. He fully expects to be very impressed. Then reality hits. He finds to his horror that instead of a Maserati, he has a Chevy.
Now a Chevy can eventually get you to where you what to go. Eventually. But its equivalent militarily is not going to do supernatural things on the battlefield and bring you victory in days or even a couple weeks. So Putin is stuck with an unexpectedly long war in Ukraine that could possibly drag on for months or years. It was a huge miscalculation in military terms, even setting aside how he deluded himself into thinking that Ukrainians would welcome the Russians as saviors and liberators. Plus again, a prolonged war with 60% (or more) of its standing army bogged down in Ukraine, is not something Russia can afford. They'll go broke.
