It’s time for an update on the war in Ukraine

Photo of Ukrainian soldier in front of flag

There are two primary trends that continue from this past summer: the Ukrainians are maintaining their offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, while Russian troops are continuing their slow slog toward the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Kyiv has also intensified its attacks against Russia’s oil industry—particularly refineries and storage depots, and by extension its broader petrochemical industry. The Biden administration’s resistance to directly targeting Russia’s export capacity seems to have vanished along with his chances at reelection.

Outside of Ukraine, the Americans and Europeans have announced further sanctions on Russian crude exports, targeting Russia’s fleet of shadow tankers. While Chinese and especially Indian refiners have indicated that they will be abiding by sanctions…at least for now.

Closer to the front line, NATO—led by the Northern European states—has intensified naval patrols in the Baltic Sea. Sweden and Finland are new members of the alliance but old hands at stymying Russian interests within their maritime neighborhood, and have already started taking Russian and Chinese ships to task.

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Trump 2.0 – Russia

Photo of St Basil cathedral in Red Square, Russia

As Trump enters his second term, there are going to be numerous challenges facing his administration. So, we’re launching a series touching on several of these issues and what to expect from President Trump. Our first video in the series covers Ukraine and Russia.

The Russians are running out of people (and time) to reach out and secure defensible boundaries, so the Ukraine War always had to happen now. How does President Trump factor into all of this?

Trump has suggested freezing the conflict along current lines and delaying Ukraine’s NATO membership for 20 years. Spoiler alert: that’s not going to work for the Russians. While the Russians knew how to manipulate Trump during his first term, it seems they’ve forgotten that winning strategy. On the other hand, the Ukrainians (and plenty of other countries) have already begun with the flattery and brown-nosing to get on Trump’s good side.

Regardless of who is in the US office, this war is just a step in Russia’s broader strategy to regain former Soviet territories. It’s likely that Trump’s proposals will fail since they go against Russian objectives.

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here comes to you from Cora Glen, New Zealand, about to relocate. We’re going to launch off a bit of an open ended series today, talking about the challenges that are going to be facing the incoming administration of president elect Trump. He’s actually President Trump, president elect. He’s both. Anyway, specifically today, we’re going to talk about what’s going on in Ukraine and Russia. 

And before we go into the impact that Trump can or cannot have, I think it’s best to, revisit why the Russians are doing what they’re doing. They don’t feel they have a choice in this war. I would argue that they’re broadly correct with that, which doesn’t mean that there is a solution where everyone can just get along. 

It’s part of the problem. You see the the core territories that the Russians are from Moscow and the territories to the north, south and southwest are open and they’re vulnerable, and there’s no natural barriers that prevent invasion. And so what the Russians have always done since the time of the early is ours, is to expand as much as they can, absorb culture after culture, people after people, conquer nation after nation, until they reach a series of geographical barriers that do block tanks and troops. 

And those barriers are the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea, the Carpathian Mountains, the Caucasus and the deserts and high mountains of Central Asia. Anyway, under the time of Stalin and during most of the Cold War, the Russians controlled all of these territories, and they were the most secure they’ve ever felt. 

That is one of the many reasons why, during the Cold War, the primary concern was about a nuclear catastrophe rather than a conventional invasion. We are now in a different system. However, though, post-Soviet Russia lost control over almost all of those access points. And in the time since, the wall fell in 1989, the Russians have launched or participated in nine different military operations, of which the Ukraine war is only the most recent. 

So if there’s anything that we know about the Russians, it’s that this war was always going to happen and it was never going to be the last one. And any sort of peace deal or armistice simply buys the Russians time to recoup so that they can then go for the next thing. And if they do succeed in absorbing all of Ukraine, as soon as they are capable, they’ll go after the next line of countries in the west, which are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Moldova, all of which Moldova are members of NATO. 

So, we are not at the end of the story here. We’re in the middle of the story. That’s the why, the why now is even more simple. It’s demographics. The bottom fell out of the Russian birthrate back in the 1980s. We had something called a Death cross in the 1990s where the birthrate fell below the death rate at one point, twice as many people were dying every day in Russia as were being born. 

There since been a bit of a recovery, but it’s since turned again. And that’s before you consider the war. So this was always going to be the final decade that the Russians could attempt to use their superior numbers to force a military solution to their what they see as their frontier problem. And if they had waited until 2030, there simply wouldn’t be enough men in their teens and 20s to even make a meaningful attempt. 

So it was always going to happen, and it was always going to happen about right now and what happens in the rest of the world, from the Russian point of view, is a rounding error in considering how they prosecute conflict. And to Trump, Trump says he can stop the war in 24 hours. Trump says a lot of things that a lot of people don’t take seriously. 

But let’s assume for the moment that there was a deal to be had. What has been floated from the Trump camp is an armistice along the current division line, with European troops coming in to monitor the cease fire and the, Ukrainians facing a 20 year pause before they can even consider applying for NATO membership. Now, from the Ukrainian point of view, this is obviously not a deal because it takes roughly a quarter of their population, excuse me, a quarter of their territory, and locks it more or less permanently under Russian control. 

But moreover, this is a deal that the Russians would never accept because they don’t have 20 years and they don’t need just get Ukraine, they need to get the rest of the entire Western periphery. They need to get Georgia and Azerbaijan and Armenia and the bulk of Central Asia. If they wait 20 years, the demographic bomb will fully gone off. 

And so the Russians have rejected this proposal posthaste. Now, let’s talk about a couple of the minor things going on. There are a lot of conspiracy theories going around right now. Oh, my God, there’s so many conspiracy theories going on right now. But let’s deal with the one that deals with the Ukraine war that the Russians only attack because they thought the Biden administration was weak. 

Anything? No. The specific timing for the launching of Ukraine war was very straightforward. 

Trump made it very clear four years ago that if he was reelected, he was going to withdraw from NATO fairly early in his second term. 

This was something that was communicated to Putin. And so Putin was very clear that should that happen, Ukraine would basically be handed to him on a plate. And when that’s not how things unfolded, he felt that the only way to get what he needed was to launch a military attack, which was correct. So there is nothing there that is Trump related that caused or deferred the war in any meaningful sense. 

Like I said, this was always going to happen. Now, that doesn’t mean that the Russians don’t have some opinions on Donald Trump. They find him to be an eminently, manipulable person. They were able to hire him off from all of his security personnel, including the Secret Service, in the first term, and to get him into a room alone with Putin and Putin’s senior staff. 

That’s never happened throughout American history, at any summit anywhere, and where you’d have a president completely separated from anything. And what the Russians found out was that, Donald Trump really didn’t know a whole lot about what was going on. Unlike most presidents who rely on their cabinet members to keep them informed, 

Donald Trump relies on his cabinet ministers, to keep him feeling good about himself. And so whenever somebody would tell him something that he didn’t know and make it very clear that he wasn’t the smartest person in the room and each and every topic, he generally fired them. And so the Putin government really liked the first Trump term, because nothing could really get done on the American side. 

That wasn’t being done on Twitter. And they have high hopes for the second term, because a number of the people that are being appointed to, cabinet level positions, for example, the Trudeau defense secretary, has limited military experience. He’s a culture warrior. And it’s very clear that doesn’t actually have any plans in mind for the military aside from Woking. 

It, as he says, and from the Russian point of view, this is brilliant, because if you can hobble the ability of the American military to function, the American intelligence community function because the coordinator of that is basically somebody who’s been working for the Russians for years. Then all of a sudden you have a free hand, or at least that’s what they think. 

I think, as is typical with the Russians, they may have overthought this out and come to the wrong conclusion. If you go back through modern American Russian history, the Russians do this from time to time. They think they have an upper hand. They think they can play the American president, whether it’s in jet, whether it’s JFK, or Bill Clinton or someone else, and then they discover, no, that’s not really how it works. 

This is still the most powerful country in the world. And regardless of what you think of the individual leader, there’s a lot of institutional heft there. Even if the individual leader has a problem with the institutions. In this specific case, though, it’s much more personal. They have already told Donald Trump flatly, no. And if you are a world leader in the current age and you want something out of the United States, we all learned in Trump term one that the way to do it is to flatter Donald Trump. 

And for whatever reason, the Russians have forgotten that. And so,while Zelensky of Ukraine has already been on the phone with Donald Trump to talk, while the Canadian prime minister has already flown down to Mar and Allegro, while Sheinbaum of Mexico has already been on the phone, while several European leaders have already arranged for talks basically to kiss up to get what they want, the Russians seem to have forgotten that and they just said no. 

And so if you take Donald Trump’s temperament and apply it to the situation, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Russians are not going to get what they’re hoping to get. At the same time that Donald Trump has come up with this brilliant, the best, the awesome plan, of freezing the conflict for 20 years, which was something would be, anathema to Russian strategic plans in the short, medium and long term. 

So regardless of what Trump said during the campaign, regardless of what JD Vance, who is a Russian apologist, said during the campaign, he really comes down to the emotions of one person right now on this issue. And the Russians have really gotten off to the wrong foot and put that foot directly in their mouths.

The Chinese Cut Off Drone Exports

Image of a drone firing missiles

The Chinese Government has moved toward implementing an export ban on drones and drone components, with an eye toward making supply issues a particular headache for the United States and the Ukrainians.

In regard to the latter group, Kyiv has had particular success in utilizing drones in their war against Russia. From reconnaissance to swarm attacks to providing targeting data for UAVs, the Ukrainian war effort has been building and burning through thousands of drones.

While the design and rebuild activity is happening primarily within Ukraine, several key components: motors, flight controls, and especially the batteries and made in China. China’s massive supply of affordable parts is what drove the Ukrainians to make up for shortages within their arsenals with drones in the first place, and you can bet Moscow has been pushing China heavily to stop the flow of these parts to Ukraine.

As for the Americans, the Chinese are looking to respond to the bevy of tech export restrictions pushed through by the Biden administration, and Beijing is bracing for an onslaught of new Trump tariffs. Things like drone components are one of the few levers Beijing has in this fight.

But what will the ultimate outcomes be? This is an excellent opportunity for the United States and others in the West to start building out their own manufacturing capacity for these components—a win for both strategic and economic reasons. Even if the Chinese were everyone’s best buddies, the current Chinese system is dying. Literally. The Chinese government cannot hold back the impacts of the collapse of the population growth rate, and the Chinese economy is undeniably slowing down. The global economy’s reliance on Chinese overproduction is coming to an end, regardless of whether anyone wants it to or not.

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When the Missile Is the Message

A missile being fired against a blue sky

Following the United States’ approval for Ukraine to use its weapons systems inside of Russia, Putin decided to launch an intermediate-range missile called the Oreshnik into Ukraine.

This was initially mistaken for a nuclear capable ICBM, but that was cleared up rather quickly. Turns out it is a missile the Russians developed illegally while pretending to abide by an arms control agreement. The important detail in all of this is that the Russians completely misread the room. They thought by flexing their missile capabilities that NATO unity might be fractured, and they could assert some dominance, but that backfired.

Many EU nations are increasingly arming Ukraine and taking a firmer stance against Russia, and some other factors are also increasing European solidarity. With regional security in question, European countries are locking arms and uniting against the Russians.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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Transcript

Greetings from Colorado. I just got off a plane, got back home for the weekend. It’s 22nd November, and the news regards a missile attack that the Russians launched against Ukraine earlier this week.

As you probably remember from a video a couple of days ago, the United States government has given the Ukrainians authority to use their weapons systems on Russian territory. Specifically, in the Kursk province, the Ukrainians have already started to use them to target command and control nodes and a few depots. They’re certainly going to be going after things like rail logistics in the not-too-distant future.

This is something where a lot of Russian politicos have been saying that this is a red line that will trigger nuclear war.

And that was obviously crap because that’s the wrong message coming from the wrong people. The Russians have yet to engage in the sort of meaningful conversation about the war that would allow the return of some sort of deterrence doctrine.

Anyway, in order to try to press their case that there would be consequences, the Russians launched a weapon from down near the Caspian Sea—well, further away than it needed to be to hit someplace in Ukraine.

At first, everybody thought it was an ICBM. That’s an intercontinental ballistic missile. And the only reason those exist is to have nuclear warheads on them. The idea was that it was supposed to be a threat to the United States.

Turns out it was not an ICBM, not an intercontinental ballistic missile. It was a new type of weapon called an “Organic,” which is an intermediate-range weapon.

Now, intermediate-range weapons in Europe—well, between the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Europeans—they were banned under a 1988 treaty called the Intermediate Range Forces Treaty, the INF.

The idea, and this was at the end of the Cold War when Reagan was in charge, was if we remove the shorter-range missiles that could be used in the European theater, then we move off of hair-trigger alert. We could start negotiating some sort of post-Cold War pact, which would eventually culminate in things like strategic arms limitations that would take all of the city-flatteners out of the equation.

Well, about 15 years ago, the Russians started violating the terms of that treaty and started developing weapons systems like the Organic, which now have hit the battlefield.

It’s not so much that this is a warning to the United States because the United States isn’t a target of intermediate-range forces—it’s too far away. This is about the Europeans.

And the question in Russian foreign policy and strategic policy has always been divide and conquer. They don’t like NATO because it allows everyone to band together, and it brings the United States and the Canadians into the party. They want a system where it’s every man for themselves. From a military point of view in the European space, that makes the Russians the most powerful player.

So the whole point of developing an intermediate-range missile and now launching it at Ukraine is a demonstration to the Europeans that we are back to the Cold War in terms of the Russians’ capacity to nuke before anyone can do anything.

Or at least that was the intent. It is definitely not working.

The British and the French have already allowed their weapons systems—most notably the Storm Shadow and the Scalp missile systems—to be used by the Ukrainians to target the Russians directly.

In addition, in Germany, we have a chancellor who’s on his way out, Olaf Scholz, who has been very hesitant to allow German weapons to be used. He is most likely going to lead his party, the Social Democrats, into a trouncing in elections that will happen within 2 or 3 months.

At that point, the new incoming chancellor of the opposition party, the Christian Democrats, has already said the first thing he’s going to do is call Putin, threaten him, and then free the German equivalent system—which is called a Taurus—for use by the Ukrainians.

Third, we have Finland and Sweden commenting about the sabotage by Russian and Chinese interests of internet cables and telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea. They’re already talking about activating Article Five, which is the mutual defense clause of the NATO treaty.

So the Russians are misreading the situation. They’re misreading how the Europeans are standing. They’re misreading what the European nerve is.

The question is whether or not the Europeans can stick to it.

We’re now in this weird situation where the Europeans are doing a lot more for Ukrainian defense than the Americans because they know, at the end of the day—now, with or without the Trump administration—that they’re the ones who are going to have to live with whatever the security situation evolves into.

So we’re seeing a lot more interest in all of them to step up.

My personal favorite is an eight-party commission that involves all of the Scandinavian countries, all of the Baltic countries, Poland, and Germany, to start investing in defense industry manufacturing in Ukraine proper, so that the Ukrainians have a better chance of standing on their own.

Will it be enough? We’ll see. But what we know for sure is that the Russian effort has had absolutely the opposite effect.

Ukraine Can Now Strike Russia Direct

Photo of the ATACSM rocket being fired

The Biden administration just gave Ukraine the greenlight to use American weaponry inside of Russian territory. So, what does this mean for the future of the Ukraine War?

The biggest change will be Ukraine’s usage of long-range ballistic missiles (mainly the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS) to target military infrastructure within the Russian border. While there will be some impacts to Russian logistics, this likely won’t lead to any significant breakthroughs. And it doesn’t look the Russians are too worried about this either…otherwise someone important would have been doing the press conference.

Without too much concern for immediate escalation, this greenlight allows Ukraine to soften Russian positions and supply lines along the frontlines. But perhaps the biggest thing to watch, is that Trump now has another card up his sleeve once he gets into office and begins his negotiations with Russia.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from chilly Colorado. It is Monday, November 18th, and yesterday, on the 17th, the Biden administration lifted restrictions on the use of American weapons by the Ukrainian government. They can now launch wherever they want in Russian space. The weapon system that is of the most importance are the outcomes, which are kind of a rocket ballistic missile that has a range of about 200 miles.

It’s broadly expected that within the next day or three, the Ukrainians will be using them to target things like ammo dumps, air assets, and especially rail bridges—basically anything to snarl the logistics on the Russian side of the equation.

The two areas you’re going to see the most activity are in the vicinity of Kursk, where the Ukrainians have a foothold in Russian territory, and an area in the Donbas near where the Russians have been focusing strongly on capturing the city of Picross, given that it’s a rail hub.

The whole idea is to disrupt the ability of the Russians to get military assets to those theaters. There’s probably not going to be too much of an impact on things like air power on the Russian side because already 90% of the jets that the Russians have been using to operate in Ukraine are beyond that 200-mile range.

You might push a few more back, so this is concentrating the fight on those two main salients. But it’s probably not going to generate any sort of meaningful breakthrough in either direction, though it will certainly help the Ukrainians hold out.

There are three big things that we do need to consider now that we’ve had this kind of upgraded military capacity.

First of all, I don’t see this as a meaningful escalation in the war. I don’t think it’s going to generate any sort of significant response by the Russians. That’s not just because the Russians have, by my count, had over 200 “red lines” that the West has eventually skipped across.

You can always tell if the Russians are serious or not by who does the speaking. In this case, the Russian that came out and condemned the American action, saying this was an escalation, was a guy by the name of Dmitry Peskov, who is basically their press attaché. It didn’t even come from a policymaker. So, you know, it’s not serious.

I don’t expect the Russians to do anything significantly more. Keep in mind, the Russians have been crossing a lot of what the West would consider red lines—with spies, sabotage, and even bringing in North Koreans to fight in the war. There have been a lot of steps here, and that was probably ultimately what drove the Biden administration to take this action. But I don’t think this is an escalation in the traditional sense.

Second, if the Russians want to rebuild their credibility when it comes to red lines, they have to talk. The way you establish red lines and mutual deterrence is through a direct face-to-face summit. Putin, however, has refused to pick up the phone and call any leaders who are decision-makers because he knows that if he does, everything is on the table.

He would then have to give something up. Since the Russians have been pushing broad-spectrum interference in Western affairs—whether politically, economically, or strategically—for three years now, he’d have to give up a lot of that to get anything he wants. So it’s simpler to just avoid communication altogether.

We’ve been here before. When the Soviet Union developed its first atomic weapon back in 1949, that was the height of the Cold War. Things were really sketchy, and we didn’t get our first real bilateral summit after that weapons test until 1955, after Stalin had died. I’m not saying we have to wait for Putin to die or anything like that, but we’re not in a position in Russia politically where it’s feasible to have that conversation.

As long as the Russians feel they’re making incremental gains in Ukraine, which they have for about a year now, there’s no need for a broader renegotiation of the relationship. Always keep in mind that Ukraine was never a one-off; it’s the ninth post-Soviet conflict the Russians have either instigated or been involved in, and it won’t be the last.

Regardless of how Ukraine gets settled, one way or another, there will be another series of wars further west that will involve NATO countries until we get to that point. Putin feels that negotiations are better carried out on the battlefield rather than by phone or in person.

Which brings us to the third thing: this is really interesting timing for this step by the Biden administration. Obviously, Biden’s not going to be president after January 20th, and there’s going to be no succession within the Democratic structures.

Donald Trump is coming back, and here we have a very clear step forward that puts a fascinating chip on the table for potential negotiations down the road. If there’s anything we understand about Donald Trump, it’s that he sees everything differently. Putting this card into his hand to play with Putin at a later time is kind of fascinating.

What Trump will do with this is entirely up to him, but Biden appears to be setting the stage for Trump to have whatever he needs to force the Russians to the table in whatever way he wants to. This is a really interesting approach to bipartisan foreign policy that we used to see all the time during transition periods but really haven’t seen in the last eight years.

All right, that’s it for me. Everyone take care.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

Europe Takes One Step Closer to Nukes…

Soviet OTR-21 Tochka missile photo by Wikimedia Commons

There’s some growing concern in Europe that a Trump victory in the US election could lead to a decrease in support for Ukraine. Without the US backing them, many European countries might reach for nukes to deter any potential conflicts.

There are a handful of countries with nuclear weapons already, but others might be jumping on the nuke train; these countries include places like Ukraine, Sweden, Romania, Germany (yikes), and Poland might even dip their toe in as well.

Conventional forces take time to build. Exhibit A: the Russians turning to North Korea for shells and ammunition due to production struggles. Nuclear weapons can be thrown together fairly quickly and for relatively cheap. Although, this could get dicey if the Russians want to call anyone’s bluff on this.

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Cover photo of Soviet OTR-21 Tochka missile by Wikimedia Commons

MedShare Donation + The Koreans Are Coming to the Ukraine War

North Korean soldiers marching

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Reports coming out of South Korea indicate that North Korean troops could be deploying to Russia. These reports are unconfirmed, but the South Koreans aren’t usually in the business of lying. So, what does this mean for the Ukraine War?

North Korea hasn’t seen combat in ages, so while they gain some field experience, the rest of the world will get a glimpse at their capabilities. If the artillery and missiles the North Koreans already sent to the Russians are any indicator, I wouldn’t expect much. This could also drag the South Koreans into the conflict on the Ukrainian side, which might outweigh what the North Korea brings to the table for Russia.

Speaking of dragging new players into the war, Iran’s involvement with Russia could get Israel involved as well. This would likely come in the form of Israeli attacks on Iranian facilities making drones, but with Israel being a leader in defense technology, this could be a game changer for the Ukrainians.

The Russians are showing their declining military capacity by grasping at straws trying to get the North Koreans and Iranians to save their asses, but that strategy may soon backfire.

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Transcript

Hey everybody. Peter Zeihan here coming to you from Colorado. Today there’s some weird stuff going in in the news. We’ve got reports that North Korean troops, are in the process of deploying to Russia. Some technical advisers are already there providing the Russians with assistance on how to use North Korean weaponry system. But now we’ve got, open discussion in South Korea about, intercepts. 

From Point Yang, about, an actual troop deployment to maybe even fight on the front lines. Now, I don’t have any way to confirm this. I don’t have, my ear in the Korean dictator Kim Jong un’s, House or anything like that. But the South Koreans are not known for making stuff up. I mean, they’re known for. 

And they’re known for bulgogi and kimchi and soju and electronics and cellular technologies and computing and mass manufacturing and heavy drinking. But they’re not known to make shit up. So I’m taking this a little bit more seriously than I would any other random report. We don’t usually get a lot of fake noise out of Seoul. Anyway. Four big things come from this. 

Number one, the North Koreans have not been in a fight since 1953, so there is no living soldier in North Korea that is ever fired a rifle in anger. And getting any sort of information on how they might perform in real world circumstances would be an intelligence bonanza. Of course, it goes both ways. The North Koreans haven’t had been in a fight, so being able to see a front line, even if they’re not major combatants, is something that they could use for training purposes. 

But for the point of view of the United States and South Korea, this is going to be the best bit of information we’ve ever had, in the last 70 years. That will allow us to remap our war plans, for the Korean Peninsula, should anything go wrong. Having a more accurate view of your enemy is always the first step, to planning. 

The second big thing, North Korea is not the only country that is providing foreign assistance to the Russians. Specifically, they’re providing, ballistic missiles and artillery shells to the degree that maybe half of the artillery shells that have been used in Ukraine by the Russians this year are from North Korea. I mean, they’re crap. Probably half of them don’t work. 

And they’ve been blowing up more Russian artillery tubes than Ukrainian artillery tubes, because sometimes they blow up too soon. Anyway, they’re not the only ones. The Iranians are also involved with the Shaheed drones, which over which a thousand have been used at this point. Now, just as in with the North Korean situation, there’s an intelligence bonanza to be had here or a way to get information on the inside of the system. 

The Iranians, have recently launched a couple hundred ballistic missiles against Israel, and Israel is itching to respond, and they’ve basically already been given the green light, more or less, by the Biden administration to do so. The question is where, when and how? Well, if we now have the North Koreans intervening in the Ukraine war and we already have the Iranians intervening in the Ukraine war, then there’s an opportunity here for in exchange for the Biden administration, you know, kind of giving its blessing, to an Israeli retaliation attack on Iran. 

They might just add a couple target coordinates in order to get the facilities that make the shitty drones. Iran, like North Korea, is not exactly a technological leader, and the number of personnel that can put these things together is relatively limited. So if you were to take out a cluster of technical support, which the Russians desperately need, as well as the manufacturing facilities of which the Russians desperately need, you could as part of your retaliation attack, see Israel actually remove a huge source of military capability from the Russians in the Ukraine war. 

Also, keep in mind that the Russians are among the best in the world at assassination campaigns. And whenever an Iranian nuclear scientist gets a little bit too useful, they tend to meet a dire end. Just simply expanding that target set to include drone technicians is something the Israelis could do very, very, very easily. The third thing, as I mentioned, North Korea and Iran are not countries that I would mention as technological leaders and the fact that the Russians need them for half of their artillery shells and a substantial percentage of their drone warfare, that bodes really, really badly for the Russians ability to maintain this war long term. 

We already know that they’re only be able to make a double digits number of new tanks a year. They’re just really refurbishing their old ones. And if the technical skills within the military industrial complex of Russia are down to the degree that they’re this dependent on two fourth string countries, that would suggest as we move forward, they’re going to become wholly dependent upon imports of weapons. 

Well, that provides other opportunities for countries to choke the Russian war machine, because if the vulnerability isn’t in Siberia, if it’s inside this farm, that’s a lot easier to get to, especially if you’ve got countries like South Korea or Israel who are now involved. Which brings us to the fourth and final thing, South Korea, in Israel now involved, there’s a diplomatic angle here as well as a strategic angle. 

You have to consider both of these countries have been desperate to avoid Ukraine’s entreaties, and the United States requests to get involved in the conflict in any meaningful way, because they’ve got bigger security issues closer to home. That focus wholly on them. And they didn’t want the Russians stirring the pot in their own backyards. Well, now the Russians are stirring the pot in their own backyard, so they are involved. 

And so we’re seeing the political restrictions loosened in both Jerusalem and Seoul. And that can have a lot more impact than simply providing the Ukrainians with some technical help and some weapons systems. South Korea is one of the world’s five biggest arms exporters and produces regular things like artillery and rocket system and tanks that are not too far behind what comes out of Germany or France or the United States, but at a significantly lower price point. 

In fact, they’ve already signed a deal to provide the poles with over a thousand tanks and assorted systems. Providing that sort of assistance to Ukraine is obviously a no brainer. But when you look at a country like Israel that has under 10 million people and is in kind of a tough neighborhood, mass producing hardware quickly is something they cannot do. 

But the South Koreans can. And to flip the equation, the Israelis are the world leader or a world leader in anti-missile technologies and by far have the world’s best anti artillery and anti rocket technology and their Iron Dome system. Well, on day one of any theoretical Korean War, the North Korean is going to be lobbing all kinds of ammo into downtown Seoul. 

So if Israel can help out Korea with artillery and rocket defense, cooperation between these two countries changes the strategic calculus of both of them in a very positive way. And if you can take Israel’s technical acumen on some specific weapons systems and married to Korea’s ability to produce a lot of things very quickly, you can actually see that working out through the entire Western alliance system. 

So as I said several months ago, when the North Koreans started to get involved at Russian insistence, you know, this was probably one of the dumbest things that the Russians could do. I mean, yes, it gives them a tactical leg up in terms of ammo, but it risks bringing in a really important player. On the other side, and that’s South Korea. 

And now we’re looking at both Israel and South Korea being brought in at more or less the same time and being brought in together. And that changes a lot. 

Photo from Wikimedia commons

Russia: Threats, Deterrence, and the War of Numbers

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So far in the Ukraine War, the Russians have threatened Finland and Sweden with nuclear annihilation for joining NATO, Germany with nuclear annihilation for providing tanks, Britain with nuclear annihilation for providing missiles, France with nuclear annihilation for merely discussing the possibility of troops, and America with nuclear annihilation because it was a Tuesday. Needless to say, the credibility of Russia’s threats leaves something to be desired…

Russia has struggled to maintain a credible “red line” (referring to the point at which Putin will push the shiny red button) for quite a while now. With the US ready to launch a counter attack should nukes fly, the Russians are already hesitant to pull the trigger, but their recent failed missile test and refusal to enter negotiations means they don’t have a ton of options.

In all likelihood, Russia’s only path to victory in Ukraine relies on sheer manpower. Which means they’ll keep sending wave after wave after wave of their population into the meat grinder until something shifts in their favor…because that’s all they know how to do.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are free and we will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

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Transcript

Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Kolar, Wisconsin. I love this place, except in the winter when—oh my God. Anyway, back on the 26th. The 26th. The 25th. I can’t remember the exact date. Anyway, sometime in September, the Putin government, Putin himself, announced a new nuclear doctrine for the threshold of when they would actually hit the big candy-like red button.

The Russians are having a problem because they have established all kinds of red lines—dozens of them—over the last two and a half years. Whenever someone has crossed them, whether it’s Ukraine in the war, or weapon supplies from the United States, Germany, Britain, or Turkey, the Russians have ignored their own red line.

So they’re having a credibility problem with their deterrence policy. Putin’s announcement a couple of days ago was about trying to reestablish that. He said that now any non-nuclear country who has an ally who is a nuclear country, should the non-nuclear country use a non-nuclear weapon against Russia, it justifies a nuclear strike on the nuclear country.

This is a stupid, pointless press release—kind of reminds me of the Obama era—because it’s already been violated a few hundred times. The Russians have had a real problem establishing or reestablishing deterrence because they keep saying stupid things like this, which are nonsensical. Immediately, the world goes on, and it’s shown to be a bluff.

Now, the issue is that the Russian conventional military is not all that. By the numbers, Ukraine should have been gone a long time ago, but it’s still punching well above its weight. And that’s before you consider that most of the Western alliance is providing the Ukrainians with ammo and weapons. So, how do you reestablish deterrence?

Well, the first, easiest, most direct, and most reliable way is to have a conversation—to basically call up the United States, establish a summit, and talk about strategic issues, of which nuclear weapons are one.

The Russians have firmly refused that option because if they do that, they have to talk about Ukraine. They have to talk about war crimes. They have to talk about mass kidnappings. They have to talk about the weaponization of sexual violence. They have to talk about encouraging migrants to go to Europe by breaking countries in Africa and the Middle East. They have to talk about all the things they’ve been doing over the last 2 or 3 years that they see as giving them a little bit of leverage.

Of course, the Europeans and the United States have acted, and so the Ukraine war is continuing. Ukraine still exists. For the Russians to establish deterrence by negotiation, they have to put everything else on the table, and they are not willing to do that. As a result, we’ve had no meaningful summits in the last three years with anyone.

What’s the second thing you can do? You can do a demonstration nuclear test. The problem is that the Russian nuclear force has degraded just as much as the Russian conventional force. Less than a week ago, the Russians tried to test out one of the new intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it blew up in the silo.

Now, this is really bad—not just from an embarrassing point of view or a deterrence point of view—but most of the avionics for Russia’s ICBM arsenal were built in Ukraine. This new missile that the Russians were testing was their effort to build a domestic supply chain. It is now apparent that, at least at the moment, that is not possible.

It begs the question of just how reliable the rest of the Russian nuclear arsenal is. If they hit the big candy-red button, will anything happen? If countries aren’t confident that things will launch, deterrence can’t happen.

The third thing you can do is nuke someone. The problem here is, while the Russians have bled away and pissed away their deterrence, the United States has not.

The United States continues to test, fine-tune, and deploy its weapons. It made very clear to the Russians in the early weeks of the Ukraine war that if Russia were to throw a nuke into Ukraine or anywhere else, the first thing the United States would do is use its conventional forces to destroy every Russian military and civilian asset—shipping around the world, every single port within range of conventional force, every single port the Russians have.

If that nuclear weapon were to hit a NATO ally and not just Ukraine, the first few weapons the United States would send back would target Putin personally. So that’s not an option either.

So, what’s left?

What’s left is nothing good. You get Obama-style pointless press releases and Trump-style bluster. That is what passes for strategic policy in the Kremlin these days. Now, whether or not any of that is sustainable over the long run is really not the point. The question, ultimately, is how will the Ukraine war play out?

Remember, Russia is still a large country, and even on its back, it still has a huge amount of resources and manpower to throw at the situation. They’re not bottomless anymore—this is not 1920 or 1980—but the Russians still outnumber the Ukrainians at least 3 to 1. They have an industrial plant that, while atrophied, is still an order of magnitude bigger than anything the Ukrainians have.

They have the Chinese providing huge amounts of components. Probably half of all the weapons systems the Russians have built in the last two years are majority made with Chinese components. Upwards of one-quarter of the artillery shells being used by the Russians on the front are coming from North Korea.

And, of course, all the Shahed drones are coming from Iran. So, there are very real flows here. It’s ultimately a question of whether the Russians can put the numbers to play. To that end, the Putin government, just before that disastrous failed nuclear missile test, announced that they were expanding the military to make it the second-largest standing army in the world.

If Russia is going to win, that’s how—through numbers, by ignoring the casualties, and just steamrolling them. If that sounds inhumane, it’s because this is how Russia has won every single war in its nearly thousand-year history. So far, in this war, they haven’t really put their weight into it. We might be seeing that change now.

If the Russians are going to win, this is how it’s going to go. It’s not going to be because of nukes.

New Ukrainian Weapons Hit Russia Where It Hurts

Ukraine has successfully attacked several major Russian ammunition depots, with explosions detectable hundreds of miles away. These strikes suggest Ukraine’s war strategy is evolving…

There are a handful of factors contributing to the success of Ukraine’s tactics: vulnerability of Russian ammunition, Ukraine’s new missile-drone hybrid weapon and Russian rail system targeting. Combine all of these and you get a recipe for Ukrainian success.

The strategic shift we’re seeing now could pose some serious challenges for the Russians moving forward.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hello, everybody. It’s Peter Zeihan coming to you from a foggy Colorado. It is the 22nd of September. In the news over the last 4 or 5 days, the Ukrainians have managed to blow up a handful of major arm depots within Russian territory, some of them a couple hundred miles from the border. The three places in question are cross-border, Tow Rope Pets, and two corvettes.

Yeah, pretty sure that’s right. Anyway, one of these explosions was big enough that it was detected by seismic monitoring stations a thousand miles away, which is cool—kind of creepy. Kiloton-range explosion. We’ve got four things going on here, all of which are pretty significant, and when you put them together, it suggests a change in the tempo of the war.

The first thing to understand is that the Russians don’t move and store ammo like normal people. They don’t use forklifts, crates, or pallets; they just have things in boxes moved by hand. So, when something goes wrong—and things often do—it’s very volatile. That’s definitely what happened at all three of these facilities.

The second development is that the Ukrainians have brought a new weapon system into play. The technical term is “drone missile,” which is a bit shy of a cruise missile. The name of this system is a letter, and I’m not going to apologize for mispronouncing it because the Ukrainians chose that name specifically because it’s difficult for the Russians to pronounce—so I’m in the clear. The NSA, anyway. Its range isn’t nearly as good as some of the drones the Ukrainians have been fielding over the course of the summer.

Some of these drones have hit targets a thousand miles from the front, but these probably have a range of no more than 300 miles. However, because it’s a missile instead of a drone, it flies much faster, is much harder to intercept, and can carry a much heavier payload. The bigger Ukrainian drones can carry warheads about 75 pounds, with most of them carrying a third of that. But these new missiles likely have warheads 2 to 5 times as large. I say “likely” because they’re new, and last week was the first time we saw them in action. That said, they’re being used in large numbers—specifically in the attack on Tow Rope Pets, which involved at least 100 of these missiles. This is not just a case of 1 or 2 missiles being launched; entire fleets are now in play. For their debut, that’s pretty impressive from a manufacturing point of view, leaving aside logistics and military planning.

The third issue is that Russia, when it moves cargo more than the final mile, usually relies on rail. Russian territory is vast, and the value of agricultural land in Russia is low. Precipitation is fickle, and the summer season is short, so the amount of income Russian land can generate for the state per square mile is very low. Of the major agricultural zones in the world, Russia’s is by far the lowest in terms of income generated.

This means the Russians can’t afford a normal transport method like having a road network that individual farmers can always access. They simply don’t have the income necessary to build or maintain such a network, so they need something more cost-effective—hence, rail. About 90% of what moves in Russia, whether it’s barrels of oil, bushels of grain, or stacks of ammo canisters, moves by rail. It’s only in the final mile that cargo is moved by hand or maybe by civilian car if it’s a military asset. This system has lots of vulnerabilities, but it’s hard to target trains because rail networks are difficult to disrupt long-term. If a rail line gets blown up, you just lay new track.

In the recent attack, it appears that a train was present, unloading ammo at the time, and it was hit, causing the entire depot to explode. I must emphasize that I’m using local Russian reporting, so take it with a grain of salt. But usually, the Russians don’t celebrate their own trains and ammo dumps getting blown up. “Celebrate” is the wrong word, but you get the point. Unless this was an amazing coincidence, it suggests the Ukrainians have found a way to track Russian rail movements in real-time.

There’s reason to think this is true because a few weeks ago, the Ukrainians attacked Russia to the north and took over large portions of the Kursk province, including a rail depot at a place called Susa. If this allowed the Ukrainians to tap into or hack the Russian rail network, they could now know the schedules and locations of Russian locomotives and what they’re carrying. If they’re carrying ammo and heading to a warehouse full of more ammo, well, that’s a target-rich environment for the Ukrainians. So, we should expect more of these kinds of attacks.

Which brings us to the fourth and final issue: a potential change in targeting. If the Ukrainians do have better intel on the rail system and now have these faster, more lethal, mass-produced missile drones, the logical next step is to target Russia’s power generation and distribution systems. Unlike in the U.S., where half of our cargo by ton-mile is moved by truck, rail is critical in Russia, and two-thirds of Russia’s locomotives are electric. If Ukraine can disrupt the electricity system, the entire Russian transport system could fall apart.

We may already be seeing early stages of this. We know the Ukrainians have used drones to attack power centers in Crimea, though it felt like a test run—there weren’t many drones involved. But if they now have better intel on rail systems and weapons to hit ammo and transport networks, we’ll likely see much more activity within 150 miles of Ukraine’s borders to the north, northeast, and east.

We’ve seen Russian counteroffensives in places like Kursk peter out in the last 72 hours, as well as in the Donbas, where Russian forces were on the verge of capturing a Ukrainian rail network at Borowski. The Russians had been making steady progress toward this goal for months, ever since they captured the fortress city of Avdiivka. They got within 5 or 6 miles of Borowski, and if they had taken it, Ukraine’s ability to move forces along the front would’ve been crippled. But the assault stopped, likely due to the kind of attacks I’ve just described.

This is bad for Russia in the short, mid, and long term. It affects their ability to reach the front, let alone supply it. Remember, the Russian military doesn’t operate on quality—it’s all about throwing huge numbers of troops and shells at the enemy and incrementally advancing. You can’t do that without a robust rail network, and the Ukrainians may have just found a way to strike at its heart.

A New War in Ukraine

There are lots of moving parts in the Ukraine War right now, so let’s do a little recap of everything that’s going on. There are four big ones…

First up is the Ukrainian Offensive in Kursk. One of my recent videos covered this in more detail, but essentially the Ukrainians have poked into Russian territory and caused significant Russian casualties, destroyed a number of bridges, and cut off key supply lines. They are also bringing some heavy artillery and equipment along with them that will impact the front lines.

Next, the Ukrainians sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. This was a critical piece of transport for the Russians and was one of the few things keeping their supply lines to Crimea open. This is a big win for Ukraine as it will weaken Russia’s position in the Crimean front.

Third is the destruction of a major fuel depot in Russia. A Ukrainian attack set about a third of the storage tanks ablaze at a depot in the Proletarsk district. This fire is still spreading and could cause major setbacks for the Russian forces in Crimea that depend upon this fuel.

Last is the Russian assault on Pokrovsk. While the Ukrainians are seeing big wins across many fronts, they are facing heavy pressure from the Russians in the city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas. The Russians are seeking control of this nexus city, as it would complicate Ukrainian supply lines in the region.

Like I said, lots of moving parts…but that means there’s a potential for significant changes. So, stay tuned for further updates.

Prefer to read the transcript? Click here

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

And then there’s you.

Our newsletters and videologues are not only free, they will always be free. We also will never share your contact information with anyone. All we ask is that if you find one of our releases in any way useful, that you make a donation to Medshare. Over one third of Ukraine’s pre-war population has either been forced from their homes, kidnapped and shipped to Russia, or is trying to survive in occupied lands. This is our way to help who we can. Please, join us.

Support medshare's ukraine fund
Support medshare's global efforts

Transcript

Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from Colorado on a somewhat gloomy Saturday. This is the Geneva Basin behind me, and I am standing on the crest of Geneva Mountain. Today, we’re going to catch you up on everything that’s going on in Ukraine. We’ve got four big developments that have evolved over the last couple of weeks. The first one we’ve already discussed quite a bit.

And that is the Ukrainian offensive through their northern border into Russia proper, into the Kursk province, where they’ve triggered a war of movement with the Russians. From everything we can tell, the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties, but the Russians are taking just absolutely astronomical casualties because the Ukrainians have destroyed the bridges across the river.

So, the Russian forces that are south of the river and north of the Ukrainian border are just getting chopped up without any support, and the Ukrainians are apparently having a pretty good time of it. They’ve also brought a lot of their longer-range missiles, mortars, and drones very, very close to the border itself and are launching them at targets up to 100 miles within Russia proper, gutting the logistics, infrastructure, and everything in the southern and western parts of Kursk province. Basically, the entirety of the northern front of the Ukraine war has now been relocated into Russian territory. This is a significant change in battlefield realities, and if the Ukrainians can keep this up, they’ll be able to cut the infrastructure between Kursk city and Belgorod city, which is how all Russian forces have been supplied for the northern front.

So, this is very significant and has the potential to become much more so in the days and weeks to come. The second big development is that the Ukrainians have successfully sunk Russia’s last rail ferry. Now, for those of you who haven’t been watching for a while, the primary means that the Russians have been using to supply their forces in the Crimean Peninsula, in the south of Ukraine, has been the Kerch Strait Bridge.

But after a series of attacks on it over the last two years, the cargo function of the bridge has basically been shut off. They can ship personnel in, but no cargo, so no fuel. So, they’ve been using rail ferries to go from the Black Sea coast of Russia into Crimea in occupied territory. Well, the Ukrainians a few months ago started targeting the rail ferries, and this last week, the final one was hit while it was at dock in port.

It sank in its berth. So even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel to clear it—which it’s unclear that they do—they’re talking about an operation that would probably take a minimum of a couple of months. And even if they cleared it, they have no more rail ferries, and no one will sell them any.

So, this has basically destroyed the capacity of the Russians to ship fuel to the Crimean front. The third thing involves the city of Prohodytsk—probably mispronouncing that. Anyway, that is a city further inland, closer to the Russian border, and it’s a major fuel depot. There are 74 of those giant tanks that you see outside of refineries all over the area.

So far, the fire that the Ukrainians triggered with this attack has been so intense that it has completely destroyed a third of the tanks, and it’s spreading to the rest. Once again, even if the Russians had the equipment and personnel necessary to fight the fire—which they don’t—it’s, I don’t want to call it out of control, but the Russians are barely holding the line. The Ukrainians have not let up; they’ve launched at least a couple more attacks since then. There’s a very real possibility that this entire depot, by far the biggest and most relevant one to the Prohodytsk front, is not going to be there a couple of weeks from now.

So, not only is fuel delivery now out of the equation, but fuel storage and forward positioning also seem to be going offline permanently as well. That would normally open up a huge opportunity for the Ukrainians to press the Crimean front because the Russian soldiers in Crimea are kicking for reinforcements, more ammunition, and supplies.

But that brings us to the fourth problem, which is absolutely not going the Ukrainians’ way, and that is the Russian assault on the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk—emphasis on the “krovsk.” That is in the Donbas, actually not too far from one of the regional capitals. Basically, what’s going on here is that the Russians have decided that they have to take this city at any cost, and they’ve been launching literally dozens of assaults against Ukrainian forces every single day for the last month.

And as the Russians are scrambling to move forces north into Kursk or south towards Crimea, they have not pulled anything out of the Pokrovsk front. Now that they can’t get fuel to Crimea, there is an argument to be made that the Russians might not even bother trying to send reinforcements to Crimea in the short term. Instead, they’ll send everything to Pokrovsk because if Pokrovsk falls, it’s a major problem for the Ukrainians. It’s a real nexus where several supply lines come together.

If it is taken out, it’s not that the Ukrainians can’t supply the front in the Donbas, but instead of having a single point where they can concentrate their forces and build for a pushback, they’ll have to do it from several different points that require a lot of rerouting.

That won’t be nearly as effective and will be much easier for the Russians to disrupt. The Ukrainians have always been trying to make this area work, while the Russians have always tried to put more pressure on it. One of the reasons why the Ukrainians have managed to secure this area so far is that there are no minefields up there, so they’re free to maneuver.

But if Pokrovsk falls, the Ukrainians are going to be running around just trying to hold the front at several different places, making the reinforcement problem even worse. So, there are a lot of decisive things going on here. Kursk is in play, Crimea is in play. If the Ukrainians can find some reserves to free up, those are now, of course, going to be contested.

We’re probably going to see more changes in the front line in the next few months than we have seen in the last couple of years. Very, very dynamic situation, very unclear. I think that’s one aspect to keep in mind here because we have three different factors at play.