Russia on brink of ... NOPE! Russia INVADES Ukraine!

Page 74 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
7,686
3,233
136
Due to the ineffective and senile leadership of this country by Biden and his useless choice for vice-president Harris we now have a maniac like Putin following in the footsteps of Hitler.

his time, the United States intelligence community got it right, unearthing a rival’s secret planning and accurately predicting and broadcasting Russia’s intentions to carry out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

For months, the Biden administration has been sharing — with allies and the public — intelligence about President Vladimir V. Putin’s intentions, taking away any element of surprise and stripping the Russian leader of his capacity to go to war on a false pretext.

But even with the threat of substantial sanctions and allied unity, it was not enough in the end to deter Mr. Putin from carrying out the broad assault that got underway early on Thursday.

But it improved Washington’s ability to bring the trans-Atlantic alliance into a unified front against Moscow and to prepare waves of sanctions and other steps to impose a cost on Russia. And after high-profile intelligence failures in Afghanistan, Iraq and other global crises over the past several decades, the accuracy of the intelligence and analysis about Mr. Putin gave the C.I.A. and the broader array of U.S. intelligence agencies new credibility at home and abroad.

The result has been a remarkable four months of diplomacy, deterrence and American-led information warfare, including a last-ditch effort to disrupt Mr. Putin’s strategy by plugging into the Russian military’s plans and then exposing them publicly. Unlike the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was executed almost flawlessly. Even the Germans and other European nations highly dependent on Russian-supplied gas signed onto the playbook.

The U.S. used its intelligence in innovative ways as the crisis built. William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, confronted the Russian government with its own war plans. Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, shared secret intelligence with allied governments to build support for the American assessment. And the White House and State Department shared some declassified intelligence publicly to expose Mr. Putin’s plans for “false flag” operations and deny him the pretext he wanted to invade.

The intelligence disclosures may not be over now that the invasion has begun. The Biden administration has made clear it does not want to take on the job of publicly calling out Russian troop movements. But the United States is considering continuing its information releases, mulling various options to hold Russia accountable for actions it will take in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the discussion.

Those new efforts could involve countering Russian propaganda that they are guardians and liberators of the Ukrainian people, not an occupying force. They could also involve work to expose potential war crimes and try to give the lie to Russian claims that their war aims are limited.

Mr. Putin’s plan to topple the government in Kyiv was his goal from the beginning, American officials have said, and some officials are keen to show Russia is simply carrying out a plan crafted months ago.

“It’s not something you want to do forever or as a permanent feature of policy or it loses its novelty, but in extraordinary, life-or-death situations, it is justified,” said John E. McLaughlin, a former acting C.I.A. director. “I always found in confronting Russians with our knowledge of what they were doing, that they would inevitably deny it but that it threw them off balance to know that we knew. And I think it has rattled Putin this time.”

In the end it was not enough to stop Mr. Putin, though it is not clear what strategy, if any, he might have.

The American effort to reveal Mr. Putin’s plans to the world, has “been a distraction to him, it’s been somewhat annoying,” James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said Wednesday. But, he added, “It remains to be seen what difference it has made on his decision-making.”

Some of information the United States shared with allies, beginning with a trip to NATO by Ms. Haines in November, was initially greeted skeptically, according to Western officials. Many Europeans still remember the bad intelligence around the Iraq war.

But as the information provided grew and the Russian war plan played out as Ms. Haines had predicted, European officials shifted their view. The intelligence-sharing campaign ultimately succeeded in uniting Europe and America on a series of tough sanctions.

Republicans have been critical of Mr. Biden for not being more aggressive in the military supplies it sent to Kyiv or acting earlier to impose stiff sentences on Russia to change Mr. Putin’s course of action.

It will take time to know if more and better weapons could have made a difference for the Ukrainian army’s resistance. But administration officials have said they have had to act judiciously not to escalate the situation and not allow Mr. Putin to use American military supplies as excuse to start the war.

More clearly, American sanctions against Mr. Putin go only so far. It is European sanctions against Russia and its billionaire class that really bite, and it took time, and intelligence, for Europe to come on board with a tough package of sanctions.

While the United States clearly has the some of the best, if not the best, intelligence collection in the world, it also had a reputation that remained tarnished, at home and abroad, by the 2003 Iraq invasion, when faulty information was publicly released to justify the war. While the intelligence community had long been pessimistic about the survival prospects for the U.S.-supported Afghan government, some in the administration criticized the spy agencies last year for not accurately predicting how quickly the country’s military forces would fold.

There is little doubt that reputation increased some of the skepticism of the assessment of Mr. Putin’s intentions, both by reporters questioning public officials for more evidence, and by allies.

The warnings this time were far different, the information released to try to prevent a war, not to start one. But releasing the information was nevertheless a risk. Had it proved wrong, the intelligence agencies would have been saddled with fresh doubts about their ability to collect and properly analyze intelligence about an adversaries’ capabilities and intentions. Their ability to credibly warn against future threats would have diminished.

Instead, the public got a rare glimpse of an intelligence success. It is usually the failures, or partial failures, like Iraq, the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the surveillance of domestic civil rights groups or the Bay of Pigs, that are publicly aired.

But the failures do not mean America’s spy agencies do not have many successes, said Nicholas Dujmovic, a former C.I.A. historian who now teaches at the Catholic University of America.

“This is a rare case that intelligence successes are being made public, and the public should conclude, in my view, that this is rather the norm,” Dr. Dujmovic said. “They are getting a rare glimpse of the normal process and production of intelligence that normally they do not see.”

Most accusations of intelligence failures are failures to properly warn about an attack or to overstate a threat. And it is those warnings that this time proved prescient.

“The warning analysts have the hardest job in analysis because they are trying to figure out intentions — whether the attack will come, when it will come, how it will come,” Dr. Dujmovic said. “The best way to penetrate that fog is with a human source close to the decision maker, in this case, Putin — and it’s also the hardest kind of collection to acquire.”

The intelligence agencies succeeded in divining Mr. Putin’s intentions early on. And that was no easy feat. It is simply not publicly known how strong is America’s source network in Russia or how close those people are to Putin, but it is clear Mr. Putin shares his counsel with very few.

Monday’s televised meeting of Russia’s national security aides showed the foreign intelligence chief being berated by Mr. Putin for failing to endorse recognition of the breakaway enclaves in Eastern Ukraine. Juxtaposed with the months of American disclosures, the scene suggested that people atop America’s spy agencies, for once, may have understood Mr. Putin’s intentions better than his own intelligence officers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tim_Derr and Muse

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,241
37,646
136
Look Putin is not going to turn the keys if Russia is cut off from SWIFT. He'd probably be assassinated if he tried. This has come up before, most recently as an option in 2014. The consequences to their economy while dire are not remotely close to actual thermonuclear incineration that such a drastic response would ensure.
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,859
4,976
126
We should use a drone strike to take out Putin. He's no different than the ISIS or Taliban thugs that we have taken out by drones. While this isn't our fight and we should not send troops to Ukraine, but we could send a couple of dozen fighter jets to take out a good bit of the armaments surrounding Ukraine.

-retracted-
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,710
51,001
136
Look Putin is not going to turn the keys if Russia is cut off from SWIFT. This has come up before, most recently as an option in 2014. The consequences to their economy while dire are not remotely close to actual thermonuclear incineration that such a drastic response would ensure.

And seriously people need to consider what the internal dynamics of Russia actually are. It is certainly true that Putin is the most powerful person in Russia by a long shot, but he relies on the support of a lot of other powerful people to stay in his throne. If he informs the government that his plan is to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the west because they got cut off from a monetary transaction system what do you think those people are going to do? You think they are all going to get themselves incinerated when instead they could just have Putin arrested and killed?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Muse

gothuevos

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2010
2,350
1,877
136
The idea that Putin is going to fire nuclear weapons at the west for being cut off from swift is nonsense. Again, he would probably be overthrown and killed just for suggesting such a thing.

I'm not trying to challenge you, just genuinely curious why you seem so sure of that?
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,360
13,682
146
So it's worth risking a nuclear war?

I think you will find that most people would disagree with you.
If Putin is willing to go to nuclear war because we cut him out of SWIFT, he's going to go to war over a lot of other shit too. In addition, a lack of response will just encourage further invasions, loss of life, and destruction. Sometimes you have to take a stand, even if you think the bully has a knife.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,710
51,001
136
Also as far as I can tell for the actual players involved the concern in cutting Russia off from swift is western organizations being unable to get their money out of Russia, not that Putin will lob nukes everywhere in response, because the idea he would do that is insane.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hal2kilo

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,241
37,646
136
And seriously people need to consider what the internal dynamics of Russia actually are. It is certainly true that Putin is the most powerful person in Russia by a long shot, but he relies on the support of a lot of other powerful people to stay in his throne. If he informs the government that his plan is to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the west because they got cut off from a monetary transaction system what do you think those people are going to do? You think they are all going to get themselves incinerated when instead they could just have Putin arrested and killed?

Putin would likely have a close encounter with several Makarovs if he even so much as reached to issue the orders.
 

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,314
9,170
136
Also as far as I can tell for the actual players involved the concern in cutting Russia off from swift is western organizations being unable to get their money out of Russia, not that Putin will lob nukes everywhere in response, because the idea he would do that is insane.

Yes, UK apparently balked due to losing billions in debt payments. But, western countries write off huge debts all the time for various foreign policy reasons.
 

Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
Moderator
Dec 11, 1999
16,365
4,073
75
We should use a drone strike to take out Putin. He's no different than the ISIS or Taliban thugs that we have taken out by drones. While this isn't our fight and we should not send troops to Ukraine, but we could send a couple of dozen fighter jets to take out a good bit of the armaments surrounding Ukraine.
Because that worked so well with that Iranian general, Soleimani. :rolleyes:
 

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,314
9,170
136
Putin would likely have a close encounter with several Makarovs if he even so much as reached to issue the orders.

US extracts asset

Right. It's a shame we lost the active participation of this asset due to ... incompetence. They'd certainly be useful right now. But, given how spot on we've been in predicting (and announcing to the world in advance, which shows something), I'm not sure we don't have an additional asset that is fairly high up as well.

Based on that, and the videos of Putin dressing down his intel chief, I think we have a pretty good idea of internal politics. At least enough to read potential reactions.
 

NWRMidnight

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2001
3,048
2,654
136
Spare me your misconceptions of what it takes to actually fight a war.
GDP Spending does not equate with SIZE of the military.
200 jets which cost half a billion each does not equate to having men armed and ready to fight.
In 1985 we had 2.2 million active duty military personnel. Today that number is about 1.2 Million.
it took 16 million US troops to fight WW2... you seem to be off by about a factor of 15.
You are ignoring the advancements in weaponry that has allowed us to reduce the military personnel all while increasing our affectedness.
 

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,314
9,170
136
Putin may have fundamentally changed how much pain a lot of people are willing to bear:


Maybe. The earlier report I saw was that it was UK banks/private sector pushing that opinion. But some things would just make that a "yeah, great point about your bottom line but we're dealing with something a bit more important that your shareholders dividends now" discussion.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,360
13,682
146
I wonder... with the correct weather pattern, would a bombardment of Chernobyl act like a dirty bomb over Russia?
It would do far more than that, but... I think Ukraine's enemies would be the primary victims of such an event.
Ehh, maybe, just as likely to just jack up half of Europe though. Plus you gotta have a good way to detonate it. The last time 'round, the whole plant blew up, from the core. Blasting a giant brick of concrete from the outside isn't quite the same thing. You'd probably just irradiate the area (again) and create a multi-decade cleanup operation (again).
 
  • Like
Reactions: hal2kilo and Ken g6

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,314
9,170
136
I wonder... with the correct weather pattern, would a bombardment of Chernobyl act like a dirty bomb over Russia?
It would do far more than that, but... I think Ukraine's enemies would be the primary victims of such an event.

Possible. Depends on what part is damaged. The sarcophagus would be really concerning I'd think.