As I’ve been saying over and over again here (mostly to offset the officials who over-optimistically state Russia can learn or adapt from mistakes) we’re looking at a paper bear going to war in Ukraine.
A dictatorship that destroys imagination and criminalizes innovation, there is little to no chance its troops being trained in how to learn and adapt to any immediate challenge (with the exception of looting and stealing).
The Atlantic now writes this in very exact language from the front lines of war in Ukraine.
He said he had spent much of the past few weeks in the trenches northwest of Kyiv. “The Russians have no imagination,” he said. “They would shell our positions, attack in large formations, and when their assaults failed, do it all over again. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians would raid the Russian lines in small groups night after night, wearing them down.”
It’s proof of both why technology augmentation works so well (human intelligence) and why technology automation is a disaster (human replacement).
“The Russians don’t empower their soldiers,” Zagorodnyuk explained. “They tell their soldiers to go from Point A to Point B, and only when they get to Point B will they be told where to go next, and junior soldiers are rarely told the reason they are performing any task. This centralized command and control can work, but only when events go according to plan. When the plan doesn’t hold together, their centralized method collapses. No one can adapt, and you get things like 40-mile-long traffic jams outside Kyiv.”
This is not to underestimate the suffering caused by Russia.
Just like Nazi Germany, totally ignorant dis-empowered soldiers can commit some of the worst war crimes imaginable and untold destruction of humanity. Even as they fail and falter, plans falling apart, men intent on doing harm can lash out relentlessly and try to take others down with them.
And just like Nazi Germany the war was lost very early, at least by 1942, but they kept fighting anyway for years and committing genocide. Nobody knows what happens next. Things could get worse before they get better. I didn’t even think Russia would invade because to do so is so incredibly stupid and self-defeating. That was my mistake, and I’ve since learned that the Kremlin is even dumber than I had imagined.