Interesting article, thanks. The Borg bit at the end made me laugh. He makes lots of good points.
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Maclean’s spoke to Dr. Eric Ouellet, a professor at the Royal Military College’s Department of Defense Studies in Toronto and an expert on insurgencies. Ouellet broke down what might be in store for the Russians and why, if Putin is at all rational, he should avoid it at all costs.
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Q: Why do you think a Ukrainian insurgency will be so costly for the Russians?
A: Well, the best way to understand what the Russians face is to look at what makes an insurgency successful. There are three main ingredients. One is legitimacy. The insurgent force has to be seen as legitimate by the population. That way they get all the logistics support they need—hiding weapons, hiding people, helping with transportation, money, recruits, etc. So that’s one aspect that makes Ukraine very strong from the get go.
The second characteristic is the insurgency’s actual capacity to inflict damage. In Ukraine, they have a very high level because of the military training they have received from countries like Canada, as well as the fighting in the Donbas region, where you have had independent Ukrainian battalions made up of volunteers. These people are still around, and they have real military experience.
The last characteristic of a successful insurgency is external support. Again, Ukraine is really starting at a very high level. The international community has shown that it is ready to back a long-term insurgency. All the pieces are in place. If the Russians try to go all the way–take Kyiv and Kharkiv and the rest of the country–and put a puppet government in place, that government will have zero legitimacy; it will face a very well-organized insurgency that has deep support.
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Q: Can an insurgency win here? Or what does winning look like?
A: One of the things a lot of people often misunderstand about an insurgency is that it is not about winning militarily; it is always about politics. The goal of the insurgents is to change the strategic thinking of their enemy.
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Q: It’s hard to imagine the Russians didn’t consider an insurgency. In fact, President Joe Biden warned back in December that the U.S. would support an insurgency if Russia occupied Ukraine. So what was Putin thinking?
A: I think he just made errors in calculation. First, he really underestimated the Ukrainian military. He really thought Russia would do a blitzkrieg and it would be over. He was like the Borg in Star Trek, saying: You will be assimilated; resistance is futile. That was the first miscalculation.
The second miscalculation was he underestimated the west’s ability to unite in its actions against Russia. Again, Russia is an autocratic country so decision making happens with Putin and his close buddies. Errors of calculus become more likely when there are fewer people involved in thinking through an issue.
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Why Russia should fear the coming insurgency in Ukraine
️Ukraine’s Air Force, along with units of the army and territorial defense, destroyed a large Russian military convoy near the city of Bashtanka in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region.