Bill Bartlett writes:
> Martin William Smith wrote:
> >> Last time Russia state used military force in Chechnya it was Russian
> >> public opinion that forced them out.
> >
> >I thought it had as much to do with losing.
>
> Did you indeed?
>
> What exactly did they lose? Did the Chechens force them out might
> and main, or did they just inflict heavy casualties?

That's what I meant.  I wasn't clear.  These days, heavy casualties
means losing, because the domestic population won't tolerate heavy
casualties.  I mean in places like the NATO countries and Russia.  I
think it comes from a combination of increased tv coverage and a
large increase in a healthy distrust of government.  You have to do it
the way it was done in Iraq and Yugoslavia.  If there are heavy
casualties among your own forces, you lose.  If there are heavy
casualties among the civilian population of the country you are
invading, you can still win if you succeed in placing all the blame
for those casualties on the other side.

> Why would the Russian state be intimidated by mere heavy casualties
> - they have a conscript army and a large population? Please pay
> attention Martin, if few thousand casualties is not "losing" to the
> Russians - they suffered casualties in the millions in the second
> world war and were victorious, in fact the hgistory of Russia is
> almost a bloody litany of outrageous casualties that makes their
> losses in Chechnya pale not only into insignificance, but make
> Chechnya seem like a stunning victory!

That was then, this is now.  Russia wasn't invading in WWII.  Russia
was invaded.  They were fighting for their home land.  They viewed
those casualties as honorable patriots.

> There must be factors other than mere military ones at work here,
> surely?

Yes, there are.  Public opinion *is* important.  That's why
departments of defense have learned to manipulate it.

> >> Russia is not saying it wants to bomb Chechens, it is saying it is
> >> bombing terrorists. The Russian people want the terrorists dealt
> >> with. Bombing the bombers sounds like reasonable
> >> self-defense. Bombing people who bomb you is not necessarily immoral
> >> in most people's eyes.
> >
> >NATO said it didn't want to bomb Serbs.  It said it wanted to destroy
> >the Serb military, which was oppressing the Kosovars.  Bombing the
> >military sounded like a reasonable way to do that.
>
> Exactly, you seem to agree that military action must be accompanied by
> political support if it is to succeed. That was my point re Chechnya - the
> Russians didn't enjoy such political support when the earlier sent the
> troops into Chechnya. Thus they failed, not because they didn't have the
> military force, of course they did, but because the Russian people didn't
> support the adventure.

I agree with that.

> But to interpret that as a purely military failure, an indication that the
> Chechens can defeat the Russian military under different political
> circumstances, would be a big mistake. As big a mnistake as believing that
> the US defeat in Vietnam means that any third-world country can defeat the
> US militarily by force of arms alone.

I didn't interpret it as a purely military failure.  I said "I thought
it had as much to do with losing." "as much to do with" means it was
partly military failure and partly lack of political support.  If they
had succeeded the way Desert Storm did, the political support would
not have wilted, or it wouldn't have mattered.

> The politcal terrain is crucial, the moral "high ground" confers a
> significant strategic advantage.

They don't have moral high ground.

> [...]
>
> >So the Russian PR campaign is successful.  The Russian people think
> >that such a high percentage of Chechens are terrorists that it makes
> >sense to bomb them.  They have even forgotten the fact that the
> >terrorist bombers aren't even in Chechnya to be bombed.  They're in
> >Russia blowing up buildings.
>
> You reckon the Russian people must be as stupid as Americans? ;-) I mean,
> NATO bombed Serbia proper, despite the fact that the people doing the
> actual atrocities were in Kosovo at the time - everyone understood that the
> idea was to attack the head of the beast.

It began as an attack on purely military targets that was intended to
disable the ability of the Serb army to operate in Kosovo.  The same
logic does not apply to terrorist bombings.  There is no head of the
beast.  The terrorists probably buy their explosives at a Moscow garden
store.

> Seriously, whether the campaign is successful is yet to be decided. I can't
> predict that because I don't have much insight into the mood of the Russian
> people, let alone what the actual facts are. I'm just discussing the
> general strategic implications of politics, not predicting the
> outcome.

So am I.