Charles Bartles News Today

Three months into Ukraine’s inching counteroffensive, Russian occupying forces have mostly held their positions, in large part by learning from past mistakes.

Since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time, Russia’s nuclear threats have been stark and consistent. If the war continues, Russia says, Ukraine and the West risk escalation to nuclear conflict. The Russian state, Putin and other Russian leaders argue, faces an existential threat. In October, the Russian government released pictures of President Putin overseeing a training launch of both ballistic and cruise missiles as a part of a major nuclear response.

Russian generals have been active on Ukrainian battlefields, but their role and US generals' role are "apples to oranges," a US official said Monday.

The goal may be to spread terror | Europe

Executive Summary Russia’s General Staff has long-established interests in the analysis of developments in the means and methods of military conflict. In the early Soviet era, military theory, far from being purely academic, proved decisive in shaping the successful defense and survival of the Soviet Union from the onslaught of the invading Nazi German Wehrmacht. In latter decades, several Soviet …

– Sun Tzu While conventional warfare—set-piece battles between large military forces—largely defined twentieth-century conflict between major powers, irregular warfare will likely define international politics over the next year and beyond. Countries like China, Russia, and Iran compete with the United States using irregular methods because conventional and nuclear warfare are far too costly. The tools of irregular warfare are not strategic bombers, main battle tanks, or infantry soldiers...