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Phillips P. Obrien lays out how Ukraine is changing warfare, and Trump's fear of Russia [1]
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Date: 2025-06-07
Phillips P. O’Brien summarizes The War In A Nutshell.
Ukraine has been able to attack strategic targets that do real damage to Russia’s war-fighting ability — those lost Russian aircraft cannot be replaced. The best Russia has been able to do in return is carry out more attacks against civilian targets. The implications are not insignificant.
A military establishment dependent on extremely expensive and complex weapons systems is being systematically decimated by relatively simple and inexpensive drones. Every military in the world now has to adapt to this new reality. (It has also changed the way ground combat has to be fought.) Ukraine also managed to attack the Kerch Bridge, several Russian military bases, and rail infrastructure vital for logistics.
The financial cost overall of the Russian operation would have been exponentially more than the Ukrainian operations—and achieved far less. It is really an example of the war fighting strategies of the two states in a nutshell. Ukraine is having to be resourceful within strict limits, using brainpower to make up for the lack of sophisticated equipment, and is focussing on Russia’s ability to wage war by attacking military targets. The Russians are using billions of dollars of equipment, much of it as part of a terror campaign.
Obrien also takes time to critique the belief that Trump would be harder on Russia than Biden was, pointing out that Trump seems to be even more terrified of Russian escalation than Biden ever was. (Given the whole Krasnov hypothesis of Trump as a Russian asset, and the possibility of kompromat on Trump, is it a surprise?) Obrien notes the Biden attempts to keep Ukraine on a leash prolonged the war and allowed Russia to continue its aggression. Trump is even more reluctant to allow Ukraine to act.
In decades to come, the study of how the US, because of a deep-seated timidity, lost the greatest chance it has received in many decades to improve its strategic position, will be the focus of some of the most depressing studies of US foreign policy ever written.
There’s a bill in the Senate that would impose more sanctions on Russia; Trump is trying to block it behind the scenes. Anyone who believe Trump’s tough talk about Russia is real needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
Read The Whole Thing — O’Brien is making it all available. There’s a lot to unpack, which you won’t get in short news cycle reports. Obrien has included a number of links to more material.
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