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BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
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War
�BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
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War

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The Russian Donbass Is Here to Stay
•�March 7, 2021
•�1,400 Words •�370 Comments
There's renewed rumors of war in the Donbass. But I don't think it's happening for a multitude of different reasons: Polls suggest that since around 2019 an outright majority of the LDNR wants direct union with Russia (<10% want independent, 12% want reintegration into Ukraine). The region is increasingly integrated into Russia de facto. The... Read More
Military Lessons of Karabakh War 2020
•�November 12, 2020
•�2,100 Words •�99 Comments
So it emerges that I was justified in posting this graph so often. At the end of the day, the blunt and banal facts of the matter were as follows: In 1992-94, Azerbaijan was a disorganized, demoralized, and dysfunctional state with a <50% advantage in comprehensive military power (CMP) over Armenia. In 2020, Azerbaijan was... Read More
Karabakh War 2020: 16 Days
•�October 13, 2020
•�800 Words •�159 Comments
It's been 16 days since the start of Karabakh War II. 524 Armenian dead As mentioned, the Azeris are keeping their losses under wraps, but 619 have been ID'ed from social media. Since social media analysis isn't going to catch all the Azeri losses, we can conclude that the Azeri losses are twice as high... Read More
Karabakh War 2020: Taking Stock 5 Days In
•�October 2, 2020
•�1,700 Words •�494 Comments
Just like the Balkan Wars before World War I, there are interesting lessons to be drawn from the conflict, and as such I find it rather fascinating - if not surprising, given the quality of our chattering class - that it has receiving such scant journalistic and analytical attention. This is not just an insurgency... Read More
Russia's Options in Artsakh War II
•�September 28, 2020
•�800 Words •�272 Comments
Who should Russia support in this conflict? By treaty, Russia is not obliged to do anything, at least so long as Azerbaijan (or Turkey) do not violate Armenia's internationally recognized borders, of which Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh is not a part. And while neither Azerbaijan nor Turkey can be remotely considered Russia's friends, they both have a substantial... Read More
HABBENING: Armenia & Azerbaijan Close to War
•�September 27, 2020
•�500 Words •�173 Comments
2020 keeps getting more powerful as the clashes in July have suddenly crescendoed with reports of large-scale Azeri attacks on the Artsakh frontlines and Azeri shelling of the Armenian enclave's capital of Stepanakert. This now seems to be a bigger thing than your typical serious border scuffle, which happens once every few years and kills... Read More
Making Sense of Russia's Arms Binge
•�February 21, 2012
•�1,200 Words •�15 Comments
In the wake of Putin's article on national security for Rossiyskaya Gazeta, there has been renewed interest in Russia's ambitious military modernization plans for the next decade. I am not a specialist in this (unlike Dmitry Gorenberg and Mark Galeotti, whom I highly recommend), but I do think I can bring much-needed facts and good... Read More
Putin the Peaceful?
•�November 15, 2011
•�200 Words •�78 Comments
At least, surely more so than Obama, winner of 2009's Nobel Peace Prize. Let's do it by the numbers. Russia under Putin fought one war, in response to Georgian aggression against Ossetians with Russian citizenship and UN-mandated Russian peacekeepers. In contrast, Obama has participated in two wars of aggression: the Iraq War he inherited from... Read More
REPRINT: Wikileaks and the South Ossetia War
•�December 24, 2010
•�2,200 Words •�12 Comments
Though I originally meant to write my own analysis of what the Wikileaks cables have contributed to our understanding of the 2008 South Ossetia War, I realized that I would essentially be trying to duplicate the excellent efforts of Patrick Armstrong. (See also the New York Times article Embracing Georgia, U.S. Misread Signs of Rifts).... Read More
Chechnya, A Once and Future War?
•�December 5, 2010
•�7,900 Words •�7 Comments
Truly, if Willian Burns were to issue an anthology of his Moscow cables during his 2005-2008 ambassadorship, I'd seriously consider buying it. Just consider this cable from May 2006, on Chechnya's "Once and Future War", a nuanced US view of that conflict and the cynicism and corruption it engendered amongst all its parties. What struck... Read More
Why Russia and China Won't Fight
•�October 17, 2010
•�1,500 Words •�50 Comments
Every so often there appear claims, not only in the Western press but the Russian one, that (rising but overpopulated) China is destined to fight an (ailing and creaking) Russia for possession of its resources in the Far East*. For reasons that should be obvious, this is almost completely implausible for the next few decades.... Read More
Russia Updates: Luzhkov, Rearmament, GDP
•�October 2, 2010
•�1,000 Words •�13 Comments
As you may have noticed, posting has slowed down in the past few days, mostly thanks to a combination of (1) Kindle, (2) 中文 and (3) the natural periods of apathy that afflict most non-pro bloggers. I don't really see that changing until the end of the year... 1. Sayonara, Luzhkov. Props to Jesse Heath... Read More
Review of “the Lucifer Principle” (H. Bloom), or: Fascism Is the Natural State
•�July 15, 2010
•�2,800 Words •�20 Comments
Depressingly fatalist, morbidly truthful, irresistibly Nietzschean. That's Howard Bloom's "The Lucifer Principle" in a nutshell: a meandering trawl through disciplines such as genetics, psychology and culture that culminates in a theory of evil, purporting to explain its historical necessity, its creative potential and the possibility of it ever being vanquished. The odds do not appear... Read More
Augmented Reality Warfare
•�May 21, 2010
•�2,800 Words •�6 Comments
In this installment of my series on future war, I'll be taking a holistic view of ground combat. Unlike the case for naval warfare, which is going to be revolutionized by new weapons platforms - railguns, battle lasers, and submersible arsenal ships - developments on the ground are slated to be more low-key, albeit no... Read More
Reconciling Stalin with Victory
•�May 9, 2010
•�2,100 Words •�32 Comments
За нас за вас и за десант и за спецназ! I would like to start off by expressing my deepest respects to the Red Army veterans who fought and died so that (literally) hundreds of millions of their Slavic brethren could live. Вечная слава героям! Last year I discussed four myths about the Eastern Front,... Read More
Revolution in Naval Warfare
•�May 9, 2010
•�3,200 Words •�17 Comments
A few days ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired a warning shot across the bow of the US Navy, questioning its "need" to maintain 11 carrier strike groups. He justified this on the basis of 1) "the massive over-match the U.S. already enjoys", 2) "the growing anti-ship capabilities of adversaries", and 3) the huge... Read More
Prophets of the Great War: Friedrich Engels, Ivan Bloch, and Pyotr Durnovo
•�May 5, 2010
•�3,300 Words •�7 Comments
Though there are plenty of caveats and exceptions, it is safe to generalize that predictions of what the "next war" was going to be like before 1914 were completely inaccurate. The Great War would not be the quick, clean affair typical of the wars of German unification in the 1860's-70's or the sensationalist literature of... Read More
Review of "War and Peace and War" by Peter Turchin
•�April 8, 2010
•�2,500 Words •�21 Comments
Then you might get something like Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War, which I've finally read on the recommendations of Kolya and TG. Ranging from Ermak's subjugation of the Sibir Khanate to the rise of Rome, Turchin makes the case that the rise and fall of empires is reducible to three basic concepts: 1)... Read More
How a Second Korean War Will be Fought
•�March 28, 2010
•�4,800 Words •�43 Comments
The recent sinking of a South Korean (ROK) corvette, with the probable deaths of several dozen sailors, brings to focus the fraught situation on the Korean peninsula. Now the cause of this incident - North Korean (DPRK) torpedo or tragic accident - is not yet clear. Moreover, the two sides have a long history of... Read More
On Future War
•�February 18, 2010
•�9,200 Words •�18 Comments
This post is about the future of military technology and war strategy in a world of informatization, resource scarcity, and renewed ideological turbulence. Be forewarned: while some of what I write here corresponds to the conventional wisdom, some is well off the beaten tracks, and some will sound like it's straight out of a sci-fi... Read More
Regathering of the Russian Lands
•�January 27, 2010
•�4,700 Words •�14 Comments
I have long noted Russia's resurgence back into the ranks of the leading Great Powers; I predicted that the global economic crisis will not have a long-term retarding impact on the Russian economy; and within the past year I have bought into Stratfor's idea that the defining narrative now in play in Eurasia is Russia's... Read More
Thinking About Nuclear War
•�November 5, 2009
•�8,000 Words
I have always been fascinated by nuclear war. Mountain bunkers, missile gaps, MAD, - what is there not to like? So this post will be devoted to the doomsday weapons which continue tantalizing us with visions of post-nuclear nirvana. Because yes, despite the post-Cold War reduction in the Russian and US arsenals (consisting mostly of... Read More
Violence Is Reality
•�October 11, 2009
•�2,500 Words •�15 Comments
Realism has been falling out of favor since the end of the Cold War, condemned by the Kumbaya crowd, avoided by the liberal, PC-gone-wild intelligentsia, and denigrated by "end of history" ideologues (many of whom all too cynically remain realists while cloaking it under the mantle of "liberal interventionism"). What they all have in common... Read More
The Genesis of Total War
•�September 8, 2009
•�2,400 Words
In the summer of 1914, the world was integrated as never before. Despite its simmering tensions and conscript armies, the European continent had open borders, a shared respect for private property and rule of law, and dynastic ties that bound its monarchs together – most poignantly represented by the pageantry surrounding the funeral of Edward... Read More
New Russia-Georgia War?
•�August 4, 2009
•�1,500 Words •�44 Comments
Whispers of war are heard in the Caucasus, as the anniversary of last year's South Ossetian War approaches. Will the guns of August be fired in anger to mark the occasion? Here are some things we need to keep in mind when analyzing this: It was Georgia that attacked South Ossetia last year, mere hours... Read More
The Western Media, Craven Shills for Their Neocon Masters
•�August 10, 2008
•�2,200 Words •�11 Comments
I noted in my first post, Flare-Up in the Caucasus, Well, I'm retracting it now. The propaganda model has been kicked into high gear in the West and turned squarely against Russia. Although it is acceptable for Georgia to attack Ossetia, with callous disregard for the lives of Russian citizens and UN-mandated peacekeepers (not to... Read More
"War" Items Across Entire Archive
Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.