This is a print follow-on to my well-received (thank you, loyal fans) video critique of Tucker's interview on Ex-Twitter.
It is amazing that Carlson, who has a reputation as a fairly sober and diligent newsman, takes this man seriously. He should know better than to believe the things that McGregor claims. They are obviously false. Things that cannot be.
Tucker certainly has access to the same information sources as you and me, including all of McGregor's past prognostications. I compiled a list myself and posted them here for just the past four months. There were 593 forecasts, just about all of them wrong. Tucker should have the ability to discover the same thing for himself.
The prewar size of the Russian and Ukrainian armies were fairly well known: 900,000 and 200,000. There are international organizations such as Jane's that keep track of these things. The CIA certainly knows the approximate size of the armies.
If McGregor's figures were right, 400,000 dead on the Ukrainian side, it would be twice their prewar manpower. It would have wiped out their prewar Army two times over. Ukraine would be reduced to nothing but recruits. There obviously are many skilled warriors left. They still have a cadre capable of leading and training the present Army. McGregor's has to be wrong.
On the other hand, McGregor puts Russia's losses of about 50 or 60,000. If this were the case, Russia would have had no need for the massive conscription of "mobiks." He would've had no need to press virtually all of the young men from Lugansk, Donetsk and Crimea into the Army. There would be no question of the Slavs in Moscow and Petersburg leaving the country in droves to avoid conscription. Those numbers did not make sense.
If Ukraine's losses were as great as claimed, they should have lost battles and territory. In fact, after the losses in Russia's initial onslaught of February, March and April 2022, Ukraine has been regaining ground. It has been slow because the Russians are a formidable foe. More than that, Russia's traditional focus has been defense, and they are now defending their ill-gotten gains. However, if the Russians were as invincible as McGregor would have them, they would have no need for defense. Ukraine would be already conquered. What McGregor says simply makes no sense.
The Ukrainian military bloggers whom I follow, Denis Davidov, The Russian Dude, and Reporting From Ukraine report daily on individual battles. They name the towns of Bakhmut, Urozhaina, Staromayorsk, Kozari Lageri, and so on. They report on the individual gains and losses in each. Col. McGregor never goes into this level of particulars. He simply says that Russia will win. Russia is invincible. Russia will sweep over Ukraine. He ignores the fact that detail level reporting from the battlefront does not show Russia winning.
McGregor claims that Russia under Putin is a very different society than Russia under the Soviets. In his interview with Tucker, he said the Soviet Union was corrupt, backwards, and ineffective. He claims that Putin has totally revamped the society and the military in particular making it much more effective.
Many leaders throughout Russia's history at least going back to Alexander the Great have noticed systematic failings in the Russian hierarchy and military and have tried to correct them. There is rampant corruption, a flaw common to armies throughout the world.
However, within Russian society there is a level of deceit that is unique. It has been reported on by Europeans since the Marquis de Custine two centuries ago. Zinoviev satirized it in Homo Sovieticus.
We recognize it; the corruption that pervades Russia also taints Ukraine. It is described in the book I reviewed 12 years ago How Russia Really Works. The book was valuable to me because it describes how Russia worked before, how it still worked under Putin, and how much of Ukraine works. McGregor is simply wrong, vastly off-base, when he claims that Putin has changed Russian society. No, Russian society has not changed.
Prigozhin's plane blowing up a day or two after Tucker's interview aired is a graphic demonstration of how Russia really works. Like the Mafia.
Another indication of this is the frequent changes of leadership in the Russian army. Generals are sacked right and left. The FSB is reportedly at odds with top generals Shoigu and Gerasimov. The People's Republics likewise. And the oligarchs. Putin has to play a balancing game. He cannot let any of them get too powerful. He has to have them counterbalance each other in order to maintain his own position.
This constant shuffling is counterproductive. Russia's war effort would benefit a great deal by having more cohesion, more unity of purpose among the military. However, Putin personally cannot afford to let that happen. It would make him vulnerable.
I'm not the only one to put these observations into writing. Tucker should be familiar with the people I cite. If they are wrong, he should rebut them. To take what McGregor says as gospel is just plain stupid, and Tucker is not a stupid man. What is going on?
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where our Independence Day was delightfully free of Russian fireworks.
What's remarkable is that the Doctor from New Zealand who I had been following on Substack actually recommended MacGregor to me as a good source for information. Until that time, I had great respect for the Doctor, but afterwards I realized that he truly lacked analytical ability. No discernment at all. I have since deleted my contact with this Doctor.
Those of us who have spent considerable time in Ukraine and Russia know a bit more about what is happening on the ground there than the average bear. MacGregor is a complete idiot. Why anybody listens to him is a mystery to me.
Can't account for Tucker's obsession with MacGregor. Earlier I understood Tucker worrying about US troop involvement. Then he seemed to find MacGregor who has declared Russia wins perhaps to suggest the US/EU ought to give up such a lost cause. Don't think Ukraine agrees. Meanwhile the US/EU have discovered that munition production and "just-in-time" are incompatible. Whether that deficiency can be resolved as a deterrent to China is unclear. Kissinger's desire for national economic interdependence as a way to avoid war seems broken. If the Russians are hell bent to destroy their economy, so they shall go. We all need Russian resources but there are alternatives.
Quite agree that professionals of the ISW are much better informed than COL Mac Gregor - note the COL part, he failed in thre politics of becoming a GEN despite the US having more Generals than even in WW2. Maybe he has a ax to grind.