https://serfdomalley.com/videos/watch/395be876-060b-455b-8579-6d66eaeda6ca In this video, my first substantive one, I lay out my theory of conventional deterrence and use it to explain Russian thinking in the run up to the war in Ukraine as well why the war has taken the form it has over the past 4+ years. The key question I address is: why wasn’t Russia deterred from attacking Ukraine? After all, Russia did not have a large and finely-tuned army and the West had gone to substantial lengths to arm and train the Ukrainian army between February 2014 and February 2022. This was not a case of Bambi versus Godzilla. So, why did conventional deterrence fail in this case? ———————————————————— REFERENCE Buy Conventional Deterrence Here: https://amzn.to/450DPRh (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.) ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 0:00 Introduction 0:31 Overview: Russia, Ukraine & Conventional Deterrence 3:25 What is Conventional Deterrence? 5:20 The Military Variable: Three Strategies 8:52 Which Military Strategies Deter and Which Fail 11:34 The Limited-Aim Strategy Explained 13:23 The Political Variable and The Pressure To Go to War 15:30 The Political Variable: Sinai Peninsula 1973 & Pearl Harbor 1941 18:43 Turning to Ukraine: The Conventional Wisdom 22:07 Why the "Russian Blitzkrieg" Story Is Wrong 28:38 What Actually Happened: A Limited-Aim War 34:53 Summary & Conclusions ———————————————————— MUSIC "The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original. Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:32:46 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://serfdomalley.com https://serfdomalley.com/client/assets/images/icons/icon-512x512.png https://serfdomalley.com/videos/watch/395be876-060b-455b-8579-6d66eaeda6ca All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://serfdomalley.com/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.