Greetings friends, it's a long awaited strategic post. War started about three weeks ago between Armenia and Azerbaijan; casualty figures are hard to guess but probably around 20,000 so far between the powers and civilians. Turkey is nominally on Azerbaijan's side but can't just invade Western Armenia or the Russians will intervene immediately touching off a much larger conflict (Russians heavily favored). Reports on the war are infrequent at best since everyone's focused on electing one idiot over another colossal idiot (even in other countries). Thus r/combatfootage is your best bet for live information.
Important things to note: this is the first war with a traditional casus belli (previous territorial acquisition) between two technologically advanced nations in ~26 years (since the last war involving Armenia and Azerbaijan); it's not a civil war and both sides have a reasonable chance of victory barring intervention. A capable commander on either side could easily turn the tide but more likely its a drawn out fight in the contested territory and when one side starts to win the other will call in allies and then it will probably just be like the Syrian Civil War; which is STILL going on with its 500,000 casualties in the past 10 years. War is a thing of the past guys, we solved it. Let's all pat ourselves on the back. Turkey will get obliterated if they actually want to fight Russia, the US will not intervene beyond bombing indiscriminately; I don't think anyone's dumb enough to poke the bear in this case.
On the topic of commanders, the last Great Commander was the old chap Napoleon Bonaparte, my dearest friend. Naps died 199 years ago, just been a bunch of mediocrity since then with some brief flashes of brilliance (Jackson, Lee, Winfield Scott Hancock, Max Hoffmann, Rommel, Slim, Manstein, etc) but no long term consolidation of power or great world spanning campaigns to indicate ascension. With the present world state and highly probable massive wars on the horizon we have to consider what positions are ideal for producing another Napoleon or Alexander or Julius Caesar.
To start with the obvious both Armenia and Azerbaijan are eligible locations, right now most of the fighting is down to drones and artillery but a Tet Offensive style of attack would probably work swimmingly and a counter offensive a la the counterattacks after Kursk or the Hundred Days could demonstrate similar tactical acuity. Where else? China of course, but China is an enormous, comically heavy favorite in any war that doesn't involve crossing the Pacific; if you're an invincible juggernaut it is quite hard to be a GC; need to be in some sort of either even fight or straight underdog situation. China's targets? Taiwan of course, Japan in another 30 years or so; maybe some random places in Indochina. I sort of like the Philippines as a strategic base for further wars so that could make some sense as a target; if any one of these countries emerged victorious then it would probably be due to a Napoleon type.
Extensions of the Armenia/Azerbaijan war? We have Turkey (whose population now numbers 82 million, similar to pre WWII Germany manpower) most obviously, I think if Turkey just massed somewhere around 1.5 million men and sufficient drones/airpower they could take over the entire Middle East in about 6 months with a Six Day War strat, that's a hard as fuck plan to come up with so would be hard to doubt the commander who accomplished it. Russia is a favorite in future wars but not necessarily unassailable, despite their vastly superior head of state and while Putin is great for stabbing you in the back he's not necessarily going to be the best at shooting you in the face (or the side a la Frederick the Great's Oblique Order); and having such a powerful leader would likely reduce the local control of the general staff. Hard to fathom Russia producing a GC soon, but it could happen.
Russia's other targets? Ukraine of course, Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania less likely but not impossible, Ukraine seems like the ideal defensive GC position, underdog but not such an underdog that victory is impossible; relatively good relations with Western Europe. While stifled by Covid I don't think any nation wants to fight a huge war right now which gives incredible advantages to aggressors; isolationism in the US is probably guaranteed for 20+ years and no one seems to give two shits about the Uighur genocide so any tactic is on the table for offensive actors. I doubt Western Europe can stay completely out of any massive conflict entirely so the strategy is probably placate them for as long as possible and then prepare for a NAP breaking Operation Barbarossa style; which you'll recall was an astounding success for the first five months or so.
Not really sure what I can do personally, but I do have financial security so I can certainly be an interested observer for a decade or two. B. H. Liddell Hart perchance?
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