I thought I’d put these recent predictions, made in the aftermath of the Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkiv region, on the record for future consideration. One can’t help but wonder what they would have made of the apparent success of the Ardennes Offensive if they had been there to observe it unfolding in 1944.
“A much bigger Russian collapse will unfold in the coming days.”
— Francis Fukuyama
“No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it, no amount of annexation, no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get Putin out of this particular situation. He is losing, and the battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible.”
— Gen. David Petraeus
“This is a tremendous victory for the Ukrainians. And it’s a victory that I think that they could turn into a cascading series of defeats of Russian forces. What we might be at here is really at the precipice of really the collapse of the Russian army in Ukraine.”
— Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster
“I think that everything we’ve seen is suggestive of a near collapse of the Soviet military, like a near total collapse, and I think that the United States and NATO probably sees that this is an opportunity for a complete collapse of the Russian military and they’re going to take it… I think the battle for Ukraine is over.”
— Scott Adams
“The success of the Ukrainian offensives are the result of Novorussian military forces falling back in preparation for a major Russian winter offensive that will envelop the advanced Ukrainian positions, place considerably more Ukrainian land under Russian control than before, and put significant pressure on the Kiev regime to leave Ukraine. This will happen before the end of the year and may be accompanied by a formal declaration of war and followed by the opening of a second front in a different theater.”
— Vox Day
We’ll revisit these predictions in a few months, determine whose predictions were better, and analyze why they went awry.