How This Ends

There is only one way that the war in Ukraine will end.  The complete elimination of the Russian Federation's ability to wage conventional war.  

This of course entails an utter and complete humiliation of the Russian leadership and Putin himself.  It requires that Russia be reduced in status to a level more befitting its economic and technological ability.  

Such a degradation is absolutely necessary because anything less is simply a chance for Russia to rearm and continue the conflict 5 or 10 years later.  If Ukraine is successful enforcing a Russian retreat out of the currently occupied territories this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Western oil companies will develop the oil gas and coal fields that this war is all about.  That will lead to a collapse of the Russian economy, their GDP reduced in half due to the inability to export fossil fuels to Europe as Ukraine replaces Russia as the main supplier.  In such circumstances Russia will be unable to rearm itself, and meanwhile Ukraine will prosper with the windfall from the fossil fuel exports and continue its leap forward as a nation of high technology and high-tech manufacturing that began in 2014.

This will be ruinous for the Russian elite as the foundation of their economy crumbles beneath their feet.  However, the effect on the Russian people will be somewhat less given that so many of them already live in destitute conditions.  There are three different ways for the Russian people to move forward after such a defeat.

The first is to continue to subject themselves to the name propaganda pushed out by the government controlled media in Russia.  This will result in an even greater brain drain from Russia as anyone with ability or means will flee the country and those left behind will find themselves living in a new North Korea.  

The second is the slow revolution, as if hitting a reset button back to 1991 and Russia will suffer another decade or more of lawlessness and floundering as it attempts to find its own path forward.  By the time it emerges from the "wild decade", fossil fuels will be a thing of the past but perhaps they will make up the difference with lithium reserves or titanium, or some other natural resource.  The Russian people will have to fight all the same battles that they have fought for the last 30 years all over again.

The last one is the one that is best for everyone involved, except the Russian elite of course.  That is that the Russian people do what the Ukrainians did in 2014 and throw off the shackles of their history, liberalize their values and their economy and embrace the 21st century instead of the 19th.  Belarus came close to this a few months ago, and it seems to be the trend for all of the former Soviet states in Europe.  It remains to be seen whether Russia is European enough to move forward.

I think that we will start to see increasingly rapid advances by the Ukrainian forces within the occupied territories.  Well the number of artillery units still fastly favors the Russian side, the Ukrainian artillery has more accurate targeting based on Western intelligence, it has greater range, and it has more competent gun crews.  Additionally, the Ukrainian artillerists are targeting military targets which degrade Russia's ability to fight, while much of Russian artillery is wasted on civilian targets, which will make rebuilding more difficult, but will not break the spirit of Ukraine and don't result in any advantages on the battlefield.

At some point the Ukrainian advances will cause even greater demoralization among the Russian troops who will start to fear the Ukrainians defending their homeland more than their own officers who shoot them in the back if they refuse to fight.  Many of the Russian officers may also begin to see the light and realize that with the world aligned against Russia there is no victory in sight.

Russia's Desperation

 

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): Russia is entering a state of desperation, and strikes against civilian targets will intensify in coming weeks.  Americans should exercise enhanced caution for the next three weeks and expect many strikes against civilian targets throughout the country, including the L’viv region.

 

Longer version:

 

Given the recent barrage of cruise missiles the Russians have launched in Ukraine, I assess the security situation in the country has worsened significantly for the next few weeks.  The G7 meetings over the last week were disastrous for the Russian cause, where the leaders of the world’s largest economies expressed strong support for Ukraine, stating that their support, both military and financial, would remain until the conflict is resolved on terms set by the Ukrainian government.  The Ukrainian government has stated that their goal is to return to the 1991 borders, to include Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk in their entirety.  Additionally, Russia is feeling pressure as NATO conducts exercises in Georgia near Russian occupied territory, and Lithuania has stood firm against the EU with the “blockade” of Kaliningrad.  The NATO rapid response force is increasing eightfold to 300,000 troops.

 

Тhe war in Ukraine is unwinnable by Russia.  Over the last week around a dozen large Russian ammunition depots have been destroyed in the occupied territories with the longer range artillery that the USA has recently delivered to Ukraine and has just recently seen first use on the battlefield.  Multiple long range systems are already in Ukraine, and many more on the way, with French, German and UK systems being fielded over the next month.  While the quantity is still far less than the Russians possess, the quality, greater range, and vastly improved targeting make them far more effective.  Ukraine is receiving a nearly unfiltered feed of intelligence information from the UK and USA, and can now target command posts, ammo depots, and other strategic targets with near impunity, and has been doing so very effectively in the past few days. 

 

Meanwhile, Russia has been unable to effectually target military objectives within Ukraine, instead focusing on eroding the civilian infrastructure and degrading the will to fight.  This is a terrible miscalculation on Russia’s behalf, as they are hoping to induce a state of panic and desperation, but instead are only hardening the resolve of the Ukrainian people and the civilized countries of the world who support Ukraine.

 

It is critical to account for Russia’s interests in this conflict.  When Ukraine gains control over the occupied territories a countdown timer will start for Russia, and when the timer gets to zero the Russian economy will collapse.  Western fossil fuel interests are poised to develop the oil and gas fields in Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which, while small compared to the total Russian reserves, are more than enough for Ukraine to replace Russia as Europe’s source of fossil fuels.  This spells disaster for Russia, whose economy is propped up by fossil fuel exports to Europe, a sector that cannot be replaced in the near term.  Even before the war the Russia-China pipeline was operating at capacity, and the loss of European demand and renegotiated oil prices on Chinese terms at far below market value severely threaten the Russian economy.

 

Russia cannot gain meaningful military victories on the battlefield against Ukraine.  While they make minor territorial gains in the Donbass region, they are losing ground in the South near Kherson and have suffered tremendous losses in the three week battle for the city of Severodonetsk.  Within Russia itself there have been dozens of fires at critical military infrastructure points associated with the war in Ukraine, including military manufacturing facilities, ammunition storage sites, and several train derailments of military supplies headed for the front. 

 

To their own disadvantage Russia has exhausted the world’s patience with negotiation, broken treaties and bad-faith arrangements which are honored by the Kremlin only until Russia can gain the upper hand.  Ukraine rightly assumes that no treaty or agreement with Russia can be held in good faith, and only the total destruction of Russia’s ability to wage war can end the conflict.  The war in Ukraine is an existential conflict for Russia – a loss of the Crimean Peninsula and Donbass region would be a critical blow that would take decades to recover from.  Russia’s only remaining strategy is to target civilian infrastructure and attempt to force Ukraine to sue for peace at terms where Russia will maintain at least partial control of the occupied territories.  Ukraine’s resolve, however, shows no signs of abatement, and despite losses the Ukrainian army has been very effective. 

 

I still assess the use of nuclear weapons as unlikely, but my faith in my own assessment is at a low point.  The consequences of using nuclear weapons, even at the tactical or operational level against military targets, would be far more disastrous for Russia than even the war-induced sanctions and isolation so far.  The Russian choice is stark – give up one-third of their economy and a total loss of their influence on European affairs, or use nuclear weapons and hope that the world sues for peace. 

Tomorrow - Kyiv

Russia's big assault on Kyiv is coming tomorrow, or maybe in two or three days.  With Russian supply lines what they are, who knows?

This will be pivotal.  This is where Ukraine wins or loses, and it seems that Zelensky has laid out his plans accordingly and Kyiv is well defended. 

We've seen quite a bit about grandma's and breweries making molotovs (banderevsky smoothies) but have yet to see them in action, at least on the telegram channels I follow.  The attack on Kyiv seems to provide the optimal conditions for such weapons, along with, of course, the javelins and other anti-tank weapons the west had provided.  A city of tall apartment blocks surrounding wide streets, a veritable shooting gallery for the defenders.  Every balcony a sniper's nest, every rooftop a platform for RPG's.  A modern, densely populated metropolis like Kyiv is every infantry commander's worst nightmare.  

Then you have the column, trapped on the roads because of bad vehicle maintenance, plagued by delays and disruptions, and highly vulnerable to attack by Ukrainian drones and SU-24s, as Russia has yet to attain control of the skies.  

I say the attack will begin in the next 72 hours - it may not end for many days, of it ever gets off the ground at all.  Were I a Russian soldier in that predicament, I would sooner face the wrath of my commander than the vengeance of the 🔱 trident.  I would sooner take my chances as a POW than on the urban battlefield.  Hungry, cold, and wet, the attackers are demoralized, confused, and in apparent disarray.  Only a madman would order such an attack, which is why I'm sure it's coming.  For the sake of the abused and discarded Russian soldiers, I hope it never actualizes.  For the sake of the future of Ukraine, I hope the Russians come in at full force and hot the iron will of the defenders, and the waves of attackers are milled against the paving stones.

However, a Ukrainian victory in Kyiv is not yet a Ukrainian victory.  To the south the true targets of Russian aggression remain under Putin's clenched fist - the water supply to Crimea (and the peninsula itself), and the gas fields of Donbas.  To retake these requires a regrouping of forces, and a concentrated push led from Kyiv that will leave the capitol less heavily fortified, should Russia muster more forces to the north.

I hope for a severe humiliation of Russia, brought about by the will and patriotism of the blue and gold.  The fog of war clouds all, and it's anyone's guess as to how things will turn out.

is Putin MAD?

MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - is the theory that kept the world alive during the cold war. Despite overly aggressive American diplomacy immediately post WW2, once Russia got the bomb things started to cool down. By the late 60s the number of bombs, delivery systems, and destruction level was so great that a use at scale by either side meant the end of human civilization. If Russia launched, so would America, and vice versa. Limited use made no sense, as the enemy's response would no doubt be greater, and the only was to survive was to take out the other sides weapons before they can launch.

If the enemy thinks that they can take out your missiles before you get a chance to launch then there is nothing to deter them from launching their own missiles. Therefore, you make it so that there is no way that they can take out your missiles before you get a chance to launch. For this you need early warning systems, which both sides have. There are satellites in space with infrared detectors which will see the exhaust from ballistic missiles as soon as they are launched. There are massive radars which monitor the sky for the approach of strategic bombers and the warheads as they fly through space. There are other systems in place as well, but radar and heat sensing are the main ones used to give both sides warning should one side decide to use their weapons.

Which it brings us to the Nuclear Triad. Nuclear bombs can be delivered to their targets in a variety of different ways. The first is when they are launched from a silo, (шахтная установка), or in the case of Russia there are also mobile transporter-erector-launchers (TEL), basically massive trucks with a nuclear missile on the back. The silos are underground protected by several feet of steel and concrete and are very difficult to destroy. The TELs are constantly on the move and you have to know where they are if you're going to destroy them.  

The second type of missiles are launched from the water, from the ballistic missile submarines. The idea with the submarines is that the other side will never know exactly where the submarine is and so the submarine can launch before the enemy can destroy it. In the days of the Cold War it was possible for each side to have several ballistic missile submarines at sea at once. Now however, Russia has only a handful of submarines and only a portion of them actually work. America's task is to follow those ballistic missile submarines with their own hunter killer submarines and sink the Russian sub with a torpedo before it can launch. Given that America has 70 plus nuclear submarines and Russia only about a dozen, Russia's leg of this stool is fairly weak. But remember, the Russian submarine only needs to survive long enough to launch its missiles, once the missiles are airborne they cannot be stopped reliably. 

The final type are delivered by aircraft, either on a long-range missile or simply in the form of a bomb dropped by the aircraft. This is the third leg of the nuclear triad, and it relies on mobility and numbers for survival. Aircraft are difficult to take out using nuclear weapons, and they are loaded up with enough cruise missiles so that although the enemy may shoot some of them down, at least some of them will make it to their targets.

So we have land-based, air-based, and water-based nuclear weapons. The land-based and water-based weapons are delivered by ballistic missile. These are like tiny spaceships that launch up into space and travel partway around the Earth and then re-enter the atmosphere over their intended target. Is there very different from cruise missiles which fly more or less like a small airplane to deliver their payload to the target. Both cruise and ballistic missiles can be fitted with a nuclear warhead.

The size of nuclear warheads.

Actually, let's not bother. They range from destroying a neighborhood to destroying a large city. They're bad. The smallest are like the ones used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We (humanity) actually have conventional non-nuclear weapons now that are more powerful than the ones dropped on Japan. Just assume that if they are used it will be a city size disaster.  

Will Putin use nuclear weapons?

I think the chance is zero that Putin will launch a nuclear warhead from a ground-based or water-based system. At the moment of launch there is no way to know where the ballistic rocket is targeted and thus it would provoke an immediate and irrevocable response from the Western powers. So that leaves us with air launched. 

Putin has no strategic advantage to use nuclear weapons. Lavrov has threatened that they might use nuclear weapons in retaliation for sanctions or for the military aid that NATO is giving you Ukraine. And neither case does it make sense for them to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. If used on NATO the only acceptable response would be total disarmament and subjugation of the Russia Federation. My estimate is that this would take minutes to do with nuclear weapons, which would kill tens or hundreds of millions of people and render large parts of the planet uninhabitable. The other solution would be to destroy Russia's nuclear weapons and then subjugate Russia with conventional means. This would take days or weeks. Russia doesn't have the morale now that it had in world War II to defend itself from Hitler. It doesn't have the Russian winter to save it because modern armies are perfectly capable of operating in cold environments. As we've seen, the Russian army is in shambles, an embarrassment. Concentrated Western armies would make short work of everything that Russia can put into the field.

So Putin has a limited number of choices. 

Attack Kyiv

Attack a smaller Ukrainian city

Attack the west

There is zero strategic advantage or even tactical advantage to hitting Kyiv with a nuclear weapon, he might do so only out of frustration or a desire for revenge. I imagine it drives him mad thinking of how Ukraine has broken the spine of the Russian military. Doing so would be a Pyrrhic victory. Were he to do so, the few countries that still trade with Russia would implement sanctions and Russia would be cut off from the world economy for as long as Putin was in power, which wouldn't be long. Putin has no more friends in Russia. He has Lavrov, and perhaps Peskov. Defense minister Shogu has betrayed himself in the deplorable state of Russia's military. The rest of the country has already displayed their intolerance for this ridiculous war, both within the military and the civilian population.

There is some strategic advantage to striking a medium-sized Ukrainian city. This might convince Zelensky to surrender. This, also would be a Pyrrhic victory, as the same sanctions would hit Russia and the demand in the world stage would be that Russia be completely disarmed. Indeed, Russia's conventional military forces are almost exhausted already. This would be a war crime of such staggering proportion that Russia would take decades to recover. The world might, I would hope, demand complete nuclear disarmament of all countries in response. As we have seen with Donald Trump, wanna-be dictators can arise in any country.

This leaves us with striking one of the Western countries for implementing such powerful sanctions against Russia. This was hinted at by Lavrov this week, where he compared the sanctions to nuclear war. This is an absolutely absurd proposal, as it would no doubt be met with a nuclear response.  

So all of this hinges on the mental state of Vladimir Putin, but not quite. It is this author's belief that Vladimir Putin has gone mad. He sees danger in every shadow and is consumed by paranoia. This is not the type of person we want to have with his finger on the button.

But I am comforted by the fact that there is no button. The use of nuclear weapons has to be approved by many people in the chain of command. Putin can issue the order, but Shoygu could countermand it. The most likely scenario here would be an air-based strike upon a smaller Ukrainian city. This means that people at the air base can refuse to load the nuclear weapon onto the plane, the pilots can refuse to fire the nuclear weapon. All in all I would say that there is at least five or six people who could stop it from happening. And even if all five or six of those people go ahead with the plan there is still a good chance that the aircraft could be stopped before it could deliver the weapon. The West's intelligence capabilities are beyond impressive, and they would realize I was happening before it happened. There are fighter jets in the air as we speak over NATO countries that could be redirected to intercept any incoming nuclear bomber and shoot it down before it could deploy the weapon. The weapon would be most likely mounted onto a cruise missile which could also be shot down by Ukrainian or Western fighter jets, or the PVO system or ever-present stinger missiles.  

This would be the worst case scenario for Russia of course. The world would know that Russia had attempted to use nuclear weapons but had been stopped. , The same sanctions would be implemented, the Russian economy would collapse to the point where it was no longer capable of maintaining any sort of military, and eventually even it's nuclear arsenal would be rendered ineffective. Nuclear weapons are very expensive to maintain and develop, and they don't last forever. Russia's is arsenal is already quite old, much of it dating back to Soviet era.  

In the end, the question of whether Russia will utilize nuclear weapons as part of its strategy to resolve the crisis that Vladimir Putin himself created in Ukraine hinges upon only two things. The sanity of Vladimir Putin, and the sanity of those immediately around him.  

Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia would be the end of the Russian state, it's only a matter of scale. A limited use of nuclear weapons would result in a drastic and prolonged economic decline within Russia. This would no doubt lead to a revolution as the oligarchs turned on Putin and the Russian people did as well. The large scale use of nuclear weapons is not worth worrying about. Those who are lucky won't be around to deal with the consequences of global nuclear war. Those unlucky enough to survive should seek underground sources of fresh water, because it won't be as contaminated as everything else.  

Obviously the best solution here is that somebody within Russia removes Putin from power. The second best solution is that the crisis resolves itself without the use of nuclear weapons, in which case I believe that Ukraine will emerge victorious, receive hundreds of billions of dollars of investment from the West, join NATO and the European Union, and Russia will be reduced to a much larger version of North Korea, a state that is closed off from the world, unable to trade, and unable to develop its own economy due to its own internal corruption. In the scenario Putin's government will not last long. Let us hope that his replacement will be somebody like Navalny.

Putin's Folly

Let us dispell the great lie of the Russian crisis. Vladimir Putin is not acting out of humanitarian concern, to stop the imaginary genocide he puppets before his audience.  Donbas is full of natural gas reserves, and it is these reserves which are a threat to Russia.  Not NATO's missiles and planes, not the half dozen other figments of fear he dangles before the world, hoping that at least one will be swallowed. Gas. Enough gas that, were Ukraine to develop the resource they would stand free of Russia's influence entirely, able to not only supply themselves during the cold winters, but even excess to supply to Europe, further eroding Russia's flailing influence.  

Putin's kleptocracy has failed to bring Russia into the 21st century.  it is essentially a petrol state, because oligarchs have too hard a time stealing from a more complex supply chain.  The monopoly on gas must be protected else Russia's already fragile economy will fail.

After gas, there is water.  Putin miscalculated when he invaded Crimea in 2014, and Ukraine rightfully saw no reason to supply territory occupied by a hostile army with fresh water, building a dam to redirect the river to lands not occupied by Putin's army.  Agriculture has collapsed on Crimea since 2014, and some estimates place the cost of water deliveries at $20 billion a year, greater than that of the education budget for the whole of Russia.  To resolve this issue, Putin must take at least the southern coast of Ukraine east of the Dnepr river, from Meriupol' to  Kherson.  These areas are not pro Russian.

Putin has erred when he created the current crisis. 

He failed to realize that the apparently fragmented NATO would set aside their squabbles to face a danger.  This mistake stems from Putin's fundamental inability to understand democracy, and that in a democracy opinions can be argued over but unity can occur quickly when faced with a clear threat.

His failed in thinking that the Ukrainian people were fearful and weak - instead today finds them resilient and energized.  This is rooted in that plutocratic Putin cannot understanding freedom.  In Russia the common people cower in fear to the threat of government force, but in a free country like Ukraine, the people, when faced with a threat of violence against their homeland, do not cower in fear, but rise up and meet the danger out of desire to remain free.

Vladimir Putin failed to understand the Russian people, his own people.  He thought that he could control the narrative through his control of the televised media.  He fails to understand that young people don't watch television, and that his absurdly inept disinformation coming out Donbas would only be swallowed by the elderly. The young people, born after the fall, are on social media and have seen the debunking of Putin's lies.   This failure to understand even his own people is a problem endemic to all autocratic regimes.  No one dares tell a dictator bad news, no one dares to respond honestly to a survey of public opinion, no one dares to question the absurd election results. We saw a taste of this fear in his inner circle during the staged decision to declare the DNR\LNR, when Putin cut off any comments that were off-message.  To Putin, this is a sign of his strength.  However, it has given him an illusory mandate of the people, a feeling of a strong foundation of public support where only a few crumbling columns remain.

He fails to understand that the strength of the army is not in tanks and planes, but in the esprit de corps and resolve of his troops.  His army does not want to attack Ukraine.  I have worked alongside the officers within the Russian army, carrying out inspections under the START treaty.  These are not people who are hungry for war.  The morale of a conscript can be maintained if the threat is real and the cause is just. This cause is neither. 

The association of retired generals admonished the attack on Ukraine in a paper published a few weeks ago, and reports from Belarus and elsewhere on the front line tell tales of an army without discipline, where soldiers are selling fuel and ammunition onto the black market, sometimes for profit, but sometimes for food and water which Putin has failed to supply his army with.  The soldiers in the army know that their cause is not just, that their mission is not in service to mother Russia, but to their flailing autocrat. 

Putin was right about one thing, in that there is a common bond between the Ukrainian and the Russian people.  The Ukrainian people are what the Russians could become were they to break free of the kleptocratic autocracy that rules their country.  Of course this is Putin's greatest fear - it is the reason he must invade, to squash the will of the Ukrainian people to resist his dictatorship. 

It is also the reason that he must not invade, because such a spirit is not so easily quenched. Russia is not so powerful as it needs to be, with an economy smaller than California's, to quell resistance in a country the size of Texas.  A country of 40 million, a country with a long memory and deeply held grievances against their northern neighbor's government, a country who has not forgotten the Holodomor, the mass deportations, the repression of prior generations.

ln eight short years Ukraine has gone from a few scattered shadows of an army to a well-trained and disciplined defense force, armed with modern equipment, trained in modern tactics, and ready to sacrifice in defense of their home.

The position today is Putin hoping that President Zelensky will cower in fear because Ukraine is surrounded by artillery and tanks.  He depends on Ukraine ceding Donbas in the hope to avoid the greater conflict. 

And this is the fourth critical error that Putin has made.  Zelenski has turned out to be a far more competent statesman and leader and then one would have suspected, given his prior career as a comedian.  Ukraine has knowledgeable generals who have been planning for an event like this for many years.  Ukraine has the advice from NATO and Europe, as well as modern armaments to counter the Russian threat.  Zelenski might not be the leader that many Ukrainians would have wanted in a circumstance like this, but his charisma and patriotism are exactly what Ukraine​​ needs.  He has prevented panic, held his country together, and stood strong to Putin, and to some of the European powers who think appeasement a better option.

Putin has misjudged the West, he misjudged Ukraine, he misjudged his own people, and has overextended himself.  Invade, and Russia will bear costs beyond it's ability to pay.  Retreat, and Putin will suffer humiliation perhaps beyond his strength to survive politically.  Invade, and Putin has renewed the enmity of Ukraine for the Russian government for another generational memory.  Putin is in a lose-lose scenario, unless he has some other card to play not yet considered.  But just because Putin will lose does not mean Russia has to, for as much as Putin will deny it, Russia is not Putin.

Retirement Begins

So, a lot to cover here.  For the last six months or so I have been selling off things I didn't want to take with me, mostly appliances that won't work on 220v power and my second car, a ten year old Honda Fit that I bought new in 2009 and just don't need anymore.  Then Corona hit, and plans had to get modified.

I made one big mistake in that while I was prepping in that I didn't get my dog, the Doctor, his necessary health certificates in time - this has caused a major hassle.  Dogs coming to Ukraine have to get a special rabies test that isn't widely used anymore, and have to get it at least three months prior to immigration - Doctor got his only two months.  I was left with a choice - either stay in the USA, homeless and jobless, with Doctor until he would be allowed to fly, or come over to my pregnant wife and start my quarantine.  I chose to leave my dog with my mother and brother in Colorado and hope for the best.  Options are being explored, and while money is an object, Doctor is family, and we need him here in Kyiv.

I couldn't have done a worse job packing - the news that Doc wouldn't be flying came in on the Friday before I left and completely threw the already chaotic weekend into overdrive.  I had planned for two days to pack my things and one more to pack my son's, and this all had to suddenly be done in one day.  I forgot lots of things I wanted to bring for the quarantine, and didn't bring a very good selection of clothes, especially shoes, but enough to make do, I suppose.  Quarantine can be a little boring.  Maybe that's why I find myself concentrating on my YouTube and Blog so much, I guess.

Retirement Starting to Take Shape

In the past few weeks the prospect of entering the next phase of my life has really started to become visible on the not-so-distant horizon.  I've still got eight months to go, though the time is passing quickly and the weeks are flying by.  Many "lasts" have already occurred.  My last DLPT (an annual language test that I have to take as part of my profession).  My next to last PRT (semi-annual physical fitness test).  My last performance evaluation is now behind me as well. 

Ahead there is an as-yet-un-mapped maze of bureaucracy and all the adventure of things changing drastically and quickly.  One of the steps is to determine what I'm taking with me and what I'm leaving behind.

In order to do that, I have to determine the logistics of moving.  I could rent a shipping container, a twenty foot container would probably suffice, fill up a van with what possessions I'm taking with me, and just drive it to the port and pick it up upon arrival. 

Problem #1 - I don't yet own a van.  I own two cars - a 2007 Honda Fit and a 2010 RAV4 - both of which I'm planning on selling, or trading in for a Fort Transit or similar van.  I would consider getting a pickup, but in America it is somewhat difficult to find a full-bed, single cab pickup, and I think I need something that is enclosed anyway, for safety and security. 

So, I'm making three lists of what I will take with me.  List one is stuff that I absolutely can't replace or get rid of, things that have deep personal meaning.  This is what I would take if I only had, say three or four suitcases to move with.  This is an option I've entertained occasionally. 

List two is what I would take if I had only my RAV4 and the roof rack that goes with it.  This is still quite a bit of stuff, but obviously no furniture.  It's pretty easy to decide to get rid of my electronics, as they won't work without a converter in Europe anyway, except for my desktop computer which I can switch to 220V/50hz very easily.  The KitchenAid mixer, vacuum, hair dryer, iron, TV, fans, and other miscellaneous electronics can find a better home in the states.   My power tools are all battery powered, and it's definitely worth keeping them - the charger works on 220V/50hz just fine.

List three is if I have a Ford Transit or similar van to take things with me.  That would allow to to bring a little bit more - my large couch that currently doubles as my bed, and the three mattresses that are in my son's room - two twins and one queen, which are all in good shape.  I'm not sure that the vehicle trade is actually worth it.

The RAV4 runs great, has new brakes and tires, and is paid for.  Sometimes it really helps my process of thinking just to get all of this down in my blog - when I started writing this entry I was pretty set on trading in the RAV4 for the Transit, but now I'm not so sure that's necessary.