Member-only story
Russia’s Deep Fake Serf Army: The War ’s Big Short
Only bad forecasts+inadequate help prevent Ukraine’s victory
Last article we saw how wrong the conventional wisdom of analyzing war and militaries by the numbers, as General Milley did, completely missed the role that morale and institutional rot play in war. Betting on military outcomes only by the numbers is as dumb as investing only by the numbers, but with consequences far more lethal than just losing money.
Two skill sets yielded an accurate forecast that Russia’s army was the military version of The Big Short:
- Half a century of studying how Russia’s history of autocracies (Tsarist, Bolshevik, Putinist) and serfdom always repeat with…
- Doing supply chain (channel check) research on stocks for hedge funds with short positions, like Hindenburg Research’s highly publicized shorts on Adani Group and Block. Institutional rot in companies share much with that found in states and their militaries.
The holy grail in Channel check research is always to find the rot under the apparently solid surface the market consensus believes in. Digging for stock market trash is a skill that can also expose strong on paper but rotten under the surface militaries. History is full of these deep fake Potemkin Village militaries as brittle…
