Putin & Bruce Lee

There is no one way

Putin on the battlefield

Putin began studying boxing, combat sambo and judo early. From this, he must have learned that there is no “one way” in combat.

Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.” Bruce Lee

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Lee argued that rigid styles fail in combat because they cannot adapt.

Putin re-learned that lesson early in the SMO back in the first weeks of the conflict in 2022.

Russia abandoned classic, Soviet deep-battle doctrines and adapted early-war Battalion Tactical Groups to the military environment and flexible configurations.

Today, things are much different. Where necessary the Russians can heavy artillery, GRAD rocket systems, FAB bombs and barrages of missiles and drones— brute force— to breakup enemy forces. concentrations attrition, to destroy the enemy.

Yet, their tiny, two-or three man assault teams infiltrate through tree lines to hit pressure points with sometimes stunning effect.

Be water, my friend. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. .

Each situation on the battlefield is a container, often with a different shape .

The Russian military strives for tactical formlessness.

Jeet Kune Do literally translates to “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.” Lee’s strategy was not to block an attack and then counter. His counter was a strike. Simultaneous defense/offense. Two sides of one thing. Yin and Yang.

Russia likewise does not passively wait for an attack . Ukraine spends months gathering resources, establishing routes, and readying itself, maybe using “testing attacks” on Russia, looking for easy targets.

Russia often responds asymmetrically, using distance and position to hit vulnerable areas with long-range Iskander missiles, Lancet loitering munitions, and glide bombs destroying the logistics, command nodes, and energy grids which are necessary to Ukraine’s plans.

Russian advances in the Donbas are often pretty boring. A village here, a town. Nothing flashy, as you might expect from the Americans.

Lee did not have a “black belt” in anything—he .despised “flashy|, complex martial arts movements. He was not about form; he was about function. He believed in economy of motion—using the most direct, practical, and devastatingly simple strike to achieve the goal. He used what worked.

That’s the core of Putin’s philosophy. Use what works.

Instead of trying to replicate highly complex, expensive Western combined-arms maneuvers that require years of perfect synchronization, Russia relies on industrial-scale simplicity. For example, they take cheap, unguided Soviet-era iron bombs, bolt simple satellite-guidance wings to them (FAB glide bombs), and use them to flatten complex, reinforced defensive structures from a safe distance.

Do what works. And conserve energy.

It is unglamorous, highly direct .

Russia paces its operations to ensure its domestic economy and professional military core can run indefinitely. They do not exhaust themselves chasing dramatic, high-risk territorial breakthroughs. Instead, they apply a relaxed, constant baseline pressure across multiple axes, forcing the opponent to constantly burn through their limited, expensive air-defense missiles and western-supplied ammunition, while Russia remains structurally stable.

Now, Ukraine is out of everything.

“Classical Mess”

Lee spoke extensively about the “classical mess”—the tragedy of individuals conforming blindly to formalized styles, rules, and pre-packaged doctrines instead of discovering their own true nature. He believed that a person bound by someone else’s definition of success is fundamentally enslaved. This is, of course, a fundamental Daoist concept.

For decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian society attempted to mold itself into a Western liberal framework, adopting its consumer capitalism, cultural norms, and globalized metrics of status, brainwashed by Western media. Putin breaks this psychological mold. By systematically decoupling from Western tech platforms, media networks, and cultural institutions, he asks individual Russians to stop looking to London, Paris, or New York for validation. He asks them to rediscover their own historic, literary, and spiritual roots—to discover themselves.

Of course, you cannot liberate yourself without knowing what you are liberating yourself from. There is a process to self-liberation. It is in this process that true power lies.

Sun Tzu

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Not understanding these things is why the US has lost every war since 1945, and is losing so badly now. They do not know their enemy. They do not know themselves.

A Pallas Cat is a wild animal. But…..

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