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And they fail to account for the likelihood that the other side is experiencing one, confusion, two, for decision-making based on time constraints

and limited information, and three, the stupidity of people involved,

because these are human processes,

and not all people are smart. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front

lines.

Here are your hosts, Matthew Galt and Jason Fields. Hello and welcome to war college.

It's me your host Matthew Galt. On November 25th, Russia

sees three Ukrainian gunboats in the Kerch Strait, a strip of water connecting the Black Sea to the Azov Sea.

Ukraine claimed it was an act of aggression and possibly a prelude to war.

Russia said it was just policing its territory.

Then Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko attempted to institute martial law and things got...

weird. With us today to unpack what's going on is Michael Kaufman.

Kaufman is a senior research scientist with the Center for Naval Analyses.

He's an expert on Russia and he's been following the Kirch Kurfuffle. Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. It's my pleasure to be on your program. Okay, so let's start with the basics. What exactly happened on November 25th?

What happened on November 25th is that Ukrainian Navy set sail the day before from Port of Odessa on the Black Sea with two small armored artillery boats on a tugboat and a refuel ship and their plan was to basically sail around

Crimea and then tried to get access to the Azov Sea via the Kirk Strait.

And it's important to give a little background

...