The_Capt

It is a disturbing trend that begins to alarm. All strategic nuclear deterrence theory hinges on one single point: a nation state is a rational player. If you ensure to keep that state informed of the escalation threat, and keep MAD equilibrium then we are all just fine - we are pointing loaded weapons at each others heads, but we are still "fine". It all falls apart when a nuclear power becomes a suicide state. Now I am pretty sure Putin as a person, and the people around him are pretty much there because they are crossing strategic rivers here they cannot come back from down that road. But the rest of the Russian people? I am really hopeful are not and put Putin in the ground before it come to this.

Oddly the Labrador part describes in general terms my interactions with the members of this particular combat arm, present company excepted of course.

So while one can throw convicts and poorly trained saps into a meat grinder. Modern fixed wing military aircraft are another matter entirely. These are a strategic military resource that takes a long time to come back from losses and cost an obscene amount of money. Further when it comes to airpower Russia has a lot bigger set of problems to worry about - e.g. the integrity of the largest sovereign airspace on the planet. As to right now it looks like Russia has already lost coming up on 6% of it effective fixed wing fleet: https://www.wdmma.org/russian-air-force.php#:~:text=Current Active Inventory%3A 3%2C652 Aircraft&text=The following represents an overview,in its active aircraft inventory. (About 1230 - Excluding tac aviation, trainers and transport) So the risk calculus with respect to airpower is dramatically different.

Again, they probably should have tried that about 10 months ago and not after nearly a year of wasting ammunition and equipment losses. That, and this is a Zap Brannigan strategy:

It failed because this describes an effective Air Denial strategy, however in order to accomplish air superiority (which is like "Invading Another Nation 101) you need to be able to conduct an effective SEAD and an Enemy Counter-Air Campaign. Simply denying airspace to an opponent does not accomplish either of these things. For example, if Russia had it SAM network to keep the UAF back off and out of range, and then hit infrastructure and support while conducting a SEAD campaign to lead to a point where they had air superiority...ok, that makes sense. Problem is they didn't do any of that other stuff in any meaningful way. As with railways, they wasted a lot of operational strike on terror targets and not air infrastructure. (I mean you can still buy a flight from Frankfurt to Kyiv FFS: https://www.kayak.com/flight-routes/United-States-US0/Kiev-Boryspil-Intl-KBP#:~:text=Looking to visit Kiev%3F,for travelers flying into Kiev. ) More simply put, it failed because the Ukrainians also denied the airspace. Also, the Russians have never really had a CAS doctrine. They were not set up for it in the Cold War and they never really bought into it because they have an unhealthy lust for artillery. Air Denial was the perfect strategy for Ukraine as the defender with a much smaller airpower base. For Russia it is a slow road to defeat.

This was (and is) an incredibly bad idea when your opponent continues to get more AD capability from the west. In fact it is the entire problem with the “Russia has just been saving up” line of thought. Those NASAMS (which are very likely in theatre and in operation : https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/us/politics/russia-ukraine-missiles-nasams.html) uses the AIM 120 AMRAAM which is a nightmare. One does not wait until your opponent has these in their inventory, along with next-gen MANPADS. The idea of holding back only works when your opponent is going to get worse in the future, not better…kinda like what the UA is doing right now.

If the role of both naval and air power is to decisively shape the operational environment in support of the land battle, and achieve or support political/strategic objectives then I would argue that the Russian Air Force and Navy have dramatically failed. The contributions at the start of this thing were not decisive at all. They did not compress Ukraine strategic options anywhere near the levels needed to change the outcome. Sea Control has not been established - the sinking of a flagship highlighted that point, there now exists a condition of mutual Sea Denial. For Ukraine this is acceptable given it has open land corridors, which are connected to open and safe seaports. For Russia this is not acceptable as beyond some blocking and missile lobbing they cannot project power from the sea in any meaningful way (e.g. amphibious). Air power has also been a nearly complete failure. They have achieved a mutual Air Denial in this domain as well - which again, works for the Ukraine but as an invading power on the offence it has been pure poison for the RA. Within strategic and operational strike I just went on at length at how this failed. Until the Russian Air Force can establish a level of air superiority - now with UAS is impossible at certain altitudes, it is failing to do what it literally exists to do. As to what they accomplished in the first month of the war, well war is not a sport. One does not get applause for “good attempts”. You accomplish your mission or do not. And both the Russian Navy and Air Force have definitively failed to do what they are designed to do in this war. Now “why and how” they failed is the interesting question. There is some “sucking” going on but I also suspect that they were completely unprepared for the environment they found themselves within. If Ukraine had fought the war Russia wanted they may have even pulled it off. But far too much shifted and like the RA both services completely failed to keep up.

Well given that we have not seen an actual air superiority or SEAD capability coming out of Russia, AND Ukraine AD is now significantly better in both capability and integration within the western ISR bubble, I suspect that this “air campaign” is going to largely be for show. It will be aimed at domestic audiences to try and shore up support, the narrative will go something like “we have been holding back and trying to wage a civilized war, but NATO has forced our hands…now feel the power of our great Russia. AirPower” or some BS like that. And then we will see what may be a brutal stand-off terror campaign. Lot of lobbing and pitching at residential areas etc. This will be limited in range and scope though because Russia air power can only get so close before they start getting blown out of the sky. It is what pretty much happened last spring (https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/russian-air-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence) I do not think Russian can achieve tactical bombing, it will remain operational level - although that is an indicator to watch for. (aside: Google NASAMS and Patriots, these things are insane) None of this will degrade Ukrainian military power because all that is hardened and frankly I do not think the RA or Russian Air Force has enough long range systems left to do any of that. It will really piss off the western international community and drive Ukraine deeper into entrenchment - let’s face it they are pretty much there. We could see conventional escalation in western support, especially as the UA lines up for a spring-summer offensive.

So this is another brick in the wall that for Russia this entire thing was built on a bunch of flawed assumptions held by an unchallengeable and unchecked centralized power. The type of targeting we saw early on was a kind of poor man’s “shock and awe” designed to terrorize but not actually do any damage to Ukraines ability to fight. The reason for this is likely a combination of limited Russian capability but even more so the unassailable assumption that Ukraine would not resist. The complete lack of a centralized operational targeting campaign is likely the best evidence that Russia assumed the war would be over in a week. I mean why waste a lot of expensive missiles and doing real infrastructure damage when “we know” Ukraine is going to fall quickly. Further once they belong to Russia “we might have to pay to repair all that to leverage our new puppets economic power.” And of course given the “fact” that Ukraine is going to collapse there is no need for a backup plan. Finally, we were saying this back last March-Apr, the entire missile campaigns seemed disjointed - likely because they were. You likely had different commanders lobbing at their own target sets (dealers choice) with no centralized synchronization or coordination. And of course now it is too late. And if Russia cannot cripple, or at least severely damage Ukrainian transport infrastructure, then Ukraine will continue to 1) move in western support and 2) enjoy shorter functional LOCs, combined with ISR superiority meaning they can react and position faster than their opponent. An opponents whose logistical capability was poor to begin with and has to be approaching critical based on attrition. This kinda stuff is why we keep going on about “Russia losing” and being largely doomed in all this, they are no longer able to shape the operational space, Ukraine can.

Russia had a chance in the first month of this war to focus and cripple Ukrainian rail. Target bridges, depots, maintenance facilities, fuel etc. a lot of that was avail on Google Earth and as you note “fixed”. But instead the mystic Russian strategic mind decided that shopping malls and illegal civilian targets should have priority and wasted a lot of their operational strike inventory on that. By now Ukraine has either dispersed (one can build field depots), or protected this infrastructure at critical nodes with things like AD. So between shrinking stocks of Russian capabilities, air denial and given an opponent about a year to harden their end, Russia pissed away what should have been an operational pre-condition of this war. Right up there next to cellular networks.

We have been having a lot of laughs here today but I did not want to let this one slip by. Been watching these summaries go by for about a week now and is it just me or are the Russians losing an increasing number of back-end equipment overall? Guns, C2, trucks (especially fuel trucks) and even some engineering equipment. That is 7 guns yesterday alone. People keep focusing on the front end but the enablers in the RA are taking a beating by the looks of it.

I would hold off playing CMCW until you get a bit more time in the CM chair, especially playing as Soviets.

Tank lust is a filthy habit. Good thing the tank is dead. Hah, Tank Bashing Day! Then we can do US Tank Bashing Day and Euro Tank Bashing Day (the euro tanks have the bleach blonde tips and a false sense of superiority largely based on wide spread nudity and the metric system)

Ok now I am confused. Are we doing US or Euro bashing Day? Or is this sarcastic old man Day? Not that we cannot do them simultaneously.

Euro-bashing Day!!!

To do it right you have to do the whole thing - the movies were a hatchet job on the much bigger story in my opinion. One cannot do a full treatment of the strategies at play in this Universe unless one takes into account the micro-social structures of its elites, cultural contexts etc, and that is the much bigger picture of the Expanded Universe, not Haydenson and Portman sharing absolutely zero chemistry for half a trilogy. Thrawn is really pivotal to the entire discussion. He embodies the failure of the Empire, and then the "back up plan" of the First Order - a genius for failure to learn. His main schtick was to completely know his enemies, and then continually fails to link that to actual victory; think he might be a book on his own to be honest. For a bit I actually wondered if he was not House of Carding the whole thing. And of course you have the whole divided loyalties angle - which actually makes for a very good case that strategy must have context, it is a frame within frames. I think Andor, Rouge One and Mandalorian are where they whole franchise needs to go (and arguably actually has its roots), a much more serious treatment of the human condition (and "aliens" of course). Lucas was selling campy action with just a hint of serious undertones, but at its center the universe has more Dune than Buck Rogers in its DNA.

Mine will be much better.

Could be a time fuse as well. Looks like they could have just used command detonation on a wire to. Someone is going to figure off how to rig a stand off EFP weapon on one of these soon enough.

I think you have just described Canadian strategic planning for the last 30 years...

When I finally retire I am going to write a bit on the Strategy of the Empire in Star Wars - this is but one example of some pretty baffling decisions and inconsistencies.

Ya and this is why I often wonder if the entire Human Experiment is a good idea. We were built to function in social groups of about 50 or less, with an overall population of less than a million globally. Our lifespans are too short, and cognitive horizons too narrow for the massive social undertakings we are in. During COVID we could not get people to "sacrifice" in wearing face masks. Asking the average individual to draw a string from "why is my light bill so high...now I can't buy another pair of shoes to round out my collection and my Sik Sok channel will die!" to "the entire western order that allows for massive domestic debt is threatened" is likely asking too much. You hit on another point at the back end - offramps. We have talked about a "soft landing" for Russia or even an offramp strategy for Putin, but I honestly get the sense that we are in "all in" territory. We were not in the first six months of this war, but far too much blood has been spilled. War being political is only ever half the answer, it is also deeply personal. History is full of wars that went on long past the point of political rational. Clausewitz should have said "war should be politics by other means" because more often than not it gets hijacked. And when it does, we historically go to very dark places (e.g. Crusades, Thirty Years War). I suspect this war has taken on a darker tone where saner heads will not prevail - another thing the west needs to wrap its head around. This is a war of the "old ways" and dark angry red gods rule these lands.

Not even close. We have lost no lives, at least not government sanctioned (volunteers are a different story). The US alone spent over $2T in Afghanistan. And apparently nearly $6.4T on the whole MENA problem set since 9/11: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on-middle-east-wars-since-2001-study.html Now the pace of the contributions in Ukraine has been pretty fast but it still is nowhere near the pace and scale of spending of the Gulf War: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/c/costs-major-us-wars.html https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040 We have joined this war, there is blood on our hands and we are in it to defeat another nation state. There is a lot of nervous twitter going around on this war, and frankly a lot of it is not really based on realistic factors (eg the bottomless Russian pit of manpower). But the failure of western perceptions to understand this war for what it is, and to be ready to make sacrifices to reinforce and sustain the framework that protects our way of life - as messed up and upside down as it is at times - is the one thing that does keep me up at night. The political unity being displayed is deeply heartening and I think we definitely have pulled it together; however, we have not articulated the likely real costs and what it is worth to us very well. I have no doubt the grown ups up top understand all of this clearly (fingers crossed), but we live in democracies, so Johnny Lunchbox and the goof down the street with the “F#ck Joe Biden” flag need to get it too. Or at least enough of us, and that is the part that does make me a little nervous.

This is because we in the west are still thinking manoeuvre warfare while Ukraine is literally inventing corrosive warfare doctrine as they go. As to “the west running out”, if this happens it is entirely self-inflicted. We have not mobilized one wit since this war started. We shifted existing assets, we have reinforced and expanded existing contracts, industry is putting on a few extra shifts on existing military industrial bases. We may run out of our comfort zone but as to exhausting the military industrial capacity of the west, we are not even scratching the surface. As soon as we see car manufacturers in Detroit re-tooling for IFVs, toy companies shift to UAS, big pharma shift to explosives and ammunition then we are running out. And we are back to sacrifice. What are we actually willing to give up to win this thing?

Oh my dear sweet hobbit, it is all the rage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-capitalism https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=the+end+of+capitalism&gclid=CjwKCAiA_6yfBhBNEiwAkmXy5zDxVlZbB-qEZB_W3e3pabpsITBmsDYvu9mE1ltmgTLxcVWyA1FkPhoCdm0QAvD_BwE&hvadid=208312141359&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000685&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=15884104887862575394&hvtargid=kwd-354484366687&hydadcr=23313_10093172&tag=googcana-20&ref=pd_sl_r5hsdx43m_e I think the major issue is the fact that in order to function it needs to expand and nothing can do this indefinitely. And the impact of AI may break it as well - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/07/02/how-artificial-intelligence-could-kill-capitalism/ Personally, I do not think I read in enough to have an opinion.