The_Capt

I did! My bad. If this is an RA outfit, well same metrics apply; however, it is disconcerting that their situation is not much worse. Then the good-bad news needs to be reversed and we should target the vulnerability and strengths - logistics, UAS and artillery. Their training system seems already in bad shape.

Wow took a day off and missed all this. Well this is basically the question we have been mulling since about 26 Feb last year. To try and summarize my conclusions to date: Russia has already “lost”, and Ukraine has already “won”. This was largely decided last March-Apr, all the churn, suffering and sacrifice since has been negotiating the end-sates of those two conditions. Without a major strategic shift the war could end right now and Russia would still be looking at a defeat and a Ukraine a victory. Defeat and victory are not binary conditions. The definition of what those two conditions for all parties is largely what this has all been about. Russia has failed to achieve its political and strategic goals, in fact in many ways they have made things much worse. Ukraine has survived as a sovereign independent nation, now with the full attention and support of the western world (even as weird as it is to keep buying Russian gas…seriously, agree with you on that one, c’mon Europe who signed off on this?). The west has demonstrated unity and resolve to actually stop bickering and unify in defence of the global order it created. And that is as of today 14 Jan 23. We often muddle political and military victory/defeat…you kind of did it with the original question. The two concepts are interlinked but not intrinsically. One can have military defeat but political victory (losing well), and vice versa. The trick is understanding there alignment and interactions. Russia has gotten its *** handed to it for about 11 months now, but if Putin can somehow hold onto some blasted land and survive…well in the low bar the Russians have set, that could be a political victory. Ukraine, and the west by extension, by not retaking that lost ground, despite a string of military victory could be staring a level political defeat in the face. But these do not change the actual outcomes of the war. The realities of the end-state are coloured by these issues but not determined. Ok, so what? As I said many times before (and the guys must be sick of it by now): all war is certainty, communication, negotiation, and sacrifice. Those are the four essential components that define its progress and outcomes. So “how does Ukraine win this war”. Well it negotiates with the concept of victory, while Russia negotiates with the concept of defeat. This will mean altering their certainties; however, to what extent? These components interact continually. What was an acceptable negotiated certainty last Nov will be unacceptable in Jan because one side has invested sacrifice. The violence we see is all communication and both sides are more than capable of continuing this, although Russian communication is straining. But you asked “how”, which is jumping over a lot of the real questions of “why” and “what”. I am not sure if that is because you think you already know the why and what, if so then you have also already kind of boxed in “how”. Regardless, the “how to win…enough” for Ukraine is to continue to develop and exploit what looks like some new version of attritional warfare that has been dubbed “corrosive warfare”. It essentially is rapid, precise attrition along the entire length of an opponents operational system in order to encourage it to collapse under its own weight. We have seen this phenomenon three times now at the operational level. A lot of unknowns going forward, such as, can the RA be eroded to the point that a good hard conventional manoeuvre approach work? Has the RA dug in and devolved its operational system to the point it is becoming rust-proof. All unknown at this point. What we do know is that neither Ukraine or Russia are done yet. The UA still has offensive initiative, while the RA culminated last summer - this tactical noise over the winter is costly and useless leg humping in military terms. Now where the needle lands in the next 6 months will be key, At some point Ukraine may simply run out of gas. Or, more likely, the entire RA may collapse - it is in pretty bad shape. The simple answer to your question is “to keep doing what it has been doing and incrementally chewing the RA to bits via corrosive warfare while regaining lost territory”. But this only describes the military “how” while skipping a lot of the important bits. Russia, for example, needs a hard fall but soft landing. It is not a Ukrainian nor western win if the state of Russia collapses entirely, quite the opposite. You seem to think this is impossible, and I heartily hope so. A collapsed Russia is very bad news. Now Putin and his gang, they must go. There is no real way for anyone to win if he stays in power. I mean he and his cronies will win but everyone else, including Russia will lose, which is kind of what this war is really about at this point. A Western win is demonstrating the western global order still works; reconstruction and integration of Ukraine into our sphere, and a punished Russia back in line and on the road to renormalization…very tall order, we will likely have to live with less. How do we avoid WW3? Well escalation control is important but Russia has never demonstrated an inclination to be a suicide state. If this was North Korea, I would be very worried. But Russia is still a rational - albeit relatively rational, actor at this point. There are lines we need to worry about but frankly if Putin had the backing for tactical WMDs he would have used them by now. Russia is clearly aware of and deterred by western response in these areas. Within Russia this whole thing has taken on the look of flailing regime survival, and an order to start launching nukes is more likely to get Putin tossed out a window…who are we kidding “a sudden and tragic stroke”, than anything else. Anyway, hope this helps with your question, you may want to revisit the answers to other ones that got you to it. Finally, this is not a Reddit thread and you will never win an argument here and feel better about it. The only way to “win” any debate in this thing is for events on the ground to unfold in support of your position. We can - and have - yell at each other all day and fill pages of back and forth but the actual deciding factor has to unfold. If say you position is “they cannot, the conflict will be frozen into a forever war bounded by nuclear deterrence”, ok we can go back and forth on that but until it actually happens on the ground no one is right or wrong. We can have bad assumptions, poor logic and all sorts of stuff but it really doesn’t matter until the facts on the ground support them. People thought we were nuts back in Feb-Mar pointing out that Russia was losing - and then it happened. We were off mainstream when we said Donbas round 1 would go nowhere. HIMARs were a game changer. The Fall offensive would see Kherson fall through corrosive warfare - Kharkiv was a shock to me. And now here we are winter 23, all sorts of futures floating out there…we will see.

There is definitely some good news - bad news in this report: - core logistics seem ok (food note) but weapons seem less optimized. Here I do find it odd that we have not flooded the UA in NATO 5.56. A rifle can be trained in a few days and it is not like there is a shortage. Opening up a new logistics line for bullets is a pain but this does not need special trucks or equipment. Going to also assume medical is working or it would have been mentioned. - looks like the AP mine question is settled, not really surprising. - UAS, they should have a lot more than “a few”. Something else we could be flooding the UA with especially commercial versions. - training shortfalls are disconcerting. Especially on the heavy weapons. - Excellent integration between officers and troops.

I don’t either, that is why I am a big proponent of investing and energizing the Ukrainian Arms industry. A very good idea mentioned are “joint ventures” in Poland and border nations. This would put Ukraine on the same strategic footing as Russia - it military industrial base untouchable by Russia without significant escalation risk. The Ukrainian arms industry was pretty hefty pre-war (12th largest arms exporter in the world): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Ukraine. The industry has no doubt taken some very big hits between actual damage and people leaving the country, but this is nothing money, partnerships and new locations cannot fix. This strategy set up Ukraine to sustain its defence for years and provides employment supporting reconstruction of it economy, If we want to do long term strategic planning and have a few billion lying around it would be far better to invest it there than throwing a few hundred western platforms at them. The western kit is a short term solution and not even the best one.

Do we have any idea how many AFVs/IFVs/APCs are non-serviceable due to wear out? I mean the numbers are not adding up here - So if Oryx’s math is right the UA should have had about 2-3000 AFVs at the beginning of the war. They have lost about 250 so heading towards 10%. We know there have been donations and sales, but the total of the effective fleet has not been disclosed. This graphic says that the UA is trending towards even overall on AFVs, however, this won’t help new units that are going short. Neither will western equipment in the short term either. And we have all sorts of anecdotes from online chatter. What is the reality? If the existing UA fleet is failing from wear and tear than we should prioritize parts and maintenance to keep the fleet fighting. The UA has lost over 500 logistical vehicles, twice the number of AFVs are they a higher priority? The West can only send so much down a pipe that is also limited, and Ukraine can only absorb so much. So equipping the rest of those 6 Bdes, do we focus on more Soviet-model equipment? Logistics and sustainment of the current fleet to keep it on the road? Or a bunch of western equipment that is going to take months to integrate? Or do we focus on munitions? I know the reflex answer is “everything!” But that is not how this works. I am not saying “the UA is fine, no need to send anything” we know that is simply not true. My point is that we need to focus on those things the UA needs to win, that it can use and sustain right away. To my eyes AFVs are lower on the list than ranged fires and ammunition. Not everything can be priority #1. I have no doubt we will work in a western fleet into all this eventually.

And then there is stuff not seen. Guns are back from the lines so seeing all the destroyed ones through OS is going to be problematic. Oryx is likely the best there is Unclass, but they are not seeing everything.

Not sure how accurate this data is but it does show a notable increase starting in what looks like late Aug, Sep. Which would make sense in line with the Fall offensive. Does this show ammo dump strikes or actual RA guns lost? Edit: Really interesting site. That is Oryx’s guns lost. Here are really interesting ones.

Well I would have stuck “relatively” in that assessment somewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_offensive

And he, and others, keep trying to turn Kherson into a defeat…why is beyond me. Magic bullet - Masses precision beats everything. Double down on precision fires. At this point anything that can hit with precision at the 100km range. So more HIMARs obviously. Self loitering munitions - Switchblade 600 (has the same warhead as the Javelin), Spike NLOS. And there are rumours of next-gen precision DPICM, now would be a good time for them to show up. Artillery delivered scatterable AT mines were in that last package which is another really good idea. Unlike massive western fleet injections (tanks, AFVs and/or AirPower) these things can start doing what needs to be done immediately, killing more Russians in depth and the UA does not need months of training and new logistics system to support them. The Russian logistics system can only adapt so much before it buckles, we have already proven that. I would focus on Russian guns, EW and logistics.

Are these not just reinforcing deployments to NATO states? I know we are up gunning in Latvia as well. I have nothing on them becoming donations to the UA, but now that you mention it that probably has got Russia wondering as well. As to how much support we need to keep pumping into the UA to keep it competitive. I think this is a dynamic metric. We had a number for defensive operations but the UA has moved to offensive ops which is a different demand. I am not sure an entire Bdes worth of equipment per month is sustainable, at least not western equipment. I mean we did the math on the Ukrainian CHODs public big list and it included half of the US inventory of M777s. Now beefing up Ukraine arms industry so it can produce a lot of vehicles is sounding more and more like a better idea.

This is a very good point. So this is part of strategic planning. What are the globally available stocks of Soviet made equipment? What kind of shape is Ukrainian in-country arms production? If we are indeed headed for the bottom of the barrel, then a hard jump to western equipment is absolutely going to need to happen. But that is a very large undertaking and not 40 Marders here, 50 Bradleys there and those freakin Leo2. This is an entire fleet replacement, top to bottom done in phases. I suspect this as well. The UA has not been stupid in this war and the guys in charge know the score very well. There is stop gap strategies and then long games, both are in play. I strongly suspect that the current slow roll of western AFVs is not knocking knees of weak western politicians, it is likely coming from military advice both in the Ukraine and the West.

Now that is the million (maybe billion dollar) question. We do not know. I am not sure what people believe as far as "gee-whiz" armor protecting sensing but last I checked landmines and optical guided ATGMs still worked. Fancy western kit needs gas and parts - all hot and heavy on long logistical lines. You have asked the most terrifying question on the board right now, which can be distilled down to "Given the modern battlefield emerging in Ukraine, are our trillion dollars of defence investment as useless as 30 year old soviet POS?" And the level of clucking, gasping and brandy spilling going on within higher military echelons is hilarious. Facing an opponent with UAS/UGVs everywhere, ISR from the ground to space and armed with smart precision weapons...where will that leave us? Now Russia is in bad shape. They may be at the point where good old fashion conventional mass works. But they also might not be. They have UAS and ISR. It is not comparative to the UA (with western support). They also have a lot of anti-armor systems and artillery - again not as advanced or precise as Ukraine's. The reality is that the error in logic is in the very argument: - Ukraine has lost a lot of armor and AFVs and is down to HMMVS and MRAPs, we need to do something! - Uh. ok. Given that the UA had all the ISR in the world creating enormous advantage, how did they lose they armor they had? - Well the RA sux! - Well yes they do, but apparently not enough to stop them from eroding the UA to the point they are down to MRAPs and HMMVs. So how do we know that whatever method in which the RA did all that damage so far - to the point we need to send in 1000 Bradleys - is not going to work against the Bradley's we send in? - Cause they Rock...USA..USA! (Or insert the western nation of you choice) - Um, ok. We know most of the killing is being done by artillery. RA artillery has attrited the UA fleet to the point is needs help. Our vehicles are immune to artillery? They are invisible to ISR? My point stands. Your favorite CM platform is not going to make or break this war. Setting the UA for long term continued success along multiple lines of support - of which western equipment delivered in a coherent sustainable manner is but one - is going to be required for years. They will get Bradleys and Marders and whatever. But for now we need to keep an eye on the game changers that got us here and think carefully about the next steps.

Well where they are exactly I am sure I do not know. However: Oryx says that the UA has captured almost 1000 AFV, IFVs and APC, and these are the ones they could count. Not all of these would be operational, no idea what the recovery rate of captured Russian kit is. Then we have the pre-war estimates: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1296573/russia-ukraine-military-comparison/#:~:text=Comparison of military capabilities of Russia and Ukraine 2022&text=Russia had approximately 1.35 million,to 500 thousand in Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/russia-ukraine-military-comparison-intl/index.html https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=ukraine According to wiki (sourcing stuff I cannot read) it shows the UA with 32 Mechanized Brigades, quite a few stood up in '22. No idea what their actual operational strength is or is not, which is not surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanized_Infantry_(Ukraine) And to this add 6 tank Bdes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_Forces_(Ukraine) If you have better numbers would love to see them. Buying BMPs is smart. UA is setup to repair and support them in the field literally the next day. We should be buy as many as we can and giving them over yesterday. And then in parallel start building western formations based on a single vehicle set, not this gumbo that is happening. To start that you would have to build in the logistical systems first and them pull the vehicles and crews on top of it. If you don't do that, and NATO troops will not deploy into Ukraine (which they will not), it means that for second line maintenance and repairs you have to send the vehicle all the way back to Poland. This will mean that like the M777s, quite a few are going to be out of battle quickly. This system would work but you would need triple the number of the actual numbers in the field. So to keep 50 Bradleys in the field you would need 150 total to rotate back to Poland. If the UA was set up to sustain them forward it would put a lot more vehicles closer to the front and keep them there. But that will mean training and equipping logistical units etc. Not a terrible idea but if one has the ability to buy 1000 BMPs or 100 Bradleys, go with the BMPs for now. Bradleys when there is capacity and you have covered off the other essentials.

Ok gotta admit that would feel really good and look sexy as hell, so peace on that. As mentioned previously the power of the political signalling and demonstration of resolve is the real value of those 50 Bradley’s. They also provide an note of escalation threat to the Russians. Also we are going to hit the bottom of available Soviet-based kit at some point, so thinking longer term (I.e. this war really drags out, or post-war) western equipped formations in the UA is not a bad idea, but we should not race to failure here or buy into “Ukraine is losing without our super duper stuff!”

We have also seen assaults with BTR 80s and BMPs. As to "incredibly sub optimum", based on what? We are back to "glorious western equipment is better" when that assumption is unfounded, except possibly for the ranged fires stuff we have sent. They UA managed to take back a larger peice of real estate than Ireland and cripple a larger heavier opponent with all that "sub-optimal support". Did it ever occur that we did not send 1000 Bradleys because 1) Ukraine did not have the bandwidth to integrate them while fighting for its life - it is like being in a gunfight and having someone come along and say "hey tries these rifles out". And 2) they did not need those Bradley's because they would have provided enough advantage over the Soviet-based equipment fleet the UA already had to justify the cost, at the time? I do agree that deciding on a single set of platforms, and then sticking to that would be a good idea...but we kind already did. Remember all that soviet-based equipment coming in from Eastern Europe? Finally, we have reports of UA forces dismounting 1km away from its vehicles on the offence. Is this because they have sub-standard vehicles, or just the realities that big hot metal on the battlefield in this environment is tricky to manage no matter what the version? My point being is that this "send in the west" camp is resting on a lot of unproven, and in my opinion dangerously uniformed assumptions. We should definitely support Ukraine; however, we should do it in a way that makes sense. If we are going to build a western-equipment based division, yes we will have to start that now and it will take months. But it will need a full logistical integration plan and should not bleed off higher priority support requirements- the budget is finite.

And we are back to this. The theory is that somehow if we had showered Ukraine in [Insert favored IFV, tank or whatever] that this war would be over by now. This is gross oversimplification bordering on disinformation with an undertone of western biases that are frankly bordering on imperial prejudices. 1. Ukraine has a large arms industry of its own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Ukraine. It is no doubt under stress but we have no reports it is falling apart. It needs all the help it can get, so lets start there. 2. Ukraine had pretty healthy mechanized force before this war started armed, not surprisingly with its own equipment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Ground_Forces. They have sustained losses, but do we have any reports of the UA being critically short of anything? Any major losses due to those shortfalls? Ok, so lets not freak out with the "Ukraine is collapsing because they do not have Marders" thing. 3. Ukraine has captured an obscene amount of Russian equipment - https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html. If half of those Russian vehicles have been made fit for battle Ukraine likely has more of some natures that it did at the start of the war. Any support we can to make that happen smoother, better and faster is a very good idea. 4. Heavy's overall value proposition is in doubt in this entire thing. The Russians had mountains of it and it made no difference. The UA is much smarter so I suspect they have already figured out the right conditions for heavy to work and are working to set it up. We should be aiming at supporting the UA in creating those conditions as a priority, exploitation of that is something I am pretty sure they can cover. 5. Every sexy peice of western equipment comes with a heavy logistics bill (we have discussed this), and in large numbers that bill could make the UAs life harder, not easier to sustain this potpourri of western hardware. This whole line of thought, though well intentioned, also smacks of western superiority complex - "well if we had simply given those poor dirty Ukrainian rabble our superior western equipment they would have put Ivan on the run by now...oh dear, shame on us." Ukraine has thousands of APCs/IFVs - 40 Marders is not going to magically turn the tide anymore than 100 Leo 2s, or 50 Bradleys or freakin M1s. Should we give Ukraine support? Absolutely. Should that include complete capability force packages that they can build units around? - again, yes. Should we give them versions of what they already have and can sustain? - definitely. Should we prioritize things that do make an actual difference? Like ISR, long range fires, AD and how about simple money so that soldiers get paid and their families can buy groceries? How about shoring up the existing Ukrainian arms industry and military architecture so they can stop being so dependent on western support? Should we train and support their force generation - oh, most definitely. If someone said we had to decide between training 75k Ukraine troops or another 100 Marders, I already know what the right answer is. You cannot flood a military built on an entirely different fleet system, in the middle of a a war, and magically make it all go away. You can wring hands and cry "oh dear, think about all the good Ukrainain boys who may have survived if they were in Bradleys", well that assumes a Bradley is shell, mine and ATGM proof as well as invisible to begin with. It also fails to fundamentally understand how militaries are built, sustained and employed. Ukraine needs broad holistic and comprehensive support on many levels. Niche, hi profile sexy equipment donations are nice but we cannot lose sight of the fundamentals - the stuff that really makes a difference. And when this war is over, that is when the real support will be needed. We had better see as much hand wringing and noise on donating farm equipment, reconstruction infrastructure and economic stimulus as we have seen on Marders/Bradleys or there was no point to this whole thing.

Jon are you coming onto me? I mean it is so sudden...I am flattered, but I have been hurt before.

What has happened to airpower in this war is by far more impactful than what happened to armour (i.e. the bloody tank). I have not heard one coherent explanation or assessment of why neither side has been able to achieve air superiority. I have seen a lot of ideas and anecdotes being tossed around, along with theories but a full blown case study is lacking. Is this some sort of Ukraine-Russia specific thing or is airpower as we know it in trouble? Unmanned tactical airpower is having a massive surge in that vacuum as a result. This appears to be a collision of air denials - both sides are effective in denying traditional airspaces leading to a stalemate. This is particularly concerning as Canada shells out $19B for F35s. Did we just spend all that money to intercept Russian bombers made in the 60s because we wont be able to use them elsewhere? Perhaps it only confirms what every army officer already knows - depend on what you control. In this case, tac UAS and the guns.

If I may weigh in? This is a really fun discussion. Well to your first point, I am not sure we are the only species that possesses the ability to do long-term planning. I would say we are the only species that can do adaptable long term planning. For most animals the long term planning and strategies are hardwired into them at birth (migratory cycles, reproductive patterns...cicadas anyone?). Humans seem to posses a unique ability to dynamically plan based on feedback from the environment. I think that the main issue on either side of your positions - and major weakness in both arguments to frank - is that neither of you has defined longer term. If we are talking a one year horizon then Steve is wrong and there is an entire Agrarian Age of evidence stacked up against him. There would be no human civilization if we could not plan out a year of agricultural operations. 5 years, much trickier but I suspect that the evidence points to the idea that we are not only able to plan/strategize that far but do so regularly particularly when we invented much larger enterprises where endstate objectives took longer than a year to accomplish - e.g. pyramids and roads. We broke long term strategies into smaller one year strategies - meta-strategizing effectively, but it still counts. Beyond 5 years, well yes we can do it, and in many cases do it very well. But herein lies the second problem with the debate, you are muddling individual with collective; in human affairs scale matters. For example, at a small scale individual level, one does not develop a strategy to send one's kids to college during the high school graduation ceremony. My wife and I started strategizing on the children's post-public school educations when they were infants. And given the College Savings Plan industry, I am sure we are not an isolated case. Now try and get a 20 year strategy for national education and one is tilting at windmills. I don't think one could do it at the municipal level let alone higher scales. So What? Well I am not sure of the whole "biologicamal 20 Hz versus 55 Hz thing", but looking at the world around us it appears that we can do longer term planning, at a micro social scale. My mortgage says we are pretty good at it. So no matter how our brains are designed, there is overwhelming evidence we can do small social scale - long term, to a point. Even at a micro-scale planning out past say two or three generations (I am farmer, so my son can be an engineer, so his son can be an artist). Get past that into the century window and I think we pretty much stop caring enough to actually put the effort into the issue. We enter into the land of faith at that point, or as my dear departed Grandmother used to say - "stop worrying, it will all work out somehow." To which, as I slide into my golden years, I would add to my own children/grandchildren - "Stop worrying, it will all work out somehow. And if it does not, you will be long dead and wont care anyway." Collectively we have demonstrated an ability to conduct long term collective strategization (a word I did not just totally make up), however, we have not demonstrated a lot of talent or inclination. For example, China does have an infamous rumored 100 year strategy ( https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-long-game-chinas-grand-strategy-to-displace-american-order/), but to be honest I am not sure how much of this is us projecting our own strategic weaknesses and painting China as some sort of superhuman collective, and/or how much is reality. There are persistent myths that totalitarian states do strategy better, but history is really a mixed bag on this. We had sustainable great empires in the past where some sort of longer term strategy was likely at play, but they all fell apart, usually to lack of strategic foresight. Or when micro-social strategies diverged too far from wherever the macro-social strategies were going. Democracy is a weird one. She is like a girl we dated in college but got away and now we are trying it again in middle age. We are older, wiser and saggier so maybe this time it will stick...jury is still out. As to whether democracies can strategize - well obviously they can, and in some cases do it well. However, it tends to be (nod to Mintzberg) emergent and messy. We also tend to not write it down. We write a lot of stuff but the real strategies we dare not say lest they evaporate before our eyes. I suspect that collective strategy is much harder because it is built on what Harari called "imagined community" and these are held together by abstract ideas and concepts. So pinning those down into hard metrics we can all agree upon get much harder. There is plenty of evidence that we suck at collective longer term planning, history is a collection of human failures in that regard. Finally, I am not sure those are "biological cages" more anchors. We can pull away from them but they do tend to weigh us down. In many ways you are both right or wrong depending on a "certain point of view".

It is really interesting how Artillery really has become the determining factor in this war - and now @JonS will come and tell us that is has always been thus - however, from a western perspective it has largely been all about airpower, followed up by those poor lowly guns. In this war indirect fires of all shapes and sizes have been a key indicator. We saw RA guns drop off last late summer as a key indication that the UA deep strike campaign was working, and that Russia had lost the offensive initiative. And now it appears as though RA guns are coming under logistics strain again although exactly why is not clear - my suspicion is deep logistical issues, they are getting into the antiquated stocks of both shell and barrel. What is telling is that without supporting fires defence or offence becomes untenable. This may seem like a "duh" conclusion but I have to say that I have never seen it as this stark an issue. No ISR and no Guns = dead, in this war.

You mean there is fractured misalignment between Ends and Means? Kind of sounds like broken/non-existent strategy to me. In the end a “bad” strategy that guarantees failure may be worse than no strategy at all. The first is programming defeat, the second at least leaves glimmers of reactive hope. For Russia I see no design here. They are off their map. Flailing may be the best move they have left.

I have seen this before in the Balkans. It the the grinding of two great machines against each other. These little vicious fights are sparks as the edges make contact. We have become enamoured with sweeping advances and bold thrust; however, warfare is a lot more vicious little fights punctuated by impersonal death from afar that does not care how brave you are, or how many push-ups you can do. Then one side or the other will try for a big push, which more often than not turns into a bloody mess. The description of 21st century WW1 is not far off, but now with a corrosive twist. Corrosion is a form of manoeuvre, it takes more time but can lead to rapid erosion of an opponent to the point of collapse. As to Russian small unit trajectory. Well the conventional wisdom is that it is downward - “how steep?” Is the question. Russia does not have training centres in Poland, the UK and elsewhere being run for free by western nations. They do not have a nearly unlimited arms industry to keep them in supplies. And they definitely do not have a US based ISR system feeding targeting data at a rate that would make Schwarzkopf blush. So essentially everything a Russian small unit needs for an upward trajectory is pointing in the other direction, from generation and training, to support, to enablers, to command. The only thing that Russian small unit has is more bodies to stuff into it when it gets shot to pieces. However, the quality of those bodies is also going on a downhill slope. More conscripts who likely do not want to be there, worse moral and fewer and fewer trained veterans. So what? This war will be bloody and grinding until something gives, then it will be fast…just like the previous times. And one of these times the RA will be pushed hard enough in the right places that it cannot recover. Or it taps out. Or the West loses interest and pushes for a stop. Or least likely, Ukraine decides it has had enough.

And more to my point, from this piece: Instead, the Kremlin’s thinking was increasingly characterized by strategic procrastination and wishful thinking. Moscow appeared to focus on its minimal war aims, without an understanding of how they would lead to achieving long-term strategic goals, or how the war might end. Despite a structural mismatch of military means to political ends, and no war termination strategy, Russian leadership committed to a campaign focused on occupying more territory in the Donbas, while trying to hold everything else. This approach consumed Russian manpower and ammunition at an unsustainable rate, setting the stage for successful Ukrainian offensives in the fall, and may well prevent the Russian military from restoring offensive potential even after this winter.

Fridman is good, read his “Russian Hybrid Warfare” too. I have no doubt Russia undertakes different strategies and concepts in pursuits of its interests. However, the components of strategy are largely universal. That is because we all live under the same rules of physics, in linear time and have finite resources. Strategies can take many different approaches, but the essential components need to be present to constitute a strategy in itself. An end state/vision, method or approaches and resources remain at the core of any strategy. Overlaying things like narrative, position and posture - context and buy in, these are all the qualitative manoeuvre room one has in developing strategy. This. It is that fumbling that constitutes a lack of coherent strategy. There is no Plan B and they are waiting/hoping for something to work. A bad strategy is at least a plan. It appears Russia is waging a strategy of exhaustion but is exhausting itself faster than its opponent. But, we have repeatedly noted, they do not have time. And if they are playing for time then why exhaust so many resources in useless displays? Strategies of exhaustion tend to be asymmetric and extremely defensive. Slow cuts and nips to drag things out. But Russia is exploding all over the place. This is not “bad strategy” it is broken. I think @billbindc’s point is the closest to one that makes sense to be honest. The strategy, if we can call it that, is scrambling for regime survival and frantically trying everything in the hopes it will work. It is not deliberate, it is reactionary and impulse driven. It is a strategy in the same sense lighting one’s self on fire and running through the woods is a strategy. Why are you running? Because I am on fire! I think to call what Russia is doing as strategy is to stretch the definition to the point of breaking. Technically any human venture can be viewed as a strategy but when we are talking about a war I think the bar is slightly higher. Russia continues to demonstrate that “fumbling around for Plan B” is Plan B. Which would be hilarious if it wasn’t for all the people dying.

Two years end-Apr, Bil. CMCW is a teenager now, demanding a new DLC it can drive around and show its friends.