There's been a lot of predictions over the years, such as "the bomber always gets through", or that tanks are obsolete, or that with the nuclear bomb, conventional armies are obsolete. There's a reason why everyone still has them.
Well, you're right in that all sorts of factors influence decisions. I think that many in the West rightly believed that the chances of a direct confrontation with Russia was low, and I keep reading about how they thought economic integration would inhibit any rational Russian leader from risking the benefits of trade. But in military intelligence they focus on capabilities, because intentions can change overnight. Other agencies have a stronger focus on the psychology of an individual and predicting the actions of a government. A lot of the same information viewed as a prediction is viewed differently in hindsight. It's the same information, but some things unimagined, or thought unbelievable, can be viewed in the aftermath as always possible and maybe even predictable. 9/11, the invasion of Ukraine and Egyptian attack across the Suez all fall in that category.
Ukraine is very important to the US, whether that is the government's mindset or not. A big difference between Israel and Ukraine is that Russia has nuclear weapons and, so far, none of Israel's enemies have them. I do not believe that Russia would use nuclear weapons over anything that happens inside Ukraine, and maybe I'm right. If I'm wrong, there would be significant impacts. I don't have all the info the decision-makers have. Maybe they are correct. Maybe they're just more cautious.
But I do not subscribe to the belief that the US and the West is just doing enough the keep Ukraine alive.
For over a decade, all the US agencies have said that the biggest threat to US national security is climate change. Not any nuclear power or any other threat. And the reason is because all the instability that will accompany it. Food shortages. Water shortages. Displaced peoples. If entire island nations eventually sink under the ocean, where will you put the population? Bangladesh already suffers from both low elevations and exposure to cyclones. The list goes on.
Both Ukraine and Russia provide a lot of food for the world. It's one thing to interrupt production for a year or two, but what would happen over ten years of war?
Also, Ukraine was having demographic issues before the war and they are much worse now. They don't have an unlimited population, either for military service or their economy. The longer the war goes on, the harder it will be for both.
And there's no guarantee that such a conspiracy would work. The best resoultion would have been for a quick and decisive Ukrainian victory. After that, a victory as soon as possible would be next best. Simply defeating the Russian army is sufficient for reducing Russia as a threat as opposed to an elaborate, drawn-out scheme to grind every last vehicle and soldier into dust. It's not worth the risk of a Ukrainian loss. For those that believe in a conspiracy theory, I refer you to Hanlon's razor.
Ukraine is very important to the US and the West, whether they realize it now or at some future time. It would be nice if we have more tanks, IFVs and other weapons to give them.
Would be interesting to have that applied to the current Israel/Palestine war situation, especially what happened with Israeli intelligence. But perhaps it’s too early.
I don't have all the facts on the current situation but we know of some parallels to the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Both were conducted on holidays, and the Egyptians/Palestinians believed Israel would have a lower state of readiness. And Egyptians ran the same drills prepping for the crossing of the Suez canal in view of the Israelis until it became a normal thing. The Palestinians ran drills in preparation for their operation in view of the Israelis until it became a normal thing.
Fascinating! I had never realised this was a recognisable concept with a for letter acronym before, but it’s how I’ve always believed you should act as a leader to instil in whatever organisation you belong to.
People have used this before it was given a name, and this is just one model. There are other models describing the same thing in slightly different ways.
Superb and effective summary, thank you. Do you have any indication that Western militaries are recognising this? Are they, instead, relying on their current advantage as a foundation for any potential conflict?
Yes. A USAF colonel came up with this model and I learned about it in the US Army. We were all taught, by one method or another, to have a small, effective OODA loop. This concept, either by this name or others, is used in non-military forums. I'm sure Messi or Jeremy Iron's character in the fictional movie weren't thinking about the OODA loop model when conducting their business, but the Chief Advisor to the UK Prime Minister Dominic Cummings credits the success of the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum to its faster processing of OODA loops, along with the focus of Vote Leave on disrupting the OODA loops of the opposing Britain Stronger in Europe campaign team.
Part of the reason for some western advantages is because they are constanly working on their decision making processes. It comes in the form of NCO and junior officers being encouraged to make decisions rather than wait for senior approval for each and every step. It comes from training in tough conditions until you are used to them so the conditions will be less likely to interfere with your thought process during combat. It comes from technology detects information and shares that information quickly on a network to each decision node that could benefit from such information.
It's not just about making decisions quicker and more accurately, it's also about keeping the process intact. If a command post is destroyed, the decision-making process for that unit will be degraded. The US army is working on distributing and decentralizing its command posts by spreading diffent nodes out and having each node be capable of running everything. Communication is a big challenge in such an effort, both to maintain it and to hide any signals that may indicate the presence of a command node.
The mere process of creating and implementing a distributed command post is a way to make sure the US OODA loop is smaller relative to any fugure opponent.
Ukraine didn't have enough ammo for both a Kherson and a Kharkiv offensive so it prioritized the Kharkiv offensive. In November of 2022, there was still intense fighting in western Luhansk but there were indications that Russia was planning a withdrawal from the right bank of the Dnieper. At that point, Kherson should have become the priority, and even if they didn't have the artillery ammo that they needed, they should have made an effort to press the retreating Russians. It was a quick operation, lasting about two days, and the only statements made in the press from Ukraine was they were wary about this being a Russian trap.
It wasn't, of course. It was a lost opportunity. The magnitude may vary, but lost opportunities happen all the time.
in order to successfully change ammo priority to Kherson they would have needed to make that decision very early because of the logistical difficulties.
Fully agree. The main problem I can see is, that in one point, we have unexperienced mobiks against much more experienced UA forces BUT not enough supported by NATO. Not because it is going to lost interest, but because it's incompetence to increase production of ammo and so on. I heard about plan to produce 1.000.000 shells a year. Wow, sounds good on the press conference, isn't it? But till the moment, you divide it to 365 days... it's funny number for whole NATO - only Ukraine needs at least 3-4 times more to survive... The West still hasn't woken up enough...
I agree. There's a lot of domestic politics factored into some of these decisions. And I don't have all the info the decision-makers do, but from where I sit there have just been some bad decisions.
Yeah, same concept, just expressed differently. All these models are useful. Sometimes we do things without understanding why. It may be meta, but studying the process provides information that can be used to come up with a better process.
There's been a lot of predictions over the years, such as "the bomber always gets through", or that tanks are obsolete, or that with the nuclear bomb, conventional armies are obsolete. There's a reason why everyone still has them.
Well, you're right in that all sorts of factors influence decisions. I think that many in the West rightly believed that the chances of a direct confrontation with Russia was low, and I keep reading about how they thought economic integration would inhibit any rational Russian leader from risking the benefits of trade. But in military intelligence they focus on capabilities, because intentions can change overnight. Other agencies have a stronger focus on the psychology of an individual and predicting the actions of a government. A lot of the same information viewed as a prediction is viewed differently in hindsight. It's the same information, but some things unimagined, or thought unbelievable, can be viewed in the aftermath as always possible and maybe even predictable. 9/11, the invasion of Ukraine and Egyptian attack across the Suez all fall in that category.
Ukraine is very important to the US, whether that is the government's mindset or not. A big difference between Israel and Ukraine is that Russia has nuclear weapons and, so far, none of Israel's enemies have them. I do not believe that Russia would use nuclear weapons over anything that happens inside Ukraine, and maybe I'm right. If I'm wrong, there would be significant impacts. I don't have all the info the decision-makers have. Maybe they are correct. Maybe they're just more cautious.
But I do not subscribe to the belief that the US and the West is just doing enough the keep Ukraine alive.
For over a decade, all the US agencies have said that the biggest threat to US national security is climate change. Not any nuclear power or any other threat. And the reason is because all the instability that will accompany it. Food shortages. Water shortages. Displaced peoples. If entire island nations eventually sink under the ocean, where will you put the population? Bangladesh already suffers from both low elevations and exposure to cyclones. The list goes on.
Both Ukraine and Russia provide a lot of food for the world. It's one thing to interrupt production for a year or two, but what would happen over ten years of war?
Also, Ukraine was having demographic issues before the war and they are much worse now. They don't have an unlimited population, either for military service or their economy. The longer the war goes on, the harder it will be for both.
And there's no guarantee that such a conspiracy would work. The best resoultion would have been for a quick and decisive Ukrainian victory. After that, a victory as soon as possible would be next best. Simply defeating the Russian army is sufficient for reducing Russia as a threat as opposed to an elaborate, drawn-out scheme to grind every last vehicle and soldier into dust. It's not worth the risk of a Ukrainian loss. For those that believe in a conspiracy theory, I refer you to Hanlon's razor.
Ukraine is very important to the US and the West, whether they realize it now or at some future time. It would be nice if we have more tanks, IFVs and other weapons to give them.
Very informative and much appreciated.
Thank you and Namaste.
Would be interesting to have that applied to the current Israel/Palestine war situation, especially what happened with Israeli intelligence. But perhaps it’s too early.
I don't have all the facts on the current situation but we know of some parallels to the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Both were conducted on holidays, and the Egyptians/Palestinians believed Israel would have a lower state of readiness. And Egyptians ran the same drills prepping for the crossing of the Suez canal in view of the Israelis until it became a normal thing. The Palestinians ran drills in preparation for their operation in view of the Israelis until it became a normal thing.
Fascinating! I had never realised this was a recognisable concept with a for letter acronym before, but it’s how I’ve always believed you should act as a leader to instil in whatever organisation you belong to.
People have used this before it was given a name, and this is just one model. There are other models describing the same thing in slightly different ways.
Superb and effective summary, thank you. Do you have any indication that Western militaries are recognising this? Are they, instead, relying on their current advantage as a foundation for any potential conflict?
Yes. A USAF colonel came up with this model and I learned about it in the US Army. We were all taught, by one method or another, to have a small, effective OODA loop. This concept, either by this name or others, is used in non-military forums. I'm sure Messi or Jeremy Iron's character in the fictional movie weren't thinking about the OODA loop model when conducting their business, but the Chief Advisor to the UK Prime Minister Dominic Cummings credits the success of the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum to its faster processing of OODA loops, along with the focus of Vote Leave on disrupting the OODA loops of the opposing Britain Stronger in Europe campaign team.
Part of the reason for some western advantages is because they are constanly working on their decision making processes. It comes in the form of NCO and junior officers being encouraged to make decisions rather than wait for senior approval for each and every step. It comes from training in tough conditions until you are used to them so the conditions will be less likely to interfere with your thought process during combat. It comes from technology detects information and shares that information quickly on a network to each decision node that could benefit from such information.
It's not just about making decisions quicker and more accurately, it's also about keeping the process intact. If a command post is destroyed, the decision-making process for that unit will be degraded. The US army is working on distributing and decentralizing its command posts by spreading diffent nodes out and having each node be capable of running everything. Communication is a big challenge in such an effort, both to maintain it and to hide any signals that may indicate the presence of a command node.
The mere process of creating and implementing a distributed command post is a way to make sure the US OODA loop is smaller relative to any fugure opponent.
Thank you
Interesting analysis
At the time you said the Ukraine problem over Dnieper withdrawal was munitions shortage.
Ukraine didn't have enough ammo for both a Kherson and a Kharkiv offensive so it prioritized the Kharkiv offensive. In November of 2022, there was still intense fighting in western Luhansk but there were indications that Russia was planning a withdrawal from the right bank of the Dnieper. At that point, Kherson should have become the priority, and even if they didn't have the artillery ammo that they needed, they should have made an effort to press the retreating Russians. It was a quick operation, lasting about two days, and the only statements made in the press from Ukraine was they were wary about this being a Russian trap.
It wasn't, of course. It was a lost opportunity. The magnitude may vary, but lost opportunities happen all the time.
I agree it was a lost opportunity.
in order to successfully change ammo priority to Kherson they would have needed to make that decision very early because of the logistical difficulties.
So true. But they could also have done more with what they had given the nature of the situation.
Really explains a lot. Thanks again!
Fully agree. The main problem I can see is, that in one point, we have unexperienced mobiks against much more experienced UA forces BUT not enough supported by NATO. Not because it is going to lost interest, but because it's incompetence to increase production of ammo and so on. I heard about plan to produce 1.000.000 shells a year. Wow, sounds good on the press conference, isn't it? But till the moment, you divide it to 365 days... it's funny number for whole NATO - only Ukraine needs at least 3-4 times more to survive... The West still hasn't woken up enough...
I agree. There's a lot of domestic politics factored into some of these decisions. And I don't have all the info the decision-makers do, but from where I sit there have just been some bad decisions.
Thanks Don for a very informative article
Спасибо за работу.
Поскорее бы...
Very interesting analysis. Thanks Don!
Thank you! Very informative. Enjoyed reading to a lot!
Thank you, Tom. Just brilliant, Don.
In civil aviation it is abbreviated as a
D - Diagnose
O - Options
D - Decision
A - Assign
R - Revise,
DODAR.
Yeah, same concept, just expressed differently. All these models are useful. Sometimes we do things without understanding why. It may be meta, but studying the process provides information that can be used to come up with a better process.
Excellent
Thank you for your very elucidating article