Note that a number of Ukrainian brigades seem to have no trouble getting voluntary recruits.
Might be that it's wise to build on success. Expand them into mini-divisions, say a dozen or so, each with 3 regiment-sized battlegroups. Give them their own supply chains and everything.
Problem is those brigades don't operate at brigade level. Ukrainians like Russians struggle at anything more than company or in some instances battalion level
20km is also a massive frontage especially for offensive ops in a conventional fight. Soviets used to have 4km frontage for offense in WW2, Germans iften as narrow as 1km.
If you can't generate mass you can't breakthrough. Assaulting with single platoons or companies or even battalions might net you some positional advantage (ie taking over a tree line) but doesn't allow for a breakthrough.
To breakthrough you need to rip a big hole through multiple layers of defences whilst suppressing the hell out of any reinforcements and then flood stuff into the gap to exploit the breakthrough.
That also means massive supporting focused firepower which neither side really uses.
Eg in Operation Cobra in WW2, one 7x3 km stretch of land near La Chapelle-Enjuge was pounded for 3 hours by 2500 bombers with 4000 tons of bombs dropped.
The Soviets used to use massive double ended rolling bombardments with both front and rear lines hit by artillery (because the Germans used to only lightly man forward defences too - this is not a new thing).
Now you have unfocused artillery and periodic use of inaccurate glide bombs on the Russian side.
Infantry attacks without supporting artillery or even armour. Armour attacks without artillery or infantry. Most attacks are tiny groups of men that lack combat power to achieve anything and attacking in daylight (Red Army used to practice night assaults for infantry back in 1942-45, so did the British and Japanese).
Even without drones and guided weapons, this war devolves into stalemate because both sides are essentially incompetent.
Scale, people keep forgetting the importance of scale.
Why did masses of soldiers stop being effective as a means of advancing? Machine guns. What was the solution? Spread out to achieve combined arms effects on a different scale.
If you want examples of good leadership in wartime, the US Army is a good place to look, but not today’s army. The story of Union Army during the Civil War was one of firing generals until Lincoln found generals who could command and fight. The worthless ones usually got a pension instead of a court-martial, but they were given the boot.
I suspect neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have many good generals (or anyone above a captain really) and certainly no exceptional ones.
Even in Ukraine any officer trained before 2014 but probably later was trained in the Soviet style and in the same level of corruption as Russian ones.
It could well be the lieutenants of today will make excellent generals but that will take a couple of decades until the old guard finally retires.
Yep. Zaluzhny was a partial exception - he was really caring about the troops, and it was so rare trait the troops were inspired alot by him, yet it's not the only trait a really capable commander has to have, and Zaluzhny obviously lacked strength of character to displace the unfit in time, and his articles and interviews show he never treated the operational and strategic theory as something serious.
There is though a rizing bright spot currently - looks like several new high-level commanders (Hnatov, Krasylnykov, Drapatyi, Trepak) are really capable ones, so I think your prognosys is a bit conservative.
The other thing that is also evident in Ukraine's Army (eg 2023 summer offensive) is that Ukraine's officers are generally incapable of conducting coordinated operations anything bigger than company level.
The Russians are the same.
You can get away with this in defence as even small units can hold off larger ones. It fails in offence which is naturally more complex.
The issue in both Ukrainian and Russian Army is an archaic Soviet attitude to warfare and is made worse by traditional corruption endemic in both Ukraine and Russia.
What "combined" operations do you mean, if there's no aviation? Although many are, indeed, incapable, don't forget that you're talking about offensive without air support. Can you count many cases when the large-scale offensive on fortified positions was successful when enemy has significant air superiority?
They do have aviation - in fact they have more oncall aviation support than any other army in history in the form of all these drones. Both sides also have long range artillery including Ukraine's superb and very accurate HIMARs.
If your infantry company has UCAVs assigned to it, that's more direct airsupport than a US company in Iraq in 2003 (edited) would have. The US captain has to request air support, the Ukrainian/Russian one has it on call.
But Ukraine and Russia will never have air dominance of the type the US and friends have managed to amass since 1944. Thus air support will always be limited. Indeed their Soviet style doctrine precludes air dominance.
You could give Russia or Ukraine F-22s, EA-18Gs and B-2s the result would still be the same because the problems are with their command structure and culture.
The issue is they can't coordinate units larger than a company and sometimes a battalion.
This is not Operation Cobra or Bagration or 2nd El Alamein. It's Iran-Iraq or Ethiopia-Eritrea with essentially useless higher level general staffs.
Note back in 1941-45 this was all ideal tank territory because both sides could coordinate large offensive actions (Ok the Soviets had to learn it). Now it's devolved to Western Front 1916.
What you are saying is not without a sense. But you're exaggerating and mixing up things too much and therefore telling lies.
During 2023 summer offensive, the FPV thing was just starting. They were available in a very limited numbers. Bomber drones - mostly small like Mavik and Autel. In fact, at that time, drones were mostly used for the reconnaissance and artillery guidance. But even now, drones cannot provide the same air support as aviation for many reasons: jamming, payload, anti-air capabilities, etc.
> If your infantry company has UCAVs assigned to it, that's more direct airsupport than a US company in Iraq in 2001 would have
Very subjective statement. Even if... It doesn't change the fact that the US company enjoyed the fact that the air support was 100% on their side. While Ukrainian company would only have a parity or slight advantage.
And, BTW, the US invasion in Iraq was started in 2003, not 2001.
"During 2023 summer offensive, the FPV thing was just starting. They were available in a very limited numbers. Bomber drones - mostly small like Mavik and Autel. In fact, at that time, drones were mostly used for the reconnaissance and artillery guidance"
A. I was unaware of dispositions of UCAVs. My mistake.
B. Artillery guidance and reconnaissance are still massive benefits especially when coupled with accurate systems ala HIMARS etc.
Again artillery is far more useful than air support in most infantry missions. Air support is limited by duration on call and limited ordnance. In high intensity warfare there is also often the need to suppress more than 1 target (especially when the enemy has positions with overlapping fields of fire).
In that case sustained artillery fire is probably better than a couple of 500 lb bombs dropped by a jet.
The jet's big advantage is payload but if it misses with its payload then there's nothing left whereas artillery can correct fire.
And the Ukrainians and Russians (and most European states) don't have the assets to maintain continuous CAS with jets even if the IADS environment is more in their favour.
Again in that case artillery offers greater advantages.
"It doesn't change the fact that the US company enjoyed the fact that the air support was 100% on their side. While Ukrainian company would only have a parity or slight advantage."
Point is if the US unit in 2003 is low in the tasking order, their air support is 0 even if they have air dominance. Having your own UCAVs at company level gives you some very accurate firepower potential.
"the US invasion in Iraq was started in 2003, not 2001."
HIMARS were reserved mainly for operational level usage. A typical infantry unit would not receive this kind of artillery support. Reason is simply: very few ammo and very few HIMARS/MLRS to risk.
To summarize:
- Ukraine did not enjoyed any kind of air superiority. Slight advantage in FPV drones was overcompensated by russian aviation (mainly attack helicopters, used as elevated anti-tank missile launchers) and Lancets.
- Ukraine did not enjoyed the artillery advantage either. Some advantage in the precision was compensated by the number of shells fired by the enemy.
- It doesn't seem there was a numerical advantage in this sector either.
- Terrain didn't allow concealed movement
When you combine all these and add that you have to advance on fortified and mined enemy positions under continuous observation by enemy from the skies... I wonder who would even start attacking in such circumstances if not pushed by beloved "partners" very hard. But yeah... these are Ukrainian officers to blame, cuz they cannot achieve the decisive victory despite all these facts :-)
They literally sent platoons of armoured vehicles onto the field unsupported.
The Ukrainian attacks were as badly confucted as many Russian ones.
And what you are effectively saying is Ukraine can't win this war nevaise tohse battlefield conditions are on the entire front.
And Ukraine will neevr have the type of air force you need to truly shatter Rissoa's IADs. Certainly 85 ancient 1990s tech F-16AM/BM will not be a game changer.
Also note Russia doesn't have air superiority either - their airforce generally can't operate near the frontlines.
Hence the life hack with glide bombs.
Oh and they still can't progress forwars despite glide bombs because just like Ukrainians they suck at offensive warfare.
Thanks Tom! Apart from the rainfall of Heroes of Ukraine, I somewhat disagree with your points. When was the last time NATO fought a large-scale war? Never? I get your point about the need for responsibility and accounting but are things that different in the West? Was the Iraqi war a major blunder? Or the Afghanistan withdrawal? Anyone punished? Of course, we all want the incompetent officers out of ZSU
US invasion of Iraq in 2001 was the last time American (and British) gorces fought a major conventional conflict.
That operation was very well run for most part.
The occupation and COIN that happened afterwards are a different kettle of fish.
But I suspect if US had to wage a conventional war it eould fare much better than Ukrainians or especially Russians.
For all its faults, US military retains massive institutional knowledge and experience on how to run major ops, is excellent at training soldiers and officers, has probably the best logistics system of any military in history and combined arms is generally baked into the very essence of
Ukraine's senior officer corps are trained in Soviet doctrine whiich does none of the above very well and is stuck in WW2 operational concepts and Imperial Tzarist officer culture coupled with post Soviet corruption.
The only advantage Ukraine has is that Russia is even more wedded to these concepts and culture and that through some contact with west as well as operational experience junior officers and NCOs have become more western in their thinking atcompany, platoon and squad level (ie greater emphaisis on flexibility and initiative).
The nature of this war is very different for Russia and Ukraine so the Ukrainian volunteers and mobilized have a much higher percentage of capable civilians which I think is THE major advantage Ukraine has as far as internal resources are concerned. That's why it stops at the company level -- above that there's a hard ceiling for the non-career military men to make decisions.
The Soviet doctrine (designed actually by the last generation of Imperial Tzarist officers - those men like Galaktionov, Isserson, Svechin, Triandafillov) was actually nearly the same as the US one, based on combined arms maneuver operations as it's core - just less thorougfully thought and, even more important, badly spoiled with nonsensical Marxist dogmas (like the class-based structure, so no permission of highly educated specialist career servicemen; it was either draftees or career officers, and the officer corps was the worst threat to the Party - an inevitable military coup possibility - so they implemented every possible HR policy to make them as much dumb, uninitiative and corrupt as possible, just to lessen this mortal threat).
And even Triandafillov's product was put together after having had no new doctrine since the early 1800s, and the Soviet leadership came to the idea they might need one after Tukhachevsky was served his ass under Warsaw. But I'm not aware of it being overpadded with Marxism - the problem was more like that it elaborated on mopping up enemy supply lines after having smashed the front with a sledgehammer blow, but didn't explain what to do in the absence of a sledgehammer.
As for the chance of a military coup, it's weird how much Russian leadership is afraid of it even though I don't recall it ever happening to them, at least not on a country-wide level. Assisted autocoups, showdowns between or within political circles, mass mutinies or mercenary rebellions did happen, but a takeover initiated by a conspiracy of high-ranking military officers - was that ever the case in Russia?
For any current clique it's irrelevant if the coup would be led my military leaders only or a mix of military and "betas" from the political hierarchy - wich was quite a norm of Russian history, and they know it well.
That's okay, but it would appear that an inherently corrupt and idiotic officer corps is, if anything, easier to bribe or sway by a political beta to help them topple the top.
That's why Russian generals are so often falling out of their basement windows, with visible pikes of this statistics after the every at least relatively successful war. FSB cleans the suspicious. They are stupid and so easy to track.
But Russian Deep Battle and other high level strategic concepts are basically academic/theoretical concepts and save 1944-45 never actually embraced by Russian/Soviet forces on reality whereas similar US/western concepts were.
I don't buy the "they keep the army deliberatly dumb" theory.
Military coups are often performed by the most incompetent armies eg Africa and Latin America.
Ie badly educated types who are given the ultimate keys to the kingdom - guns. You don't need combined arms to drive tanks into the capital.
I suspect Soviet military incompetence comes from a whole heap of cultural and historical factors including serfdom and extreme social stratification, historical high illiteracy, poor management culture, technological backwardness a lack of understanding of concepts of modern warfare.
Even if Russia became a functioning democracy its military would remain the same or maybe even deteriorate further due to loss of prestige or funding
The Soviet training and manuals, OOB, all the military vehicles and weapons were by design made according to this doctrine. It wasn't just a theory, it was the only way to fight they prepared for... With the only remark: every capable officer understood well the operational friction would be deadly, and the Soviet system cannot lower it without such an extermination threat and 3 years of "natural selection" as during 1941-1944.
Sure, the Party's suspiciousness wasn't the only factor. Still a factor. They knew well that their legitimacy wasn't any kind of deep and loyalty of the army is very superficial. It wasn't just the inertia - the Tzarist officer corps wasn't brilliant (army's deep anti-intellectuality, by the Svechin's words), yet it was much better then the Soviet one. And we are lucky the modern Russian one is even worse.
I think you have raised some excellent points especially about Russian military being deeply anti-intellectual. I really think it's both a military cultural issue and a general Russian cultural issue.
I suspect even if Russia became democratic ala Switzerland and made corruption extinct, it's military would still perform dismally because of its deep set cultural flaws.
Indeed even in 2008 when Russia was nominally democratic and had pumped some money into the military, it performed dismally in Georgia.
Even in late WW2 the Germans usually exhibited better tactical capabilities than Soviets despite being exhausted with the core original army long dead/injured.
Soviets were lucky to have some excellent high level generals at army level who had experience in WWI, civil war and clashes with Japan in 1930s.
But your average Soviet lieutenant/captain/major/colonel in 1945 was still crap and essentially incompetent at worse or mediocre at best.
The COIN in Iraq can't set on the US military alone. That becomes a political affair. Bremmer - Cheney's creature blundered entry with orders to fire the Iraq army and the bulk of the bureaucracy. Creating in one fell swoop a bunch pissed unemployed people many of them armed. And the Bush admiration stiff armed the UN and NGOs (at least at first and in planning ahead of time) that might stepped in on the running the civil infrastructure. They had been warned they did not provide the Military with the manpower to occupy Iraq effectively. Particularly a country with deep sectarian divides. I do seem to recall most experts thought 500,000+ was what needed that ain't was there. once you liquidated the Iraq army.
I mean the US don't have whole divisions and or army corps of say light infantry/military police and a vast army of people trained to administer/do civilian jobs - troops designed from the ground to occupy and rebuild places. and supported by thousands of people who can speak multiple languages.
Trouble is I recall that in late 2022 the Ukrainian sergeant-major of one of the supposed NATO-style brigades resigned and returned to the lower ranks because of institutional resistance from officers. He could get nothing done. History shows that reforming an army's officer corps in wartime is damned difficult. Near impossible. Montgomery did it with the force under his command in 1940 after Dunkirk. Anyone officer who could not complete a five-mile run in a set time was retired. It was a good way of getting rid of dead wood, but he had time on his side. Those troops were not fighting on the frontline.
The US and the British fought 2 major conventional wars since the cold war, the first gulf war and the invasion of iraq. Desert storm was the historical pinnacle of western warfare, the invasion of Iraq went as well as invasions can be expected to go. 1M troops, 700k US took part on the coalition side in the first gulf war. IIRC 560k US troops took part in the invasion of Iraq.
Yes, both the British and the US can run large combined arms offensive operations. The French can most likely do as well. As for the rest of NATO, don't know but none will be worse than either the Russians and Ukrainians. At worst, they wouldn't be much better.
All Nordic countries' states have excellent organisation top to bottom. I simply don't know how much they practice offensive operations deep into enemy territory. Also, only the Finns have a large land army and it simply isn't possible to practice large unit, combined arms manouvres when all you have is a brigade.
I believe this is currently the biggest issue since the 90s. Most NATO armies have shrunk to levels that prevent effective full scale war exercises. The majority of training within NATO has been international cooperation/coordination. However, nobody is seriously thinking they would be mixing batallions or maybe even brigades from different countries, in the case of a full scale war.
Even the US have had to change their focus from COIN to conventional peer to peer warfare in recent years, since 2015 I think. That means going back to coordinating large units, e.g. entire divisions and brigade combat teams.
Yes. However, this is only true for the land forces. It is not true for the airforces and the navies. For a whole variety of reasons, all western European militaries have vastly degraded their land forces, while investing in the other two branches instead. The French airforce alone would obliterate the VKS. Same with the European navies. The European NATO are in a very bad state on land.
Actually most NATO navies and air forces were downgraded too. Eg Netherlands brought 213 F-16s but is only planning 52 F-35s. Woes of German airforce are well known - poor operational capability, decayed logistics, poor serviceability. Ammunitions was depleted eg Danish completely ran out of bombs during Libya.
In many cases only very few units were kept to any standard.
I doubt the French air force could obliterate VKS in a conventional war- it lacks SEAD/DEAD, doesn't operate 5th generation stealth, lacks mass long range strike.
Even worse most French fighter pilots had their flight hours seriously degraded by late 2010s. Many weren't flying even 120 hours a year and there was a plan mooted to have them fly trainers ala Alpha Jets and new PC-21s to maintain flight hours.
Same for navies eg Dutch operated 22 frigates prior to 1989. They now have 6 of which one is mothballed due to lack of crews.
Sure the ships are more capable but 5 frigates means maybe 2 operational at anyone time.
Or look at the Royal Navy which in many ways collapsed after 1989. The number of escort vessels has plummeted to a dismal 15, they lack sufficient aircraft for the 2 carriers and most of their ships lost antishipping capability (being restored).
Post-1989 NATO effectively became a strange beast. Europeans disarmed and the US became the core of European defence. At the same time Europeans supported American military adventures in middle east etc often supplying tokenistic forces.
Essentially US provided Europeans with insurance and collected payment in form of political support for its foreign policy.
Britain and France can't run squat on their own. Neither manages more than a single armoured division and they lack so many essential systems (long range strike, SEAD, logistics etc).
They can only contribute to US ops but could not pull something like Suez operation anymore
They couldn't with their current forces. It doesn't mean they don't have the capability in their officer corps to do it. These are separate matters. The French have shown incredible logistical prowess and global force projection in the Sahel, despite having to ask allies for additional transport planes. It wasn't multiple divisions but it's much easier to scale things up if you already have the know how, than when you have none like the ZSU. This is why it's called institutional knowledge. You don't just lose it the day they cut your budget.
Counter insurgency is a whole different keytle of fish to conventional warfare.
From what I have read the initial operations in Mali highlighted weakness of French logistics as a lot of units had to be stripped of functional equipment to support contingent in Mali.
There were no effective reserves left.
Essentially supporting a small handful of light infantry battalions in a very low intensity conflict was the most the French could handle.
Firstly, you are still talking about the lack of resources, which nobody is arguing with. They still have shown they have the capacity and capability to conduct combined arms manouvres, across the globe. It's easy to fix the lack of resources, it's difficult to fix the lack of ability. If you give the VSRF or the ZSU all the equipment of the US armed forces, they will still end up doing platoon trench assaults.
Secondly, to sustain a brigade so far from home takes tens of thousands of people. All of that happening while a significant number of french troops were deployed at home against the domestic terrorist threat. That's why almost no army on the planet has the ability to project force globally. It's basically only the US, France and the UK.
Lastly, the fact they had to take equipment from other units has nothing to do with logistics. The logistics was excellent to pull off operation serval. They did need additional allied transport though.
But I agree that even of you gave Ukraine all western weapons, they would still be fightong WW1 trench warfare.
But I doubt the French army would do any better. When faced with well trained fighters on Afghanistan the French suffered badly (eg see Uzbin Valley smbish on 2008).
In Mali the French did barely any fighting. The Tuaregs and AQIM forces just blended back into civilian life and waited for the French to lose patience with Malinese.
The British are also somewhat useless - they got their arses kicked in Bsra and lost control of the city.
But of you assigm them to an American led cirps size formation the small French amd British units function well enough.
But they are really down to being American auxiliaries .
There were several reports I read in that period. Eg German forces didn't even know basic infantry tactics and weren't trained in how to effectively suppress fire.
Great write up Tom. This has been one of my most burning questions. Whats even worse is I've read and heard that areas in the south close to Crimea were de-mined in the days before the invasion!!! I had a friend from DC telling me in December 2021 that US intel was 100% certain of invasion because Russia was collecting blood. If DC security consultants knew about this, how did Zelensky or his senior officers not ensure the south was properly mined but worse demined(if true it was demined)!! Blaming it on the SBU also didnt add up as you pointed out the fallacy considering ZSU were the ones in charge of the operation.
It makes sense that Zelensky underestimated the intel he was getting from the West and there were a minority of Senior Officers in the south who didnt mind which Slavic side they ended up on(possibly Sodol and Sokolov), be it Russia or Ukraine. Zelensky has done a great job but eventually he'll have to reflect and be honest to his fellow country people where he may have messed up. His intentions may have been pure, but good intentions mean nothing if Russian friendly security operatives sabotaged Ukraine's defence of the South and no serious efforts were put in place to remove them. The Crimean axis and the ATO zone were two fronts I expected to be the most fortified. I still cant believe they fumbled the South like that. Gallant Ukrainian men and women were betrayed.
There's a simple lithmus test to discern these cases: arrogant self-overconfident people are "impenetrable", they just don't listen to anyone, yet rarely react to the criticism; compensative arrogance is, on the contrary, very reactive, such people are prone to burst in ire when facing any opposition from below. Zelensky's visually calm on puplic - he's a showman, has a full set of self-control and acting skills, yet he's noticably touchy with inferiors.
Not the worst case - he's actually quite a brilliant man in his role. Still vulnerable to the major fear of every showman: to lose popularity.
Thanks Tom: it’s a telling summary of an army in flux. I think I’d be less concerned over the issuing of medals (like Muttley in Wacky Racers). After all, the British are keen to issue OBE’s to commanders for serving their time just as much as the Hero’s of Ukraine seem to be recognised.
There is clearly a need to improve the promotion and replacement of senior staff but it took the nations in WW2 several years to let the military rather than the politicians manage this.
The bigger issue of NATO alignment is likely the challenge of aligning cultures. Setting aside some clear examples of incompetence. The independence of Ukrainian culture and the seeming lack of willingness of senior staff to fall into line with NATO advice is probably not encouraging leaders to promote this move. And that before a likely nervousness from commanders who’d have to accept their relative inexperience vs the veterans of Ukraine and how such a junior partner could “fit in”.
Keep in mind that anyone who went into a Ukrainian military school to become an officer between 1990 and 2014 was most probably an incompetent dumbass who could not hope to achieve anything in civilian life
With this Dame - Mariana Bezugla, I would be very careful. Not without a reason a lot of people here call her Bezumna - that means mindless or crazy. She belongs to the ruling party of president. It is she, who started accusation of Zaluzhny last year with really challenging posts. And there was no reaction from presidents office. So many assumed via she office test the reaction of society. Now she started accusing Syrsky. Yes, not without reason. But the way she do it, ooph. Many even ask themself for whom do she works, because partially it looks like on behalf of russia. Short time ago Syrsky forbid her to visit positions of ZSU.
The extreme amount of hate Bezugla gets suggests to me she is indeed a largely independent actor. No news and TG network of any politicial affiliation stands with her which is incompatible with the theory she's anyone's pet.
Stop and think for a second if she is doing the right thing and of course it is. She's even on the appropriate committee, so she knows there's no hidden explanation for this shit and at this point only publicity can make things move. Get rid of her and things will move further into insular zero-responsibility territory.
All you got on her is you don't like how she says it? What about it?
Ultimately it boils down to generals and adjacent political mafia getting spooked and suggesting "shut up woman" as a response which society happily picked up and ran with. It's really disappointing how stupid and self-harming people are at this. There's noone else doing what she does, she's doing it for you, fucking support her.
And if it's confirmed that "Syrsky forbid her to visit positions of ZSU" that's a nail in the coffin for the idea that he's not just another sovok general.
You can’t be independent actor in the ruling party, especially in this one. If you in Ukraine, you should know it. And it is not only I just don’t like what she’s saying. But the content of the staff she is saying is provocative and doesn’t help, in opposite. That’s why no „f* support“ from my side for her.
Do you want from me some arguments that she is not independent? Sorry will not find concrete hard facts for that, only indications. If you want some substance from her posts, for that I will need time.
I don't particularly care about her affiliations, although I do think "she's a pet" is an unsubstantiated smear. You said that her raising the issues she does is doing more harm that good. That's plain insane, but if you want to defend that you can try.
Thank you, Tom, for bitter, but trustful analysis of reality in the higher commanders level. You expression of a fish's head was on my mind, while starting to read this article. Unfortunately, it takes place in ZSU. I can say it based on my service in PSU for 13 years. It was at the beginning of independence of Ukraine, when the Power of the country believed, there were no "enemies" any more. They did not pay attention on the army (ZSU, Ukr.Navy, PSU), only new special units of internal forces (National Guardian) were established, in order to extinguish any possible internal threats) while all other military units were under restructuring, no ontime salary, officers were surviving on the salary between 15-20 $ per month, no aviation fuel, no spare parts. Servicemen have to survive by their own. A lot of talented officers have to leave military service as there was no any light of hope. On TV news showed Tu-160 of PSU (less than 10 years old with total flight time of several hundred hours) wich was cut appart, and it was stressed by a dictor, that Ukraine didn't pay a penny for that operation, as our American partners payed 2 million USD, to destroy all strategic fleet of Ukraine.
One day I occasionally met a Captain of Il-76 performing on the scates in cirque, where I came with my little son. But the Commander of PSU harvested a bribes from their subordinates, they established a "quotes" how much every Wing Commander should pay, if not- say goodbye to service. The army could not turn at once in to professionals with proper attitude and interrelationships.
It is bearing in struggles and blood, being under attack of the deadliest enemy. Slowly, real Ukrainian patriots are formating a new army, even though the old Soviet style hydra is successfully defend its position in the army's hierarchy.
Thanks for the comment. I was really surprised by the stories Krotevych shared. He sat on THAT for THAT long? And I'm sure it's even not half of it. So the new generation needs to stop suffering in silence as much. Action should get an appropriate reaction much faster, or not much will change.
I think that only in the Ukrainian army can we see a massive discussion of command orders and discussion of the qualifications of commanders on the part of subordinates.
A frustrating report just in time for the weekend, thank you very much.
OFF-TOPIC
I'm an ironist by nature, so I sometimes had problems understanding your texts correctly; to remedy this, I tried to find out how to become a proper Sarcastosaurus, but couldn't find any relevant literature, so I tried to do it on my own.
Based on the etymology of the word, I was quickly able to identify 'saurus' as 'saura', the Greek word for lizard. The 'sarcasto' part was a little more difficult: it derives from the Greek 'sarkasmos', which means something like bitter mockery, derisive speech; the connection to the root 'sarx', flesh, is best described by the related verb 'sarkazo', which originally means the wild tearing apart of flesh by ferocious dogs, and in a figurative sense 'biting your lips in rage while speaking bitterly'.
When I read that, I knew I had found the solution, because I couldn't have described my personal impressions of the Sarcastosaurus any better. So I set about rehearsing such behaviour, always hoping to be able to understand your texts better and better. But despite modest progress (especially in terms of acoustics and facial expressions), I missed my goal.
Since I could neither understand nor accept this failure, I went back to the definition to make sure it was correct - and lo and behold, I found the explanation: The verb 'sarkazo' refers not only to the wild carnivorous dogs, but also to donkeys and sheep that pluck grass with closed lips. So there are two types of Sarcastosaurus: the wild ones and the dumb ones. I was so relieved that I had finally found a suitable role of a Sarcastosaurus for myself.
ON-TOPIC
When I read your reports and assessments, I often get the feeling of 'okay, the situation is so lousy, the prospects so hopeless and everyone is so corrupt, let's just leave it and go back to our normal world, our boring everyday life and everything will be somehow, maybe not good, but bearable. Though after a moment of reflection, I suddenly realize that...
Even if the fish already stinks, we shouldn't throw it away, but try to keep it alive or, if necessary, revive it - after all, we only have one. To do this, we first have to identify the good and the bad parts so that we know where to start.
Just as you did with the Ukrainian military, we should also distinguish with other military personnel and politicians and corporations and organizations where really good and honest work is being done and where tricks and deception are being used. This is not an idle task, but a very worthwhile one, because it makes it clear that the overwhelming majority of people who keep our civilization running are educated, honest and hardworking people to whom we owe gratitude and respect; all the worse that there is a minority who shamelessly exploit the rules of the game for their own benefit and thereby bring everyone else into disrepute. The fact that there are now entire countries in which only such types shape public life should not lead us to believe that it is like this everywhere.
A generation is currently growing up in the Ukrainian military who, due to their experience, will be extremely qualified both professionally and morally to take on leading positions in the future. This will be a long and arduous process and one can only hope that they are given the time they need.
And this is exactly where I see our task: to try to keep things running with the little influence we have, to patiently and responsibly separate the useful from the destructive one by one, by making compromises on the broadest possible basis. This is neither a simple nor a quick strategy, but at least it is feasible and leads in the right direction.
Because despite the gloomy prospects, I am convinced that if we renounce despair and sweeping judgements in favour of constructive criticism, the fight for freedom, self-determination and dialogue will be stronger in the long run than the mere pursuit of power that works with violence, terror and lies.
To give a concrete example: There are certainly cases of corruption in the military-industrial complex, but if you look at what is currently happening in Europe alone in the area of production and procurement of military equipment, often in international cooperation, it is, despite all modesty, more than we had to fear two years ago and is certainly a ray of hope, especially since the scope and intensity will continue to increase. This is important for general deterrence and, at the same time, for supporting Ukraine.
Of course, it is easy to dismiss this as inadequate and half-hearted, but at least things are moving in the right direction. A development that we can build on.
NATO also doesn't need Ukraine in its current format. Ukraine as a poor NATO corrupt state with some percentage of population being pro-Russian is a liability.
On the other hand Ukraine as a pro-western state stuck in a forever war against Russia is very useful.
And I would not say that NATO countries are somehow less corrupt. Missile spare parts are sold to Russia from NATO countries, gas and oil are purchased, and some dirty negotiations are underway. Corruption in Western countries directly KILLS people. Daily. Every night. Sometimes you need to look at yourself. It is not Ukraine that trades in other people's territories and lives. It is not Ukraine that attacked someone, stole someone else's property, issued passports to foreign citizens. And who does it? I say hello to: Merkel, Trump, Schroeder, Kneisl, Taylor Green, Obama, Le Pen, Orban, Sijart, Fizo, Berlusconi (he's already dead).......I can write for so long. Write? Is it enough?
Corruption in the west is far different to corruption elsewhere. In Ukraine or Russia it is basically people just stealing things or accepting bribes.
In west it's far more sophisticated. Eg a bureaucrat helps a company get a contract. Bureaucrat doesn't get any money. Instead they resign from their government job and get a cushy well paid job with the private contractor they helped out.
This is endemic in US military procurement.
And in my experience as a public service manager I have seen many other forms of "subtle" legalised corruption:
1. Trips for conferences and other training. Often just a junket and not even related to work being performed.
2. Jobs for friends by stacking selection panels with friends and cronies.
3. Provision of cars and mobile phones when such things aren't part of remuneration schedule but are then justified as being necessary for work.
4. Reclassification of salaries upward for cronies. You get administrative assistants working for executives getting paid more than managers leading whole teams.
5. Creation of new jobs for cronies.
6. Consultancies being granted to ex-public servants (endemic here in Australia).
So yes west is as corrupt as elsewhere. It's just more subtle.
It actually really shits me off - I'd declare corruption treason and easily put a 9mm round into the back of the heads of the people engaging in this kind of behaviour.
So many tax payer dollars wasted and so many essential services crippled by the above behaviour.
The UA has to be hard on its commanders. It's not fun, not at all, having to fire people, especially if you have a connection with them or they are your friends but you have to do it. And once the word gets out that the boss just canned his best buddy, then a lot of people are going to self-select out. The UA needs to do some courtsmarshalling and hang a couple of high rankers who have failed up for all to see. The US military has done it several times in its history (Civil War, WWII) and does better when then do. Jeff Davis didn't in the Civil War in the Western Theater and he lost the war for it.
Mr. Tom, you don't really understand Ukrainian legislation. The blame for the quick seizure of the South lies personally with Zelenskyi. Because according to Ukrainian legislation, martial law has not yet been introduced, the military must coordinate all movements with the president, as the Supreme Commander. Martial law was introduced on 24/02/2022 at 19:00, when the orcs were already near the Antoniv bridge. By the year 19, there were 4 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with about 20,000 people on the Crimean Isthmus. So the prosecutor should have asked Mr. Zelenskyi all the questions a long time ago.
Note that a number of Ukrainian brigades seem to have no trouble getting voluntary recruits.
Might be that it's wise to build on success. Expand them into mini-divisions, say a dozen or so, each with 3 regiment-sized battlegroups. Give them their own supply chains and everything.
Here's your 20km sector, guys - happy hunting.
Problem is those brigades don't operate at brigade level. Ukrainians like Russians struggle at anything more than company or in some instances battalion level
20km is also a massive frontage especially for offensive ops in a conventional fight. Soviets used to have 4km frontage for offense in WW2, Germans iften as narrow as 1km.
Nobody operates at the brigade level along classic fronts now. They can’t. They die.
If you can't generate mass you can't breakthrough. Assaulting with single platoons or companies or even battalions might net you some positional advantage (ie taking over a tree line) but doesn't allow for a breakthrough.
To breakthrough you need to rip a big hole through multiple layers of defences whilst suppressing the hell out of any reinforcements and then flood stuff into the gap to exploit the breakthrough.
That also means massive supporting focused firepower which neither side really uses.
Eg in Operation Cobra in WW2, one 7x3 km stretch of land near La Chapelle-Enjuge was pounded for 3 hours by 2500 bombers with 4000 tons of bombs dropped.
The Soviets used to use massive double ended rolling bombardments with both front and rear lines hit by artillery (because the Germans used to only lightly man forward defences too - this is not a new thing).
Now you have unfocused artillery and periodic use of inaccurate glide bombs on the Russian side.
Infantry attacks without supporting artillery or even armour. Armour attacks without artillery or infantry. Most attacks are tiny groups of men that lack combat power to achieve anything and attacking in daylight (Red Army used to practice night assaults for infantry back in 1942-45, so did the British and Japanese).
Even without drones and guided weapons, this war devolves into stalemate because both sides are essentially incompetent.
Scale, people keep forgetting the importance of scale.
Why did masses of soldiers stop being effective as a means of advancing? Machine guns. What was the solution? Spread out to achieve combined arms effects on a different scale.
Mass is evolving. History is only a rough guide.
The problem is Ukraine is sending small groups of 6-10 men to attack on their own achieves nothing.
Russians and Ukrainians are stuck in a stalemate ala western front in WW1.
Russians are mainly on the attack and are losing over 1,000 men a day with these little spread out attacks.
If you want examples of good leadership in wartime, the US Army is a good place to look, but not today’s army. The story of Union Army during the Civil War was one of firing generals until Lincoln found generals who could command and fight. The worthless ones usually got a pension instead of a court-martial, but they were given the boot.
I suspect neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have many good generals (or anyone above a captain really) and certainly no exceptional ones.
Even in Ukraine any officer trained before 2014 but probably later was trained in the Soviet style and in the same level of corruption as Russian ones.
It could well be the lieutenants of today will make excellent generals but that will take a couple of decades until the old guard finally retires.
Yep. Zaluzhny was a partial exception - he was really caring about the troops, and it was so rare trait the troops were inspired alot by him, yet it's not the only trait a really capable commander has to have, and Zaluzhny obviously lacked strength of character to displace the unfit in time, and his articles and interviews show he never treated the operational and strategic theory as something serious.
There is though a rizing bright spot currently - looks like several new high-level commanders (Hnatov, Krasylnykov, Drapatyi, Trepak) are really capable ones, so I think your prognosys is a bit conservative.
The other thing that is also evident in Ukraine's Army (eg 2023 summer offensive) is that Ukraine's officers are generally incapable of conducting coordinated operations anything bigger than company level.
The Russians are the same.
You can get away with this in defence as even small units can hold off larger ones. It fails in offence which is naturally more complex.
The issue in both Ukrainian and Russian Army is an archaic Soviet attitude to warfare and is made worse by traditional corruption endemic in both Ukraine and Russia.
What "combined" operations do you mean, if there's no aviation? Although many are, indeed, incapable, don't forget that you're talking about offensive without air support. Can you count many cases when the large-scale offensive on fortified positions was successful when enemy has significant air superiority?
They do have aviation - in fact they have more oncall aviation support than any other army in history in the form of all these drones. Both sides also have long range artillery including Ukraine's superb and very accurate HIMARs.
If your infantry company has UCAVs assigned to it, that's more direct airsupport than a US company in Iraq in 2003 (edited) would have. The US captain has to request air support, the Ukrainian/Russian one has it on call.
But Ukraine and Russia will never have air dominance of the type the US and friends have managed to amass since 1944. Thus air support will always be limited. Indeed their Soviet style doctrine precludes air dominance.
You could give Russia or Ukraine F-22s, EA-18Gs and B-2s the result would still be the same because the problems are with their command structure and culture.
The issue is they can't coordinate units larger than a company and sometimes a battalion.
This is not Operation Cobra or Bagration or 2nd El Alamein. It's Iran-Iraq or Ethiopia-Eritrea with essentially useless higher level general staffs.
Note back in 1941-45 this was all ideal tank territory because both sides could coordinate large offensive actions (Ok the Soviets had to learn it). Now it's devolved to Western Front 1916.
What you are saying is not without a sense. But you're exaggerating and mixing up things too much and therefore telling lies.
During 2023 summer offensive, the FPV thing was just starting. They were available in a very limited numbers. Bomber drones - mostly small like Mavik and Autel. In fact, at that time, drones were mostly used for the reconnaissance and artillery guidance. But even now, drones cannot provide the same air support as aviation for many reasons: jamming, payload, anti-air capabilities, etc.
> If your infantry company has UCAVs assigned to it, that's more direct airsupport than a US company in Iraq in 2001 would have
Very subjective statement. Even if... It doesn't change the fact that the US company enjoyed the fact that the air support was 100% on their side. While Ukrainian company would only have a parity or slight advantage.
And, BTW, the US invasion in Iraq was started in 2003, not 2001.
"During 2023 summer offensive, the FPV thing was just starting. They were available in a very limited numbers. Bomber drones - mostly small like Mavik and Autel. In fact, at that time, drones were mostly used for the reconnaissance and artillery guidance"
A. I was unaware of dispositions of UCAVs. My mistake.
B. Artillery guidance and reconnaissance are still massive benefits especially when coupled with accurate systems ala HIMARS etc.
Again artillery is far more useful than air support in most infantry missions. Air support is limited by duration on call and limited ordnance. In high intensity warfare there is also often the need to suppress more than 1 target (especially when the enemy has positions with overlapping fields of fire).
In that case sustained artillery fire is probably better than a couple of 500 lb bombs dropped by a jet.
The jet's big advantage is payload but if it misses with its payload then there's nothing left whereas artillery can correct fire.
And the Ukrainians and Russians (and most European states) don't have the assets to maintain continuous CAS with jets even if the IADS environment is more in their favour.
Again in that case artillery offers greater advantages.
"It doesn't change the fact that the US company enjoyed the fact that the air support was 100% on their side. While Ukrainian company would only have a parity or slight advantage."
Point is if the US unit in 2003 is low in the tasking order, their air support is 0 even if they have air dominance. Having your own UCAVs at company level gives you some very accurate firepower potential.
"the US invasion in Iraq was started in 2003, not 2001."
Whoops, my mistake. 2001 was Afghanistan!
HIMARS were reserved mainly for operational level usage. A typical infantry unit would not receive this kind of artillery support. Reason is simply: very few ammo and very few HIMARS/MLRS to risk.
To summarize:
- Ukraine did not enjoyed any kind of air superiority. Slight advantage in FPV drones was overcompensated by russian aviation (mainly attack helicopters, used as elevated anti-tank missile launchers) and Lancets.
- Ukraine did not enjoyed the artillery advantage either. Some advantage in the precision was compensated by the number of shells fired by the enemy.
- It doesn't seem there was a numerical advantage in this sector either.
- Terrain didn't allow concealed movement
When you combine all these and add that you have to advance on fortified and mined enemy positions under continuous observation by enemy from the skies... I wonder who would even start attacking in such circumstances if not pushed by beloved "partners" very hard. But yeah... these are Ukrainian officers to blame, cuz they cannot achieve the decisive victory despite all these facts :-)
They literally sent platoons of armoured vehicles onto the field unsupported.
The Ukrainian attacks were as badly confucted as many Russian ones.
And what you are effectively saying is Ukraine can't win this war nevaise tohse battlefield conditions are on the entire front.
And Ukraine will neevr have the type of air force you need to truly shatter Rissoa's IADs. Certainly 85 ancient 1990s tech F-16AM/BM will not be a game changer.
Also note Russia doesn't have air superiority either - their airforce generally can't operate near the frontlines.
Hence the life hack with glide bombs.
Oh and they still can't progress forwars despite glide bombs because just like Ukrainians they suck at offensive warfare.
Thanks Tom! Apart from the rainfall of Heroes of Ukraine, I somewhat disagree with your points. When was the last time NATO fought a large-scale war? Never? I get your point about the need for responsibility and accounting but are things that different in the West? Was the Iraqi war a major blunder? Or the Afghanistan withdrawal? Anyone punished? Of course, we all want the incompetent officers out of ZSU
US invasion of Iraq in 2001 was the last time American (and British) gorces fought a major conventional conflict.
That operation was very well run for most part.
The occupation and COIN that happened afterwards are a different kettle of fish.
But I suspect if US had to wage a conventional war it eould fare much better than Ukrainians or especially Russians.
For all its faults, US military retains massive institutional knowledge and experience on how to run major ops, is excellent at training soldiers and officers, has probably the best logistics system of any military in history and combined arms is generally baked into the very essence of
Ukraine's senior officer corps are trained in Soviet doctrine whiich does none of the above very well and is stuck in WW2 operational concepts and Imperial Tzarist officer culture coupled with post Soviet corruption.
The only advantage Ukraine has is that Russia is even more wedded to these concepts and culture and that through some contact with west as well as operational experience junior officers and NCOs have become more western in their thinking atcompany, platoon and squad level (ie greater emphaisis on flexibility and initiative).
The nature of this war is very different for Russia and Ukraine so the Ukrainian volunteers and mobilized have a much higher percentage of capable civilians which I think is THE major advantage Ukraine has as far as internal resources are concerned. That's why it stops at the company level -- above that there's a hard ceiling for the non-career military men to make decisions.
The Soviet doctrine (designed actually by the last generation of Imperial Tzarist officers - those men like Galaktionov, Isserson, Svechin, Triandafillov) was actually nearly the same as the US one, based on combined arms maneuver operations as it's core - just less thorougfully thought and, even more important, badly spoiled with nonsensical Marxist dogmas (like the class-based structure, so no permission of highly educated specialist career servicemen; it was either draftees or career officers, and the officer corps was the worst threat to the Party - an inevitable military coup possibility - so they implemented every possible HR policy to make them as much dumb, uninitiative and corrupt as possible, just to lessen this mortal threat).
And even Triandafillov's product was put together after having had no new doctrine since the early 1800s, and the Soviet leadership came to the idea they might need one after Tukhachevsky was served his ass under Warsaw. But I'm not aware of it being overpadded with Marxism - the problem was more like that it elaborated on mopping up enemy supply lines after having smashed the front with a sledgehammer blow, but didn't explain what to do in the absence of a sledgehammer.
As for the chance of a military coup, it's weird how much Russian leadership is afraid of it even though I don't recall it ever happening to them, at least not on a country-wide level. Assisted autocoups, showdowns between or within political circles, mass mutinies or mercenary rebellions did happen, but a takeover initiated by a conspiracy of high-ranking military officers - was that ever the case in Russia?
For any current clique it's irrelevant if the coup would be led my military leaders only or a mix of military and "betas" from the political hierarchy - wich was quite a norm of Russian history, and they know it well.
That's okay, but it would appear that an inherently corrupt and idiotic officer corps is, if anything, easier to bribe or sway by a political beta to help them topple the top.
That's why Russian generals are so often falling out of their basement windows, with visible pikes of this statistics after the every at least relatively successful war. FSB cleans the suspicious. They are stupid and so easy to track.
But Russian Deep Battle and other high level strategic concepts are basically academic/theoretical concepts and save 1944-45 never actually embraced by Russian/Soviet forces on reality whereas similar US/western concepts were.
I don't buy the "they keep the army deliberatly dumb" theory.
Military coups are often performed by the most incompetent armies eg Africa and Latin America.
Ie badly educated types who are given the ultimate keys to the kingdom - guns. You don't need combined arms to drive tanks into the capital.
I suspect Soviet military incompetence comes from a whole heap of cultural and historical factors including serfdom and extreme social stratification, historical high illiteracy, poor management culture, technological backwardness a lack of understanding of concepts of modern warfare.
Even if Russia became a functioning democracy its military would remain the same or maybe even deteriorate further due to loss of prestige or funding
The Soviet training and manuals, OOB, all the military vehicles and weapons were by design made according to this doctrine. It wasn't just a theory, it was the only way to fight they prepared for... With the only remark: every capable officer understood well the operational friction would be deadly, and the Soviet system cannot lower it without such an extermination threat and 3 years of "natural selection" as during 1941-1944.
Sure, the Party's suspiciousness wasn't the only factor. Still a factor. They knew well that their legitimacy wasn't any kind of deep and loyalty of the army is very superficial. It wasn't just the inertia - the Tzarist officer corps wasn't brilliant (army's deep anti-intellectuality, by the Svechin's words), yet it was much better then the Soviet one. And we are lucky the modern Russian one is even worse.
I think you have raised some excellent points especially about Russian military being deeply anti-intellectual. I really think it's both a military cultural issue and a general Russian cultural issue.
I suspect even if Russia became democratic ala Switzerland and made corruption extinct, it's military would still perform dismally because of its deep set cultural flaws.
Indeed even in 2008 when Russia was nominally democratic and had pumped some money into the military, it performed dismally in Georgia.
Even in late WW2 the Germans usually exhibited better tactical capabilities than Soviets despite being exhausted with the core original army long dead/injured.
Soviets were lucky to have some excellent high level generals at army level who had experience in WWI, civil war and clashes with Japan in 1930s.
But your average Soviet lieutenant/captain/major/colonel in 1945 was still crap and essentially incompetent at worse or mediocre at best.
The COIN in Iraq can't set on the US military alone. That becomes a political affair. Bremmer - Cheney's creature blundered entry with orders to fire the Iraq army and the bulk of the bureaucracy. Creating in one fell swoop a bunch pissed unemployed people many of them armed. And the Bush admiration stiff armed the UN and NGOs (at least at first and in planning ahead of time) that might stepped in on the running the civil infrastructure. They had been warned they did not provide the Military with the manpower to occupy Iraq effectively. Particularly a country with deep sectarian divides. I do seem to recall most experts thought 500,000+ was what needed that ain't was there. once you liquidated the Iraq army.
I mean the US don't have whole divisions and or army corps of say light infantry/military police and a vast army of people trained to administer/do civilian jobs - troops designed from the ground to occupy and rebuild places. and supported by thousands of people who can speak multiple languages.
Trouble is I recall that in late 2022 the Ukrainian sergeant-major of one of the supposed NATO-style brigades resigned and returned to the lower ranks because of institutional resistance from officers. He could get nothing done. History shows that reforming an army's officer corps in wartime is damned difficult. Near impossible. Montgomery did it with the force under his command in 1940 after Dunkirk. Anyone officer who could not complete a five-mile run in a set time was retired. It was a good way of getting rid of dead wood, but he had time on his side. Those troops were not fighting on the frontline.
The US and the British fought 2 major conventional wars since the cold war, the first gulf war and the invasion of iraq. Desert storm was the historical pinnacle of western warfare, the invasion of Iraq went as well as invasions can be expected to go. 1M troops, 700k US took part on the coalition side in the first gulf war. IIRC 560k US troops took part in the invasion of Iraq.
Yes, both the British and the US can run large combined arms offensive operations. The French can most likely do as well. As for the rest of NATO, don't know but none will be worse than either the Russians and Ukrainians. At worst, they wouldn't be much better.
Finns and Swedes are obviously very good too, despite their more defencive stance.
All Nordic countries' states have excellent organisation top to bottom. I simply don't know how much they practice offensive operations deep into enemy territory. Also, only the Finns have a large land army and it simply isn't possible to practice large unit, combined arms manouvres when all you have is a brigade.
I believe this is currently the biggest issue since the 90s. Most NATO armies have shrunk to levels that prevent effective full scale war exercises. The majority of training within NATO has been international cooperation/coordination. However, nobody is seriously thinking they would be mixing batallions or maybe even brigades from different countries, in the case of a full scale war.
Even the US have had to change their focus from COIN to conventional peer to peer warfare in recent years, since 2015 I think. That means going back to coordinating large units, e.g. entire divisions and brigade combat teams.
You are right. Most European militaries averaged about 2 brigades of which maybe one was deployable.
In reality most European militaries struggled to deploy more than a reinforced battalion. Even Britain maxed out at a brigade.
NATO combat power really is the US. And that is still the world's most powerful and capable military.
Yes. However, this is only true for the land forces. It is not true for the airforces and the navies. For a whole variety of reasons, all western European militaries have vastly degraded their land forces, while investing in the other two branches instead. The French airforce alone would obliterate the VKS. Same with the European navies. The European NATO are in a very bad state on land.
Actually most NATO navies and air forces were downgraded too. Eg Netherlands brought 213 F-16s but is only planning 52 F-35s. Woes of German airforce are well known - poor operational capability, decayed logistics, poor serviceability. Ammunitions was depleted eg Danish completely ran out of bombs during Libya.
In many cases only very few units were kept to any standard.
I doubt the French air force could obliterate VKS in a conventional war- it lacks SEAD/DEAD, doesn't operate 5th generation stealth, lacks mass long range strike.
Even worse most French fighter pilots had their flight hours seriously degraded by late 2010s. Many weren't flying even 120 hours a year and there was a plan mooted to have them fly trainers ala Alpha Jets and new PC-21s to maintain flight hours.
Same for navies eg Dutch operated 22 frigates prior to 1989. They now have 6 of which one is mothballed due to lack of crews.
Sure the ships are more capable but 5 frigates means maybe 2 operational at anyone time.
Or look at the Royal Navy which in many ways collapsed after 1989. The number of escort vessels has plummeted to a dismal 15, they lack sufficient aircraft for the 2 carriers and most of their ships lost antishipping capability (being restored).
Post-1989 NATO effectively became a strange beast. Europeans disarmed and the US became the core of European defence. At the same time Europeans supported American military adventures in middle east etc often supplying tokenistic forces.
Essentially US provided Europeans with insurance and collected payment in form of political support for its foreign policy.
Finms yes, Norwegians yes, but who the hell knows abput Swedes who gutted their military for decades.
Britain and France can't run squat on their own. Neither manages more than a single armoured division and they lack so many essential systems (long range strike, SEAD, logistics etc).
They can only contribute to US ops but could not pull something like Suez operation anymore
They couldn't with their current forces. It doesn't mean they don't have the capability in their officer corps to do it. These are separate matters. The French have shown incredible logistical prowess and global force projection in the Sahel, despite having to ask allies for additional transport planes. It wasn't multiple divisions but it's much easier to scale things up if you already have the know how, than when you have none like the ZSU. This is why it's called institutional knowledge. You don't just lose it the day they cut your budget.
Counter insurgency is a whole different keytle of fish to conventional warfare.
From what I have read the initial operations in Mali highlighted weakness of French logistics as a lot of units had to be stripped of functional equipment to support contingent in Mali.
There were no effective reserves left.
Essentially supporting a small handful of light infantry battalions in a very low intensity conflict was the most the French could handle.
Firstly, you are still talking about the lack of resources, which nobody is arguing with. They still have shown they have the capacity and capability to conduct combined arms manouvres, across the globe. It's easy to fix the lack of resources, it's difficult to fix the lack of ability. If you give the VSRF or the ZSU all the equipment of the US armed forces, they will still end up doing platoon trench assaults.
Secondly, to sustain a brigade so far from home takes tens of thousands of people. All of that happening while a significant number of french troops were deployed at home against the domestic terrorist threat. That's why almost no army on the planet has the ability to project force globally. It's basically only the US, France and the UK.
Lastly, the fact they had to take equipment from other units has nothing to do with logistics. The logistics was excellent to pull off operation serval. They did need additional allied transport though.
You forget France has a lot of military infrastructure in its former African empire (as well as economic and diplomatic control).
Some African militaries ala Chad are basically subservoent to French.
In fact French openly preferred Chad to NATO soldiers on Mali because they had direct control over them.
But I agree that even of you gave Ukraine all western weapons, they would still be fightong WW1 trench warfare.
But I doubt the French army would do any better. When faced with well trained fighters on Afghanistan the French suffered badly (eg see Uzbin Valley smbish on 2008).
In Mali the French did barely any fighting. The Tuaregs and AQIM forces just blended back into civilian life and waited for the French to lose patience with Malinese.
The British are also somewhat useless - they got their arses kicked in Bsra and lost control of the city.
But of you assigm them to an American led cirps size formation the small French amd British units function well enough.
But they are really down to being American auxiliaries .
Would you mind to elaborate on "see the Spanish ‘performance’ in Iraq"? Could be interesting for "not knowers" like me...
This too I would be interested in.
No ideaa about Spanish in Iraq ut Italians, Germans, French and a few other Euro militaries performed poorly in Afghanistan.
Joke in US circles was ISAF stood for I Suck At Fightong
Even for the countries you're naming I would like to know the how.
There were several reports I read in that period. Eg German forces didn't even know basic infantry tactics and weren't trained in how to effectively suppress fire.
Some more about Italian and Spanish mishaps?
Great write up Tom. This has been one of my most burning questions. Whats even worse is I've read and heard that areas in the south close to Crimea were de-mined in the days before the invasion!!! I had a friend from DC telling me in December 2021 that US intel was 100% certain of invasion because Russia was collecting blood. If DC security consultants knew about this, how did Zelensky or his senior officers not ensure the south was properly mined but worse demined(if true it was demined)!! Blaming it on the SBU also didnt add up as you pointed out the fallacy considering ZSU were the ones in charge of the operation.
It makes sense that Zelensky underestimated the intel he was getting from the West and there were a minority of Senior Officers in the south who didnt mind which Slavic side they ended up on(possibly Sodol and Sokolov), be it Russia or Ukraine. Zelensky has done a great job but eventually he'll have to reflect and be honest to his fellow country people where he may have messed up. His intentions may have been pure, but good intentions mean nothing if Russian friendly security operatives sabotaged Ukraine's defence of the South and no serious efforts were put in place to remove them. The Crimean axis and the ATO zone were two fronts I expected to be the most fortified. I still cant believe they fumbled the South like that. Gallant Ukrainian men and women were betrayed.
That's Zelensky's major flaw - he's absolutely unable to admit his mistakes. Lacks self-confidence, I'd guess.
I think his worst flaw is how bad he is at personnel policy. Unless this is exactly what he wanted of course.
Or too cocky. Arrogant people don't believe they are capable of mistakes IME.
There's a simple lithmus test to discern these cases: arrogant self-overconfident people are "impenetrable", they just don't listen to anyone, yet rarely react to the criticism; compensative arrogance is, on the contrary, very reactive, such people are prone to burst in ire when facing any opposition from below. Zelensky's visually calm on puplic - he's a showman, has a full set of self-control and acting skills, yet he's noticably touchy with inferiors.
Not the worst case - he's actually quite a brilliant man in his role. Still vulnerable to the major fear of every showman: to lose popularity.
Thanks Tom: it’s a telling summary of an army in flux. I think I’d be less concerned over the issuing of medals (like Muttley in Wacky Racers). After all, the British are keen to issue OBE’s to commanders for serving their time just as much as the Hero’s of Ukraine seem to be recognised.
There is clearly a need to improve the promotion and replacement of senior staff but it took the nations in WW2 several years to let the military rather than the politicians manage this.
The bigger issue of NATO alignment is likely the challenge of aligning cultures. Setting aside some clear examples of incompetence. The independence of Ukrainian culture and the seeming lack of willingness of senior staff to fall into line with NATO advice is probably not encouraging leaders to promote this move. And that before a likely nervousness from commanders who’d have to accept their relative inexperience vs the veterans of Ukraine and how such a junior partner could “fit in”.
Keep in mind that anyone who went into a Ukrainian military school to become an officer between 1990 and 2014 was most probably an incompetent dumbass who could not hope to achieve anything in civilian life
With this Dame - Mariana Bezugla, I would be very careful. Not without a reason a lot of people here call her Bezumna - that means mindless or crazy. She belongs to the ruling party of president. It is she, who started accusation of Zaluzhny last year with really challenging posts. And there was no reaction from presidents office. So many assumed via she office test the reaction of society. Now she started accusing Syrsky. Yes, not without reason. But the way she do it, ooph. Many even ask themself for whom do she works, because partially it looks like on behalf of russia. Short time ago Syrsky forbid her to visit positions of ZSU.
The extreme amount of hate Bezugla gets suggests to me she is indeed a largely independent actor. No news and TG network of any politicial affiliation stands with her which is incompatible with the theory she's anyone's pet.
Stop and think for a second if she is doing the right thing and of course it is. She's even on the appropriate committee, so she knows there's no hidden explanation for this shit and at this point only publicity can make things move. Get rid of her and things will move further into insular zero-responsibility territory.
All you got on her is you don't like how she says it? What about it?
Ultimately it boils down to generals and adjacent political mafia getting spooked and suggesting "shut up woman" as a response which society happily picked up and ran with. It's really disappointing how stupid and self-harming people are at this. There's noone else doing what she does, she's doing it for you, fucking support her.
And if it's confirmed that "Syrsky forbid her to visit positions of ZSU" that's a nail in the coffin for the idea that he's not just another sovok general.
You can’t be independent actor in the ruling party, especially in this one. If you in Ukraine, you should know it. And it is not only I just don’t like what she’s saying. But the content of the staff she is saying is provocative and doesn’t help, in opposite. That’s why no „f* support“ from my side for her.
Sorry, there's no substance to what you're saying. Make an actual argument, then there's something to respond to. No offense intended.
Do you want from me some arguments that she is not independent? Sorry will not find concrete hard facts for that, only indications. If you want some substance from her posts, for that I will need time.
I don't particularly care about her affiliations, although I do think "she's a pet" is an unsubstantiated smear. You said that her raising the issues she does is doing more harm that good. That's plain insane, but if you want to defend that you can try.
For those who want to understand for themselves what Bezugla is all about, I highly recommend these two pieces:
https://babel.ua/en/amp/texts/102838-deputy-mariana-bezuhla-impinged-upon-the-sacred-she-dared-to-criticize-the-commander-in-chief-valery-zaluzhnyi-who-the-hell-is-she-big-profile-part-one
and part two:
https://babel.ua/en/texts/102840-deputy-mariana-bezuhla-impinged-upon-the-sacred-she-dared-to-criticize-the-commander-in-chief-valery-zaluzhnyi-who-the-hell-is-she-here-s-her-large-profile-part-two
Thank you, Tom, for bitter, but trustful analysis of reality in the higher commanders level. You expression of a fish's head was on my mind, while starting to read this article. Unfortunately, it takes place in ZSU. I can say it based on my service in PSU for 13 years. It was at the beginning of independence of Ukraine, when the Power of the country believed, there were no "enemies" any more. They did not pay attention on the army (ZSU, Ukr.Navy, PSU), only new special units of internal forces (National Guardian) were established, in order to extinguish any possible internal threats) while all other military units were under restructuring, no ontime salary, officers were surviving on the salary between 15-20 $ per month, no aviation fuel, no spare parts. Servicemen have to survive by their own. A lot of talented officers have to leave military service as there was no any light of hope. On TV news showed Tu-160 of PSU (less than 10 years old with total flight time of several hundred hours) wich was cut appart, and it was stressed by a dictor, that Ukraine didn't pay a penny for that operation, as our American partners payed 2 million USD, to destroy all strategic fleet of Ukraine.
One day I occasionally met a Captain of Il-76 performing on the scates in cirque, where I came with my little son. But the Commander of PSU harvested a bribes from their subordinates, they established a "quotes" how much every Wing Commander should pay, if not- say goodbye to service. The army could not turn at once in to professionals with proper attitude and interrelationships.
It is bearing in struggles and blood, being under attack of the deadliest enemy. Slowly, real Ukrainian patriots are formating a new army, even though the old Soviet style hydra is successfully defend its position in the army's hierarchy.
God bless ZSU.
Thanks for the comment. I was really surprised by the stories Krotevych shared. He sat on THAT for THAT long? And I'm sure it's even not half of it. So the new generation needs to stop suffering in silence as much. Action should get an appropriate reaction much faster, or not much will change.
I think that only in the Ukrainian army can we see a massive discussion of command orders and discussion of the qualifications of commanders on the part of subordinates.
Do you have experience with any other armies?
social networks are available for viewing, you can compare
A frustrating report just in time for the weekend, thank you very much.
OFF-TOPIC
I'm an ironist by nature, so I sometimes had problems understanding your texts correctly; to remedy this, I tried to find out how to become a proper Sarcastosaurus, but couldn't find any relevant literature, so I tried to do it on my own.
Based on the etymology of the word, I was quickly able to identify 'saurus' as 'saura', the Greek word for lizard. The 'sarcasto' part was a little more difficult: it derives from the Greek 'sarkasmos', which means something like bitter mockery, derisive speech; the connection to the root 'sarx', flesh, is best described by the related verb 'sarkazo', which originally means the wild tearing apart of flesh by ferocious dogs, and in a figurative sense 'biting your lips in rage while speaking bitterly'.
When I read that, I knew I had found the solution, because I couldn't have described my personal impressions of the Sarcastosaurus any better. So I set about rehearsing such behaviour, always hoping to be able to understand your texts better and better. But despite modest progress (especially in terms of acoustics and facial expressions), I missed my goal.
Since I could neither understand nor accept this failure, I went back to the definition to make sure it was correct - and lo and behold, I found the explanation: The verb 'sarkazo' refers not only to the wild carnivorous dogs, but also to donkeys and sheep that pluck grass with closed lips. So there are two types of Sarcastosaurus: the wild ones and the dumb ones. I was so relieved that I had finally found a suitable role of a Sarcastosaurus for myself.
ON-TOPIC
When I read your reports and assessments, I often get the feeling of 'okay, the situation is so lousy, the prospects so hopeless and everyone is so corrupt, let's just leave it and go back to our normal world, our boring everyday life and everything will be somehow, maybe not good, but bearable. Though after a moment of reflection, I suddenly realize that...
Even if the fish already stinks, we shouldn't throw it away, but try to keep it alive or, if necessary, revive it - after all, we only have one. To do this, we first have to identify the good and the bad parts so that we know where to start.
Just as you did with the Ukrainian military, we should also distinguish with other military personnel and politicians and corporations and organizations where really good and honest work is being done and where tricks and deception are being used. This is not an idle task, but a very worthwhile one, because it makes it clear that the overwhelming majority of people who keep our civilization running are educated, honest and hardworking people to whom we owe gratitude and respect; all the worse that there is a minority who shamelessly exploit the rules of the game for their own benefit and thereby bring everyone else into disrepute. The fact that there are now entire countries in which only such types shape public life should not lead us to believe that it is like this everywhere.
A generation is currently growing up in the Ukrainian military who, due to their experience, will be extremely qualified both professionally and morally to take on leading positions in the future. This will be a long and arduous process and one can only hope that they are given the time they need.
And this is exactly where I see our task: to try to keep things running with the little influence we have, to patiently and responsibly separate the useful from the destructive one by one, by making compromises on the broadest possible basis. This is neither a simple nor a quick strategy, but at least it is feasible and leads in the right direction.
Because despite the gloomy prospects, I am convinced that if we renounce despair and sweeping judgements in favour of constructive criticism, the fight for freedom, self-determination and dialogue will be stronger in the long run than the mere pursuit of power that works with violence, terror and lies.
TLDR(
To give a concrete example: There are certainly cases of corruption in the military-industrial complex, but if you look at what is currently happening in Europe alone in the area of production and procurement of military equipment, often in international cooperation, it is, despite all modesty, more than we had to fear two years ago and is certainly a ray of hope, especially since the scope and intensity will continue to increase. This is important for general deterrence and, at the same time, for supporting Ukraine.
Of course, it is easy to dismiss this as inadequate and half-hearted, but at least things are moving in the right direction. A development that we can build on.
NATO is simply afraid. You can name many "reasons" why not. But the real one is always one.
NATO is simply afraid. You can name many "reasons" why not. But the real one is always one. You really surprised me with today's "arguments".
NATO also doesn't need Ukraine in its current format. Ukraine as a poor NATO corrupt state with some percentage of population being pro-Russian is a liability.
On the other hand Ukraine as a pro-western state stuck in a forever war against Russia is very useful.
And I would not say that NATO countries are somehow less corrupt. Missile spare parts are sold to Russia from NATO countries, gas and oil are purchased, and some dirty negotiations are underway. Corruption in Western countries directly KILLS people. Daily. Every night. Sometimes you need to look at yourself. It is not Ukraine that trades in other people's territories and lives. It is not Ukraine that attacked someone, stole someone else's property, issued passports to foreign citizens. And who does it? I say hello to: Merkel, Trump, Schroeder, Kneisl, Taylor Green, Obama, Le Pen, Orban, Sijart, Fizo, Berlusconi (he's already dead).......I can write for so long. Write? Is it enough?
Corruption in the west is far different to corruption elsewhere. In Ukraine or Russia it is basically people just stealing things or accepting bribes.
In west it's far more sophisticated. Eg a bureaucrat helps a company get a contract. Bureaucrat doesn't get any money. Instead they resign from their government job and get a cushy well paid job with the private contractor they helped out.
This is endemic in US military procurement.
And in my experience as a public service manager I have seen many other forms of "subtle" legalised corruption:
1. Trips for conferences and other training. Often just a junket and not even related to work being performed.
2. Jobs for friends by stacking selection panels with friends and cronies.
3. Provision of cars and mobile phones when such things aren't part of remuneration schedule but are then justified as being necessary for work.
4. Reclassification of salaries upward for cronies. You get administrative assistants working for executives getting paid more than managers leading whole teams.
5. Creation of new jobs for cronies.
6. Consultancies being granted to ex-public servants (endemic here in Australia).
So yes west is as corrupt as elsewhere. It's just more subtle.
It actually really shits me off - I'd declare corruption treason and easily put a 9mm round into the back of the heads of the people engaging in this kind of behaviour.
So many tax payer dollars wasted and so many essential services crippled by the above behaviour.
The UA has to be hard on its commanders. It's not fun, not at all, having to fire people, especially if you have a connection with them or they are your friends but you have to do it. And once the word gets out that the boss just canned his best buddy, then a lot of people are going to self-select out. The UA needs to do some courtsmarshalling and hang a couple of high rankers who have failed up for all to see. The US military has done it several times in its history (Civil War, WWII) and does better when then do. Jeff Davis didn't in the Civil War in the Western Theater and he lost the war for it.
Mr. Tom, you don't really understand Ukrainian legislation. The blame for the quick seizure of the South lies personally with Zelenskyi. Because according to Ukrainian legislation, martial law has not yet been introduced, the military must coordinate all movements with the president, as the Supreme Commander. Martial law was introduced on 24/02/2022 at 19:00, when the orcs were already near the Antoniv bridge. By the year 19, there were 4 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with about 20,000 people on the Crimean Isthmus. So the prosecutor should have asked Mr. Zelenskyi all the questions a long time ago.
It´s a pity you didn´t elaborate on "see the Spanish ‘performance’ in Iraq"...