Thread by @BA_Friedman

I'm going to respectfully (because he is an absolute essential source on this) disagree with @KofmanMichael here. This isn't a good army executing a bad plan. It isn't a good army executing outdated or out-of-context tactics. It's a bad army! Here's why.

@KofmanMichael First, this isn't something analysts or intel folks could know before now. You just can't know how an army will perform in war until it tries. War, and only war, is the acid test of an army. And Russia's armed forces are failing that test.

You can tell it's not a good army executing a bad plan- like France in 1939- or a good army executing an outdated concept- like Prussia in 1806- because all of the things than any military force in any situation would have to do are being done poorly. It's bad at the basics.

The Russian armed forces are failing at what you might call the Boy Scout stuff. Getting people in the right place in the right time with the right stuff. Your tactics don't matter if you can't eat.

It is definitely executing a bad plan, that's true. It's also not executing a good concept for the situation. But it's also just bad at being an army that has to exist and do things. It's bad at things Civil War reenactors have to think about, but it assumed away.

Look at this. It's not a bad plan, it's not a flawed concept. It's STUPID! You'd lose people to safety accidents if this was a tailgate party at the Muni Lot during a Browns game, and in that case everyone's drunk.

It's right in one sense to say that Russia wouldn't fight NATO this way: they wouldn't. Ukraine might not have the ability to punish this mistake but NATO does. Against NATO, all of these people would be dead and all those vehicles coffins. Period. It wouldn't be a fight.

Here's the table of contents for my latest book on operational art. Chapters 7-12 are things that all military forces- armies, navies, air forces, or insurgent movements- have to manage just to exist and act as a cohesive force. Russia is maybe doing ok at command and control.

I say that only because there hasn't been any reporting otherwise. Maybe they're not! But that's as generous as I can be.

Unfortunately, and this part's too serious for gifs, Russian shortcomings are probably not going to matter in the long run. They have enough capacity to brute force this thing, even though their remaining troops are the bottom of the barrel guys.

Putin does not give a fuck about civilian casualties. If he thinks burning Kyiv to the ground will work, or even if it will contribute to keeping his own corrupt ass in power, he'll do it in a second. He does not need to do operational art well to force the issue.

But a good army would be better at the basics. It would not be surprised by how difficult it is to win as the offense. As @teaandtactics says, if you remember On War Book 6 you should not be surprised by anything that has happened. Putin just thought he was better than it.

@teaandtactics Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. The simplest explanation here is that the Russian military is bad! It was a paper tiger, and now the paper's on fire. /thread

(I can already tell I won't be able to keep up with the responses here. If I miss you I'm sorry!)

Addendum: Other threads you should also pay attention to:
@WarintheFuture (Also buy his book)

This one from @henrikrpaulsson (I am REALLY curious how the Ukrainian AF is sustaining/maintaining itself. Magic? NFTs of the Ghost of Kyiv? OnlyFans? I have no idea.)

@henrikrpaulsson This one from @br4s1d4s. More on just the totally mind-blowing basic tactical incompetence on display.

@henrikrpaulsson @br4s1d4s This is the key point. The mistakes Russian armed forces are making don't magically get fixed if Russia fought NATO. They get punished faster and harder.