Thread by @PhillipsPOBrien

The most interesting/important story of the morning in terms of how the war might develop. The Ukrainian military is claiming that the logistics crisis that the Russians have been operating under since the start of the war is reaching acute crisis. see @guardian

Almost all military's have a supply crunch not long after the start of a war, as they usually under-estimate (sometimes spectacularly) the amount of stuff they will need to fight the war. War is so destructive that it consumes far more than people can imagine ahead of time.

One of the most famous of these supply crises was the First World War shell crisis which beset everyone. After only a few months of war the expenditure of ammunition was so much higher than expected, that artillery shells ran out and had to be rationed. encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/shells…

Such shortfalls should now expected in the Russian army invading Ukraine, but could even be worse for three reasons. 1) They really did expect a short war and as such would have had no idea what they were taking on.

2) they have resorted mostly to long-distance bombardment, so have had to expend a huge amount of heavy artillery shells on Ukrainian cities (committing war crimes). But this means that their logistics has to prioritize ammo over everything else (food/fuel).

3) The Ukrainians have been targeting these logistics, reducing the loads that can be brought to forward Russian positions. These truck losses are compounded by poor Russian maintenance and corruption in the armed forces.

This is why logistics matter for war. In this case, logistics could soon be playing a major role limiting the kinds of horrors the Russians can do. The Russian army is not some immutable, unstoppable beast that can simply bombard whatever it wants without limits.

And a slight digression. The take about this war that most confuses me is that because the Russians are being so horrible and committing so many war crimes, that therefore discussing logistics or vehicle maintenance is a distraction.

This war (as all wars) has reconfirmed the strong link between logistics and the ability to undertake operations including grotesque war crimes. Indeed if you want to stop war crimes, stop the logistics of the war criminals. Dont simply wallow in the destruction.