Thread: Russia, Ukraine, and NATO's doctrinal reversal
Ever since the Ukrainians began their counteroffensive in the south, a theme has emerged; namely, that the Russians are fighting in a manner eerily similar to that dictated by NATO's late cold-war doctrine. (1)
Let's start by going back to some very rudimentary basics. In warfare, there are really two types of combat assets: maneuver elements and fires. Coordinating the interplay of various maneuver assets and ranged fires is the foundational task of military operations. (2)
Maneuver assets are those that deliver fighting power at the contact line and determine positional control - tanks, infantry, armored vehicles, etc. Ranged fires are systems that deliver firepower remotely from the contact line - artillery, rockets, drones, aircraft, etc. (3)
During the height of the cold war, western military planners faced a very simple problem: how could an effective defense be waged against Warsaw Pact/Red Army forces which possessed an enormous advantage in maneuver assets? What is the plan of battle for an outnumbered force? (4)
Early theoretical attempts to solve this problem were discouraging. One idea was to adopt a proactive defensive posture, concentrating fighting power at the most forward line of contact. (5)
The problem with this concept was the Soviet doctrine of sequential operations - additional packages of fresh reserve forces to reinforce the attack. Even if NATO forces managed to defeat the initial Soviet onslaught, they had poor odds against the second and third assaults. (6)
An alternative was "Defense in Depth" - multiple layers of defensive lines designed to absorb and attrit the enemy attack. This was deemed politically problematic, because it implied that much of West Germany might be overrun and occupied before the Soviets ran out of steam. (7)
Ultimately, this was a problem that was fairly straightforward to understand, but very hard to solve. Soviet forces could count on something like a 60% advantage in tanks and armored vehicles and a similar manpower advantage. (8)
Furthermore, the USSR was much closer to the potential battlefield (Germany) than the United States, which meant it would be much easier for the Soviets to feed in additional forces and supplies. This problem grew post-Vietnam with the end of the draft in America. (9)
The solution - influenced heavily by America's greatest military theorist, John Boyd - was to stymie a Soviet offensive using a combination of powerful and precise ranged fires and swarming counterattacks by maneuver assets on the ground. Let's review the elements in turn. (10)
The Soviet combat power advantage relied on a massive sustainment system. They needed to both feed additional forces into battle (echelons) and continually move enormous quantities of fuel, munitions, and material to the front. (11)
America's superior precision fires - particularly ground based rocketry (HIMARS) and air launched systems - offered the potential to disrupt the Soviet sustainment system by delivering firepower deep into the rear of the battlespace. (12)
It was anticipated that a sustained and powerful strike capability would choke off Soviet fighting power by forcing them to hide and distribute assets, preventing them from concentrating reserve forces, moving them quickly to the front, or supplying them. (13)
By saturating the Soviet rear area with strikes, it was hoped that Soviet fighting power could be severely blunted by preventing the Red Army from concentrating its superior assets on the ground and slowing their arrival at the line of contact. (14)
Furthermore, Col. John Boyd suggested what he called "counter blitzing" - a doctrine of lively counterattacking all over the enemy front. This would create an ambiguous operational situation and further prevent the enemy from concentrating his forces. (15)
In essence, these synergistic doctrines - precision strikes in depth and a frenetic and aggressive counterattacking posture - would stretch the battlespace out in all directions, dilute Soviet fighting power, and prevent them from concentrating forces for a decisive assault. (16)
Collectively, this doctrine was popularly known as "Airland Battle", and its defining quality was a counterattacking defense and the use of precision fires to attrit rear echelon enemy forces and degrade the enemy's sustainment. (17)
Well, what do we have in Ukraine? Something rather similar to Airland Battle, it would seem. The Russian defense against the Ukrainian Counteroffensive has seen both a highly proactive counterattacking posture and an exponential growth in Russian strike capabilities. (18)
While NATO labored to retool Ukraine's mechanized force (mainly big ticket maneuver assets), most of Russia's new capabilities come in the form of standoff fires like the Lancet, Geran, UMPK, and the swarms of FPV drones that plague Ukrainian troops. (19)
While the Ukrainians want to concentrate their mechanized package in the south, the Russians have conducted opportunistic attacks all around the front, drawing in Ukrainian reserves and creating extreme operational ambiguity. Col. John Boyd would approve. (20)
Meanwhile, Russian strike assets continue to hammer staging areas, ammunition dumps, and command posts in the southern theater. They've hit trains and assembly points, and they harry Ukrainian forces with drones. (21)
All of this works to make it nearly impossible for Ukraine to concentrate maneuver assets to attack, and slow to reinforce their efforts. Under these conditions, its nearly impossible to attack successfully. Fires are leveraged to dissipate the enemy's maneuver assets. (22)
Obviously, Russian military doctrine is its own deep well of thinking - the point here is not to suggest that they ripped off Airland Battle. Maybe instead, we should say that Airland Battle had identified fundamental truths of the battlefield and operations. (23)
When the enemy needs to concentrate his forces to attack successfully, the logical response is to stretch the battlespace both horizontally (counterattacking frenetically) and vertically (striking his sustainment infrastructure and reserves), forcing him to disperse. (24)
This should give western military leadership pause. Rather than dismissing the Russians as a product of brute force, they ought to consider that this Russian Army might just be a disciple of John Boyd - a sobering thought indeed. (25)
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So, the Russians hit Ukraine with one of the largest strike packages of the war - over 200 launches including drones and a wide spectrum of missiles. It looks like they mostly hit power generation and transmission, with a few military facilities sprinkled in. (1)
A few notable things that stand out against other strikes (besides the size) were hits on three separate 750kv substations in western Ukraine, including one in Vinnytsia. (2)
This is very important, because sufficient damage to transmission in the western oblasts will prevent Ukraine from importing European electricity to replace its own lost generation. They've relied heavily on imports to prop up their grid. (3)
To the extent that there is an over-arching strategic logic in Ukraine, I think they are trying to "prove" that NATO forces can enter into direct combat with Russia without a colossal escalation. This is the thread that links their more random strategic choices. (1)
"Look, we invaded Kursk and they didn't nuke us. We shot a missile at their early warning radar and they didn't nuke us. We launched a drone at the Kremlin and they didn't nuke us. It's all a bluff - feel free to deploy a French armored brigade to Kharkov." (2)
Ukraine's mosquito bites obviously don't pose an existential threat to Russia, but they create the perception that Moscow doesn't respond to provocation. Useful idiots in the west have already latched on to this. (3)
Stalin was an ethnic Georgian from Gori. His mother was a devout Orthodox Christian who desperately wanted him to become a priest. His father was an alcoholic shoemaker. The big "secret" of Stalin is that he was a true believing communist with exceptional political skills.
The Soviet regime did perpetrate horrible crimes against the Orthodox church in Russia, but they did this because the church was a pillar of the parochial peasant civilization which they wanted to shatter, not because Stalin had a secret blood vendetta against Christians. Sorry.
I'm not like, some fan of Stalin, but you pretty much explain the guy via the fact that he was actually a communist who believed everything he said about Marxism-Leninism providing a solution to human want. He was a communist, and he was a peerless political operator. That's it.
Alfred Thayer Mahan is one of the most prominent thinkers in the American naval tradition. His seminal book "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" (1890) became a global phenomenon that shaped the naval strategies of the global powers. (1)
Mahan's theses were twofold. First, he argued that far reaching naval power projection was a uniquely self-sustaining tool for global power, because it protected the shipping and commerce which made such a navy financial viable. (2)
His second argument, and the more famous one, was that the central goal of naval warfare was to shatter the enemy fleet in a decisive action - a goal which required a fleet of heavily armed battleships which had to be kept in a concentrated mass, and never dispersed. (3)
🧵 Starting a thread of random books that I like and recommend that people might find interesting.
This is comprehensive look at how the Soviet Union’s unparalleled systems and rules of state secrecy shaped the powers of the state. Harrison frames secrecy as the pivot of a tradeoff which gave the USSR a high degree of security at the expense of state capacity.
A really unique book that looks at “Shinto” - originally a variegated and decentralized collection of Buddhist and native Japanese beliefs, which the imperial government deliberately molded into a “religion” that was useful for creating good imperial citizens.
Nothing about this threat even makes sense. If you think that Ukraine is worth fighting a war with Russia, you wouldn't set some weird redline where you pledge to intervene *after* Ukraine has been defeated.
The French Army has eight combat capable brigades (2 armored, 2 mech, 2 light armored, 1 mountain, 1 airborne). French force quality is fine, but this is an expeditionary force that's not built to slug it out in Eastern Europe.