Leveling the Playing Field in Ukraine (part 3)

Follow-up to William (Chip) Sayers posts Leveling the Playing Field in Ukraine (part 1) | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org) and Leveling the Playing Field in Ukraine (part 2) | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org).

This is his ninth post here. He will be presenting at our Historical Analysis conference: Who’s Who at HAAC – part 1 | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org). This is the last of three posts on the subject.

———————–William (Chip) Sayers——————

Leveling the Playing Field in Ukraine (part 3)

Generally speaking, the longer a war of aggression goes on, the worse it is for the aggressor. The attacker has to contend with the Clausewitzian concept of “culmination.” Clausewitz explained this in the simple terms of outdistancing one’s supply lines, while the defender falls back on his, but it applies equally to the problem of replacing casualties and equipment losses, the problem of transforming the economy for war, maintaining political, military and economic relations with other nations, and of trying to hold together domestic political alliances in the face of internal factionalism and national self-examination. On each of these points, the defender is stronger due to internal motivations caused by a perceived existential threat or external sympathy for the innocent party. And the longer the war drags on, the greater the advantage accumulates for the defender. Let’s take a closer look at this broadened concept of culmination and where it may lead the current war in Ukraine.

Clausewitz postulated that the defense was the stronger form of warfare, though COL Dupuy countered with, “that depends…” Clausewitz had a practical, but very tactical view on the subject. While the attacker had to maneuver in the open to bring the defender under fire, the defender could use terrain and fortification to protect himself while optimizing fields of fire to press his tactical advantage in firepower. If this were always and only the case, the attacker could never win. However, this view doesn’t take maneuver into account.  As COL Dupuy’s research into Understanding Defeat revealed that the most important factor in convincing a defender to give up terrain is maneuver to the flank or rear of their battle positions by the attacker. Furthermore, Dupuy pointed out that the loser of the battle, be he attacker or defender, generally loses more personnel and equipment. Clausewitz was well aware that the defender did not always win. He was merely establishing a basic principle. Nevertheless, this is important to the observer of the current war in that Russia needs to advance to keep pressure on Zelensky’s government, to secure and consolidate its gains, and to keep Ukraine from launching successful counter-offensives to eject Russian forces from their country. As Russian troops have not, so far in this conflict, proven particularly adept at tactical maneuver, it is a safe bet that they are losing more men and equipment than the Ukrainians. This appears to be in line with all objective evidence on losses thus far.

While the Russians are finding it difficult to replace their casualties with new conscripts—who must receive at least a modicum of training before being fed into the fight—the Ukrainians have an easier time recruiting troops who see the Russian threat as brutal and existential. This is a powerful motivator and will result in a greater percentage of volunteers and troops willing to risk life and limb for home and hearth. While Ukraine has a population base less than 1/3^rd that of Russia, these factors could serve to make up some of the difference. In the final stage of their war in Afghanistan, the Russians were no more chased out of the country by the mujahideen than we were run out of Vietnam by the Viet Cong. Instead, the political pressure levied on Gorbachev by Russian “Gold-star” families caused Moscow to reassess the cost of its misadventure, just as we did 15 years earlier. By all accounts, the Russians, are losing men at a significantly greater rate than they did in their earlier war, and the Russian people have greater access to information than they did in the late 1980s. Thus, the pressure is already high and is mounting rapidly.

If anything, replacing lost equipment is even harder than replacing lost personnel. In their favor, the Russians have a lot of equipment stored away for a rainy day. However, it hasn’t been well maintained and there were years—decades, even—where there was little if any money to spend on troops salaries, and fuel and ammunition sufficient for a minimum of training. Stored equipment needs constant attention, so only a small percentage is likely serviceable. Furthermore, this equipment is definitely second-line, obsolescent kit, unlikely to stand in the line of battle as well as the gear it would be replacing. Once the stored equipment is exhausted, the Russians capacity to manufacture new equipment is unlikely to keep up with loss rates. Tanks, aircraft and other major end items can require months or even years of lead time to produce required components before final assembly can begin. And this is to say nothing of an economy under the stress of isolation and sanctions. Meanwhile, Ukraine can receive for free contributions of equipment they are familiar with from NATO nations that have stocks of Soviet-designed equipment still on hand. However, modern NATO weapons suffer some of the same manufacturing challenges and thus can only be fed into the battle in dribs and drabs. Therefore, NATO equipment given to Ukraine should be reserved for special purpose units (e.g., counterbattery artillery, deep interdiction fires, etc.) and not just fed indiscriminately into the line.

I had long wondered if we had seen the end of industrial warfare in the 1950s. The Ukrainian Invasion calls that hypothesis into question, but if industrial warfare indeed survives to this day, it is industrial warfare in slow motion. Weapons factories may end up being crucial to this war, but it is less likely that they will drive the abilities of the combatants as they did in World War II, and more likely that they will put a throttle on the pace and tempo of the war once inventory and stocks near depletion.

The Ukrainian economy is being systematically destroyed by Russian bombardment, so there is not much to worry about here, other than how the West will rebuild it when the war eventually ends. If things go the way I believe they will, Russia will, in a few years, be faced with a hostile economic superpower on their border. They will live to regret their foolhardy war.

The Russian economy faces a much more difficult task, and without the international aid that Ukraine will receive. China is the only country that could contribute significantly to the Russian economy, but they have their own issues to attend to keeping their people satisfied and under control, and aren’t in any position to be overly generous with Russia. The Chinese weapons manufacturing base cannot replace lost Russian aircraft, and their modern tanks are similar to, but not fully compatible with Russian vehicles. Further, they don’t have the capacity to spare while modernizing their own forces. Where Beijing can help their Russian friends is with artillery and artillery ammunition. The great bulk of PLA artillery is compatible with or derived directly from Russian designs. Therefore, any attempt to interfere with the supply of Russian artillery ammunition must take into account the impossibility of cutting off the supply, entirely. Nevertheless, political, economic, and diplomatic pressure/incentives might be the proper means to address this problem, should it present itself.

In the realm of diplomatic and foreign relations, Russia is as isolated as is currently possible. While Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela can be counted on to always side with Russia, they are of little consequence and have virtually nothing to contribute to the current crisis. China is Russia’s only ally of any consequence and there are opportunities to influence them, particularly within the sphere of economics and international trade. Some European governments are currently playing a dangerous game on both sides of the street—particularly with regard to energy imports—but this will eventually come to an end with time, as they untangle their previous imprudent economic ties with Russia. This may be a painful transition for Europe, and we should be prepared to step in to replace lost fuel shipments. 

The real joker in this deck is India. They have close ties with Russia to counterbalance the threat from China. One expects that India very much wants to be the superpower of the Indian Ocean region in a more thorough and comprehensive manner than what they have inherited by default from the British Empire. In 2011, my War College class traveled to New Delhi to talk with senior officers of the Indian defence establishment, several think-tanks, and the Indian press corps. I can’t speak for my classmates, but I was extremely disappointed with the Indian obsession with Pakistan (a report that undoubtedly delighted my Pakistani classmate) and their seeming inability to think on a higher plane.  They are certainly not a lost cause, and their thinking may have evolved over the past decade. However, it may take some deep diplomatic dialog with New Delhi to impress upon them the fact that we make natural allies, and that the US Navy can help them achieve a benevolent hegemony over their sphere of the Indian Ocean basin.

Perhaps Putin’s biggest problem, however, is that his hubris may be leading Russia into disaster that will take many decades to recover from. The Russian Oligarchs, whom Putin depends on for his position, cannot be happy about their prospects. As Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic learned in 1999, even a putative dictator has benefactors that he can ill-afford to fall out of favor with.

Operation ALLIED FORCE was NATO’s attempt to stop perceived oppression of Muslims in the Yugoslavian Provence of Kosovo by the Serbian federal government led by Milosevic. Based on somewhat dubious evidence, the Clinton administration decided it was time for a showdown with the troublesome Milosevic and the US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright invited Milosevic’s representatives to Rambouillet to “negotiate.”  Rambouillet turned out to be anything but a negotiation. Albright delivered an ultimatum that included features carefully crafted to ensure Milosevic could not agree to order to start a war she was sure NATO could easily win in a few days. It didn’t turn out that way.

Operation ALLIED FORCE was run directly by SACEUR, GEN. Wesley Clark, an Army officer with no experience or expertise in air warfare. Clark overrode the plans of his air boss, LtGen Michael Short, and the campaign began to flounder immediately. Clark’s strategy was wrong, his objectives were wrong, his tactics were wrong, and his targeting was ludicrously off-base. The only thing they got right—and this came from the President, himself—was taking a ground fight off the table. As long as ALLIED FORCE stayed exclusively an air war, the Serbs couldn’t fight back. While the campaign was going nowhere, NATO was also taking no losses. Had that not been the case, NATO’s first war would have been a loss, and the entire organization would have been at risk of collapse. 

Fortunately for NATO, the US Joint Warfare Analysis Center came up with a plan to change the targeting strategy to put the crosshairs on Milosevic’s benefactors. One enterprising USAF Major dubbed it “Crony Attack,” and it worked by attacking assets that Milosevic’s cronies personally benefited from. When NATO put the squeeze on their pocketbooks, they squeezed the necessary concessions out of Milosevic. Eventually, his benefactors gave him up entirely and Milosevic died in a cell at the Hague. All it took was a fresh look at the politics and economics of the situation and some good intel on how things actually worked in Serbia.

Crony Attack could work in Russia, too—albeit, not as a kinetic attack with bombs and missiles—but rather by carefully selected financial and economic attacks. The key in this case is to make those attacks in such a way as to send the message that, “we know who you are and what you hold dear, and we can make this so much worse for you.” Using a bludgeon on the Russian economy can be useful, but it won’t send that particular message. That requires an intelligently wielded scalpel.

Time is on Ukraine’s side, and if Putin can’t pull a rabbit out of his hat soon, he’s likely to end up like Milosevic. Or worse. Some weeks ago, a Russian Oligarch allegedly put a price on his head; soon, they all may do so.

While time may be friendly to Ukraine at this point, that doesn’t mean they should draw out the war any longer than they have to. I spent the 1990s learning the lesson from the Balkan Wars that the longer a war drags on, the more everyone suffers, especially the civilians caught in the middle. Going in hard, fast and with maximum violence actually saves lives in the end. Had the UN and NATO not intervened in former Yugoslavia, justice would have been served on the weak by the strong, but that would have been preferable to the horrific violence visited on everyone for seven years—and probably many more when it inevitably flares up, again. When Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991, Belgrade tried to prevent their exit. When Croatia decided to jump ship thereafter, Belgrade reassessed and realized that they couldn’t prevent the breakup, so they made it their aim to protect Serbs wherever they lived in the crumbling republic. Had things been left there, the Serbs—and others—would not have been motivated to commit the horrible atrocities they perpetrated after ethnic animosities built over years of grinding warfare. Ukraine is just about at that point, and from here on, the war will likely be marked by a brutality unimaginable a few months ago. While Ukraine grows stronger relative to Russia with the passage of time, this is a debt that can only be paid in blood and Ukraine would be wise to take any reasonable opportunity to end this war before the price becomes too high. They need to fight smart and not lazily rely on the inevitability of their victory.

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