The Winter War of 2022 Fears Peace

Perhaps Putin can survive a peace deal with Ukraine that doesn't represent a diplomatic form of conquest. But he cannot survive demobilization after the war. Then things get interesting in a heavy pucker factor sort of way.

The war goes on. Ukraine continues to counter-attack to claw back land; and Ukraine expands its aerial attack capabilities to match Russia's aerial bombardment scale. Well, hello:

Air traffic at 13 airports in southern Russia has been suspended after drones struck a building at a local air navigation center in Rostov-on-Don, the Russian transport ministry said. 

I can't help but think that America responded to Russian aid to Iran with increased targeting data for Ukraine. I have no proof. Just a suspicion that Trump is a FAFO kind of president, and Putin decided to FA. Russia seemingly ponders mobilization to provide bodies for his war. Perhaps Putin's invasion force isn't the juggernaut Russia portrays.

Putin fears demobilization:

Today, Russia faces what can be called a demobilization dilemma. The war in Ukraine is not about Ukrainian territory. The war is being waged as a response to Russia’s domestic fragility, declining legitimacy and a political system that depends on mobilization, fear and external confrontation to maintain control.

This is plausible. But technically, a ceasefire (I won't be so bold to call it "peace") with Ukraine doesn't have to mean demobilization if demobilization means a new Time of Troubles for Russia. Putin may be preparing to win a civil war, but that doesn't mean he wants a civil war.

And then there is this odd development (tip to Instapundit):

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the war in Ukraine was drawing to a close — just hours after he vowed to triumph at Moscow’s puniest Victory Day parade in years.

“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Putin told reporters inside the Kremlin Saturday about the four-year-long war.

Putin said the United States — which he referred to as a “partner” and “friend” during his remarks, alongside the likes of China and India — was eager to help broker a deal.

Huh.

What happens if Putin agrees to a ceasefire without demobilizing? Maybe he decides that Stalin was a coward for not taking advantage of his massive army in central Europe in 1945 to immediately wage war on his Western allies to win the whole thing. Stalin didn't have nukes, Putin may think. I do. Regardless of the truth.

But the tattered mob Putin commands is not the 1945 victorious Red Army that marched across Europe to raze Berlin in less time than Russia has spent still trying to capture all of Donetsk province. As the initial article notes:

Unlike Western professional militaries, Russia’s forces are disproportionately composed of prisoners, ethnic minorities and contract soldiers recruited through exploitative arrangements. 

Perhaps that go big or go home course of action is still too risky for Putin.

Or maybe Putin ends the war without demobilizing and without deciding to wage another war as Iraq did in 1988 because hostile Iran remained across the border. But by 1990, Saddam decided to use his expensive army to solve his financial problems by taking over Kuwait in a lightning attack. Believing nobody would stop him, he found out that he was very wrong. Desert Shield and Desert Storm followed in 1990 and 1991 (but at least the Coalition reduced Saddam's military to a more affordable level--suicide by cop?). And after a pause, the predictable--but not to Saddam who expected a mere drive-by shooting--2003 war finished Saddam off.

Maybe that's not a good plan for Putin given that Russia is already financially struggling. 

Or perhaps Putin decides that a more muscular subtle attack should be his post-Winter War of 2022 military option while his mobilized army stands guard. Break NATO in the Baltic states, which Putin seems to be threatening (even if he has to AstroTurf supporters), with a Kargil-style invasion of heavily armed "little green men." Then dare NATO to go to war against his bridgehead. Putin could break NATO in several ways with such a strategy if NATO isn't prepared, as I discussed in this Army magazine article.

Sure there is risk. But the West may be unwilling to admit Russia has invaded. And at least it is deniable. If things go really bad, Putin can abandon the irregular troops and deny all responsibility. Will NATO then invade Russia while it has nukes? Not likely. And Putin may think something must be tried if history is to append the honorific "the Great" to his name.

So maybe. Unless a tall open window veto from other Russians is wielded. Or even if Putin just gets too nervous from Western disinformation to walk by windows.

Ukraine faces a similar problem with demobilization. Do it and Russia could pounce. Fail to do it and Ukraine will go broke eventually and not be able to afford a large active army. Will Europe really be as generous with financial support when the war is over? Even if Ukraine gets reparations in one form or another, will Ukraine spend it not on reconstruction but on keeping their army in the field ready for renewed invasion? If so, eventually Ukraine will run out of that source of cash. Going broke follows as does demobilization.

Ukraine and Russia--if Putin or whoever succeeds him does not choose another war as the post-war path--both could use a post-war deal that limits both NATO and Russian forces within striking distance of the ceasefire line.

And if that agreement cements in place a Russian "flip" against China so Russia can focus on holding its Far East from Chinese recapture, so much the better. Is that what Putin expects from the United States, his partner and friend?

But until then, the war goes on. 

NOTE: ISW updates continue here. 

NOTE: Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump on Substack. You may read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.

NOTE: Photo from Getty via that "disinformation" link.

Weekend Data Dump

The Weekend Data Dump is a compilation of short entries about the previous week’s defense and national security news that I found interesting. I couldn’t possibly comment on everything in my news flow or delve into everything that interests me. So most news that interests me doesn’t make the cut for a post. The rest go in the data dump. Enjoy!

HOP ON OVER AND READ IT! On the bright side, you can comment on Substack!

In case you missed it on Substack: How Can Enemies Possibly Find Warships At Sea?

In case you missed it on Substack: "Modifying" the Infantry Squad Vehicle

In case you missed it on Substack: The Future of Warfare

In case you missed it on Substack: Counter-measures Emerge For UAVs

Help me out by subscribing on Substack and by liking and sharing posts. I occasionally post short data dump-type items (or not-so-short) on my Substack "Notes" section.

Big Overture, Little Show?

North Korea has always issued threats. Can North Korea carry them out?

I assume they continue to be quite serious about that threat:

In 1994 a North Korean official declared, during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the North Korean capital Panmunjom, that the South Korean capital is not far from here. In wartime Seoul will become a sea of fire. This is what passes for North Korean diplomacy, subtle but brutal.

About a quarter of South Korea's population is in the Seoul region that is quite close to the DMZ and so vulnerable to long-range artillery fire. 

But does the threat still work? Not just because repetition may dull the fear. Can North Korea actually strike Seoul at sea of fire levels? Their army may be too weak to push into or even close enough to Seoul to use basic artillery to bombard the city.

And the situation could be even worse from North Korea's perspective:

If a crisis erupts on the Korean peninsula and the North Koreans fire even a warning barrage at Seoul, I expect the South Korean army to march north of the DMZ and carve out a no-launch zone in an arc around Seoul to protect their capital and home to a quarter of the population from North Korean artillery. And if the attack is focused just on a no-launch zone, will Pyongyang unleash nukes that might be shot down and which would trigger an American nuclear retaliation?

I'm not sure how valuable the money and experience that North Korea has gotten from helping Russia invade Ukraine will be in the long run after a short-term bump.

UPDATE: Intersteing:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the production ‌of new artillery with a range ‌exceeding 60 km (37 miles) that would be deployed at ​the South Korean border and bolster its ability to hit Seoul[.]

The correlation of forces has shifted. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

Ukraine Builds an A-Whacks

Ukraine has developed the A-Whacks plane to shoot down incoming suicide drones with cheap air defense weapons. See? Not all my notions are impractical.

Ukraine already mounted a 7.62 mini-gun on a An-28 transport to successfully shoot down drones. This improvement is outstanding:

As depicted in a new video montage, the same An-28 is now launching 3D-printed SkyFall P1-Sun interceptor drones from an underwing hardpoint.

And if I do say so myself, an idea I suggested two years ago based on using APKWS rockets on a radar plane able to detect the incoming drones, and dubbed it A-Whacks: 

The rocket can go nearly 7 miles when fired from aircraft. A lot could be packed into a commercial airliner converted to an air defense aircraft, right? There could also be a smaller number of longer-range sophisticated air-to-air missiles carried.

The concept is working. With suicide air-to-air drones rather than APKWS. But that's a mere detail.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Image from Trench Art. 

Establishing the Logistics Backbone in INDOPACOM

The Army has the primary role in getting supplies to the joint force in the figurative "last mile" after the Navy gets the supply ships into the port across the ocean.

This is interesting:

The U.S. Army is using a facility in Subic Bay to stage equipment for exercises and alliance contingencies, according to a recent think tank report and imagery released by the Pentagon.

Army trucks and helicopters rolled off a Military Sealift Command-contracted vessel at Subic Bay last month during Washington’s annual mass disembarkation in the Philippines for a series of consecutive military drills. 

This extends logistics for American and allied forces to operate close to China from the southern Philippines in Mindanao, as America planned in the 1930s to do to defend the Philippines:

The enduring need for secure logistics to the western Pacific hasn’t changed. But history is just rhyming. And so America looks to the Davao region rather than Dumanquilas Bay for a new logistics link should the current Pacific threat, China, move from the “pacing” standard to the active enemy.

For a long time, American logistics was pretty much restricted to northeast Asia to support South Korea and Japan. With the need to cope with rising Chinese power, INDOPACOM needs a wider and more robust logistics effort.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: The image is from the initial article. 

Kneel Britannia

Britain will crawl back to the empire they escaped?

This is sad:

Sir Keir Starmer is at it again. Not content to merely thwart the democratic will of the people over attempted delays to local council elections, his government is now seeking to rejoin the EU through the backdoor. As if 'dynamic alignment' on everything from food standards to carbon emissions wasn't bad enough, Labour wants to guarantee we keep playing by EU rules through something called 'secondary legislation'. This means ongoing legislation to tie us to EU laws gets authorised by ministers rather than by new updated legislation in the Commons. 

Nice knowing you, constitutional monarchy.

The EU punished Britain for Brexit. And Remainers in Britain eager to bend the knee to Brussels undermine an independent Britain. Naturally, British opinion once narrowly for Brexit eroded.

Mission accomplished. 

And so now, Britain will--after many centuries--finally be stronger in Europe.

I'd add that I am unhappy that America didn't forge trade deals with Britain to reinforce their independence. But I'm not sure it would have mattered with the forces in political Europe and in Britain itself working to overturn Brexit from the start. 

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.

Priorities In An Ammo Shortage

Ukraine can't afford to bounce the rubble against aerial threats to marginally increase interception success.

This comment on how Ukraine has adapted to a Patriot missile shortage is interesting:

The Patriot unit commander, identified as Oleksandr in a video released over the weekend by the Ukrainian military's Air Command West, said that while standard air defense doctrine calls for firing between two and four interceptors at each incoming Russian cruise or ballistic missile, his forces are launching just one per threat amid strained stockpiles. 

Firing multiple Patriots increases the odds of hitting. If you have an 80% chance of hitting with one missile fired, you have a 96% chance of hitting the target with two. A third gets you over 99%. In a situation where you have a very valuable target to protect and plenty of missiles (perhaps because the fight is a single battle rather than a war), it makes sense to launch even three. The value of the saved target far outweighs the cost of the "wasted" defensive missiles.

But if you have insufficient missiles and lots of targets (but none absolutely critical) to defend, it is better to fire three missiles at three separate incoming missiles to have a chance of destroying three incoming missiles. That is superior to a near-guarantee of one hit while watching two other incoming missiles hit your assets.

When ammo runs low, you make do and set priorities. 

Mind you, if the incoming missile is targeting the Patriot system itself, light up the skies, eh?

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here. 

NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it. It's the right thing to do!

NOTE: Image from the article.  

The Winter War of 2022 Tells the People To Shut Up, Pay, and Die

Will the combatants continue to suffer and die in the war?

Russia bombards Ukraine daily. Although one Russian milblogger claimed the campaign is not making the most of resources and that "Russian forces are also frequently switching target sets without accomplishing their initial objectives.

And Ukraine's strategic warfare against Russian energy production and export capabilities begins to do real damage. Further, on the ground, where Russia's biggest advantage supposedly lies, "Russian forces in April 2026 suffered a net loss of territory controlled in the Ukrainian theater for the first time since Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into Kursk Oblast." It may be an anomaly. But things do seem to have tilted in Ukraine's favor on the ground so far this year. Perhaps the war's fifth summer will change that.

The special military operation goes on--and is starting to leave a mark in Russia:

There are increasing indications that hostility to Putin’s policies is spreading throughout the leaders, increasing the probability that they will merge into groups which might seek and perhaps even succeed in blocking Russian government policies and erode voter support.

None of this means Putin is about to be emasculated, let alone overthrown. But it could persuade Putin to take even more repressive and aggressive measures. Taken together, these developments suggest Putin is now less able to act as if opposition to his policies is irrelevant.

Russian anger over President Vladimir Putin’s moves against the internet is growing and spreading even to groups long thought to be his most loyal supporters. Russian commentators are pointing to other mistakes Putin has been making, and opinion surveys show that his approval rating is falling to the lowest level since before he launched the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. He now faces a buildup of disapproval that some have called an apocalypse.

If the Russian people are restive now, wait until they get a load of this:

A prominent, Kremlin-coopted Russian ultranationalist milblogger has begun socializing the idea that Russians should prepare for possible future limited, rolling reserve call-ups to bolster Russia’s force generation mechanisms.

It's "limited" in the sense that those mobilized won't be in uniform for that long. Dying in a meat wave assault pretty much ensures that. 

While I think the chance of upheaval is higher in Russia, I do not rule out the possibility that Ukraine could experience the unrest first:

Ukraine and Russia are exhausted. Neither side is close to defeat and yet discontent is growing on both sides. In Russia, open criticism of the regime is spreading. Social media influencers have, bizarrely, led the charge. In Ukraine, fury is directed at press gangs who hunt down young men and force them, often violently, into the army. Today, the chances of some kind of political crisis in either Kyiv or Moscow seem more likely than a great breakthrough on the battlefield. 

Ukraine's relatively free society at least allows its soldiers better options than learning to like dying:

Ukraine’s top general ordered on Thursday a mandatory two-month time limit for front-line troops serving in forward positions, a week after photos of emaciated soldiers on combat duty sparked a nationwide outcry. 

So Ukrainian troops have that going for them.

Yet while I suspect that Russia's ground forces are significantly more vulnerable to cracking under the pressure of war, Ukraine could break first--with worse consequences.

To avoid the risk of collapse--of the army or state--might Putin accept Trump's outstretched hand to conceal Russia's defeat with a realignment to face China together? Quietly, of course. 

If not, just how will this war twist to provide somebody with a victory?

UPDATE (Monday): Huh:

“The overall mood is that’s enough already; you’ve been fighting for long enough,” a Russian official told the Washington Post last week on condition of anonymity. “It seems to everyone that it’s been going on for longer than World War II, the Great Patriotic War — and at the same time we can’t even take one region.” 

Will Russia accept Trump's fig leaf to conceal Putin's defeat and allow Russia to pivot to face China?

NOTE: ISW updates continue here. 

NOTE: Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump on Substack. You may read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved.