This is not successful diplomacy:
Secretary of State John Kerry ended a day of intense discussions Wednesday with hints that a diplomatic solution to Russia’s military occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea province could emerge in the coming days.
Repeatedly using the word “de-escalate” to describe the chief aim of diplomats – including Russians – gathered in Paris to address the Ukraine crisis, Mr. Kerry said the primary accomplishment of the day’s talks was a commitment from all sides in the conflict to try to resolve the standoff through dialogue.
Of course the Russians would like to de-escalate the crisis. They are on the ground waiting to see if they can be ejected. Why wouldn't they want to de-escalate and remain in control?
Russia may have limited numbers of decent troops, but with their invasion of Crimea they have pulled off a difficult maneuver--being on strategic offense while being able to go on operational defense by gaining control of the ground in question. I mentioned that here. On Point discusses it some more:
Military maneuver, whether tactical (my tank's predicted retreat), operational (what the Russians have pulled off in Crimea) or strategic (e.g., moving five divisions to Kuwait by sea and air), is about more than running and scooting. Maneuver has an objective: to secure a position of comparative advantage over an enemy.
The Russians have certainly done that in Crimea. They have seized several advantageous positions without bloodshed. [emphasis added]
Although in many ways, as Bay hints in his description, the Russians are "merely" poised to control Crimea rather than actually controlling Crimea.
Although we may differ on drawing the dividing lines on strategic and operational levels--that has always been vague--but I want to divide the situation into three levels, and want the lowest level at tactical, so I worked up from there. But that's inside baseball, to some extent.
Anyway.
Russia appears to have a decent but not overwhelming force on the ground. Strategypage is using figures I've gone with:
The 11,000 Russian troops stationed in Crimea are mostly support personnel for the naval base. The exception is 2,000 marines. In the last week another 7,000 troops, mostly infantry and special operations forces were flown in or arrived by ship.
The Russians are working with locals, some with obvious recent military experience, special forces, and maybe mercenaries. It seems that while the Russians moved in a bunch of troops, those outside of Sevastopol appear to be locals and "ghost" troops without insignia from the locals, special forces, and contract soldiers.
Reinforcements seem to have been halted, although as I've noted troops are massing on the Russian side of the Kerch Strait. And I'm sure more airborne forces are ready to be airlifted in.
Which makes the situation on the ground even more interesting and less of a secure conquest than the Russians would like us to believe.
Read it all, as they say.
This is important, but is a detail I didn't have until recently:
Ukraine has fewer than 20,000 navy and other military personnel stranded on bases across Crimea.
Outgunned but loyal to Kiev, they want to avoid confrontation with Russian forces with whom they have long cohabited on the Crimean peninsula, which is home to a Russian Black Sea Fleet's base.
I knew some Ukrainian forces were under siege, but not this many. If the Russians have most of their combat troops (8-9,000) in Sevastopol--with more poised on their side of the Kerch Strait--while 20,000 Ukrainian troops are holding military bases in Crimea surrounded by irregulars and "ghost" soldiers, the Ukrainians are on tactical defense in Crimea itself.
Admittedly, few of these troops are combat troops (a thousand marines?), but they are armed and hold the ground. Hopefully they are digging in. If Russia really wants to continue the fiction that they aren't involved, those militias and covert Russian troops will have some difficulty taking those bases on their own.
And if the Ukrainians can mount an offensive into Crimea, they could gain some ground before the Russian troops emerge from Sevastopol to face the counter-attack.
Ukrainians would also be able to count on those 20,000 besieged Ukrainian troops to tie down Russian forces going to the front in the north to resist a Ukrainian counter-attack.
As I noted in an update to an earlier post, we could go a long way to bolstering morale in those isolated outposts by sending the ship we are sending into the Black Sea to that besieged Ukrainian marine (naval infantry) base at Feodisiya in eastern Ukraine to show the flag and unload food and medical supplies.
Yet this stalemate is not the purpose of the Russian invasion. Putin wants Crimea (he wants all Ukraine, but Crimea is his immediate objective). So Putin needs to move the issue of control in his direction while the troop stalemate continues.
Russia's friends on the ground will orchestrate a more formal invitation to cement Russian control:
The local parliament in Crimea took another step towards seceding from Ukraine on Thursday, asking to become part of Russia as EU leaders held an emergency summit to deal with the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
Pro-Moscow lawmakers made the request to Russian President Vladimir Putin and said they would put the question to a referendum on March 16 as Russian forces maintained their grip on the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
The Russians are in more of a hurry. The referendum is to take place much sooner than the original May date for the vote.
I think the Ukrainians have to hurry up and fight the Russians before the crisis is de-escalated into a Russian victory and conquest without even firing a shot in anger. Really, the outcomes is still in doubt. Is our diplomacy designed to eject the Russians or confirm Russian control at a low price by preventing shooting?
The Ukrainians should leverage a determination to fight for Crimea to at least get us to emphasize reversal of the invasion rather than de-escalation.
And really, China is okay with secession from a UN state? Taiwan might want to consider a declaration of independence, if these are the new rules. And say, just how would Tibetans vote?
Diplomacy should be an attempt to win without war. Russia has not won yet and we need to act that way. Just keep Kerry away from Lavrov.
