My Patriotism and love of my country do not depend on whether I like the government temporarily granted the honor and duty of leading America. I would hope that's everyone's view.
Anyway, enemies should not under-estimate us.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
We need to put the fear of God and the United States military in the hearts of our enemies.
FFS:
Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Sunday that an Israeli invasion of Lebanon against Hezbollah could spark opposition from Iran, potentially putting U.S. troops in the region at risk.
I miss the days when our leaders caused concern in enemies rather than adopt a victim attitude.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
Have we decided we're in a potential pre-war period in time to overcome our long no-war theory of history?
Were the seeds of losing a naval arms race with China sown in the 1990s?
Beijing has been indulging in an unprecedented "peacetime" naval buildup for 20 years, right out in the open. In his latest substack, milblogger CDR Salamander detailed the massive investments China has made since 2005 in its warship-building capacity.
Is the blame from the 1990s "when this country stopped being a serious nation"?
Sort of. In 1996 the Chinese found they couldn't even find our carriers sailing east of Taiwan, as I noted in this 2005 post about Chinese efforts to build the naval power needed to conquer Taiwan just 100 miles off their coast:
In 1996, the Chinese could not invade. Nor could they hold off the US Navy long enough even if they could have invaded. Indeed, the Chinese were horrified that they could not even locate our two carriers let alone target them during the 1996 missile crisis. (And we were horrified that we couldn't easily communicate with the Taiwanese, making it possible we were visibly backing the Taiwanese when they might have been preparing to strike without our knowledge. Hence our current hotline). And at some point in the future, the Chinese will have the ability to invade without a doubt given their trend lines. Some say a decade. Some say two. (I say sooner)
The Chinese reacted to that weakness. And how. But we were so far ahead that I place the blame in 2009 when America declared a Ten-Year Medium Term Rule for reduced defense capabilities that assumed no significant threat:
We've just instituted the Medium Term Rule on our defense spending. The problems that will flow from this plan won't show themselves in the near term. We can coast on our past progress in building the best military in the world. But have no doubt that our military strength will erode, and this means we are accepting risks in case we have to fight a conventional war in the medium term despite our assumption that we can still win such a war.We keep hinting that we will end the Medium Term Rule. And we have spasms of defense activity for specific threats and capabilities. But the Navy sits on a pier and spins, going nowhere as it revolves around super carriers. That soaks up a lot of our shipbuilding capacity, no?
We won't cancel the Medium Term Rule until it's too late to do any good.
I'm seriously worried about the Navy's leadership that lacks a sense of urgency more than I'm worried about fleet size, as horrified as I am about our shipbuilding and shipyard repair capacity.
And don't get me started on reloading our ships' magazines to keep them in the fight and compensate for fewer numbers.
Still, the Navy doesn't fight alone any more than the PLAN does. We have naval power allies and China does not. I also hope our land-based air and missile power are well integrated into our sea control plan. Maybe that buys us time to build a bigger Navy.
I am an optimist, aren't I?
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
Russia is expanding its ground forces despite heavy losses that reduce quality. And is still getting equipment--albeit older stuff--to those troops. But even if on paper Russia can "afford" to lose this amount as long as it takes to wear out Ukraine and its Western suppliers, humans are not cogs in a Putin war machine.
Putin has articulated a theory of victory that assumes that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual creeping advances indefinitely, prevent Ukraine from conducting successful operationally significant counteroffensive operations, and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces. The Russian military command is currently prioritizing consistent offensive operations that achieve gradual tactical gains over conducting a large-scale discrete offensive operation that aims to make operationally significant gains through rapid maneuver.
I heard an analyst I respect say that Russia is doing fine on manpower--leadership and equipment are different matters--because it invaded Ukraine
with fewer than 200,000 troops and now has 500,000 committed to the war. So Putin can allegedly continue feeding men into meat grinder offensives indefinitely.
Russia had 910,000 ground forces in their military and paramilitary branches before the war (per my The Military Balance 2018). On paper. Isn't a lot of the increase of troops committed to Ukraine due to stripping other areas of troops?
That's a lot of lost troops to make up for:
Russian mortality statistics show that the number of Russian troops killed since the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 likely exceed 71,000, according to a new report.
Apparently that doesn't include 2024 losses. But it is also based on statistics rather than counting actual verified dead soldiers. Add in wounded who won't return to combat. And deserters and prisoners. And consider the losses in that big number that took out trained unit leaders. Yet Russia has lost "a lot."
During the Iraq War, critics of the war looked at America losing a thousand troops KIA per year as something that was "breaking" the U.S. Army. Yet people look at Russia losses each week that approach America's level as something the much smaller Russia can of course endure for as long as it takes to defeat Ukraine.
Is that really true?
As I noted early on, we can't have a mechanical rule that says because Russia has X times the number of people that Ukraine has that it can lose X times as many troops in combat without suffering worse effects than Ukraine:
[Does] Russia's 3:1 advantage in population and vastly greater GDP mean Russia has the endurance?
On people, you'd think so. But the Iran-Iraq War suggests otherwise. Iran had three times the population while Iraq had the money to build material superiority. Iran had far higher willingness to fight and die. But after years of relentless Iranian offensives, during which Iran lost twice as many troops as Iraq, Iran's morale broke. It was not so simple to say Iran could suffer 3 times the casualties. Indeed, one would have thought superior Iranian fanaticism would make the casualty endurance higher than 3:1. But that did not happen.
Can that experience apply to this war?
Like Iran, Russia has a 3:1 advantage in population. But Russian morale as a conqueror, that is clearly not liberating people from Nazis, is not superior. This could break Russia before Ukraine.
Iranians lost about twice as many troops as Iraq during their long war. Iran ultimately broke in that war as its troops lost the will to endure frontal assaults that only clawed away at Iraqi-held territory.
Can Russians really match the willingness to die for years on end that Iranians hopped up on revolution and religion couldn't muster? Ukrainians could break, too. But that's now how I'd bet right now.
War is a matter of humans fighting other humans--not equations that coldly calculate loss tolerance as if dead sons and husbands are just inputs.
UPDATE (Monday): Big, if true:
Russians are finally losing their appetite for a quick death in Ukraine.
But I want it to be true so I'll hold off on accepting this as fact.
UPDATE (Tuesday) Oof:
Video emerged on social media showing a missile attack on the Ukraine’s Mirgorod Air Base in Poltava Oblast on Monday. The base, home to Ukraine’s 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade, is located in central Ukraine, about 100 miles southwest of the border. The attack and loss of aircraft has been confirmed by the Ukrainian Air Force.
Russia really wants to be able to destroy F-16s when Ukraine gets them.
UPDATE (Tuesday): Exactly:
If Ukraine and its Western supporters lose resolve, Europe may face a scenario where Russia subjugates the rest of Ukraine, installs a puppet regime, and gradually integrates most or all of the country into a new Russian empire.
Russia will bleed Ukraine dry to make up for its losses taking Ukraine.
But don't look for a silver lining:
In the long term, it would be a Pyrrhic victory for Moscow. The repressive empire would struggle to digest its occupied lands, subdue a restive population, and bear the burden of very high military expenditures in a new era of confrontation.
Yeah, the long term could be a long time away, during which Russia can do more damage to the West trying to get a cheaper victory to add resources to prevent or delay that long term problem.
And while I do think Putin is putting Russia on the road to further splintering as China picks up Far East pieces, that gives me little comfort.
Just defeat Russia now.
I went from being hammered by the Left as a so-called war monger for wanting to defeat the Soviet Union; and now by the Right for wanting to defeat Russia. This isn't about me, obviously. But it is frustrating.
UPDATE (Wednesday): Russia is getting better at unified action across many fronts:
The interplay between ongoing Russian offensive operations in the Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Avdiivka directions indicates that the Russian military command may intend to leverage the ongoing Toretsk push to create operational opportunities for advances in either the Chasiv Yar or Avdiivka areas. Russian preparations that can support multiple future branch plans suggest a more developed level of operational planning and foresight than the Russian command has proven capable of executing thus far in the war since early 2022. The ability of this operational planning to come to fruition, however, will be bounded by the overall poor tactical-level capabilities of Russian forces currently fighting in these areas.
But tactical implementation remains costly.
UPDATE (Thursday): Russia is determined to advance through the key Chasiv Yar:
Ukraine’s army has retreated from a neighborhood in the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a monthslong Russian assault, a military spokesperson said Thursday.
I will ask what I've asked before. Why doesn't Ukraine mine a position that Russia is grinding through in order to set up a really big explosion under their advancing troops?
NOTE: ISW updates continue here. Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
