How Strategery Gets Made

We have enough problems with our politicians. Could we please stop having political flag officers, too?

Keeping some American troops in Afghanistan would have kept NATO and allied troops there, too. And that help could have gotten the Afghan security forces through the danger zone of losing our more intense level of support. 

But no, we abandoned our allies and just left--losing the war and giving our enemies a win, with blowback ongoing in Ukraine as Putin assumed we'd retreat there, too; and blowback yet to be felt. How was it possible to choose defeat?

So, this is how we chose to lose the Afghanistan War?

Retired General Frank McKenzie writes in a new book, The Melting Point, that he briefed President Biden in February 2021 on four military options on Afghanistan: one that would keep about 2,500 U.S. forces in the country and maintain eight bases; one that would reduce U.S. force numbers to 1,800 and drawdown to three bases; one that took out all U.S. forces and kept the embassy in place, and one that pulled out all American forces and the U.S. embassy.

Biden picked the third option, which attempted to keep the embassy, American citizens and at-risk Afghans in the country.

“I felt that was the worst of all possible worlds to actually pick that particular approach,” McKenzie told VOA in an interview on Monday.

Ah, our civilian leadership chose that sweet spot of no American troops and plentiful American hostages waiting to be plucked. Bravo. Helluva Venn diagram, eh? I was very worried about our belated commitment of troops to a nearly indefensible airport perimeter as everything collapsed around our brilliantly executed skedaddle.

Why didn't McKenzie--the CENTCOM commander--go public with his conclusion that it was the worst possible option and accept the consequences? 

Why did he just go along like it was just one of our options to draw down without losing the war?

Why didn't he publicly resign and tell the American public that this was the worst of all possible worlds?

Instead, he wrote a book about how bad the decision was. Years later. Nice that he has his priorities. Documenting failure is more important than preventing failure.

This is what I've been talking about when I've written that our Afghanistan skedaddle debacle broke my confidence in our generals and admirals. Oh, not all--probably not even most--have many substitutes for victory. But as a group, the ones who rise to the top show we are clearly doing something wrong in educating our senior military leaders. 

Our political leaders are our fault--we vote for them. So there's no way CSI Kabul: This Time For Sure, will blame our senior political or military leadership for following the advice of the Fuck-Up Fairy.

But something needs to be done about our senior military leaders. We'll need political leadership willing to purge our military of our cocktail party-proficient flag officers whose junta-level of medals stretched across their chests reflect the approval of other cocktail-proficient flag officers through their climb up the officer ranks into the buttocks of approving civilian leadership.

If I sound bitter, it's only because I am. And worried. We seem to have neutered our senior officers in the post-Cold War holiday from history. And now that it's over we find we still have holiday generals still sluggish from the buffets and open bar.

But hey, good luck with that book tour.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

China Pounces

China may be making the best of Russia's struggling war against Ukraine backed by the West. Russia now has a two-front war. Russia should pray it doesn't get a third front. And Putin should pray Russians don't notice.

It begins: 

Following over two decades of negotiations, the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan ratified a trilateral agreement with China and Uzbekistan on the joint construction of the CKU railway, Russian language media outlet BigAsia.Ru reported on Wednesday. The deal was signed between the countries on June 6, and construction is expected to start in October. ...

The railway is expected to cut the route from China to Europe by 560 miles, shortening transit times for freight by an estimated eight days, and significantly, avoiding Russia and its Trans-Siberian Railway, the International Railway Journal (ICJ) reported.

What begins, you may ask:

Is Russia's military faceplant in Ukraine practically giving its former territory in Central Asia to China?

So if Russia-Chinese relations get tense, Russia can't threaten to cut China off from Europe overland.

What the heck, eh? China seemingly expected Putin to get a short and glorious war back in February 2022. Which would have made Putin insufferable and perhaps confident enough to cease appeasing China to safeguard its Far East conquests ripped from China in the 19th century.

But now Russia is just a sad compliant vassal desperate for China to help Russia sustain its war of aggression and desperate for China not to pounce on the wheezing Russia. For now, China will pounce on the corpse of the USSR.

What comes next? And what will China reap from that?

As Russians look at the wreckage of Putin's drive for glory, will Putin be strung up by his heels from a lamp post in Moscow before or after that sad end to Russia as an Asian power?

UPDATE: One day this may be about the Moon. But right now it is about Central Asia:

Kazakhstan has signed a memorandum on cooperation on the China-led ILRS and will also explore commercial use of each other’s spaceports. ...

A memorandum on cooperation as part of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) was one of the 30 signed documents, according to the Interfax news agency. 

Tip to Instapundit.

NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.

NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.

Happy Birthday America

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.

Put Our Enemies at Risk

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.

America's Ten-Year Rule Turns Fifteen

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 won't cancel the Medium Term Rule until it's too late to do any good.

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?

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.

The Winter War of 2022 Tests the Limits of Attrition

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.

Russia is banking on its ability to endure losses to break Ukraine or at least to break the West's willingness to support Ukraine:

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? 

UPDATE (Friday): Is this really a sign of Putin's confidence in ultimate victory?

Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly rejected Russian participation in any meaningful negotiations on a ceasefire agreement, instead demanding Ukraine's "irreversible" "demilitarization" as a precondition for any ceasefire agreement. Putin is thus demanding that Ukraine effectively surrender in advance of any ceasefire.

Or is it a sign that heavy casualties, equipment losses, and economic harm are forcing Putin to raise his objectives to reflect the losses already suffered? It might be hard for Putin to survive even a ceasefire after wrecking his ground forces and the Black Sea Fleet for a mere land bridge to Crimea.

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.