Over the past week, and particularly last night, NATO has suffered a decisive and strategic defeat, massive in scale, that will change the world as we know it.
Largest Night Battle
In what appears to be the largest, most intense night assault in the history of warfare, Ukraine launched their best, NATO trained and equipped mechanised units (including German Leopard heavy tanks, French AMX-10 light tanks, US Bradley IFVs and advanced Western night vision gear) supported by massive NATO Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Electronic Counter Measure (ECM) support in an attempt to break through the the first of three layers of Russian defensive lines near Orekhovskoye.
Commencing with the largest Ukrainian artillery and missile barrage of the war, the Ukrainian armoured column attempted to breach the first minefields with advanced mechanised mine clearing equipment, in the middle of the night with all lights off.
Expecting their "advanced" western night vision gear to give them an advantage over the supposedly inferior Russian night vision equipment, they hoped to pass the minefield undetected and assemble for a massive assault on the Russian front lines.
But they were detected by Russian special forces and attack helicopters (KA-52s) and artillery wiped them out while others hit mines trying to escape.
Daytime Battles
The daytime battles which have been ongoing over the last week and have substantially intensified in the last two days, are the same story.
Despite the bravery and courage of Ukrainian troops and advanced western equipment, huge ISR and ECM support and likely plenty of NATO special forces and advisors on the ground, Ukrainian forces are making no progress and suffering huge losses. Western equipment is being smoked at an extraordinarily rapid rate.
Zero Ukrainian Gains, Massive Losses
The Russians are completely holding the line and inflicting massive losses of men and equipment with light losses on their own side.
The NATO/Ukrainian forces have been unable to penetrate even the first part of the first line of Russia's multi-layered defensive lines. At best they have gained 700m for less than a day before losing it again. Most assaults, and these are brigade level, combined arms assaults that few countries in the world are even capable of, have been completely rebuffed at the first line of contact.
Historical comparisons
The most comparable historical battles in scale and one-sidedness are the massacre of the Iraqi army by US forces 30 years ago in the Battles of 73 Easting, Medina Ridge and Norfolk. Already Ukrainian losses in the past week are exceeding Iraqi losses in 73 Easting and at the current rate of attrition will exceed Iraqi losses in those three linked battles.
Implications
Just as the massive US victories in these early battles of the Iraq War cemented perceptions of US military supremacy, these decisive defeats of Ukraine and NATO forces destroys the perception of Western military superiority.
Videos of Western tanks, armoured vehicle and air-defence systems being easily destroyed by Russian helicopters, drones and artillery in large numbers hit home the fact that The West has lost its military supremacy.
Seven years ago I read Losing Military Supremacy by Andrei Martyanov.
Six years ago I read a similar fictionalised warning: War with Russia. Interestingly it is now subtitled on Amazon as An Urgent Warning From Senior Military Command.
It is now clear that these warnings have gone unheeded and Ukraine is paying a huge, horrific butchers bill for believing that massive Western support could allow them to defeat Russia and gain true independence for the first time in 500 years.
Strategic Defeat
It is now clear that Ukraine represents a massive strategic defeat of The West.
When considering the results of these battles it is important to compare the Ukrainian forces to what is left in the rest of NATO.
Ukraine is fielding up to 300,000 men in this battle including 12 NATO trained and armed mechanised brigades and dozens of other brigades. Russia is fielding a similar amount inside former Ukrainian territories and has over 500,000 in reserve, being trained up for large scale offensive operations.
While the training of the Ukrainians may not be quite up to NATO standards (given the short time available to train them), the bravery and courage of Ukrainian troops far exceeds that of any NATO's European forces other than the UK.
Already in Afghanistan, European military units were consigned to 'tea duties' by the Americans because they were completely inadequate in combat against even lightly armed insurgents. Only US, UK and Australian troops were allowed to actually engage the Taliban.
Given this, I would argue that on balance, Ukrainian forces, particularly the 12 elite NATO armed brigades are superior fighters to anything European NATO has to offer. And they are being completely toasted by the Russians.
In contrast, NATO only has 40,000 combat ready troops of their Rapid Reaction Force, but reports suggest that these forces are dispersed all around Europe, are lacking in critical equipment and are untrained in the sort of large scale warfare that is going on in Ukraine. In essence it is a fictional force.
There is talk of increasing this force to 300,000 but this is just talk, with no realistic possibility of implementation without European society and economies going on emergency war footing. There is no public or government appetite for this and virtually no one in power sees the extreme danger.
Worst case scenario: Russian troops on the streets of Paris.
So I have to ask myself the question: having forced Russia to massively increase the size of its armed forces, hugely increase its production of war material and given it invaluable combat training against a tough enemy armed with NATO equipment and fighting according to NATO doctrines, what comes next?
What comes next after the inevitable defeat of Ukraine?
NATO and Ukraine have continually escalated and crossed red lines in this war and Russia's trust of The West is completely broken.
They are already openly talking about the elimination of Ukraine and incorporation of the entire territory into Russia because, despite this not being their initial goal, they feel this is the only way to conclusively end The West's existential war against them.
However, wars, once started, have their own momentum and often become a monster that their leaders cannot control.
Once Ukraine is defeated, a rampaging Russian army of close to a million men, blooded, angry and flush with victory over a tough foe, may decide to march to the Atlantic coast, ripping through the soft, pampered, completely unprepared and vastly outnumbered remaining NATO forces in Europe.
Or Russia may just sit those massive forces on the Polish border and demand NATO's unconditional disarmament and removal of all US bases in Europe under the threat of doing to Europe what they have done to Ukraine. The weak, spineless EU governments would quickly comply. After all it is very difficult to see the Germans, French, Dutch, Belgian people being willing to fight at all, let alone as couragously as the Ukrainians have done.
There is nothing the US could do, as Russia could rapidly take out European ports and airbases with hypersonic missiles depriving the US of the ability to land heavy armour and bring in air-power. And in any case the Russian forces at present outnumber combined US land forces and US aircraft are no match for Russian ones, especially a long range missile engagements (where the Russians outrange US aircraft by 3:1). The Russians have also countered the over-hyped advantages of stealth, with sensor fusion using radar and visible wavelengths that stealth coatings and designs don't work against.
The United States worst nightmare and Russia's dream
The United States most important historic strategic goal has always been to prevent a single power or alliance from controlling the entire Eurasian continent. This is why they fought the Nazis and the Communists and have formented war and chaos in Eurasia for centuries.
A united Eurasia presents a huge threat to the United States because it would be vastly stronger than the US and could either impoverish it with trade sanctions or even invade and defeat it in the long term. A united Eurasia is immune to US naval power (since the Great White Fleet, the historic core of US military strength) because most trade routes become land based and industrial centres are deep inland, beyond the range of naval weapons. Deprived of Eurasian air bases and with its carriers existentially threatened by unstoppable hypersonic missiles, US air power becomes irrelevant.
Conversely, Russia can never feel safe unless it controls all the way to the Atlantic coast because there are no defensible natural, geographic barriers between the Atlantic coast and Moscow, only open Northern European plain, tank and horse country - the sites of unnummerable battles over the ages.
This is why Russia has always been an expansionist power - it has needed strategic depth to protect its centres of power (esp. Moscow) and has been invaded across those Northern European plains by the Swedes, Napoleon, Hitler and many others.
If I was a Russian strategist I would see that the current situation presents an unparalleled historic opportunity to achieve what Russia has always desired, control over all of Europe.
If you are interested in reading more about the true, long term strategic interests of nations based on their geography and history an excellent analysis can be found in Israeli Professor David Passig's 2008 book 2048, in which he predicted that Russia would reconquer many of the old former Soviet states and reclaim its historic empire.
UPDATE
Reports that Zelensky, in Kherson is just now talking about peace agreements with Russia which do not include return of conquered land (but allows Ukraine to keep its army).
He understands how disastrous the situation is now for Ukraine.
Sources:
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