I'm seeing a lot of completely deluded commentary and dangerous response from clueless western leaders to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I am not pro-Russia nor am I pro-Ukraine (though I have sympathy for the individual people there).
I am a militarily trained (Australia) neutral observer who has been aware for many years of the possibility of these events after reading Israeli Professor David Passig's brilliant book "2048" (published in 2008) where he predicts:
Russia will re-conquer large parts of the former Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic States, as well as countries north of Turkey.
A couple of years ago I also read British General Sir Richard Shirreff's excellent fictionalised account of a Russian invasion of the Baltics which has been amazingly prescient about Russian military capabilities and tactics.
We are dealing with high intensity warfare of the likes not seen in Europe since WWII and this is a time for clear thinking.
Why did Russia invade Ukraine?
Because Ukraine has been under Russian control for most of the last 1000 years and is the historic birthplace of Russians.
The very word “Russia” comes from the Kievian Rus ethnicity.
Because Russia needs buffer zones to feel secure. With good justification as it has been invaded many times and has no natural obstacles to protect it.
To quote Prof Passig (at page 201):
It took a small group of Slavs centered around Kiev 1000 years to become and empire (since Kievan Rus was founded in 884 until World War Two), and another 56 years to lose that status in 1991.
No civilization can easily renounce an acheivement attained with the blood of its people and centuries of hard-won efforts.
Because stupid Western leaders poked the Bear one time too many.
The Current Military Situation
It is deluded Hopium to suggest that Russia is bungling the job or is bogged down.
People saying these things have no idea how warfare actually works.
As I write this Russian forces have broken through Ukrainian border defensive lines in multiple locations, invaded much of the country from North, South and East and have surrounded major cities such as Kiev and Kharkov.
The Russians seem to have destroyed hundreds of Ukrainian military facilities and command and control structures. They have achieved complete air superiority.
They have done so at extraordinary speed and impressive accuracy.
A better performance so far than the US's invasions of Iraq (which took 3 weeks and many more troops to reach Iraq's capital in a country half the size of Ukraine).
Ukraine is a very big country which had (on paper at least) 400,000 troops and 2000+ tanks. It has a proud military tradition and is no pushover. But the Russian military seems to have overcome this quite easily.
Now Ukraine is arming untrained citizens with basic weapons to fight the forces that its large force of trained professionals with heavy weapons could not. This is suicidal and completely irresponsible.
A country needs to be defended at its borders - that is the whole point of having a country with borders and a military to defend it in the first place.
The Ukrainian front line and second line defences at its borders have clearly failed.
If your border defences fail you need an orderly tactical withdrawal to third and fourth lines of defences that maintain contact and communication between your forces.
These have also clearly failed for Ukraine.
For any military force defending a nation to be effective it must maintain internal lines of manoeuvre and communication to be able to move forces around to confront the enemy force concentrations.
Once this is lost and your cities are surrounded you have lost and should surrender quickly to save lives.
The only reason for holding out in a city (as Warsaw did in 1939 at enormous cost) is if there is a real possibility of other countries will come to your aid militarily in a serious and major way. There is no possibility of this.
Is Putin a madman?
He may be bad, but he is not mad!
He has a clear plan and good reasons from a Russian perspective.
He is doing his job and acting in Russia's national interest.
This is obviously against Ukrainian national interest.
The question is whether it is really against anyone else's true national interests (other than the Baltics and Poland).
That's why no one else is doing anything to really help Ukraine.
People who thought large scale warfare, invasions and tank armies bliztkrieging across open plains were ancient history have been proved VERY wrong.
Dangerous, Stupid behaviour by Europe
There is a very big difference between supplying arms in peacetime and supplying arms to one side in wartime.
The latter can be considered an act of war!
Germany and the Netherlands have announced that they will be supplying Ukraine with various lightweight anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems.
Not only is this completely pointless - How will they get this equipment into Ukraine now that the airspace is closed and the borders controlled by Russian troops?
It is also very dangerous because it gives Russia cassus belli against Germany & the Netherlands.
Europe is very poorly defended - Putin may be tempted to go further.
At the height of the Cold War the US had 6000 tanks in Europe, today it only has around 100!
Have a look at this table of tank numbers in geographical order from East to West.
Russia: 12,270
Ukraine: 2105
Poland: 868
Germany: 328
Netherlands: 18
The geography of northern Europe is one great big long plain from Moscow to Amsterdam via Minsk, Warsaw and Berlin. It is perfect tank country.
Even during the Cold War when the US had massive forces in Europe and the Europeans also had large military forces it was uncertain whether NATO would have been able to resist a Warsaw Pact invasion of Europe.
Today while Russian forces are perhaps only 40% of the strength of Soviet forces, NATO forces are less than 10% of their Cold War strength.
The operational readiness of Germany's military is extremely poor Less than 20% of its combat aircraft and helicopters are actually available for combat and less than 100 of its tanks are operational according to numerous reports over the past 5 years.
What should NATO do?
What needs to be done if NATO is serious about stopping Putin is:
- the replacement of Biden by Trump;
- Immediately move 2 US carrier battlegroups to the Baltic, and 2 more to the Eastern Med (where they can threaten Putin's Syrian position).
- Relocate many squadrons of the US airforce to Germany and Poland.
- massively reinforce Poland with 1000s of tanks & 100,000+ troops (this will take many months to be implemented and effective);
- Immediate raising defence spending of all NATO states to 6% of GDP and re-institute universal conscription in Europe (there is no point in giving arms to untrained civilians as Ukraine is doing - it will just get them killed.)
- EU turn back on all its coal fired and nuclear fired power stations to cut reliance on Russian gas.
Until Europe returns its defence capabilities to Cold War levels (US had 6000 tanks in Europe) it faces the real risk that a successful Russian invasion of Ukraine will be followed by similar campaigns against the progressively militarily weaker countries of Poland then Germany and the Netherlands.
Once Putin controls major EU nations like Germany, Poland and the Netherlands he can control the whole EU via existing legal mechanisms.
Details regarding Tank active protection systems used by Russia and Israel
Because of the effectiveness of anti-tank weapons, since the end of the Cold War many militaries have drastically reduced their tanks forces and considered the age of tank warfare to be over. Putin has clearly proved them wrong.
Only two countries in the world have invested heavily in Active Protection Systems that protect tanks (and helicopters) from rockets and missile: Russia and Israel.
I have written about this extensively in these posts.
@apshamilton/return-of-the-tank-to-battlefield-supremacy-wyiqlpvn
@apshamilton/tank-active-protection-systems-compared-trophy-vs-afghanit
@apshamilton/israel-russia-us-and-europe-re-syria-understanding-where-true-power-lies
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