Yeah, it looks like Russia assumed quick and easy victory, but once it became clear the resistance was far tougher than expected, there was no good way for Moscow to back out. Backing out would be a humiliating defeat, yet pressing forward for victory would be terribly costly. Hence why Putin is probably reenacting the Hitler-shouting scene from Downfall in the bunker right now, at his advisors.
Let’s not confuse strategic planning with tactics. Whether or not the strategy assumed a quick victory without any contingency there still has to be a tactical plan at the unit level. “Use Route sunflower to take objective Chernobyl. If you encounter resistance execute A,B and C.” There has to be a plan other than “Drive down this road and scatter if someone shoots at you.” I think it shows you how poorly drilled this army is.
I still think eventually Russia will prevail militarily but the cost is much greater than they expected. In the recent past they have been playing propaganda games about building superior weapons such as the T-14 Armata tank and other vehicles on the same platform. They have spent many millions on the program. They were supposed to have 2,300 tanks replacing the old models by 2020. I have read that maybe 20 have been produced. That’s not even taking into account it was supposed to replace BMPs and 2S6 in the inventory as well. They hasn’t even been any propaganda videos showing them being used. Only the upgraded T-72s and some T-80s. If they had spent their money on training and logistics instead of that boondoggle maybe the war would be going differently.
I think part of the problem is that Putin has been using bullshit as his primary weapon for 20 years now. He’s gotten so used to bullshitting people, and having that work out for him, that he reflexively bullshits people even when he shouldn’t.
He lied to his own soldiers about what they were going to be doing in Ukraine. That’s just so over-the-top stupid, that any lesser stupidity, like not bothering to tell the soldiers what to do in case they meet resistance, doesn’t even register on the scale.
For years now we’ve wondered if the “alternative facts” crowd were ever going to suffer any consequences for their routine denials of reality. We might be seeing just that now, at least for Putin.
Yes, I think this is exactly right. Another comparison is to Prague Spring of 1968. On August 20, 1968, 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks entered Czechoslovakia. Less than 24 hours later, they had complete control of the country.
Today’s Russian army is nothing like the combined Warsaw Pact armies of 1968, but Putin seems to think that this would be a cakewalk.
Oh, I agree. And I do understand the distinction. My WAG is that the Russian military did as well, and almost certainly pointed out the issues with carrying out the big picture. And, clearly, they had fairly detailed plans on what to do if/when Ukraine didn’t just collapse. The problem…or problems I suppose…is that Putin was an intelligence weenie, not a front line soldier, and while intellectually he might have understood what he was being told, that doesn’t mean he really grasped the issues or thought that his military advisors were just being overly cautious or covering their asses. And, clearly, they also have a disconnect in training and preparedness, and maybe even in their overarching doctrine as well…hard to say.
You have to put a lot of this in the context of an intelligence officer’s perspective. Or, this is all BS…I’m trying to fit the data we know with events and what we thought we knew about Russia’s military and doctrine. To me, this fits the data, but it could be something completely different.
Yeah…this is definitely how this should play out, and by and large, I think that if Russia is willing to pay the price they still can take Ukraine. They have, simply, an overwhelming force. At least on paper. And, as I was saying last week, it looks like there are a ton of new battle icons on the real-time map, indicating Russia is definitely pushing on all fronts.
Also I note for the record that the occupation of Czechoslovakia was assisted by Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary, who are all NATO countries now.
Russian Counter-Strike gamers have a reputation for stubbornly “everyone Rush B” over and over again no matter what, to the point where there are T-shirts about it.
This Ukraine war looks a lot like that mindset.
Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away away.
When danger reared it’s ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
Some years ago I read an article bluntly titled “Why Arabs Lose Wars.” I don’t have any military experience to judge whether the article was insightful or racist (or maybe a bit of both), but what you describe of the old Soviet military command structure sounds like some of the stuff I read in that article. A relevant quote:
Decisions are made and delivered from on high, with very little lateral communication. This leads to a highly centralized system, with authority hardly ever delegated. Rarely does an officer make a critical decision on his own; instead, he prefers the safe course of being identified as industrious, intelligent, loyal—and compliant. Bringing attention to oneself as an innovator or someone prone to make unilateral decisions is a recipe for trouble. As in civilian life, conformism is the overwhelming societal norm; the nail that stands up gets hammered down. Orders and information flow from top to bottom; they are not to be reinterpreted, amended, or modified in any way.
There were many other factors cited, including the big social gap between officers and enlisted soldiers, which resulted in the latter generally being treated like shit, with little concern for their safety, well-being, or morale. It seems like the invasion of Ukraine is revealing many of these same traits in the Russian military.
The Soviets certainly did export their doctrine along with their weapons. It makes sense when you don’t have a professional army. Professional standing armies are expensive. When you have an army where at the unit level 2nd year conscripts are in charge of 1st year conscripts you can’t really give them autonomy. Young officers don’t have experienced NCOs backing them. The only true experienced professionals are higher level officers. I don’t know how much that is the same now but there does seem to be at least some residual effects of the old Soviet system.
As for the gulf between Arab officers and enlisted I’ve seen it first hand. US Army officer schools have foreign officers attend. The young Saudi lieutenants (some of them royal) expect to not get their hands dirty and think there will be servants to carry their bags. Let’s just say the US army has a different method. Most adapt at least while they are in school and will break track with you. Some go through refusing to ever do any actual work. And they are generally rude and disrespectful to the NCOs that are the primary instructors.
For some more insight into what might be happening with Russian troops, I’d like to plug a book by one of my former Debate Captains.
… or you fall off the disk …
.
I had a similar - as a matter of fact pretty smart - plan for getting rich when younger … But no, I never won the lottery, either
As Loach pointed out, this isn’t a ‘plan’, it’s a hope. Unfortunately, politicians don’t always get that you need to plan for things to go wrong, or even your GOTH plan…neither of which it seems the Russians actually did at the leadership level. They didn’t factor in what would happen if sanctions were worse than they thought, and pretty obviously didn’t plan for what would happen if the Ukrainians fought back and didn’t just fall over. Oh, they had plans for the movement of their forces and what they wanted to achieve, but, again, pretty obvious they didn’t actually train to do that stuff or prepare to actually do it…and, it seems, as amazing as that is, that they didn’t tell many of their mid-level or lower people that they were actually planning to do this. Basically, Murphy has been in the driver’s seat wrt this Russian adventure from the start, and, ultimately, this clown show comes back to Putin…he is the dictator in chief, after all.
ETA: Sadly, it probably still won’t ultimately stop the Russians if they really, really want to push this to the limit and grind forward. It will kill a hell of a lot of people…Ukrainian and Russian…but, in the end, if Putin is bloody-minded enough, Russia will still win this thing. Unless their economy collapses first of course…
Here’s hoping this movie ends the same way…
I’ll point out a story I heard from a chemical engineer I knew. He got to be a consultant for a refinery in Albania, about the time the Berlin Wall fell. He described the mentality this way -
The refinery pumped a slurry in one process. The pump blades slowly wore away, and eventually the pump was useless and needed replacing. But if a worker stopped the process to say “replace the pump” then it was his fault that production got stopped. So they would stand there and wait for the pump to fail, and the process to stop on its own. A few day’s production was ruined and had to be reprocessed, but the worker did not get blamed for halting production. Lest we think this is because of communism, it’s reminiscent of stopping the production line at a Detroit car plant way back when. It’s bureaucracy - not empowering the people on the front lines to adapt to circumstances.
Once attended a ship casualty with Russian officers. The master was ex navy. He made a mistake that had the ultimate effect of grounding the ship. The third officer denied noticing the mistake but their expression when questioned and the surrounding circumstances were such that it was totally obvious they knew of the mistake well within time to have saved the situation. They just didn’t dare speak up to point out that their superior had erred.
One constant opinion being voiced of Putin is that he has isolated himself from good advice and dissenting but valid opinion.
That’s fine for him as long as Russian forces are good enough and numerous enough to execute his badly thought-out and unchalllenged demands. However, if he only has yes-men and people only tell him what he wants to hear then at some point reality is going to catch up with him.
But isn’t that the problem? Every time they add a new feature to the modern battle tank, that increases the cost, weight, and the complexity. It’s not just vulnerability to missiles. Tanks need a massively complex supply chain supporting them as well. That would seem to create a vicious circle where armies can afford fewer tanks, making each tank more valuable, requiring greater protection and preventing the tank from being used for what it was made to do.
Although I imagine there will always be a use on the battlefield for a “big mobile gun protected by lots of armor”.
Isn’t this calculation only valid if the only point of tanks is to knock out Javelins and the only point of Javelins is to knock out tanks?
If a tank does $7 million worth of damage before being knocked out by a Javelin, the equation tips in the tank’s favour, doesn’t it?
Depends what trained cannon fodder is worth.
The demographics of Russia is interesting. The birth rate took a major nose dive 30 years ago and is not recovering. Eastern Europe rivals Japan (and now China) for the rate at which population is going to decline.
Also, driving a tank is (I hope) not as simple as picking up a rifle and learning rudimentary marksmanship. I would imagine that treating trained tank operators as disposable is not something a general (or the tank operators) want to do. A similar issue with pilots and aircraft comes to mind.
Damage to what? If it is buildings etc. then it isn’t as relevant.
If it is material required to prosecute the war then sure, that equation seems to be in the tank’s favour from a financial point of view.
However, if that material is being replaced free gratis from willing allies and your knackered tank (plus, one assumes, the trained soldiers) is having to be re-manufactured, re-equipped and retrained on a longer timescale and financed by a falling currency in a market that doesn’t want to sell to you…well, the calculation is not quite so simple.