The 2-part Washington Publish report on the failed Ukraine counter-offensive was written primarily responsible Ukraine for the debacle and exonerate the US. My evaluation of these articles (here and here) highlighted astounding miscalculations and malpractice by U.S. and NATO advisors. The elemental flaw is the U.S. army personnel are pretending to have expertise that they don’t have. The U.S. army is sort of a Driver’s Schooling college. They’re certified and competent to show college students methods to drive a automotive on metropolis streets. They will educate methods to drive in reverse, methods to parallel park and methods to navigate getting on to an excellent freeway. However they aren’t certified to show GT race automotive drivers methods to be aggressive on the 24 Hours of Le Mans or the Indianapolis 500.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive required having skilled troopers with a mixture of ability and competence much like that required {of professional} race automotive drivers. However they weren’t correctly skilled. They received the equal of a driver’s schooling class. Guess what occurs whenever you put these “students” in a race with skilled drivers? Yep. Huge automotive wreck.
To increase the race automotive metaphor, skilled drivers even have the most effective gear and crew groups able to service these automobiles if there’s a downside. Ukraine was given a patchwork system of NATO tanks and personnel carriers that lacked standardization (a number of of us wrote about this earlier this yr, together with Brian Berletic, Doug MacGregor, Scott Ritter and me) and proved unreliable in fight circumstances.
One other main flaw that sabotaged the Ukrainian assault on the outset was the shortage of air energy. No NATO military in historical past has efficiently attacked a closely defended place with out the good thing about mounted and rotary-wing plane offering shut air help to troops on the bottom. Russia managed the air, not Ukraine and definitely not NATO. And Russia had one thing essential that Ukraine didn’t — first-class air protection and drone capabilities.
I additionally need to re-visit some extent I raised in regards to the intelligence failure on the a part of Ukraine. The place did they get the data that indicated the Russian armed forces had been weak, poorly skilled, encumbered with awful morale, and missing in enough provides of artillery shells and ammunition? My preliminary assumption was that this was a fabricated info op by Western intelligence. However I’m now inclined to consider this was a Russian deception operation — Maskirovka. Given the strong NATO ISR capabilities that had been shared freely with Ukraine, it might be nearly not possible for Russia to masks its troop and automobile actions. Did the Russian Basic Employees feed the West bogus intelligence in regards to the high quality and competence of Russian forces to be able to lull them right into a false sense of safety? Which may be a extra correct rationalization for the gross miscalculation of Western planners.
When the autopsy is written on the defeat of Ukraine, these tasked with that mission want solely by the books written by Andrei Martyanov since 2017. He predicted all of this. The most important downside is the self-delusion of the US. The American folks have been bamboozled into believing that our multi-billion greenback army is the most effective on this planet. It isn’t. It’s the most costly, however effectively shy of being the most effective. For the final 60 years the US has wasted cash and the blood of its youth in combating guerrillas, insurgents, goat herder and camel jockeys.
At no time has the West squared up in opposition to a peer army with comparable, if not superior, air energy, digital warfare and mixed arms expertise, till now. The US and its NATO companions created a de facto NATO military in Ukraine and naively assumed they may go toe-to-toe with Russia. I concern that the U.S. politicians and army leaders nonetheless fail to know that the “war” in Ukraine actually was a particular army operation. Russia didn’t unleash its full capabilities. The Russian Basic Employees, following the steering acquired from President Putin, took nice pains to keep away from huge civilian casualties. Russia left a majority of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure in place. Russia declined to destroy Ukraine and the West’s ISR platforms and satellite tv for pc techniques. These actions are what you’ll see if Russia went on a complete struggle footing.
The man who runs the Historical past Legends podcast offered a terrific abstract of the brand new Russian offensive that’s underway. I like to recommend you watch it.
Brian Berletic, a lowly Marine enlisted man in his earlier life, has outshined each 4 star Basic in his evaluation of Ukraine’s army prospects. Generals Petraeus and Hodges, together with the Institute for the Research of Struggle, ought to have the grace to apologize for his or her repeated claims of imminent victory by Ukraine. Berletic’s newest is also price you time.
