On reflection, I realized that I have not only tweeted extensively on Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, but also written several long-form articles in the leadup to the Russian invasion, and the immediate aftermath. Due to writing under a pseudonym at AMAC, and the addictive nature of twitter, I have made no effort to place my observations in long-form either here or on my own old website. The result is articles which are published two to three days after being written, or tweets rapidly lost to history on the back of events. I thought it might make sense to try and get out my thoughts here.
As a first post, it makes sense to do some background.
In the “prognostication” debate, I feel I did fairly well. I did not feel a Russian war of conquest was certain, but I felt from early-on that Vladimir Putin had for reasons which were logical and coherent to himself, had concluded that the status quo was untenable, and that prospects of it ever changing without some sort of use of force were slim to none. Therefore I predicted that he would at the very least use the threat of force to extract recognition of the Crimea as a “guarantee” of any pledges regarding Ukraine’s neutrality, and by February 14th I was convinced that as this would not be forthcoming, war was likely inevitable.
I do not believe that avoiding war would have been a simple matter of promises regarding NATO expansion. Putin seems to have concluded after his experience with the Trump Administration that American domestic politics will not allow a US President to pursue a different policy towards Russia even if the American electorate elects someone who wants to. Biden would never make a deal after witnessing Donald Trump’s “fate” and even if he did, Putin did not believe that any future President would be bound by it.
Putin’s ultimate concerns, outlined in his essay, are the “genocide” of Russians in Ukraine. This concern has to be put in context. It is not the physical murder of Russian Speaking Ukrainians. Those pushing those lines in the West are useful idiots who have prioritized the idiot over being useful. Putin has a different grievance in mind. Putin perceives a process by which the prospect of EU/NATO membership is a bribe, used by a a Ukrainian elite to convince the Russians they rule over that if they reject their Russian identity, act Western, and most importantly, take up arms and act as an armed vanguard of the EU/NATO against Russia, they will be rewarded with wealth and visas. Lured by that promise, millions of “Russians” are rejecting their culture, embracing a hatred of “Russia” and even in some cases “killing” Russians(in the Donbass). For Putin, this is akin to the Canadian and Australian Residential School systems where aborigines children were taken from their families, taught English, and emerged with their culture erased. For Putin, if that is a “genocide” the process which is ongoing in the Ukraine is as well.
This process is caused not by NATO/EU membership. Ironically, either would actually slow it down. It is the prospect of EU/NATO membership if they reject Russia which in Putin’s view is driving the rapid de-Russification. As such, it can only be ended by eliminating all hope of joining those entities. And it is unclear how any guarantee a US president would give would be enough to convince Ukrainians it is hopeless. Especially if US Senators showed up in Kyiv to contradict the message for domestic reasons. Which they would.
That means that the only way Putin can accomplish that goal is by demonstrating to Ukrainians that they physically cannot join NATO. Hence why force seemed like an inevitability.
I am agnostic on Putin’s peace plans. I do not think he was firmly set on any one outcome. Leaked articles in Russian papers are cited to imply annexation, but they do not state the form, whether as part of the Belarus-Russian Union State, physically part of the Russian Federation, or merely part of the Russian cultural family. I tend to lean to the former, if Putin can strike a deal with a Ukrainian government as it provides a way to allow the entire Ukraine to maintain maximum self-government while ensuring it zero geopolitical independence.
Militarily
(Source: Wikipedia)
The performance of the Russian air force should surprise no one with experience of Warsaw Pact doctrine or the ineffectiveness of US air support for ground troops in Vietnam. Russian doctrine does not emphasize “search and destroy”. Air assets are treated like artillery. They are used to accomplish specific missions, and air support is provided in response to requests. Soviet-trained pilots did not hover over areas where ground troops might be on the off chance enemy aircraft might attack them. It was this lackadaisical attitude which crippled Arab air forces against Israel, and ensured Iraq, despite a vast numerical superiority, failed to gain air supremacy over Iran. The historical performance of divided command structures is poor. The lesson is that if you allow your air force to do whatever they wish in a war, they will generally bomb targets in the enemy rear and occasionally airfields, but that your own ground forces will see their own aircraft rarely, and then, generally only by mistake. There is a reason “air” and “land” were merged in “AirLand Battle.” US forces rarely saw their air support in Vietnam.
As I suspect that the flaws in Russian air support are not merely the result of either poor logistics, or poor strategy, but doctrinal, correcting them may well be much more difficult for the Russian command than any other problems which have arisen. It is not merely a matter of changing their orders, or deploying more aircraft. The conceptual understanding of what those aircraft should be doing would need to be changed.
The attack on Kyiv looks very much like a political, not a military decision. I suspect that Putin indicated a desire to attack Kyiv on day one, even if his generals indicated they could not take it against resistance if they got there. It would be akin to Hitler having overridden his generals to order a Panzer thrust against Warsaw from East Prussia on day one of WWII. German Panzers could have gotten close to Warsaw, but they would have no chance to take it, and without support, been at serious risk of destruction. The net result would be that in exchange for newspaper headlines of “Germans in Warsaw” on the second morning of the War, Hitler would have lost a large number of Panzers, and those Panzers would not have been used as they were to devastating effect elsewhere in our timeline. It would have been a fiasco and it would have raised Polish morale, and expectations to unreasonable levels. Absent foreign support, the Polish strategic position would still have been perilous, and German generals would have had sufficient forces to “do it correctly” when they were called upon to “fix the mess”.
Russian forces seem to be doing exactly that. They appear to have by and large abandoned efforts to take Kyiv in favor of encircling Ukrainian forces in the East, nearly succeeding in encircling Mariupol. If the Russians can destroy those forces, they can isolate Kyiv at their leisure, and if there is a need for an assault, it can be launched supported. This seems to reflect some of the views of Igor Girkin/Strelkov, the paramilitary who led the Russian seizure of the Crimea.
This does not mean there are not serious flaws in the Russian army. They are legion. Nor does it mean that this is going well. I think the attack on Kyiv was a blunder, it probably did cost the Russian military some its best troops(though I do not believe the paratroops were entirely wiped out), and it cost them 48hrs which are critical. As awkward as the Poland analogy is, the balance of forces was against Poland in September 1939, but it wasn’t quite as lopsided as urban legend had it, and if the Germans had lost 48-72hrs because of a foolhardy dash on Warsaw, it would have cost them vastly more than three days when it came to allowing the Polish forces time to redeploy, adapt, recover, and mobilize. It might very well have extended the war not by three days but by three weeks. That is how critical the first hours of any conflict are. And Russia flubbed them.
What that means will depend on how the Ukrainians and everyone else uses that time. The combination of Russian weaknesses, losses, and time means that while I think the Russians have enough juice to reach the Dnieper, I suspect any competent Russian general would be hesitant to go much further without ensuring that the Ukrainian and Polish borders are closed. Javelins and Ukrainian anti-air assets have proven deadly enough and more importantly, easy enough for Ukrainian forces to use, that it strikes me as impossible for Russia to establish air superiority without closing those borders. And without air superiority, Russian armored forces operating that far from their bases will be, on the evidence of the last week, massacred.
Closing the borders is not something the Russian army or generals can do. Only Putin can do that. I would not be surprised if his anger and nuclear outburst was driven by being told that if he could not intimidate the Poles or Romanians into closing those borders, his Army could not go beyond the Dnieper into the West. He therefore had to try, and threatening nuclear escalation is an easy way of seeing if that is sufficient to scare the Poles and Romanians. If it works it cost him nothing. If it does not, he is in the same place and has the choice of escalation or of accepting a compromise with an intact Ukraine or a partition leaving a hostile, ultra-militarized entity.
Both Western cheerleaders for Ukraine, and Russian nationalists like Anatoly Karlin(who correctly called the invasion and some of its motives) are living in fantasy land. The former are greatly inflating the political options available to the Ukrainians. The latter still believe that Russian annexation of all of Ukraine including Lviv is on the agenda. Both are probably off the table after this week.
Seems like the likely result is a split among the Dnieper, no peace treaty (so like the Korean War) and a hyper-pissed-off ultra-militarized West Ukraine (backed by the West) as part of the Western Alliance. The Russian forces now congregating around Kyiv seem really easy to cut off. Only one bridge back to Belarus, and I would think it would be easy to keep armies from crossing a river as wide as the Dnieper. I'm actually surprised that UA hasn't blown up more bridges yet.
Mass prisoners exchange.
The interesting questions are:
1. Would Putin allow anyone who wants to to cross over to West Ukraine?
2. How long can he keep a hold of East Ukraine? Without a peace settlement, the sanctions aren't coming off, so Russia's economy will remain a basketcase (yes, there's China, but Russia will essentially become late-stage Soviet Union again) and he'll have to subsidize East Ukraine heavily (and likely have to put down insurgencies too). Occupations aren't cheap.