Category: Military Strategy

The Looming Russia-China Alliance

The Daily Escape:

Peach trees in bloom, Low Gap, NC – March 2023 photo by Donna Johnson

Springtime brings hope after a dark, cold winter. The clocks leap forward this Sunday. It’s also a time to take stock of the old assumptions that our recent geopolitical strategies are built on. The US is trending in what may be an unsustainable direction in our global politics.

A year ago with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, America sought to make Ukraine a proxy for the fight between authoritarianism and democratic forms of government. The Ukraine war caused several major changes within Europe and NATO:

  • Germany moved away from its strategic energy supplier, Russia.
  • NATO became more clearly unified than at any time since its founding.
  • The Eastern European members of NATO became the drivers of military engagement on the side of Ukraine.
  • The US and NATO have found they do not have the production capability to continue providing military weapons and ammunition at the rate Ukraine is using them.
  • This has made it clear that the US and NATO aren’t prepared for a major confrontation with a great power such as China or Russia.

The Ukraine war has precipitated other global consequences. While Russia has become a pariah to Europe, China has become one of Russia’s most important allies.

Many readers won’t remember that 60 years ago, there was a fundamental split between the Soviet Union and China, largely over differences in communist ideology. Over the years, they have slowly moved closer together, driven in part by US policy and by their shared quest for a global reset of geopolitical power.

Now they are willing to work together to dismantle or blunt the US-led world order.

This “alliance of autocracies,” is built on China’s and Russia’s belief that the US’s supremacy is waning. And they are entitled to rule within their own spheres of influence. And to use force if necessary to control those spheres. An alliance between China and Russia brings advantages to both countries. Recent US intelligence says that China may supply Russia with weapons to aid in its war against Ukraine. There is talk of China building a drone factory in Russia to supply its war in Ukraine.

Russia also desperately needs China to stabilize its economy by importing more below-market cost oil, a boon to China’s economy. In June 2022, Russia became the PRC’s largest oil supplier, eclipsing Saudi Arabia. While Russia is betting that Western fatigue will hand them a victory in Ukraine, China is sizing up America’s ability to engage in a faraway battle should China decide to invade Taiwan.

The US is attempting to isolate both China and Russia. With Russia, we’re using ever-tightening economic sanctions. With China, we’re building a geographic containment strategy among our allies in Asia. Containment has been helped by North Korea’s bellicosity against South Korea and Japan, who recently decided to partner militarily, much to China’s distress. The Pentagon has also expanded its bases in the Philippines while shrinking our military footprint in the Middle East.

With US/Russian relations basically clinging to life, prudence should have indicated that the US adopt a more friendly stance toward Beijing. However, we’ve prioritized support for Taiwan over better relations with China. Both the Trump and Biden administrations embraced high tariffs on Chinese imports.

In 2022, Biden added sweeping tech restrictions on China, including a provision barring the PRC from using semiconductor chips made with US tools anywhere in the world. That’s the harshest economic measure leveled against China since the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1979. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by China. China’s new foreign minister said:

“The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations.”

It’s clear that the Russia‐​PRC relationship isn’t yet a full‐​fledged military alliance, but it’s moving in that direction. And both are friendly with Iran and North Korea, which have also supplied weapons for Russia’s war in Ukraine. It isn’t a great stretch that these four could create a new “axis of evil” that could lead to the West needing to plan to fight two faraway wars simultaneously.

This is at a time when we cannot find enough munitions and weapons to fight one proxy war in Europe.

The odious Henry Kissinger once cautioned that it must be a high priority for the US to make certain that our relations with both Moscow and Beijing were closer than their relations are with each other. But our policy makers have done just the opposite.

While the argument for not continuing a proxy war in Ukraine has merit, Wrongo has argued that Ukraine is a war of necessity because democracy in Europe is what’s really on the line. And, with the 2024 presidential campaign about to start, Republican opposition to the war is growing.

Biden needs to keep what political capital he has, but he also needs to improve our ability to sustain our military support for Ukraine. That may be difficult because America hasn’t developed a solid military strategy for tomorrow’s battles which may well be with one or more of the great powers.

It is more difficult because we’ve spent the last 20+ years using $80 million-dollar planes to drop $400,000 bombs on $25 tents, while still wondering why we didn’t win any of our wars in the Middle East.

Ironically, our geopolitical strategy and the supporting military strategies may have the US in the position of being the midwife bringing a newborn Russia‐​PRC military alliance into the world.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 5, 2023

Everybody was talking about the Chinese balloon: It’s spying on us, and if Biden had balls he’d shoot it down. Well, on Saturday, Biden did just that. The Airforce shot it down in the Atlantic off of the Carolina coast. Wrongo is sure that our military will recover the important parts of the balloon. Once we take a look at the technology that the Chinese are using, we’ll know why the balloon was sent over the US, and confirm whether it is a device for spying or not.

We need to view the balloon saga in the larger context of our relationship with China. John Dean has a good observation:

“I’m starting to see China as an enemy. I type those words, of course, on my Chinese-made HP laptop. I watched news reports of the balloon on my Chinese-made TV. The chair I’m sitting in may even be Chinese. The only thing I’ve bought recently that isn’t Chinese, I’m sad to say, is the Chinese food I had for dinner last night, but I could be wrong.”

Our current relationship with China is complicated by our dependence on them for much of our manufacturing. They also are a huge export market for US commodities. As China has flexed its muscles, they have become an economic and geopolitical competitor with the US. Our relationship with them will become much more difficult in the coming years as we wrestle to contain them geopolitically in Asia, while blunting their advances in the rest of the world.

Dean points out that our trade with China has provided them with the resources it is using to build its military force. We need to wake up and wean ourselves off of Chinese goods. Otherwise, we’re paying for two militaries, ours, and theirs. On to cartoons.

One plan for the Chinese balloon:

The new DeSantis school library:

Revised College Board AP course seems fine:

Economy’s too good for GOP:

Sad truth:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Send The Tanks To Ukraine!

The Daily Escape:

Cardinals in snow, Warrensville, NC – January 2023 photo by Keith Calhoun

If Ukraine is to stave off the Russians, it needs tanks, but Germany and the US are still reluctant to send their tanks to Ukraine. While each express slightly different reasons for withholding their tanks, it boils down to the fact that both countries seem to believe that their tanks should be used in defense of NATO, and Ukraine isn’t a member.

The question remains “Which weapons are ok to use in Ukraine?” The answer has evolved since the start of the war a year ago. NATO is now giving more advanced weapons than they thought they would, partly because they now perceive the battle for Ukraine as a clear proxy war with Russia.

It appears that the meeting of defense ministers over the weekend in Germany saw the first crack in NATO’s solid support for Ukraine. Military aid from Europe and the US for Ukraine has been the key to Ukraine’s survival and to its ability to blunt Moscow’s superior numbers of troops on the battlefield.

What was agreed isn’t chump change. It includes 200 new artillery pieces. Multiple countries, including Denmark and Estonia, are sending Ukraine literally all of their howitzers. That implies that Ukraine needs artillery pieces as a stop gap until battle tanks can be provisioned. But as of now, no battle tanks.

Germany has been reluctant to provide Leopard tanks. Why that’s what’s Wrong today is summed up by someone who Wrongo never thought he would ever quote, Bill Kristol:

Kristol is on to something. From the WaPo:

“Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks, several thousand of which are in the arsenals of its NATO allies around Europe, are the best such options for Ukraine’s use.”

The Leopards are far more numerous in NATO countries than any other tank. They are more suitable for Ukrainian terrain and maintenance capabilities than the US’ top-of-the-line battle tank, the M1 Abrams.

And it’s rarely a good thing in warfare to have a fruit salad of weapons that in general, have the same capabilities. Ukraine absolutely does not need what Michael Kofman has referred to as a “petting zoo” of battle tanks.

Some armchair generals may think that it would be nice to have one British Challenger or two, several Leopards, and a bunch of Abrams available. But from a training and logistics point of view that’s a nightmare. Of all of these possible weapons, the Leopard is regarded as ideal for Ukraine because:

  • There are a lot of them
  • They are less logistically complex than the Abrams
  • Tank people seem to think that the learning curve for operations and maintenance isn’t as steep as it is with other tanks

Retired US General Mark Hertling is adamant that the Leopard 2 is a much better fit for the Ukrainians than the US’s M1 Abrams. His position is based on logistics. Since his whole career was spent as a tanker, he’s probably correct.

The clincher for the Leopard 2 is that 16 European/NATO countries operate them, and thus have the resources to help train Ukrainians in their use and maintenance on a wide scale. These countries would be able to provide Ukraine with at least a base level of spare parts from their existing stores.

Germany also has an issue if they supply Leopards from their inventory: They can’t make enough of them to replace those they give to Ukraine. That would leave Germany needing to replenish by purchasing, you guessed it, M1 Abrams tanks! So, a big win for General Dynamics, maker of the Abrams.

Since the start of the winter, there has been an ongoing degradation of Ukraine’s war making capabilities, allowing Russia to keep pounding while it organizes its newly mobilized forces for offensive action in the spring. The western media has stopped talking about the Ukrainian “win” they spoke about last summer.

Soon, winter will be over and the early spring promises a Russian counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine. At Turcopolier, TTG says:

“By spring the Russians will probably field a large infantry force. But I doubt that force will be anything but ill-trained and ill-equipped. They are not using near enough artillery and armor now to support the infantry they have. Maybe this is because they are holding it back for future offensive operations…..Having said that, I do think they will continue to try to take the Donbas and do their damnedest to hold in the south.”

This means that time is short, not simply to decide on battle tanks, but to get them into position in Ukraine with supply chains up and operating. The alternative is a slow grinding but eventual Russian victory with all that will mean for eastern Europe.

If there are doubts about what losing Ukraine will mean, consider that stopping Russia from winning in Ukraine will end the threat of major war in Europe. We shouldn’t forget that for nearly 50 years, a confrontation with the USSR (and later Russia), was the likely scenario for Europe. A Ukrainian victory would make this scenario implausible.

Some “experts” are saying that provisioning Leopard tanks for Ukraine is not likely to be a game changer on the battlefield. That may be, but it’s a certainty that without them, the war in Ukraine will be won by the Russians.

We need to face it: We’re in a very long, very expensive proxy war between NATO and Russia.

Facebooklinkedinrss

A MAGA Idea Wrongo Supports

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Tucson, AZ – January 2023 photo by Leila Shehab

Sometimes your worst political enemies are on the same page with you. Axios reports that a:

“…threat of cuts to US defense spending has emerged as a flashpoint in House Republicans’ first week in the majority, widening the GOP’s isolationist fault line and exposing the fragility of Kevin McCarthy’s young speakership.”

The backstory here is that according to Bloomberg, among the concessions new House Speaker McCarthy made to secure the job was to agree to vote on a budget framework that caps 2024 discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels. Unless the Pentagon is exempted, that could result in a $75 billion drop in defense spending:

“National defense spending, which primarily funds the Pentagon, was about $782 billion in fiscal 2022 and rose $75 billion to $857 billion in fiscal 2023.”

The deal that McCarthy has apparently agreed to would have the House commit to passing bills that would cap all discretionary spending at fiscal year 2022 levels, or roughly $1.47 trillion.

But one of the big wins for Senate Republicans in last year’s budget talks was a bigger defense budget. Sen. McConnell might want to check in with the House MAGA Republicans, since they’re going in the opposite direction.

Wrongo agrees that the idea of cutting $75-$100 billion (or more) from the Pentagon should be up for discussion. Consider that in 2021, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a study that outlined three options for saving over $1 trillion in Pentagon spending over the next ten years without damaging our defense capabilities.

All three options involved cutting the size of the armed forces, avoiding large boots-on-the-ground wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, and relying on allies to do more in their own defense.

Wrongo wrote about the 2021 CBO study here. The CBO report put the potential cut in historical perspective: A $1 trillion cut (14%) over a decade would be far smaller than the cuts to America’s military spending in 1988-1997 (30%), and the 25% cut we had in 2010-2015.

A $1 trillion saving isn’t chump change. Those funds could be used to prevent future pandemics, address climate change, or reduce economic injustice. These are all pressing American problems.

The MAGA’s ideas on defense spending cuts might find support from a few progressives in Congress, including Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI), who pitched a $100 billion haircut for the DoD earlier this year. But this year’s Pentagon budget boost easily passed both the House and Senate on a bipartisan basis.

Both Republican and Democratic House war hawks will resist the idea of cutting defense spending. Some will cite the defense of Ukraine, which will only account for $45 billion of military spending in the coming year. Some will mention Taiwan, citing China’s aggressive military stance toward the island nation.

But how about developing a clear global military strategy along with the willingness to carry it out? Instead of simply talking about how many dollars we should spend.

And the CBO’s proposed strategic shifts don’t account for what could be saved by streamlining the Pentagon by reducing its cadre of over half a million private contractors, many of whom perform tasks at prices higher than it would cost to do the same work with government employees.

The likely outcome is that House Republicans will fail to cut defense spending while sticking to their plan of holding the 2024 discretionary spending flat. So Republicans will focus on social spending to reduce the fiscal 2024 budget to 2022 levels. But if you ask Americans what spending they want to see cut, they will never say that we ought to cut people’s retirement security.

Wrongo has little hope that this 118th Congress will work to solve the three great problems that face America: Our revenue problem, our social spending/cost inflation problem, and our defense spending problem. As Jennifer Rubin says in the WaPo:

“The danger for the GOP has always been that a short stint in irresponsible governance will wake up the electorate to their manifest unfitness, thereby dooming the party’s chances in 2024. The danger for the country is that, in the meantime, the MAGA extremists will do permanent damage to the U.S. economy and national security.”

The hard Right MAGAs and the anti-democracy Republican Party must be made into a permanent minority, as it was during the Roosevelt years, and for decades thereafter.

The battle for 2024 starts now.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Zelensky’s Visit

The Daily Escape:

Conga line of Santas warming up for their Santa Run, Victoria Park, London, UK – 2018 photo by Yui Mok/PA

When Wrongo heard that Ukraine’s President Zelensky was likely to visit Biden, he was concerned for Zelensky’s safety, since he would be exposed for a significant period of time. It turns out that he flew on a US military plane:

“Flight data shows a US Air Force plane landed at Joint Base Andrews…shortly after noon after taking off from Rzeszow, Poland, which is located near the Ukrainian border. Polish television station TVN24 posted footage of Zelensky in Rzeszow, saying he took a train to Poland before boarding an aircraft.

The Air Force describes the plane, a C-40B, as an ‘office in the sky’ for senior military and government leaders, including capability to conduct secure voice and data communication.”

The Biden administration was so completely behind Zelensky coming to DC that they worked to insure both his safety and his ability to talk to his generals while enroute.

The question of “why now?” is easy to answer. The Omnibus Bill that is yet to pass Congress includes a significant aid package for Ukraine. Zelensky will be home long before the Omnibus Bill is approved by both Houses, which needs to happen before year end.

Wrongo and Ms. Right watched Zelensky’s speech to Congress, and Wrongo can report that he’s never wearing a tie to address Congress again! The contrast between a wartime leader wearing essentially the clothes he wore on the war’s front lines 24 hours before, hammered home the relative difference between our soft Congresscritters and what Ukrainians are facing each day.

There was a notable absence of Republican House members at the joint address. CNN estimated that only 80-some of the GOP House caucus were there. Apparently, all of the GOP Senators were there since Mitch McConnell is a functioning caucus leader, unlike House Minority Leader, Keven McCarthy, (R-CA) who couldn’t wrangle his caucus to attend.

That’s a sure sign of what is to come in January when the GOP controls the House of Representatives.

Despite what House Republicans think, Ukraine’s cause remains popular in the US, with two-thirds of Americans supportive of sending money and arms. The bad part is that this new poll shows Republican support for either sending additional military aid or additional economic aid to Ukraine are now down to 55% and 50%, respectively; worse, 43% of Republicans want the US to withdraw all support for Ukraine.

America desperately needs to have a discussion about Ukraine’s war with Russia, particularly about whether there are limits to our support for Ukraine. Our support so far has been necessary but it hasn’t been sufficient to cause Russians to leave Ukraine, or to compel them to negotiate about leaving.

The issue of the extent of our support will become a big political issue when Congress reconvenes in January, so we should start the discussion now.

A couple of final observations: Zelensky is patriotic, courageous, and charismatic, and a compelling speaker. He delivered his speech in English. It was to Wrongo, an endearing effort to reach out to Americans on an emotional level. And at least for Wrongo, it worked.

In the end, the two most important parts of Zelensky’s speech were first, to remind Americans that sacrifice is necessary to defend democracy. And that unless Russia is pushed back within its borders, few of us, particularly in Europe, are safe. Second, Zelensky pointed to the burgeoning relationship between Russia and Iran, and that Iran’s participation has been unchecked while it wreaks devastation on Ukraine.

We should develop a strategy to interdict the movement of Iran’s drones to Russia. That’s an escalation that makes sense to Wrongo.

By underlining that Ukraine needs still more military and humanitarian aid, Zelensky was calling on reluctant Republicans to do the right thing when it comes to funding what is likely to be a prolonged and open-ended war. We have to hope that they will.

Zelensky’s trip to military front lines in Bakhmut the day before allowed him to deliver a gift to Biden of a Ukrainian soldier’s battlefield medal. Biden’s response was perfect:

“It is undeserved but appreciated.”

People keep forgetting Biden is good at this. Zelensky’s camaraderie with Biden was reassuring. His speech before Congress was motivating. Overall, it was a great day for Zelensky.

Let’s listen to “Silent Night”, here performed in 1980 by the Temptations. This was their second recording of it, this time with Dennis Edwards, Melvin Franklin & Glenn Leonard on vocals. The song begins with Dennis saying, “In my mind, I wish all to be free”, not the traditional way to start “Silent Night”.

Questlove, speaking with Terry Gross, says that when a Black performer starts with “In my mind” as Dennis Edwards does here, you know you’re going deep:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Monday Wake Up Call – December 19, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Skiing Santas at Sunday River Ski Resort, Newry, ME – Dec. 11, 202, AP Photo/Robert F. Bukat

(As we cruise towards Christmas, each day this week we will feature pictures of Santas and/or Christmas trees, along with loopy songs vaguely representative of the season. You’ve been warned.)

The war in Ukraine has once again reminded policy makers of the importance logistics plays in winning on the battlefield. In reading a Defense One post by Marcus Weisgerber, Wrongo learned that demand for weapons by Ukraine — combined with worker shortages, inflation, and other factors — has made it more difficult and more expensive to produce the most in-demand weapons. This describes the current problem:

“The US has sent 13 years’ worth of Stinger production and five years’ worth of Javelin production to Ukraine…”

That’s in 10 months. And a newsletter by CDR Salamander states the overall problem clearly:

“The Ukrainians would have run out of weapons and ammunition months ago if the former Warsaw Pact nations in NATO didn’t empty what inventory they had left of Soviet Era weaponry and the rest of NATO led by the USA didn’t wander the world trying to soak up as much available inventory money could buy. That and the rapid adoption of NATO compatible equipment by the Ukrainians is helping, but that has revealed other problems – who says the West has enough to give?”

It is said that amateur warriors deal in tactics while professional soldiers deal in logistics. Both sides in this war are burning through their weapons stockpiles at unsustainable rates even though the war seems (at least momentarily) to be a stalemate. The US and NATO had little in stockpiled weapons even before the Russo-Ukrainian War, able to mount only a very limited or short war as they did (poorly) in Libya. This has been true for the past 20 years. Now those limitations are out in the open.

US defense spending could rise 10% percent in 2023. A good chunk of the increase is meant to rush weapons to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion, along with replenishing the US missiles, artillery and other weapons sent to Ukraine.

But the sad truth is that it isn’t clear that US or European defense companies, along with the thousands of small businesses that supply them, can meet this increased demand. There are plenty of reasons, including worker shortages and supply-chain disruptions that have been exacerbated by the pandemic and the global current economic outlook.

And the Pentagon was slow to award contracts to rebuild weapon stockpiles. Those that were awarded quickly had to be fast-tracked by top-level Biden administration officials. And it gets worse. Many defense firms are short-staffed relative to what’s needed to fulfill anticipated Pentagon orders to replace weapons sent to Ukraine. Defense One quotes Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes:

“The real question is, can we actually build it?….They can appropriate all the money, but…if we take months and months and months to get on contract, that’s months and months of delay.”

Raytheon builds the Stingers that are so depleted.  They are willing to ramp up, but it takes investment and lead time to grow production. More from Hayes:

“We want to be prepared to meet the demand that’s out there….I wish I could snap my fingers and then all of a sudden miraculously, throw a building up and train 500 people [to build them], but it just takes time.”

American business calls this “Lean Manufacturing“.

A final illustration of how a simple part that gets caught in the supply chain becomes a big problem: The Eurasian Times reports that German ammunition manufacturers have warned about delays in receiving cotton linters. They are a necessary component for propelling charges from small guns and artillery. All European ammunition producers depend on China for cotton linters, even though it is a commodity produced and traded globally. The time to get them to Europe has tripled to nine months.

Much like we learned during the height of the pandemic, our supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Lean Manufacturing and “Just-in-Time” supply chains drove the prices of imported goods through the roof, but increased demand meant that we still had to wait months to get what we ordered. Have we learned anything?

Like during the pandemic, the Russo-Ukrainian War is sending a clear warning to everyone throughout the West: We need to ramp up production, capacity, and have a more reliable – if somewhat less efficient, supply chain to support our military. This is a hard lesson, because unlike jets, missiles and ships, ammunition and expendables are hidden away in bunkers. And if your governments and diplomats do their job, they will never be used.

However, if/when you need them, like right now, the need is existential. Time to wake up America! We can’t depend on capitalism only to solve our supply chain problems. To help you wake up, take a moment to watch the Foo Fighters, who closed 2017’s Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live with an extended performance of “Everlong” that morphs into a pair of seasonal classics:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Russia’s New Ukraine Strategy

The Daily Escape:

Dune Evening Primrose, Anza Borrego Desert SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon. This flower only blooms at night.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase. Early predictions that Russian forces would roll over token Ukrainian resistance didn’t last long. Confidence grew in a possible Ukrainian victory after Kyiv took advantage of America’s HIMARS artillery and other highly capable Western equipment began to degrade the Russian logistics and command systems.

Then, Ukraine launched a series of counter-offensives that have liberated formerly Russian occupied territory. November’s evacuation of Kherson by Russia showed that Moscow hasn’t yet found a way to stabilize its front lines in the face of Ukrainian military ground tactics.

But the ground has now shifted. The newest Russian commander, General Sergei Surovikin, in October began a bombing campaign on Ukrainian utilities throughout the country. It soon became clear that Russia is attempting to take out as much of Ukraine’s electrical grid as it can.

The WaPo said in late October:

“Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have been so methodical and destructive that administration officials say they are being led by power experts who know exactly which targets will cause the most damage to Ukraine’s power grid.”

Tactically, Ukraine’s weapons and ammunition can be replaced by the west. Troops can be trained to use new systems; cash can be transferred from Washington and/or Brussels. But the electric grid infrastructure cannot be easily fixed with replacements or money. There isn’t a large inventory of Soviet-era power generating and transmission gear laying around Europe that can be marshaled to fix the Ukrainian grid.

The grid destruction is taking place primarily by precision missile strikes launched from aircraft flying within Russia. We’ve seen that Russia continues to struggle in the land battle, but they have much more latitude to strike against Ukraine’s society and economy from within their own country.

We may have to refine our viewpoint about who is winning and losing this war. The US and NATO have focused on the land battle, which now favors Ukraine. But Russia seems willing to use air bombing to grind western Ukraine into a wasteland. The precision bombing of infrastructure can go on all winter, while the movement of ground forces will largely come to a halt as winter deepens.

Russia could make western Ukraine so close to uninhabitable that many of its citizens leave for Europe. No electric power in western Ukraine also means no water. That would mean the only people who could continue to live there would be the hardiest.

Russia can do all of this while the ground war is literally frozen in place. Russia can do this without a major commitment of additional troops, tanks, or new logistics paths into Ukraine.

If this is Russia’s plan, it makes sense. It’s incremental, has flexibility and fully utilizes Russia’s current advantages, including control of its own airspace. And since NATO and the US haven’t supplied Ukraine with weapons that could reach Russian soil or airspace, Russians are invulnerable to sustained Ukrainian attack.

Russia isn’t acquiring and defending new territory; it’s degrading much of Ukraine instead. Whether this is a winning strategy or not, it’s evidence of new and higher quality military thinking on Russia’s part.

It isn’t necessarily a winning strategy if the west supplies Ukraine with better air defense weaponry or with weapons that have the range to reach into Russia. There are two types of weapons to consider. Those that have a range that could strike behind Russian lines, and those that could reach into Russia itself.

Longer-range weapons raise concerns that the conflict could escalate to include NATO. But at the currently underway Bucharest NATO meeting, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said  that Ukraine should be free to strike military sites inside Russia as it fends off attacks on its critical infrastructure. Washington has previously denied Kyiv’s request for the 185-mile range ATACMS missile, which can reach into Russia.

America is at a similar point in the Ukraine war to where it was in the Afghan war: The enemy is striking it from another country, and our policy is not to pursue them inside their political borders.

The difference is that America was doing the fighting in Afghanistan and Ukraine is doing the fighting inside Ukraine. But in both cases, the US policy is strategically flawed. Russia must be made to pay real costs if they are going to use stand-off weapons to grind Ukraine into dust.

The challenge for NATO’s and America’s generals is to recognize that the Russian war strategy has changed, and to adapt to it. Russia wants to make it into a war of attrition. Ukraine wants to retake its lands.

How should Biden and NATO respond? Can the West sustain Ukraine in a prolonged existential conflict like this without changing its strategy?

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother, Nordstream Clues Edition – October 1, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Kalalau Valley Lookout, Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI – September 2022 photo by Alex Skoz

Who sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines? We’re forced to speculate, but it’s a near certainty that the US Navy knows who did it. In perusing Stratfor’s publication this week of where in the world US Navy fleets are located, Wrongo saw this map:

The map breaks the Navy’s fleets into Carrier groups (four in orange) and LHA and LHD Amphibious Assault groups (two in blue). The map shows the location of these groups over the last four weeks. The one of interest is LHD3. It spent most of the past four weeks in the Baltic Sea, including a great deal of time very near the Nordstream pipelines.

LHD3 is the designation of the USS Kearsarge, what the Navy calls a Multiple Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship, shorthand for a small aircraft carrier. The Kearsarge left the Baltic Sea a few days ago. Part of the reason the Kearsarge was in the Baltic was to participate in Baltops 22:

“This year, more than 45 ships, over 75 aircraft, and 7,000 personnel are tasked to execute a series of complex events throughout the two-week exercise.”

Seapower Magazine reported that one element of the Kearsarge operations in the Baltic was to test special sub-sea mine destruction technologies: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the US Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology….Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark….”

Bornholm is where the first breaches of Nordstream Two were discovered. Stratfor reports that:

“On Sept. 26, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Administration warned of potential ”deliberate attacks” after energy companies reported multiple cases of unidentified drones flying near offshore oil and gas installations. Just a few hours later, officials in Denmark warned they had found a gas leak along a section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm.”

The following day, the Swedish Maritime Administration announced it also detected two gas leaks on the Nordstream One pipeline in a nearby area. A fourth leak was discovered subsequently. While the Baltops 22 operation finished in July, the US Sixth Fleet didn’t begin leaving the Baltic Sea until September 22.

So it’s highly likely the Navy knows what happened and maybe who did it.

A head-scratching question is why would anyone do this? Damaging Nordstream is a direct terror attack on both Russia, and the EU, Germany, and the western European nations indirectly connected to the pipelines.

It is impossible to believe that it was done undetected. This type of clandestine operation requires deep water explosives, submersibles, divers and digging through the sea mud to attach explosives to the concrete shell that surrounds the steel pipeline.

Let’s take a brief look at the leading characters. Western governments say Russia did it, but why would it? One benefit to the Russians is that it forced the price of natural gas even higher (it went up 7%). It might have propaganda value; Russia can blame the US and thereby further turn Russian civilians against the West.

One old myth may apply: According to legend, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés ordered his men to “Burn the boats” as they began their conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519. The idea was that there would be no opportunity to retreat, and winning the battle was all that mattered. For Putin, could it be he purposefully destroyed billions of dollars of Russian energy infrastructure and their “cash cow”, believing that Europe will never again want Russian gas? If so, that means Putin intends to win WWIII.

Could it be China? Closing Nordstream means China would get all the gas it needs, and possibly at even cheaper prices. Rendering Nordstream useless forces the Russians to tie their currency more tightly to the Chinese Yuan. And the newest Chinese submarines might be able to do the deed.

Could it be the US? We have the technology and were in the area. But what goal of our foreign policy would be served by drastically hurting our NATO allies? If we did it, we’ve gone from a passive participant arming Ukraine to an active participant, possibly engaging in an Act of War.

Could it be a smaller state in the rabid anti-Russian west such as Poland?  The US Navy knows. Will they tell anyone?

On to the weekend, where we ignore what Gini Thomas told the Jan. 6 Committee or, whatever Judge Aileen Cannon is thinking about Trump’s documents. It’s time for our Saturday Soother! Start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Kahiko ($47.95 for 8oz: expensive, no? Thanks Biden) from Hawaii’s Hula Daddy Kona Coffee. It is said to be richly chocolaty, harmoniously juicy, and bright.

Now, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to George Gershwin’s “Lullaby for Strings”, written in 1919, although it was first performed as an orchestral piece in 1967. It’s played here by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet in 2016:

BTW: Stop watching cable news.

 

Facebooklinkedinrss

Is Putin Bluffing?

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, foothills of the Superstition Mountains, Phoenix, AZ – September 2022 photo by Gary Robinson

Wrongo is a life-long peacenik. That started with his opposition to the Vietnam War, which didn’t prevent him from being drafted and spending his service time in Germany running a nuclear missile site for the US Army. His anti-war stance went forward through Grenada, Iraq (twice), Libya, Syria and of course, Afghanistan.

Curiously, he’s in favor of the US assisting Ukraine, largely because if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unchecked, it will create a continuing threat to Europe and to world peace. The fallout from NATO assisting Ukraine to date has been immense. Now, Russia appears to be trying to add holding Europe hostage to a nuclear threat to his already holding it hostage for energy.

In a speech Wednesday morning, Putin announced a partial mobilization of his military, saying the goals of his invasion of Ukraine had not changed and that the step was “necessary and urgent,” and effective immediately. They’re going to mobilize 300,000 troops who have prior military experience.

Contrast this to the 200,000 troops he used to invade Ukraine.

This is Russia’s reaction first, to getting bogged down in what was supposed to be a quick operation in Ukraine; and second, by Ukraine’s successful counter-offensive that has caused a significant Russian military retreat.

Russia’s plan is now to absorb the Donbas region into Russia after a sham referendum in the next few days. Once Russia annexes the Donbas, Putin says that part of Ukraine will henceforth be a part of Russia. He made his strategy explicit:

“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people….This is not a bluff.”

From a Russian perspective, any further Ukrainian attacks in the Donbas could be construed as attacks on Russia. That means Russia might consider themselves free to interdict NATO resupply operations to Ukraine even within NATO countries.

We’re now in a situation that’s fast-moving, and potentially dangerous. Putin is reminding the West that he has his finger on the nuclear button. He also said:

“I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and some components are more modern than those of the NATO countries…”

Even though Putin said he isn’t bluffing, we have to ask: Is this a bluff?

The answer may turn on whether we’re talking about Russia attacking the West outside of Ukraine, and whether they use nukes or conventional weapons in that attack. If they use nukes, the question is whether they use tactical nukes (usually 2-200 kilotons) or heavy ballistic missiles. The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kt. The US has deployed about 100 tactical nuclear bombs, called the B61, in Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Russia going nuclear would confront NATO with two unpalatable choices: One, back down and accede to Russian demands with the near certainty of having to face additional attempts at nuclear blackmail farther down the road. The other option would be for NATO to hit back with its own nuclear arsenal with the obvious risk of having the Ukrainian War escalate into a general nuclear war.

A third possibility is for NATO to retaliate with a large conventional weapon strike. If NATO wants maximum shock value for their nonnuclear counterstroke, striking Crimea would be a serious response.

But whether there is a conventional or nuclear response, the possibility of escalation seems high. OTOH, if Putin used a tactical nuke in Ukraine, it could signal the start of the end game for him. Even the most opportunistic of Russia’s allies would cut them off, both diplomatically and economically.

But the problem with playing chicken is that sometimes the other guy just holds the wheel straight, presses the accelerator, and closes his eyes.

What counters this is that the people surrounding Putin have as much to lose as anyone in the West in the event of an escalation that brings NATO into the fray. Will Putin actually resort to using nukes in Ukraine or Europe? Nobody knows.

Putin knows that everyone knows he knows that he can’t actually win using nukes. The threat is that he will tip the geopolitical board over in a tantrum. Putin’s actual use of nukes will result in a tremendous blowback of either retaliatory nuclear strikes or large-scale conventional weapons strikes, depending on how he actually used his nukes.

Something to consider is speed of response. Putin can nuke Ukraine with a transit time of around 8 minutes from launch to detonation for a ballistic missile, and slightly longer for a cruise missile. Rest assured that the US/NATO have some nuclear-armed submarines in the Arctic that could hit Moscow in 8-10 minutes if it came to that.

Sitting in the comfort of the US, Wrongo can’t support adopting a Chamberlain-esque policy of appeasement with Russia.

Facebooklinkedinrss

US Military Needs Recruits

The Daily Escape:

Old Victorian farmhouse between Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA – photo by Dave Alvin

The NYT has a report about how hard it is for the US military to find new recruits:

“Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.”

More:

“The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and….As of late June, it had recruited only about 40% of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”

Still more: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.”

This is shocking. You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to join the Army. Too many young men have prison records. The military should seriously consider issuing waivers for criminal history. A willingness to die for one’s country should be seen as a gigantic step towards rehabilitation.

And since just 10% of potential recruits are willing to consider serving, young people have obviously understood the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why would young people want to die for wasteful wars of choice that have nothing at all to do with protecting their country?

These shortfalls put pressure on the military to bring in people who are either marginally qualified or unqualified. Wrongo ran a US Army unit in Germany during the Vietnam war. Back then, the US Army couldn’t recruit enough people who met its basic standards. The DOD came up with a program called Project 100,000 in October 1966 to recruit new soldiers who previously had been below the military’s mental or medical standards.

Project 100,000 personnel died at higher rates than other Americans serving in Vietnam. In Germany, more of our Project 100,000 soldiers served time in military jails than did our regular recruits. The project was ended in December 1971.

It looks like the Army is currently walking toward implementing a similar solution to the same problem it had 45 years ago.

Since jobs are plentiful in America, and wages have increased, the military has to compete by sweetening their deal with signing bonuses (up to $50,000). The military has also downsized. The number of active-duty service members is now about half of what it was in the 1980s and it’s projected to keep decreasing.

Also, the shabby way we treat our veterans hasn’t gone unnoticed by young people. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They say that more than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits. This is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle. Many get permanently injured.

And most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid, and will continue to accrue for years into the future.

July marks the 40th anniversary of doing away with the draft. We instituted the all-volunteer army because during the Vietnam War, significant numbers of draftees didn’t want to serve. The all-volunteer army was a bad idea then, and it’s still a bad idea. The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military.

Leaving aside their bravery and personal sacrifice, which was profound, how do you think they did?

On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans. But over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

We need to re-institute the draft to spread the responsibility for our defense to all Americans. Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue to decline. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reaches its peak, few Americans will have a direct relative who was involved in those wars.

The other benefit of a draft is that it exposes young people to others of all races, ethnicities, and beliefs, and forces them to find ways to get along to accomplish a mission.

That would be both a refreshing and necessary change.

Facebooklinkedinrss