So Putin’s war in Ukraine doesn’t appear to be going according to plan. Rather than a swift race to victory, instead his army is getting bogged down in bitter street fighting. And they are facing increasingly bold counter attacks from the Ukrainian army. And rather than being greeted as liberators by the Ukrainians, instead he’s only succeeded in uniting the country against him (as well as the EU and NATO). It is the unfortunate consequences of what happens when the magical thinking of populist leaders meets the realities of war.
There’s an old saying, that arm chair generals talk about tactics, megalomaniacs obsess about war winning wonder weapons, while the real generals focus on old boring logistics (I think it was Eisenhower who said that one of the key war winning weapons of WW2 was the Deuce & a half truck or the Jerry can). Well I think we can tell which category Putin and his inner circle fall into. Russia’s logistics have been truly awful. On many occasions their tanks have run out of fuel and had to be abandoned (Russia being one of the world’s largest oil producers). Then towed away and stolen by irate Ukrainian farmers (I mean you are parking a tank in his field, count yourself lucky he didn’t sent the bull loose!). Short of food, Russian troops have been seen looting shops.
And Russian tanks have been proven vulnerable to Western made anti-tank missiles. Which shouldn’t be a huge surprise as the capabilities of such weapons (and the weaknesses in Russian armour) have been known about for sometime. Worryingly for the Russians, the Ukrainians have apparently been focusing on hitting softer targets like fuel truck convoys & APC’s, rather than tanks (they are destroying just enough each day to make the Russian tank crews cautious, but they aren’t the main focus…for now!). This battlefield attrition has meant they’ve started running out of trucks and been forced to use civilian dumper trucks or even mini-vans as troop transports (which are of course horribly vulnerable to incoming fire, meaning Russian casualty figures will only get worse).
Meanwhile in the sky’s, a month into the conflict and the Russians have yet to establish air superiority. With the Ukrainian air force still able to carry out drone attacks and the odd air strike against the Russian forces. And if you think things are bad now, some experts reckon the Russians will exhaust their battlefield logistics within another week or two. Meaning they will not be able to advance, nor resist Ukrainian counter attacks. And the spring thaw is now upon us, meaning the Rasputitsa (mud season) will start soon, limiting the ability of the Russian forces to advance….or even retreat!
But what about all these advanced weapons the Russians have been working on? Like hypersonic missiles, such as the ones Russia’s used a few weeks ago. Well there’s an element of semantics at play here. Hypersonic speeds refers to anything capable of going faster than mach 5. We’ve had regular ballistic missiles (or anti-ballistic missile interceptors), capable of those sorts of speeds since the 1950’s. Its nothing new.
Hypersonic weapons is generally meant to refer to either a scramjet powered weapon, or a gliding lifting body (skipping across the top of the atmosphere like a stone across a pond), which can manoeuvre and evade air defences. Although on this last point, while difficult to detect and guard against with existing missile defence systems, that would likely change very quickly (e.g. while they are difficult to detect on surface based radars, the amount of heat they generate makes them easily detectable by air or satellite infrared tracking systems).
The Kinzhal missile the Russians launched a few weeks back would be more accurately described as a air-launched ballistic missile. We’ve had weapons like that since the 1970’s. Interestingly such programmes never moved beyond the development stage for a variety of practical reasons. They are bigger, bulkier and more expensive than conventional cruise missiles (a B-52 could carry 4 air-launched ballistic missiles…or 24 cruise missiles with a similar range and payload). They also need air fields, which are impossible to hide and vulnerable to attack (missiles on trucks or in subs can be dispersed and hidden).
And if you think that’s bad, the Russians are also working on a variety of doomsday weapons, such as nuclear powered cruise missiles, or nuclear powered torpedoes. Similar weapons were looked into during the cold war but eventually abandoned, because even back then nobody was batsh*t nuts enough to go forward with such ridiculous projects.
Now it has to be said Russia has been working on some real hypersonic weapons. And some analysis suggests they might be ahead of the US (which should tell you how corrupt and inept the American Military industrial complex has become). However, this would be counter productive, as it will inevitably provoke a response from the NATO.
We’ve been here before. Back in the late 1950’s, the Soviet’s seemed to have taken a lead in the deployment of ICBM’s. Inevitably this “missile gap” got blown out of all proportion and NATO reacted by building a vast network of thousands of its own (often better) ICBM’s. Which ultimately played a role in both provoking the Cuban missile crisis (an attempt by the USSR to get back to something resembling parity with the west) and one of the reasons why the soviet’s blinked first. So all Putin is doing is provoking another arms race that he can’t win (as NATO has a vastly higher budget and larger production capacity) and will see Russia surrounded by vast numbers of hypersonic missiles.
The very fact Putin has pushed ahead with such boondoogles indicates the Kremlin either isn’t listening to its experts. Or the experts are too afraid to speak out. Its what I’d call the Aladeen effect, a reference to this scene from the movie the Dictator. If your boss is a dumb-ass tyrannical despot and he tells you he doesn’t want his missiles round at the top but pointy (so they can stick in the ground and go kaboom), well that’s what he’s going to get. Whether it works or not, or it is just a complete waste of time and money, that’s someone else’s problem. In short, if Russia had a free press and a congressional oversight committee, none of these weapon systems would have ever been funded.
Its also clear that Putin and his generals have started to believe their own propaganda. For example, the Russians have made various bold claims about having advanced APS defences (Active Protection System, capable of detecting an incoming AT rocket and shooting it down before it hits) to protect their tanks. Such systems are nothing new, the Israeli’s have been working on those for sometime. However, they have their limitations, notably as regards top attacks, swarm attacks (firing multiple missiles at a tank from different directions at once), kinetic energy projectiles (a big ass gun firing solid armour piercing rounds at very high velocities) or indeed low tech solutions such as IED’s or Molotov cocktails. Bottom line, a clever anti-tank team will find a way to get around such defences, while an experienced tank crew won’t let themselves get into a situation where they are vulnerable to such attacks.
However, the Russians have made bold claims about how their APS systems are so advanced they are immune to such attacks, even the AP rounds from NATO tanks. A claim many consider to be highly dubious and probably impractical. Well it will probably not come as a huge surprise to learn that one of the prototypes for this weapon system was recently found in a burning heap on the side of a road in Ukraine, with its turret blown off. While its not clear what killed it, a hit from an AT rocket seems probable.
Then there is the matter of corruption, which after all played a key role in America’s defeat in Afghanistan. If you are a Russian general and you’ve got a multi million rubble budget to maintain your trucks and buy fuel. Well you could do that…or you could spend half the money and put the rest in your pocket (I mean its not like we are going to go to war or anything). You bill Moscow for 1000 guns or missiles, but then only buy 200 and split the difference with the Oligarch selling you the weapons. Which makes it even harder for anyone to speak up. As now you aren’t just accusing your boss of being an idiot. But being a corrupt idiot who is picking the state’s pocket.
This is the inevitable end state when populists go to war, When their magical thinking based on misguided nationalist myths bumps into that most dangerous of enemies – reality. Because unfortunately reality has a strong bias towards the truth. And Russia’s ongoing problem are just another good example of this. Sure Putin can use his hold over the media to try and hide this reality, but its not going to go away. As some have commented, whatever his war plan was he’s basically already lost.
Now that said, Russia does have a very large and dangerous arsenal of weapons. And it would be all too easy to shift the goal posts. e.g. secure a big chunk of southern Ukraine, abandon the positions in the rest of the country and sell that back home as some sort of victory. Then ride out western sanctions and hope his ally Trump get’s back in next election and all will be forgiven.
Well if that’s the plan, its a crap plan. Capturing land and holding it are two very different things. Recall the Russians pretty much conquered Afghanistan within a few days. It was holding that land that proved to be the problem. In fact the Irish war of independence, or the troubles, are probably good examples of how things in Ukraine will pan out. And the more brutal the Russians are, the more brutal Ukrainian partisans will be to the Russians. And not just the Russian army. Attacks against civilian targets in Russia becomes a real possibility (recall the Ukrainian government doesn’t necessarily have control of all these groups and will have even less control during a prolonged guerrilla war).
And what if Trump doesn’t run (he could just die of old age….or get bumped off by the CIA!) or he losses (or he ends up in prison!). Or the military industrial complex makes him a better offer (they need another war to sell their wares), and he launches a bunch of proxy wars around the globe. On which point, Putin’s decision to call in favours from Syria or Chechnya might come back to haunt him, as he’s running down those forces, risking renewed conflict in those countries. He’s also been accused of sending in troops from ethnic minority communities and using them as cannon fodder, which I might add was another failing of the soviet’s in Afghanistan. And was one of the reasons a whole bunch of civil unrest kicked off not long after that conflict was over.
And what is likely to be the final end state? A stronger EU and NATO (the opposite of Putin’s goals) and even if Ukraine (or Finland) officially stay out of NATO, a significant military presence there right on his border. I hate to break to Putin, but you don’t have to be a NATO member for the US to station forces in your country. The US has hundreds of bases worldwide and the vast majority of them aren’t NATO members, or even formal allies of the US. Hell Japan is officially a neutral country with a pacifist constitution and they host a massive US military presence.
Then there’s these not so little things called “aircraft carriers”. The US and NATO have dozens of those. They could have several large battle groups in international waters, just off the Russian coast, doing doughnuts and there’s nothing the Russians can do about that. Plus Putin’s use of some fairly shady mercenaries (as in neo-nazi linked ones), gives the US a green light to do the same. They could send a large army of military contractors to Ukraine (employed by a firm in the Cayman Islands), arm them with some pretty dangerous weapons and legitimately claim to have no troops in the country.
So I’d suggest Putin adopts a different strategy. When you are in a hole, stop digging.
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