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Ukraine Invasion Day 342: telling Russians what you won't do is folly and pours gasoline on a fire [1]
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Date: 2023-01-30
Russians continue offensive on three fronts, despite losses – Ukraine’s General Staff. Russian troops attack Ukrainian positions in Luhansk Oblast with huge numbers of infantry – Oblast Head. Kherson under massive Russian artillery attack, hospital damaged.
Russia is currently at the nadir of its capabilities, fielding poorly trained troops with older and more varied equipment, and with shortages of munitions. At the same time Russia has enough forces on the ground to mean that Ukraine can only make progress with a deliberate offensive. Russia can also mobilise and train more personnel. Russia’s defence industry is also increasing production, so that if Ukraine does not retain the initiative, it will become progressively harder to liberate territory.
It is this trajectory – combined with a need to convince Russia that protracted fighting is not in its interest – that led to several of Ukraine’s partners pledging large numbers of infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, artillery systems, combat support platforms, and expanding munitions production to meet Ukraine’s needs. There has also been a deliberate training pipeline built, with Ukrainians trained in the UK and then formed as units and exercised in Europe to learn how to field combined arms battalions.
The short term challenge Ukraine faced was that if it committed to offensive operations early in the year it might exhaust its reserves and lose a critical number of armoured vehicles, leaving it vulnerable to Russia later in the year. Its partners’ pledges now mean that Ukraine can confidently generate and field new combat units through the year and Kyiv therefore has more freedom to use what it already has now.
In spite of the medium-term opportunity the pledged equipment offers, NATO-designed tanks will not be quick to bring into action. NATO-designed tanks are significantly different to the Soviet derived tanks currently operated by Ukraine. They have different crew workflow, maintenance requirements and are around 20-tonnes heavier. Tanks will also make little difference if fielded in small numbers. To field them at company strength, supported by infantry fighting vehicles and artillery, it is necessary to have a significant number of Ukrainians trained in how to fight the relevant systems, maintain and sustain them, and operate them in groups. This will all take time.
www.spectator.co.uk/...
x Reporter: "Will the United States provide F-16s to Ukraine"?
Biden: "No." pic.twitter.com/FtSq2EP099 — Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) January 30, 2023
The most optimistic scenario for deploying M1-Abrams tanks in Ukraine is six to eight months, more likely longer. If Russia launches a major offensive in the spring, as expected, the M1 Abrams will not be part of the Ukrainian arsenal. Even when they do arrive, they will not significantly alter the balance of power, especially if the Russians are able to turn the tanks, manned by inexperienced crews, into charred hulks. scheerpost.com/...
The U.S. defense industrial base is not adequately prepared for the international security environment that now exists. In a major regional conflict—such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait—the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense. According to the results of a series of CSIS war games, the United States would likely run out of some munitions—such as long-range, precision-guided munitions—in less than one week in a Taiwan Strait conflict. The war in Ukraine has also exposed serious deficiencies in the U.S. defense industrial base and serves as a stark reminder that a protracted conflict is likely to be an industrial war that requires a defense industry able to manufacture enough munitions, weapons systems, and matériel to replace depleted stockpiles.
As timelines for a possible conflict in Asia shrink, the goal should be to support the production capacity required to enable the United States and its allies and partners to deter and, if deterrence fails, fight and win at least one major theater war—if not two. “Just in time” and lean manufacturing operations must be balanced with carrying added capacity. The U.S. Department of Defense, in coordination with Congress, should develop a plan now that involves taking steps to streamline and improve production, acquisitions, replenishment, Foreign Military Sales, ITAR, and other policies and procedures. A revitalization of the defense industrial base will not happen overnight for the United States or its allies and partners. It is time to prepare for the era of competition that now exists.
www.csis.org/...
x The greater the losses of manpower & materiel that Russia suffers in #Ukraine, the less threat there will be to #NATO territory in Europe.
Some of Russia’s immediate neighbours have already made that calculation.
New @CER_EU insight by @CER_IanBond:
https://t.co/1zbXfVksYG — CER (@CER_EU) January 30, 2023
x Telling the Russian terrorist regime what you won't do is folly. It's pouring gasoline on an open fire.
Regardless of what the United States does or does not do, when it comes to national security the only answer an American president should give is: "Nothing is excluded." — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) January 30, 2023
Given the extent of the devastation that Putin's war has wrought across Ukraine, along with the catastrophic losses that his military has faced, NBC moderator Chuck Todd wondered how far Putin will go to achieve his goals.
"Russia was your portfolio back in the day at the CIA and then some. What you knew about Putin. What, what do you think the real red line is with him? He is, he has had a lot of bluster, and so far, we've crossed all these supposed red lines that he was drawing about us supporting Ukraine, this or that, NATO doing this or that. None of it has come. He's had a lot of bluster, but he's not folded. Is there any red line that he's serious about that we should be concerned about?" Todd asked Gates, who served from 2006 to 2011 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
"I think potentially Crimea could be because their big naval base in Crimea basically gives them control of the Black Sea. So I think it has strategic importance. But Putin believes it's his destiny to recreate the Russian empire. And as my old mentors, Big Brzezinski used to say, 'without Ukraine, there can be no Russian empire,'" Gates said, referring to Polish-American diplomat, scientist, and national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Putin "is obsessed with retaking Ukraine. He will hang in there," Gates continued. "I think that he does believe that time is on his side, that support in the US, support in Europe and so on will fray."
Gates added that Putin is "doing what Russian armies have always done, and that is sending large numbers of relatively poorly equipped, poorly trained conscripts to the front lines and in the belief that mass will overcome."
www.alternet.org/…
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