Hard pounding in Ukraine
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There is a phenomenon taking place in Europe that is so rare that people do not know how to react to it. It’s called Conventional War.
Most recent wars have not been conventional. Rather than being between two or more countries, they have non-state actors and the fighting is asymmetrical. One participant may have the tanks, warships, and fighter-bombers, while their opponents use trucks (the Toyota Hilux is a favourite), improvised explosive devices, and suicide bombers. This has been the nature of war in the Third World and Middle East for decades.
Conventional War is different. Both sides will have made considerable investment in military hardware, above and beyond equipping infantrymen or irregular militia. One side will have as its objective Seizure, the other Prevention. When they clash, there is initially a war of manoeuvre. During this phase, both sides seek victory through moving into an advantageous position. This is epitomised by the victory in 1940 by the Wehrmacht against all comers during the invasion of the Low Countries and France. Germany was actually outnumbered in artillery and tanks, but a superior strategy of concentration saw the Anglo-French forces outmanoeuvred and defeated in detail. The 1991 land campaign that liberated Kuwait and annihilated the Iraq Army is another example of successful seizure through manoeuvre.
If war of manoeuvre goes on for too long it will inevitably grind to a halt through exhaustion and attrition, as the side focusing on prevention manages to find a line that blocks seizure, and the roles may be reversed through a counter-offensive. This is what happened after the German retreat in 1914 following defeat at the Battle of the Marne. Germany successfully established a front line that precluded outflanking as it could be defended successfully all the way from the English Channel to the Swiss border. The Allied offensive after the breakout in Normandy in 1944 ground to a halt as the badly-beaten Germans finally managed to find defensible positions, but the Allies were also facing mounting logistics issues as their forces advanced further away from their ports of supply. The Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 was another example of a war of manoeuvre becoming static, but this was because, despite Iraq having Soviet equipment designed for rapid seizure, Iraqi military commanders and their conscript soldiers were not very good.
And this is what is happening in Ukraine. Russia advanced on three fronts, the Northern towards Kyiv, the Eastern towards Kharkiv, and the Southern from Crimea. However, the war of manoeuvre took its toll on Russian forces more than it did the Ukrainian and has become static. Russia now has a “bite and hold” strategy that is nibbling away at Ukrainian territory in the east. Again, this is a normal part of conventional warfare once the front lines have been defined. What is happening in Ukraine is actually normal warfare and not a throwback to a supposed primitiveness of the First World War.
The Russians seem incapable of mounting a new major offensive, but this may be primarily because Putin cannot commit all his forces to Ukraine, as they have to also be able to mount a credible defence against NATO. For some reason the Kremlin regard this purely defensive alliance as an aggressor and thus a threat. This may also explain why Ukrainian special forces seem to be causing havoc behind Russian lines, while Russian special forces have taken no significant part in the war. Special forces are light infantry and their missions verge on the suicidal. If Russia were to use any special forces (assuming they still maintain such formations with a credible degree of professionalism, which is a matter of debate) in Ukraine, their inevitable depletion would prevent deployment against NATO.
It is a little acknowledged fact that direct and indirect artillery were the main killers of soldiers on both world wars, and not machine-guns as might be supposed by the cinematic treatments of both conflicts. In these artillery duels, Ukraine cannot help but win. Russian weapons technology seems about a generation behind the West’s, hypersonic cruise missiles notwithstanding. The Ukrainian army is being equipped with Western artillery that is more precise and thus more destructive than their opponents. The use of precision-guided weapons also favours Ukraine, as Western weapons are better at hitting their targets. A new generation of small “kamikaze” Switchblade drones armed with explosive warheads is being used to a decisive effect that is only possible when battle lines are static.
Russian strategy favours rapid movement, but this requires a level of competence that Russia seems to have lost. In fact it is possible that this conflict may have been Putin’s last opportunity to make war westwards before his army degenerated to a Third World standard due to corruption, negligence, and the economic ravages of the pandemic. Imperial Germany made war in 1914 for fear of Imperial Russia’s French-funded military modernisation. Putin may have had similar fears and faced the choice of use it or lose it. Certainly his much-vaunted ground forces have increasingly made war rather like a heavily-armed rabble.
As the West supplies Ukraine with modern weapons and trains thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to Western standards, a prolonged war is a war that Russia can only lose. There are an increasing tally of successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian rear areas which has forced Russia into retreat, most notably in Russian-occupied Crimea. Russia now seems increasingly unable to be able to use Crimea as a base to dominate the Black Sea as she pulls back both air and naval resources despite controlling the ground. It is an open secret that Ukraine is planning an offensive in the South, while Russia’s main focus is on the Eastern Front. Unlike Russia’s invasion on February, Ukraine is following the Western strategy of spending a considerable amount of time softening up the opposition through air strikes. Russian supply lines are being destroyed progressively, in a fashion that recalls Allied strikes on Northern France prior to D-Day.
Time is not on Russia’s side. While the war has seeped away from the news headlines, it is still going on. The Ukrainian armed forces have not cracked under sustained Russian pressure, and Russia has had to endure humiliating reverses. Ukraine is is holding her own and seems to have the potential to win. Putin seems an ailing leader of an ailing country. He is also running out of choices. Perhaps someone in his entourage may decide to make a choice for him.
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