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Written by Julian Macfarlane, Tokyo-based media analyst
I read these days often analysis of fellow writers, that are creating one map after another with nice big arrows. Usually accompanied by sentences like “The Russians will come from X and do Y in Z and then breakthrough to A only to create then a big cauldron around B”. Unfortunately, I think that many confuse the current technological possibilities with these of the 1940s.
Aleks. Black Mountain Analysis
It is indeed a mistake to compare the SMO to WWII or WWI or any previous “war”. It’s not “war” as you thought you knew it. Technology has changed both the possibilities of the large-scale violence that is military conflict, as well as our definitions of it.
Did Big Serge make that mistake of comparing Ukrainian War 10.0 to previous “wars” in in his recent, very influential article Russo-Ukrainian War: The World Blood Pump, which impressed such notables as Larry Johnson and Alex Mercouris …umm…bigly?
Read it and decide for yourself.
Serge is a military historian who writes compelling analyses of all kinds of military events from ancient times to the modern and premodern age, including the American Civil War and WWI – and now the Ukraine, NATO’s war. His article is erudite and compelling — but I would suggest that Black Mountain Analysis’ take is even better.
I hope you will support both Serge and Aleks so they can keep on writing.
Arrow and Lines vs Areas and Theaters
Big Serge makes the point that I made previously in my articles on Bakhmut and Soledar— and which most people agree with—that these two towns (once just known for salt) are the keys to taking the rest of the region. This is how Serge sees it.
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Arrows.
And Lines.
And maybe a pinch of salt.
Now look at Aleks’ map.
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Areas.
And Theaters.
Serge draws a traditional map indicating possible strategic offensives – hence the arrows.
Alek’s map is different —it defines “theatres” of operation.
And you can see how the cities, towns and villages in the area are connected as a part of a densely populated grid.
Keep in mind that a theatre is not just the stage, but the auditorium, the audience, the set, the stagehands, staff and the backstage. You think the theater is the stage because that’s where your attention is directed— but the performance there could not happen without the rest.
Networks and Grids
Now “areas” ….
In terms of “areas” it is the connections that matter—the Network.
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What I have called Ukraine’s “Maginot Grid” is not set up as “lines” in any conventional way – not like static trenches at, say, Verdun in WWI, which Serge cites in his article — but as nodes— some more important than others or better defended—all connected by– and dependent on— roads and railways, or sometimes, in the case of Bakhmut and Soledad, by tunnels.
The nodes are static but dependent on movement of men and supplies through a logistical network of roads, railways, river routes, even tunnels.
Those connections are not lateral—but also horizontal and at angles.
It is not a difficult concept.
The Body of War
Visualize the human body.
Organs in the body depend on a complicated network of blood vessels and nerves, and a network of arteries, veins and nerves—an organic matrix.
Interfere with the network that connects the organs to the rest of the body, and they malfunction or even die.
In the human body, some organs are more important than others. You can do without a spleen or a gall bladder but not a liver or heart. The same applies to nodes. Some are more important. At the beginning of the war, one such vital node was Mariupol, as the gateway to Crimea. Again, connections count.
My ASD non-linear mind much prefers Alek’s organic concept, rather than Serge’s geometry. Context matters.
Problems and Solutions
Aleks shows both the problem – a kluge of nodal defenses—and the solutions—and the to:
- a.) identify which nodes are important.
- b,) control supply and reinforcement:
- c.) destroy men and materiel.
In the last two cases, the Russians take advantage of
- a.) a 10:1 advantage in artillery and armor
- b.) a huge advantage in electronic warfare, including the “Penicillin” system .
- c.) air superiority
- d.) logistical support
- e.) support from local populations
- f.) the strategic stupidity of their opponents who have sacrificed almost 200,000 KIA.
Keeping in mind that this is a war against what was NATO’s biggest and best equipped army, with a 4:1 advantage in manpower, Russian success (overall) should be a warning to the Empire. Should be, but probably not as Larry Johnson points out in a recent article.
At some point, UAF resistance in theaters 1, 2, and 3 will just collapse. Then will come 4 and 5. There will be holdouts as there were in Azovstal in Mariupol in big cities like Kharkov, Zaporozhe, Nikolaev, and Odessa. But cut off and isolated in what are, in effect urban prisons, the Banderites will give up before they starve.
For the time being, you won’t see any “Big Arrow” offensives, however, as in say, Desert Storm.
As Napoleon said:
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Aleks writes:
Don’t get me wrong. Russia can break all of this resistance. But it would need to calculate far bigger losses, then would be needed, to conclude this war. Since Russia is in no hurry, but the West and Ukraine is, I don’t see any reason, why Russia should do this.
To conduct such offensives, Russia would need to calculate with casualty rates of 20-30%.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t say, Russia won’t move in with large columns of tanks and logistics equipment. But my personal assumption is, that this will first happen, as soon as the Ukrainian forces starting to crumble and starting to retreat under a collapse. Then these big Russian formations will move in.
The Russians could only reduce casualty rates doing what the US did in Desert Storm — shock and awe. The result would be thousands and thousands of dead civilians as in Iraq.
Far better for the Ukrainian forces to “crumble” first — but not just that —for the government to collapse also. We can see that happening already.
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