Streetwise Professor

Yesterday morning I was composing a post in my head, to the effect that Zelensky had come to Washington to sign a deal that would give Trump the justification for continuing to provide US funds (and weapons) to Ukraine.

Then yesterday afternoon happened. Get me rewrite!

I won’t give the blow-by-blow. If you are reading this you’ve probably already seen several of those. So I’ll just give some reactions and analysis.

The basic conclusion: it was the most idiotic play I’ve ever seen by a national leader in public. Ever. I mean, screwed the pooch doesn’t even come close to describing it.

One administration person said “Zelensky didn’t read the room.” That’s totally wrong. Zelensky acted like he didn’t even know what fucking room he was in. He was in the American White House, with the American president and vice president, in public.

You don’t talk smack about someone in their house with the world watching. Especially is that someone is notoriously thin-skinned and not that well-disposed to you to begin with. (In fact, the bigger the asshole you consider Trump to be, the dumber Zelensky’s stunt has to look). And especially especially if that thin-skinned host holds your fate in his hands. And you don’t wrangle an invitation under false pretenses, as Zelensky did, by claiming that he was there to sign a deal.

Trump has one overriding objective: to stop the fighting. That’s not enough for Zelensky. He repeatedly emphasized that he wants total victory (meaning return of all territories lost since 2014) and security guarantees including Nato membership and US troops in Ukraine.

These things are not in his opportunity set. Not even within hailing distance of his opportunity set. Hell, you can’t see them with the James Webb telescope from where he is.

Zelensky kept emphasizing that Putin started it, that Putin is evil, etc., etc., etc. Which means absolutely fuck all even if totally true (which I believe it is).

In the real world–which Zelensky does not inhabit–cosmic justice is unattainable. Deals with the devil are frequently the best of bad alternatives. Half loaves are preferable to none.

This is why Trump repeatedly told Zelensky he didn’t have the cards to play. This is a home truth, and one that the administration has expressed repeatedly in private, but which Zelensky refuses to accept.

Zelensky and his European and American enablers remind me of the heads of belligerent governments in WWI. They all–all–believed the other side was evil, and was to blame for the war. As a result, they utterly refused to countenance anything but total victory. Though the rational thing to do once stalemate arrived on the western front in late-1914 would have been to negotiate an agreement that would have satisfied no one, they fought on and on and on.

Due to their obduracy, millions died and nations and empires collapsed. And that process and dying did not end in November 1918 or even in June 1919 at Versailles. It kinda sorta ended (but not completely) in May 1945.

What’s more, Zelensky wants a Versailles-like diktat imposed on Russia, including reparations. (He reacted enthusiastically to a question suggesting that Russia pay for the damage inflicted on Ukraine).

Putting aside the wisdom of such a diktat (didn’t work out well for the Allies post-1919, did it?), only a total victor is in a position to impose one. And there is no universe in which that is happening today.

So Zelensky came to DC under false pretenses to make impossible demands, threw a fit when he was told–at first very politely–that they were impossible, and kept up the fit until he made it necessary for first Vance and then Trump to smack him down. And even then he was rude–interrupting, calling Vance by his initials, rolling his eyes, crossing his arms in highly passive aggressive body language, etc.

Frankly, he got off lucky. Trump and Vance would have been perfectly justified in bitch slapping him silly.

Whatever capital he had had with this administration, he lit on fire. Marco Rubio, not a hot tempered type, was obviously furious and at the end of his rope:

I have never seen the man so amped up, let alone for 18 plus minutes straight.

Even Ukraine’s biggest fanboi is over him:

When you've lost Lindsey Graham . . . https://t.co/jKdN3VGKq0

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) February 28, 2025

All of which is why this was the most self-destructive performance by a national leader that I have ever seen or read about in history. The only way to conclude that Zelensky behaved intelligently is to believe that he wants to self-destruct. Because that’s what he did.

Of course the Europeans immediately rallied to console him. “Oh poor boy! Were those brutes mean to you? Mommy is here for you!”

And maybe that’s Zelensky’s problem–he really believes that. Another reality that appears to escape him is that the Europeans are as useless as tits on a bull. (Ditto if he was playing to the US press, which was the biggest loser of the 2024 election).

Actually, they are worse. They feed his delusions.

Those Europeans-Macron and Starmer-who have pledged troops for Ukraine came to DC and made it plain that pledge would vanish without US troops on the ground. Which ain’t happening. I further note that even the European pie crust promises are conditional on a cease fire, which can only be obtained on terms that Zelensky has rejected.

Why are the Europeans so afraid that Trump is pushing for a cease fire that will not result in Russia’s total defeat? Looking at their public statements, it appears that they are afraid that if that does not happen, Putin will invade their welfare states and plant the Russian flag (or maybe the Soviet one!) on the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, and the North Sea.

I’ve seen bedwetters before, but this takes the prize. If anything, the war in Ukraine should put such fears to rest, not stoke them. At most the war might say something about Putin’s dreams or intentions of conquest. But it clearly shows that his capabilities to pose any threat to Europe are completely lacking.

At best, Russia is able to make advances of a few kilometers here and there over a front of a couple of hundred clicks against an undermanned and under-firepowered foe. Advances on foot, mind you. Russia’s armor has been all but annihilated. Most of the front is inactive and static because the Russians cannot muster enough force to do anything except make very narrow advances.

And let’s not forget. If the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered European nightmares of Soviet advances in 1944 and 1945, those advances were completely dependent on American trucks. Russia has no comparable logistic capabilities today.

Even at the beginning of this fiasco, Russian logistics were shambolic due in large part to very basic problems–like shoddy Chinese tires that blew out after minimal use on bad roads. And those were the glory days! Look now–Russians are using civilian cars and vans, including old Ladas, to transport troops and supplies to the front lines. They have even resorted to donkeys.

Note that the Russians cannot even sustain enough combat power to retake the Kursk bulge on Russian territory.

Fears of Russian military might were overstated in 2022. (Even the vaunted Battalion Tactical Groups–which were obliterated in short order–were optimized for defense; which is perhaps why they failed in the offense). Putin fooled the Europeans (and a lot of Americans) with Potemkin military “reforms.” Anyone who harbors such illusions now is beyond help.

Speaking of the Europeans, a European think tank estimated that it would cost ~$250 billion/year to replace America’s contribution to European defense. Thanks for that estimate of the amount by which we have been subsidizing those free riders for the past 8 decades.

The bottom line is this. Continuing the war in Ukraine is not in American interests. Ending the war is. The president of the United States has the responsibility of advancing American interests. By trying to end the war, even under conditions that do not achieve cosmic justice, and allow an evil actor to pocket some gains and live to be evil in the future, Trump is advancing American interests.

But if he succeeds, he is advancing Ukrainian interests too. Perhaps most of all. This war is destroying that nation and its people, and its continuation will only increase the destruction. Zelensky thinks that recovering blasted regions is in his nation’s interest, regardless of the cost. In that way, he is as much an enemy of the Ukrainian people as Putin.

After all this time, you’d think that people would have figured out to take Trump seriously, but not literally. You’d be wrong.

Case in point, Javier Blas’ bloviation about Trump’s proposed mineral deal with Ukraine, which Trump has characterized as a deal for rare earths.

Despite the talk about its huge potential, Ukraine isn’t known to hold any reserves of the main rare earths elements sought after by Trump pic.twitter.com/8Z6pdkKrhp

— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) February 19, 2025

Yes, rare earths are what Trump has touted, but that’s not what he’s really after:

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The breathtaking expansiveness of Trump’s demands (apparently trimmed back subsequent to that article) is the real story here. Writing that Trump is an idiot because there aren’t ackshually any rare earths in Ukraine totally misses it.

Why does Trump emphasize rare earths? Who knows for sure, but I have some ideas.

One is typical Trump kayfabe, “presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic” (in professional wrestling mainly, but a staple of the Trump method). Rare earths are in the news, primarily because of Chinese dominance thereof. (Not, by the way, because China is uniquely endowed with them, but because the US and the West have outsourced the intensely polluting refining process to China, which has a far higher tolerance for industrial pollution). Although a lot of people know that rare earths aren’t rare, and may know that Ukraine doesn’t have any, that’s not common knowledge. By broadcasting that he’s going to get America’s hands on something commonly perceived to be extremely valuable, Trump can sell his base on continued support for Ukraine despite his early promises to cut it loose.

Another possibility is that this is a head fake. By focusing on a single resource, he obscures his more breathtaking ask (or demand) which stirs concerns among those of his supporters are aware of it. Instead of “Look–squirrel!” he’s saying “Look–rare earths!”

Either way, by taking Trump literally Blas et al are failing to note what they should be taking seriously. Which probably doesn’t bother Trump one bit–and wouldn’t if either of my conjectures that rare earths are a blind or a feint are correct.

For his part, Zelensky reacted with outrage. Never! Colonialism!

At least in public. Marco Rubio–seconded by J.D. Vance–called out Zelensky publicly for duplicity.

What Secretary Rubio is saying here is exactly right. https://t.co/nh2pHzramp

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 21, 2025

This surprises me not in the least, but it makes me question yet again Zelensky’s intelligence (in the sense of IQ, not information). Arguing with Trump and exchanging insults with him in public on this and other issues (notably the negotiations with Russia) is an incredibly stupid strategy for someone whose fate largely rests in Trump’s hands.

Indeed, the more you think that Trump is an asshole who hates Zelensky, and is looking to sell Ukraine down the river, the more you have to agree that Zelensky should keep his mouth shut, and definitely should not wave a red cape at a raging bull president. Being two-faced with Trump is a recipe for getting both of them ripped off. Or if you are going to be two faced, display the nice one in public and the mean one in private, rather than the reverse as Zelensky is doing.

It would be particularly stupid of Zelensky to pick a fight over non-existent rare earths. Sure Donald, the rare earths are yours! He’d be giving up nothing and potentially gaining something. Picking a fight over nothing is beyond stupid. (That fact alone should have the ackshually crowd questioning whether it’s rare earths that Trump is ackshually after).

It’s really mystifying what Zelensky think he’s accomplishing here. Playing up to the Europeans? Since they are utterly impotent and can’t protect him (not to mention that many including Scholz and Poland have expressed publicly an unwillingness to do so) that would be incredibly foolish. Playing to the anti-Trump element in the US? Equally foolish because at present they are even more impotent than the Europeans.

Maybe it’s just exhaustion or a psychological breakdown, either of which would be understandable given the strain he’s been under for the last three plus years. Or maybe he wants out of a hopeless situation and is creating a pretext for his ouster. Or maybe he’s just an arrogant idiot.

As for the substance of a US-Ukraine deal over Ukrainian resources (other than rare earths), Rubio brings up a point I made several weeks ago on X. Namely, giving the US a major stake in Ukraine would serve as a far more credible bond to secure continued American protection than pie crust promises. Major skin in the Ukrainian game vis a vis Russia aligns American and Ukrainian interests far better than any alternative.

That is not complicated. An American stake produces time consistency. “Commitments”–promises to do things in the future on Ukraine’s behalf–are not time consistent because there would be little cost of reneging on those commitments in the future. You know, sort of like the Budapest Memorandum. You’d think Zelensky would have learned from that experience. Apparently not.

I assert that a major economic stake in Ukraine’s economy would be a far better guarantor of Ukraine’s security than membership in Nato. There is no reason to believe that Nato would not fade Article 5 commitments in the event of a future Russian incursion or subversion.

This is especially true when dealing with a relentlessly transactional man like Trump.

Besides, 50 percent of something is a lot better than 100 percent of nothing. Which is what Ukraine will have if the US walks.

There is considerable room for skepticism about Trump’s approach to Ukraine. But that skepticism should be grounded in something other than snickering about Trump’s supposed rare earth delusions. And for Zelensky turn his comedic talents to insult comedy is suicidal.

Last week marked the 1000th dreary day of the Russo-Ukrainian War. It also saw a new, and disturbing, phase in the conflict.

Specifically, the Biden Administration (not the non compos mentis Biden, of course, but some shadowy cabal of aides) granted permission to Ukraine to utilize Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) to attack targets on some Russian territory, specifically Kursk oblast and environs. In response, the Russians launched a nuclear capable experimental intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) into Ukraine: the missile was topped with six non-nuclear (and in fact non-explosive) warheads.

In many respects the western response to Russia’s launch was overwrought. It was obviously a signal of escalation dominance that reminded me of Crocodile Dundee and the knife:

“That’s not a missile. That’s a missile.” I see your tactical missile and raise you a ballistic missile. I call.

Regardless of the merits of unleashing the ATACMs (which I will discuss below) it was utterly irresponsible for a lame duck administration to do so. It will not have to deal with the consequences. The incoming Trump administration will. And it can only complicate Trump’s already daunting task in Ukraine. Given how clearly disruptive this move was, it could only have been undertaken with malign intent. An “if we can’t rule, nobody will,” spiteful decision.

Regarding the merits. On the one hand ATACMs do not represent a substantial escalation: Ukraine has for months launched attacks on Russia using drones, and on soil Russia has claimed its own (notably Crimea) using various western-made cruise missiles. However, and ironically, by previously pointedly refusing to permit the use of ATACMs on targets in Russia the administration effectively deferred to Putin’s declaration that doing so would cross a red line. Thus, the volte face can only be interpreted as a deliberate flouting of said line, and therefore a deliberate escalation.

And for what? ATACMs, especially in the limited numbers that the US has supplied to Ukraine, cannot have a decisive effect on the war. (Nor can Storm Shadows, or SCALPs, or Taureses, or JASSMs). At most they can disrupt to some degree Russian logistics (e.g., by blowing up munitions depots) or command and control (by striking headquarters). (The fact that the administration made this argument to justify its previous denial of permission for using ATACMs in Russia demonstrates that it recent reversal was an act of spite rather than a reasoned military judgment).

But Ukraine’s military problems so fundamental that inconveniencing Russian operations in these ways will not be decisive.

Ukraine’s first fundamental problem is manpower. Yes, Russia is suffering far larger casualties, but the bloody minded Putin has shown his willingness to tolerate them, and Russia can absorb them far more readily than Ukraine.

Ukraine’s second fundamental problem is air defense, which has both a tactical and a strategic dimension. Tactically, after almost two years of complete ineffectualness, the Russian air forces finally found a way to influence the battle zone by dropping large numbers of FAB glide bombs (some weighing 3 metric tons) on Ukrainian positions from beyond the range of Ukrainian air defenses. Yes, ATACMs can be used to strike the airfields hosting the SU-34s that drop the bombs, thereby forcing the Russians to base them further away and reducing the number of sorties they can launch, but this effect is at the margins. Strategically, through drones and missiles (like iskander, which is more capable than ATACMs) Russia has devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Whether Ukraine can survive another winter of concerted attacks on its power grid is debatable.

Zelensky has been screaming for more anti-aircraft missile systems (especially Patriots) and some have been forthcoming, especially from Europe. But the need far outstrips the capacity of the US to provide more.

Ukraine’s third fundamental problem is its military command, starting with Zelensky himself, his military chief Syrski, and his general staff (“GenStabU”). The excellent Sarcastosaurous substack is the go to source on this, but its critique is echoed by Ukrainian troops that bear the consequences of the command’s incompetence.

The problems are myriad. The underlying problem is that old Soviet habits die hard. Most notably, command is overly centralized, leading to slow responses to battlefield crises, and a shocking indifference to information coming from those on the front lines.

The centralization has also led to an extremely defective organizational structure. The Ukrainian army has brigades which control battalions, but it has no divisions that control brigades, or corps that control divisions.

Supposedly because divisions are too expensive. Getting brigades and battalions destroyed due to command and control problems isn’t?

The lack of divisions leads to poor coordination between adjacent brigades, and the Russians have learned to exploit these seams. (Seams between units are always a vulnerability. Multiplying the seams multiplies the vulnerabilities). Moreover, Syrski et al control the brigades and even battalions directly, and shuttle them around willy-nilly in response to the latest front line crisis. This has created numerous opportunities that the Russians have exploited, for example by attacking when a new unit is shuffled into line without adequate preparation, or by putting units with no communication channels next to one another, making coordinated response to Russian attacks almost impossible.

When you see reports of this brigade or that being in some place, it is often not an intact brigade, but just a few battalions (and sometimes only one) from that brigade. Meaning that Ukrainian lines are held by jumbles of units controlled (or pretended to be controlled) by generals in Kyiv with minimal operational awareness. It makes the (often exaggerated) Chateau Generalship of World War I look good by comparison.

The Ukrainian command has also exhibited at times a Hitleresque (or Stalinesque) tendency to demand that units fight to the last and not withdraw when caught in an untenable situation, leading to pointless casualties (including the loss of prisoners who are executed by the Russians). This is particularly disastrous when manpower is in precious short supply–as it is.

Ukraine’s only saving grace is that Russian command is even more incompetent. The difference is that Russia has the material resources to compensate for this incompetence. Ukraine does not.

Ukraine has also made some incomprehensible decisions on how to allocate its scarce resource. Most notably, despite the demonstrated effectiveness of the Russian prepared defenses (and in particular the use of heavy minefields) in stopping the much vaunted but failed Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023 (the Surovkin Line), time and again Ukraine has failed to fortify obvious targets of Russian offensives.

So as it is, Ukraine is barely hanging on. It’s not losing yet, but it certainly is not winning. And definitely not by Zelensky’s definition of victory: regaining all occupied Ukrainian territory. That is the pipe dream to end all pipe dreams.

Yet he insists on it.

The situation now is that both sides need an end to the fighting, but neither is willing to acknowledge it. Ukraine’s dire circumstances are evident, and although Russia’s aren’t quite so dire, they are bad, and the cost Russia is incurring is certainly not worth the possible gain–adding another string of shitholes to Putin’s collection. Eastern Ukraine was a shithole before Russia invaded: now it is a depopulated shithole buried under rubble.

And the economic consequences for Russia have been baleful. Speaking of rubble, that describes the ruble now: it is now worth less than a penny. Official Russian statistics tout the strength of the Russian economy, but it is a war economy. Shoveling massive resources to the military, to be blown up in Ukraine, props up GDP, but people don’t consume aggregates. The economic circumstances of Russians have degraded substantially in the past 1000 days, and will only degrade more every additional day the war goes on. The Portuguese living standards that Putin once promised are a bad joke now.

Neither side can achieve victory as they have defined it. Heretofore neither side has been willing to acknowledge that.

Trump has boasted that he will end the war. Given the intransigence of the parties, this boast seems unrealistic. But perhaps he can exploit the fact that neither side gains from continuing the war to to cobble together something resembling peace.

The most likely path: another frozen conflict in which Putin will get de facto control of what he has grabbed in the past two plus years.

The biggest obstacle to this outcome is Zelensky. I think he is genuinely dead set (emphasis on the dead) on driving the Russians from Ukrainian territory. But that is a delusion.

Zelensky, apparently not realizing that he who pays the piper calls the tune, has demanded that the west supply the resources to achieve his objective. For one thing, such resources don’t exist, and meeting even a fraction of Zelensky’s demands would denude the US’s already scanty stocks of missiles and shells. The US has more pressing concerns than eastern Europe: eastern Asia in particular. Moreover, the real binding constraint on Zelensky’s ambitions is not hardware but meatware. Ukraine has too few soldiers, a large fraction of its military-age population is unwilling to serve, and it is even more of a demographic basket case than Russia.

In brief, Zelensky played a vital role at the outset of the war, and his conduct then was exemplary. But it has quite clearly gone to his head, and he is now a delusional autocrat who is an existential threat to the people he claims to represent. Not to mention a military incompetent (as discussed above).

The establishments in the United States and Europe inveigh against a settlement that leaves Putin in control of even a sliver of Ukraine. They invoke the ghost of Munich, and claim that Putin will use the respite to rearm and will then set his sights on Nato’s eastern flank.

As if. If this war has shown anything, it has shown that Russia’s ability to project conventional military power beyond its borders is virtually non-existent. Further, the army that went into Ukraine was supposedly the product of serious reforms that addressed the flaws exposed in Georgia in 2008. In the event, it wasn’t. Given the systemic defects of the Russian system (of which corruption in the military is just one symptom) any future “reforms” are almost certain to be as tragicomic as the previous ones.

And how long would they take? Years. The establishments obsess on Putin, who is already 72. He will be well past his sell by date (especially by Russian male standards) by the time his allegedly reformed military will be capable of doing anything. And that is time that the Europeans can use to put on their big boy lederhosen and pantalons and create something other than Potemkin militaries that Putin (or more likely his successor) would be unwilling to confront.

That is, deterrence of Russia is completely in European hands. And if they decide to forego it, that’s their choice and their problem.

So Trump has a chance to realize his boast by negotiating (a la Teddy Roosevelt perhaps) an outcome that satisfies no one. But war is politics by other means, and politics is the art of the possible. The dreams of Putin, Zelensky, and the establishment are impossible. If Trump can get them to accept that, an imperfect peace is possible. And an imperfect peace is far preferable to the current nightmare.

The biggest challenge to achieving this is making it clear to Putin that he cannot prevail. Abandoning Ukraine altogether now would undermine that. So, rhetoric and I think genuine belief notwithstanding, to get his peace Trump will have to hold his nose and continue to fund Ukraine to some extent. The delicate balance to be found is between providing enough support to persuade Putin that continuing the war is futile, but not so much as to refill Zelensky’s pipe of dreams.

The acts of the dying Biden administration are certainly no help. The road to a settlement is torturous enough as it is without its malign actions.

Give Trump a chance. The odds are against him, given the characters involved in the conflict. But the Biden administration seems hell bent on stacking the odds against him and denying him–and hence those dying in Ukraine–that chance.

Ukraine has shocked Russia–and to some extent the world–with a bold incursion into the Kursk Oblast of Russia proper. The Ukrainians have penetrated many kilometers into Russia, captured numerous prisoners, devastated several convoys of troops dispatched to stem the Ukrainian attack, and stirred up enough confusion to cause several Russian friendly fire episodes.

The Ukrainians adopted the Wee Willie Keeler strategy–hit ’em where they ain’t. This contrasts with the Russian strategy: hit ’em where they are; with your face; repeatedly. (Last year’s abortive Ukrainian counteroffensive was an example of them hitting ’em where they were. Apparently they’ve learned better).

The Ukrainian attack (of indeterminate strength, due to rather effective operational security) penetrated a stretch of the Russian border manned with neglected border troops (many of whom were underfed and who had not bathed for extended periods) and Chechen TikTok warriors. They advanced quickly, seized important roads, crossroads, and settlements. They have also sent out raiding parties to hit and run many kilometers in advance of the positions that they have secured and are preparing to hold.

Of course this surprising and humiliating development has led to bitter recriminations and searches for scapegoats in Russia. The FSB claims that it warned Gerasimov and the Russian general staff of a Ukrainian buildup on the latter’s side of the border, but Gerasimov et al ignored their warnings.

Historically, almost every major military surprise was preceded by warnings and substantial intelligence that in retrospect foretold what occurred. It’s all in the interpretation of that information by the decision makers in advance that matters.

Soon after the Russian offensive aimed at Kharkiv bogged down, the Ukrainians and the YouTube and Telegram channels that are often conduits for Ukrainian information operations warned that Russia was amassing forces in the Kursk region for a potential attack on the Sumy Oblast in Ukraine. It is uncertain whether such a buildup was actually taking place, but in many respects that is irrelevant. If Gerasimov et al took the Ukrainian warnings at face value they would have interpreted the Ukrainian concentration in Sumy as a preemptive defensive response rather than the harbinger of an invasion. Indeed, they would have considered this good news.

It would be particularly amusing if Russia had been running an influence operation threatening the opening of a new front in Sumy in order to draw Ukrainian troops to the area and away from where Russia really wanted to attack. In that case, Gerasimov would have rubbed his hands in glee at when the FSB delivered news of the Ukrainian move: “Our plan is working!!!”

It may be that Ukraine had initially moved troops north based on a belief of Russian action in Sumy, learned that it was at most a feint and that there were really no serious Russian forces in the area, and decided to flip the board and use the troops moved for defensive purposes for an offensive into a vacuum.

In other words, who psyched out whom here is not clear. It is quite possible that the Russians psyched themselves out in a too clever by half attempt to psych out the Ukrainians. Note that Gerasimov’s pre-war reputation for genius was based on his alleged mastery of such deception operations. (Remember the “Little Green Men”?)

Regardless, Russia is clearly on the back foot here and scrambling to recover.

The Ukrainian operational objectives are unclear, are probably multifaceted, and likely will adjust depending on how the battle goes. One objective could be to disrupt Russian logistics further by interdicting a rail line that supplies the main Russian advances further south: Ukraine has been waging a steady drone and missile campaign against Russian logistics (including notably at air bases) and the Kursk incursion would fit into that broader campaign. Another natural one would be to cause a diversion of Russian forces from Donetsk and Luhansk. Delivering a political embarrassment to Putin would be another worthy goal.

How much further will Ukraine go? I doubt very far. Expanding the breakthrough would require many more forces and create severe logistical strains for the Ukrainians themselves. How long will they stay? That depends on the Russian response and how Ukraine deals with it.

It seems that initially that the Russian reaction is helter skelter, sending random collections of units (sometimes stray platoons) forward piecemeal. This has exposed them to being defeated in details by fires (drones and artillery), often while strung out on the road. If the Russians continue to do this, the Ukrainians can stay a rather long time: if they come on the same old style, the Ukrainians will meet them in the same old style.

The smarter thing for the Russians to do would be to amass forces carefully and systematically relatively far back from the Ukrainian front line, and then attack simultaneously on multiple axes. But the Russians haven’t shown the ability to do anything smart so far. Nor have they demonstrated the ability to engage in operational maneuvers with multiple units over a broad front: their recent offensive batterings in Donetsk and Luhansk have been almost exclusively piecemeal attacks of platoon sized units on the same, single axis, day after day. Moreover, the humiliation of this incursion and Putin’s frustration strongly push the Russians to a frantic, extemporized response. And if the Russians do the smart, it will take some considerable time, which the Ukrainians can draw out with continued attacks on logistics.

So either way, I expect Ukraine to be camping out in Kursk well into the autumn.

One other amusing aspect of this episode is the Russian hysterical demands that the international community condemn this violation of sacred Russian territorial sovereignty. “MOM! NO FAIR! UKRAINE HIT ME BACK!”

Cry me a river, Vova. Have have fun in the Second Battle of Kursk. I don’t think it will turn out as well for you as the first one did for Stalin.

As I noted in a previous post, the Biden administration has tried to restrain Ukraine from attacking Russian oil refineries. The previous reason, as set forth by SecDef Lloyd “AWOL” Austin, was that these attacks would disrupt world energy markets.

Translation: these attacks would increase gasoline prices which scares the bejesus out of an inflation-battered administration in an election year.

But apparently the administration decided that wasn’t a very good look. Too obviously self-serving, and perhaps too dissonant with its the-war-in-Ukraine-is-a-vital-US-national-interest one.

So, would you believe, the administration is REALLY concerned on humanitarian, just war grounds:

Assistant Secretary of Defense C. Wallander says Russia has been destroying Ukraine’s energy system since the start of the war, but Ukraine shouldn’t strike back:

“Ukraine must comply with high standards of warfare, it’s part of European democracy”

??? pic.twitter.com/bKZKR4FyFQ

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 11, 2024

Nah, we wouldn’t believe that, actually. Especially since this oh-so high minded critique of Ukrainian military tactics has heretofore been completely absent from American policy makers’ discourses. It’s obviously a lie to cover the election-obsessed administration’s true motivations. That is, AWOL Austin committed the Kinseyan gaffe of speaking the truth, and this gaffe had to be cleaned up.

This justification is also utterly ridiculous on myriad grounds. For one thing, as Rep. Scott pointed out, why should Ukraine fight asymmetrically, but in a bad way, taking blow after blow to its civilian targets but not striking back. For another, oil refineries are a legitimate military target, given (a) Russia’s armies in Ukraine run on the fuel they produce, (b) fuel exports are a material source of revenue for the Russian government, and (c) the Kremlin is clearly concerned about higher fuel prices, and the potential effect they would have on support for the war.

For yet another, in military conflicts in the modern age the United States has made attacking enemy energy assets a primary target. In WWII, the most effective element of the strategic bombing offensive (and one that probably should have been introduced earlier) was the attacks on Germany synthetic fuel production. (The attacks on the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania in 1943 less successful, but the April-August 1944 attacks did materially restrict fuel supplies to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe). In Gulf War I, one of the first targets of American air strikes (after Iraqi air defenses were dismantled in the first wave) were Iraqi electric power plants, which were attacked with graphite bombs. Soon after, the US turned its attention to, yes, Iraqi oil refineries. In 1999 the US unleashed graphite bombs on Serbian power plants.

The US, in other words, has long recognized the strategic importance of enemy energy production, and has made it a priority target. So why shouldn’t Ukraine?

And note that given the previous history, Wallender is implicitly accusing the United States of violating the laws of armed conflict.

It’s actually quite disgusting that the administration covers its nakedly political motivations with high sounding blather about “the laws of armed conflict” and the “standards of European democracy.” Maxwell Smart was funny. These clowns are not.

Yesterday was Groundhog Day, and the classic movie by that name is an apt metaphor for the war in Ukraine. Different day, same bad shit, day after day after day.

Defense Minister and all around shlub Sergei Shoigu proudly claims that Russia has the initiative. Yeah, I guess you could say that, because they are the ones attacking repeatedly all along the front. But seizing the initiative yields them nothing but piles of corpses (disproportionately Russian) and masses of demolished tanks and AFVs (almost all Russian). It certainly does not yield them gains on the ground, at least not gains measured in more than meters, and a tree line or field here or there.

Russian tactics, such as they are, beggar description. Day after day they send penny packets of armored vehicles in strung out along some muddy track, only to see them centimated (decimated means losing one out of ten, so I made up a more accurate word). The armor seldom makes contact before it is blown up. What progress the Russians do make is with bloody infantry assaults that take slivers of ground, often because the Ukrainians run out of ammunition. Sometimes those slivers are taken away in counterattacks.

Decisive action by armor requires it to be deployed in mass. Sending a platoon here and a platoon there is idiotic and cannot achieve anything, let alone a decisive breakthrough.

To give an idea of how farcical this all is, in a rare Russian advance measuring more than a kilometer (in southern Avdiivka) they tunneled under a Ukrainian strongpoint, popped out of the ground, and seized it. As a result, Russia obtained a long finger of territory, under fire control and at constant threat of attack on either or both sides of the bulge.

What, is Russia going to tunnel its way to Kiev, let alone Lviv or Odessa?

Most of the Russian vehicle casualties are now caused by drones, especially First Person Video (FPV) drones (you don’t hear much about Bayraktars anymore), rather than artillery. That’s because the Ukrainians are suffering from a severe shell shortage. Western stocks and production cannot keep pace with the prodigious consumption of ammunition in a static battle.

Videos tell the tale. Back in the summer many videos (taken from drones) depicted Russians being plastered with artillery, and cluster munitions in particular. One seldom sees those now. Instead, it is video after video of FPVs smashing into Russian armor: some from the attacking FPVs themselves, some from recon drones loitering overhead.

Ukraine’s vaunted summer offensive, which was worse than a damp squib, was stymied primarily as a result of deep Russian prepared defense lines, including dense mine belts. Apparently after eschewing constructing such defenses themselves, Ukraine is belatedly doing so. (The fraught situation around Avdiivka largely reflects the lack of prepared defenses in that salient.)

Ukraine apparently took a similar attitude to the French and British in WWI, whereas the Russians adopted the German approach. The Germans built massive, semi-permanent fortifications in the lands they captured in France and Belgium: one of the few interesting parts of the otherwise vastly overrated film 1917 was the depiction of the elaborate German trenches and bunkers that they abandoned when withdrawing to the Hindenberg Line, and which amazed the Tommys who stumbled into them. The Tommys were amazed because their trenches (and French ones too) were much less elaborate, and much more in the nature of temporary field fortifications than permanent positions (like the Germans’). This was a conscious choice by the Allies, and in particular the French, who reasoned (if you can use that word here) that building more permanent defenses would be seen as a concession to German occupation of French lands, demarcating a new border. The trenches were just launching points for offensives–that failed.

Ukraine’s failure to build up lines analogous to the Russian Sorovikin Lines (three deep) is evidently due to the same “reasoning.” Building them would establish a de facto border.

The reconsideration of more elaborate defensive lines is just one reflection of a command crisis in Ukraine. The failed offensive and the recognition that the war is likely to drag on for years is creating consternation in Kiev, and one manifestation of this is the falling out between Zelensky and Ukrainian military chief Valery Zaluzhny. Zelensky is trying to push Zaluzhny out, but the general says: I won’t quit, you have to fire me. Given Zaluzhny’s popularity, that’s risky for Zelensky to do–although truth be told Zaluzhny’s popularity is probably the main reason Zelensky wants him gone.

Zaluzhny’s fate was sealed last year in articles quoting him criticizing Zelensky and the Ukrainian strategy overall. Doubling down, yesterday he released an article calling for a complete revision of Ukrainian strategy.

So all is not happy in Kiev, but it shouldn’t be smiles and giggles in Moscow either because if anything Putin’s strategy and tactics are failing even worse than Ukraine’s. But Vlad appears drunk on delusions, this week saying that his objective was to advance the front sufficiently to put Russian-occupied territory out of range of Western-supplied long range weaponry. Beyond the fact that this logic implies that Russia would have to occupy all of western Europe (including the UK!) because more territory would be required to create a buffer for the new territory (wash, rinse, repeat), this reflects a complete failure to recognize the realities on the ground, where Russians cannot take and hold meters here and there, let alone tens or hundreds of kilometers along a 1000 kilometer front.

The one area in which Ukraine has achieved some success is in deep strikes by drones and Western weapons (e.g., Scalp missiles, HIMARs). And by deep, I mean well inside Russia, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities. These strikes have hit air bases and economic targets, most notably arms manufacturing facilities, ports, and oil assets.

Crimea has been hit the hardest. The Black Sea Fleet has been driven away to Novorossiysk after losing several ships in Sevastopol. Russian air bases and command centers on the peninsula have also been hammered.

Fascinatingly, high ranking Russians, including the commander of the Black Sea Fleet and even the head of the Stavka, Valery Gerasimov, have not bee seen since attacks on Sevastopol, leading to suspicions that they were killed or badly wounded in the strikes. Hell, Lloyd Austin reappeared after a couple of weeks. Gerasimov has been MIA for 35 days. Where’s Valery?

The success of these strikes lays bare the Potemkin nature of Russian air defenses, including their vaunted S-400 systems. Indeed, the Ukrainians have taken out many of these systems: SAMs, defend thyself!

The Russians claim to shoot down everything shot at them. I mean everything. So why the explosions and destruction of valuable assets? Well, you see, the missiles and drones their valiant air defenses down hit the targets while plummeting to earth. Like this one that started massive fires at a Lukoil facility:

A major Russian oil refinery was in flames overnight after a downed drone triggered a blaze https://t.co/dACBVyBCsL

— Bloomberg (@business) February 3, 2024

Dizzy with success! Or should it be on fire with success?

The failure of Russian air defenses should not be surprise. Soviet and Russian built AA systems have been shredded every time they have been confronted since their initial successes (due largely to surprise) in North Vietnam in the late-60s and early-70s, and Egypt (in 1973). After the shock of their losses to these systems in those wars, the Americans and Israelis designed and implemented comprehensive suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD–which really means DEAD, for destruction of enemy air defenses) operations. Dismantling of Russian air defenses is therefore not unexpected, although it is shocking to see how Ukraine has been able to extemporize a successful SEAD strategy with such scant resources, especially as compared to the US and Israel.

The chain reaction effects have been fascinating to watch. Ukrainian destruction of Russian ground based radars required them to fly their version of AWACs (the A-50) close to the shores of the Sea of Azov–which happened to be in range of Ukrainian operated Patriots, which destroyed the A-50 and seriously damaged its companion aircraft, an IL-22 (poor man’s version of an RC-135 Rivet Joint).

These deep strikes are damaging, and embarrassing to Russia. (Assuming Putin is capable of embarrassment, which on the basis of the record is a dubious proposition.) But they are not war winning.

Instead, they are just another vignette in Groundhog War.

I haven’t written much about this war because there’s seldom little new to say. I have every expectation that there will be another long hiatus, because there’s nothing in prospect that will decisively alter the situation.

So here we are, and here we will stay.

The war in Ukraine grinds on with no appreciable movement on either side–except in the body counts.

The conflict is often compared to World War I, but this is in some respects unfair to World War I. Territorial gains on both sides are measured in meters–when there is any progress at all. Even catastrophic assaults like the Second and Third Battles of Artois in 1915 saw the French advance a few miles.

The most extreme current example is the sustained Russian assault on Avdiivka. Day after day for more than a month the Russians have mounted attacks on the three fronts of the Ukrainian salient enclosing the town. And day after day their attacks are repelled with massive losses. Many times the assaulting troops do not even make it to the contact line, being smashed by Ukrainian artillery and drones as they move to contact.

At most the Russians take a field or two here, a tree line there.

The Ukrainian experience to the south, around Verbotene, is much the same. The Ukrainians made some decent (albeit slow) progress there during the summer, creating a modest bulge in the Russian positions, and here and there breaching Russian minefields and fortifications. But for months the two sides have fought to a standstill, exchanging fields and tree lines here and there.

Moreover, in each location the attackers at first attempted armored assaults, only to suffer massive tank losses from mines, artillery, and drones. Consequently, each now mounts small infantry assaults. In Avdiivka, the Russian AFVs drop off their mounted infantry a couple of kilometers from the front. The soldiers slog forward and then throw themselves into frontal assaults.

You can find lots of video of the results on Telegram. It is not pleasant viewing.

And if these infantry assaults succeed breaching enemy lines? Nothing will change. Just as in WWI, infantry cannot exploit a penetration by infantry. The “successful” attackers are worn out and often combat ineffective due to heavy losses. Even if they were capable of moving forward, or reserves could be rushed into the breach (something neither side has proved able to do) the defenders can withdraw and regroup faster than the attackers can advance. Meaning that a “breakthrough” just moves the stalemate a kilometer or two. Absent the ability to exploit with armor–and crucially, without the logistics to support armored exploitation–decisive advances are impossible.

The stasis of the battlefield is in large part due to the inability of either side to achieve air superiority. In Ukraine, air superiority does not refer to manned fixed wing aircraft or helicopters, but drones. Both sides are able to operate drones for both reconnaissance and attack with relative impunity. This is a major reason (mines being another) for the impotence of armored forces.

The only front holding out the prospect for maneuver is in the south, on the left bank of the Dnieper/Dnipro River near Kherson. Unlike on the remainder of the front, here Russia did not create deep lines of entrenchments, and its forces are spread relatively thin. But an advance here would require Ukraine to send large amounts of supplies over a wide river, and it is doubtful that it is capable of doing this. (Its logistic capabilities to support a deep drive are suspect generally, even without the necessity of bridging a wide river, and defending the bridges.)

The Ukrainian government and its Western supporters claim that if it only had more weapons, it could drive out the Russians. Given the trivial incremental effect of the offensive weapons already supplied, this is to be seriously doubted.

The real constraint on Ukraine now is manpower, not equipment. It started at a severe manpower disadvantage, exacerbated by the emigration of many military aged men, evasion of conscription, and lukewarm volunteering. In contrast, Russia has proved able to replace its ravaged ranks by hook and crook, even without resorting to a formal nationwide mobilization. Even at an inflated exchange ratio, this meat swap is a contest that Ukraine cannot win.

That said, there is no real prospect for peace because Zelensky and many others in Ukraine are still wedded to the idea of driving Russia out of Ukraine altogether, and Putin is perfectly willing to pay the exchange rate for as long as it takes to out wait Ukraine.

Israel stupidly hit pause in the other war, in Gaza, apparently bowing to U.S. pressure. The pressure was stupid, and bowing to it was too. Israel was making steady progress at extirpating Hamas and digging up–literally–its military infrastructure.

The deal it made with Hamas takes off the pressure on the terrorist organization. Moreover, the terms of the deal, in which Israel releases more prisoners than Hamas does hostages only encourages future hostage taking. This is utterly insane.

The fecklessness of Biden and his administration exceeds even what I had expected–which is saying something. The only American hostage released so far is . . . wait for it . . . a relative of one of the connoisseurs of Hunter’s art. I mean you cannot make this shit up. And it demonstrates that the administration calculates that it will pay no political price.

The proper response to the taking of American hostages should have been reboot of “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” The Hamas “leadership” livin’ large in Qatar (apparently on large stacks totaling billions) should have been told: all our hostages alive, or you dead.

But noooooo. Indeed, that’s not even the worst example of his cravenness. Yesterday, he abjectly apologized to five (unnamed) Muslim heavyweights for questioning whether Gazan “authorities'” (AKA Hamas stooges’) casualty figures are accurate.

Joe is disappointed in himself. Aren’t we all. Aren’t we all.

He “promises to do better.” Even though the bar is very low indeed, I’m taking the under on that one. It’s always the sure bet with Biden.

War is always grim. These wars are even grimmer than most. They will be long running attractions, with no constructive results.

Elon Musk is taking a lot of heat from the Ukraine Amen Corner over his decision not to extend Starlink internet service to cover Crimea–Sevastopol in particular–because of fears that Ukraine would launch an attack on the Russian fleet based there, and this would spur a massive retaliation by Russia. Musk has claimed in particular that he feared the possibility of a nuclear retaliation.

There are conflicting stories. The one is that SpaceX turned off Starlink coverage to Crimea precisely when Ukrainian submersible drones were inbound. Denied navigational assistance and control provided by the satellites, the drones went stupid and the attack failed. The other–which Musk laid out himself on X–is that Starlink did not cover Crimea, the Ukrainians asked him to activate its coverage there, and he declined.

The second story is more plausible than the first. How would Musk know that an attack was on its way? And there has been no evidence of any such attack: in more recent drone strikes, the Russians have provided images of beached drones and video of drones being sunk by Russian gunfire.

The umbrage from the usual quarters–illustrated by the rant from Jake Tapper–is over the top, as is the response by Ukrainian official Mykhailo Podolyak: “By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities.”

For one thing, this assumes that the drone strike would have inflicted devastating damage on the fleet. Subsequent strikes (guided how?) have inflicted some damage, but have hardly posed a major threat to the striking power of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

For another, since when is an American company obligated to make its resources available to a foreign country to commit an act of war against a nation with which the US is not at war, and which has the world’s largest force of nukes to boot? Indeed, do we want CEOs making those kind of choices, given that especially when dealing with someone like Putin the target would immediately attribute responsibility to the United States? Such would be a major national security policy decision and should be made by those Constitutionally responsible–although given the current government, they may not be constitutionally fitted. But even given the dubious judgment of the current administration, it is they who should be making such decisions, not corporate CEOs.

If anything, it should go the other way. Companies should be prohibited from making such clearly belligerent moves on their own hook.

Indeed, note that US law requires approval of arms sales by US companies:

The FMS sales process begins when a country submits a formal Letter of Request (LOR). Ideally, this includes both a desired military capability, and a rough estimate of what the partner is able to spend.  Sales are approved following U.S. government review and, when required, after Congressional notification. After the sale is approved, the DSCA issues a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) specifying the defense articles, training, and support being offered for delivery.  Major FMS sales formally notified to Congress are publicly announced on the DSCA website

Providing an asset complementary to things that blow up–and which are indeed necessary for the use of the things that blow up even if they don’t blow up themselves, as Starlink supposedly was in this instance–should be subject to the same strict scrutiny and approval.

And again ironies and idiocies abound here. Those who consistently condemn Putin as evil and perhaps irrational dismiss Musk’s concerns about nuclear retaliation. Those who routinely attack Musk’s actions–and his management of Twitter in particular–want to delegate war making decisions to him.

Elon making decisions about waging war on Putin. Yeah, nothing unpredictable or frightening about that, right?

It should also be noted that the United States has been extremely circumspect about supplying weapons that Ukraine could use to strike at Russian territory, and at Crimea. The hemming-and-hawing about F-16s is one example, as is the continued reluctance to supply long-range ATACMS missiles. Even approval of main battle tanks–which pose little threat to Russian territory proper–occurred only after much debate and indecision. And for years–even following Russia’s invasion of Donetsk in 2014–the US was incredibly stingy about providing even clearly defensive weapons (like ATGMs) to Ukraine.

Meaning that those who attack Musk for not facilitating Ukrainian offensive capability into Russian- and Russian-claimed territory should really direct their fire at the administration. It’s their call, not Musk’s, and they have been just as cautious–if not more–than Elon.

The utter ingratitude of Ukraine to Musk is truly astounding. He kept Starlink operational over Ukraine for months on his own tab, and it was vital to its military operations. Yet since he doesn’t cater to their every whim–even potentially very ill-considered ones that implicate the United States–they demonize him incessantly. I believe that if Musk was not so dependent on the US government generally, and the security state in particular (especially insofar as SpaceX is concerned) he would tell them to GFY.

I have been very critical of Musk on some things, more favorably disposed on others. Here is a case where he is clearly in the right.

So the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. How’s it going? Who knows?

Initial reports indicate that the Ukrainians have made advances measured in kilometers, but not tens of kilometers, in several areas along the long front. They have suffered losses in armor and of course personnel, but how much is hard to gauge. The Russians have crowed about inflicting large material losses, but showing the same damaged Leopard tank from several angles rather dilutes their boasts.

Regardless, this is hardly Guderian racing to the Channel coast, Patton rampaging from Normandy to Paris to Metz, or the USMC breaching Iraqi prepared defenses and reaching Kuwait City long ahead of schedule. But does that mean anything? Again, who knows?

For one thing, the above are exceptions rather than rules when it comes to offensives, so one should not benchmark Ukraine’s efforts against them. For another, it is still unknown whether this represents the main Ukrainian effort, or is instead probing attacks, or feints, or shaping operations, or initial grinding assaults intended to gnaw through prepared Russian defenses thereby opening gaps through which the main Ukrainian assault forces can pour into the Russian rear areas.

In preparation for the Ukrainian assault, the Russians have constructed multiple lines of defense, with the approaches heavily–and I mean heavily–mined. (Where’s Princess Diana???) Getting through the minefields is a major challenge, and the necessarily slow pace of doing so subjects the attacker to artillery bombardment and air strikes. So the going can expected to be tough, with high casualties.

One model that comes to mind is El Alamein. Rommel had entrenched along the Egyptian border, and sowed massive minefields. When Montgomery attacked, it was extremely slow going at first, with large casualties in personnel and armor. It took about 10 days for British (mainly ANZAC and South African, actually) infantry to clear pathways through the minefields through which British armor could eventually pass. During the 3 week battle, Montgomery shifted the weight of his advance from the right flank to the left and back again as one flank became bogged down. It was a long, slow process, but once the British had gnawed through the prepared defenses, at high cost, Rommel was forced to withdraw, thus beginning a race westwards through Libya and back to Tunisia.

The Normandy campaign is another. Weeks of bitter combat with Allied forces attempting to break through German lines, measuring progress in yards, if that, eventually resulting in breakout at St. Lo and a precipitous German withdrawal to the Seine and beyond.

Today, the Russians have some advantages the Germans lacked. In particular, they have an edge in the air, whereas the British did in 1942 and the Allies did in 1944: the breakout at St. Lo in Operation Cobra was made possible by a massive air bombardment that wrecked and stunned the already heavily attrited Panzer Lehr division–and also killed a lot of Americans hit by “shorts.” After being an non-factor during offensive operations, Russian attack helos have apparently been effective in the defense against the counter offensive. Russian fixed wing aviation has also made itself felt in contrast to its performance heretofore. Ukraine has no ability to execute the equivalent of a Cobra.

That said, German troops were far better than the Russians are–and maybe even the derided Italians in the desert were better than the mobiks currently absorbing blows.

The Ukrainians have advantages in night fighting capability, and that can be decisive. But it’s hard enough to breach minefields in the day, let alone at night. So the night fighting advantage can’t be decisive until the minefields have been breached and the Ukrainians can close with the Russian defenders–assuming, of course, that the Russians stand if the Ukrainians do make a breach or breaches and start running amok in the Russian rear.

So as of now, uncertainty reigns. Uncertainty regarding the Ukrainian operational plan (e.g., is this their main effort, or a shaping operation?) Uncertainty regarding what is actually transpiring on the battlefield. Uncertainty regarding the combat power and endurance of the contending forces.

The advantage of the offense is that it is only necessary to break through in one place to achieve a decisive victory–provided the attacker has highly mobile reserves to exploit a breakthrough and the defender doesn’t have the mobile reserves (and especially mobile reserves led the by likes of a von Manstein or a Model) to seal the breach. It remains to be seen whether the Ukrainians have the ability to break through, and more importantly, the force to exploit a breach if they do. Several Russian counterattacks have apparently been repulsed quite bloodily (wrecking an entire division in one instance), and based on prior performance and the attrition of the past months I seriously doubt whether they can execute a mobile defense if their lines are breached anywhere–or even if Putin will let them. The necessity of deploying over a very long front extending hundreds of kilometers combined with the pronounced lack of skill at combined arms mobile warfare suggests that a Ukrainian breach anywhere would be devastating to the Russians. But whether Ukraine can achieve that breach before culmination is a very open question.

So I predict that the race between Ukrainian counteroffensive and the Russian defense will be like how Wellington described Waterloo: “the nearest run thing you ever saw.”

After much hemming and hawing, too-ing and fro-ing, Germany has finally relented and agreed to the provision of German-built Leopard II tanks to Ukraine. Apparently the deal clincher was an American agreement to supply 30-odd M1A2 Abrams MBTs. These will join a modest number of Challenger IIs to be provided by the UK.

This is an important development, but not an earth shattering one as some on each side are saying. Some pro-Ukrainian western observers assert this will allow Ukraine to recapture all its lost territory-including Crimea-from Russia. On the other side, which includes the Russians and many right wing populists in the United States, this is the next step to Armageddon. As Trump put it: “today tanks, tomorrow nukes.”

Settle down, everybody. (A big ask, I know.)

Yes, these MBTs are far superior to anything Ukraine currently operates, and to anything in the Russian armory. On every crucial dimension, the western-supplied tanks are superior: firepower, protection (including protection of ammunition), cross country performance, gun accuracy, optics and fire control systems. Optics and fire control systems are especially important because it has been long known that in armored battles, he who shoots first almost always wins. Iraqi tankers found this out to their dismay (if they were lucky enough to be able to find out anything) in 1991 when their tanks began exploding from hits from M1s that they couldn’t even see. Although both the western and Russian tanks have improved in the decades since, the already yawning gap in performance demonstrated in 1991 has only increased over the years.

But quantity has a quality all its own, as Stalin was wont to say. And the fact is that the quantity of tanks being supplied Ukraine is modest. Given the inevitable attrition due to combat and breakdown, the approximately 300 tanks is about enough for one armored division for one big battle.

Consider the use of this type of force on the defense and offense.

On the defense, an armored force of this size and quality could stop Russian armored advances and launch devastating counterattacks–if they are located where the Russians choose to attack, or can get there in relatively short order.

Given the record of the last 11 plus months, moreover, it’s not clear that Ukraine needs this force to defeat a putative Putin armored attack. In February-March of last year, Russia proved singularly incapable of utilizing armor effectively in the offensive, and its tanks proved easy pickings for anti-tank guided missiles. This was in part to (as I wrote at the time) Russia’s incompetence at combined arms tactics: tanks without infantry are extremely vulnerable. Given the dross with which Russian formations are being reinforced with, and the lack of training they have received, their capabilities are almost certainly worse rather than better than a year ago.

Logistical failings also helped doom the Russians in early-2022. If anything, massive attrition in vehicles and the effect of HIMARS has worsened their logistics woes: due to HIMARS, the Russians are being forced to locate their supply dumps well to the rear, increasing the duration of vehicle trips (effectively reducing supply capacity) and increasing the vulnerability of supply convoys to attack by drones, air attack, artillery attack, infiltrators, partisans, what have you.

So although an impending Russian spring offensive is anticipated, there is no reason to believe it would fare any better than the last one, and considerable reason to believe it would fare worse, tanks or no tanks.

Insofar as offensive operations are concerned, yes, the western MBTs can provide a striking force that might break through Russian lines. But a decent-size force of modern tanks is likely a necessary but not sufficient condition for such an outcome.

Successful armored assaults often rely on surprise and indirectness rather than mere smashing power. Tanks deployed against a weakly held section of an enemy line are far more effective than those hitting strong prepared positions. Compare Ardennes (1940, 1944) to Kursk (1943) or even the Seelow Heights (where in April 1945 a massively superior Soviet armored force took horrific casualties to overcome prepared but weakly-held defenses).

Achieving such an outcome requires considerable operational skill and operational security. Recall the lengths to which the US went to conceal its shift of its armored striking force from fronting Kuwait to fronting Iraq some distance to the west in order to be on the Iraqi flank. (In the event, the Marines smashed through prepared defenses in Kuwait, but the point holds). In 1940 and 1944 the Germans were helped by overoptimistic French and then American/British assumptions which led them to leave the Ardennes weakly defended and to discount the possibility of German massing there. At Kursk, the preparations were too massive to be concealed, giving time for the Soviets to construct a defense in depth which ground down the German armored spearheads before they could achieve a decisive penetration and breakout. Subsequently the Soviets launched a massive armored counterattack–against weaker German forces on the flanks. The same thing happened at Stalingrad.

Recent Ukrainian successes suggest some skill at deception and operational security. They evidently duped the Russians into believing the main Ukrainian effort would be in the south but instead the attack started in the Kharkiv region–agains skeleton Russian forces.

But there’s no guarantee of achieving that again, and ironically, the very mass of a big tank force makes deception and operational security all the more difficult.

There’s also the issue of whether the Ukrainian army can carry out the combined armed tactics that are necessary to succeed in an armored strike against opposition. The large casualties they have suffered over the past 11 months has certainly weakened what combined arms skill they possessed prior to 24 February 2022.

Further, there is considerable room to question how deep a penetration Ukraine could achieve. Its logistical capabilities are also limited, and the tanks they are receiving are gluttonous consumers of fuel (especially the Abrams). It would also have to confront the inexorable logic that every kilometer of advance hurts the attacker’s logistics and helps the defender’s.

And with respect to logistics, tanks require considerable maintenance support to begin with, especially when they are on the move. The fact that Ukraine is receiving three different kinds of MBT, each requiring a separate support structure (which will be of suboptimal scales) means that a lower percentage of their tanks will be operating at any time than would be the case for an American division operating a single type of vehicle.

In sum, the new western tanks will help shift the balance in Ukraine’s favor, but are unlikely to do so in a decisive way. I doubt that they will shorten the war appreciably, especially since even though they will likely result in more Russian losses on the battlefield, such losses have clearly not persuaded Putin to consider giving up, especially on terms suitable to Ukraine. And any advances the tanks facilitate will only encourage Ukraine in its belief that it can restore its 2014 borders.

So my prediction is that the western MBTs will mainly shift the line of stalemate to the east. Perhaps a considerable distance, but not nearly the distance Ukraine desires.