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He's so close, yet the real insight eludes him.
The way Ukraine makes use of military equipment with briefly-trained men and reservists is the greatest threat to our 'standing army' bureaucracies since the end of the Cold War.
They hold the Russian Air Force at bay with almost nothing, neutralised the Black Sea Fleet without using a single ship or submarine to do so, their personnel needs only weeks to learn making good use of Western AFVs and artillery pieces.
They're showing that there's no need to have huge standing armies in which lots of enlisted men (and women) serve for more than two years, and many officers have careers beyond the rank of major.
The armed bureaucracy's self-interest is to be big, have much prestige in society, have much money to spend, play with toys. A proper reserve army's concept is to have equipment mostly stored away, much money spent on munitions in climate-controlled storage, brief training up to lieutenant rank, very few officers above lieutenant rank with great training, administrative stuff done with civilian skills. It's no fun for those who hold power in armed bureaucracies and ministries of defence.
The way Ukraine fights is an almost mortal danger to our armed bureaucracies. It disproves its supposedly self-evident myths. Myths that are integral, indispensable to pursuit of their self-interest.
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Is it possible that others learn from Ukraine, Russia for example, and our forces are in for a nasty surprise in a few decades?
ReplyDeleteThe West can learning a lot of lessons about warfare in the 2020s and beyond if we pay attention. They are lessons that are costing us money and materiel, but the Ukrainians are paying the blood price. The Taiwanese may be paying close attention, too.
ReplyDeleteWestern military bureaucracy is pretty rigid, but it would seem to be very flexible compared to some others (Russia, India, China). That gives some faint hope.
An old lesson still applies: Experts talk logistics. We need to ramp up production of almost everything and yes, while it is expensive to have to keep recycling munitions that have reached their "best-by" date, it is far more expensive to lose a war because one ran out of shells, rockets, and artillery pieces.
I think it also shows the importance of motivation.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of our society isn't motivated.
And for that, our politicians have a lot to answer for, with constant lies and weak spines.
I don't mind my country buying the f35, etc.
Yes the Ukraine war is the best argument for bringing back conscription and stopping the dumb "professionalization" programs.
ReplyDeleteNo, only countries bordering on RU, PRC or DPRK without a strong alliance have a good reason to force innocent young men into forced labour.
DeleteI really want to believe that we can manage better the funds allocated to defense and cut off those ''professional'' armies that seem to cost more and more ande to shrink every year in capabilites. It's quite clear that even European big states can't just be little copies of the US forces as the States are in an total hegemon and totally mad MIC phase right now and will get even worse.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that all the Ukrainian lessons are based on totally ineficient and corrupted Russian armed forces actuation, with a lot of Potemkim Villages and in command and control and logistics. Even the famed Russian artillery seems to pale compared to Soviet times. So we can reduce the standing armies, prepare reserves, spare parts and a lot of ammo but Russia can modernize and get really ready for a quick and massive invasion during the next generation, if the country survives internal problems. I don't think there is really a 100% good solution, but the actual state of things have to change, that's clear. Not only the euro countries have small ineficiente armies for what is really important: national defense, but they have not matériel and spare parts reserves to arm those who are fighting...
Russia is finished in regard to economy. They had little more than raw materials exports, and they crashed their markets for these. They cannot produce many things that they need, so investment and reinvestment will be too small due to inability to get the investment goods from abroad.
DeleteThey're not going to recover anytime soon and by the time they do we'll probably have drone armies anyway.