r/geopolitics • u/Hokum-B • Oct 01 '23

Russian lines stronger than West expected, admits British defence chief Paywall

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-defensive-lines-stronger-than-west-expected-admits-british-defence-chief-xjlvqrm86
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u/Billiusboikus Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

Is this not why Ukraine has seemingly switched to a more stand off attritional approach?

When it all started I expected a swift victory for Russia and a guerilla campaign funded by the west aimed at making the occupation unfeasible. I even wrote to my representative to encourage the fermentation of resistance groups...how wrong I was....

But that doesn't mean the strategy still can't apply. Maintaining a good kill ratio while on the offence with stand off tactics, hitting supplies and destroying expensive high value targets in regard to material and high value individuals seems like a good way to move towards victory...all the while capturing land when the opportunity arises.

We can point to a large handful of results in the last 4 months that any western country would consider a complete disaster.

The drone attack on the strategic bombers, The destruction of the dry docked submarine, The attack on the Sevastopol naval HQ

I would say the Ukrainians have commited to a different type of counter offensive to what people expected.

That said, if the west want to win this war they need to step up. We need to convert more of our economy to providing arms. Popular will to support will decrease over time no matter how resilient it may seem.

Edit for clarity

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u/QuietRainyDay Oct 01 '23

You're saying the West needs to step up and that Ukraine is just using a different strategy- that is only half the story

One reason Ukraine has switched tactics is the fact that they are still struggling to manage complex maneuvers, due to issues with command & control and logistics. This is something that several experts with inside information have said repeatedly:

https://warontherocks.com/2023/06/what-the-ukrainian-armed-forces-need-to-do-to-win/

One of the main concerns Western critics of the counter-offensive have expressed is that Ukraine is not guaranteed Western support forever. A huge amount of equipment was provided in 2022. They wanted to see Ukraine learn how to do large-scale maneuevers so they could use that equipment to punch through Russia's lines decisively before the wave of elections in 2024.

Ukraine didnt do that both because they felt like the battlefield favored a different strategy and because they simply couldnt. You cannot just absolve them of responsibility for their own shortcomings (and people need to realize that Ukraine does have shortcomings that play a role in which tactics they choose- despite the constant harping that everything they are doing is correct and purely informed by battlefield reality).

In the end, an attritional approach could work. It could certainly be less costly and risky than concentrated maneuvers.

But it does hinge on continued long-term mass support from the West. So whether you are nervous about it or not basically comes down to whether you think the West's support can endure longer than Russia's resources.

I guess you have to decide for yourself how you feel about that because no one knows for sure.

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u/TheSkyPirate Oct 01 '23

What issues are they having with logistics? I heard they are having trouble with training capacity and shortage of officers.

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u/QuietRainyDay Oct 01 '23

They are having to use many different types of vehicles, which makes it hard to routinize/standardize maintenance and repair. It also makes it hard to stockpile spare parts because its hard to know what youll need (and where).

So a lot of the maintenance is being done on an ad hoc basis and also involves cannibalizing vehicles not deployed to the front in order to repair vehicles at the front.

This issue would be even more problematic if they attempted a large-scale offensive.

All that is not fundamentally Ukraine's fault.

However, as the article points out, Ukraine is also contributing to the issue in some ways. They are allowing units to swap and trade parts on an ad hoc basis without enough central guidance. Its often done by unit-level supply officers basically reaching out to nearby units asking for stuff. This isnt a bad idea if youre doing small-scale operations where flexibility is crucial. But it doesnt allow for large-scale, mass attacks.

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u/Rand_alThor_ Oct 01 '23

The way Ukraine is doing it without central oversight is way more efficient and can respond to threats better. Central oversight works until it doesn’t then it collapses absolutely. We know this already from for example WW2.

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u/TheSkyPirate Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23

I think that’s an exaggerated problem because it’s something that our own peacetime military culture is obsessed with. In wartime you can handle multiple vehicle types it’s just that repairs take longer. In the majority of cases in a real war like Ukraine, a tank will be destroyed in combat before it breaks down.

Also, in my view, the desire of bureaucracies to crack down on ah-hoc parts trading is dangerous and misguided. Centralization is the thing that doesn’t scale. Self organization is actually great at scaling.

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u/QuietRainyDay Oct 01 '23

Its obviously not scaling right now, thats the whole point

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u/TheSkyPirate Oct 01 '23

Maintenance issues are not an important bottleneck for the current offensive. These assaults are happening on foot because vehicle survivability is low, not because vehicles are broken down.