All,
To my audience of perhaps 1 or 2, sorry for the delay in posting.
First, was off by a couple days. My zero clock ran o a couple days prior.
No one is perfect.
So what do I think?
Well, and I'm going to take some shots here.
I think The Russians are having to deal with something the United States dealt with in 2003.
The United States built up a massive military presence outside of Iraq, with the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The intelligence rot was pretty bad. Politically driven and rotten
When I say bad, I mean that politics corrupted intelligence.
That is pretty clear.
And the United States has pretty much said "meh" to that.
But everyone knows that intelligence was tailored to fit a political narrative.
When U.S forces arrived in Iraq. Everyone was looking for WMD.
They got more and more frustrated when they could not find any.
Because they where told it was there. The thing is that WMD is a thing
For Russia, they have been told that Ukraine is full of Nazi's.
This has a profound cultural resonance with most Russians.
May Day celebrations with the victory of Nazis is a huge thing.
Its a national party
I'm not going to claim correct numbers here, but the Russians lost lots and lots of people in WW2.
And to be honest much of those losses are on Russian leadership at the time.
But either way they served up the ground meat that bled to a certain degree the German military
How did they do that?
Well they had numbers.
Way more numbers then the Germans did.
They could afford to give one man bullets and another a gun. One would die and the bullet and gun would be mated .
And yes this was a true tactic in world war 2 for the Russians
In this blog I have been , what's the word, complementary of Russian naval forces and their air forces.
Those branches of the Russian Military whom appear to have been pretty functional in Syria and Iraq. And the elements of the Russian Army whom where there as well.
But I want to to caveat something.
I admire how the Russian navy has produced lethal and modern small to mid size and large ships with demonstrative lethality.
I also want to commend the way the Russian military has seemingly been able to coordinate operations at a high level across the vast spaces of Russia. Remember that those with the "Z" come from essentially Siberia
So high level coordination of Russian Military might is great.
Now to the "others".
When they get frustrated, they blow things up
Without regard to civilians, and in some regards killing them on purpose
The Russian military may have fixed upper echelon issues,
but on a tactical squad level and up to division level (I'm thinking 1 star ) they have failed.
This is because the Russian Army is a Hulk Smash organization.
While the generals in the russian army may be well educated their subordinates are not
Further to make it to senior ranks, you need to have patronage.
So you have what we will call O-5 to higher whom are patronage driven.
They want to tell the bosses what they want to hear, or loose the dacha outside Moscow, their lives or both
Russian O-4 trying to make it to patronage positions.
And deathly afraid to tell prospective patrons that the units they lead are not combat effective
Its gets worse before it gets better.
Russian O1-O3 are maybe well trained but not effective. They need permission to do anything from higher. In fact they are the technical experts.
They serve the role as what out E-5 to E-7 would do in western militaries . They can read and write. And can fix stuff. The Russian E-5 to E-7 might not be able to read or write and they have a hard time fixing things
Spoiler. Less O-1 to O-3 than E-5 to E-7
So what do the Russian E-5 to E-7 do?
They administer physical punishment to keep conscript forces in line.
Quality of life for junior enlisted conscripts is horrible.
Really bad. Sexual Assaults' Rape, poor food (good stuff stolen by superiors - or expired) lack of basic hygiene are pretty common and expected.
Your going to get a case of PTSD serving as a conscript in the Russian military. Just how bad.
They do not have the luxury of advanced leadership training. And most of the time have a hard time with that. They are not loved or respected by the soldiers.
So how does all of the above impact what we are seeing in Ukraine
There is no command and control.
You are seeing 17-21 year old conscripts lead by non experienced E5- E-7 whom are used to being violent with their soldiers.
These 17-21 year old soldiers come from the minorities of Russia.
Think U.S military Vietnam. If you have money, you can slip an official money and your son can avoid the draft. Or give them a perhaps legit medical issue, or a university waiver.
So the Russian 17-21 years old's are the poor, least educated in Russia.
This group of people likely has not grown up with running water or indoor toilets.
I am not shaming Russia, but that is the reality when you get outside the major cities.
Exactly the type you want to hand a T-72 or other advanced equipment to in a war zone
And by the way that same group has been fed propaganda. And they know nothing else.
These 17-21 soldiers whom have been told Nazis are everywhere in Ukraine.
And trying to find these Nazi's, much like US soldiers trying to find WMD.
And realize that given logistics and comms issues these 17-21 year olds are only talking and getting orders from abusive E-5 / E-7, and the competent O-1 to O-3 are not there.
So what we are seeing here is Russia attempting a hulk smash approach to Ukraine. - And failing. And frustrated Why?
The problem they are facing is something no one talks about
The US National Guard.
Nope they are not there now
But they have been for about a decade.
Professionalizing both the NCO's E-5-E-7 and the O-1 to O-3 as well as teaching the senior officers to trust subordinates and think outside the box.
This means your E-5 and above are capable of thinking and acting without higher approval.
to be tactically nimble. When they have the right weapons.
So what we are witnessing is this.
Ukraine is fighting on home turf. The U.S has trained their military to be agile swift and nimble.
I will not credit the national guard for the outcome so far. As a coach can coach but its up to the player and team to put it into practice.
But what you are seeing is a decentralized trust based organization - Ukraine successfully taking on a top down orders driven one- so far
