One of the features of Russian military thinking is how much it is geared to fighting on broad, open plains, with water-obstacles but not much in the way of topographic relief. This makes warfare like chess: both sides can see the disposition of the other's forces: everything starts with silently glaring across the table, wondering what's to be the first move**. As in any military planning, surprise is helpful: but it can be quite difficult to engineer it. Russia produces a lot of very good chess players.
[Contrast this with Western military thinking and practice, based as it is on the hilly, and highly-populated topographies of western Europe and the USA. Forests, towns, and above all hills, are generally available to make the enemy's task of figuring out what you are up to, just a bit more difficult. Reconnaissance is often thought of in terms of what's happening on the the other side of the hill. Wellington made a career out of conjuring up nasty surprises for his opponent using high ground to mask his manoeuvres (see his masterpiece at Salamanca, and most famously at Waterloo).]
With the steppes-based Russian thinking we've just rehearsed in mind: what did Soviet doctrine dictate for mounting a large-scale offensive? The answer (see the Battle of Kursk) included any amount of preparation, intelligence gathering, secrecy, deception, bluff and disinformation, plus (importantly) the use of depth, which Russia has in abundance. In very concrete terms, the later flowering of Soviet doctrine brought this all together in the concept of the operational manoeuvre group ('OMG', indeed!), a powerful, mobile ad hoc formation assembled just behind the front echelon in great secrecy so that it would not feature (qua identified formation) in the enemy's assessment of the Russian order of battle, and would emerge, suddenly and "from nowhere", to wreak havoc on the battlefield.
What's this got to do with 3rd Feb 2023? Most commentators have been saying for a month or so now that Russia is likely to make a big new offensive soon - and 'soon' might be in time for the anniversary of Putin's lunatic "come-as-you-are, all over in 3 days" foray last year. Just yesterday, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media ordered the switching-off of all mobile phone comms in the Donbas. (We know that Russian forces have been dependent on mobiles from the very start, Putin's hasty attack not bothering with the traditional matter of ensuring secure comms as part of the package.) Now, comms falling silent is the classic signifier of an OMG being formed: all those big NATO air-recce sweeps of the Ukrainian theatre (there are 4 concurrently airborne as I write) are looking all the time for a 'nothingness of comms', inter alia. They've probably just found one.
Thing is, Ukraine knows all this stuff, too (and probably practices it); and it really is all a bit more difficult with modern recce techniques. Not least, the 'surprises from the depth' aspect becomes less of an element. We await the first chess-move with trepidation.
ND
_________
** Negotiations in Russia are like this, too. Long, long silences, punctuated by outbursts intended to disorient.
37 comments:
Be interesting to see what they've dreamt up. Maybe everything that has come out so far has been bluff, and rather than drunken, poorly equipped mobiks, Russia is bringing forth competent, well equipped, well drilled troops. Or maybe Putin hasn't spotted his back row is mostly pawns too.
You only find out after the event.
Same with the Armata vehicles they're apparently bringing to the fore, a testament to Russian arrogance - not only determined to prove the West wrong on X engines, but designed so putting in Y shaped ones should the X ones fail requires a wizard or two.
They'll either impress, or Ukrainian farmers will have an exciting new crop to sell to the US when they break down without a Kwikfitski fitter in sight.
Personally I think the Ukrainians will fall back, Russia moves forward to much fanfare in Moscow, and by March most of the Russian victories will end up being reversed and we'll be back to territorial map of today and Putin wondering if the Ukrainians would prefer a game of Buckeroo.
It does have the original post, from Nick, feel to it.
That this is The Winter War. Where Russia, expecting a very quick victory over the the Finns, made every mistake and blunder, basic military error and strategic misstep that they could have. And were very badly mauled in the first months,
This feels like phase 2. Where the Soviets executed all their poor performing and corrupt senior officers. Reinforced the armies with new, or refurbished equipment. Ensured the Commissars understood it was victory or death. No matter the casualties. And copied the lessons that the Finns had taught them. And came back with an offensive with huge amounts of artillery and fresh, better led, conscripts, that could not be stopped.
Finland managed to fight for a draw. And a 10% loss of territory.
Is this, that?
Who knows.
But the Russians have to strike first.
Indeed. The lessons of Kursk ought not to be lost on either side; but if Putin is utterly determined to advance ... the prepared positions around Slovyansk and Kramatorsk are formidable.
I do not see how Putin can "win" - unless he commits his airforce. The OMG thing depends on an easy passage through the first layer of defence and no aerial counterattack: he has to have air superiority.
Dare he do that? Can't be replaced, if he squanders it. Patriot SAMs now are much, much more important than Abrams some time in the future.
There was a story that when the USA said no to the polish government sending their Mig29s to Ukraine, that the Polish airforce delivered a number of spare parts instead.
Apparently, these ‘spare parts’ only require something such as an ejector seat or a nose wheel to be attached, to become complete aircraft again. This story is all over the Internet again, last few days. With numbers ranging from 2 to 25.
Bulgaria has been sending all kinds of military equipment. Unofficially. Lest the Russians turn on them.
How many planes does Ukraine have? Would an ‘awacs’ be available ? Operating over a perhaps, neighbouring country to help them out?
Putin has more of everything than Ukraine. Even AFVs. Even including all the ones Ukraine captured. There were 6,000 tanks parked in Russia’s loft. ( a YouTube blogger counted them all. Estimating the numbers in the warehouses as being full. As there were so many AFVs just left outside. Russia claimed 10,000 in storage. They never throw anything away.
The blogger counted nearer 6000. Which equated to probably 2500 that could be made ready again. Using much older thermal sights and such. Would still give the Russians 3-1 at least, in everything, anywhere on the line. 10-1 in artillery tubes, at a guess. Without stripping all their borders of all hardware.
One last offensive. Certainly have enough force, and room for casualties, for that.
How will it go?
Like the failure for Hitler’s armies, that was Kursk ?
Or
The USSR assault from Soviet Byelorussia. Bagration. That destroyed the German forces in Russia for good?
"Would an ‘awacs’ be available ? Operating over a perhaps, neighbouring country to help them out?"
Haven't Ukraine had that from Day 1? And these days instead of getting on station from Sigonella or Fairford they're stationed much closer - Bulgaria/Romania/Poland/Sweden. If you look on Flightradar24 there are usually 2 or 3 on the borders or over the Black Sea.
Fascinating e-war if so many people weren't dying. I see the Russians have introduced a "Starlink-detector" to pick up all the Starlink terminals in a 16km radius, they also have a passive (sound/seismic) spotter for HIMARS etc, where you have to detect launches very quickly before it moves. To be honest I'm surprised they publicise such things.
But there are still webcams in the Russian sectors being monitored by Ukraine (e.g. in Donetsk city), can't believe how sloppy Russia is about some things. But they'll still win. I see the UK would be out of ammunition in one day if they were firing at the Russian rate.
Sometimes, as in the Covid crisis, we see just how pathetic the UK's putative GDP is. Remember when westerners were stood on Chinese runways, bidding against each other for planeloads of masks and protective gear, not exactly high-tech items?
I remember a comment from dearieme, maybe a decade ago, Chinese academic's wife in Cambridge.
"I don't understand how your country can be so wealthy. Where are all your factories?"
The answer to the wife's question being of course "In China".
All well and good until you're not mates.
Don't feed the troll
Too late PTB.
To the original post. The Russians have battlefield nukes (unless they are lying) so not much point in looking to the past.
Committing the Russian airforce for once last push could end up like the Luftwaffe's last hurrah at the Battle of the Bulge when they lost enough planes, including from their own anti aircraft batteries, that they didn't take much of a part in the war thereafter
Airforces are no longer the "last hurrah" these days.
Russia's reverse gear is broken and the USA only has a forward gear... this war would not have started - nor would it have continued - without the USA.
"Committing the Russian airforce for once last push could end up like the Luftwaffe's last hurrah at the Battle of the Bulge"
I've assumed from pretty early on that Russia wasn't interdicting the supplies just over the borders from Rzeszow and Romania because they feared all the various AA missiles that would be targeting them. As I understand it AWACS or equivalent can tell Ukraine HQ pretty much in real time when Russian planes leave an AF base.
Perhaps also there's the Wizard War aspect - do Russia want to send their best kit/tricks or save it in case US get involved? Either way the result is most hits on Western Ukraine are either ground launched or from a long way out. Most air strikes seem to be SU25 or helicopters near the front lines.
Some 291,000 Chinese students in US universities and they're worried about a 'spy' balloon ???
The greatest leak was Biden's incoherence about the incident.
Incontinence?
Russia still has a real economy, not one based upon "taking in each other's washing", which was the criticism I seem to remember an (Old) Labour MP made about Thatcher's economic changes.
Here's somebody's attempt at making an estimate of it:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1549554660184231936.html
Not bad for a "gas station masquerading as a country".
And then there's French TV casually discussing Zelensky's plan to ethnically cleanse Ukraine and Crimea of ethnic Russians:
https://twitter.com/PeImeniPusha/status/1620758189406060544
And some people wonder why Russia sees this aggression towards native Russians as an existential threat?
Chess is just 2D chess. With airyplanes you have 3D.
"Wizard War aspect - do Russia want to send their best kit/tricks or save it in case US get involved?"
Neither. If it is wizardry, half the time it won't work. So you deploy to impress the credulous.
"The greatest leak was Biden's incoherence about the incident."
More importantly the balloons have been flying over the US for years, and those in charge of such things just somehow 'forgot' to tell Trump......
sorry Andrew - it was a reference to Churchill's WW2 history - he devoted a chapter called The Wizard War to radar/asdic/beam navigation/direction finding and all the techy tricks of the age (bar Enigma which he never mentioned).
I tend to assume Russia are hanging onto their best/newest kit so as not to expose it to US analysis, just as US/UK/Germany are stripping the most advanced reactive armour from the tanks being sent to Ukraine (plus I hope the DU shells which it can be argued are a low-level radiation pollutant - I wouldn't want the stuff in my garden).
Russia has already offered quite large bounties for intact samples of Abrams/Leopard/Challenger.
It's odd how the Germans changed their tank names from Panther to Leopard, as we changed Sellafield to Windscale. But the optics of German tanks rolling East over Ukraine will I'm sure go down a treat.
Talking of Churchill, I had no idea previously that when Chamberlain did his 180 about turn in a fortnight on the breakup of Czechoslovakia (from 'do not let us be deflected from our course' to his Birmingham speech and the Polish guarantee) it was the result of a message from Roosevelt telling him that unless he changed policy from appeasement to confrontation he could expect no aircraft or other US help in any future war. Amazing how such stuff stays out of the approved history, I thought I'd read everything I could on the subject.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
ND/BQ, you may be interested
So it wasn't the SBS/Yanks, it was Norwegians/Yanks, with Yanks in the driving seat. Norway has gas to sell of course.
I think we already know what Scholz will do - nothing. I see German manufacturing in January took a big hit. So much for EU independence.
I guess this is one in the eye for a Marxist analysis. USA do huge damage to the German economy and ... crickets from the German industrialists (though not from working people who have been previously demonstrating about energy prices).
What’s the ruling on NATO countries fighting each other?
If the US/ Norge attacked an alliance pipeline, then aren’t the USA/ Norwegians now at war with the rest of the alliance?
Anon. That is a very, very, very long substack.
Unfortunately for purposes of discovering anything it is completely useless.
‘A source said this.’ ‘A high level meeting took place at some time, in some location, and some people were there.’
It’s not exactly Woodward and Bernstein is it?
As with most of the better journalist pieces there is a big dollop of actual real events in there.
Biden did say what he said. Everyone knows that, But so did Trump. You could just as easily switch Trump for Biden, and the same story reads the same way. Just switch quotes. The fact the US has a navy. And has a special underwater team isn’t groundbreaking news. The Uk has both.. So do the Swedes. And the French. Most coastal countries do. As, of course, do the Russians.
Why would Russia destroy the pipeline? I don’t know. Perhaps they wanted to pressure the German economy even more? Who knows.
Why would the Americans want to destroy it? Before the war ? BEFORE ?
No reason at all.
And the consequences if found out? For Russia, bad. But they just keep denying. Blame America..blame France, blame Ethiopia.. Really doesn’t matter. No one believes them, but it’s all for domestic consumption. Putin himself claimed the UK had attacked the pipelines.
But if the USA is discovered? Those questions keep on coming, risking 75 years of west German/ German alliance, and another Watergate, at a time of huge crisis in Western Europe.
If it is a false flag operation, why no flag? If usa want to incriminate Russia, then why not leave a ton of, ‘ it was Russia! ‘ evidence?
If the US just wanted to stop the pipeline, then..er..do nothing. It was likely going to be stopped if invasion occurred.
And how does attacking German infrastructure help get Germany into a support Ukraine mindset? Surely it could just as easily make Germany, and by default, the whole of the EU, declare non involvement. And keep buying all the oil, coal, gas it needs from Russia.
If there could could be a singe verifiable fact?
A name?
Even the supposed submarine that was supposedly involved?
Why did Norway agree? Just…why? A European NATO nation attacking another European nato nation, under orders of another, larger, largest non European NATO nation.
How come the ‘source ’ told Hersh. But did not the tell the Russians?
Surely that would be the best thing. Give all the info to Russia. Let them use all of their extensive, worldwide, covert intelligence operations to verify just once claim of that piece. And then work on it to reveal that the Nazis of America have attacked peaceful Putin and almost caused a nuclear war.
Anyway, Hersh has said what he has said. It will be interesting, now the media have the story, to see what the official US response is. .( us has now responded. They say it’s a load of bollox.)
(As you can probably tell, I don’t believe it makes much sense. But if there is a second, verifiable source, then I’m happy to read about it. Hersh has a bit of a recent history of making claims that are never verified by other journalists despite the best of them trying. Such as the Osama bin laden killing.
Even a little bit of critical thinking would raise the question of why the Saudis wanted to protect bin laden from the Americans ? I mean..why? Anyway .. do let us know.
Lets face it the US is a law unto itself. The mere fact we can't be sure they didn't blow up the Nordstream pipelines tells us they are not our allies any more. The post WW2 era USA is gone, gone for good. It went at some point after the 2001 Twin Towers attacks and when IT/internet technology allowed its Deep State to become all powerful. The US has become the Evil Empire™ it spent so long winning the Cold War against.
Hard to see how Sunak is going to back out of giving Ukraine our war planes now. If he doesn't he's "full of shit".
We're going to war. A hot war.
America doesn't like EU dependency on Russian gas (nor do I for that matter.) America doesn't like Russia and has demonstrated so for a very long time (not too keen on Russia myself.) There's the motivation.
... it's that name again... Nuland. It wouldn't be the first time she's been caught out in dictating what a sovereign nation can and can't do.
EU aren't any more "dependent" on Russian gas than we are on Russian diesel. It's just that they've got a lot of both and can sell it to us cheaper than anyone else can. I quite liked it when I could fill my oil tank for £600 instead of £1900.
I remember when Capitalists used to approve of that kind of free and mutually beneficial exchange.
Harriett Baldwin's ripping into the BoE about inflation today, ignoring the fact that a lot of the inflation was generated by our economic war on Russia backfiring bigly.
We may as well give all our planes to Ukraine, and our Navy as well. They're certainly doing damn-all to defend the UK.
I remember, oh, I don't know, as far back as November last year when according to the leftish anti-western outlets -- to be fair, it wasn't just them, a lot of the mainstream intimidated the same thing -- it was supposed to be Liz Truss wot done it (destroyed the Nordstreams, that is). There was a text message and everyfin' (a text message, for cryin' out loud...) apparently from Truss saying "It's done" to Blinken.
Now, it was the US all along. Supposedly. Ho hum. Okay, I'll believe you, thousands wouldn't.
More seriously, if this really was some dastardly US plot to sabotage Germany and other EU economies be jacking up their energy costs and force de-industrialisation, it's not exactly worked out especially well. Spot prices are down to about 25% above their 5-year average, which is probably getting back to the mean allowing for inflation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxwdwz5d8gxt/natural-gas and this will start to feed into the forward contracts. Oh, and that's without Freeport resuming full liquification output. The loss of the Nordstreams has reduced dependency on Russia, but Russian LNG is still in the mix so if any European country wants a bit of that price action, it can still trade LNG with Russia.
And finally, apparently one of the Nordstream I pipelines is still intact and could resume natural gas transit, should Germany so wish. Germany does not, at time of writing, so wish.
The only conclusion I can draw from this Hersh rubbish is there's still a robust market for any old drivel. And what hasn't lost its allure is the framing of such pieces in a breathless, neurotic and slightly conspiratorial "I know something you don't know and that they don't want you to know, everyone is lying to you and only I'm telling you the truth" -- a sure-fire way to turn a turgid mish-mash of half-truths, speculation and fact-ey kinda stuff into a lot of clicks. Nick, you're missing a trick there!
A while back there was a piece (on a US Christian evangelist website) which gave chapter-and-verse detail on how the US had blown up Nord Stream by bombing - a US Navy plane, of which it supplied the exact registration number. It also gave screen shots from one of the 'Radar' sites showing the plane's supposed recce runs, circling the target, before it then stood off a bit of a distance, then made a straight run passing low over the target area (where it "dropped its depth charges") and flew off back home.
It also showed another screen shot of where the same aircraft had earlier taken off from, from a different website logging aircraft take-offs and landings. For good measure, it gave details of the ordnance that had been dropped - photos, the lot.
Very attractive graphics they were, and *convincing evidence*.
Problem is, if you blew up the screen-grabs large enough, you could see tiny date-time stamps in the corners. They were timed three days after the explosions. In other words, sure, it was the US Navy - conducting careful overflight of the area after the event - as you might expect.
This one from Hersh, has - as BQ says - no evidence whatsoever, just a "source". This stuff is two-a-penny from would-be airport-novel writers. (Clive, you are right, I should have a crack myself. Perhaps some of you think that's what I do anyway ...)
For years I have had people steer me to ZeroHedge and the "bullion conspiracy" websites, etc. The narratives are great, racy material, full of tremendously detailed stuff that - surely! - couldn't have been made up.
Trouble is, they all die the death. Of course, if you love your conspiracy theories (a) the fact of their subsequent non-traction (= suppression, of course) alone proves they were right! (huh); (b) once in a while, a conspiracy theory turns out to be true. But it's "stopped-clock-tells-the-right-time" stuff. Which ones do we select to believe? Beats me.
It's a very well constructed conspiracy and Hersh could be a TOP novelist if journalism fails.
Clive.
Liz Truss is so dim that she's easy to set up as a patsy.
I Don't doubt the US did it.
Seymour Hersh is not some random bloke on the internet, he does have a long record of exposing secrets and later being proved right. After fifty years or so, he presumably has a good nose for sniffing out what's mostly true and what is just fantasy. The more interesting question is what the motive is of the source who fed him the information. Not saying if the story is true or not, but coming from whoever it was that talked to Hersh, it sounded true. So why feed Hersh the story?
DJK, I was wondering about that too.
I read dark side of Camelot. Thought it very revealing at the time. But, a fair amount of it is conjecture. Unsourced quotes. And some falsehoods. The Jackie’s press Secretary, JFK affair, which I thought compelling, has since received considerable doubt.
( the implication is JFK was having extra maritals, and had the first female press spokesperson appointed to the First Lady. For the first time that this ever happened. For blackmail reasons. Shagging proximity? Or both.)
Hersh’s later works deteriorate. I haven’t read any, personally. But going by Amazon, wiki, etc, there are plenty of claims that get refuted, and there is no evidence from Hersh to back them up. He appears to be pretty easy to convince, if the stuff is what he wants to hear.
Why was he given the info? If it was the Russians, there is the reason. Though it looks too feeble for them. No details at all in the story.
Could be a chancer?
An anti Democrat?
Very hard to know. And Hersh never tells. Even when the credibility of his accounts are dependent on it. His claims on the use of gas in Syria are based on nothing but, ‘unnamed source.’
Better journalists have much better evidence. Especially bellingcat. Who do not rate Hersh at all.
However, the My Lai massacre was a real event. And he did report it. So his credibility is still high in certain circles. High enough that we here, though we may have forgotten about him, did recall enough to search him up again.
So he is worth using by someone. As, and as happened, his words are reported, however sceptically, in the MSM.
( and..ahem..on certain, far superior blog posts.)
But who was his source?
And why?
> no evidence whatsoever, just a "source".
Inevitably the "do it" instruction couldn't really have any evidence - just a secret insider source speaking quietly into the ear of some journalist.
But the positioning near Bornholm island, the area of the explosions, of ideal U.S. assets that could do the job has rock-solid evidence, in the form of a U.S. Navy press release. Namely experimental mine hunting and surveying UUVs and divers under the control of U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and Naval Information Warfare Center in June 2022 and possibly later. A new addition to the BALTOPS 2022 exercise last year. Pretty perfect if you wanted to place remotely activated explosives.
So the part of Hersh's story most likely to have open source evidence, rather than be a deep secret, does have good evidence. Of course it is also a rock that could have incorrect speculation built around it.
The press release is at:
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3060311/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-testing-new-technology/
Somewhat unfortunate in hindsight it includes:
"demonstrated this year ... a significant improvement in operating ranges over currently used systems. This provides additional standoff flexibility to the U.S. Navy in conducting safe mine hunting operations."
"showing ... complex multi-vehicle UUV missions with modified U.S. Navy Fleet assets."
> no evidence whatsoever, just a "source".
Inevitably the "do it" instruction couldn't really have any evidence - just a secret insider source speaking quietly into the ear of some journalist.
But the positioning near Bornholm island, the area of the explosions, of ideal U.S. assets that could do the job has rock-solid evidence, in the form of a U.S. Navy press release. Namely experimental mine hunting and surveying UUVs and divers under the control of U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and Naval Information Warfare Center in June 2022 and possibly later. A new addition to the BALTOPS 2022 exercise last year. Pretty perfect if you wanted to place remotely activated explosives.
So the part of Hersh's story most likely to have open source evidence, rather than be a deep secret, does have good evidence. Of course it is also a rock that could have incorrect speculation built around it.
The Navy press release can be found by googling "BALTOPS 22: A perfect opportunity for research and testing new technology". (My comments are queued for approval if I use a URL for some reason.)
Somewhat unfortunate in hindsight the PR includes:
"demonstrated this year ... a significant improvement in operating ranges over currently used systems. This provides additional standoff flexibility to the U.S. Navy in conducting safe mine hunting operations."
"showing ... complex multi-vehicle UUV missions with modified U.S. Navy Fleet assets."
> no evidence whatsoever, just a "source".
Inevitably the "do it" instruction couldn't really have any evidence - just a secret insider source speaking quietly into the ear of some journalist.
But the positioning near Bornholm island, the area of the explosions, of ideal U.S. assets that could do the job has rock-solid evidence, in the form of a U.S. Navy press release. Namely experimental mine hunting and surveying UUVs and divers under the control of U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and Naval Information Warfare Center in June 2022 and possibly later. A new addition to the BALTOPS 2022 exercise last year. Pretty perfect if you wanted to place remotely activated explosives.
So the part of Hersh's story most likely to have open source evidence, rather than be a deep secret, does have good evidence. Of course it is also a rock that could have incorrect speculation built around it.
The press release is at:
https://www.c6f.navy.mil/Press-Room/News/News-Display/Article/3060004/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-testing-new-technology/fbclid/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-testing-new-technology/
Somewhat unfortunate in hindsight it includes:
"demonstrated this year ... a significant improvement in operating ranges over currently used systems. This provides additional standoff flexibility to the U.S. Navy in conducting safe mine hunting operations."
"showing ... complex multi-vehicle UUV missions with modified U.S. Navy Fleet assets."
Re; Hersh one offered possible narrative is that with multiple competing US Intelligence centres of power, one leaked to Hersh.
Whilst it may or may not have been the US (the neocon retards currently in charge look like they have form imo), I see no thoughtful analysis suggesting it was the Russians blowing up their own pipeline.
Sorry BQ but Bellicat are completly discredited as having any form of 'independence' being more an astroturf arm of UK intelligence. They may not rate Hersh, but few rate Bellicat.
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