Battle of Kursk (2024) Revisited: illuminated by flames

It is well over three weeks of Ukraine's incursion into Kursk.  If they so choose, they can easily extend this into next month, maybe longer: the word in Moscow is that Putin has set his birthday (in October) as the deadline[1] for expelling them.  

His policy is consistent with the 'Stalin 1941' approach he has generally taken when hit with an unexpected blow: lie low for a bit (doubtless squaring away various issues and people behind the scenes), then tough things out - the policy equivalent of trading space for time, always Russia's default reaction.  Would be deeply unsatisfactory from the standard western point of view as regards being seen to respond with urgency, but doesn't seem to bother most Russians very much ("wait till the Tsar finds out ...").  Meanwhile his Donbas advance continues - with faint signs that manoeuvre warfare might even be breaking out there too.  Oh, the rush to get things done before the US election!

Putin's policy of not troubling too much over Kursk may be assisted by a phenomenon noted in France during WW1.  Primitive opinion-surveys determined that the population in the south of France - many hundreds of miles from Verdun - didn't care very much at all about what was happening elsewhere: northern France's peril didn't seem to move them.  The French powers-that-be took this so amiss, they instituted (inter alia) the rigid, universal school curriculum that had every French kid taught exactly the same thing - i.e. whatever the government dictated - at exactly the same time, wherever they were.  Knowing first-hand how brutally racist Russians are towards Ukrainians, it seems possible (though personally I have no evidence) that Muscovites don't view deep-south Kursk residents in a particularly sympathetic way either.  In any event, that 'word from Moscow' also has it that Russia as a whole is not much troubled by the Kursk incursion, distinctly limited in geographical scope as it will always be, however long or short. 

While we await further developments on all these fronts, Ukraine's ultra-successful drone-strike campaign is having a genuine effect on Russian oil supplies, petro-facilities being nigh impossible to defend.  The standard official Russian line is usually that "a drone was shot down over the refinery / whatever, and fragments caused a fire that subsequently spread".  Everyone knows this means the attack was successful: and as one milblogger acidly wrote, shooting down a high-explosive drone directly over its target is likely to be "a posthumous achievement" - for both the shooter and the target itself.  Incidentally, the fact that one of these fires has raged for 12 days now (and counting) tells this old oilman that the Russians have failed to fit non-return valves in their oil infrastructure (i.e. the fire is being fed by oil still arriving unpreventably into the facility from the pipelines it is connected to) - which isn't even remotely surprising: their whole set-up is truly primitive by western standards.  They'll no more be able to retrofit valves in a hurry than land a cosmonaut on the moon[2] - indeed, they probably won't even be able to buy them.

Of course, they can and will source oil from elsewhere and truck it in.  The lines of logistics, though, start to get very stretched indeed[3].  

ND  

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[1] Of course, Putin's deadlines, like his 'red lines', are eminently flimsy, as has been proven so often it's a wonder he still sets them.

[2] Amazingly (by western standards), the Russians have even attempted to bring the blaze under control by holding a prayer meeting at the oil depot in question, complete with saintly relics.  Sadly for these pious folk, an oil tank took the opportunity to explode during the ceremony.  Still: always gotta admire piety.

[3] Also, there will be a lot of folk taking a cut in such an ad hoc operation.  The beauty of fixed delivery-infrastructure is that once built, it's relatively hard for the usual embezzlement to take place along the supply chain.  But an operation based on thousands upon thousands of trucks ...

Guardian Goings-on (1) Electric Vehicles

For a while now, it's been clear that the Grauniad isn't just broadly on the side of the greens (hardly surprising), but that it has a positive editorial policy of proselytising, not to mention smoking up the embarrassing facts.  For example, it ran a 'myth-busting' series on heat pumps, which was straining every sinew to say "heat pumps are wonderful, don't let anyone tell you otherwise", except that the last residues of journalistic integrity forced it to admit that the first half of that statement needs qualifying (heavily) in several dimensions, to the point where the second part looks pretty silly.  Likewise, it ran a series on how wonderful electric vehicles are, not to worry about recharging etc.

Except, actually, EV drivers seem to fall out of love with their costly acquisitions, subsidised or not (and notwithstanding the acceleration, hohoh, with which even J.Clarkson is supposed to be deeply in love).  This clearly manifests itself in something long suspected by skeptics, namely that the resale value of EVs is turning out to be pitiful.  This is, incidentally, for very good reasons.

Someone in the trade has decided the ideal place for an attempt to arrest this highly damaging phenomenon is, of course, the Graun.  Which has obligingly let fly with a lengthy, risible puff-piece trying to talk up second-hand EVs: ‘Spectacular bargains’: why now is a great time to buy a used electric car in the UK.  

What sort of journalist could take pride in being told to write such tosh?  I haven't heard quite so much disingenuous 'talking his own book' nonsense since the Beeb allowed a representative of the used car fraternity to announce that, during some pronounced downturn in new car sales a few years ago, it would mean that prices of second-hand cars would be going up!  (... 'because nobody wants a new car, so they'll be buying second-hand cars instead and demand will go up'.  FFS, man, if there's a recession in car buying it'll hit the entire sector!)

Well, I suppose Kath Viner feels it's all hands to the pump.  I look forward to the next in this series - perhaps "why doesn't your village volunteer to have a small nuke planted next door?  You could get up a petition ..."

More on this 'journalistic' behaviour to follow.

ND  

Bullsh*t Book Blurb Award: the outright winner is ...

I have genuinely never before met hyperbole in this league: someone is really pushing the boundaries here.  My attention was drawn to it when encountering somebody laughing out loud in a bookshop - at the back cover of a document entitled Everyday Hero.  Deep breath, clear the coffee cups ...

• orchestrate soaring lives
• materialize your sovereign genius
• a calibrated blueprint for making true masterwork ... illuminates coming generations
• neuroscience-based techniques to turn hurts of the past into daily heroism
• wisdom to upgrade your aliveness, incubate sublime serenity and dignify the spiritual liberty that creates a beautiful life

... and so on.  The author of this astonishing literary, errr, thing, is one Robin Sharma - "a globally respected humanitarian ... one of the most widely-read writers alive".

Actually, no, he isn't.  I'd ask for my money back, except I didn't buy it.

Got any favourites to share?

ND

Mandelson on manoeuvres

Mandy's at it again.  You can always tell a Mandelson-scripted briefing, not least when he's seeking personal advancement.

That time, he wanted to be on the NEC.  Now he wants to be Chancellor of the university.  And here it is, spoon-fed to the simpering lapdogs of LabourList: 

... a Labour Chancellor could argue in favour of reform.  The combination of a Labour Oxford Chancellor and a Labour government could also change the tone of the wider debate around universities... A new Chancellor, alongside a new government, could promote higher education reform for the first time in 14 years.  

The lapdogs have helpfully provided links - twice! - for qualified electors to register for the vote.  Shamelessly blatant, or what?

The very thought of this makes me feel ill.  People went to some lengths to stop Harold Wilson getting this honour, and I suspect Mandy will also not be gratified. 

ND

"Battle of Kursk", 2024-style

Last week, a little OT exchange took place BTL here, thus:

Anon:  What I'm not so sure of is if this is a Stalingrad moment (in reverse), or if it's the Third Battle of Kharkov in reverse, where von Manstein recaptured a lot of the territory being fought over now.

ND:  Not sure everything needs to be mapped onto a historical precedent**; although when it can be done convincingly, it can offer useful insights.  What's interesting to me about this (apparently significant) Ukrainian incursion is:  (i) they - the Ukr side - are following Soviet doctrine! Many writers have suggested it was unwise (see 2023 offensive campaign) to attempt to school them in western military ways, when so many of their senior officers would already be very well educated in a different school. Or they may have found some kind of workable synthesis.  (ii) they seem to have managed Surprise: certainly tactical (generally possible if you put in enough care & attention) but maybe even strategic (unusual - but very desirable). Remember, this is a chess game where both sides can usually see all the opponent's pieces - the perennial Russian challenge out on the flatlands, and one which in the west (Eu, USA) we don't really have, the battlegrounds being characterised so much by extensive geographical relief features

A week on, things have developed a bit: we know it genuinely is a significant incursion, not merely a quick slash-and-burn raid.  But the full motivation and end-plan for what Ukraine thinks it's doing is still a matter of analysis & speculation.  Here's mine:

Backdrop:  for as long as the Russian army can maintain its brutal discipline (i.e. can keep throwing in the cannon-fodder remorselessly) there is nothing plausible that Ukraine can do, however resourced by the west, against eventual Russian "success" in fully capturing and occupying the four Ukranian oblasts it claims as its own, absent something game-changing.  (Just for the record, from the very beginning my line on this has been "and what's to stop them?")   One Russian milblogger has put this very neatly, describing the Russian operation as a tunnel-boring machine: it may sometimes need to slow down if it encounters something a bit flintier than usual, but basically it will "calmly" (his word) grind on relentlessly to wherever it wants to go.

Although in hindsight one can fault the 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive (some of that fault lying squarely with western advisers), it proved beyond a doubt that Russian defensive preparations along the entire front as far as the Dnipro (though not necessarily south and west of that) are sound, and that without massive airpower that Ukraine will never enjoy, no sustained, strategically useful breakthrough on that very long front is achievable.

Therefore:  since nobody can foresee a Russian event "favourable" to breaking this iron deadlock - certainly not before the US election - more creativity is required from Ukraine.  Up until now, that's been represented by (a) a stunningly successful Black Sea operation; (b) an equally stunning drone campaign against the vast swathe of ultra-vulnerable targets across heartland western Russia, particularly oil facilities - and air bases,/ aviation ammo dumps which have taken some really serious blows.  (Note something else we've said from the start: Russia can replace absolutely anything except its airforce, which has caused Putin to husband it cautiously.)  But neither can be much more than a major, suppurating thorn in the bear's flesh, the pain and cost of which it can tolerate indefinitely. 

That being the July 2024 starting-point, Something Else had to be tried before November.  Well, this is it, and it looks entirely logical.  Apart from making the really obvious remark that the Russian ground currently dominated by Ukraine cannot remotely be held for more than a few weeks at the outside - and so Zelensky won't be intending to - I won't today be prognosticating on this ground offensive per se.  There are however a few more remarks we can make, in addition to the truly impressive 'surprise' mentioned above.

1. The Soviet-plus-western doctrinal synthesis being displayed by Ukraine is very 2024, and very nicely purposed to the precise conditions.  For a strategist, this is a fine thing to behold (and for Russia, absolutely appalling: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower ...)  A combined-arms assault, with depth, under cleverly assembled air-defence and electronic warfare cover, proving that such things are possible even from a sorely-stretched nation on the modern "transparent" battlefield.
2. The above point on Putin and his jealously protected airforce has been reinforced in spades.  The obvious immediate counter to a fast-moving assault deep(ish) into undefended open country is tactical aviation.  As for the past 30 months, it's conspicuous by its absence (not 100% absent, but not remotely committed to the task).
3. Very smart of Kyiv not to base this offensive around the newly-arriving F-16s.  As regards aviation, things can only get worse for Putin: his airfields, aircraft and ammunition being steadily depredated, with the F-16s still to arrive on the battlefield.
4. Just as the Donbass "tunnel-boring" represents its monstrous strengths, deep Russian weaknesses - in very many dimensions, military-technical and political - have been brutally been exposed over the last few days.  The embarrassments are set to continue for many days to come. 

I could bang on about these weaknesses for pages but will settle for now on four comments:

• Putin really, really hates what's happening.  He's swallowed a load of humiliation over the decades, but this is being dished out by Kyiv.  (I confidently await BTL comments that assert it's actually the US 9th Ranger division in Kursk.)  But as regards his response, of course that could go either way.
• Not only is he determined to husband his airforce, we see he's utterly determined to stay with the daft-but-significant rhetoric of "Special Military Operation" / "just a terrorist provocation" etc etc.  This is very telling.
• Even a fortnight of incursion has tremendous long-term consequences for Russia.
• To repeat: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower ...

ND

PS:  In capturing the main Russian natural gas crossing-point / transfer station, Ukraine has pocketed a splendid wildcard for future deployment ...  

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** Almost expected someone so say "Kursk 1943"!   Glad nobody did.  I was expecting "Battle of the Bulge" analogies right from the start, too, but personally I didn't run into one until yesterday! 

The nonsenses that are Drax - and police priorities

In amongst all the nonsense on the streets, somehow PC Plod managed to muster sufficient force outside Drax power station to arrest 22 protesters and disperse a would-be protest camp.  This was under the terms of a draconian court order obtained by Drax, the terms of which would make you think the Crown Jewels were contained therein.

As it happens, in winter months Drax is a pretty essential part of the UK power fleet, the biomass it burns being a significant source of despatchable power.  And the group organising the protest has in the past pulled off some fairly intrusive coups at power stations.  The reason for the protest is a good one, though: outrageously, Drax - the biggest emitter of CO2 in the UK by a country mile - is subsidised by the billion for being a zero emitter.  This is on the wholly fallacious, indeed laughable basis that somehow the trees it burns magically regrow instantaneously, sucking back all that CO2 from the atmosphere.  It's so crazy, it makes you blink with astonishment and yet, by an outright perversion of some arcane IPCC carbon accounting principles (which have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and indeed by the IPCC's own edict shouldn't be used in this way), Drax - and HMG - are allowed to get away with this fiction for the purposes of recording "decarbonisation".  And of course for justifying paying out those billions. 

Without this longstanding carbon-accounting trick, the UK would be even further away from "decarbonisation" than it already is.  And the Drax subsidies expire in 2027.  The shameless rent-seekers are of course demanding new subsidies to commence that year, until they are good and ready for their next shameless fraud, BECCS (= "biomass electricity with carbon capture & storage").  Because, of course, if you emit zero CO2 (on paper) and bury (some of) the actual CO2 you emit, tadah!, you have conjured up "negative emissions" - even more useful for the national CO2 account.

A shame this is all the merest bollocks.  And costly bollocks, too, in terms of both greatly reduced energy efficiency and cash subsidies - all for our electricity bills, naturally.  The decision as to whether this monstrous BECCS proposition will be allowed to fly (and of course the "bridging" subsidies for keeping Drax going between 2027 and, errr, "whenever") falls to Miliband.  He's really in a jam because, as every authority reporting on the matter has made clear, his crazy plans absolutely hinge on everyone believing the Drax story in all its blatant falsity.  AND it puts up electricity bills!

Whatever will little Mili do?

ND

Inchoate protests, inchoate framing

Social meejah doubtless play a role in getting the mob onto the streets; but essentially what's going on is spontaneous and barely organised.  We've seen variants of it before, with "summer riots" in Brixton and other areas over the years, and of course the 2011 "Tottenham" vintage.  On those earlier occasions it was the nastier end of the leftist spectrum that was kinda hoping it contained the seeds of the revolution; but no, just opportunistic hot-weather looting and anarchy.

Starmer (and many others) should be hoping that's what we're faced with now, though a lot of their own rhetoric - which we'll come on to - isn't helping.  One obvious scenario is that in a few weeks time it really is all over bar the backlog at the magistrates' courts, tempered by whatever scope the prison system has these days for exacting 2011-vintage Starmerite-DPP justice.

Otherwise, to be blunt, it carries on until someone gets killed: that's the horrible truth**.  What happens thereafter hinges entirely on the precise circumstances of that dread event: we could all come up with scenarios.

If - and it's not certain - it does carry on, how does it get framed by the London-liberal-progressive consensus?  The two tribes clash not just on the streets (with the Police in the role of King's Champion, maybe also with some lefty violence adding to the mix), but also in the ideo-conceptual space.

We know what the kneejerk left-liberal framing is, because it's all around us.  "Tiny thuggish minority" is the opening gambit, as it was (correctly) in 2011: but they couldn't help themselves moving directly on to "organised by the far right".  And this is where the utter stupidity of the left starts to become plain.

Yes, you'll be able to find some stuff in social meejah that can be labelled "organisation" if you're dumb enough to frame it that way; but what you won't find is a nationwide organising committee - because there isn't one (yet).  There isn't a political party involved, either.  The left cannot understand this - because their world is full of organising committees and micro-parties, and they assume that's how stuff gets started.  (Similarly, they always refer to 'capitalism' as if it is a political movement rather than what it actually is, namely is a feature of human behaviour.)  They really, truly don't want to consider the possibility of political spontaneity from the proletariat: they insist on, and believe in, having monopoly powers over that.  They are itching to have a proper little fascist party to demonise.  While they wait, it's just arm-waving at the notional "far right": they don't want it to be as difficult to deal with as would be Actual Proletarian Discontent.

To the extent any party is even vaguely in the frame, it's Reform (of course). But only peripherally so, because Farage is manifestly keen not to be outflanked by anything whatsoever to his right.  His recent performances scream this so loudly, it ought to be really obvious to anyone.  His strategy is to monopolise the right flank of British politics (whilst staying firmly on the polite side of outright violence), and roll up the Tories from right to left until he has a workable Parliamentary block: he desperately wants to avoid the irritant / potential stumbling-block of there being any genuine 'political' organisation to his right. 

The point is: there's no such thing - yet.  What if the left somehow goads one into being?  It wouldn't  be very good politics because if Reform gets outflanked in that way, eventually it gets subsumed by the Tories as happened with the Brexit Party in 2019: and the 2029 election looks rather different.

But long before 2029 is in view, what happens if a micro-party forms, that is more than just an instantly-outlawed EDL?  The answer is: it starts to have demands, and offers itself as the entity you need to negotiate with if you want the (ex hypothesi) continuing violence to stop!   Which leftist dickhead wants that to be the dynamics of the situation?  

But they just can't help themselves.  In their uncomprehending denial of genuinely widespread discontent that could lead to widespread non-organised action, their doctrine effectively insists on framing its way into having a concrete bogey - of no genuine substance, but possible actual existence in a formal sort of way.  An actual group of people with a name.  A British gilets jaunes, if you like: coherent enough to have an identity (of a rather amorphous and hard-to-treat-with kind).

One interesting potential outcome is that Starmer might act as though he is indeed responding to concrete demands from a putative political entity, and preemptively start trying to appease it with whatever he kind-of guesses its demands might be.  (He won't need to try very hard to figure that out.)  Funnily enough, the marxist left absolutely understands this situation: it never had any difficulty understanding the impetus behind Brexit. 

Right now, however, Starmer seems to be parlaying events into a belated attempt to re-gather the lost Muslim vote.  He has to be careful, because a parallel development is likely to be the formation of Muslim self-defence groups which he'd quickly need to distance himself from, and eventually to act against.

The Tories?  They can sit this one out because of course they have already been outflanked on the right.  Their task is to devise a mirror-image of Farage's strategy: a plan for rolling up Reform from left to right.

Genuine pragmatism from Starmer would be to drop the 'far right' rhetoric (and tell the Beeb to follow suit); give the Police a pay rise; and carry through with the other line we've heard from ministers, which is to draw parallels with football hooliganism - and act accordingly.  Then go gangbusters - literally - on the small boats issue (it's in the Manifesto!).  Get some money into the hands of responsible metro mayors, with significant strings attached.  Oh, and drop all ideas of votes for 16 year-olds.  

ND  

UPDATE:  see the last section of this lefty broadcast for a manifestation the left-tactical debate I'm talking about here.

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** when I was a local councillor I sat for a while on the Road Safety Committee.  Residents were forever coming forward with their demands for additional safety measures, always under the banner "Does Somebody Have To Get Killed Before You Do Anything About This?"  Basically, sadly, the answer is "Yes". 

Labour whips MPs harshly & with good reason

There was quite a lot of surprise when Labour withdrew the whip summarily from seven MPs after the child benefit cap vote.  Simple outrage from the Left, of course; but even some of the more measured commentary was along the lines of "these minor revolts have happened under many a previous government without such draconian reactions" - and the suggestion that Starmer's was a gratuitous & rather undignified piece of macho posturing.  Hey (*beats chest*), it wasn't in the Manifesto so that really means we ain't rushing to do it!  And we are really gonna have some discipline around here, you better believe it!

OK, everyone knows the perils of a big majority buts surely, there's more to it than chest-beating.  Starting from the trivial: who in Starmer's position wouldn't want to take an early opportunity to suspend, ideally to expel, Corbynite throwbacks the like of Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon & Ian Byrne?  This is a man who fully ejected the saintly Corbyn himself.  And Apsana Begum, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana can confidently be recognised as part of the 'independent' tendency Starmer has every electoral wish to suppress.  Let 'em all defect formally to a new Parliamentary grouping: the sooner the better.

Next up, just look at how few there were of them!  Without a merciless whipping operation, might we not have expected dozens of protest-voters?  A quick look down the list of back-bench Labour abstainers gives an indication.  Obviously, the likes of Dianne Abbott have been shaken into sullen compliance.  When they want to lull themselves to sleep at night, they can all tell themselves the Polly Toynbee story: don't worry, the two-child cap will be removed in the autumn for sure.

Well, but will it?  Toynbee is perennially hyper-ventilating her characteristic brand of premature wishful thinking: served up confidently as fact, but so often to be so sadly disappointed.  More realistic (and these days quite panicky) leftist commentators seem extremely fearful that the autumn will bring measures that in their terms means a fully-fledged re-run of Osborne Austerity, even if it will be sprinkled with a few tax measures they'll applaud.  The winter fuel announcement serves only to heighten their fears.  The child benefit whipping operation was couched in terms of "you all signed up just six weeks ago for the Manifesto": and that very document is exactly the flag under which Reeves claims to be sailing.  Cite her 'Keynesian' Mais Lecture all you like: that's not what the Manifesto says. 

IMHO, this bears every sign of (a) prudent attention to Machiavelli's dictum that the new Prince should set the tone by getting his punitive first strikes in at the earliest opportunity; and (b) a leadership that expects to be whipping hard and frequently on many an uncomfortable Parliamentary occasion in the months to come.  Cow those waverers good and early: their political will needs to be broken right from the off.  

Many of them must be trembling at the thought of what they're going to be told to vote for.  The Smack of Firm Government, eh?  And a summer of riots still to come ...  Kier "I banged them all up in 2011" Starmer will be in his element.

ND