Trump and Putin: making up war aims on the fly

You don't need to be a second Clausewitz to know that wars of choice should have well-defined goals before even the planning gets underway, let alone the execution[1].  In saying this, nobody is advocating total inflexibility thereafter; but to launch a war without proper goals at the outset is just buccaneering adventurism.

It's a commonplace observation that Trump hasn't a clue what he's doing in the Middle East, beyond representing a vague, atavistic American fixation with Iran, and harbouring a ludicrously and dangerously false equation between Venezuela 2026 and Iran 2026.  To the extent he sometimes feels the urge to state one or more war aims, he's issued so many over the hours, days and weeks that it merely goes to reinforce his brainlessness.  (To its credit, the intelligentsia in the USA is gradually shaking off its paralysis of 2025 and is ready to call him out in scathing detail -  see this from the estimable Ryan Evans.)  Already we can offer his Iranian adventure as a perfect illustration of the principle given above: and we haven't remotely seen the full downside potential yet.

But there's another perfect illustration bubbling away somewhere north of Iran, where Putin still conducts his own ill-conceived war on Ukraine.

At the very outset, he articulated two war aims, plus a long list of gripes and grievances.  They were: (A) to "de-Nazify" Ukraine's body politic; and (B) to "demilitarise Ukraine".  In the same announcement he declared he had no territorial claims on Ukraine (sic), although it's fair to note that at the same time he was asserting that Luhansk and Donetsk were independent countries.  And of course he assumed that after his lightning war, there would be a puppet regime in Kyiv, Belarus-style, that would render territorial conquest irrelevant.

[In the runup to the "special military operation" (which was "defensive, in aid of Luhansk and Donetsk"), he had of course demanded that NATO and the EU shun Ukraine, and that the former must withdraw to pre-accession borders.  But those were hardly war aims: he hoped they'd fall into his lap at the negotiating table when Ukraine was, errr, defeated.]

Given A and B above, manifestly he has completely and utterly failed even by his own lights; and everyone in Russia knows it.  There has been no regime change in Kyiv, whatever childish political label he wants to attach to it.  And demilitarisation?  Pound for pound, Ukraine now has the best army in the world, a thriving defence industry, world-leading expertise in drone warfare, etc etc; and is reducing a vastly larger force to ruinously costly advances through unimportant hamlets at snail's pace.   Oh yes, and on the other side of the front line it is degrading Russia's mighty energy industry to a material degree; periodically grounding its civil air movements; blocking its ports; sinking its ships; and (in conjunction with sanctions) hobbling its economy.   

Here's where it gets interesting for the theme of this post.  Reports from fairly reliable Russian sources suggest Putin is under tremendous internal political pressure to find an off-ramp before the economy nosedives.  Those oligarchs still have some sway, if they conduct themselves cautiously.  One major thrust of this exercise[2] is to come up with some - wait for it - War Aims, such as can plausibly be declared duly accomplished.  Then it's "home for tea and medals" as we say in the British Army.

What, then, do we imagine his newly-forged war aims will be?  It's a serious question, notwithstanding  that sarcastic suggestions come quickly to mind.  

We'll take both kinds BTL - let's see what we can come up with to help L'il Volodya with Project "Absolute Victory26".

ND 

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[1] Long-time readers will know I often laud George HW Bush (Bush Snr) for his adherence to this principle when setting out to evict Saddam from Kuwait, 1990-91.  More on that conflict by following the 'Kuwait' and 'Saddam' tags on that post.

[2] Another is to keep plugging away at Trump, trying to persuade him that utter Ukrainian defeat is just around the corner, so why not tell Zelensky to surrender?  Yeah, right.  I have a feeling the moment for this gambit has passed.

Implausible property development - update

By way of light relief: readers may recall the saga of the seemingly brainless two-house development in Croydon - a pair of very large, pricey properties, awkwardly situated and with no garages - that were taking ages to shift.  

Well, more than a year on from my first report, one of them has sold!  To whom, is not at all clear to the passer-by.  There's a black SUV on the drive (where else?) at all hours, and no signs of human life.  It rather looks as though dust will be continuing to settle in at least six out of the seven bedrooms.

With the other house still firmly unsold (and even dustier), at least our current solo SUV driver has an easy(ish) time of it on the communal driveway.  And of course, buyer #1 has picked the house less hemmed-in.  For the sake of the developer (or whoever still owns the second one) we must look forward to when a couple of large families with corresponding car fleets are in residence, hopefully reaching a satisfactory motoring modus vivendi on this rather limited patch.

ND   

Mandygate: rumbles on and on, getting louder

And there was Team Starmer getting cocky about how well their man was doing, seeing off Streeting and Rayner and Trump, basking in the glow of "wartime leader" etc - or whatever they thought was the case - and positioning himself confidently to see off the May elections fall-out.  

The 3-hour period of utter, and highly uncharacteristic radio silence, after the Guardian story broke[1] and before the barefaced denial was issued yesterday evening, must have been a great time to have a bug planted in the (Chinese) coffee machine in No.10.

They must have been lining up Olly Robbins as the fall-guy - and negotiating his deal.  That's not just some middle-management scapegoat, that's Very Big Indeed.  A serious human sacrifice to appease the gods of Starmerdoom.  Wonder what's in his "early retirement package"?  

And - will it be enough?

Interesting to see, in retrospect, just how craftily the earlier Starmer statement was drafted[2].  Did lawyer Starmer - who must, surely, have been told how crucial it was to stick precisely to the script - not know why it was worded the way it was?  Is that what we're to believe?  Well, flat denial is his only option; so flat denial it must be. 

And it's being reported he know about this on Tuesday.  48 hours is a very long time not to come clean: time enough for the leaker (see below) to get to the Guardian, and for the Graun itself to go through the very significant editorial operation that would be needed before dropping something like this.  The whole thing explains why No.10 was already said to be planning to prorogue Parliament early this session - no more PMQs this side of May.  And "it's understood Lammy didn't find out until Thursday" - hahah!  He's obviously (a) completely out of the loop; and (b) as disloyal as all Hell.  (OK, I suppose we all guessed that anyway.)

My immediate thought is: how does this play for La Romeo?[3]   Is it the making of her, because [perhaps] she wasn't involved when Fondlebum was set on - but now knows exactly where those bodies are buried?  You can just hear her opening words in that panicky all-hands meeting:

"Now listen: before we can figure a way out of this, you all need to tell me exactly what happened.   All of it.  Everything!"

ND

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[1]  Hats off to the Guardian, BTW: they've put themselves into the nuclear fallout zone.  Their source must be truly excellent - and still out there, hoho.

[2] “The vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO and concluded with DV clearance being granted by the FCDO.”  

[3] I say this because she may well be the last person standing after this is finished.  Even then, she's not in the clear:  evidently there's that heavy-duty Deep Throat operator somewhere in Whitehall, for the Guardian to get this leak: and she has a shedload of enemies ... [BTL on that link]

Explanatory note to the previous post

Hi C@W readers - you'll may have tried to open the previous post and found a warning, courtesy of our kindly blog platform hosts.  It's safe to click through - we're not advertising anything lewd! 

But some bot, somewhere, has auto-identified the topic as worthy of, err, deflecting readership away from.  The warning came up about 60 seconds after I posted.

If I find from the stats that nobody is reading the post, I'll experiment with a defused version of the title, to see if that gets it past the censors for wider access.

And later I may post on this whole episode!

ND

UPDATE: have reposted under a different title, and trashed the original post which was getting no traffic.

Starmer is getting cocky

A while back I suggested Team Starmer had decided to tough it out: and I'm now utterly convinced of it.  Among several straws in the wind is a flying wooden beam: he's boasting about taking us back into the single market by stealth!  This is not a man who reckons he's done for at the end of May: quite the opposite, he visibly exudes the same kind of calm faux-authority over the heads of his pygmy-challengers that he did back in 2020, when he was obviously going to win the Labour leadership 'race'. [1] 

Given the fallout amongst the ranks of his former advisers, we must presumably look to Miliband for Team Starmer's current level of brazen confidence; some kind of bargain that runs: you do what I tell you, and if you're still here in June - which you will be - you'll make me Chancellor. [2]  Ominously, Miliband knows exactly what he'd like to do with the role.

It doesn't hurt that, even in the midst of endless and ongoing tactical miss-steps[3], Team Starmer have lighted upon a phrase to use in connection with Iran, which they clearly the believe to be highly felicitous:  I won't be dragged into this war!   

The bottom line is: he currently looks confident, which is 90% of the battle when it's just 330-odd fractious and frightened parliamentary sheep you need to get in line - with the Streetings and Rayners of this world left looking pretty sheep-ish themselves.  Yep, Team Starmer have convinced themselves they are going to see the post-May period out, and in some comfort.

And those May elections?  Is Reform really going to sweep the board, as sone thought inevitable not so many weeks ago?  Well, maybe, but I doubt it.  In my manor, they are a complete rabble, feuding like crazy amongst themselves.  If by some strange twist of the electoral arithmetic they were to get the mayoralty and/or the council, they'd not have a clue what to do with it: and in the meltdown-process of colourful infighting and manifest incompetence thereafter, they would lose any hope of a decent result come the next GE.  Is this representative of Reform across the country as a whole?  I'm guessing so.

One might imagine that Greens, equally full of chancers and losers, are just that little bit less likely to blow things completely by way of fratricide in any council where they get power in May.  We haven't had Peak Green yet; though I'll hazard a guess we've had Peak Reform.  Meanwhile, Starmer struts confidently around his confected B-list gigs here and around the world, and the media portray him in exactly the way Team Starmer have scripted for them.  His nerve, his brazen shamelessness, is holding. 

ND

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[1] Who remembers Long-Bailey or Nandy now?

[2] Though I still maintain that, the longer he hangs in there, Miliband stands a chance of the leadership for himself

[3]  E.g.

• "You can't use our bases ...
• ... oh, actually, yes you can"
• Chagos
• HMS Dragon
• RFA Lyme Bay
• "I need to talk to my team"

... etc etc - and that's just the last few weeks.  Then there was Mandelson, the by-election, ...

Asymmetric warfare: another mighty US fail

In keeping with our readiness to slate pathetic Russian military & strategic performance in Ukraine, once again we must even-handedly slate the current US debacle.

Which started (as is widely commented) with a complete absence of anything that could honestly be described as a strategy - just large-scale deployment of powerful forces that may fairly be described as tactically accomplished.  But (as, again, we all know) tactics without strategy is just empty waste of effort - and life.

And materiel!   I'm not going to open a laundry list here, but take it from me, US losses of important kit have been very significant, betraying a complete and utter failure of US doctrinal development for the drone era.

By stark contrast, Iran has clearly been developing - and executing - very appropriate plans for making the very best of its conventionally much, much weaker hand.  It's as impressive in its own way as Ukraine's efforts (- with equivalent lack of guarantees of ultimate success).

We may only hope that the risible, contemptuous (and contemptible) triumphalism of Hegseth & Trump doesn't prevent the US military & strategic community from quietly learning lessons seriously, thinking very hard, and doing the right things, urgently and in depth.  Sadly, we know from the ridiculous UK aircraft carrier debacle (thanks, Gordon), when you've been set on to spend all your money on crazy WW2-type projects like that, and the new 'Trump Class Battleships", such mega-distractions seriously weigh on the ability to do anything else.

On the plus side: we do know that Ukraine has comprehensively figured out this very traditional asymmetric warfare problem, both in theory and in deeply impressive practice: Taiwan may yet have time (though not much) to do likewise: and even the UK + Europe might be positioned to do something intelligent.

But will we?  One unhappy perspective on this might be that Miliband's (and other nations') NZ obsession is the new national distraction that hinders our efforts.  Not a lot of time for this to be set on track.  As Russian subs patrol our cables, pipelines and offshore energy facilities, the analogy with 1938 is very uncomfortable.

ND