I suspect that most of us in the ‘collective west’ give little thought to ‘warfare’; what it involves, how it is materially supported, and to what ends it should be put. We may agree that ‘war’ is per se an appalling thing, destructive of society, community and humanity and be generally against it – and rightly so. However, does this blanket approbation leave the majority of us ill equipped to evaluate the actual mechanics and economic underpinnings required to wage war?
In many ways this is entirely understandable. Far from going away, war has proliferated unabated since the end of WW2, but none of it has provided an existential threat to most of us in the collective west. All the wars fought in our name have been far away and although we might occasionally take to the streets to protest (e.g. Iraq) they have largely not impinged in any real way on the vast majority of us.
Until recently my interest in the mechanics of warfare had been restricted to my experiences as a 9 year old in junior school. Along with my (exclusively) male classmates we re-fought battles of the second world war at break times. Usually it was against the Germans, but for variety, we occasionally fought the Japanese. What on earth did the girls make of this – and perhaps more worryingly, what did our teachers think whilst allowing this murderous mayhem to be enacted three times a day?
The research which underpinned our operational and tactical understanding of the battles we were ‘fighting’ was based on close readings of war comics and watching the never ending stream of WW2 movies shown on Saturday nights on television. I don’t think I need to detail the ways in which these media portrayed a clear distinction between ‘good’ (us) and ‘bad’ (them) or the exceptionalism that imbued the Allies’ superiority in all things – but especially in warfare.
Of course, my experience could easily be dismissed as ‘a collective childhood fantasy’ (which it clearly was), but the specific ideological / theoretical underpinnings of how we in the West understand warfare were clearly operant then …… and seem to be alive and kicking today. We still hold to the triumphalism of the victors, which has gradually morphed, I would argue, into over confidence and hubris. We, the general populations of the collective west may well be complicit in supporting (or at least not challenging) our political and military leaders in relying on assumptions (and misunderstandings) that led to WW2 victory.
My interest in the mechanics of warfare was rekindled somewhat abruptly with Russian forces crossing the border into Ukraine in February 2022. Up to that point I had noted the ongoing conflict in The Donbass, but had been largely focusing on the statements issuing from The Kremlin – and the lack of any meaningful response from the US and NATO. I was shocked and frightened when the troop movements started, although in retrospect I feel it was inevitable. Very quickly I realized that to keep abreast of a rapidly developing situation I needed a reasonable understanding of the military objectives and operations of the two sides. This is where Jacques Baud stepped in:
At the time I wrote:
The reason that Jacques Baud may contribute to our understanding of this war is that he has expertise in analysing intelligence and military matters – and he was, until recently, working for NATO in The Ukraine advising on how the state military could regroup and rebuild after the defeats in the east of the country following the 2014 Maiden coup. Colonel Baud is an intelligence expert (trained by the US & UK) formerly of The Swiss General Staff. His specialism is Eastern European countries, although he has also worked for the UN (as a peace-keeping advisor) and the African Union.
Jacques Baud reappeared (for me) in March this year with the publication of a book entitled ‘The Russian Art of War’ and appeared on The Duran on 26.03.24 to discuss its main themes.
https://www.youtube.com/live/RIzKxXR5pvA?si=Fcujc3l56
I had noted and saved the link, hopeful that I would find the time to view what was billed as a three hour program. I was drawn back to it about a week later by its reference in a steel city scribblings post – and the reassurance that the main part of the interview was only (!) one and a half hours long.
I was very pleased to be guided back to Colonel Baud as he was able to provide a coherent analysis of the military actions that have resulted in the current situation in Ukraine. For the following to make sense one has to largely disregard the narrative that has been spun in the West about the origins and courses of the conflict and to accept that Russia is about to win a decisive and comprehensive victory in Eastern Ukraine. This impending victory should be exposing the incompetence and hubris of Western foreign and military policy – but we are still being fed nonsense about the Russians being fought to a stalemate and that all Ukraine needs is more materiel …………………………….
Colonel Baud suggests that the Russian (and formerly Soviet) approach to war is very different to that of the West. It is viewed as an academic science /art that encompasses strategic, tactical and operational matters. In contrast, the NATO approach (largely based on previous colonial wars) is focused on tactical and operational matters – and crucially lacks strategic clarity. This results in politicians and generals in the West ‘not knowing what they are trying to achieve. Often this results in a focus on weaponry and killing as many people as possible.’
Later in the interview Col. Baud does acknowledge that the West did have a strategic goal in goading Russia to send troops into Ukraine – to de stabilise the regime in the Kremlin, promote the balkanization of the country and prevent it from becoming an effective ally of China. However, as progress towards these objectives is clearly not being made with both military and economic actions failing to deliver, the West appears not to have a plan B – unless you count staving off an obvious defeat until after the presidential elections in the US this November.
So, what is going wrong militarily for the West?
Col. Baud points out that difficulties begin when you fail to understand the motivations and goals of your enemy. Western foreign and intelligence agencies have been woeful in presenting an understanding of Russian motivations in the conflict – not helped I am sure by the purging of Russian experts from said agencies under the dubious assertion that to understand Russia is to necessarily support it unconditionally. NATO countries have systematically ignored countless statements from the Kremlin about the risk of war in Ukraine and the reasons given for the Special Military Operation: to destroy the capability of a neo-Nazi led Ukraine to attack the Donbass and Russia itself. This is an important point because the Special Military Operation (SMO) was absolutely not about territory acquisition (1) – but NATO equipped, advised and provided intelligence to Ukraine as though it was. So, whilst Ukraine attacked to gain / regain territory in 2022/23 the Russian forces fought a war of attrition, retreating where necessary to preserve its soldiers and equipment and destroying Ukrainian formations that inevitably overextended themselves. Now decidedly on the defensive, Ukraine is still defending the indefensible and counter attacking immediately when ground is lost. The net result of this mismatch of approaches is the disastrous loss of equipment by the Ukrainians and a truly staggering casualty ratio (dead and seriously wounded) of 10: 1 in favour of the Russians. Col. Baud suggests that the Ukrainian suicidal focus on territory is predicated on the need to maintain the support of its sponsors in the West.
The Ukrainian military leadership is caught between its previous Soviet era doctrine of attritional, essentially defensive warfare and that of its NATO sponsors – one of fast armoured thrusts to create panic and disintegration in the forces of its adversary. As Andrei Martyanov pointed out this ‘shock and awe’ approach works well enough until you come up against a peer enemy who shoots back.
A critical aspect of waging war is the ability to supply and re-supply weapons and equipment lost in battle. History shows that often wars are not necessarily won by the side with the most advanced weaponry or the ability to inflict battlefield defeats but by the side that can re-equip itself and reform its military formations the fastest following heavy conflict (2).
The Russian approach of attritional warfare and the somewhat naïve response from Ukraine has resulted in the loss of two whole armies of equipment and the evisceration of its central core of experienced and skilled soldiers. Following the failure of the SMO in March 2022 to force a negotiated settlement to the conflict, Russia has embarked on a vast recruitment drive and scaled up its production of weaponry and equipment by many orders of magnitude. It has been able to do the former by offering good terms and conditions to contract soldiers and because the Russian public understand the existential threat posed by NATO and are overwhelmingly supportive of the Kremlin leadership in this matter. In contrast Ukraine, with a much smaller population has struggled to replace the horrendous number of its soldiers lost or incapacitated in the conflict. Moreover, the Ukrainian population is not universally supportive of the approach of the Kyiv government (3) and many thousands of men of military age left the country in order to avoid conscription.
Ukraine’s ability to produce its own weapons and equipment is severely limited (and has been further degraded by persistent Russian missile and drone attacks). Ukraine is almost totally reliant on NATO for the supply and re-supply of materiel – and through the profligacy of its approach to warfare has bled NATO stockpiles and reserves dry (4). The hard truth is that the collective west does not have the industrial capacity to increase armament production in anything like the scale and timeframe required to re-supply Ukraine for a third time – and indeed has left itself weakened and vulnerable to external attack. Whilst the US industrial military complex consumes vast amounts of money its business model is very decidedly profit based. In this situation the ability to significantly increase output at pace is severely restricted as profit margins would suffer from the existence of surplus, unused capacity. Russia, in contrast, not only has much more industrial capacity in general, but retains much more state control over its arms industry and thus is more objective driven. Contracts with Russian arms manufacturers require spare capacity to be created and maintained in order to enable rapid increases in production at scale as required by the state.
Col. Baud addresses the social and governance underpinnings of these very different situations in what are both capitalist economic systems. He suggests that the basis of popular support for the approach of the government in the Kremlin is that of a good understanding in the general population of military matters and how warfare is best progressed. This is perhaps not surprising in a country that has been serially invaded and threatened by the West in the last two centuries. Moreover, Alex Mercouris makes the point that the government in the Kremlin is fully anchored in the Russian system of governance and decision making. This is a robust, thorough and accountable system that is well served by its intelligence agencies and, contrary to the narrative promulgated in the West, has largely taken the Russian people with it in making contingency plans for war and in the way it is being fought.
The situation in the West is very different. There is a general lack of engagement by the general populations with their militaries. Western militaries operate within a bubble untouched by public opinion (which is largely uninterested and poorly informed) and thus essentially free from political control. The governance systems currently in place do not provide the necessary advice and checks to inform and guide political leaders and intelligence agencies have become focused on the gathering of information at the expense of meaningful analysis.
Col. Baud’s clear conclusion to all this is that had Western leaders and general populations been better informed about the causes of the impending conflict in Ukraine; the nature of the war that would be fought and; of the economic and social conditions that would be required to sustain it, there would have been significantly less enthusiasm for the course of action taken. There could (and should) have been pressure to avoid conflict through the wholehearted support, with Russia, of the Minsk Agreements.
Perhaps we all need to be better informed about the mechanics of warfare, not to mention geopolitical trends – oh and how to navigate the propaganda blizzard we are being subjected to that makes this so difficult, but that’s for another time!
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(1) Initially I balked at using the term ‘Special Military Operation’, thinking the term ‘invasion’ more honest. However, as I have come to understand Russian motivations and actions better, I think ‘SMO’is entirely appropriate. The military formations that crossed into Ukraine in February 2022 were not intended as an invasion force (and would have been clearly inadequate for such a task). They were intended to bring the government of Ukraine to the negotiating table – which they did.
I would suggest that Russia’s attitude to territory acquisition has changed in 2024. It is clear that Russia feels it requires a buffer between it and NATO countries in Europe and now feels completely comfortable in gradually invading and holding the four (largely Russian speaking) regions east of the River Dnieper.
(2) e.g. The Russian armies in WW2, Venice as a maritime colossus.
(3) Col. Baud points out that in 2014 following the Maiden Coup, 20,000 Ukrainian troops in Crimea ‘changed sides’ (out of a total of 22,000). He also cites polling indicating that immediately prior to the Russian SMO in February 2022 only 17% of Ukrainians supported military resistance to any incursion by Russia and 50% were completely against it.
(4) e.g. the UK is reported to only have a maximum of 40 main battle tanks available for operations and no artillery pieces left at all.
Eleri
Interesting as ever and good to see through different lenses – thank you.
Bryan
Thank you once more Eleri for commenting, much appreciated.