Simplicius: SITREP 20 Aug 2023 - F-16s Paper Over 500k Losses Report Archived Message
Posted by sashimi on August 21, 2023, 5:43 am, in reply to "Only 8 pilots in the training program speak good enough English to even initiate training .."
The biggest news of the day is the Dutch/Danish decision to supply F-16s to Ukraine: As usual, buried within this "optimism" are a few inconvenient facts, like their insistence on a strict set of protocols being fulfilled before handing over the planes, which will likely not allow Ukraine to have the planes until well into 2024 at the earliest. The total number remains in question as well, with some sources claiming 42 planes. I want to re-iterate that even if this actually ends up happening - before Ukraine collapses or surrenders, that is - I view the delivery of such planes as a very good thing. I've said since the beginning that all the most advanced Western arms provide essential training to Russian forces, who need to learn how to fight against these systems for the sake of a potential future war against NATO proper. That means Russian AD operators, fighter pilots, etc., will all get critical experience on dealing with one of NATO's top aircraft, including registering their characteristics into their radar registries for enhanced identification purposes. Such a rare opportunity to go up against and study these types of systems in a 'low risk' environment is crucial. It's better to go up against them now, in Ukrainian hands and low numbers, while learning their secrets and weaknesses, than experiencing them for the first time in a full-fledged war against NATO where hundreds/thousands of them are deployed at the same time in a far more uncontrollable setting. Sure it may seem callous to want Ukraine to have better/more advanced weaponry because the argument is that some Russians will lose their lives from this, but you have to see things in a broader view. It will save more lives in the long term, in light of a much larger future war, if they can master combating these systems now. As for those continuing to wonder how Ukraine proposes to keep its F-16s safe, or how it currently does with its remaining meager airfleet, here's a new quote from the Financial Times which sheds light on something I've been reporting repeatedly on: Financial Times, citing sources:
Previous Message "Ukraine is hastily moving its pilots and aircraft because of an increase in Russian strikes on targets in western Ukraine. Russian missiles have recently targeted air bases, runways, a pilot training centre and a fleet of bombers carrying Western Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles. Because of this, Ukrainian pilots are forced to constantly shuttle between dozens of airbases and commercial airports".
The only notable change in the new spate of headlines is that they're now demonstrating a newfound brazenness in actually naming specifics - what won't be achieved, what should be done instead. The difference is, before they merely stuck to giving the obvious - the counter-offensive is not going well - but kept things ambiguous under the tactic of hoping people would still maintain belief in its ultimate success. If you vaguely say "it's not going as well as planned" but don't mention that the specific objective of reaching the sea, or Melitopol, etc., can't possibly be completed, then people will keep hope alive. But now, they're outright naming the key objectives with the admission that they will not be achieved. One of the main reasons for this switch is that a new "leaked intelligence report" has made this determination: Previous Message The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Ukraine's counteroffensive will fail to reach the key southeastern city of Melitopol, people familiar with the classified forecast told The Washington Post, a finding that, should it prove correct, would mean Kyiv won't fulfill its principal objective of severing Russia's land bridge to Crimea in this year's push. The grim assessment is based on Russia's brutal proficiency in defending occupied territory through a phalanx of minefields and trenches, and is likely to prompt finger pointing inside Kyiv and Western capitals about why a counteroffensive that saw tens of billions of dollars of Western weapons and military equipment fell short of its goals.
But of course nothing in Washington "leaks" without a purpose. So you might be wondering, why the shift in rhetoric, what do they hope to accomplish? It seems that one of the reasonings is by clearly articulating the dire nature of the situation, they hope to steer policy into new escalatory directions. Whereas before their signals of alarm were perhaps more caveat or warning, now they're prescribing actual directional changes. In the above Newsweek article, the author offers an "innovative" solution to ending the war in Ukraine. The author argues that, firstly, a "forever war" favors Putin and Russia, not Ukraine or the West, but they've discovered a way to "stick it to Putin" by ending the war abruptly and not giving him the "forever war" that he wants. They suggest to give Ukraine funding to continue operations up until July 2024, the date of the next big NATO summit. At the point of that summit, Ukraine should stop all offensive operations and then be given full entry into NATO. This, they argue, would allow Ukraine to keep and consolidate whatever territory they've managed to win back by then, and would protect them from any further Russian advances by way of Article 5. This is no different than giving a divided Germany NATO status after WW2, they argue. What's most intriguing about this plan is that the author is actually none other than Democrat congressman Tom Malinowski, and it befits him to oh-so-conveniently militate toward a cessation of hostilities in July 2024, right on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections, whereupon Democrats will need all the help they can get. If a plan could be designed and packaged in a way where it can be sold as a major "victory" then certainly Democrats will attempt to drag it out until the eve of the election to try to use "Biden's major Ukrainian victory" as a huge final hour boost. The other intriguing thing is how it dovetails with Lukashenko's new theory, which he gave during a recent interview, that Ukraine will be inducted into NATO on the basis of Poland occupying its Western territories. He doesn't spell out the exact mechanisms by which he envisions this to happen, but merely the inference that NATO will have little room to reject Ukraine once a full-fledged NATO member has already politically merged with them. Though he did impart his opinion that Ukrainians wouldn't allow this: -- Cont'd at https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-82023-f-16s-paper-over-500k
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