Big Serge - Russo-Ukrainian War: Schrodinger’s OffensiveArchived Message
Posted by sashimi on March 2, 2023, 12:24 pm
A ramble about force design, Moldova, and a fortress on the steppe
1 March 2023
(quote) Where is the big Russian offensive? This is, at the moment, the million dollar question that inevitably intrudes on any discussion of the war's current course. It is probably not surprising (to those of us that are familiar with human nature, at least) that this question becomes a Rorschach test in which everybody sees their own prior assumptions about the Russian military.
The answers to this question do indeed vary widely. On one extreme, there are those who believe that hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are prepared to launch an enormous "big arrow" offensive at any moment. We see this both from commentators like retired US Colonel Douglas MacGregor and from some Ukrainian sources who are likely trying to foment a sense of urgency to extract more aid from the west. On the other extreme, we have those who claim that the Russian military is so depleted that there will be no offensive at any point whatsoever. There are also some in the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda western intelligentsia, like the Nuland Institute for the Study of War or Michael Koffman, who argue that the offensive has already begun but is so lame and weak that nobody noticed.
Okay. So either a giant offensive will happen any minute now (it might have just started while I was typing that), or it will never happen at all, or it already happened, or perhaps it's in a state of quantum superposition in which it has both succeeded and failed, at least until we open the box.
A thorny issue indeed. There is, at the moment, a great deal of important and intense combat occurring in many different sectors of front - but what relation do these operations have to any big arrow action by the Russians? Is this an underwhelming entrée or an appetizer?
I would like to suggest an alternative to all these theories, because what the world needs most right now is more opinions.
At the moment, Russia has the initiative across the front. Ukraine's reserves are in a tenuous state right now (especially given their politically imposed mandate to try and accumulate a force for an offensive against the land bridge to Crimea), and Russia is driving high intensity combat in important sectors right now.
These operations, I would argue, serve three different purposes at once. First and foremost, they are valuable shaping operations in their own right that have important implications for launching future operations. Secondly, they function essentially as spoiling attacks in that they keep the burn rate at the front high and degrade Ukraine's ability to form reserves. As a sort of metaphor for this, there are already rumors that some of Ukraine's new Leopard tanks will be sent into combat around Bakhmut rather than held in reserve for a future offensive. Whether the Leopard rumor is true or not, in manpower terms Ukraine continues to pump units into Bakhmut in an unconscionable waste of men. Third and finally, all the combat in the east is occurring under an umbrella where Russia's supply lines and ISR are robust, creating conditions where Ukraine continues to trade at abysmal loss ratios.
The synthesis of all these points is that Russia is currently driving the attrition of the Ukrainian army and denying Ukraine any chance at regaining perational initiative, while at the same time pursuing important shaping objectives. I believe this is occurring against the backdrop of moderate, but not catastrophic organizational disorder and restructuring in the Russian armed forces, which are delaying its readiness to launch a large scale offensive. In other words, the current pace of Russian operations supports the overall attrition of Ukrainian manpower and implies that there is no need to rush an ambitious operation until organizational issues have been sorted out.
In the remainder of this space, I'd like to examine what these organizational considerations are and examine two of the ongoing Russian operations (the Ugledar and Kreminna axes), looking at them on a fairly granular scale. We'll also briefly touch on the bizarre rumors of an immanent widening of the war towards Moldova. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://bigserge.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-schrodingers