I strongly recommend that you read Daniel L. Davis’s assessment at 1945 of the risks in the Western strategy for the Russia-Ukraine War. Here’s a snippet:
There will be the temptation to treat this like a fire brigade: if the house is on fire, you marshal everything you can, throw it all at the fire as it becomes available, and hope you can extinguish the blaze. Many will want to rush every tank, artillery tube, rocket launcher, or anti-air missile to the front as soon as it’s available, to bolster the fighting capacity of the troops right now. While that will be an understandable temptation, such a course would have little chance of success.
War simply doesn’t work that way. It’s not merely about having a number of tanks or rocket launchers, but about having trained, disciplined troops that know what they’re doing, working as a team of teams, in various combat units working towards a single goal. It’s not unlike a sports team. It is possible to assemble a group of bone fide all-star athletes on a team, but if they don’t train together so that each works together as a team, even all-stars can get thrashed by an opponent that has less talent but works better together.
The challenges include not just having enough weapons but having weapons that you know or to use or being able to train your army while committing your entire army to fighting a war. I suspect there will be strong temptations to have NATO forces train the Ukrainian military. That will present risks all its own.
NATO has been working with Ukraine troops for years.
Steve
American troops are there now.
“But US involvement goes deeper than arms sales and intelligence sharing. A Pentagon official who requested anonymity told me it is “likely we have a limited footprint on the ground in Ukraine, but under Title 50, not Title 10,†meaning US intelligence operatives and paramilitaries – but not regular military.”
I commented previously the Times of London said UK troops are in Ukraine doing training.
There’s an open question whether some of this equipment requires deeper training/experience to not just use it, but use it well tactically and at the operational level. The easiest way would be for NATO troops operate it, i.e. more as military advisors. Which could be done remotely via “zoom”, and have Ukrainians just press the buttons as ordered.
Our experience in Vietnam was that advisors and trainers began operating the equipment and participating in active operations. Eventually, we had a half million soldiers participating and more than 52,000 dead.
With the bombing of Russian assets in Transnistria, the ground war has now spread to three countries: Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. Moreover, the Foreign Minister (?) of Luxembourg has called for the assassination of Putin. We really need some adult diplomacy. Kennedy and Khrushchev did it. Why can’t we.
Everything is spinning out of control. This is the most dangerous moment since the summer of 1914.
This post from hotair says the US is essentially acting as “zoom” advisors for Ukraine.
As the post says — “Ukrainian forces have used specific coordinates shared by the U.S. to direct fire on Russian positions and aircraft, current and former officials tell NBC News.”
And given a UK defense minister said Ukraine can hit Russia with UK weapons — and recent attacks by Turkish drones that past multiple layers of Russian air defense hundreds of miles inside Russia that killed Russians; the data points to NATO advising Ukraine down to the operational level on attacks on using NATO weapons — but doing it remotely.
It must be recognized it is an advancement in warfare. The risk to military advisors or trainers is removed (if they are not in Ukraine). If the Russians want to retaliate, they likely need to strike into NATO territory.
And the latest data is confident Russians won’t escalate to that point. CNN was told the chances Russia would use nuclear weapons is at 1%. I don’t see Russia striking NATO if they aren’t willing to use nuclear weapons; so it implies the military advisors aren’t at risk of retaliatory strikes.
The only question is how anyone can estimate the chance of nuclear weapons use at 1%.
If true that would be a substantial relief.
I don’t feel much relief.
Again, how can anyone estimate that the Russians will use nuclear weapons is at 1%. It requires knowledge of the future that is impossible. What’s troubling is policy makers are taking actions based on that assumption.