That's Their Story, And They're Sticking To It

It turns out that I'm not the only one who hasn't bought the Institute for the Study of War's line that the Russians undertook an "operational pause" over the past week. The Daily Kos, whose reporting on the war is among the best, had this to say this morning:

Russia is stalled, pretending it is undertaking an “operational pause.” In reality, Russia is 1) exhausted from the [Donbas] effort, 2) still unable to cross the Donetsk river north of Sivers’k, 3) having to extend its supply lines, something they suck at doing, and 4) dealing with HIMARS’ systematic destruction of supply depots, dramatically exacerbating those supply problems.

Yesterday, CNN reported,

While Russian forces fire at Ukrainian positions in Donetsk in preparation for the next stage of full-scale fighting in the war, the country's defense ministry in Moscow on Saturday ordered commanders to take action to prevent Ukrainian strikes on Russian-held territory.

"(Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu) gave the necessary instructions to further increase the actions of groups in all operational areas in order to exclude the possibility of the Kyiv regime to launch massive rocket and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure and residents of settlements in Donbas and other regions," the ministry said in a statement.

. . . The order comes in response to a sharp rise in Ukrainian attacks far behind the front lines using recently acquired western howitzers and artillery.

Yesterday, I noted the ISW's reference to this same announcement, which it characterized as, "The Russian Defense Ministry announced that the Russian operational pause has concluded on July 16, confirming ISW’s July 15 assessment." But CNN quotes this announcement, presumably in translation, and neither CNN nor the ISW links to the original text. It puts me on my guard, though, that CNN doesn't seem to regard the announcement as the end of an "operational pause", but more like what the Daily Kos sees as a change in battlefield conditions.

Meanwhile, the ISW this morning says,

Russian forces are continuing a measured return from the operational pause and conducted limited ground attacks in Donetsk Oblast on July 17. As ISW has previously noted, the end of the Russian operational pause is unlikely to create a massive new wave of ground assaults across multiple axes of advance despite Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s public order for exactly that. . . . Russian forces continued to set conditions for resumed offensives toward Slovyansk, shelled settlements along the Izyum-Slovyansk salient, and otherwise conducted artillery, missile, and air strikes throughout Ukraine. The Russian Ministry of Defense notably did not claim any new territorial gains on July 17. ISW continues to forecast that the end of the operational pause will be characterized by a fluctuating and staggered resumption of ground offensives.

But we're back to the question everyone seems to have had all along: even the ISW agrees the Russians never stopped shooting. Where was the "operational pause"? The ISW has been replying that, well, US doctrine (!) says you can't stop shooting, because then the enemy will know you're having an operational pause, and you can't make the enemy think that, so you have to keep shooting to fool them. Or something.

So throughout this discussion, the ISW has been saying in effect, there's been an operational pause, but it doesn't look like one, because the Russians have had to make it look like they're trying to continue to advance. Of course, they haven't advanced over the past week, despite they've been trying to look like that's what they're doing, but now that they've officially ended the "operational pause", they're gonna start moving. By fits and starts. Or maybe they won't. But anyhow, they've officially ended their operational pause. That's what Sergei Shoigu says, so it's true.

Frederick W Kagan, whose name appears on almost all these reports, was one of the major architects of the Iraq boondoggle. This drove me to see what I could find via web searches, and it turns out there's a lot of material on Kagan and his wife, Kimberly, from the late Bush and early Obama eras. Here's just a start, from 2008, Too Many Kagans, Too Little Knowledge:

Fresh from his assertion that the Iraq civil war was “over” a week ago, here’s Fred–plus added bonus attraction Kimberly–Kagan reinforcing their profoundly warped view of Iraq in the Weekly Standard. There are several truly disingenuous, and flat out misleading, things here:

1. The promulgation of the myth that Maliki’s Folly was to clean out “terrorists” rather than a violent election-year ploy to clear out his legitimate Sadrist political opposition.

2. Perpetuation of the myth that effective Iraqi Security Forces actually exist and aren’t primarily composed of (a) pro-Maliki and pro-Hakim militias and (b) former Iraqi soldiers more interested in making a living than in fighting. (Add: No acknowledgment that U.S. troops in the field simply do not trust their Iraqi counterparts…Oh, and I should also add: Some of the most “effective” ISF units are Kurdish pesh merga militias.)

It goes on. The best I can conclude is that Kagan and his wife make a good living from getting things wrong, and they're able to keep doing this despite an atrocious track record because they have -- connections.

I'm not sure how much time I should spend tracking this stuff down. It depends on whether anyone who matters, as opposed to news outlets nobody takes seriously, currently listens to the Kagans. Whether they're just naturally stupid, or whether someone is paying them to be this stupid, is an interesting question. My antennae are up.