TheContinuing Puzzles

At this point, Ukrainian successes from what analysts currently think is a surprise counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region have simply been outpacing the ability of media to cover them. Here's Newsweek as of midday yesterday, Putin's Troops Have Two Days to Attack or Face Defeat: Ex-Military Leader:

Igor Girkin, who also goes by Igor Strelkov, gave an update on the situation near Izium in a Telegram post on Friday, writing that Russia potentially not being able to restore land communication lines between Izium and the city of Kupyansk in that timeline may also play a part in whether or not it withdraws. Russian forces may even have to leave Izium itself depending on if and when it embarks on its own counteroffensive against Ukrainian advances, he added.

"The question of the time of the counterattack is very acute: if the enemy manages to gain a foothold in the positions reached, pull up artillery and air defense, then it will be extremely difficult for our units to throw him back .... if at all (given the extremely low staffing, especially infantry) Maybe," he wrote, according to an English translation of the post.

But within hours of this assessment, reports were that the Russians had abandoned both Izium and Kupyansk and fled eastward, so even Girkin's/Strelkov's appreciation was overtaken by events. It simply isn't my job here to make blow-by-blow reports on the progress of the war, except to note at this point that Ukraine has been outperforming the most optimistic predictions. What are the implications? We can only speculate wildly about what this means for Russia, except my judgment has been that the Poles, Swedes, Balts, and Finns have been most on top of this and will be the quickest to seize advantage. (This is also the sort of outcome that I think George Kennan had in mind.)

As I've been saying for months, the best analysis of the military situation has been at the left-wing Daily Kos. For instance, today:

It’s worth noting that as much as people screamed that Ukraine needed this or that, the Pentagon and allies had a very clear understanding of what needed to be delivered, balancing ease of learning, operation, maintenance, and supply, with battlefield utility. Ukraine didn’t need NATO armor, it got close to 300 Soviet-era tanks from allies. M113s were sufficiently good infantry carriers (the YPR-765 is actually an M113 variant). Down in Kherson, where wide-open flat spaces expose advancing forces to deadly artillery barrages, Ukraine is using fast Humvees to speed from town to town, giving artillery little chance to zero in on them.

. . . HIMARS really is doing a lot of the roles aircraft have traditional taken (destroying bridges, hardened defenses, ammo depots, and command and control facilities).

. . . So kudos to the Pentagon for having a clear vision of what it would take for Ukraine to retake territory as quickly as possible, even as the peanut gallery wailed that “NATO isn’t playing to win, just not to lose!”

But none of this would have been possible if Ukraine hadn't been in a position to take advantage of the NATO weaponry, training, and intelligence. The initial fear of the US right had been that Ukraine would prove to be as corrupt as the Russians, with Ukrainian generals selling off inventory to all comers as quickly as the Russian ones, with monetary aid disappearing down the rabbit hole just as fast. This hasn't taken place, and the actual strategy for the Kharkiv attack appears to have been Ukrainian:

According to inside information, this raid was planned by Colonel Oleksandr Syrskyі. At first, because it was too risky, the high-level officials did not agree, and he was finally persuaded.#Ukraine #Kyiv #NAFO pic.twitter.com/kxjYxSbO8P

— 番外联邦 🇺🇦 (@dsbxtw9991) September 9, 2022

And of course, the memorable quote of the war continues to be from that real-life Victor Laszlo, Volodymyr Zelensky, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride".

So in light of this, here are some puzzles. To start with, US intelligence got Russian preparation for the invasion in February right, but not much else.

• How did the US apparently assume Zelensky would be evacuated from Kyiv in a C130 with his cronies, mistresses, and pallets of cash at the start of the war? That he didn't do this changed everything.
• How did US intelligence grossly overestimate Russian (and by implication, Soviet) military capabilities? And why?
• What drove the initial hesitancy to start a putative World War III by denying or delaying effective support to Ukraine?
• How did a second level at State and the Pentagon apparently circumvent that hesitancy to support Ukraine in the early months of the war?

Interestingly, in addition to George Kennan, another figure who seems to have had a more realistic view of Soviet capabilities was the popular novelist Tom Clancy, an insurance salesman, war gamer, and deep state groupie who foresaw how quickly Soviet forces would collapse in hypothetical confrontations with the US and NATO. But this view never seems to have been current in the upper echelons of the deep state. A similar theme runs through the Cold War spy novels of John le Carré .

On the other hand, another set of more optimistic questions covers the speed with which those second levels at State and the Pentagon were able to recognize the actual state of affairs in Ukraine, recalibrate, and work with NATO actors like Poland and the UK to train the Ukrainian armed forces, supply them with the needed weapons, training, and intelligence, and prosecute an effective resistance.

What's actually been striking me over the past several years has been the resilience of US and other Western institutions.