{"id":1652761,"date":"2022-09-22T08:23:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652761"},"modified":"2022-09-22T08:25:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:25:04","slug":"russias-underperforming-military-and-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/russias-underperforming-military-and-ours\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Underperforming Military (and Ours)"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frussias-underperforming-military-and-ours%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1652761&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div id=\"modal-ready\">\n<h2 class=\"modal-title has-text-align-center\">Russia\u2019s underperforming military (and ours)<\/h2>\n<div>\n<p>In Washington, wide agreement exists that the Russian army\u2019s performance in the Kremlin\u2019s ongoing Ukraine \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/russias-putin-authorises-military-operations-donbass-domestic-media-2022-02-24\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">special military operation<\/a>\u201d ranks somewhere between lousy and truly abysmal. The question is: Why? The answer in American policy circles, both civilian and military, appears all but self-evident. Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia has stubbornly insisted on ignoring the principles, practices, and methods identified as necessary for success in war and perfected in this century by the armed forces of the United States. Put simply, by refusing to do things the American way, the Russians are failing badly against a far weaker foe.<\/p>\n<p>Granted, American analysts \u2014 especially the retired military officers who opine on national news shows \u2014 concede that other factors have contributed to Russia\u2019s sorry predicament. Yes, heroic Ukrainian resistance, reminiscent of the Winter War of 1939-1940 when Finland tenaciously defended itself against the Soviet Union\u2019s more powerful military, caught the Russians by surprise. Expectations that Ukrainians would stand by while the invaders swept across their country proved wildly misplaced. In addition, comprehensive economic sanctions imposed by the West in response to the invasion have complicated the Russian war effort. By no means least of all, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ny1.com\/nyc\/all-boroughs\/news\/2022\/08\/23\/biden-us-ukraine-russia-aid-3-billion-six-months\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">flood<\/a>\u00a0of modern weaponry provided by the United States and its allies \u2014 God bless the military-industrial-congressional complex \u2014 have appreciably enhanced Ukrainian fighting power.<\/p>\n<p id=\"more\">Still, in the view of American military figures, all of those factors take a backseat to Russia\u2019s manifest inability (or refusal) to grasp the basic prerequisites of modern warfare. The fact that Western observers possess a limited understanding of how that country\u2019s military leadership functions makes it all the easier to render such definitive judgments. It\u2019s like speculating about Donald Trump\u2019s innermost convictions. Since nobody really knows, any forcefully expressed opinion acquires at least passing credibility.<\/p>\n<p>The prevailing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/2022\/03\/17\/russia-military-failing-dangerous\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">self-referential American explanation<\/a>\u00a0for Russian military ineptitude emphasizes at least four key points:<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 First, the Russians don\u2019t understand\u00a0<em>jointness<\/em>, the military doctrine that provides for the seamless integration of ground, air, and maritime operations, not only on Planet Earth but in cyberspace and outer space;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Second, Russia\u2019s land forces haven\u2019t adhered to the principles of\u00a0<em>combined arms\u00a0<\/em>warfare, first perfected by the Germans in World War II, that emphasizes the close tactical collaboration of tanks, infantry, and artillery;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Third, Russia\u2019s longstanding tradition of top-down\u00a0<em>leadership<\/em>\u00a0inhibits flexibility at the front, leaving junior officers and noncommissioned officers to relay orders from on high without demonstrating any capacity to, or instinct for, exercising initiative on their own;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Finally, the Russians appear to lack even the most rudimentary understanding of battlefield\u00a0<em>logistics<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 the mechanisms that provide a steady and reliable supply of the fuel, food, munitions, medical support, and spare parts needed to sustain a campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Implicit in this critique, voiced by self-proclaimed American experts, is the suggestion that, if the Russian army had paid more attention to how U.S. forces deal with such matters, they would have fared better in Ukraine. That they don\u2019t \u2014 and perhaps can\u2019t \u2014 comes as good news for Russia\u2019s enemies, of course. By implication, Russian military ineptitude obliquely affirms the military mastery of the United States. We define the standard of excellence to which others can only aspire.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reducing War to a Formula<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All of which begs a larger question the national security establishment remains steadfastly oblivious to: If jointness, combined arms tactics, flexible leadership, and responsive logistics hold the keys to victory, why haven\u2019t American forces \u2014 supposedly possessing such qualities in abundance \u2014 been able to win their own equivalents of the Ukraine War? After all, Russia has only been stuck in Ukraine for six months, while the U.S. was stuck in Afghanistan for 20 years and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2022\/03\/18\/us-troops-will-likely-be-in-iraq-for-years-to-come-central-command-boss-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">still has troops<\/a>\u00a0in Iraq almost two decades after its disastrous invasion of that country.<\/p>\n<p>To rephrase the question: Why does explaining the Russian underperformance in Ukraine attract so much smug commentary here, while American military underperformance gets written off?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps written off is too harsh. After all, when the U.S. military fails to meet expectations, there are always some who will hasten to point the finger at civilian leaders for screwing up. Certainly, this was the case with the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Critics were quick to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/columnist\/2022\/08\/29\/biden-blame-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal\/10266319002\/?gnt-cfr=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pin the blame<\/a>\u00a0on President Biden for that debacle, while the commanders who had presided over the war there for those 20 years escaped largely unscathed. Indeed, some of those former commanders like retired general and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus, aka \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/king-davids-war-182421\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">King David<\/a>,\u201d were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/international\/568068-david-petraeus-says-the-outcome-in-afghanistan-is-catastrophic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">eagerly sought after<\/a>\u00a0by the media as Kabul fell.<\/p>\n<p>So, if the U.S. military performance since the Global War on Terror was launched more than two decades ago rates as, to put it politely, a disappointment \u2014 and that would be my view \u2014 it might be tempting to lay responsibility at the feet of the four presidents, eight secretaries of defense (including two former four-star generals), and the various deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and ambassadors who designed and implemented American policy in those years. In essence, this becomes an argument for sustained generational incompetence.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a flipside to that argument, however. It would tag the parade of generals who presided over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and lesser conflicts like those in Libya, Somalia, and Syria) as uniformly not up to the job \u2014 another argument for generational incompetence. Members of the once-dominant Petraeus fan club might cite him as a notable exception. Yet, with the passage of time, King David\u2019s achievements as general-in-chief first in Baghdad and then in Kabul have lost much of their luster. The late\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Norman_Schwarzkopf_Jr.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cStormin\u2019 Norman\u201d Schwarzkopf<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tommy_Franks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">General Tommy Franks<\/a>, their own \u201cvictories\u201d diminished by subsequent events, might sympathize.<\/p>\n<p>Allow me to suggest another explanation, however, for the performance gap that afflicts the twenty-first-century U.S. military establishment. The real problem hasn\u2019t been arrogant, ill-informed civilians or generals who lack the right stuff or suffer from bad luck. It\u2019s the way Americans, especially those wielding influence in national security circles, including journalists, think tankers, lobbyists, corporate officials in the military-industrial complex, and members of Congress, have come to think of war as an attractive, affordable means of solving problems.<\/p>\n<p>Military theorists have long emphasized that by its very nature, war is fluid, elusive, capricious, and permeated with chance and uncertainty. Practitioners tend to respond by suggesting that, though true, such descriptions are not helpful. They prefer to conceive of war as essentially knowable, predictable, and eminently useful \u2014 the Swiss Army knife of international politics.<\/p>\n<p>Hence, the tendency, among both civilian and military officials in Washington, not to mention journalists and policy intellectuals, to reduce war to a phrase or formula (or better yet to a set of acronyms), so that the entire subject can be summarized in a slick 30-minute slide presentation. That urge to simplify \u2014 to boil things down to their essence \u2014 is anything but incidental. In Washington, the avoidance of complexity and ambiguity facilitates marketing (that is, shaking down Congress for money).<\/p>\n<p>To cite one small example of this, consider a recent military document entitled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ausa.org\/publications\/army-readiness-and-modernization-2022#:~:text=The%20Army&#039;s%20modernization%20plan%20is,allies%20to%20defeat%20any%20adversary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Army Readiness and Modernization in 2022<\/a>,\u201d produced by propagandists at the Association of the United States Army, purports to describe where the U.S. Army is headed. It identifies \u201ceight cross-functional teams\u201d meant to focus on \u201csix priorities.\u201d If properly resourced and vigorously pursued, these teams and priorities will ensure, it claims, that \u201cthe army maintains all-domain overmatch against all adversaries in future fights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Set aside the uncomfortable fact that, when it counted last year in Kabul, American forces demonstrated anything but all-domain overmatch. Still, what the Army\u2019s leadership aims to do between now and 2035 is create \u201ca transformed multi-domain army\u201d by fielding a plethora of new systems, described in a blizzard of acronyms: ERCA, PrSM, LRHW, OMVF, MPF, RCV, AMPV, FVL, FLRAA, FARA, BLADE, CROWS, MMHEL, and so on, more or less ad infinitum.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps you won\u2019t be surprised to learn that the Army\u2019s plan, or rather vision, for its future avoids the slightest mention of costs. Nor does it consider potential complications \u2014 adversaries equipped with nuclear weapons, for example \u2014 that might interfere with its aspirations to all-domain overmatch.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the document deserves our attention as an exquisite example of Pentagon-think. It provides the Army\u2019s preferred answer to a question of nearly existential importance \u2014 not \u201cHow can the Army help keep Americans safe?\u201d but \u201cHow can the Army maintain, and ideally increase, its budget?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hidden inside that question is an implicit assumption that sustaining even the pretense of keeping Americans safe requires a military of global reach that maintains a massive global presence. Given the spectacular findings of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/webb.nasa.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">James Webb Telescope<\/a>, perhaps\u00a0<em>galactic<\/em>\u00a0will one day replace global in the Pentagon\u2019s lexicon. In the meantime, while maintaining\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tomdispatch.com\/the-all-american-base-world\/\">perhaps 750 military bases<\/a>\u00a0on every continent except Antarctica, that military rejects out of hand the proposition that defending Americans where they live \u2014 that is, within the boundaries of the 50 states comprising the United States \u2014 can suffice to define its overarching purpose.<\/p>\n<p>And here we arrive at the crux of the matter: militarized globalism, the Pentagon\u2019s preferred paradigm for basic policy, has become increasingly unaffordable. With the passage of time, it\u2019s also become beside the point. Americans simply don\u2019t have the wallet to satisfy budgetary claims concocted in the Pentagon, especially those that ignore the most elemental concerns we face, including\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2021\/us\/covid-cases.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">disease<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/weather\/2022\/02\/14\/southwest-megadrought-worst-1200-years\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">drought<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/wildfires-fires-california-evacuations-climate-and-environment-dacb2184b8caed322f2d81959c92cef8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fire<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2022\/08\/31\/jackson-water-crisis-mississippi-floods\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">floods<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2022\/08\/29\/greenland-ice-sheet-sea-level\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sea-level rise<\/a>, not to mention averting the potential collapse of our constitutional order. All-domain overmatch is of doubtful relevance to such threats.<\/p>\n<p>To provide for the safety and well-being of our republic, we don\u2019t need further enhancements to jointness, combined arms tactics, flexible leadership, and responsive logistics. Instead, we need an entirely different approach to national security.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Come Home, America, Before It\u2019s Too Late<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given the precarious state of American democracy, aptly described by President Biden in his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recent address<\/a>\u00a0in Philadelphia, our most pressing priority is repairing the damage to our domestic political fabric, not engaging in another round of \u201cgreat power competition\u201d dreamed up by fevered minds in Washington. Put simply, the Constitution is more important than the fate of Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p>I apologize: I know that I have blasphemed. But the times suggest that we weigh the pros and cons of blasphemy. With serious people publicly warning about the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1982123222\/ref=nosim\/?tag=tomdispatch-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">possible approach of civil war<\/a>\u00a0and many of our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/joewalsh\/2022\/01\/05\/us-bought-almost-20-million-guns-last-year---second-highest-year-on-record\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">far-too-well armed<\/a>\u00a0fellow citizens welcoming the prospect, perhaps the moment has come to reconsider the taken-for-granted premises that have sustained U.S. national security policy since the immediate aftermath of World War II.<\/p>\n<p>More blasphemy! Did I just advocate a policy of isolationism?<\/p>\n<p>Heaven forfend! What I would settle for instead is a modicum of modesty and prudence, along with a lively respect for (rather than infatuation with) war.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the unacknowledged bind in which the Pentagon has placed itself \u2014 and the rest of us: by gearing up to fight (however ineffectively) anywhere against any foe in any kind of conflict, it finds itself prepared to fight nowhere in particular. Hence, the urge to extemporize on the fly, as has been the pattern in every conflict of ours since the Vietnam War. On occasion, things work out, as in the long-forgotten, essentially meaningless\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1983 invasion<\/a>\u00a0of the Caribbean island of Grenada. More often than not, however, they don\u2019t, no matter how vigorously our generals and our troops apply the principles of jointness, combined arms, leadership, and logistics.<\/p>\n<p>Americans spend a lot of time these days trying to figure out what makes Vladimir Putin tick. I don\u2019t pretend to know, nor do I really much care. I would say this, however: Putin\u2019s plunge into Ukraine confirms that he learned nothing from the folly of post-9\/11 U.S. military policy.<\/p>\n<p>Will we, in our turn, learn anything from Putin\u2019s folly? Don\u2019t count on it.<\/p>\n<p><em>This piece has been <a href=\"https:\/\/tomdispatch.com\/russias-underperforming-military-and-ours\/\">republished<\/a> with permission from TomDispatch.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/2022\/09\/22\/tick-tock-putin-escalation-begins-countdown-of-diplomacy-clock\/\" title=\"Tick-tock: Putin escalation begins countdown of diplomacy clock\"><br \/>\n <\/a><\/p>\n<p>With news of possible annexation and potential use of nuclear weapons, Washington must put on the brakes and press for talks. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/2022\/09\/22\/escaping-the-security-dilemma-on-the-korean-peninsula\/\" title=\"Escaping the \u2018security dilemma\u2019 on the Korean Peninsula\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/kim-jong-un-240x140.jpg\" class=\"attachment-240x140 size-240x140 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Kim Jong Un again threatens to go nuclear \u2014 maybe this time Washington and Seoul will react the right way. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/2022\/09\/21\/stop-the-escalatory-ladder-we-want-to-get-off\/\" title=\"Stop the escalatory ladder in Ukraine, we want to get off\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/shutterstock_1231585981-240x140.jpg\" class=\"attachment-240x140 size-240x140 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ukraine is asking for new \u2018security guarantees\u2019 from the West which will only ratchet up the spending and risk a nuclear spiral, say critics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/2022\/09\/21\/beware-of-leaders-using-decline-to-boost-military-might\/\" title=\"Beware of leaders using \u2018decline\u2019 to boost military might\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"240\" height=\"140\" src=\"https:\/\/responsiblestatecraft.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-20-at-6.23.12-PM-240x140.png\" class=\"attachment-240x140 size-240x140 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/a><\/p>\n<p>If history is any guide, politicians will take advantage of public opinion, which is pessimistic about America\u2019s \u2018superpower\u2019 status.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia\u2019s underperforming military (and ours) In Washington, wide agreement exists that the Russian army\u2019s performance in the Kremlin\u2019s ongoing Ukraine \u201cspecial military operation\u201d ranks somewhere between lousy and truly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1652763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1652761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}