Originally published by Giube Rosse News.
Ukraine's downfall was its dependence on NATO, believing it was really the invincible power it boasted of being. Of course, this allowed her leadership to become richer, and widespread corruption at all levels favored not only the accumulation of great fortunes, but also a broader redistribution of income. However, in collective and national terms, this choice of course has been fatal.
The economic, social and demographic devastation is so evident that it is not even worth discussing. Less evident, however, is the detrimental effect that military subordination has had, that is, the imposition on Kiev's armed forces of a strategic, operational and tactical model based on that of NATO, for which they were not only unprepared (and inadequate), but it also turned out to be dangerously wrong.
It has already been said many times, American military doctrine, and therefore Western military doctrine in general, continues to be based on certain conceptual pillars that are no longer reflected in reality.
The first of these pillars is the idea of one's own absolute technological supremacy, which should guarantee in itself an indisputable dominance.
The second is, consequently, the ability to inflict decisive losses already in the first phase of a conflict.
The third, also consistent, is the belief that victory can be achieved quickly.
These three assumptions converge to outline a conflict model characterized by absolute asymmetry; Furthermore, it is no coincidence that the US strategic doctrine itself is based on the principle of preventing the emergence of a power with equivalent capabilities.
Furthermore, even in its assumptions, this doctrine has almost always proven to be strategically fallacious.
Probably the only case in which one can actually speak of complete success is the attack on Serbia; The objective was to snatch a piece of territory – Kosovo – to turn it into a subordinate state and, above all, to establish the largest American base in Europe (Camp Steel) in the heart of the Balkans. It can be said that both objectives have been fully achieved.
But in the case of many other conflicts, things have been different. In Afghanistan, this military doctrine could not be applied, and after twenty years there was a hasty withdrawal.
In Iraq, there was the rapid defeat of former friend Saddam, but the country was practically handed over to the implacable enemy, Iran.
The same thing happens with Libya: after overthrowing (and assassinating) Gaddafi, the country has been divided in two, and the pro western part is in chaos, while the other has allied itself with Russia.
Obviously, therefore, the first problem with the Ukrainian conflict is that the entire NATO apparatus – doctrinal, strategic, operational, tactical, organizational, logistical, even industrially... – was built on an asymmetric conflict model, while The one that opened on February 24, 2022 is for all intents and purposes a symmetrical conflict.
Although the balance of power, in absolute terms and with respect to Ukraine and the Russian Federation, is certainly favorable to the latter, it is undeniable that the quantity and quality of support offered to Kiev by the 36 NATO countries has absolutely balanced these relations. .
Of course, the US objective, in strategic terms, has always been to wear down Russia politically and militarily, not to defeat it on the ground (although, occasionally, someone in Washington has entertained this idea).
But when it became clear that the Ukrainian armed forces were not up to the task, NATO's qualitative involvement grew to the point of actually assuming strategic and operational command of the war.
A first critical aspect of this approach was the appearance of the difficulties inherent in the compatibility of NATO standards with the Soviet style standards in which the Ukrainian army was structured.
Obviously, Kiev's armed forces were structured according to an operational model similar to the Russian one, and derived from the times of the USSR. As the media of the Soviet era were destroyed and replaced by Western media, and at the same time the American command became more capillary and omnipresent, this contradiction became increasingly shocking.
Obviously, the NATO model has its own internal coherence: the organizational structure of the units, and the same type of means, are functional to the application of the Atlantic Alliance operational model. Applying this model, in parallel with a partial and progressive replacement of weapons systems, is not in itself a particularly simple matter; Doing so in the middle of a high intensity war is almost impossible.
A second critical aspect became evident with the arrival of Western media. Firstly, this raised a staff training problem, which was necessarily much more rushed than it should have been. And, of course, the problem of logistics also immediately arose, that is, the maintenance and repair of these means, for which the Ukrainian armed forces were not equipped.
But even more relevant, as a critical factor, was the great variety of weapons systems supplied, coming from various Western countries.
These systems, although in principle standardized according to a common NATO standard, in reality revealed a series of specificity's that further multiplied management problems [1]; For example, it turned out that artillery pieces of a certain caliber were not capable of using all the ammunition of the same caliber, which created procurement difficulties. And, of course, this complicated all the logistics even more.
Third, operational planning and tactical action. Here too, the adoption of NATO models, for which Ukrainian personnel were not (or only partially) trained, significantly affected the performance of Kiev's armed forces.
It should be noted that, for obvious reasons, the training of the Ukrainian military (about 60,000 soldiers) was relatively limited, and took place almost exclusively in European countries. If we take into account that the Ukrainian army now has about 600,000 to 700,000 men in the front line, and has permanently lost many more, we can see that the soldiers who have received NATO training are approximately 5% of the total. , and therefore completely insufficient.
And, furthermore, most of them have been trained in the use of specific weapons systems, and always in relatively small groups; What has been completely lacking, therefore, has been tactical operational training at the unit level, that is, the ability to maneuver on the ground.
All this has caused a mismatch between the planning of NATO commands and the real capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces.
But even more significant, as already mentioned, is the gap between NATO's war doctrine (asymmetric, rapid, attack focused) and a completely different reality on the ground.
The training countries also ended up realizing this, which, in fact – when debating the expansion of the European training mission – stressed the need to “adjust the exercises more to combat requirements, given the gap between the courses and the reality of the battlefield” [2].
In a document from the European External Action Service, EEAS, (the EU diplomatic service) cited in the same article, it is explicitly mentioned that “current training models are modeled after Western standards” [3], underlining the difference with the reality of the battlefield . Besides,
The fact that Ukrainians train with equipment, procedures and doctrines from Member States also creates discrepancies in the types of techniques and methods that soldiers know once they return to the battlefield [4].
We had a glaring example of this last year, when NATO commanders – also due to internal US political demands – pushed the Ukrainian army to launch an offensive in the southeast, preemptively filling it with Bradley and Leopard tanks (the Abrams were provided , but they were not allowed to be used at that time).
The operation, conceived precisely according to the NATO operational model, was carried out despite the fact that the preconditions for success were clearly lacking. In fact, on the one hand, the Russian forces had established a formidable fortified defensive line (the famous Surovikin line), articulated in depth into three successive levels; and on the other hand, the Ukrainian forces completely lacked two fundamental elements to develop this type of attack, namely, effective air and artillery support.
The result was, therefore, as was foreseeable, a complete failure, which was also paid dearly.
What we have seen in Kursk, in recent days, is in many ways similar. Although with two new elements.
The first, most obvious, is strategic: effectively breaking what until then had been a kind of undeclared taboo, NATO invaded Russian territory.
The second is tactical: this time the attack was carried out mainly using small DRG units, which, after easily overwhelming the border guards and recruits stationed in the territory, penetrated deeply along some axes.
Obviously, in this case the operation – unlike last year's – was tactically successful, at least temporarily.
However, apart from the aforementioned strategic political value, this maneuver is irrelevant from a military point of view. The damage inflicted on the Russian forces, apart from a certain number of prisoners captured in the first days, is absolutely minimal, while the price paid in men (about 6,000, between killed in combat and wounded in combat, in a few days) and means It is very high.
The attack did not serve to distract Russian troops in the Donbass, if that was the objective. And now the Ukrainian forces are at a crossroads: either they withdraw quickly, nullifying the political outcome of the attack, or they stay on the ground and let the Russian armed forces destroy them.
They are also applying their usual method of operation here: they face the Ukrainian forces in one sector, and use their air and artillery superiority to crush the enemy units.
And all this for a portion of territory that may even seem significant, if expressed in terms of square kilometers, but which totally loses its relevance not only when compared to the immense vastness of Russian territory, but also only considering its strategic value.
In fact, it is a predominantly forested area, with few towns; The most important center conquered by Ukrainian forces, in fact, Sudzha, had just over 6,000 inhabitants before the partial evacuation.
In all this, the strategic command of the Russian armed forces did not lose sight of the general panorama of the conflict, and in fact took advantage of the situation to focus – successfully – its efforts precisely on the schwerpunkt (decisive point) [5] of the conflict, namely, the Donbass.
In fact, it is there that the center of gravity of the conflict is located, and this for a whole series of reasons.
To begin with, just take a look at the maps to discover a first fundamental element: the battle line basically draws an arc from northeast to southwest, which is concave on the Ukrainian side and convex on the Russian side.
The Russian offensive push therefore naturally converges toward an ideal center of gravity, which lies just west of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Looking at the map below, among other things, you can see that the largest concentrations of Russian forces are in the far southwest, protecting Crimea, and on the Donbass front.
This region – and this is another reason why it is a schwerpunkt – has a very high network of Ukrainian fortifications, and defensive lines centered on population centers, which Kiev has developed since 2014.
Beyond these, in the west direction there is practically nothing left, neither natural obstacles nor fortified defenses, until the Dnieper. Which, on the one hand, explains why the Russian advance has been so slow until now (the liberation of Bakhmut, for example, took practically a year) and, on the other, why it is now increasingly accelerating.
In fact, Ukraine's defensive depth has gradually eroded into a very thin line. In practice, there are now only a few bastions left, beyond which there is basically nothing.
There is the strategic logistics center of Pokrovsk, now only a few kilometers from the advancing Russian forces, and further up the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk line (which has already been mentioned here several times in the past).
Therefore, the Ukrainian attack in the direction of Kursk, completely removed from the center of gravity of the battle line, ultimately simply stretched this line to the north.
This, in the abstract, could be an advantage for the Ukrainians, since being on the concave side of the line theoretically shortens supply lines, while for the Russians it is exactly the opposite.
But such an advantage would only occur if the proportions of forces were approximately balanced; In reality, the disparity of forces is considerable, especially in the strategic areas of artillery and air dominance, and therefore the Ukrainian army is simply not in a position to gain any significant advantage.
In conclusion, the Ukrainian attack on Russian territory is neither a diversionary maneuver (tactical operation) nor a significant offensive (strategic operation).
Returning, then, to the general panorama of the conflict, and the impact that NATO's strategic doctrine and operational model have on it, it is not daring to affirm once again that the influence of the Atlantic Alliance has been decidedly unfavorable for Ukraine, and not only – as is evident – on a more general level, having led to the destruction of the country, but also on a more specifically military level.
In turn, this leads us to another key to interpreting current events, and what is looming on the horizon.
If, in fact, a Ukrainian defeat will clearly represent a political defeat for NATO as a whole, it will also represent a defeat for the Atlantic military model. American military power – naturally still very considerable – is however crumbling, perhaps even more faster than the power of the dollar.
The obvious Israeli defeat in Palestine, the inability to confront a small country like Yemen, the clear fear of confronting a regional power like Iran, are symptoms of the deep crisis that the military instrument of Western hegemony is going through.
An eventual defeat in Ukraine could be the decisive blow, capable of ending NATO's deterrent power, opening the way to a myriad of totally unmanageable conflicts.
At the moment, no genuine and serious reflection on all this seems to have been opened within the empire, so it is to be assumed that – at least in the short term – they will continue along the same path.
However, if not, they will do everything possible not to claim another defeat.
