You Will Be Haunted by Three Spirits....
Part 1 of 3: The Ghost of War Past
The Ukraine-Russia war/conflict/SMO has not yet fully played out so this is not a so much a history of the conflict, but a reflection on haunting past moments while memories are still fresh and not too affected by long passages of time and not influenced by an eventual outcome.
The first visiting ghost is that of the past. Up to now there have been five major sections of the war worth reflecting on so let’s go:
Pre-Invasion
In the lead up to Russia’s invasion (Late 2021), everyone’s deep historical expertise and PhDs were on Neville Chamberlain’s oblivious and obvious stupidity in 1938 dealing with Nazi Germany. “A whiff of Munich“ warned Ben Wallace, UK Defense Sec on Feb. 13, 2022. And of course: “As Neville Chamberlain belatedly learned, Munich was an illusory, temporary fix. Bullies have to be confronted at some point.1“ So there were infinite-loop like, negotiations: “Senior White House officials declined to respond to the Russian president's core demands that Nato abandon all military activity in Eastern Europe and not admit Ukraine as a member, although both appear to be non-starters.”2 Unsure how a negotiation can take place around “non-starters,“ but there were still several awkward rounds of these. On a personal note, I did not think a conflict would really happen until the very awkward, televised Putin meeting with senior staff on Feb. 21st3 which basically formalized the link between the breakaway republics and Russia and that was truly the point of no return.The Invasion
Russia’s invasion came several days later on Feb. 24th, 2022. There was shock all around, including even among some Russian troops, and the first weeks saw significant fighting, and a failed quick strike Russian attempt to take Kiev/Kyiv. It’s not clear, even to the Ghost of Past, what the Russian campaign thinking was here.. the plan resembles a mix of Czechoslovakia 1968 and Afghanistan 1979: take the capital city with fast moving units, and advance the rest of the mass along key roads to force a political concession or a “friendly” government and deal with the rest later. But it quickly devolved into something closer to the Soviet Finish War of 1939, where Ukrainians using excellent mobile defensive tactics and excellent Western military tech and intelligence blunted the fast advances. Here it is worth noting that negotiations were being held a month into the war in Istanbul, with somekind of optimism for a settlement.4 The negotiations ultimately failed for one reason or another and full details of this proposed settlement are not yet fully public5.
War of Maneuver and Counteroffensive
From Spring and into Summer of 2022 the front and movement was quite dynamic and Russia advanced further and further into Eastern and Southern Ukraine. But in September, Ukraine struck back and rolled back Russian troops with an extremely successful Ukranian counteroffensive. At this point, Russian army appeared to be at a point of collapse, in serious retreat and Ukranian war bloggers were at the height of optimism6.
In September, the counteroffensive largely spent itself and a breather held for both sides.
Bakhmut
My point of view is that what happened next is the key to the whole war. At that point Ukraine was on the winning foot. So during this pause in offensive operations, around October 2022, the Battle of Bakhmut was initiated by Russia as something of a Verdun-like, “bleed the enemy” strategy. It was an attack where Ukraine chose to defend, in a large urban, fortress like setting in an artillery exchange confrontation. All those factors favor Russia, especially in a limited mobility setting. and Ukraine… just like that… fell right into it, lost strategic initiative and started to pump more and more reserves into this static, grinding, fortress battle. There were no more forces for really anything else. While arguably Germany failed in Verdun and bled itself out as much as it bled the French out (Verdun bloodbath paid off for Germany 24 years later in 1940), in case of Russia, they managed in continuing to build pressure and eventually taking whatever was left of the town in May 2023. So this was 6 months of grinding down Ukraine’s army in a static setting.The Summer “Counteroffensive“
While Bakhmut ate up existing Ukrainian resources, all the new aid, weapons, and trained people, were being stockpiled for an attempt to regain initiative, hit Russia hard, take back territory, and put Crimea in jeopardy. It was hyped up enough to have have a movie-like trailer and commenced around June 2023.
While Bakhmut reminds me of Verdun, this counteroffensive was a mirror image of Battle of Kursk. For those without a home library on Kursk, the similarities are almost eerie: it was delayed deeper into Summer to wait for more armaments, Russians anticipated correctly the points of attack, have been preparing meticilous layered fortifications for many months, and combined static / active defensive, including mobile mine fields to prevent maneuver. All those elements are word for word descriptions of Kursk. And well.. the whole thing played out pretty much along the same trajectory: a Ukrainian push that was very slow going, heavy casualties, mountains of wrecked equipment, and overall a huge effort that did not ever come close to a breakthrough, while ending any potential to regain strategic initiative. The whole thing slowly burned out by December 2023 and is labeled as a “failure“.
And that brings us up to 2024, more than two years of immense losses, and the Ghost of Present is visiting soon.
Daily Beast, Jan. 28th, 2022, ‘America First’ MAGA Tough Guys Are Modern-Day Neville Chamberlains (thedailybeast.com)
BBC News: US and Russia agree to talk as Putin hits out on Ukraine (bbc.com), Jan. 21, 2022
Reuters: In piece of Kremlin theatre, Putin weighs fateful decision on Ukraine | Reuters, Feb. 21st, 2022
NYTimes: Day 34 of the War in Ukraine - The New York Times (nytimes.com), March 29th, 2022
Foreign Affairs: The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine | Foreign Affairs
Meme from October / November 2022