Day: April 29, 2022
The Senator needs to go deeper
Senator Murphy of Connecticut is just back from a quick trip to the still troubled parts of the Balkans (Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Pristina). He has written a literate and interesting account of the trip. Would that all Codels could do likewise.
The Bosnia mistake
That said, I think he makes serious mistakes. Jasmin Mujatovic has pointed out one on Twitter:
Very specifically, Sen. Murphy frames the scene in the Bosnian presidency as a kind of war of each against all. Clearly, not the case, as it’s Dzaferovic & Komsic attempting to hold the line vs. Dodik’s constant provocations & threats, as D’s own subsequent comments make clear. Bosnia is not a land on intractable, tribal feuds. It’s a place where a decades-long attempt to break up the country along sectarian lines by extremist actors, backed by Belgrade primarily but now also Russia, is being necessarily opposed. Let’s be clear about the politics of it.
Jasmin is also concerned that the Senator is too chummy with Serbian President Vucic.
The Kosovo mistake
The root of that chumminess is clear in the Senator’s account: Vucic often dines with Murphy when the President is in Washington. It would be hard for Murphy to have the same relationship with Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti, who is Vucic’s functional equivalent in Kosovo. Kurti has not been permitted an official visit to Washington since taking office. This is because Washington blames him for the lack of progress in the dialogue with Belgrade. The Senator seems to agree with that characterization.
I don’t. The only obstacle to achieving what the Senator identifies as the main objective of the dialogue–mutual recognition by the two sovereign and independent states–is Serbia’s refusal to consider the proposition. The dialogue would just be a normal conversation between neighbors except for that.
Irredentism in the Balkans is just as bad as in Ukraine
Serbia has offered only one alternative to mutual recognition: Belgrade de jure control (either through a land swap or through an Association of Serb Municipalities with executive powers) over the Serb-majority population north of the Ibar river in Kosovo. This irredentist ambition is just as dangerous in the Balkans as Russia’s comparable ambition to control the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces of Ukraine. And Serbia’s irredentism is less well-founded. The pre-war population of the largest and most important municipalilty north of the Ibar was not majority Serb. Most Serbs in Kosovo still live south of the Ibar.
There is no sign in the Senator’s account of his visit to Belgrade that he admonished Vucic for his territorial ambitions in Kosovo or his support for Milorad Dodik’s secessionism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I hope that when he convenes his task force in the Congress, the Senator will ensure that these issues are top priority in the discussion. They should also be on the menu when he next dines with President Vucic. The Senator needs to go deeper.
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Another long war in the offing
Mark Hertling, a retired lieutenant general who knows his stuff, offers on Twitter a good explanation of what is going on inside Ukraine:
Ukrainians currently outgunned, but not forever
A few weeks ago, as the “new phase” was being discussed, I suggested we should look for a couple things happening in the east and south of Ukraine. We’re very early in that new phase & there are indicators those things are happening. Let’s review what we should see. What RU has done is reinforce with lots (repeat, LOTS) of tube and rocket artillery. That is according to RU doctrine. To penetrate an enemy’s defense, RU uses mass artillery barrages all along the front. They’ve been doing that. And it is deadly.
There’s two ways to counter massive artillery strikes. 1. Get out from under it (giving up land) 2. Conduct counterfire with your own artillery after pinpointing the enemy’s guns with radar. While Ukraine’s army (UA from here out) have some Russian 152 mm cannons, and they are receiving LOTS of guns (155 mm cannons) from the US & NATO, there’s 2 problems. 1. UA is running low on 152 (Russian) ammo 2. The western guns/ammo ain’t there yet.
Yeah, yeah, I know @PentagonPresSec said the guns/radars are arriving fast, and *some* are already there. But they’re not all at the front, with the ammo, just yet. Things just don’t magically move to the front & get into the fight immediately in combat. A seque: during combat our division fielded MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protective) trucks, due to an IED threat. Trucks. Not hard to learn. Not hard to drive. No triggers to pull. It took us awhile. Fact: fielding ANY new equipment to units in combat takes time.
So there will be counterfire fights between RU and UA, but it might be awhile. So UA has to give up ground. When they do that, the RU will send in “reconnaissance in force” or RFI. Small combat units to take limited objectives in multiple places. That’s what we’re seeing now in several locations in the east & south. Lots of Russian artillery barrages against the front line, followed by smaller RU combat units attempting to seize terrain/cities/critical objectives. RU artillery is working.
The RU maneuver forces……are undermanned, not well supplied, not well led, are on ground they’re not familiar with, and they don’t do maneuver all that well. So we’re seeing RU forces temporarily take ground, then being pushed back by the smart, better led, more adaptive active defense of the UA. Finally…we’re about 7-10 days (at best) into this second phase. It will go for awhile. New forces are feeling each other out in the east. RU will initially outgun with arty, then it may become a big arty duel. But UA maneuver force will outperform the RU.
The other front
The other front is in Washington DC. There President Biden has launched a money salvo. He is asking for $33 billion more to support Ukraine. That is a lot of money, on top of $17 billion or so already spent. The Americans are also talking about using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine.
These moves betoken a broadening of US objectives. Defense Secretary Austin says he wants to weaken Russia so it can’t in the future invade other countries. President Biden has labelled President Putin a genocial war criminal who should not remain in power. Secretary of State Biden is more circumspect, but it is clear that the Americans are now aiming for a clear Russian defeat and Putin’s fall from power (at the hands of his own people, Biden has clarified). These things are not happening anytime soon, so anticipate a long war and even more spending.
The Russians are also going long
The Russians have also changed their objectives. They gave up on capturing Kyiv and installing a puppet government there. Now they aim to take all of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and the entire southern coast, most of which they already control. But they are stalled at Mykolaiv and will have a hard time swallowing a big city like Odesa, which had about one million inhabitants before the war.
The only major city they have taken so far is Mariupol, which they had to destroy to occupy. Resistance there continues. The Russians may try to use their 1500 or so troops in the Moldovan region of Transnistria to attack Ukraine from the west, but that should not be hard for the Ukrainians to counter. Russian artillery attacks on Kyiv while the UN Secretary General was visiting there signal Moscow’s determination to continue the fight, but current Russian objectives will not be achieved any time soon.
How long can Ukraine take it?
War often involves miscalculation, at least by one side or the other. Both the Americans and Russians have had to recalibrate. Only the Ukrainians have kept constant. They want to push the Russians entirely out from Ukrainian territory, but might well settle for Russian withdrawal to pre-February positions. The issue for Ukraine is how long its population can take the terrible devastation the Russians are wreaking. So far, the Ukrainians are stalwart. Another long war is in the offing.
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Stevenson’s army, April 29
-WaPo notes new anti-NATO group in GOP.
– Axios sees disagreement in Biden administration over China tariffs.
– Semper fighting: former top Marines disagree over commandant’s plans.
– Time has big piece on Zelensky
– Old Soviet weapons going to Ukraine.
– RollCall doesn’t find pay increases on Hill, despite new law.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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