DEAD problem with air superiority
Russian war in Ukraine takaways for NATO military strategy against Russia
There is a new Prime Minister in Poland. In his expose he referred to the Russian attack on Ukraine:
New Polish Prime Minister on Ukraine
With concerns growing in Kyiv about its Western allies' commitment to funding its defence against Russia's invasion, Tusk said Poland would advocate for continued support. "We will ... loudly and decisively demand the full mobilisation of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war," he said.
We do hope that it is actually the case. But we do have our memory and we do have knowledge based on the declassified files from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the first term of Donald TUSK. He was the Polish Prime Minister once and according to his new - old Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski it was back in 2008 when Tusk was offered by Putin taking part in the partition of Ukraine. Radek SIkorski shared this story years ago with Politico.com. We described it in our Reset Series:
Sikorski on Putin’s proposal of Ukraine partition in 2008
Russia has attempted to involve Poland in the invasion of Ukraine, just as if it were a post-modern re-run of the historic partitions of Poland. “He wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine,” says Sikorski. “Putin wants Poland to commit troops to Ukraine. These were the signals they sent us. … We have known how they think for years. We have known this is what they think for years. This was one of the first things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, [soon to be President of the European Council] when he visited Moscow. He went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don’t we just sort it out together. Luckily Tusk didn’t answer. He knew he was being recorded.”
Sikorski revealed this few weeks after he was fired from the Foreign Ministry.He withdrew from those statements after a storm in Polish media. He did however leave a strange passage about the controversial proposals from Putin in his own memo from that meeting. The Politico interview about the 2008 Tusk’s visit to Mosow was published almost 8 months after Russia invaded Crimea. Yet for all those years between the 2008 visit and Crimea annexation the Polish Prime Minister Donald TUSK was building a strategic partnership with Russia. The price that Poland paid for this policy was energy addiction from Russian gas and oil.
Despite the fact that I do have my own critical assessment of Tusk’s policies, I truly hope that the circumstances and the global wartime reality changed the new Polish Prime Minister’s attitude toward Russia and Ukraine.
Russia attacks on the East bank of Dnipro
According to the Institute for Study of War the situation in the area is typical for last months of fighting in the region: „Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces consolidated positions in an area south of Krynky and that Ukrainian forces took advantage of poor weather to transport 30-50 personnel to the east bank. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced in Krynky after conducting airstrikes against Ukrainian positions. Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions near the Antonivsky road bridge north of Oleshky”
As the front lane is barely moving with territorial gains counted in hundreds of metres or single kilometers, in the best case, the geopolitical discussions take place in Washington or Wladimir Zielinski is talking to Joe Biden:
Mr. Biden is hoping Mr. Zelensky will not only sway members of Congress to pass a $110.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes aid for Ukraine but will also reiterate the importance of defending against Russia’s aggression. The visit comes a week after Republicans blocked the package, putting any future financial assistance for Ukraine in doubt.
The war, as it will soon enter, it’s third year of this phase - keep in mind that it really lasts since 2014, which is going to be 10 years in total next year we have more and the more professional experts who are drawing conclusions not only for Ukraine, but for NATO member states as well. One of this kind of texts was published week ago by Royal United service Institute expert Profesor Justin Bronk.
He claims that on a strategic level, NATO states should be prepared, that when China moves against Taiwan, Russia will hit NATO member states at the same time:
"In the event of a clash with China in the Indo-Pacific that removes the capacity for large-scale US military reinforcement and support elsewhere, Europe will be left vulnerable to concurrent military aggression by Russia."
As we read in the text the end US military involvement is and that’s a quote, only likely scenario of direct Russian attack against NATO”:
"The only likely scenario in which Russia might directly attack a European NATO country is during a concurrent standoff or actual conflict that leaves US forces largely fixed in the Indo-Pacific."
The Russian style war of attrition is a strategy aimed not only to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses, but it is a way of challenging NATO, US and the whole collective west:
"Russia is settling down for a long war, aiming to grind down Ukraine and exhaust the capacity and will of its Western supporters... This would not be such a serious risk were it not for the fact that the US military is increasingly facing a threat that it cannot overmatch from Chinese forces in the Indo-Pacific.")
Profesor Bronc argues that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine showed the level of European states and preparedness for a serious military engagement in Europe. An obvious threat that comes from Russia:
"Without major increases in European defence production and a focus on reorganising and training militaries to credibly roll back any future Russian aggression against Alliance territory, Russia will regenerate a capacity to directly threaten NATO faster than most political or even military planners appear to realise."
As we read in the paper - the only solution that we are actually facing, but no one is ready to admit it on the political level - is to urgently increase European and western military, industrial capabilities. We simply need urgent, military investments,
"To deter this concurrent threat, European countries – including the UK – must urgently invest in significantly increasing production capacity for the artillery ammunition, spare parts and air defence missiles required to keep Ukraine in the fight while also refilling their own dangerously depleted stockpiles
But even that will not solve the problem. As the same author wrote almost a year ago in another article, summarizing, the first year of the Russian war against Ukraine, the western idea of building massive airspace superiority over potential enemy, Russia. is not that obvious as we would like to think. Listen to this:
"The third major area of concern is that no European NATO air forces currently have sufficient expertise or the required munitions stocks to conduct suppression and destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) at scale.")
What are SEAD/DEAD capabilities? Well it refers to the military capabilities focused on "Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses" (SEAD) and "Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses" (DEAD). These capabilities involve neutralizing, destroying, or temporarily degrading the enemy's surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and other air defense measures. The author claims that Europe is lacking needed capabilities in that regard here is a quote:
Europe’s air superiority problem
The lethality of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems on both sides in Ukraine is a vivid reminder of the consequences of an inability to conduct SEAD/DEAD at scale” (…) Without such capacity [SEAD/DEAD], European NATO air forces cannot credibly achieve and exploit control of the air over a battlefield contested by Russian forces or even by near-peers such as Iran
Justin Bronc in his text, published almost a year ago, concludes that what we need. Maybe a total red definition of the way we as a NATO member states think about our security. It’s not the air superiority in the first place, it's good if we have it. But first of all those are classic ground capabilities that we should rebuild, and this:
would require a total redesign of NATO’s joint forces towards a force that relies on massed artillery, armour and infantry as the core of its fighting power, rather than air-delivered firepower. That alternative implies demographic, political and financial costs that far outstrip the costs of regenerating warfighting credibility for NATO air forces.
But all of this won’t matter if we as a west will lack the will…
Political will of resisting evil.
Yes we need to have started producing ammunition yesterday but thanks to being a democracy it'll be the 12th of never by the time our governments pull their fingers out.
A Sad Indictment. For too long, we have basked in the sunshine of relative Peace and Stability. During those years, most of us lost our manufacturing industries, having shipped them to the 'World's Factory', China and are now hooked on a supply of inexpensive commodities and products ranging from clothing to electronics and much, much more. There was cheap and plentiful energy from Russia and we were lulled into investing less and less in our Defence Forces as the prospect of Kinetic War was quelled by the enduring prosperity and peace albeit punctuated by the WOMD Iraq war and chasing down Binladen and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A Foretaste. We've had a taste of what might come to be. Russia occupied Crimea and we did little about it, it really didn't affect us much at all, but we levied some ineffectual sanctions and it was back to business as usual. Then Russia went to Syria to help Assad. We saw pretty much a demonstration of the standard Russian Military strategy of obliterating civilian infrastructure and its civilians, which we have seen in Ukraine over the last two years.
Then China unleashed Covid on our unsuspecting clearly ill-prepared World. This was a deliberate act of aggression for which China has never been held accountable.
Iran has resumed enriching uranium far beyond what is required for nuclear power generation and no doubt has weapons grade material available for weapons production. Its support of terrorist groups around the world is well known, and ideologically, is no fan of the West and has avowed to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth and still harbours the desire for revenge on the US for the 'demilitarisation' of Soleimani.
North Korea....is what happens when you don't finish a war properly (isn't hindsight wonderful??)? Rocket man is on a high, he is now important on the World stage. A Statesman, (in absolute control of a population who are barely eking out an existence), he is seeking missile and space technology to further his military ambitions, is heavily sanctioned, hates us all and his NK’s involvement in cybercrime is well known.
The Gathering Storm. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea (RCINK) a Quartet born of Hell.
In no uncertain terms, all nefarious, Kleptocratic/Autocratic mal-actors with significant abilities in Hybrid Warfare and definitely anti-Western. Proponents of a multipolar World in which the US and its Allies (Democracies in general) become less influential in maintaining the World Order, based on International Law.
Russia spreads its tentacles into Africa, feeding off the thirst for power of corrupt warlords happy to gift access to resources, ultimately enriching Putler and the Kleptocratic OligOrcs and funding the Russian War Machine. Now courting the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the indicted War Criminal is becoming something of a jetsetter, whilst his State's mal-actors stoke trouble at every opportunity, meddle in Democratic Elections around the Globe and push propaganda and lies that are so farcical they're almost "Pythonesque" and would be a laugh except so many people accept them as truth. The Chinese Communist Party showed its True Face with its 'Wolf Warrior Arrogance' during the Covid Pandemic. They continue to infiltrate Western Educational Facilities stealing Intellectual Property, coercing Politicians, Business leaders, Community Groups and ensnaring States (in the Asia Pacific) with the poverty trap of the Belt and Road Initiative. They have made no attempt to disguise their desires to take back Taiwan and many of us are still crucially dependant on China's manufacturing ability. China is supplying equipment to Russia for its war on Ukraine and potentially has supplied munitions to North Korea to be passed on to Russia. We have all but forgotten what they did in Tibet, what they are doing to the Uyghurs and we failed to prevent their usurpation of the South China Sea.
Iran is arming Russia for its war on the civilians of Ukraine with drones in exchange for SU 35s and assistance with Nuclear Weapons Technology to further its military aims and ideological goals in the Middle East and anywhere else its malign influence can spread the hatred of its twisted ideology.
Like Iran, North Korea is supplying arms to Russia to be used in Ukraine and no doubt in any conflict the RCINK choose to start.
Russia, NK and China have armies in the millions of personnel that, as we see in Ukraine can make a difference in any conflict of attrition especially if numerous conflicts are started simultaneously in multiple regions of the World.
No good will come from this Union, and if Putler is allowed to win in Ukraine via some worthless peace agreement, the Quartet from Hell will only be further emboldened. The time to act is now, pull out all stops and for God's sake and ours, get to manufacturing and stocking the materiel Ukraine needs to WIN, and the collective West needs to restock it's war deterrents chests.