In an open letter entitled “U.S. must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late” 20 notable American advocates for the war against Russia in Ukraine argue that the conflict has reached a decisive moment. To win, the authors insist, Ukrainian forces need an abundance of new equipment, including the constant resupply of ammunition and spare parts for artillery platforms, short- and medium-range air defense systems to counter Russian air and missile strikes, and ATACMS munitions fired by HIMARS with the 300km range necessary to strike Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine or Crimea.

Meanwhile, the initial flood of equipment and ammunition from Washington’s European Allies into Ukraine has been reduced to a trickle. Daniel Fiott, a European defense analyst at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, complained, “Ukraine needs hardware, not hot air.” Equally important, refugee fatigue is setting in across Europe.

Germans and Hungarians lost their patience with the unrelenting influx of refugees into Europe some time ago, but now the Poles are reaching the saturation point. Polish households confront serious economic headwinds. Poland has one of Europe’s highest inflation rates—15.6 percent in July—caused in part by the war in Ukraine. As conditions worsen in the fall and winter, it is not hard to imagine enormous public pressure on Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Paris, and Rome to end the war in Ukraine.

The hard truth is the introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army. In addition, there is an acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict. Unlike Ukraine, Russia is not currently mobilized for a larger war, but it could do so quickly.

American military and civilian leaders routinely ignore the historical record and its lessons. Most importantly, they ignored the criticality of human capital in uniform that frequently constitutes the margin of victory in war. 

On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht launched its invasion of Russia with more horses than tanks. For the most part, the German ground forces were composed of Great War-style infantry divisions dependent on horse-draw logistics and artillery. The German soldiers were indisputably excellent, but only a minority were equipped with the firepower, mobility, and armored protection needed for warfare in Eastern Europe.

Of the millions of German soldiers who marched into Russia, roughly 450,000 to 500,000 were assigned to Germany’s mobile armored force, the offensive striking power that rapidly crushed its Polish, British, Dutch, Belgian, and French opponents. These soldiers were the best of the best with the lion’s share of the modern equipment. 

It took four years, from 1939 to 1943, to wear down this core element to the point where large-scale German offensives were no longer possible. The critical data point to remember is that 55,000 German officers had been killed in action by October.

These German officers were among the best and most experienced officers in the army. They performed the brilliant maneuvers that brought the ill-equipped Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow in a war on three fronts—Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. They led it through the offensives that culminated in the battles of Kursk and El Alamein.

A similar problem plagued the Luftwaffe. German industry could provide modern jet fighters, but the Luftwaffe could no more replace the losses of its best pilots than the German Army could replace its best officers.

Meanwhile, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto understood the importance of human capital in uniform better than anyone. Yamamoto not only wanted to strike and annihilate the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor but also wanted to seize the Hawaiian Islands, declaring, “To defeat the U.S. Navy we must kill its officers.” Yamamoto understood how long it took to train and prepare officers for the Navy. Ultimately, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor allowed U.S. forces to kill off the best the Imperial Japanese armed forces had in the air and at sea.

In war and peace, human capital is everything. Sadly, Washington places almost no value on it, eagerly lowering standards of admission for soldiers and officers. If this attitude persists, and it probably will, relaxed standards will catch up with America’s military when our forces finally confront a capable opposing force in battle.

John Adams, second president of the United States, observed,“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Adams is still right.

Ukraine’s war with Russia is at a decisive point. It is time to end it. Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border. These are results of misguided policies originating in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, which drove Russia into political isolation from Europe and forged Moscow’s alliance with Beijing.

Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely it becomes that the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible. If Washington insists on perpetuating Ukraine’s war with Russia, the neutrality option will vanish, NATO’s fragile “coalition of the willing” will collapse, and Ukraine will become the new “sick man of Europe” and remain a catalyst for future conflict.

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https://www.theamericanconservative.com/reinforcing-failure-in-ukraine/

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Ukraine’s much-heralded “counter-offensive” in Kherson has “failed miserably,” the Russian Defense Ministry insisted on Monday, listing estimated losses suffered by Kiev during the operation.

Ukrainian forces had attempted to attack in three directions on orders of President Vladimir Zelensky but made no gains, Moscow explained.

Russian troops caused “great losses” to the Ukrainian attackers during the day’s battles, a statement read. Kiev saw 26 tanks, 23 armored fighting vehicles, nine more armored vehicles, and two SU-25 ground-attack jets destroyed, while more than 560 troops were lost, according to the summary.

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https://www.rt.com/russia/561758-ukraine-counter-offensive-fails/

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BY James O’Neill

When viewing the war in Ukraine one has the experience of reading the Western media and having to ask oneself, where do these people gather their information from? There is almost a complete detachment from the events on the ground and the way it is reported in the Western media. This is more readily apparent in the British press than anywhere else in Europe. Having recently visited the United Kingdom, I was shocked by their reporting on the war, or rather what purported to be their reporting. It was so completely detached from reality that one had to pause and remind oneself that what was being reported was not so much a chronicle of events but rather a series of statements that reflected what the British hoped would be the case.

In this they reflected the complete detachment from reality that is embodied in the increasingly bizarre statements of the Ukrainian president. In his latest statement given last Sunday, president Zelensky said that Ukraine will recapture Donbass. That is the predominantly Russian speaking portion of the country that signed an agreement with the Ukrainian government in 2015 and appeared to present the Donbass with a significant degree of independence.

What the government of the Donbass did not realise then was that the Ukrainian government had no intention of fulfilling its obligations under the agreement. Instead, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops occupied the region and are only now being forcibly removed following the Russian intervention in February of this year.

That the Russians took so long to intervene is one of the great puzzles of the whole exercise. It must have been obvious, long before the Russian intervention in February, that the Ukrainian government had no intention of fulfilling is obligations under the 2014 and 2015 agreements. The real reason for Ukrainian intransigence one suspects is that the Ukrainian government was not the one actually making the decisions. Rather, it was the Americans. They were the ones after all who engineered the coup that overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian government in 2014 and have supported the government it installed there ever since. The objective then, as now, was essentially an anti-Russian move.

The Americans would have been delighted at Russia’s intervention in February 2022 as it gave them the perfect excuse to extend their anti-Russia policy, including the intended replacement of Vladimir Putin as Russian president. That whole policy, including the separation of Europeans from the Russian economy, has been an abject failure. Far from bringing the Russians to the point of collapse, that has been the fate of the vast majority of the 30 member European Union. It is they who are now facing the dismal prospect of being literally frozen this winter as the Russians greatly reduced the supply of oil and gas and effectively reduced the role of Nord Stream 1 in keeping the European system functioning.

There is now even talk by the Germans of reviving the Nord Stream 2 project which was ready to supply energy to Europe months ago, but was shut down by a weak German government so in thrall to the Americans that they were willing to jeopardise their own vital energy supplies in order to abide by the American wishes. As the old saying goes, it was a classic example of cutting off their nose to spite their face. Now the Germans are in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that they made an error and effectively to beg the Russians to free them from their self -imposed trap. The Russians, unsurprisingly, are less than interested in rescuing the Germans from the results of their own folly.

The embodiment of this detachment from reality was Zelensky’s address this past Sunday. He claimed that Ukraine would recapture the Donbass. “We have not forgotten and will not forget any of our cities or any of our people” he said. Further emphasising his complete detachment from reality, Zelensky continued “Ukrainian Donetsk was humiliated by the Russian occupation and robbed. But Ukraine will return. For sure. Life will return. The dignity of the people of Donbass will return.” He even claimed that the Ukrainian flag will “definitely” be set up again in Crimea.

There are conflicting reports that Zelensky has both an alcohol and a drug problem. He may have neither or both. What is certain however, is his complete detachment from reality. His references to reclaiming Crimea is a case in point. That island was gifted to Ukraine by then Russian President Khrushchev in 1954. The people of Crimea were not consulted. At the time both Ukraine and Crimea were part of the USSR and the transfer had few practical consequences. It is an example of the selective reporting of history by the Western media however, that they completely disregard the relevant history and report seriously Zelensky’s claims of reclaiming Crimea. The people of Crimea are as unlikely to be consulted about such a move than they were in 1954. What is certain however, is that the vast majority of Crimeans are happy with the present status quo and have absolutely no desire to be returned to the Ukraine, under Zelensky or anybody else. It is typical of the Western media that they ignored the wishes of the Crimean people in promoting the ephemeral dream of the Ukraine’s current president.

The rest of Zelensky’s speech, quoted above, is equally detached from reality. The Donbass has now been re-claimed by Russia and is highly unlikely to return to Ukrainian control. Any Ukrainian claims to the territory have been undermined by the extensive discrimination against the region by Ukrainian forces, including killing more than 14,000 people and forcing one million more into exile. The barring by Ukraine of the use of the Russian language was another move that was highly unlikely to cause the Donbass people to react positively to Ukrainian claims to governance.

Given these facts, it is difficult to see the Donbass ever returning to Ukrainian control. The Americans would like to see the war continue. From their point of view, it is a win – win situation. The Russians are engaged in an unpopular war that has lost them much support in the West. The Americans get to try out their new weapons without exposing their own soldiers to the risk of being killed. What they failed to see was that the bulk of the world’s nations does not support their version of events. Russia has survived European sanctions and is prospering elsewhere in the world. It is the Europeans you are suffering and that will grow a whole lot worse in the foreseeable future.

European reaction has however, greatly hardened Russia’s attitude to the existing social order. Together with China they are forging a wholly new system of geopolitical and economic relations. The consequences of these changes will eventually undermine residual United States influence in large areas of the world. Such an outcome is in my view to be welcomed.

James O’Neill, an Australian-based former Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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https://journal-neo.org/2022/08/29/the-war-in-ukraine-is-a-foretaste-of-much-wider-changes/

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