Op-Ed: God’s gift to military satire and the Ukraine war – An overview

News that Russia is “spreading the joy” to western Ukraine with missiles will have got a few winces and wry smiles out of military experts. The Russian conduct of this war is far beyond farcical, and this is just another case in point. It’s far too late for Russia to correct the thousands of mistakes.

The Russians are bogged down everywhere against so-called inferior forces. Ukrainian military casualties are minimal despite the massive bombardments of people’s homes. Russian casualties are utterly horrendous and getting worse. Ukraine is awash with wrecked Russian vehicles.

Taking territory for negotiation purposes will have no impact at all on Western sanctions. Russian refugees are now leaving Russia in tens of thousands. If this is any sort of victory, what would a defeat look like?

The US has now informed China that a lifeline for Russia will also draw sanctions and other measures. That’s unlikely to be news to China. China may not be too enthusiastic about having a desperate, broke, and frankly antiquated Russia as a dependent state.

Military satire at work

In the process of writing a manual on How Not To Conduct A Military Operation, some valuable lessons have been learned and applied:

1. Make sure the war you’re fighting is totally unnecessary before fighting it.
2. Ignore international fury.
3. Turn your neighbors into an instantly coherent alliance.
4. Turn your major strategic threat into something functional for a change.
5. Plan using only proven military ignoramuses.
6. Forget Afghanistan, particularly when you’re already taking about as many casualties in Ukraine as you took in 10 years in Afghanistan in two weeks.
7. Ignore the cost of the war which will come back to bite you almost instantly.
8. Always send untrained clueless conscripts against 200,000 professional soldiers and 230,000 reservists.
9. Never check anything at all related to actual operational issues.
10. Hire a party planner to do military logistics for mobile forces.
11. Ignore all military considerations.
12. There is no such thing as food.
13. Hire mercenaries and expect them to do more than collect their money.
14. Miss every possible tactical opportunity right from the start.
15. Find someone totally incapable of traffic management for supply.
16.  Use special forces as infantry.
17.  Prove beyond doubt you can’t do the simplest things to possible future opponents.
18.  Lose battalion and higher level commanders like cornflakes.
19.  Risk a real nuclear war for no reason at all.
20. Antagonize all neighboring countries and be surprised when they send weapons to your opponents.
21.  Lose air assets just for the fun of it, then lose some more.
22. Have lateral security so bad someone can just walk in and take pictures of everything including your day book.
23. Put yourself in a totally, irreversibly, subservient position to China; that’ll help.
24.  Make sure your troops have no combat discipline at all.
25. Conduct idiotic air strikes on anything they might be able to hit.
26. Don’t ever check why your troops are deserting to the enemy.
27. Spend weeks on an attack on major cities you can’t take.
28. Hold back forces to make sure those forces are all you have left to fight any future war, maintain civil order in your own country, etc.
29. Threaten consequences in a totally different region requiring more forces.
30.  Ignore casualties and then wonder where you’ll find more troops.
31. Park an elite tank army around your government center to prove how secure you feel.

Sound good so far? These are euphemisms. Russia is destroying its credibility, its troops, and its future in Ukraine.

Same advice – Get the hell out of Ukraine.

_____________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.