US and Ukraine clash over counteroffensive strategy.

 

Trench warfare in Ukraine. Wall Street Journal.

The United States and Ukraine are clashing over the counteroffensive strategy. Wall Street Journal. The United States wants Ukraine to return to "combined arms" tactics to resume the offensive. However, Ukraine says those tactics do not work with the commander of of Ukraine's armed forces reportedly saying that Ukraine was "...not a counterinsurgency [but]Kursk". Kursk was the largest tank battle of history and occurred on the eastern front between Germany and the Soviet Union. Washington wants Ukraine to gather their forces and make one large concentrated push near Tokmak in the south to resume the push to the Sea of Azov. Ukraine however had launched another attack near Bakhmut that failed and has been subsequently shut down. Ukraine also complains that they really don't have the weapons to use combined arms tactics as they have almost no air power remaining and lack the artillery to outmatch Russia. 

My Comment:

There is a pretty obvious reason why Ukraine moved away from combined arms to their various other tactics, including Russian style attrition warfare and their own "mosquito" tactics of sending light infantry against Russian lines. When Ukraine tried to use combined arms they failed and failed pretty hard. Ukraine's newly formed and western trained armored battalions were badly mauled in the early stages of the offensive and they lost much of the equipment they had been given. In order to preserve at least some of these weapons Ukraine switched tactics. 

What the United States doesn't seem to understand about their own strategies is that combined arms, well, requires combined arms. Ukraine would need air superiority and at the very least artillery parity with the Russians to have any kind of success with combined arms. Ukraine doesn't have this. Ukraine will likely never have this. Their air forces are now a joke and Russia has air superiority and will until the end of the war, F-16s be damned. And they simply can't match Russia for artillery, Russia has far too many weapons for that to ever happen. 

That being said, Ukraine deserves some of the blame here too. The United States has a point that diluting their offensive by launching an attack near Bakhmut was a mistake. Every soldier that was fighting or got killed their would have been better in their offensive in the south. It probably wouldn't have helped but it certainly lessened their chances and it's smart that they finally called off the attack. I don't know what Zelenksy and Ukraine's obsession is with that town but they have wasted so many resources there that it isn't even funny. 

Regardless, I think the bulk of the blame lies with the west. They should have known that western style combined arms tactics were not going to work against a superior force, which is what Russia is. Without out air and artillery power the counteroffensive was always doomed. There were ways that Ukraine could have minimized casualties on their side or maximized the ground they took, yes, but ultimately someone in the Pentagon should have known that they were blowing smoke. 

The smart thing would have been to abandon the counteroffensive in the first place and force Russia to advance on them. Indeed, that seems to be Russia's primary tactic at this point as their offensives have been mostly limited in nature. Russia built up massive defenses and minefields and it has caused a huge amount of attrition against Ukrainian forces. Attacking into that was a mistake and it would have made more sense to make Ukrainian defenses instead. 

But, as always, this is a media war and western support of it was measured in miles taken, not Russian units destroyed and that completely ruined this campaign for Ukraine. I know they could do little else but Ukraine's actions were never based on pragmatism. They held on in Bakhmut long after any sane commander would retreat because they knew it would play poorly if they left, which they did anyways. And they launched this offensive even though it was very likely to fail because western media audiences needed to see the "big arrow" attacks that would take back territory if they were going to continue to support the war. 

Compare that to the Russians. When they got overextended in Kiev and Kharkiv they pulled back. The media, of course, called these defeats but Russia was wise to shorten their lines, regroup and then punish the Ukrainians for overextending themselves. The Russians obviously care about doing what is smart, not what plays well in the media. 

Regardless, I think it's clear that the counteroffensive has failed and that by continuing it at this point Ukraine is only further damaging their cause. They are now throwing their reserves into the battle, and though they have moved the front lines a few miles, they are taking horrendous casualties doing so.

I do think that the Ukrainian commander quoted in the Wall Street Journal piece is right, this is Kursk. If you have read your World War II history you would realize that Kursk, not Stalingrad, was the real turning point of the Eastern Front. The Nazis tried to push an offensive against defense in depth and got their clock cleaned and were never able to regain the initiative in the war. I think it's very clear that the same thing happened this summer in Ukraine...