Hubris’ Downfall: The Hard Road

Ahead for the Russia-Ukraine War

5 de octubre de 2023 Tema: Guerra Rusia-Ucrania Región: Europa oriental Etiquetas: Rusia,
Ucrania, Medios de comunicación convencionales, Vladímir Putin, Artillería, Zánganos

La bravuconería oficial y el sesgo de los medios de comunicación degradan el

discurso político y socavan el apoyo público.

por Robert David English

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a paga de la arrogancia es cara. Cuatro meses después del inicio de la
cacareada contraofensiva ucraniana, que, con un costo masivo en hombres y
material, ha logrado una ganancia territorial mínima, el apoyo a Kiev se está
erosionando abiertamente. La frustración se deriva de la creciente carga
económica de la guerra y de los continuos escándalos de corrupción en Ucrania. Pero
se ve agravado por la reacción violenta contra el exceso de confianza y la arrogancia
del establishment de la política exterior occidental, especialmente estadounidense.
Durante meses, las voces escépticas fueron dejadas de lado mientras los medios de
comunicación contrastaban la destreza militar-tecnológica occidental con el atraso y
el desorden rusos. Los cerebros de la OTAN derrotarían a la fuerza rusa, predijeron
los expertos en junio, lo que haría que la desilusión y la desconfianza de octubre
fueran aún mayores.

¿Quién no se horroriza ante las más de 20.000 bajas por una ganancia de 100 millas
cuadradas, evocando la carnicería de la Primera Guerra Mundial? Dado que Rusia
ocupa 40.000 millas cuadradas de territorio ucraniano, la insostenibilidad de tal
campaña es evidente. Sin embargo, los funcionarios de Bruselas y Washington
insisten en que la contraofensiva de Kiev está teniendo éxito, aplaudiendo avances
menores y avances ilusorios. Al mismo tiempo, un coro de oficiales militares retirados
exagera la debilidad rusa y ve la victoria como una transferencia más de armas que
"cambian el juego". ¿Por qué el armamento suministrado por la OTAN, incluidos
cientos de tanques modernos, no ha funcionado como se esperaba? Debido a los
campos minados y las trincheras, se lamentan, sin admitir que Rusia está luchando
ferozmente con destreza táctica y tecnológica, desde la tortuosa guerra electrónica
hasta los devastadores drones antitanque. Pero, ¿no se nos dijo que la tecnología rusa
estaba muy por detrás de la de Occidente? ¿Y que Ucrania tenía un ejército de drones
mientras que los desmoralizados reclutas rusos estaban mal armados, mal dirigidos y
perpetuamente al borde de la deserción?

The brutality of war sparks passions—admiration for Ukraine, hatred and derision of
Russia—that inflame public debate and impede objective analysis. The latter, by
definition, must be dispassionate. If think tanks become partisan and the media act as
cheerleaders, then we see only what we want to see. With Ukraine, the cheerleading
mirrors that of our Iraq and Afghanistan debacles. As a result, we underestimated the
adversary, leading to flawed tactics, failed operations, and now flagging public
support. What next? As always, the default choice is escalation—providing Kyiv with
more armaments and munitions. But will a few squadrons of F-16s and a few hundred
ATACMS be enough to defeat Russia?

Underestimating Russia

One morning in mid-June, Russian president Vladimir Putin awoke to bad news. In a
pre-dawn raid, Ukraine struck the bridge linking Crimea and the Russian mainland. If
he had followed U.S. media, Putin would have been truly distressed; experts described
how the attack dealt a severe blow to Russia’s war because the bridge was the vital
supply line for the front. But while pundits hailed this as a triumph for Kyiv, Putin
merely shrugged while predicting Moscow’s victory. Was he in denial, or did he know
something crucial about Russian resilience? In fact, notwithstanding initial hyperbole,
only road traffic was disrupted while supply trains continued unimpeded. Moreover,
Ukraine attacked the same bridge in 2022, and repairs quickly restored full operation
despite similar predictions of doom. Indeed, the Crimean Bridge has symbolized
Russian resourcefulness in the face of Western scorn for a decade; many initially
sneered that Russia lacked the know-how to build Europe’s longest bridge, with some
even predicting that it would collapse under its own weight. As such, this sturdy
engineering marvel invites us to reconsider our stereotypes.

“Russia is running out of ammunition.” A Google search of this phrase yields almost
ten million hits, as versions of it appeared in Western headlines for a year. CNN,
Newsweek, The Economist, Forbes, and Foreign Policy all joined the chorus, echoing
assessments from U.S. and UK defense officials. In June 2022, the Washington Post
predicted that Russian munitions would soon be depleted and Russia would “exhaust
its combat capability” within months. Yet by June of 2023, all of these outlets
reported that it was actually Ukraine that was critically low on missiles and artillery.
How low? Russia now fires over 10,000 artillery rounds per day, while Ukraine
manages just 5,000. It takes the United States weeks to produce what Ukraine
expends in a few days, while NATO allies have reached “the bottom of the barrel” in
donating their reserves to Kyiv. Meanwhile, Russia is still outproducing the West
despite “crippling” sanctions that were supposed to strangle its war effort. Likewise,
Russian missiles continued to strike Ukraine a year after reports that production
would soon halt because arms manufacturers were reduced to cannibalizing computer
chips from home appliances. And still, we scoff at Russia’s claim that it will increase
tank production by 1,500 next year—three times the number of Western tanks
provided to Ukraine.

“So what if Russia makes more tanks? Ukraine will just destroy them with missiles
and drones.” This follows the narrative of how Kyiv nullifies Russian quantity with
superior quality, especially their hi-tech “army of drones.” Thus, we pay scant
attention to news that belies this narrative, namely Russia’s adoption of new systems
and tactics. Ukraine now loses up to 10,000 drones per month to Russian counter-
drone weapons and electronic warfare. Russia also jams GPS signals to sabotage the
guidance systems of U.S.-supplied armaments such as JDAM glide bombs and
HIMARS artillery. And Russia is deploying a new line of unmanned aerial vehicles,
such as the Lancent “kamikaze” drone, that have destroyed or disabled dozens of just-
delivered Western tanks and armored vehicles—thereby thwarting the rapid
breakthrough that was supposed to follow billions in NATO armor and months of
NATO training.

The Fog of War

The Ukrainian battlefield is broad, flat farmland criss-crossed by strips of forest. It is

covered by extensive air defenses, continually monitored by both Russian and
Ukrainian ground and air-based systems, and blanketed by both sides’ surveillance
drones. With night-vision capabilities as well, the “fog of war” has finally lifted—at
least within a band of fifteen kilometers along the battlefront. Little can move far
without being detected, and to be detected is to be targeted—by attack drones, by
artillery, by rockets (such as the HIMARS), and by air-to-surface missiles (such as
Russia’s LMUR). The Russians experienced this in the war’s first phase, suffering
grievous losses as their drive on Kyiv was repulsed. Moscow’s last major advance,
capturing the city of Bakhmut in May, came at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
But now Kyiv is suffering as its counteroffensive—meant as a blitzkrieg through
Russian lines—instead advances at a bloody crawl.

It’s true that the Ukrainians and their NATO advisers underestimated the density of
Russian minefields. But while mines take a direct toll, they also work indirectly by
restricting vehicles to secured routes and narrow paths where they are easier targets
for Russian artillery and drones. In June, Russia decimated an entire column of
Ukrainian armor—including just-acquired German Leopard tanks and American
Bradley infantry fighting vehicles—in a clash on the Zaporizhzhia front. This morale-
boosting victory for Moscow saw the site memorialized as “Bradley Square.” The
lesson is that any large concentration of armor is quickly detected, and any major
convoy of troops is similarly seen and targeted.

With layers of surveillance, including swarms of drones providing real-time detection

and targeting to Russian artillery, a grand Desert Storm-style offensive became
impossible. Another problem is Ukraine’s inferiority to Russia in the air and its
consequent inability to pave the way for its armor and infantry units by pounding
Russian defenses from the skies. Even battalion-sized operations are problematic,
much less the brigade-level blitzkriegs that many imagined. Ukrainian activity
confines itself to company or platoon-level operations where a few dozen troops,
supported by a handful of vehicles, advance stealthily under the cover of forest lines.
Backed by drones—and supported by artillery fire—they seek to degrade the enemy
enough to storm Russian trenches.

Clumsy, Cowardly Russians?

Sometimes, they succeed. Sometimes, the Ukrainians are detected early, and the
Russians ambush them with artillery fire. Snipers and stormtroopers contest every
trench, with deadly drones buzzing above. The Ukrainians press on, their courage
under fire reverently detailed in the media. But that of the Russians—also fighting
fiercely and taking heavy losses—is nowhere to be seen. After numerous stories about
disarray in command and desertion in the ranks, the fact that the Russians are
fighting with discipline and cohesion has left those who predicted otherwise silent.
The first direct acknowledgment of dogged Russian resistance in major U.S. media
came only recently from CNN. This admission did not come from Western experts but
from Ukrainian soldiers themselves. Frustrated that their NATO backers had faulted
their meager progress, they lamented, “We expected less resistance. They are holding.
They have leadership. It is not often you say that about the enemy.”

Such observations are notably absent in U.S. media. Yet, is the aim of war reporting to
celebrate one’s allies? Or is it to present a balanced assessment, regardless of whether
the good or bad guys have the upper hand? This partisanship over the prowess of
soldiers is also seen in coverage of the weapons they wield. Following the narrative of
“Ukrainian brains over Russian brawn,” a succession of upgrades to Kyiv’s arsenal
have been touted as wonder weapons. These include HIMARS artillery, Leopard
tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Storm Shadow missiles, and DPICM cluster
munitions—“game changers” all. But these high hopes have been frustrated, in large
part because of the weapons the Russians use to counter them. Moscow’s arsenal
includes electronic warfare (EW) systems that down Ukrainian drones by the dozens
and GPS jamming of U.S.-made HIMARS artillery and JDAM glide bombs. Untested
on such a vast scale, their effectiveness has been a nasty surprise. Also unexpected
was Russia’s introduction of new systems, such as the Lancet drone, which wreaks
havoc on Ukrainian armor thanks to its expanded range, payload, and anti-jamming
features. Others include new FAB glide bombs and the improved LMUR missile,
whose range puts the helicopters launching it beyond the reach of Ukrainian air
defense. These Russian weapons are blunting Ukraine’s advance, yet mainstream
analyses rarely mention them. After all, Russia was said to be running out of precision
munitions, not developing and deploying new ones.
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