Tag Archives: Ukraine

On Escalation

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To most people, whether or not a ruler or country “uses” nuclear weapons is a simple choice between either dropping them on the enemy or not doing so. For “experts,” though, things are much more complicated (after all making them so, or making them appear to be so, is the way they earn their daily bread). So today, given Putin’s recent threat to resort to nuclear weapons in case NATO sends its troop into Ukraine, I am going to assume the mantle of an expert and explain some of the things “using” such weapons might mean.

  1. Making verbal threats. Almost eight decades have passed since the first nuclear weapon was dropped on Hiroshima (without any kind of warning, nota bene). Since then there have been plenty of occasions when countries, statesmen and politicians threatened to use the nukes in their arsenal. Eisenhower did so in 1953 in connection with the Korean War; Khrushchev in 1956 in connection with the Suez Crisis; Kennedy in 1962 in connection with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nixon in 1973 in connection with the Arab-Israeli War of that year; India and Pakistan in 1998 in connection with the Kargil War; and so on right down to Putin today. Some of the threats have been overt and rather brutal, others more or less secret and veiled. Some were delivered directly, others with the help of a third party.
  2. To put some muscle behind the threat, weapons may be moved out of storage and put on display. Normally everything pertaining to nukes is kept highly secret. Here and there, though, countries have allowed their nuclear warheads, or replicas of them, to be shown, photographed, and celebrated for what they might do to opponents. In particular Russia, China and North Korea like to parade their intercontinental ballistic missiles. True monsters they are, any one of which can demolish almost any city on earth within, say, less than an hour of the order being given. Some such displays are accompanied by verbal threats, others not. At times the sequence is reversed in the sense that display precedes threats rather than the other way around.
  3. Raising the state of alert. Again contrary to what most people think, putting nuclear weapons to use, in other words commanding and controlling them, is by no means simply a matter of pushing the proverbial button. First, those in charge of the weapons must make sure they are always ready to be launched at a moment’s notice. Second, they must make sure the weapons are not launched by accident, or by unauthorized personnel, or by an authorized officer somewhere in the launching chain either deliberately disobeying orders or going out of his or her mind. The two requirements, speed (lest the weapons are targeted and destroyed before they can be launched) and reliability contradict each other; making the problem of nuclear command and control as difficult as any we humans have to face. Raising the state of alarm will cut through some parts of the problem—though just how, and to what extent, is rightly kept one of the most guarded secrets of all.
  4. Going a step further, weapons and delivery vehicles may be tested. Pace any number of computer models and exercises, ultimately the only way to make sure one’s nuclear weapons will work is to test them. Such tests, of course, may also be used in an attempt to influence the enemy’s behavior—as was notoriously the case when India and Pakistan both tested a number of weapons back in 1998. Some tests may be conducted in or over some outlying part of one’s own country as American, Soviet, British, French, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and North Korea ones all were. Others may take place over some part of the vast no-man’s world that constitutes the earth’s oceans; for example, the Israeli-South African bomb said to have been detonated over the Indian Ocean back in 1979. It is also possible to send some of one’s missiles hurtling over enemy country, as North Korea has often done in respect to Japan.Each of the above mentioned methods represents a different way of (hopefully) “using” one’s nuclear weapons in order to influence the enemy’s behavior without bringing about Armageddon. Historically all have been implemented quite often, some even as a matter of routine. The problem is that, since no country or leader has ever admitted giving way to a nuclear threat, it is hard to say how effective such threats were. There are, however, additional ways states might put their nuclear weapons to use.
  5. Launching a limited nuclear strike at some less important enemy target such as outlying, more or less unpopulated, spaces or else a ship at sea. All in the hope of scaring the opponents to the point where he’ll give way to one’s demands, but without, if at all possible, risking a nuclear response.
  6. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s nuclear or, in case he does not have them, conventional forces. Targets might consist of early warning installations, anti-aircraft and missile defenses, troop-concentrations, communication centers, depots, etc.
  7. Launching a limited nuclear strike at the enemy’s industrial infrastructure.
  8. Launching a nuclear strike at all of the targets mentioned in bullets 5 to 7.
  9. Launching a full scale nuclear strike at the enemy’s main demographic centers.

One well known nuclear strategist, Herman Kahn, in his 1962 book distinguished among no fewer than forty different stages on the “escalation ladder.” In practice, there are two reasons why the ladder is largely theoretical. First, the various stages are likely to be hard to keep apart. Second, even if the side using the weapons does keep them apart in his own mind, the other is highly unlikely to share his views. In particular, a strike that one side sees as relatively harmless may very well be perceived by the other as a mere prelude. Thus bringing about the very retaliation he seeks to avoid.

As far as publicly available sources allow us to judge, up to the present Putin has limited himself to the first of these nine stages. That is less–considerably less–than some others have done before him. So the question is, will he stop there?

Back to Basics

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Note: This litte essay was first posted on this blog on 22 December 2022, i.e ten months after Putin started the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since then another nine months have passed. Curious to know how well my original remarks have held up, I re-read and reposted it here. Word by word.

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The war between Russia and Ukraine has now been going on for ten months. With neither side close to victory or defeat, there is a good chance—mark my words—that it will go on for another ten, perhaps even more. Even if serious negotiations get under way, they will not necessarily end the shooting all at once. Such being the case, instead of adopting the usual method of listing all the changes that the war has brought, I want to try and put together a list of the things that it did not and almost certainly will not change.

Suggestions, welcome.

General

Contrary to the expectations of some, notably the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama in his 1989 essay, “The End of History,” war remains, and will remain, as important a part of global history as it has ever been.

There is no sign that the causes of war, be they divine anger with one or more of the belligerents (Isaiah), or the nature of man (Genesis) , or economic (envy and greed), or the absence of a legal system that can rule over sovereign entities, or simply the personal ambitions of certain rulers, have changed one iota.

War is a social phenomenon rooted in the societies that wage it. As a result, each society wages it in its own way. As society changes, so does war. To win a war, the first thing you need is to gain an understanding of what kind of war it is and what is all about (Prussian general and military critic Carl von Clausewitz).

The nature of war, namely a violent duel between two or more belligerents in which each side is largely free to do as he pleases to the other, has not changed one bit.

War remains what it has always been, the province of deprivation, suffering, pain and death. Also, and perhaps worst of all, bereavement; also of friction, confusion, and uncertainty. Often the more robust side, the one psychologically and physiologically better able to engage with these factors and keep going, will win.

In war everything is simple, but the simplest things are complex (Clausewitz).

Victory means breaking the enemy’s will (Clausewitz); defeat, to have one’s will broken.

All war is based on deception (the ancient, perhaps legendary, Chinese commander and sage Sun Tzu). The first casualty is always the truth.

“It is good war is so terrible, or else we would like it too much” (Confederate general Robert E. Lee; seconded, in 1914, by then First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill). War is the greatest fun a man can have with his pants on (anonymous).

“War is sweet for those who are not familiar with it” (Erasmus of Rotterdam).

“No one has ever benefitted from a long war” (Sun Tzu).

Preparation and Training

The best school of war is war.

“By learning to obey, he learnt to command” (Plutarch on Roman military commander Titus Quintus Flaminius).

 “Their maneuvers are bloodless battles, their battles bloody maneuvers” (Jewish historian Josephus Flavius on the Roman legions).

“I notice that the enemy always has three courses open to him, and that he usually chooses the fourth” (Helmut Moltke to his staff).

Strategic-Operational

As the belligerents exchange blow for blow in an attempt to knock out the enemy, war has an inherent tendency to escalate and run out of control.

God tends to be on the side of the larger battalions (Napoleon, who for German readers does not need an introduction). But not always.

“The best way to run a conflict is by negotiation. If you are too dumb to negotiate, use dirty tricks. If you cannot use dirty tricks, resort to maneuver; if you cannot maneuver, fight a battle; if you cannot fight a battle, lay siege” (Sun Tzu).

An army marches on its stomach (Napoleon).

The greater the distance between front and rear, the harder and more expensive it is to keep the army supplied (Sun Tzu).

War is an imitative activity that makes the belligerents resemble each other. The longer the war, the more alike they become.

Everything else equal, the defense is superior to the offense. First, because it does not face constantly extending lines of communication; second, because anything that does not happen favors it. The longer the war lasts, the more likely it is that the attack will turn into a defense.

Morale and Organization

“War is a physical and mental contest by means of the former” (Clausewitz).

In war the moral is to the physical as three to one (Napoleon).

It is with colored ribbons that men are led (Napoleon).

On organization: One Mameluke was a match for three Frenchmen. A hundred Frenchmen were a match for three hundred Mamelukes (Napoleon).

“Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare to attack a lion. Four men who are less brave but trust each other will attack resolutely“ (19-century French military writer Ardant du Picq),

One bad commander is better than two good ones.

Technology and War

Depending on the way they are used, most distinctions between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons are meaningless.

Starting with the club and ending with the Internet, technology has done many things to war. However, it has done almost nothing to reduce, let alone eliminate, the distinctions between land, sea and air (and space) warfare. Nor between theory and practice, offense and defense, concentration and dispersal, a knock-out blow and attrition. And so on.

“Weapons, if only the right ones can be found, make up 90 percent of victory” (British General and military author J. F. C Fuller). Not true. Weapons can make a huge contribution to victory. However, their effects can be offset by superior doctrine, superior organization, superior command, superior training, and, above all, superior morale.

The longer a war lasts, the less important technological superiority tends to be.

Information and data are useful, in fact absolutely essential. But they are not enough. What is needed is lead and explosives. As well as, from time to time, cold steel to terrify the enemy.

On Nukes

War, even large scale war, between belligerents one of which is armed with nukes, remains quite possible. Whether the same applies to a situation when both sides has them remains to be seen. My guess? Probably not.

In so far as there is no defense, nuclear war is not war. It is mass murder.

“No one will ever dare use the damn things” (Field Marshal Bernhard Montgomery of Alamein on nukes).

The nice thing about nukes: If they are not used, no reason to worry. If they are used, no need to worry either.

Guerrilla and Terrorism

“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we harass” (Mao Zedong).

The “forces of order,” as long as they do not win, lose; the guerrillas, as long as they do not lose, win.

Gender and War

“But for war, the world would sink into a swamp of feminism” Georg W. F. Hegel).

In war, women act mainly in two roles. First, as assistants and cheerleaders. Second, as targets and victims. Everything else is secondary. It would hardly be wrong to say that, without women in these roles, there would have been no war.

Finally –

No principles or doctrines, however good in themselves, well understood, and well applied, can win a war on their own. However, by freeing warriors from the need to think out everything afresh each time, they can provide a lot of help on the way to doing so.

Victory for Ukraine?

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A year and a half after it got under way, the war in Ukraine shows no sign of coming to an end. Not coming to an end, it is interesting to explore what might happen in case Zelensky’s famous counteroffensive finally starts doing more than reoccupying half a godforsaken village here, half a godforsaken village there, but gains some real strategic traction instead. As, for example, by developing the following scenario.

In the flat, mostly open terrain that is Ukraine airpower ought to be the key to everything. Worried about Ukraine’s ground-based air defenses, Putin’s air force continues to make its existence felt mainly by its absence from the battlefield; a development which, ere hostilities broke out, few people predicted or would have predicted.

Next, so the scenario, Ukrainian forces put the Kerch Strait rail and road bridges out of action. Not just for hours or days as they have done at least twice in the past, but in such a way as to require extensive repairs lasting weeks or months. Armed, trained and supplied by the West, Zelensky’s troops break through key Russian fortifications somewhere along the front. They retake some occupied territory and cut their enemies’ land bridge that reaches from the Donbas along the Azov Sea coast all the way down to the greatest prize of all: the Crimea with its great port, Sebatopol.

With their logistics in a mess, and perhaps left without clear instructions from Moscow, major parts of Russia’s fighting force disintegrate. Others either retreat or surrender. Relying on combinations of modern technologies, including not just land-to sea missiles but perhaps unmanned surface vehicles too, Ukraine could blockade and barrage Crimea, trapping Russia’s Black Sea Fleet like bugs in a bottle. If Ukrainian forces appear to be preparing for a frontal assault on Crimea, risks of Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons might rise—with consequences that would require more than one separate article to think out.

Short of Putin resorting to the use of nuclear weapons a comparison of the forces on both sides, along with the outcome of recent combats, suggests that Ukrainian forces could prevail. Conversely, any major Russian attempt to take back even modest amounts of previously occupied territories would likely fail. Were Russia’s air force and antiaircraft defenses to suffer substantial losses, this could weaken the defense of Moscow or other Russian strategic assets.

Ukrainian forces appear not to be using Western arms to attack targets in Russia. However, with their home-manufactured weapons they are increasing indirect and direct fire strikes against headquarters and logistical facilities, transportation hubs, and troop formations deep inside Russia. Even early in the war, a Ukrainian Neptune missile was able to sink the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea flagship. By now even Moscow, almost a thousand kilometers in the rear, has been repeatedly hit by Ukrainian drones. Not that they caused any great damage; as is also the case with their Russian counterparts, the warheads they carry are too small to kill more than a few people (mostly civilians) here, bring about the collapse of a building there. However, their psychological impact is said to have been considerable.

Such, seen from the point of view of Kiev and its Western backers, is the optimistic scenario. Note, though, the elephant in the room: namely, the fact that it leaves the Donbas, its natural resources and its industry, in Russian hands. Heavily fortified–fortification is an art in which, as Germans of all people should know, the Russians are past masters—and containing quite some mixed-population cities, it is a tough nut to crack. Disorderly, to be sure, but packed not only with regular Russian forces but with every kind of militia under the sun. Just look at the weeks-long struggle for Bachmut. And behind those cities Russia’s endless spaces, soon to be enveloped in the arms of General Winter, will be waiting.

Such developments will no doubt reduce Putin to dire straits. They will not, however necessarily bring about the end of the war. That could be achieved only in case he and his clique finally give in and ask for negotiations—something which, as long as he remains in control, is unlikely to happen.

So everything depends on Putin being removed by his own people, likely either the military, the various security services, or some combination of both. Speculation about such a coup has been rife right from the first days of the “special military operation.” With the exception of the rather strange and ill-understood Wagner “Uprising,” though, there are few signs to show either that Putin’s will is weakening or that he is losing control.

My conclusion? Even if Ukrainian forces book additional military successes like those outlined above, the real decisions will be political and have to be made in Moscow and specifically behind the walls of the Kremlin. Until they are, the war will go on.

God Help Us All

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By definition all armed conflicts, even strictly local ones, are dangerous to the people so unfortunate as to be caught in them. That said, there is no denying that some such conflicts are much more dangerous than others. Generally speaking, three factors are likely to make them so. The first is their strategic significance, as when hostilities threaten to cut off important international sources of food, energy, raw materials, transportation arteries, and so on. The second factor is foreign intervention. The third is the absence or presence in the belligerents’ hands of nuclear weapons.

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The present Russo-Ukrainian War contains elements of all three factors. Ukraine is a large country with a far from negligible population of (before the war) about 40 million. It has long exported both oil (primarily vegetable oil of which it is the world’s largest supplier) and, which is even more important, wheat. As the price of this vital food goes up many “developing” countries will suffer shortages which in turn will bring on all the social and political consequences such shortages normally entail.

As Putin himself has repeatedly and correctly said, strategically speaking the importance of Ukraine can hardly be exaggerated. Controlling Ukraine, Russia should be able to dominate the Black Sea and prevent anyone from opening another front from that direction. Not controlling Ukraine, it will find doing so much harder if not impossible. During the Cold War the distance from the East/West border to Moscow was about 2,000 kilometers as the crow flies. Should NATO grant Zelensky’s demand and allow Ukraine to join NATO, then it will be down to about 1,000 kilometers. Briefly, Russia with Ukraine is an empire. Russia without Ukraine is a mere state among others, albeit still a huge and, thanks primarily to its nuclear arsenal, a very powerful one.

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Next, foreign intervention. As anyone with a map can see, Russia is entirely lacking in natural borders. Granted, much of the southern part of the country (though not the Ukraine, of course) is mountainous and hard to cross. Not so the northern half which is as flat as, if nor flatter than, any other on earth.

Nor is it merely a question of geography. As Stalin once said, the country has always been backward. It was this backwardness that enabled first Mongols, then Ottomans, then Poles and Lithuanians, then Swedes, then French, then Anglo-French (in the Crimea, (1853-56), then Japanese (1904-5 and 1939), then Germans (in 1914-18 and 1941-45) to establish or try to establish their rule over huge parts of it. All this without even mentioning the Civil War of 1918-21, a low point in the country’s history which saw everybody treating it as carrion and sending in forces; including, in addition to most of the above, Americans, Estonians (who almost captured St. Petersburg), Romanians, Italians, and even Greeks. This is not a situation many Russians are eager to repeat.

Today, too, foreign intervention is one of the main reasons, perhaps even the reason, why the war is as dangerous as it is. Throughout the years of Ukrainian independence, from 1991 to 2022, both the West and Russia have been trying hard to draw the new country into their orbit. Doing so, between them they have used means fair and foul: including propaganda, economic ties, political legerdemain, military assistance, and at least one attempted coup and at least one poisoning to achieve their goal.

A war between Russia and Ukraine is one thing. A war between Russia and NATO, quite a different one. Currently Western weapons, provided by the West and operated by Western-trained crews, are being used against Russia, much to the latter’s chagrin. One by one, on both sides of the conflict, we can see the elements that could make for a third world war being put in place. The miracle is that it has not yet broken out.

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Next, nuclear weapons. Starting in 1949, the year when the Soviet Union caught up with the United States and tested its own atomic bomb, nuclear weapons have affected war here on earth in two contradictory ways. First, the so-called balance of terror has undoubtedly prevented many international crises from escalating; not just those affecting the US and the USSR but also such as involved lesser powers such as India and Pakistan. Looking forward from 1945, who would have predicted that eighty years would pass without a third world war breaking out? To judge by best-sellers such as Aldous Huxley’s Ape and Essence (1948), Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957), and Walter Miller’s A Canticle to Leibowitz (1959), as well as the immense success of movies such as Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove (1964), almost no one.

Second, they have made the relevant international crises much more dangerous. Make the wrong move and, to revive a vintage Cold War phrase, poof goes “civilization as we know it.” Not as a matter of weeks, months or years, but within, say, a few hours of the button being pressed. For those who put their hope in anti-missile defenses, keep your hair on. Provided only such an attack is made with the right delivery vehicles and on a sufficient scale, no defenses existing today are capable of saving the country at which it is aimed.

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As the above considerations show, the Russo-Ukrainian War is dangerous enough. Two scenarios can make it much more dangerous still. One is that Russia will win, presumably meaning that its armed forces will crush those of Ukraine, occupy Kiev and other key cities, do away with Zelensky and his government, put another, Russian or pro-Russian, one in its place, and annex parts of the country to Russia. Tired of the war and concerned about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the US resigns itself to the outcome and ends its support for a government that no longer exists. Assuming the Russians, having paid a heavy price, know where to stop and do not exploit their victory in order to invade additional countries in Eastern Europe, e.g the Baltic ones, or Poland, or Moldavia, that is the optimistic scenario.

The pessimistic scenario is much worse. Under this scenario the Russian army either suffers a crushing defeat—a possibility which, given the gigantic size of the theater of war, appears unlikely—or starts disintegrating through incompetence, corruption, and the sheer reluctance of its troops to fight. The revolt of the Wagner Group, quickly suppressed as it was, may at any rate indicate that such a collapse is possible. The war comes to an end—either because Putin starts putting forward peace-proposals that Ukraine and NATO can accept or because his subordinates mount some kind of coup, remove him, and come up with similar proposals.

Either way, the danger is great that defeat will cause Russia to disintegrate. As the term Federation implies, Russia is anything but a unified country. Sources differ; however, the best estimate is that, out of a population of 144 million, just 103 million are Russian. Depending on one’s definition, the remaining 41 million comprise anything between 120 and 170 nationalities and ethnic groups. As events in Chechnya e.g during the 1990s showed only too clearly, some of these are only waiting for an opportunity to throw off Moscow’s yoke. Faced with such a scenario, whoever rules in the Kremlin, cornered and unwilling to watch his country disintegrate, will be tempted to turn to nuclear weapons—first by way of a warning, then perhaps against real targets—as his last resort.

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To recapitulate, there are several ways to make a dangerous war more dangerous still. Arranged in order of increasing danger, the list starts with the disruption of communications and economic life and proceeds through escalation as additional countries join the fray. The most dangerous possibility of all is a total Russian defeat leading to the use, by Putin or whoever may replace him in the Kremlin, of nuclear weapons.

In which case, God help us all.

Head to Head

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Ukrainian Blouse

Russian Blouse

Like almost anyone living in the West today, I am exposed to a flood of media accounts practically all of which explain how good and bad, respectively, Zelensky/Ukraine and Russia/Putin are. Unlike many people living in the West today, I have my doubts about this picture. Which is why I decided to take a look, albeit a cursory one, into the origins of the conflict that is now threatening to escalate to the point where it takes the world apart.

I History and Politics

Before 600 BCE. The land now known as Ukraine, previously inhabited by horse-riding, nomadic or semi nomadic, tribes known to the Greeks as Scythians, was occupied by tribes later designated as East (as opposed to North and West) Slavs. They lived in fortified settlements which, however, were few, small and scattered all over the immense country.

860-62 CE. Some of the country was unified under a leader named Rurik. What information we have about him is contained in chronicles written centuries later and is therefore not very reliable. However, most historians believe that he and his “Rus” followers were of Scandinavian origin. The term, Rus, originating in Old Swedish, means “men who row.” This would be consistent with the idea that the invaders came by river.

870s. Rurik’s successor, Oleg, establishes Kiev as his capital. In the chronicles, which continue to serve as our main sources for the period, the polity he and his successors headed is known simply as “Rus” (and not as “Kiev Rus.”).

988. The rulers of Kiev, now headed by Volodymyr the Great, reach the Baltic for the first time.

12th century. Various Rurikid princes start intermarrying with the rulers of Muscovy, thus gradually leading to the establishment of Rurikid rule there as well

1187. The term “Ukraine,” meaning “borderland” or “march” is mentioned for the first time in the so-called Hypatian Codex; a compendium of three local chronicles originating in three separate “Rus” cities that is the most important source of historical data for those cities. The term “Ukraine” refers to the principality of Pereyaslavl, located east of Kiev. 

1250s. The Mongol invasions end the independence of Kiev. However, Rurik’s descendants continue to rule as vassal kings both in Kiev and Moscow.

1335. Yuri II Boleslav, the ruler of the RuthenianKingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (the latter, a province of Russia), signs his decrees Dux totius Russiæ minoris. (Duke of all Minor Russians), thus for the first time distinguishing “Great” Russians from “Little” (i.e. Ukrainian) ones.

1383. The Kiev Rus revolt and defeat the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo Fields. This marks the beginning of the Golden Horde’s decline.

15th century. Present-day Ukrainian territories come under the rule of four external powers: the remnants of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Of those the last two would later unite, forming a huge commonwealth that reached from the Baltic all the way to the northern shores of the Black Sea.

1480. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy, whose known origins go back to the first half of the fourteenth century, throws off Mongol rule and gains its independence. Moscow assumes its historical role as the capital of Russia.

1610. The last Rurikid Tsar, Vasily IV, dies. The first Romanov Tsar, Mikhail I, succeeds to the throne.

1648. A Ukrainian (Cossack) rebellion against Polish-Lithuanian rule jump-starts a century and a half process whereby the tables are reversed. Poland, instead of ruling vast stretches of Russia and Ukraine, ends in 1798 by being partitioned between Muscovy/Russia, the Habsburg Empire, and Prussia.

1721. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy declares itself the Russian Empire and Muscovites are proclaimed to be Russians.

1768-83. A series of Russo-Turkish wars, launched by Catherine the Great and commanded by Alexander Suvorov, extends Russian, rule right down to the Black Sea. The conquest gives Russia access to the Bosporus, thus immensely increasing the strategic importance of Little Russia (Malorussia), as Russians call Ukraine.

1918-21. Well aware of what they called “the nationality problem” Lenin, and under him Stalin, seek to solve it by dividing the newly-established Soviet Union into Republics enjoying (rather limited) autonomy. In 1919 the “All-Russian Central Executive Committee,” as the responsible organ was known, created the broad outline of the Ukraine-Russia border by including in Ukraine, roughly, the former Russian imperial provinces of Volhynia, Kiev, Chernigov, Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav. It based this decision on the 1897 census which showed a majority of Ukrainians in each of these districts.

1932-33. These are the years of the Holodomor, the Stalin-inspired and enacted collectivization of farmland which involved the deliberate starving-out of perhaps 10 percent of Ukraine’s population. Memory of the Holodomor is held up as perhaps the most important reason behind Ukraine’s separatism and the current war with Russia.

1941-44. “The Ukraine” as it is known, is occupied by the Germans for the second time in a quarter century. As in almost every other occupied country, the outcome was not insignificant cooperation between occupiers and occupied, with the latter striving towards independence and the former steering an uneasy compromise between encouraging local nationalism and trying to suppress it. Still hatred for Stalin may have led to more collaboration in Ukraine than in most other occupied Soviet districts. World War II over, armed skirmishes between the KGB and various Ukrainians groups continued and only ended about 1950.

  1. For reasons unknown, Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev transfers the Crimea from the Russian Republic to the Ukrainian one.

II Religion and Culture

867. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, triggers the process that, over the next century or so, led to the Christianization of the “Rus” of Kiev

986. According to the Primary Chronicle, a document that covers the development of the Kievian “Rus” from about 850 to 1100, a Rurikid ruler known in Ukrainian as Volodymyr, in Russian as Vladimir, and in both as “the Great,” summons a conference to decide which religion he and his subjects should embrace, finally deciding on Eastern Christianity.

1299-1325. The Russian Orthodox Church moves its headquarters from Kiev, first to Vladimir, east of Moscow, and then to Moscow itself.

1325-1654. Various attempts to unite the Russian Orthodox Church with the Catholic one, imported from the West by way of Poland and Lithuania, were made but ended in failure. The process ended in 1654 when the Russian Church transferred its allegiance from Constantinople to Moscow, thus becoming autocephalous. Over the next two and a half centuries many senior “Russian” ecclesiastical posts were occupied by Ukrainians.

2022. As per a survey published by the Kiev International Institute of Society, 85% of Ukrainians identify as Christians. 72% call themselves Eastern Orthodox, 9% Catholics (8% Eastern-rite, 1% Latin-rite) and 4% Protestants or adherents of other Christian movement.

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Russian and Ukrainian are similar, but they are not the same. Both grew out of Old East—as opposed to West—Slavonic. Their development into separate, though still closely related, languages started between 1,000 and 1,300 CE. While the Ukrainian alphabet is similar to the Russian one, it also comprises four unique letters to represent sounds specific to Ukrainian. The two languages are mutually intelligible, though often not without some effort. Partly as a result of having learnt it at school, Ukrainians are more likely to understand Russian than the other way around.

While it is always possible to find precedents—going back, in this ease, to the great 17th-century Cossack revolt against Poland/Lithuania—Ukrainian nationalism is mainly a product of the nineteenth century when country’s western provinces were strongly influenced by the Austrian empire. Much later this fact enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin to claim that it was not a native movement but an imported one.

In Ukraine as in other countries, initially nationalism was generated by a tiny urban elite of highly cultured literati by no means representative of the people as a whole. In Ukraine as in other countries, members of this elite sometimes went to the countryside in the hope of discovering and preserving “aboriginal” and “pure” traditions in which to anchor their views. In Ukraine as in other countries, some such traditions were invented almost ex nihil. Old or new, they provided people—mainly Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles—with additional reasons for fighting each other tooth and nail; nowhere more so than in the “Bloodlands” (historian Timothy D. Snyder) of Eastern Europe.

On the other hand, many famous “Ukrainian” (in the sense that they were born in Ukraine) writers actually wrote in Russian. Nikolai Gogol, the best-known “Ukrainian” writer of all, was born in Sorochyntsi, a Cossack village in what is now Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast, but wrote in Russian. The same applied to Anna Akhmatova and Isaac Babel (both from Odessa) and Mikhail Bulgakov (from Kiev). This list could easily be extended.

As per the latest census, 67 percent of Ukrainians use Ukrainian as their “native” language whereas 29 percent use Russian. Most Ukrainian speakers are concentrated in the west and center of the country; whereas Russian ones inhabit in a long arch that starts in the north, extends to the east, and ends in the south. Yet “native” does not necessarily mean day today, as many Ukrainians start using Russian either when they attend school—formerly, having to do so was part of Moscow’s attempts to Russify them—or, as adults, as part of normal social life. To add to the confusion, about 30 percent of the population use both languages interchangeably both at home and elsewhere.

III. The Current Crisis

The current crisis can be said to have originated in late 1989 when the East Block broke up. Since then both Russia and the West, the latter headed by the U.S, have been using all kinds of methods, fair and foul, to make sure Ukraine, a large and strategically very important country, should be on their side. Including, in 2014, the attempted assassination, probably by Putin’s agents, of a leading “Westernizer”, Viktor Yushchenkoof, who was then running for president. In 2019, the election as president of Volodymyr of Zelensky marked the West’s victory in this struggle.

On 9 February 1990, during a meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, then US secretary of state James A. Baker promised that NATO would not expand past the territory of the former East Germany. Speaking in Brussels on 7 May of the same year, NATO’s Secretary General Manfred Woerner repeated that promise. Whether either of these promises was ever put in writing is moot. Certainly they were not made the subject of any treaty.

1991. In February the Warsaw Pact, the chief instrument long used by the Soviet Union to dominate the countries of Eastern Europe (and threaten those of the West), is dissolved. In July-December 1991 the same fate overtakes the Soviet Union. Its place is taken by a “Commonwealth of Sovereign Republics” of which, Russia apart, Ukraine is the largest and most populous. With Kiev as its capital, Ukraine for the first time in history becomes a unified country separate from Russia and under its own independent government. Reflecting the change, the term “Ukraine” takes over from “The Ukraine.”

1997-2004. A number of East European countries, emerging from the Soviet-dominated East Bloc, apply to join NATO and are accepted. To justify this expansion, it is claimed that the promises made by Baker and Woerner did not apply to the new circumstances. In 1997 then Russian President Boris Yeltsin personally expressed his unhappiness with NATO’s eastward expansion, calling it a “threat” to Russians security. Using less restrained language, subsequent Russian spokespersons have spoken of a Western “betrayal.” To Vladimir Putin, who assumed the presidency of Russia in 2000, his country’s collapse is the greatest disaster it has ever sustained and he vows to reverse it. The outcome is a series of relatively small wars: in Chechenia, in Georgia, and in Dagestan.

2014. The Donbas, which is part of Ukraine but has proportionally more Russian speakers than any other Ukrainian region, breaks into civil war, causing Putin to intervene on the Russian side. Other Russian forces seize a corridor from the Donbas to the eastern shores of the Black Sea and from there to the Crimea, which they occupy. This makes alarm bells ring not just in Ukraine but all over Eastern Europe as well as NATO.

2020. By then not only the signatories of the Warsaw Pact but all East European countries, including the newly-established Baltic ones, have joined NATO. The number of NATO members has gone up from 12 in 1949—the year it was founded—to 31. More than one Russian spokesman has said that the “betrayal” is part of a Western plot whose ultimate goal is to dismantle Russia altogether.

Meanwhile the distance between Moscow and its western security border has gone down from 2,000 kilometers during the Cold War to a mere 1,000 today. Should Ukraine’s request to join NATO be granted it will be down to just 850—rather less than it was in 1941 when Hitler attacked.

2021. As preparations for accepting Ukraine into NATO go ahead Russian’s leadership, President Vladimir himself included, repeatedly warns that their country is not going to accept such a move laying down.

2022. On 24 February Russia invades Ukraine. All hell breaks loose, without an end in sight.

Conclusions

Almost as far back as anyone can look, the histories of Russia and Ukraine have been closely intertwined. Now it was Kiev that was the senior partner, now—definitely since about 1500—it was Moscow. Culturally the two nations (a term used by the Russians, but denied by the Ukrainians) are both similar and different. The greatest difference is religion, followed by language.

Concerning the present crisis, the most important factor behind it are 1. The collapse of Russia’s western security zone; and 2. NATO’s eastward drive which Russians see, not without reason, both as a threat in itself and as a possible prelude to an effort to dismantle their country.

With rare exceptions—Sweden in 1905, Czechia in 1992—states are not in the habit of letting parts of their dominions go without a fight, often a very bloody one. Specifically, I am not aware of any great power allowing the zone between its security-border and its capital to be cut by over half without engaging in massive bloodshed. Not ancient Assyria. Not Babylon, not Persia, not Athens, Sparta and Rome. Not China. All used might and main to crush would-be separatists, sometimes with success, sometimes not. More recently, the same applied to Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. The South’s attempt to secede led to the Civil War, AKA the War of Northern Aggression, which resulted in as many dead as did all of America’s remaining ones combined. As early as 1833, with a population of only 13,000,000 (including 2,000,000 slaves) the U.S had the unheard-of effrontery of claiming the entire Western hemisphere as its exclusive stamping ground.

I know: It is mostly power and interest, not justice and morality, which govern relations between nations and states. So it has always been, and so it will always remain. But I think that what we can do, and what I myself have been trying to do in this essay, is get rid of some of the ira et studio. Both of the lies and the idea that one side is completely right and the other, completely wrong. Whatever else, doing so may make reaching some kind of agreement that much easier.

Going On and On

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Now that President Biden has given his European NATO allies the green light to provide Ukraine with “fourth generation” fighter aircraft, everyone and his cousin are talking about those aircraft. What “fourth (and first, and second, and third, and fifth) generation” means; what the aircraft in question can and cannot do; and the impact their participation in the war is, or is not, going to have on its conduct. Time to shed some light on these questions.

First, this “generations” business.  Starting with the German Me-262, the first three generations of jet fighters entered service in 1944-45 and ruled the skies until about 1970. With each “generational” change they grew faster, enabling them to seize the initiative and dictate the rules of engagement; but only at the cost of being less maneuverable and, to that extent, less suitable both for air-to-air combat and for air-to-ground operations. Starting around 1975, these problems led to a fourth generation of fighters. As the famous late USAF Colonel John Boyd, a fighter pilot who in some ways acted as the brain behind the idea, explained it to me many years ago, aircraft such as the American F-15, F-16, and F-18 were provided with computerized controls. So, somewhat later, were the Russian Su-27, the French Rafale, and the Anglo-German-Italian Tornado. The advent of “fly by wire,” as the system was known, greatly reduced the burden on the pilots, enabling them to focus on fighting rather than simply keeping their machines airborne. In this way, but also by enabling the aircraft to turn much faster than their predecessors, it gave them a decisive edge in combat.

Fifth-generation aircraft are characterized above all by stealth, a technology first introduced around 1990 that greatly reduced their exposure to radar. They also carry sensors able to identify and engage multiple targets simultaneously as well as long-range air-to-air missiles that enable them to take advantage of those sensors. Prime examples are the American F-35 and F-22 as well as the Russian Su-57. By contrast, all Ukraine has are some fourth-generation, Soviet-built, Mig-29s and Su-27s. Old as these aircraft are, just keeping them air- and combat-worthy represents a formidable task; let alone making them fight and defeat their most modern Russian opponents with their superior stealth characteristics, radar, avionics, and air-to-air missiles.

There is also something known as “4.5-generation” fighters, but since there are too few of them to be sent to Ukraine I shall not consider them here. Granted, supplying Ukraine with F-16s is going to solve some of the above problems. But not completely, and perhaps not even by very much. Many of the to-be-provided aircraft are early models built from 1976 on and still being provided to various, mostly third world, customers. Operated for many years—in some cases, decades—by various NATO air forces, making them fit for war risks becoming entangled in a logistic nightmare of different operational capabilities, different spare parts, and different training systems. Of the three, the last-named may well be the most problematic. Some of the sources I consulted say that a Ukrainian pilot accustomed to flying old Soviet-made equipment can be retrained in a matter of months. However, doing the same for the ground-crews may take a year or more.

Nor are those the only problems. At the beginning of the war many observers, comparing the mighty Russian air force (currently it is probably the second most powerful in the world) to the much smaller, in some ways outdated and rag-tag, Ukrainian one predicted a swift victory of the former country over the latter. Two factors explain the failure of Russian air superiority to have a greater impact than it did. First, there is Ukraine’s sheer size—about 600,000 square kilometers, twice as much as Germany—and the consequent dispersed nature of the fighting, much of which takes place not between mighty ground formations but between small and highly mobile teams operating now here, now there. Second, Ukraine’s ground-to-air defenses, particularly those brought into action not against Russian fighters but against cruise missiles and drones, have proved much more effective than anyone could have thought when the war got under way. True, command of the air, meaning the ability to fly where they want and bomb whom they want, has remained mostly in Russian hands. But never at any time has it reached the point where it was absolute.

Overall, the outcome has been and still remains a war of attrition. By definition, and if only because the belligerents tend to imitate one another, in such a war what decides is not tactics, nor even operational art. It is, rather, sheer endurance—a quality which itself is made up of adequate reserves on one hand and willpower on the other. In point of reserves, my prediction is that Western economic might will prevail over that of Russia, even that of Russia as receiving modest support from China. In point of willpower I am not so sure. Some of Putin’s collaborators, tired of the war they fear could end in the disintegration of their country, may band together to remove him and start a new policy. However, it is equally possible that, as happened in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the American people, media and Congress will become tired of the fight and compel the government to abandon it. The more so because an election year is coming up. Do I have to add that, without the US to provide the necessary physical and mental backbone, the rest of NATO is more or less useless?

But these are long-term considerations. My immediate prognosis: With or without the yet-to-arrive F-16s, expect the war, like the Energizer Bunny, to go on. And on. And on.

In War, Expect the Unexpected

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Speaking of Clausewitz, everyone knows that war is the continuation of politics with an admixture of other means. What few people know is another, no less important, claim by the master. Hidden inside a rather abstruse discussion of the Character der strategischen Verteidigung of his great work) von Kriege (book 6, chapter 5) we read: “der Krieg ist mehr fuer den verteitiger als fuer den Eroberer da, denn der Einbruch hat erst die Vertetigung herbeigefuert und mit ihr erst der Krieg. Der Eroberer ist immer friedliebend…er zoege ganz gern ruhig in unseren Staat ein; damit er dies aber nicht koenne, darum muessen sir den Krieg wollen und also auch veorbereiten.”

As Clausewtiz also says, so it was in his own day when Napoleon regularly made peace offers, provided only he was allowed to keep the countries he had conquered, the crowns he had stolen, and reparations he had extracted. So, too, it was on 19 July 1940 when Hitler, following his victory over France, held a radio address in which he told the British people that he could “see no reason why this war should continue” and appealed to them to make peace with him. Many similar instances could be adduced, but the point is clear.

It did not happen then. Speaking of the Russian-Ukrainian War, neither is it going to happen now. Why? Because mistrust, built up over years of confrontation and fighting, is too great. So the question is, how could the War be brought to an end? It seems to me there are three, and only three, possibilities:

First, a great Ukrainian offensive followed by a complete Russian defeat. With 600,000 square kilometers of land, almost twice the size of united Germany, Ukraine is a large country. But not nearly as large as Russia with its 17.1 million stretching all the way to the Pacific. If only for that reason, and even assuming the West will provide the necessary hardware, a great Ukrainian offensive that will break Russia’s will and force it to sue for peace is almost inconceivable. Such an offensive could only succeed if the government in Moscow were overthrown and a new one put in its place. For such an upheaval to happen Putin would have to be incapacitated by disease, or toppled by a Putsch, or his army would have to disintegrate, or a popular revolution would have to take place first. As of the time of writing, and in spite of occasional claims by Ukrainian spokesmen on one hand and Western intelligence services on the other, there is no sign of any of these things.

Second, a complete Russian victory. Considering the apparent balance of forces, at the beginning of the war many observers, apparently including both Putin and his most important generals, expected Russia to prevail quickly and easily. For which purpose they first mounted an airborne coup de main against Kiev—which failed—and then built a 64-kilometer long convoy of vehicles stretching from the border all the way to the Ukrainian capital and drove towards it four abreast along a single road as if on parade. When that attempt also failed they settled down to a long war of attrition in the east and in the south. One which, thanks partly to Western aid to Ukraine but mainly to the latter’s own remarkable determination to fight and endure, is still ongoing. As things stand at present, though, a complete Russian victory seems quite as unlikely as a complete Ukrainian one.

Finally the only alternative to outcomes (1) and (2) would be to continue a long struggle of murderous attrition similar to the one that has surrounded the city of Bachmut for several months now. Hopefully to be followed, in the end, by some kind of negotiations leading to a compromise. Judging by Putin’s positive reaction to the utterances of his good friend Xi Jinpin, provided only he can point to some achievements he would jump at such an opportunity.

With Ukraine and NATO the situation is more complicated. The former insists on the Russians evacuating all the occupied territories first, and with very good reason. The latter is divided. Some of its members, notably those of Western Europe, realize that a complete victory is impossible and would like the war to end ASAP so they can save as much as possible of the comfortable lifestyle they have led for so long. At least one, Poland, harks back to 1919-20 when it defeated Lenin and the Bolsheviks and would very much like to repeat that performance.

Finally, the US. Not only is it the most powerful NATO member by far, but it enjoys the very great advantage of being far, far away from the center of hostilities. Such being the case it can afford to withdraw from the war, which indeed is just what some Republicans have been calling for. On the other hand, distance also enables it to adopt a more belligerent stance than the West Europeans. Some high-ranking Americans both in- and out of uniform look forward not just to a Russian defeat but to the disintegration of the Russian Federation. Never mind that, as I have argued before in this column, such disintegration would very likely cause much of Asia to go up in flames. And never mind that it would benefit China as much as, if not more than, the US.

How it will work out no one knows, but one thing is clear: in war, expect the unexpected.

One Year Later

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Being a little out of sorts, as they say, it occurred to me to take a look at some of my old posts. Simply to amuse myself, and simply to see how things have worked out. More by accident than by design I hit on one I did early in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Here it is, re-posted without any changes except for the pic.

War in Ukraine

Asked to predict the future of the war in the Ukraine, I took another look at a book I wrote a couple of years ago. English title, Looking into the Future: A History of Prediction. Working on it taught me two things. First, as everyone knows prediction is extremely difficult and often misses the mark. Not seldom with disastrous consequences; as happened in 1914 when statesmen and soldiers predicted a short and easy war (“you will be home before the leaves fall form the trees,” the Kaiser told his soldiers) but found themselves involved in the largest, most deadly, armed conflict in history until then. And second, the methods we use today—questionnaires among experts (the so-called Delphi method), mathematical models, artificial intelligence, what have you—are no better than those that people used thousands of years ago. Such as astrology (Babylon), manipulating yarrow stalks (China), watching birds and consulting oracles (Greece), reading the entrails of sacrificial animals (Rome), interpreting dreams (in all known civilizations), and so on.

I am a historian, so readers will have to forgive me for basing my thought on historical methods. Primarily analogies on one hand and trends on the other.

Here goes.

* Ukraine is surrounded by Russia on all sides except the west, where it borders on Poland, Moldavia and Romania. It consists almost entirely of flat, open country (the famous “Black Earth”). The only mountains are the Carpathians in the southwest and the Crimean Mountains in the extreme south along the coast. There are some large rivers which can form serious obstacles for an attacker. But only if they are properly defended; which, owing to their length, would be hard to do. Here and there are some low. One also encounters quite a number of deep ravines, the best known of which is Babi Yar. But neither form serious obstacles to traffic, particularly tracked traffic. The roads are better than they used to be during World War II and there are more of them; however, with just 2.8 kilometers of them per square kilometer of territory (versus 1.5 in Germany) they are still not up to West European standards. The climate is continental, meaning hot and dry (often uncomfortably so) in summer, extremely cold (with lots of snow) in winter, and rain spread during most of the year.

* Russia has nuclear weapons, whereas Ukraine does not. That is a pity; had it had such weapons as well as a secure second strike force of vehicles to deliver them, war would almost certainly have been out of the question. However, for Putin’s present purpose it does not matter. The last things he wants to do before he occupies Ukraine is to turn it into a radioactive desert. Thanks in part to the help they get from NATO, during recent years the Ukrainian armed forces have grown considerably stronger and better equipped. Fighting morale, based primarily on popular memory of the way Stalin starved millions of Ukrainians in 1930-32, is said to be high. Nevertheless, neither quantitatively nor qualitatively are the forces in question a match for the Russian ones.

* Initially at any rate both sides will rely primarily on the usual conventional weapons: aircraft (which are particularly useful over open terrain as opposed to such as is mountainous or forested), tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery, as well as the motorized columns they need to sustain them. However, they will also make heavy use of less traditional methods. Such as maskirovska (deception), signals warfare, electronic warfare, and, last not least, cyberwarfare. All these are fields in which the Russians have specialized for a long time past and in which they are acknowledged masters; in this respect they are in tune with their master, Putin, who himself rose by way of the intelligence services.

* At the moment the Russians are attacking Ukraine from all directions simultaneously without any clear Schwerpunkt. The Donbas apart, objectives include Kharkov, Kiev, several other key cities, and perhaps the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts. Faithful to their long-standing doctrine of “battle in depth,” the Russians attack not just at the front but far behind it as well.

* The Russians will not find it too difficult to “overrun” (whatever that may mean) most of a country as large and as sparsely populated as Ukraine. However, taking the most important cities—Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa—will be a different matter and will surely only be accomplished by heavy and very destructive fighting. Followed, most probably by guerrilla and terrorism. The way, say, things happened in Iraq.

* Forget about sanctions. They will not deter the Russians. Just as Stalin used to give enormous banquets even during the height of World War II, so Putin and his clique will barely notice them. Whereas the people are used to make do without almost everything. Except vodka, of course, and even consumption of that is said to have fallen over the last few years.

* NATO, with the US at its head, will be involved in the war, but only marginally and without sending troops to participate in the fighting. Instead it will dispatch “defensive” weapons (whatever those may be), provide supplies and intelligence, and perhaps help evacuate some of the wounded as well as assist Ukrainian refugees. All the while continuing to tell anyone who wants to listen, and some of those who do not want to listen, how bad the Russians are, etc. etc.

* China can be expected to make some sympathetic noises. That apart, it will get involved only lightly by expanding trade so as to offset some of the sanctions. It may also use the opportunity to do something about Taiwan. Or not.

* Should the war turn into guerrilla and terrorism, as it very likely will, it may very well open the door to the death of perhaps fifty Ukrainians for every soldier the Russians lose (in Vietnam the ratio was about 75 to one). Even so Putin will still be unable to end the war, which he can do only by setting up a new collaborationist Ukrainian government.

* Though it is likely to happen later rather than sooner, there is a good chance that Putin will find Ukraine stuck in his throat; to quote a Hebrew saying, neither to swallow nor to puke. Given enough time, the outcome will assuredly be to make the war less and less popular inside Russia itself. The Russians will end by withdrawing.

* Just as the defeat in Afghanistan played a key role in the collapse of Communism, so a defeat in Ukraine will almost certainly mean the end of Putin’s regime. Much worse for Russia, it may well cause it to fall back into one of those terrible periods of anarchy it has gone through in the past and which it is Putin’s supreme objective to prevent. He can barely conceal his anxiety in this respect; as by assuring his listeners that 2022 is not 1919 (the year in which Lenin and the Bolsheviks came closest to defeat).

Finally:

Though based on history, in truth all this is little better than guesswork. It is as Woody Allen said: Do you want to make God laugh? Tell him about your plans.

Not a bad job, I would say.

 

Tertius Gaudens

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These days when everyone is talking about Chatgpt, I find myself thinking of Pablo Picasso. Computers, he is supposed to have said, are completely useless. They can provide answers, but they cannot come up with questions. That is why, this time, I have chosen to put my thoughts in a question/answer format.

What was China’s original stance vis a vis the Ukrainian war?

In February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “friendship without limits” which would bind their two countries together. One sign of this friendship is the fact that, during the first year of the war, Xi has spoken to Putin four times—but did not speak to Zelensky even once.

What came of it?

There has been some cooperation. But not as much as the above statement might imply. So far the most important form of aid China has given to Russia has been to act as a market for the latter’s exports. Including, besides minerals, oil (both crude and distilled), wood and wood products. Also, apparently, some dual use (military and civilian) technology. Also, political support at the UN, in the rest of the world, etc. Recently US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised Beijing’s ire by accusing it of preparing to provide arms to Russia. If the accusations are true, then that would mean a step closer towards direct intervention in the war. But whether they are true, and how extensive and significant the resulting aid would be, remains to be seen.

Why has China submitted a peace plan just now?

Hard to say. One thing is certain: it is not because of Xi’s tender, loving heart. One Chinese objective may be to save as much as possible from the general secretary’s belt and road initiative, which depends on peace in Eurasia and was disrupted by the war. Or simply because China, as a great power, feels it cannot afford not to submit some kind of plan for peace. Just as America did in 1905 (the Russo-Japanese War), 1917 (World War I) and 1974 (the Arab-Israeli War), to mention but a few.

God, Napoleon once said, resides in the details. So what are they?

China’s peace proposal consists of twelve rather general points that can be summed up more or less as follows. First, the need to “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume, a process in which China is prepared to “play a constructive role.” Second, the need to avoid the threat or use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Third, the need for all parties to exercise “rationality and restraint” by respecting international law, avoiding attacks on civilians or civilian facilities as well as women and children. Fourth, China hopes to avoid “expanding military blocs–an apparent reference to NATO–and urges all parties to “avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions.”

Why does the West oppose the plan?

First, because it does not trust Putin to carry out any agreement he may sign, especially in regard to withdrawing his forces from Ukraine so as to restore the latter’s territorial integrity. Second, in the case of Europe in particular, because allowing Putin to retain at least some of his conquests would mean the end of the post-1945 world order which was based, if on anything at all, on the non-use of force in order to change borders. Third, in the case of Washington, because it comes too early and would not lead to a decisive loss of Russia’s power.

How likely is it to succeed?

Not very. Not just because the details remain unknown. But because Zelensky insists, in my view correctly, on the Russians withdrawing their forces from every inch of his country before serious negotiations can get under way.

So what does the future look like?

As both sides gird their loins for a long war of attrition, we shall see blood, toil, tears and sweat. Ending, perhaps, in bankruptcy; as happened to Britain in 1945 and as may yet happen to both Russia (should if suffer from more Western sanctions) and the US (as a result of its huge balance of trade and current account deficits, which the current war does nothing to reduce). And the EU? Just type “EU” and “bankruptcy” into your Google, and you’ll get your answer.

And where does China fit into all this?

Tertius gaudens.

Tanks Here, Tanks There

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Now that, following decades of non-use, tanks are once again making headlines in Europe, readers rightly demand a short explanation of their origins, development, and role in modern warfare.

Tanks, meaning mechanically-propelled, tracked, weaponized and armored, fighting vehicles, first made their appearance on the battlefield when the British and French armies deployed them in 1916. They went through their greatest days of glory in 1939-45 when the principal belligerents—Germany, the Soviet Union, Britain and the US—all produced them by the thousand (Japan also had them, but in nowhere like the same number or quality). Tanks took a prominent role both in the Arab-Israeli Wars (1948-1982) and in the two Gulf Wars (1991 and 2003-2011). At times, so great was their hold that popular opinion in particular tended to see them as the very symbol of warfare.

1916-1918. Almost from the beginning, tanks fell into two basic kinds: heavy ones, intended to lead the infantry as it tried to occupy and cross the enemy trenches, and light ones meant for follow up operations once those objectives had been achieved. The former moved slowly and were armed with cannon. The latter were faster and were often armed with no more than machine guns. The Germans also built tanks. However, so small were the numbers that came off the assembly lines that they hardly affected the conduct of the war.

1919-45. As World War I ended all the world’s main armed forces experimented with tanks. The outcome was a very large number of different models, including one with no fewer than five turrets and another that could move on rails as well as roads and open terrain. Nevertheless, by the mid-thirties the basic elements that make up a tank had been determined and become well-nigh universal. Including a single turret-mounted gun, a hull, and a suspension system; a configuration that, later on, came to be known as a main battle tank.

During the 1930s Germany pioneered armored divisions. Tanks apart, they were made up of artillery, anti-tank guns and infantry. All under a single headquarters, and all provided with the necessary supply, maintenance and repair services. Strongly supported from the air, they enjoyed their most spectacular successes in 1939-42 when they overran most of Europe and came within a hair of winning World War II both in Russia and in North Africa. Later, in 1943-45, they played an equally important role both on the Eastern and the Western Fronts. The tank’s development may be gauged from the fact that, by 1945, some Soviet ones mounted an awesome 122 mm. gun, a far cry from the 37 mm. that had been the norm even as late as in 1936-37. As guns grew so did the turrets that carried them, the hulls and suspensions that carried the turrets, the armor that protected them, and the engines that drove the lot.

1945-73. Tanks continued to increase in weight and power, finally stabilizing at about 60 tons. Increasingly during this period, it was the Israelis who took the lead in waging modern, mobile, tank-centered warfare. Not only did they fight and win two wars—1967 and 1973—but they started building their own tanks from scratch. Other tank-building countries, Germany with its Leopard II included, sought some kind of balance between firepower, protection and mobility. Not so Israel which, as befitted its limited manpower, put protection first. This approach proved itself during the 1982 Lebanon War when not one Israeli tankman was killed inside his tank.

1973-2022. The period saw any number of technical advances, starting with smoothbore cannon (instead of the traditional rifled one) and ending with the kind of anti-missile missiles designed to prevent enemy missiles from hitting the tank’s own armor. Both in 1991 and 2003, tanks spearheaded the Western invasions of Iraq, easily defeating the fleets of older, Soviet-built, tanks fielded by the latter country. However, even as the tracks churned away in the desert warfare was changing. As more countries either acquired nuclear weapons or the ability to build them relatively quickly, large-scale conventional war appeared to be on the retreat. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, its place was taken by asymmetric war, insurgency, guerrilla, terrorism, or whatever it may have been called. As these forms of conflict showed, in them the role tanks could play was limited, often almost nonexistent.

2022-23. When Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 his generals used tanks to spearhead their forces. And rightly so because Ukraine, with its wide-open, flat terrain, presents invaders with ideal tank country. But that did not mean a return to World War II. As also happened to the Israelis in Gaza e.g, Russia’s tanks were not used in their “classic” role of taking on enemy tanks and opening the way to large-scale maneuvering deep behind the front. Instead they served as close artillery support, helping infantry to advance street by street, building by building, in urban terrain; more like Stalingrad than like the vast maneuvers that led up to it and, now carried out by the Russians, followed it.

The future. Do current events in Ukraine harbor the return of large-scale conventional warfare and, with it, of tanks? Some experts think so and are even now designing all sorts of futuristic fighting vehicles. All this is good and well, but it ignores the fact that the one reason why the current war can be waged at all is because Ukraine’s arsenal, like that of Iraq before it, is limited to conventional weapons. One can hear the hard men in the Kremlin say:

Tanks here, tanks there. We’ve got

The atom bomb, and they do not.