“Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let’s see who will pound longest”.
Wellington at Waterloo, June 18th, 1815
Spring is Sprung?
June 1st.
You can almost smell the wishful thinking about Ukraine’s ever-coming “Spring
Offensive”. For Ukraine’s counter-offensive to make the real gains
many in the West want it must enjoy five conditions. First, unity of effort and
purpose. Never forget the power of the will in warfare. Second, sufficient
military capability in sufficient capacity, allied to deployed force
protection. Third, the absolute certainty that the NATO Allies and other
Partners have Ukraine’s back. Fourth, that before Ukraine gets NATO
membership (no specifics will be extended at Vilnius) Kyiv is at least offered
a Defence and Deterrence Partnership (DDP) with NATO. Fifth, the Allies
understand collectively that they are Ukraine’s strategic depth and that depth
depends on the Alliance also fully realising the New Force Model.
There are
the usual think-tanks suspects going into speculative over-drive about the
indeterminate. The ill-informed in pursuit of the ill-defined. At least
they are contributing to Ukraine’s effective use of fake news to keep the
Russians guessing. However, there is also something deeper going on. NATO
members hoping that Ukraine will make a definitive breakthrough so that
paradoxically the pressure on them to offer Kyiv fast-track membership of the
Alliance is eased prior to NATO’s July Vilnius Summit. Let me state for the
record: I am firm in my belief Ukraine should be offered NATO membership at the
Vilnius Summit. I am equally clear in my analysis that this will not
happen, even if President Macron seems to be shifting his hitherto wobbly position on Russia. Let’s hope his speech to GLOBSEC yesterday translates into
a shift in France’s attitude towards Ukraine inside the Alliance.
Next week, I
will have the honour to lead a delegation to the European Parliament to launch
Phase Two of The Alphen Group’s (TAG) major study, “A Comprehensive Strategy for
a Secure Ukraine”. The TAG Strategy is unequivocal, “ Ukraine
[must]… be offered an immediate, accelerated and tailored Membership Action
Plan with the aim of fast-track NATO membership and ad interim invited
to participate in a deep bespoke Partnership enabling Ukraine to participate in
Alliance activities in a 31+1 format (or 32+1 upon Sweden’s accession to the
Alliance)”.
What options
do the Ukrainians have?
The war has
certainly reached A critical point and the Ukrainians face hard choices
in the coming weeks: fail and the conflict turns into a long war; succeed and
possibly force the Russians to negotiate seriously to bring a legitimate end to
the war on terms favouring Ukraine; or succeed and still face a long war
because Putin and his cronies are boxed in politically and has nowhere else to
go but war. Even if the Ukrainians somehow drove the Russians out of
Ukraine in one move they would still not have decisively defeated Russia.
Therefore, the importance of the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive is to
prove to the Russians once and for all they cannot win this war. As such, the
attack will be one move in many and reinforces Ukraine’s need for strategic
depth to sustain a war that is unlikely to end soon.
.
Ukraine has fought hard, skilfully and cleverly and revealed the very-clunky
nature of the Russian military. Their efforts at battlefield-shaping with
attacks on the Russian Army’s rear-areas, lines of communication and logistics
chains are helping to keep Russian forces and their commanders’
off-balance. This is precisely why the Russians have resorted to lines of
defensive positions not dissimilar to the Hindenburg Line in 1917. There
are also vulnerabilities in the Russian command chain that the Ukrainians have
exploited to effect between field commanders, the General Staff in Moscow and
the Kremlin. Above all, there appears to be a significant lack of
‘jointness’ between the Russian Army, the Air Force and the Naval Infantry
which have been deployed, as well as between the Western, Central and Southern
Military Districts from which the bulk of Russian forces have been drawn.
However, for
all the incompetent caricature of an invasion the Russians have mismanaged to
effect there are still competent officers and officials who are fast learning
the hard lessons of failure. The Russians are learning to identify
concentrations of Ukrainian forces far earlier than a year ago. They are
improving the accuracy of their still extensive artillery using the Strelets
battlefield computer system together with reconnaissance drones. The system
also enables Russian forces to avoid counter-fires more effectively than
hitherto. They are also targeting Ukrainian military facilities, command
centres, supply routes and ammunition and fuel depots, as well as logistical
hubs more effectively. Their use of infantry also seems to be changing.
They continue to use ill-trained formations to probe for weaknesses in
Ukrainian forward positions, whilst better-trained, more mobile and more agile
smaller formations are held back for defensive missions. Their use of
thermal camouflaging is also reducing the effectiveness of Ukrainian anti-tank
systems.
Therefore,
the most the Ukrainians can realistically achieve with the counter-offensive is
to significantly disrupt Russia’s land bridge to Crimea via the Donbas.
In spite of the twenty or so new brigades the Ukrainians have worked up in
advance of the counter-offensive the force does not have the necessary weight
to forge a decisive war-winning breakthrough on the battlefield. That begs a
further question: what would win this war? Ukrainians are not going to
march into Moscow and even if Russian forces were pushed back over Russia’s
borders would that end the war? Even a scant understanding of Russian
history suggests not. What is the game-changer?
What options
do Ukraine's Western partners have?
NATO is
Ukraine’s game-changer. Military success on the battlefield would be painfully
irrelevant if it happens in a political and strategic vacuum caused by
dissolute Western partners and a divided Alliance. At the Vilnius Summit NATO
leaders need to ask themselves some tough questions. How badly do they want
Ukraine to win? Do they all agree on what ‘winning’ would look like?
Will they collectively commit to the application of effective strategy
with Ukraine in support of Ukraine? Will it make a public statement of
such determined intent? Will they give Ukraine the weapons they need? Rather,
there is what might best be termed strategic ad hoccery whereby nations compete
with each to say how much they are giving to Ukraine whilst quietly disparaging
other Allies. The result is a small Ukrainian force (in relative terms) armed
with an increasingly diverse range of systems.
At Vilnius,
NATO and its Partners need to agree and announce a real strategy that
effectively answers all of the above questions, not least so that the whole
world fully understands the Alliance sees itself as Ukraine’s strategic depth
and does whatever it takes for however long it takes. In other words,
what Ukraine needs now is an unequivocal statement from the Alliance timed to
coincide with the counter-offensive that NATO fully understands its vital role
in enabling Ukraine achieve its legitimate war aims so that said offensive does
not take place in a political and strategic vacuum.
Strategic
depth in his war is not simply about supporting Ukraine. NATO is and will
remain the back-stop of European security and defence which means putting the
Alliance’s deterrence and defence posture on the new footing that was agreed at
Madrid last year. Specifically, the NATO Allies must collectively meet
the challenge of SACEUR General Chris Cavoli’s “family of plans”. This means
not only replacing the weapons sent to Ukraine but building the New Force Model
agreed at the NATO Madrid Summit in 2022, particularly the force readiness
goals and all that implies for Europe’s broken defence and technological
industrial base.
When to be
offensive?
Napoleon
once said that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake
and that one should always do what the enemy least wants you to do. The
decision when and where to advance should be left to Ukraine’s political and
military leadership with the simple aim of generating best results at least
cost. However, Kyiv is all too aware that the counter-offensive will be
aimed as much at the Allies and their lack of strategic clarity and shared
resolve as Russia’s wavering armed forces. Vilnius? If nothing else
Ukraine must have that clear statement of solidarity from the NATO Allies to
support Ukraine in its efforts to return to their 1991 borders whatever it
takes and for how long it takes. Nothing more, nothing less. The
when and how of Ukraine’s NATO membership? That will be the litmus test of
Alliance seriousness and Vilnius will have failed if the Ukrainians are not
offered at the very least a dynamic Deterrence and Defence Partnership.
Why does it matter? The Russo-Ukraine War is being
fought in Ukraine. It is also being fought in Europe over the future
nature of power in Europe and there must be no illusions about that.
When to be
offensive? The most important one thing Ukraine’s partners can do to shape the
battlefield is to relieve Kyiv of the constant need to look over its political
shoulders. Then, the Ukrainian military commanders can simply decide when and
where to attack at any given time and in any given place based solely on the
military situation on the ground.
Ukraine can
no longer afford to fight a political zweifrontenskreig. As Winston
Churchill once famously said, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job”.
Julian
Lindley-French
