Thank you for your analysis. Russia does not change. My grandfather was rounded up to serve in the Russian Army during WWI. The brutality of today’s Russian Army is strikingly similar to what he described. My only hope is George Smiley’s comment on Karla. May his (Putin’s) lack of moderation be his undoing. I look forward to reading more from you in 2023.
This survey underlines the key value of this series of assessments in 2022, which is to explore the imponderables as well as the evidence. I have shared Prof Freedman's pieces with Whitehall colleagues who have all welcomed his insight and expertise: please keep them coming in 2023!
Thanks so much to both of you for an instructive and informative guide through the two - domestic and European - crises of the moment. I only wish it were not necessary to continue in the same vein in 2023. All the best for the New Year to you both.
I and others doubted Russia would actually invade for the same reason we later believed that it would fail- insufficiently massed forces. The initial invasion force was less than 200K troops. Sufficient to defeat a peer army of 60-70K troops. The prewar strength of the Ukrainian Army was 200K troops. So a very dicey proposition just on the raw numbers front. Still, if those 200K troops pushed along a single or two mutually supporting lines of advance, they could have executed a significantly powerful advance. But no, Russia spread out its forces on 5 different axes basically dooming them to failure unless the Ukrainians simply pooped in their pants and ran at the first sign of a Russian tank. Anyone studying basic strategy should have seen this s--tshow coming from. Day 1 of this invasion.
Coming to this a little later than other readers but there is so much to digest yet the first thing that impresses is Professor Freedman’s honesty in critical self-evaluation, enlightening us as to why certain events did not develop in the way he had anticipated. Having listened to the Professor on (seeming innumerable) Ukraine war podcasts and read his many works on warfare, I can’t imagine anyone doubting his astute insights and analysis even if some expectations weren’t borne out by events. History is nothing if not protean and it goes without saying (sic) that unfolding events are always unpredictable. For laymen like myself Professor Freedman provides a valuable commentary that makes sense in the fog of war. The morality of this one, though, is beyond doubt. Thank you Professor.
Thanks for a very detailed review of your evolving perspectives on the Ukraine war. If I could, I'd like to suggest another angle you might explore.
Everybody is writing about the day to day situation in Ukraine. It's a big story for sure. But there is a bigger story I don't see receiving adequate attention.
Sooner or later, one way or another, one of these conflicts is going to spin out of control and result in some level of nuclear weapons exchange. Nobody can know the where and when ahead of time, but simple logic can confidently predict it will happen somewhere sometime. There's no credible rational reason to believe that human beings can maintain large nuclear arsenals and these weapons will never be used. If that's true, it may in the end not really matter that much who wins in Ukraine.
I'm new here, so if you've already addressed this subject, and plan to do more, please educate me on that. Thanks!
Don't you think that your reluctance (pre war period) to accept that Russia/Putin will initiate a full-fledge war was because of the limit of rational-choice or positive political theory, as a scholar of strategic studies, in which rational/rationality is often taken as a "given" rather than constituted/constructed of subjective schema, historical archeology, past experience or discursive regimes?
I wonder if Ukraine had been a member or NATO, would Putin have dared invade? And if he had, would the other members of NATO joined in the defence of Ukraine with troops on the ground and warplanes taking on the Russian airforce?
This is what I was thinking back in March: "And that last bit, written 25 years ago, is being carried out today. Crimea was the first chunk to be bitten off, now it’s Donetsk, Zaporhizia, and Kherson Oblasts, after that Odessa. Moldova appears to have been placed within the Moscow-dominated Eurasian sphere of influence. If this analysis is correct, then Romania is next, followed by Bulgaria - but Ukraine is the keystone. It should now be obvious - from this book written 25 years ago (whose full English translation I just found - French and German are easy, but Russian is hard work...) - that the outrage over the US-funded biological warfare labs and everything else was just a convenient pretext for something that was planned out decades ago." https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/putins-and-dugins-vision-of-a-greater
Here's a good article from 2004: https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics My bet is that Putin will keep up the fight to grab and hold the parts of Ukraine adjacent to the Black Sea, then go after Transnistria/Moldova, then on down to Greece. Once he has that - and has convinced the West to let him have that - then there will be an interregnum, followed by a war of conquest for the Baltic states, aided by concentration of Russian troops in Kaliningrad. The neutralization of Germany, especially the eastern part, will play a key role.
Economic sanctions will do nothing, Putin will turn Russia into another Cuba if he feels the need. Once he completes the conquest and reabsorption of the former Eastern Bloc states, then Western Europe will be under threat. The only way to stop this will be militarily - and in Ukraine, with far more military force from the West than has been applied, because this is a war between Putin's Russia and the West. The weaponry supplied so far has created a stalemate, which Putin is looking for - the "decadent West" will not tolerate another "forever war" and will give ground. Putin (and his cadre), on the other hand, are in this for however long it takes. Only a relatively quick and decisive military defeat will stop them - and this means no more pulled punches, Russia must not be allowed to sit behind its borders or those of its client states and be able to shoot at Ukraine with impunity. That must be halted - and that will mean direct and open conflict between the West and the Russian Federation. But, in any case, this conflict will eventually occur, it just depends on how much the West is willing to cede to Putin and his cadre before the West says "here, and no farther".
Direct military conflict between NATO and Russia guarantees a strategic-level nuclear exchange. This was a conclusion supported by everything I'd ever read about the Cold War, wargaming, nuclear strategy, and human nature for years before the *original* invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and everything that's happened in the current war has confirmed that.
And that's the attitude that Putin - and every other despot with access to nuclear weapons - has counted upon in the years that they have held power, and it's the reason that they continue to hold power - the fear that unless they are appeased, they will use those terrible weapons. And the West has capitulated to those well-stoked fears on numerous occasions, for example in Vietnam and the allied wars in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s - and is in the process of capitulating to Putin in the current conflict in Ukraine, as can be seen by the seriously misguided efforts of the "conservative" Republicans in the US Congress and media, the worst of the lot being Tucker Carlson. The fact is, is that appeasement is a loser's game, and eventually you - we - will have to fight the threatened war, or capitulate. The question is, is do we do it now, or do we wait until the Soviet Union - whose 100th anniversary is today - is reconquered and Western Europe is again laid under that same threat - or do we continue appeasing and lose Western Europe and the UK and the threat comes to our shores? And in light of the horrors of Bucha and Mariupol, capitulation must be beyond the pale of reason, and remain so. It was Putin who drew that card and laid it on the table, and the sooner it is dealt with, the better.
Y'know, since you're still engaging, I'll go ahead and bite: how DOES this magical nuke-free World War III you're calling for look in practice, in your mind? Does Putin - i.e. 21st-century Hitler by your own argument - just give up and let himself be deposed and taken to the Hague when he has other options? Are we pretending that Russian corruption (admittedly a real thing) is so pervasive that literally their entire 4-6 thousand strong arsenal is now useless? Maybe your weird fixation on Vietnam indicates you're also a 'Star Wars' advocate who thinks the US can shoot down literally everything the Russians launch?
It was your buddy, VV Putin, who made the nuke threat in the beginning. He's also invaded Chechnya, Georgia, took Crimea without a fight due to the Kremlin stooge installed in Kyiv at the time - and the fecklessness of the Obama Administration in mounting a lackluster response to that very important land grab - look at a map of Ukraine, and you, too, should be able to figure it out, financed and supported a domestic insurgency in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine, and finally invaded Ukraine using the same scorched earth tactics as seen in Chechnya. From the pronouncements of people in his government - and his own - it's obvious that Putin is looking to reconstruct/reconquer the territories of the old Soviet Union - and more if he can get away with it. Eventually, Putin is going to get told "this far and no farther" and he will make good on his threat - he's used scorched earth tactics before, and nukes are literally a scorched-earth weapon. We're in World War III with this guy, whether we like it or not, and the only way to stop someone like that is utter military defeat, and it's going to happen sooner or later. How many countries do you want to see wrecked, with Bucha-like massacres of innocent civilians, before this guy is stopped?
Another thing - nuclear weapons have a "use-by" date. Radiation causes metal fatigue and fries electronics, not to mention degrading warheads machined to very close tolerances. The lifetime of a nuclear weapon is somewhat less than ten years, after which electronics have to be replaced, missile nosecones (and other parts adjacent to the warhead) have to be replaced, and uranium etc in warheads has to be re-machined or replaced outright. 30 years without maintenance, and what he has is junk - no need for corruption...
My only contribution to the discussion is that it seems to me that the structure of the government is reflected in the structure of the armed services and that a military that is governed by an autocratic structure is inherently weak. Attacking these weaknesses is where Ukraine gains its strength.
The Russian military is restricted and weakened by its political connections and this is something that China also needs to take on board.
If predicting politics is difficult, predicting war is even worse. One clever man (I think) wrote 'Before a war military science looks like a science. After a war it looks like astrology'. To be fair a few brave souls predicted Russian military incompetence of a scale we have seen so far but I'd want to see them pull of that predictive success in a few more wars (God forbid!) before I looked upon them as reliably superior sages. I recon you've done pretty well Lawrence!
Thank you for your analysis. Russia does not change. My grandfather was rounded up to serve in the Russian Army during WWI. The brutality of today’s Russian Army is strikingly similar to what he described. My only hope is George Smiley’s comment on Karla. May his (Putin’s) lack of moderation be his undoing. I look forward to reading more from you in 2023.
This survey underlines the key value of this series of assessments in 2022, which is to explore the imponderables as well as the evidence. I have shared Prof Freedman's pieces with Whitehall colleagues who have all welcomed his insight and expertise: please keep them coming in 2023!
Will do. Thanks Gill and happy new year to you.
Thanks so much to both of you for an instructive and informative guide through the two - domestic and European - crises of the moment. I only wish it were not necessary to continue in the same vein in 2023. All the best for the New Year to you both.
Thanks Jonathan. All the best for 2023 to you as well.
I and others doubted Russia would actually invade for the same reason we later believed that it would fail- insufficiently massed forces. The initial invasion force was less than 200K troops. Sufficient to defeat a peer army of 60-70K troops. The prewar strength of the Ukrainian Army was 200K troops. So a very dicey proposition just on the raw numbers front. Still, if those 200K troops pushed along a single or two mutually supporting lines of advance, they could have executed a significantly powerful advance. But no, Russia spread out its forces on 5 different axes basically dooming them to failure unless the Ukrainians simply pooped in their pants and ran at the first sign of a Russian tank. Anyone studying basic strategy should have seen this s--tshow coming from. Day 1 of this invasion.
Coming to this a little later than other readers but there is so much to digest yet the first thing that impresses is Professor Freedman’s honesty in critical self-evaluation, enlightening us as to why certain events did not develop in the way he had anticipated. Having listened to the Professor on (seeming innumerable) Ukraine war podcasts and read his many works on warfare, I can’t imagine anyone doubting his astute insights and analysis even if some expectations weren’t borne out by events. History is nothing if not protean and it goes without saying (sic) that unfolding events are always unpredictable. For laymen like myself Professor Freedman provides a valuable commentary that makes sense in the fog of war. The morality of this one, though, is beyond doubt. Thank you Professor.
Thanks for a very detailed review of your evolving perspectives on the Ukraine war. If I could, I'd like to suggest another angle you might explore.
Everybody is writing about the day to day situation in Ukraine. It's a big story for sure. But there is a bigger story I don't see receiving adequate attention.
Sooner or later, one way or another, one of these conflicts is going to spin out of control and result in some level of nuclear weapons exchange. Nobody can know the where and when ahead of time, but simple logic can confidently predict it will happen somewhere sometime. There's no credible rational reason to believe that human beings can maintain large nuclear arsenals and these weapons will never be used. If that's true, it may in the end not really matter that much who wins in Ukraine.
I'm new here, so if you've already addressed this subject, and plan to do more, please educate me on that. Thanks!
Don't you think that your reluctance (pre war period) to accept that Russia/Putin will initiate a full-fledge war was because of the limit of rational-choice or positive political theory, as a scholar of strategic studies, in which rational/rationality is often taken as a "given" rather than constituted/constructed of subjective schema, historical archeology, past experience or discursive regimes?
Regards
Zeeshan Naeem
I wonder if Ukraine had been a member or NATO, would Putin have dared invade? And if he had, would the other members of NATO joined in the defence of Ukraine with troops on the ground and warplanes taking on the Russian airforce?
This is what I was thinking back in March: "And that last bit, written 25 years ago, is being carried out today. Crimea was the first chunk to be bitten off, now it’s Donetsk, Zaporhizia, and Kherson Oblasts, after that Odessa. Moldova appears to have been placed within the Moscow-dominated Eurasian sphere of influence. If this analysis is correct, then Romania is next, followed by Bulgaria - but Ukraine is the keystone. It should now be obvious - from this book written 25 years ago (whose full English translation I just found - French and German are easy, but Russian is hard work...) - that the outrage over the US-funded biological warfare labs and everything else was just a convenient pretext for something that was planned out decades ago." https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/putins-and-dugins-vision-of-a-greater
Here's a good article from 2004: https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics My bet is that Putin will keep up the fight to grab and hold the parts of Ukraine adjacent to the Black Sea, then go after Transnistria/Moldova, then on down to Greece. Once he has that - and has convinced the West to let him have that - then there will be an interregnum, followed by a war of conquest for the Baltic states, aided by concentration of Russian troops in Kaliningrad. The neutralization of Germany, especially the eastern part, will play a key role.
Economic sanctions will do nothing, Putin will turn Russia into another Cuba if he feels the need. Once he completes the conquest and reabsorption of the former Eastern Bloc states, then Western Europe will be under threat. The only way to stop this will be militarily - and in Ukraine, with far more military force from the West than has been applied, because this is a war between Putin's Russia and the West. The weaponry supplied so far has created a stalemate, which Putin is looking for - the "decadent West" will not tolerate another "forever war" and will give ground. Putin (and his cadre), on the other hand, are in this for however long it takes. Only a relatively quick and decisive military defeat will stop them - and this means no more pulled punches, Russia must not be allowed to sit behind its borders or those of its client states and be able to shoot at Ukraine with impunity. That must be halted - and that will mean direct and open conflict between the West and the Russian Federation. But, in any case, this conflict will eventually occur, it just depends on how much the West is willing to cede to Putin and his cadre before the West says "here, and no farther".
Direct military conflict between NATO and Russia guarantees a strategic-level nuclear exchange. This was a conclusion supported by everything I'd ever read about the Cold War, wargaming, nuclear strategy, and human nature for years before the *original* invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and everything that's happened in the current war has confirmed that.
And that's the attitude that Putin - and every other despot with access to nuclear weapons - has counted upon in the years that they have held power, and it's the reason that they continue to hold power - the fear that unless they are appeased, they will use those terrible weapons. And the West has capitulated to those well-stoked fears on numerous occasions, for example in Vietnam and the allied wars in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s - and is in the process of capitulating to Putin in the current conflict in Ukraine, as can be seen by the seriously misguided efforts of the "conservative" Republicans in the US Congress and media, the worst of the lot being Tucker Carlson. The fact is, is that appeasement is a loser's game, and eventually you - we - will have to fight the threatened war, or capitulate. The question is, is do we do it now, or do we wait until the Soviet Union - whose 100th anniversary is today - is reconquered and Western Europe is again laid under that same threat - or do we continue appeasing and lose Western Europe and the UK and the threat comes to our shores? And in light of the horrors of Bucha and Mariupol, capitulation must be beyond the pale of reason, and remain so. It was Putin who drew that card and laid it on the table, and the sooner it is dealt with, the better.
ooookay.
Whatever you say, Barry Goldwater.
You might have a look at this - note the date of publication - https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics And I'll reiterate - appeasement is a loser's game, Neville Chamberlain found that out, perhaps so will you.
Y'know, since you're still engaging, I'll go ahead and bite: how DOES this magical nuke-free World War III you're calling for look in practice, in your mind? Does Putin - i.e. 21st-century Hitler by your own argument - just give up and let himself be deposed and taken to the Hague when he has other options? Are we pretending that Russian corruption (admittedly a real thing) is so pervasive that literally their entire 4-6 thousand strong arsenal is now useless? Maybe your weird fixation on Vietnam indicates you're also a 'Star Wars' advocate who thinks the US can shoot down literally everything the Russians launch?
Sarcasm aside, I'm honestly curious.
It was your buddy, VV Putin, who made the nuke threat in the beginning. He's also invaded Chechnya, Georgia, took Crimea without a fight due to the Kremlin stooge installed in Kyiv at the time - and the fecklessness of the Obama Administration in mounting a lackluster response to that very important land grab - look at a map of Ukraine, and you, too, should be able to figure it out, financed and supported a domestic insurgency in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts of Ukraine, and finally invaded Ukraine using the same scorched earth tactics as seen in Chechnya. From the pronouncements of people in his government - and his own - it's obvious that Putin is looking to reconstruct/reconquer the territories of the old Soviet Union - and more if he can get away with it. Eventually, Putin is going to get told "this far and no farther" and he will make good on his threat - he's used scorched earth tactics before, and nukes are literally a scorched-earth weapon. We're in World War III with this guy, whether we like it or not, and the only way to stop someone like that is utter military defeat, and it's going to happen sooner or later. How many countries do you want to see wrecked, with Bucha-like massacres of innocent civilians, before this guy is stopped?
Another thing - nuclear weapons have a "use-by" date. Radiation causes metal fatigue and fries electronics, not to mention degrading warheads machined to very close tolerances. The lifetime of a nuclear weapon is somewhat less than ten years, after which electronics have to be replaced, missile nosecones (and other parts adjacent to the warhead) have to be replaced, and uranium etc in warheads has to be re-machined or replaced outright. 30 years without maintenance, and what he has is junk - no need for corruption...
Thank for this.
My only contribution to the discussion is that it seems to me that the structure of the government is reflected in the structure of the armed services and that a military that is governed by an autocratic structure is inherently weak. Attacking these weaknesses is where Ukraine gains its strength.
The Russian military is restricted and weakened by its political connections and this is something that China also needs to take on board.
Thank you. I value your contribution to this discussion.
If predicting politics is difficult, predicting war is even worse. One clever man (I think) wrote 'Before a war military science looks like a science. After a war it looks like astrology'. To be fair a few brave souls predicted Russian military incompetence of a scale we have seen so far but I'd want to see them pull of that predictive success in a few more wars (God forbid!) before I looked upon them as reliably superior sages. I recon you've done pretty well Lawrence!