Generational Dynamics World View News

[Guest]

** 11-Jan-2022 World View: Russian invasion

> Only the Ukraine government and the US have consistently said
> Russia wants to invade Ukraine and I see no reason why we should
> believe either.

All of Europe is concerned about a threatened Russian invasion of
Ukraine.

Georgia and Crimea might have something to do with it. And the massed troops. Even the nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury shows Russia has no respect for borders.

[Guest]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it may be of interest to most:

I am heavily involved with wargaming.

The following article is an in-depth look at what wargames (very complicated ones that have been proven time and again to be very prescient) say about upcoming war with China/Russia.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/how-d ... a-wargame/

Here are the key highlights I was sent by a NATO contact doing wargames with European military communities:

Marine Corps War College wargame I organized that allowed students to fight a multiple great state conflict last week. Run at a high level, clearly sponsored and with officers allowed the time to engage, and with an analytical strategic purpose. Also completed within a limited timeframe of a week – so achievable. It incorporates Russia in the Baltics/Ukraine/Poland, China using the opportunity to seize Taiwan and N Korea opportunistically attacking S Korea. A worst-case scenario for NATO and the West but not unrealistic in concept.

The wargames were played by six student teams, or approximately five persons each. There were three red teams, representing Russia, China, and North Korea; combatting three blue teams representing Taiwan, Indo-Pacific Command (Korea conflict) and European Command. Manageable resourcing if the outputs were agreed as adding value to strategic thinking, consideration of capability development and operating at reach with allies. Useful for developing some detailed Red forces thinking too that is based on real world nations rather than fabricated ones that resemble the actual potential adversaries.

Students were given a list of approximately 75 items they could invest in that would give them certain advantages during the game. A fascinating consideration to apply to current and future capability. Interesting that none of the students opted for an additional carrier!

As there was not enough American combat power to fight and win three simultaneous major conflicts, hard strategic choices were unavoidable. The article only really addresses US considerations, although clearly it is a global issue.

The fight in Poland was beyond brutal. By student estimates, the NATO forces lost over 60,000 men and women on the first day (150k in first week) of the fight, Sobering!

These games were designed to help the students think about future conflicts and operational art, and not for serious analytical work. Still, there were several observations that may point the services and Joint Staff toward areas that require more serious analysis. Sets the scope but illustrates that more may be gleaned from it.

The high rate of loss in modern conventional combat challenged student paradigms ingrained by nearly two decades of counter-insurgency operations. For students, who have spent their entire military lives viewing the loss of a squad or a platoon as a military catastrophe, this led to a lot of discussion about what it would take to lead and inspire a force that is burning through multiple brigades a day, as well as a lengthy discussion on how long such combat intensity could be sustained.

To ease the students into the complexity of this wargame, logistics was hugely simplified. Still, much of the post-game discussion focused on the impossibility of the U.S. military’s current infrastructure to support even half the forces in theater or to maintain the intensity of combat implied by the wargame as necessary to achieve victory.

Airpower, the few times it was available, was a decisive advantage on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the planes rarely showed up to assist the ground war, as they prioritized winning dominance of their own domain over any other task. Its about integration in combined and joint operations. Valuable lessons to be drawn from this. Also worth noting is how the very expensive carriers were kept away from threat and would only operate lose to shore when under an overwhelming land based air umbrella.

Neither America nor its allies had any adequate response to the use of chemical weapons by the enemy.

Neither U.S. forces nor allied forces had an answer to counter the overpowering impact of huge enemy fire complexes. I ran a wargame last Feb looking at doctrine and survivability on the modern battlefield set in Estonia against a near-peer enemy. IN both attack and defence, the NATO combat brigades were found by UAVs and written down 50% plus without ever seeing the enemy. They refused to believe the outcomes “because we’re so well trained!” or the “this wouldn’t happen” delusion. We have a lot to learn about near-peer conflict after 20+ years of Iraq and AFG.

Cyber advantages always proved fleeting. Moreover, any cyberattack launched on its own was close to useless.

For those interested, the games used are all part of GMT’s Next War Series, designed by Mitchell Land and Greg Billingsley. I have found these commercial games are far more sophisticated and truer to what we expect future combat to look like than anything being used by most of the Department of Defense’s wargaming community which is often decades behind commercial game publishers when it comes to designing realistic games. In fact, if I was to fault the Next War series for anything, it is that it may be overly realistic and therefore very complex and difficult to master, and time consuming to play.

Remember also that 6 weeks ago it was the threat of freezing weather causing havoc on the energy grid that Putin was making to get the pipeline approved.

Poland has seen mild weather.

Here in northern Europe it barely goes blow freezing at night.

Its has been mild so far....and winter is half over.

Has General winter changed sides?

I bet Putin is cursing Global warming

[Guest]

Language like "warm weather delays Invasion" is inflammatory and untrue.
It is not the case that Russia seeks or wishes to Invade Ukraine, it is worth listening to the Russian position. They are following a well trodden path of brinkmanship in order to bring about dialogue about concerns they genuinely hold, they may not be in the right from our perspective but this is ultimately a form of exaggerated diplomacy.

Let's start a new rumour: British army on exercises near the Kent coast could be the lead into an invasion of France. Military sources declined to comment.

[Cool Breeze]

Language like "warm weather delays Invasion" is inflammatory and untrue.
It is not the case that Russia seeks or wishes to Invade Ukraine, it is worth listening to the Russian position. They are following a well trodden path of brinkmanship in order to bring about dialogue about concerns they genuinely hold, they may not be in the right from our perspective but this is ultimately a form of exaggerated diplomacy.

Let's start a new rumour: British army on exercises near the Kent coast could be the lead into an invasion of France. Military sources declined to comment.

haha, yes, exactly

neocon and globalist desire for war

don't pay attention to China, Russian interference is everwhere!

[DaKardii]

Project Veritas just released military documents which paint what could be the clearest picture of COVID's origin yet.

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/mil ... ony-under/

The most damning of those documents is a DARPA memo written by Major Joseph Murphy, USMC in August 2021. In that memo, Murphy states that (1) COVID was developed in the Wuhan lab; (2) the project which led to the virus' creation was led by Americans, not Chinese; and (3) that project was originally intended to lead to the creation of both a virus and a vaccine, with the vaccine being the end product.

https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxcl ... dacted.pdf

Of course, two critical questions still remain unanswered. Was the release of the virus ever part of the plan, or was the virus released by a rogue lab employee? And who was the lab employee responsible loyal to?

[Silenced S]

The Hunter Connection? Kazakh Security Chief Arrested For Treason Was "Close Friends" With Bidens
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... nter-biden

[Xeraphim1]

I do agree with many of your points. I don't see the North Koreans doing anything on their own. I do think that the Chinese will reinforce/supply them to start something at the same time as Taiwan as a way to put serious additional pressure on US/Japan. They probably think that at the worst, they can hold the US/allies to some kind of a stalemate on the Korean peninsula while they take Taiwan.

In the Poland game (which I have played), I don't think that Russia has the Baltics already at the start, even though that is what the writer said. The game starts with the Baltics on a different map. They don't last long, but they do tie up the Russians for a couple of turns.

And, as we have discussed before, the games, as well as current military thought, contain a lot of assumptions that cannot be proven or disproven until war comes.

IMHO, I think that we primarily have weapon systems that defense contractors want to sell to maximize profit, not necessarily what we should have.

Also, the aggressor in any war generally has "surprises" in store for the other side that we don't know about. In WW1, these were the Big Berthas (and similar) that knocked out Belgian and French fortifications. In WW2, it was the German Panzer Division, which was FAR more effective than anyone could have imagined (Germans included) and the Japanese Kido Butai (concentration of all their carriers into a single battlegroup) and the Zero fighter. Something(s) similar are bound to come up when the shooting starts.

While I don't doubt that China wouldn't mind having NK tie down US forces, I do have to wonder how blatant they would be.

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the modelling is the fact that one of the first actions of the US (and allies) in any war with China would be an immediate distant blockade. Anything coming to/from China by ship would be stopped. China is already a major oil importer and while it has a strategic stockpile, that would only support the country for about 45 days (I think that's the figure) and that is without having major military operations which sucks up fuel in vast quantities. It would also stop the majority of raw material imports which would shut down a huge swathe of China's workforce. While China has been moving up in the value chain in manufacturing, it still has a huge amount of low level processing. Come a war and you'll have tens of millions out of work because no materials are coming up on top of the tens of millions out of work because there would be no exports. Another thing to consider is that a China at war with the West may be an irresistible target for India. I could see at least threatening moves toward Aksin Chin and parts of Tibet.

As for surprises, I also question how well it is modelling the networking abilities coming into being now. A common comment from pilots transitioning to the F-35 is how as soon as they power up they have access to much more information than they ever did before. Israeli pilots have said that from the parking apron they have a god's eye view of the entire region. Greater sensor integration will only improve this and the West has a huge advantage. This compresses the SEAD/DEAD cycle because of the ability to use stealthy forward craft to locate targets and hand off weapon release to platforms out of range of retaliation. I expect that air defenses will last for a much shorter time than is modelled which will allow air assets to move to interdiction and direct support more rapidly.

Mostly this goes back to my earlier comment that inherent bias in the game design will affect the results. I have no direct experience with any of the games by this company, but based on earlier war games I would not doubt that it's true.

[DaKardii]

The Hunter Connection? Kazakh Security Chief Arrested For Treason Was "Close Friends" With Bidens
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... nter-biden

This would give credence to the theory that what’s going on in Kazakhstan is indeed a “color revolution.”

[Xeraphim1]

The Hunter Connection? Kazakh Security Chief Arrested For Treason Was "Close Friends" With Bidens
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... nter-biden

This would give credence to the theory that what’s going on in Kazakhstan is indeed a “color revolution.”

Or not. As the article clearly states, Massimov was the long time right hand man of Nursultan who was just dropped from his continuing positions of power. It sounds more like Tokayev is consolidating power in his own hands. If anything, I'd suspect Tokayev of staging the crisis for his own benefit.

Of course you're always disposed to see the US as to blame for everything so I guess it's no surprise you'd think that way.

[DaKardii]

Or not. As the article clearly states, Massimov was the long time right hand man of Nursultan who was just dropped from his continuing positions of power. It sounds more like Tokayev is consolidating power in his own hands. If anything, I'd suspect Tokayev of staging the crisis for his own benefit.

Of course you're always disposed to see the US as to blame for everything so I guess it's no surprise you'd think that way.

Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the American foreign policy establishment has wanted to wrest Central Asia away from Russia for decades? Or the fact that this crisis is happening simultaneously with the ongoing standoff in Ukraine?