Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Russian Rate of Fire is Unsustainable
The war in Ukraine has been bloody and destructive. That is not a surprise to anyone who understands Russian military culture. The idea is to unleash horrors so unacceptable that the enemy surrenders. To do that, the Russian military relies on heavy artillery and missiles to wreck whole cities. That is, obviously, bad for the defender. At the same time, however, it stresses Russian military production. Western intelligence says that the current rate of fire is outpacing production capacity. That means the current offensive, which is creeping forward into Ukraine, will grind to a halt soon due to lack of ammunition. That makes this a long, slow war that will flare up from time to time, hardly ideal for European stability.
The Washington Post quoted British PM Boris Johnson from an interview with German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung as saying the offensive could only last over the "next few months." After that, "Russia could come to a point when there is no longer any forward momentum because it has exhausted its resources."
Nor are the only sources for this assessment the intelligence community in the West. Russian analysts see a similar problem. "Russia does not have enough physical strength in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine . . . taking into account the almost one thousand kilometer (or more) line of confrontation," wrote Russian military blogger Yuri Kotyenok on his Telegram account. He says Russia really needs 500,000 men to cover the 1,000 kilometer front adequately. One doubts if Russia has the logistical capacity to put that many men in the field with bullets and bread.
That said, Ukraine doesn\'t have the capacities Russia has. It is a smaller country, with fewer people and its military industries are not as big nor as effective as those of Russia. In short, Ukraine may run out of battlefield resources first. If that happens, Russia can still win.
The window for a Russian victory is narrow, though, and it is closing. Ukraine is running out of Soviet-era ammunition and weapons, but NATO is resupplying it with better weapons systems (30 years newer in some cases). Russia has no other nation to send it supplies. China might have the ability, but it appears to lack the desire. Besides, it is still preparing to attack Taiwan if it ever finds an opportunity to do so. They will not be shipping their stockpiles anywhere.
The Zelensky government still insists that this war will end when all Russian troops are out of Ukraine, and that means the 2014 borders with Crimea in Ukraine. That will require Ukrainian troops to force the Russians out every step of the way. Even with NATO weaponry, that is going to be exceedingly difficult.
The more likely outcome is a de facto ceasefire due to exhaustion. The India-Pakistani line of control, which is effectively a border without calling itself one, is the template for this. From time to time, there will be some artillery fire, possible small arms as well. The military end will come long before the diplomatic one in which the battlefield realities are recognized. When the autumn rains arrive and turn the landscape into mud (the infamous rasputitsa that stopped the Nazi tanks), the combat will die down anyway.
Peace, some say, is more than the absence of war. At this point, absence of war would be such a big improvement that it would be acceptable. The Ukrainians will hate the Russians for three generations, and there is no getting around that. An end to the killing, though, does not require anyone to love anybody else.
© Copyright 2022 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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