About Russia's potential invasion of Ukraine, there's a military parlor game going on. The Times reports that "most military analysts" seem to be in agreement that Putin would forego a Blitzkrieg strategy, which is somewhat akin to the more complicated Powell Doctrine — put simply, the immediate use of overwhelming force. "Rather, it would start with a more ambiguous, limited action," which "Moscow would use as justification for a wider intervention."
Putin's initial tack, then, would be — or so it's assumed — more for propaganda than military-effectiveness purposes, even though the latter could be more than effective. As a former U.S. Marine and PhD candidate in Russian military affairs at London's King College notes, "If Russia really wants to unleash its conventional capabilities, they could inflict massive damage in a very short period of time. They can devastate the Ukrainian military in the east really quickly, within the first 30-40 minutes."
Ukraine's head of military intelligence, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, is of similar mind. "There are not sufficient military resources for repelling a full-scale attack by Russia if it begins without the support of Western forces," says Budanov. His country's defenses would be "incapacitated ... very quickly," as the Times paraphrased his assessment. "His nightmare vision of a Russian invasion ... begin[s] with airstrikes and rocket attacks aimed initially at ammunition depots and trench-bound troops." Ukraine, concedes Budanov, "is outgunned on land, at sea and in the air."
On the other hand, "Ukraine’s military is not the pushover it once was," continues the Times. The country has fought Russia to a virtual stalemate in its eastern region, first with citizen fighters, then the Ukrainian military itself. But, without significant Western aid in war matériel and possibly manpower, a senior Ukrainian military official "said that if all else failed, the military would simply open its weapons depots and allow the Ukrainian people to take whatever they need to defend themselves and their families." The result: a long, bloody, even hand-to-hand conflict that could last for years.
Hence the need for Western military assistance. That too, however, could set a stage for nearly endless bloodshed.
In an op-ed for the Atlantic Council, Ukraine's former defense minister somewhat optimistically wrote that, along with Western aid, "by combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units and large numbers of volunteers, Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply." True, perhaps, yet the bloodshed could go on, indefinitely.
It is this outcome — or rather, the lack of any decisive outcome — that the Biden administration has been trying to impress on President Putin. In December the administration began "signaling ... that even if [Russia] managed to swiftly capture territory, Mr. Putin would eventually find the costs of an invasion prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses."
Retired four-star Navy admiral James Stavridis compared what the U.S. could do in Ukraine to what it did in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 80s: arming and training the mujahedeen against the invading Soviets — which, ultimately, exhausted the Russians into withdrawal. Again, though, a long and bloody slog.
And Ukrainians might not even be up for a yearlong fight. Morale could decline rapidly, especially since Russian reprisals against insurgent acts could be "swift, direct and very brutal," as the Center for Strategic and International Studies' director put it.
All of which would seem to call for more urgency — more concrete urgency — on the administration's part.
I was struck by this comment from President Obama's deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Evelyn Farkas. She lived through Putin's successful bullying in Crimea, which, of course, he hasn't ceased with respect to all of Ukraine. This time, said Farkas, "I think the gloves should come off."