Below are three minor points relating to the war in Ukraine. The first is noting the surprising effectiveness of Ukraine recent drone campaign. The second is discussing the latest Ukrainian political drama. And the last point is observing experience in Ukraine suggests that maybe the US Marine war gamers had good insights into the future of conventional warfare.

The Surprising Recent Success Of Ukraine’s Long Range Strikes On Russian Oil Facilities

I had thought that in the short term Ukraine’s long range drone campaign against Russian targets was going to achieve nothing more than to force Russia to move around some air defense systems. I figured that in the short term they would not accomplish anything other then force Russia to send expensive air defense missiles after cheap drones until Ukraine managed to ramp up production to a point where they could saturate Russian defenses. But it seems like every other day brings news of a new Russian oil refinery site being successfully hit by Ukraine. If Russia does not turn this around soon they are going to have a serious hit to their oil income even allowing for the fact that these refineries are large and numerous.

Some Russian bloggers are calling for Russia to launch a sustained attacked on Ukrainian strategic targets to put a stop to this but I am not sure what Russia can do with conventional weapons that they have not already tried. They already destroyed Ukraine’s economy and already tried with some success to take down Ukraine’s power grid. But the aid from the West keeps flowing albeit not in the amounts that Ukraine would like. The European package that the EU just passed will enable Ukraine to keep paying the bills for at least another year yet even if it doesn’t get them the weapons they want. So how is Russian supposed to stop this flow of money with precision strikes on Ukrainian soil?

You can see video of one interpretation of why this campaign has worked in southern Russia below.

Zelensky Makes Himself Look Like A Fool.

The one thing all this drama about President Zelensky firing General Zaluzhny has achieved is to make like Zelensky look like he is weak and a fool. This is true no matter what the truth is behind this drama.

There is a possibility that all the reports about Zelensky intending on firing Zaluzhny were leaks from people who did not know the real story. If that is the case, then it was a major political mistake for Zelensky not to deny the rumors in a forthright manner. If all the major news sources are running a story, silence is taken as confirmation. And to let that story hang out there un-denied makes Zelensky look weak and foolish.

Another possibility is that Zelensky is right to want to fire Zaluzhny and Zaluzhny is a major obstacle to Ukrainian progress. The fact that Zaluzhny is widely popular does not meant that he is good at his job. George McClellan was very popular with his troops and the public at large but I have never read anyone who thought that firing him was incorrect with the benefit of hindsight. That being said, the key point is that he was fired by Lincoln after the midterms. Lincoln was a smart enough politician to do it when he was ready and able to bear the political costs of doing it. Zelensky is allowing this drama with Zaluzhny to drag out to detriment of his own reputation and that harming his country in the process. Even if it is the right call to fire Zaluzhny, he is doing it in way that makes him look weak and foolish.

But the most likely possibility is that Zelensky is delusional about the reality of the situation that Ukraine is facing and is blaming Zaluzhny for that reality. Some rumors are saying the focus of tension between Zelensky and Zaluzhny stems from Zaluzhny’s instance that Ukraine needs more men. According to these same rumors, the reason Zelensky has failed to replace Zaluzhny’s is that all the generals he has asked have refused the job. If this is true, it indicates that Zelensky is the problem and not Zaluzhny. There have long been rumors that Zelensky does not have the best grasp on reality and this would fit with him publicly claiming that Russia was not going to invade even as the Americans were publicly saying that Russia was going to. Back then he was clearly a man believed what he wanted to believe and not the facts that were available and I have no reason to believe he has been turned into a better man.

But regardless which of the above is right, this whole affair is doing Ukraine almost as much harm as Wagner rebellion did to Russia. They need to figure it all out in a hurry if they are going to have a chance at keeping the Russians at bay. If you are unware of the drama, you can see CNN’s view below.

Retrospective Praise For Marine War Gamers.

In the past, I was not a fan of General Berger’s redesign of the Marine Corps. Fundamentally I thought he was too focused on China, he was too politically correct (better maternity leave got a prominent mention in his strategy document), and ultimately was too focused on the high tech unproven systems. One area I did agree with him on is that it was silly for the Marine Corps to try to be another army but I had a different view on the purpose the Marine Corps in a rational American force structure.

I still think that General Berger’s idea of what should be the Marine Corps function is wrong. But lately I have come to have a new found respect for his claim that his ideas are founded on well thought out war games on future conflicts. If you keep in the mind that his strategy was formulated before the current invasion of Ukraine, it is striking how many ideas that General Berger pushed on the Marine Corps that have resonance in the war going on in Ukraine.

If I had to put General Berger’s ideas in my own words, I would say that the era of being able to mass troops for a decisive break through is over. And it was over because of long range precision fires would destroy any troops that massed before they could attack. So General Berger argued that Marines should invest more in long range precision fires, air defenses, drones, and learn to work in smaller and more nimble teams. To pay for all this, he wanted to get rid the Marine’s tanks and lot of its other heavy equipment.

Now all this is expressed in the context of Pacific theater. And one of the major complaints (including mine) has been that the force structure that General Berger envisioned would not work anywhere else. But if you look at his ideas, a lot of them seemed to be what the Ukrainian forces are being driven towards by the experience of war. If Ukraine had the choice, I am sure they would happily trade their tanks for a lot of long range missiles. And they have given up on massing troops because it only invites the enemy to destroy those forces with long range fires. About the only major difference is that Ukraine would never give up the heavy gun artillery that General Berger plans would have cut. Having said that, the Marines have partially changed their minds and are now saving a lot of the big guns albeit in the reserve forces (supposedly this change came as result of further war games).

I am not going to talk too much about this as I think it is an extremely niche interest that in the grand scheme of things has little relevance to the problems facing America and the world. But it seems to me that the ideas of future warfare that the Marine Corps came up with before the Ukraine war started have stood the actual test of combat rather well at least as ideas (who is to say how well the Marines are executing those ideas). This is especially impressive given that they were focused on China and fighting around the ocean and not a land war against Russia. This leads credence to the idea that well thought out war games can be a useful exercise and that pleases the nerd in me (of course, some would argue that War Plane Orange already proved that point).

You can see a good overview of the state of the Marine Plans in the video below. It is still focused on China so you have to translate what they are doing to what is going on in Ukraine to see the comparison. But if you keep in mind that what is in this video is largely a result of war games run before the invasion on Ukraine I think you will understand what I am getting at.