Michael Kofman and Rob Lee released another article looking at the counteroffensive's overall state three months in. If you've been paying attention to Kofman's recent Russian Contingency podcasts, this article mostly echoes these conclusions, just packaged in a format more palatable to a Washington audience. If this is interesting to you, I would also recommend RUSI's recently released assessment of the counteroffensive. It's a bit more technical but equally informative.

Michael Kofman is a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on the Russian military and Eurasian security issues. He served as director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, where he conducted research on the capabilities, strategy, and military thought of the Russian Armed Forces.

Rob Lee is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and a former Marine infantry officer

Attrition makes for poor headlines, but it plays to Ukraine’s strengths, whereas attempting to scale offensive maneuver under such difficult conditions does not. It is, however, burdensome to resource, pressuring Washington to finally authorize dual-purpose improved conventional munitions — cluster munitions for lack of artillery ammunition available. Cluster munitions are a nasty weapon with lingering effects, but there is no other way to sustain Ukraine’s demands for artillery ammunition. This was a critical decision, extending the timeline available to give Ukraine’s approach the opportunity to succeed. They are also more effective against forces in the open and manned trenches. But the dual-purpose improved conventional munition stockpile is not just meant for the offensive. It will be used to sustain Ukraine’s war effort well into next year, until Western production increases sufficiently. This suggests that the primary factors affecting Ukraine’s offensive could still be ammunition and force availability.

In mid-August, Ukraine appears to have begun committing elements from its reserves, including the 46th Airmobile and 82nd Air Assault Brigades. The addition of these units seems to have achieved quicker results, as Ukrainian forces liberated the heavily fortified town of Robotyne and continued to advance to the south and east. The current situation is fluid. Geolocated footage and reporting suggests Ukrainian forces, possibly a reconnaissance unit, have advanced past the anti-tank obstacles on the first part of the “Surovikin line” towards Verbove. Though it is unclear if this is just a small dismounted force, or if Ukraine has managed to breach those defenses with vehicles. Ukrainian forces have also advanced towards Novoprokopivka and its eastern flank. The Ukrainian military appears focused on further degrading the Russian defenses and widening the salient, because a narrow advance could leave its forces vulnerable to counterattacks on the flanks. The renewed assault does point to a changing dynamic, forcing the Russian military to react in order to try and stabilize the situation.

Despite appearances, Russia is not executing a true defense in depth. Russian forces are set up for such a defense, which enables a defender to degrade the attacker as they advance, trading space for attrition. They have constructed three defensive belts, minefields in between, communication trenches, and hardened defensive points in between. This was likely Gen. Sergei Surovikin’s vision (and his name provides the nickname for these defensive lines). But Surovikin is not in charge. Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov, the chief of general staff, is. He has consistently demonstrated poor military judgment and a weak understanding of what Russian forces can and cannot do, most recently in the failed Russian winter offensive. Russian forces have chosen to defend forward of the Surovikin line, concentrating their efforts on holding the first line of defense and the towns that anchor it. To be clear, the first line does feature extensive entrenchments, including tunnel networks. The follow on lines include machine dug trenches, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth, and likely more minefields. The Russian decision to defend forward has favored Kyiv because it allowed Ukrainian artillery to attrite the Russian units deployed.

The course of this battle is ... increasingly determined by who has the most reserves available and who pursues the best force management strategy over time.

Western support thus far has been sufficient to avert a Ukrainian defeat, and arguably has imposed a strategic defeat on Russia, but not enough to ensure a Ukrainian victory. Independent of the outcome of this offensive, Western countries need to be clear-eyed about the fact that this will be a long war. Taken together, Western industrial and military potential greatly exceeds Russia’s, but without the political will, potential alone will not translate into results.

Basically the title. I would love to get at least a basic working knowledge of repairs and alterations, but I have no experience whatsoever. A “questions that don’t deserve their own post” or “starting resources” thing would be very helpful. Thank you!

Submission Statement

Western analysts have a strong bias towards conservative estimation, one so strong that it is frequently parodied in memes about the military-industrial complex. While the perils of overestimating one's capability are far greater than those of underestimation, underestimating does carry risks of its own. This article focuses on those risks within the context of wargaming and provides recommendations for better incorporating Western advantages and a more risk-tolerant mentality into wargames, conflict analysis, and procurement decisions. The author recommends recognizing and accounting for Western personnel advantages and incorporating acceptable levels of risk into wargame designs.

Lt. Cdr. Josh “Minkus” Portzer is a P-8A weapons and tactics instructor in the U.S. Navy. The views expressed here are his own.

In today’s wargaming, survivability is often a major currency through which a platform displays its value (expressed as relevancy) for future investments and growth within the defense budget. All military platforms have noteworthy capabilities. However, if an asset (such as a high-value plane) cannot get into an area without being destroyed, it is not seen as survivable. The concept of risk can offset the latent threat posed by a lack of survivability. The potential shootdown of a U.S. aircraft may, in general, be seen as unacceptable. Yet, if the commander is willing to accept risk, the threat of the shootdown may become tolerable. In that sense, risk can be a mitigator in the commander’s decision calculus when hedging against the question of survivability. Both concepts today feed an over-conservative characterization of the battlespace that has potential financial consequences.

There are many military wargames and conflict scenario simulations that are robust enough to circumnavigate these mentioned pitfalls. However, the inherent danger in the Department of Defense is that these wargaming-based studies can inform investment (or theoretically, divestment) decisions. In general, this is a good thing. U.S. taxpayers should want military business decisions to be sound ones, based on studies and modeled scenarios. However, when a lack of robustness in these studies manifests (perhaps due to accidental oversights, or a shortage of manning or time, or an absence of sophisticated modeling tools), a component service of the Department of Defense may make a misinformed business decision — albeit with good intentions of doing right by the taxpayer.

To return again to the aircraft versus missile example: If wargaming analysts retain their conservative bias towards unit-level risk and believe that the friendly aircraft is not survivable against the adversary missile, the analysts may find that the aircraft is not able to enter or adequately maneuver through the battlespace. If that is assumed to be true, then for a given anticipated conflict, the friendly aircraft may not be relevant. Now comes the survivability death spiral: If the friendly aircraft is not relevant in the next anticipated conflict, then why continue to invest in it by way of weapons, additional sensors, and other technology that may be outfitted on the platform? Alternative investment decisions then are made for other friendly platforms at the cost of the allegedly non-survivable aircraft.

Survivability and risk will forever be bedfellows of wargaming and conflict scenario analysis — as they should be. Conflict will inevitably bring with it losses, and no country should accept loss of life or materiel with reckless abandon. Making sound strategic operational and financial decisions means rigorously studying one’s own capabilities as well as the adversary’s. At risk of invoking a timeless cliché: “Know thyself. Know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” Yet as a corollary of caution, another literary work comes to mind: Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. On a quest for knighthood and in pursuit of chivalry, a comical Don Quixote fights imaginary enemies, notably making giants out of windmills. The phrase has become cemented idiomatically to represent waging conflict against exaggerated foes. It applies when one paints an enemy as 10 feet tall, but arguably, also when one paints oneself as 10 inches high. If viewing survivability through a peacetime lens of risk acceptance remains the status quo, the defense services run risk of tilting at windmills in several wargaming instances, some of which may induce the survivability death spiral for certain military assets.

By pursuing wargaming and modeling improvements that capture a more complete definition of survivability, and recalibrating how risk is defined therein, study conclusions will be more robust, accurate, and therefore more reliable. Moreover, those conclusions will optimize the investment decisions that the Department of Defense and component services make. In doing so, the chance of tilting at windmills is lessened. Conversely, the U.S. military may better invest in the pursuit of becoming giants.

The Exorcist: Deceiver is the second chapter of the upcoming The Exorcist trilogy.

If we could just figure out what factory this is, we could all special order cheese and crash the Russian economy overnight