They Went To Hunt For Glory...

 ... to 404 and already have been thinking about boasting how they led the offensive which would defeat those backward Russkies. Well, the problem, of course, was that they still thought that US Army Manuals apply for 404 as well as they did in Gulf War. Boy, did they miscalculate. Some interesting points from Marat on Chasov Yar, which only confirm the point I make that no US general can command anything larger than regiment in SMO. They simply have neither knowledge nor experience. 

К осени прошлого года «Хортица», которая на конец 22-го считалась самым крупным войсковым соединением в числе 4-х основных соединений ВСУ (240-260 тысяч человек), только за один год потеряла 150 тысяч. В результате все основные подразделения, я подчеркну, лучшие, что остались у «Хортицы» сейчас, сконцентрированные для обороны Часов Яра — по одному, а большинство по два раза уже полностью прошли переформирование. То есть были один или два раза полностью разбиты. Но давайте посмотрим на них повнимательнее, так как это само по себе очень интересно. На первом месте стоит опорная и наиболее боеспособная 93 бригада «Холодный Яр». По численности почти дивизия. За два года была дважды разбита.

Интересно, что «Холодные» считались наиболее боеспособными, потому что воевали в основном на лучшей трофейной российской технике. Это прежде всего танки Т-72, Т-80 и даже считанные Т-90. А так же лучшее, что было у укропов — Т-64 «Булат». «Холодные» являлись любимцами амеров, и, например, в ходе осенне-летней кампании 22-го года некоторыми подразделениями прямо руководили американские офицеры. Правда, когда началась Артемовская мясорубка быстро сбежали. На втором месте идет 46 аэромобильная (десантная) бригада, подготовленная англичанами в Англии, самая, кстати говоря, непотрепанная — всего один раз была на переформировании. Далее 92 десантно-штурмовая бригада (дважды уничтоженная). Эти вообще смертники. Вроде 110 бригады ВСУ под Авдеевкой. Отличились тем, что устроили резню наших пленных вместе с батальоном «Кракен» в селе Новоселовское под Сватово осенью 22-го. Тогда мученической смертью погибли 16 бойцов Луганского ополчения (ныне той самой 4-й бригады). Им надели на голову пакеты и удушили. Ой, что будет, когда луганцы доберутся до 92-х.

Translation: By the fall of last year, Khortitsa, which at the end of the 2022 was considered the largest military formation among the 4 main formations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (240-260 thousand people), lost 150 thousand in just one year. As a result, all the main units, I emphasize, the best that remain at Khortytsya now, concentrated for the defense of Chasov Yar - one at a time, and the majority have already been completely reorganized twice. That is, they were completely destroyed once or twice. But let's take a closer look at them, as this in itself is very interesting. In first place is the supporting and most combat-ready 93rd brigade “Kholodny Yar”. Almost a division in numbers. In two years it was destroyed twice. It is interesting that the “Kholodnye” were considered the most combat-ready, because they fought mainly with the best captured Russian equipment. These are primarily T-72, T-80 and even a few T-90 tanks. And also the best thing the Ukrops had - the T-64 Bulat. The “Kholodnye” were the favorites of the Americans, and, for example, during the autumn-summer campaign of 22, some units were directly led by American officers. True, when the Artyomovskaya meat grinder began, they quickly fled. In second place is the 46th airmobile (airborne) brigade, trained by the British in England, which, by the way, is the most unshabby - it was only reformed once. Next is the 92nd Air Assault Brigade (twice destroyed). These are generally suicide troops. Like the 110th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Avdeevka. They distinguished themselves by carrying out a massacre of our prisoners together with the Kraken battalion in the village of Novoselovskoye near Svatovo in the fall of the 22nd. Then 16 fighters of the Lugansk militia (now the same 4th brigade) died as martyrs. They put bags over their heads and suffocated them. Oh, what will happen when the Luhansk people reach 92nd.

Oh, we know what's gonna happen and it better be done without any phones around. Sadism towards POWs was "trained" by NATO instructors and this is the only thing they are good at. Recall how US media have been ejaculating in mid 2010s from describing H.R. McMaster who became, for a short while, the National Security Adviser to Trump. What many forgot that at some point there was a description of how McMaster's regiment treated Iraqi Army POWs--inhumanely. Remarkably, the piece was in one of the major US outlets--either New Yorker or NYT, one of those. Now I cannot find it. I tried, maybe you can. But this is the type of the "training", which is based on killing a third rate force which cannot shoot back and is demolished by the way of total air superiority. But McMaster's "story" and PR around his exploits in Iraq are totally inapplicable to the realities of modern war with "peer" or "better than peer", and that is what those American unit commanders learned really fast. Hence, they fled--very little glory in being evaporated by Tornado's salvo or being blown to smithereens by 152-mm shell or 3M14 Kalibr.  

Remember a pathetic piece by WSJ in 2017 titled...

The New Cold War Pits a U.S. General Against His Longtime Russian Nemesis. It’s Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster vs. Putin ally Valery Gerasimov

So, yes, they compared (Nemesis, LOL) Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces to a guy who commanded a... regiment in Iraq. I reacted already then:

Really? No, I really mean, really? How trivial and shallow one has to be when coming up, for starters, with such sappy baloney as "nemesis". Nemesis, if to follow popular Greek Mythology derived definition, is something a person can not overcome. The immediate question is, then, this--in what sense Russia's Chief Of General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov is a "long-time nemesis" for US National Security Adviser General McMaster? How, in what inflamed fantasy, can Valery Gerasimov, who, throughout his career, commanded both 58th Army and then what would amount to several Army Groups, before becoming Chief Of General Staff, be a nemesis to a man, with all due respect to McMaster, whose "accomplishments" involve such things as, even if viewed briefly from Wiki:

In August 2008, McMaster assumed duties as Director, Concept Development and Experimentation (later renamed Concept Development and Learning), in the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) at Fort Monroe, Virginia, part of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. In this position McMaster was involved in preparing doctrine to guide the Army over the next ten to twenty years.   

Apart from obvious gross mismatch in rank, command, responsibilities and accomplishments--Gerasimov's level is a level of the Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff--one is forced to ask the question: and what are those "military thinking" accomplishments of McMaster per him being a Director, Concept Development and Experimentation? Almost ten years passed from the moment of McMaster's involvement with US doctrine. And what are the results? 

It was a grotesque level of arrogance, ignorance and military illiteracy by the whole US military-propaganda establishment. And then they fled--no glory, I guess. But with such "thinkers" as McMaster, we may see yet another glorious US operational "planning" which will kill even more Ukrainians, who US military views merely as a cannon fodder of untermenschen. Hm, where did I see this before? You gotta love internet, it saves so much...

On The Virtues Of Modelling.

Former National Security Adviser to Donald Trump H.R. McMaster is at it again. As Larison notes:

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster now works for the poorly-named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), and in his new position he is back once again to talking up the virtues of preparing for preventive war against North Korea:

McMaster says the U.S. needs to “prepare for at least the option of the use of military force” to convince Kim to denuclearize.

To adapt Bismarck’s famous quote about preventive war, McMaster is saying that we should prepare for the option of suicide for fear of death.

However, this is not what is important inLarison's piece, it is a retort by Harry Kazianis inside Larison's piece, which goes like this:

So H.R. MacMaster is still talking about the U.S. using military force on #NorthKorea. I have spent about 2,000 hours in computer simulations of what this looks like. Millions died—in every SINGLE scenario. Seoul is nearly destroyed in all of them. Fool.

I agree with Kazianis--he is a fool. But finally somebody states openly about virtues of proper operational planning and modelling across multi-scenario (contingency) space. Kazianis' background of course is a bizarre mix of international relations/political science field and journalism. I didn't read Kazianis' book on Chinese A2/AD issues--I seldom read "political scientists" opinions on issues of operational research, especially within new technological paradigm, which I call a REAL RMA. Yet, if Kazianis did spend "2000 hours in computer simulation" of war with North Korea, it is good that he mentions this figure--millions dead--in case of McMaster's desired preventive war on North Korea. Good for Kazianis. But the problem persists: Kazianis talks about millions of Koreans dead, but what about US forces in South Korea? 

Currently there are around 30,000 US troops stationed in Korea, but I am sure, for McMaster's war on North Korea US will have to increase numbers of US servicemen and hardware dramatically. But here is the catch--those pesky China and Russia have a common border with North Korea and both are more than capable and willing, in case of "preventive war", to "help". Both have many tools for such helping, ranging from diplomatic and economic to direct supply of hardware and, highly likely, of "advisers". Obviously, McMaster being a product of non-continental warfare school of thought thinks that the United States proper will be in the same position it was during...ahem...all of its wars, that is insulated from them. This time, this might not be the case at all, because the whole thing has a very high probability of getting out of hand really fast with US forces attrition rates skyrocketing and the whole thing getting very close to nuclear threshold--the only option the United States will have should China, let alone Russia, get involved in a big way--and that is highly likely in this case. Have Mr. McMaster ever spent at least 1 hour in computer simulation if this scenario unfolds? The count may go in more than millions then but in tens of millions. 

Out of all places for potential US "involvement", North Korea, due to its unique geography, is the place with the highest potential for large regional conflict going full blown global. I cannot even describe in how many ways this McMaster's war can go bad really fast with deadly consequences for all parties involved, including US proper. But what possibly can one expect from a man, as Larison describes:

No wonder former Secretary Mattis reportedly called McMaster unstable said that the then-National Security Advisor was going to get us all killed.

What an "endorsement"! When "Mad Dog" Mattis says this about you, you must be really fvcked in the head. I guess Mattis did his due diligence and spent required hours in computer simulation. But this brings us to a larger issue, as Larison states:

This is a useful reminder that every one of Trump’s National Security Advisors has been a menace in different ways, and all of them have been incorrigibly hawkish and reckless in their views about the use of force.      

I can only add--how about teaching all those "advisers" be them uniformed or otherwise about REAL modern war and what it entails when not two but three superpowers may get entangled in it. Evidently, Harry Kazianis despite his radically not military background did his due diligence by studying effects of the use of force in Korean Peninsula and it is good that he gave the order of magnitude of numbers of innocent people who will die as the result. But I do have explanation for those "advisers" being reckless and hawkish--their aggressiveness is an obverse side of ignorance of the real war. and this problem cannot be solved by education only, it requires great human and statesman qualities of which current American political elites have none. 

Double Plus LOL!!

US journos never disappoint. No, really, certain Nathan Hodge and Julian Barnes of Wall Street Journal rag fame just made my morning. Make no mistake, there always was a degree of melodrama in US when dealing with war, the same as lack of any grasp of issues of scales and proportions. Enough to remember grossly exaggerated, if not completely false, dichotomies, such as contrived "rivalry", which never materialized, of Patton and Rommel--both being merely episodes, and by far not the most important ones, of WW II. Certainly not even close to the scale of  Valilevsky, Rokossovsky, Manstein or Guderian. Not even in the same universe. Yet, there it was--a Hollywood version of something that even never existed. Today, above mentioned WSJ journos, while repeating this idiotic Patton-Rommel cliche, came up with another cringe-worthy melodramatic, totally contrived BS which they called: 

The New Cold War Pits a U.S. General Against His Longtime Russian Nemesis

You can read fuller version of this crap here. 

Really? No, I really mean, really? How trivial and shallow one has to be when coming up, for starters, with such sappy baloney as "nemesis". Nemesis, if to follow popular Greek Mythology derived definition, is something a person can not overcome. The immediate question is, then, this--in what sense Russia's Chief Of General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov is a "long-time nemesis" for US National Security Adviser General McMaster? How, in what inflamed fantasy, can Valery Gerasimov, who, throughout his career, commanded both 58th Army and then what would amount to several Army Groups, before becoming Chief Of General Staff, be a nemesis to a man, with all due respect to McMaster, whose "accomplishments" involve such things as, even if viewed briefly from Wiki:

In August 2008, McMaster assumed duties as Director, Concept Development and Experimentation (later renamed Concept Development and Learning), in the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) at Fort Monroe, Virginia, part of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. In this position McMaster was involved in preparing doctrine to guide the Army over the next ten to twenty years.   

Apart from obvious gross mismatch in rank, command, responsibilities and accomplishments--Gerasimov's level is a level of the Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff--one is forced to ask the question: and what are those "military thinking" accomplishments of McMaster per him being a Director, Concept Development and Experimentation? Almost ten years passed from the moment of McMaster's involvement with US doctrine. And what are the results? Results are in the open, for everyone to see and they are not pretty. But then, another question comes: does Gerasimov even know that he is McMaster's "nemesis"? Did troops commanded or guided through operational plans developed by Gerasimov and McMaster ever meet on a battlefield? Never heard of that. But then again, Gerasimov as Chief Of General Staff has at his disposal, a world-class and with pedigree to back it up, GOU (Главное Оперативное Управление--Main Operational Directorate) which for the last 15 years has shown a rather impressive track record. One is literally forced, then, to inevitably "compare the records" purely on merit and without preposterous references to "nemesis". 

I will abstain from elaborating on the records' comparison, albeit I did it not for once, such as here, but let Patrick Armstrong speak on that:

I can’t get two questions out of my mind:

When was the last time the USA won a war?

When was the last time US trained troops fought effectively?

Spectacularly successful at raining death and destruction in the first few weeks, something goes wrong later. Obviously there is something wrong in the way the USA fights wars.

I can explain why USA loses its wars and what is a unbridgeable, irreconcilable difference not only between Gerasimov and McMaster but between Russian and American military thinking: US Armed Forces never fought in real defense of their homeland in the last two hundred plus years. Never. Russia does it for millennium. All US warfare is expeditionary in nature with US proper remaining completely oblivious to the realities of the wars it unleashes elsewhere. That it is the reason American soldier inevitably loses an interest and stake in fighting American wars since, in the end, his (her) family at home, his property, everything he (she) loves and treasures remains untouched by brutality of the warfare and other things which come in this terrifying package. Russia and her soldiers and generals (as well as the nation as a whole) think in a completely different plane, because know, on a genetic level, what war can bring to their homeland.

So, when these two WSJ hacks write this:

Their dynamic sheds light on the evolving military competition between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers at a time of rising diplomatic tension. Moscow has narrowed a yawning gap in the quality of its conventional forces, but the U.S. remains far more powerful in that category. It is this imbalance that has shaped the strategic thinking of the two generals. It’s American force and resolve against Russian cunning and diversion.   

They expose not only their utter ignorance on a whole spectrum of military issues (those two certainly never heard of Russia's Military Doctrine--explicitly defensive), they parade their incompetence by mentioning some non-existent dynamic between a man, who leads institution (Russia's General Staff) which goes back to the times of Peter The Great and has in its record victories over Charles XII, Napoleon, Wehrmacht, recently, over terrorist armies in Syria, and a guy whose "accomplishments", apart from being popular within US Army, are rather... not impressive. So, what dynamic? I can tell you what--none. As per studying somebody's combat experience--that is what military professional do, everywhere since earliest times and in this Sun Tzu's department of "Know Thyself And Know Thy Enemy" US "strategists" fail miserably time after time since the times of Korean War. McMaster will not be an exception, he will fail too. The only task now is to make sure that while failing, this will not bring the world to the edge of confrontation which will have catastrophic consequences. Gerasimov and McMaster, apart from not having any "dynamic" as WSJ hacks claim, are in different universes military strategic thinking and experience wise and both are not only not comparable, they are irreconcilable and will remain so. As per imbalance, currently no single or combination of Armed Forces, that includes US Army, can defeat Russia conventionally in her immediate geographic vicinity. I hope McMaster is smart enough not to try  testing this because it will not be Gerasimov who may then become his "nemesis" in reality but Russia as a whole herself, and her military track record speaks volumes. As per WSJ journos--nice try, double plus LOL, morons.