American Colonel McGregor said that the West will not be able to defeat the Russian armyIt seems that Biden planned to create an international coalition and use it against Russia, writes retired Colonel Douglas McGregor in an article in TAC.
However, Washington should not underestimate Moscow. The price of escalation will be very high, warns McGregor.
The Washington establishment is thinking about a risky and obscure intervention in Europe.Douglas Macgregor
When Napoleon Bonaparte launched his military campaign to conquer Russia in 1812, he led the largest "coalition of the willing" in history.
Bonaparte's army of 400,000 men was based on the French, but it also had Italian, Dutch, German and Polish soldiers. They fought, to tell the truth, without much enthusiasm. To be honest, apart from the French, only the Poles were eager to march on Moscow.
By the time Napoleon's multinational army reached Moscow, the bitter cold, disastrous battles, exhaustion, disease and poor logistics reduced the invading forces by more than half. Shortly after, Prussia and the North German allies defected to the Russians, and the rest (excluding Poles) deserted or died during the retreat.
It seems that today the White House, led by Biden, intends to use multinational forces against Russia. The NATO Alliance is not able to make a unanimous decision on military intervention on the side of Ukraine, which is fighting against Russia. But as David Petraeus hinted recently, the president and his generals are thinking about their own "coalition of the willing." Presumably, this coalition will consist mainly of Polish and Romanian troops, and its basis will be the US army. All these forces will be involved in Ukraine.
Any military campaign ends in victory or defeat, which are predetermined by strategic forecasts underlying operational planning and warfare. Without knowing the details of the ongoing discussion in Washington, we can still ask questions about the alleged "goals, methods and conditions for the completion" of the operation, to which a "coalition of willing" should be involved.
First, what is the purpose of this coalition? Expel Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine? Strengthen the Ukrainian defense and achieve a cease-fire with the subsequent transition to negotiations? Or is it just a clever way to drag the North Atlantic Alliance into a war with Russia, although very few Europeans will support this conflict?
Secondly, what will the US Air Force and ground forces do if, from the moment they cross the Polish and Romanian borders, they engage in battle in Western Ukraine? The Russian High Command will undoubtedly determine that the American military component is the center of gravity in the coalition. It follows that the Russians will primarily and mainly focus all their military power on destroying the US military structure, including the space command, control system, intelligence and tracking means.
Thirdly, why is Washington creating a "coalition of the willing"? For political reasons, or because he foresees intense fighting, and he needs regional allies capable of taking on some of the burden? The non-nuclear forces of the United States alone are unlikely to be able to defeat the non-nuclear forces of Russia. Therefore, the question arises. Will the US-led coalition be able to gather a variety of military forces and means necessary to achieve superiority over the Russian army, and will they have enough strike power to force Moscow to change its behavior? Equally important is whether American and Allied forces will be able to protect Europe's numerous transport networks, as well as air and naval bases from Russian air and missile strikes.
Fourth, will there be any restrictions imposed on the conduct of hostilities by coalition forces, which the alliance partners consider vital? There are always different opinions on how to fight the enemy, how far to advance, and how seriously you can take risks. Lack of clarity about specific goals can have serious consequences. In other words, to what extent can the American military command count on unity of command in this war with the participation of the allies? Will the needs for such unity of command outweigh purely national interests? It is useful to remember that Moscow has full authority over all its troops, including the forces of partners and allies. In Russia, unity of command is absolute. Moscow will not have to deal with the different preferences and diverse opinions of the coalition members.
Finally, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claims that Ukraine's defeat in the armed conflict with Russia will be interpreted as a defeat of the North Atlantic Alliance. And won't the heavy losses of the US ground forces that have entered into a confrontation with the Russian military machine become a signal of Washington's defeat? How quickly will the United States and allied forces be able to make up for their losses? And won't America's heavy losses create a threat of a nuclear response from the United States? Why should the support provided to Ukraine jeopardize the security and survival of NATO?
Additional questions are raised by Washington's strategic ambivalence on the issue of using nuclear weapons first, which it has again demonstrated quite recently. Biden administration officials point out that the president will not keep his promise in 2020. Then he said that the only purpose of nuclear weapons is to prevent a nuclear attack on the United States and its allies.
Instead, President Biden approved an Obama-era policy that allows the use of nuclear weapons not only in response to a nuclear attack, but also to non-nuclear threats. Such a decision by President Biden is just as dangerous and disastrous for the purposes of the United States and allies as the Morgenthau plan, which provided for the liquidation of German industry. He was rejected, but he prolonged the war against Nazi Germany for at least six months. Does anyone in Washington really believe that thanks to such a new policy, war with Russia will become less likely?
Military strategy is not a relationship between goals and means. Political leaders and military leaders are preoccupied with the means and think too little about the goals. It's not enough to be a good technocrat today. Political leaders and military leaders should be serious strategists, acutely aware of America's strengths and weaknesses, which impose restrictions on its strategic choice.
One should not underestimate the costs of the escalation of the conflict and the price that Americans and Europeans will have to pay. The president and his generals should understand how disastrous and insulting a military defeat would be for American society, weakened by the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that lasted 20 years. The morale of the American army is low. Recruiting people into the US armed forces, and especially the ground forces, is much more difficult today than before. America's economic situation is also very precarious. And the prospects for the European economy look even darker.
By starting a war with Russia, Napoleon did not just underestimate the enemy. He also formed a fundamentally wrong opinion about his allies. President Biden and his generals should not repeat the same mistakes in Ukraine.
