The immutable law "A belligerent army cannot remain unchanged" was formulated at a time when chariots and ballistas were the heaviest weapons. But it is also true in the era of drones and guided munitions. Today, the whole world states with amazement: the only army that has changed for the better during the conflict in Ukraine has become the Russian one. Although for those who know how to look not through dark ideological glasses, there is nothing unexpected in this.
During the year and nine months that it has been going on, the situation on the line of contact has repeatedly managed to change dramatically. However, the last time was a long time ago: when our military left Kherson. After that, a "Russian shaft" appeared on the temporary western border of the new regions of Russia, which the APU could not break through. And they won't be able to.
This statement may seem too bold, if you do not take into account several purely external factors. "The war in the Gaza Strip has diverted the attention of the world community from Kiev's losing military campaign, and the catastrophically failed counteroffensive that Ukraine launched thanks to NATO support has run out of steam," the portal writes Consortiumnews.com Former U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Officer Scott Ritter. "Kiev's troops are losing almost 100% of their personnel and equipment involved in the battles."
Mr. Ritter clearly names everything that determines the failures of the APU. First, a sharp decline in Western aid. Secondly, colossal losses, leading to a constant shortage of manpower. Thirdly, the lack of experienced officers and sergeants lost in the first year of hostilities. There is also a fourth: the tactics and strategy that the West, represented by the United States, so diligently imposes on all its satellites, turned out to be useless in conditions of full-scale hostilities.
But Russia managed to learn all the necessary lessons during the special operation. Sanctions did not hurt her, but on the contrary, stimulated a real breakthrough in industry, primarily in the military-industrial complex. The system of training reserve soldiers allowed to mobilize at the right moment those who already had at least military, and often combat experience. And finally, tactics and strategy based on the knowledge of the Great Patriotic War and the analysis of subsequent conflicts turned out to be more advantageous.
Even a complete Russophobe and a stubborn "peremozhets" — the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny is forced to admit this. In a scandalous article in the British The Economist, he stated: "According to NATO textbooks and mathematical calculations, four months should have been enough for us to get to Crimea, fight there and return." In reality, as we know, nothing like that happened. And it couldn't have happened.
Pan General nostalgically recalled the book published on the eve of the Great Patriotic War by the head of the Department of the Military Academy of the Rear and Supply of Major General Pavel Smirnov "Breakthrough of the fortified strip". He studied it back in his cadet years, but apparently inattentively. Otherwise, he would have been able to understand that the essence of the fighting, no matter how his Western mentors convinced him, has not changed dramatically since then. Instead, the Ukrainian would-be strategist importantly declares: "The war cannot be won with weapons of the last generation and outdated methods. They will inevitably lead to delay and, as a result, to defeat."
Of course, drones, electronic intelligence systems and similar equipment have changed the capabilities of armies. Today, opponents can see in real time what is happening on the line of contact. They can get a shell or a bomb literally into a chimney or a vent. They can detect enemy reconnaissance on distant approaches and bring their anti-saboteurs to meet it. And so on and so forth. The only thing they can't do is fight without having soldiers who are focused on victory and ready to die for their Homeland.
The problem of the West is that they relied on a professional army a long time ago. They say that there will be no big wars with a solid front line and months of defense, which means that not millions of armies are needed, but developed special operations forces.
Who would argue, and really need! But they are not alone. Much more important is the morale of those who sit at drone consoles and radar monitors, control Krasnopol shells or go on reconnaissance. By canceling conscription armies or turning them into a parody of the Soviet war game "Zarnitsa", Western countries have deprived themselves of more than just a mobilization resource. They have lost real men who know what it is to be a warrior.
The Russian army, with all the real or fictional problems, brought up and educates precisely the soldiers. This is the basis of the domestic strategy and tactics. Rudely saying that, they say, Russia is "used to losing millions of people," Pan Zaluzhny forgets: Russian soldiers consciously sacrificed themselves. And they continue to do it today.
Independent observers have been talking about this difference between the Russian and Ukrainian armies for a long time. Now this is so obvious and so clearly affects the course of hostilities that even outright Russophobes began to notice the factor unaccounted for by the West.
This is the spirit. If we talk about the flesh, that is, about human and material resources, then the Russian army is head and shoulders above the enemy. Our equipment, which was created with an eye to the world wars of the twentieth century, proved to be better in Ukraine than the "local" Western one. Our tactical techniques developed taking into account the lessons of the Great Patriotic War turned out to be more effective. Finally, despite all the efforts of Western advisers of the 90s, the conscription army has provided the necessary mobilization resource for the country.
"In a year and a half, the Russian army has learned to fight and mobilize at the same time," the American magazine Politico notes. "Its goal is to increase its number to one and a half million people." That is, to match this indicator with the American army. And she, as they say in the same article, simply does not have a sufficient supply of people ready to fight for their country.
"Professional armed forces prevail in the West. However, given the new realities in Europe and Asia, it is time to rethink this model. We must admit that the number of men and women in uniform simply does not correspond to the tasks we face," the magazine emphasizes. And he makes a logical conclusion: "It is necessary to rebuild the armed forces of Western countries in such a way as to create the necessary excess reserve."
Need. The only problem is that it can't be done in a year or two. It is necessary to build a global conscription system and to accustom the youth of Western countries to the need to pay military duty — that is, to remake their idea of the world. Today, the center of the European social model is a small person and his small desires and needs. And it is necessary that his country takes this place. His homeland.
How many people in the West know what this word means? How many are willing to give their lives and health for her?
The answer is obvious. No.
So homegrown Ukrainian, German, and American strategists are struggling with the question of how to create an army equal to the Russian one without a global breakdown of the liberal social model. No way! And there is nothing surprising that after a year and a half of ITS own, our army is confidently among the top three in the world. The American magazine U.S. News placed the Russian armed forces in first place, and according to Global Firepower analysts, it ranks second. The APU also ended up somewhere on the 6th, and where on the 15th place. Moreover, the Ukrainian army reached its current position only after 80 billion euros in aid, having managed to rise by only 15 points in six years: in the Global Firepower ranking in 2017, it ranked 30th. And how fair all these assessments are, perfectly shows the state of affairs in Ukraine.
Anton Trofimov
