Big serge substack

It is probably safe to say that the current week Junebig serge substack, is shaping up to be one of the most significant of the entire Russo-Ukrainian War. On Monday, all eyes were on the Ukrainian Armed Forces and their much anticipated summer counteroffensive, which began with a series of battallion level attacks across the breadth of the theater.

As the calendar barrels into another year and we tick away the days of February, notable anniversaries are marked off in sequence. The nature of the war changed dramatically after a kinetic and mobile opening phase. With the collapse of the negotiation process whether thanks to Boris Johnson or not , it became clear that the only way out of the conflict would be through the strategic defeat of one party by the other. Thanks to a pipeline of western support in the form of material, financial aid, and ISR and targeting assistance which allowed Ukraine to transcend its rapidly evaporating indigenous war economy, it became clear that this would be a war of industrial attrition, rather than rapid maneuver and annihilation. Russia began to mobilize resources for this sort of attritional war in the Autumn of , and since then the war has attained its present quality - that of a firepower intensive but relatively static positional struggle.

Big serge substack

Military history writer Big Serge has published an excellent essay that explains much of what has puzzled observers of the conflict in Ukraine—why does Russia appear to be hanging back, what happened to that much touted offensive, and some other matters as well. First, however, here are some basic points that will serve as guide posts. Russia, for political reasons, has not yet declared war on Ukraine—the conflict remains, legally, a Special Military Operation. Legality is very important to him, as we know from his criticisms of the Rules-Based Order, in which the rules are unilaterally made up on the go. A declaration of war may or may not happen, but the lack of such a declaration at this point places constraints on the Russian military. The Russian military is composed of a professional military—personnel who are on contract—and conscripts. Conscripts serve only for a limited time and are mostly trainees for most of their service. Importantly, they cannot be used outside the Russian Federation unless there has been a declaration of war. This lack of full complements is being solved through the mobilization, but the problem of integrating the call-ups into the new organizational structure remains a work in progress. The incorporation of several formerly Ukrainian oblasts into the Russian Federation has obviated some of the legal difficulties, but the organizational problems are still being worked through. Where is the big Russian offensive? So either a giant offensive will happen any minute now it might have just started while I was typing that , or it will never happen at all, or it already happened, or Russia is currently driving the attrition of the Ukrainian army and denying Ukraine any chance at regaining operational initiative, while at the same time pursuing important shaping objectives.

The European practice of small orders placed by individual member states also leaves manufacturers hesitant to make large investments in new production lines. We will keep such possibilities in mind and consider them to big serge substack a distinction without difference. First they deny, as this would unduly provoke Russia.

In the last 72 hours or so, the pro-Russian side of the internet has been sent into an tailspin of panic over a new Ukrainian counteroffensive which is currently being launched in the Kharkov region, with the intention of compromising the Russian army grouping at Izyum. The panic was triggered by claims that Ukraine was advancing unopposed, encircling - or perhaps even capturing - the city of Balakliya - and on the verge of cutting off supply lines to Izyum. A modest city with a prewar population of perhaps 50, people, Izyum was always slated to be a focal point in this war, due to its location at a critical intersection. The topography of northeastern Ukraine is dominated by a few critically important features which determine patterns of movement. The region is furthermore shaped by the Severodonetsk River - alternatively called simply the Donets from which the Donbas, or Donets Basin, draws its name - which snakes lazily around the plain. Izyum is a strategically crucial city because it is where the highway crosses the river; as an added cherry on top, the Oskil River - a major tributary of the Donets - confluences with the Donets less than five miles to the east of Izyum, meaning the city essentially sits directly on the intersection of all the most important geographic features of the region.

With the Russo-Ukrainian War now rolling on into its seventh month, I thought this might be as good a time as any to put together a more extensive analysis than the twitter format allows. What follows will be my assessment of what exactly the Russian Armed Forces have achieved, why they made specific operational choices, and the general shape of the battlefield today. But first, I will indulge in a brief paragraph about myself. Feel free to skip this and proceed to the first section heading below. I am a luddite by nature and have never had any sort of social media presence. However, when the Russo-Ukrainian War began in February, I was alarmed by the amateurish, even clownish levels of analysis that were being amplified by the typical establishment channels.

Big serge substack

I want to draw attention to a fine, thoughtful article by Big Serge. The Age of Zugzwang. Zugzwang, of course, is a term from chess. It simply describes the situation in which a player is forced to choose between two bad alternatives. In other words, the player is in a strategically unsustainable position that inexorably leads to defeat. Obviously, Big Serge is talking about the position the American Empire finds itself currently. The catch is, for the tripwire strategy to work, the threatened response has to be credible and deterring. That threat is no longer credible, as we see throughout the Middle East—the attacks on our bases, the Houthi blockade, etc.

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The creation of the Kakhovka resevoir was also vitally linked to a series of canals which are fed from the resevoir. Hence, Kiev - buit originally as a timber fortified trading post to ease passage along the middle Dnieper. We may learn, of course, that there was some accidental failure of some kind, potentially due to the water tug of war being waged between Russia and Ukraine as they try to balance the flow of the river. The video in question allegedly shows a Russian soldier giving an interview in December in which he boasts that the Russian army mined the Kakhovka dam and plan to destroy it to create a cascading flood and wash away the Ukrainian troops downstream. Any consideration, debate or ratification is just a stage-managed rubber-stamp. In any case, the legalities are not the main point here. Expand full comment. But Syrski at least has a propensity to look for decision points, unlike Zaluzhny, who seemed content to slowly wither away in positional battle against a superior foe. Can Ukraine plug it before it collapses? And he's kinda funny.

In the couple of years before he died in , aged 91, the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius would invite musicians from the orchestras in Helsinki to visit him at his home, Ainola, 25 miles from the city. Then in his mid-twenties, Berglund was soon to dedicate himself to conducting — in Finland first, and then internationally. No other conductor, except perhaps Herbert von Karajan, would do more to introduce Sibelius to lateth-century audiences after decades in which his reputation had slipped.

Now the window is closed, and Russian force generation is inexorably rising, threatening Ukraine with the deluge of total strategic overmatch. Start Writing Get the app. Lacking the ability to operationally compromise Russian forces here, Ukraine will find itself in a good old fashioned shootout against an enemy with vastly superior firepower - not only that, but it is in fact Ukraine that now faces operational complications, having blasted their way into a salient with no prospects for crossing the Oskil in force and exploiting. What was that quote again? Thus far, the United States has been much more successful ramping up production than has Europe. This is why Russia had a general scarcity of manpower that began to compromise its overall operational effectiveness over the summer of as Ukrainian mobilization and western aid resulted in an enormous UA numerical advantage. The Oskil river - which, incidentally is more than a kilometer wide in places - presents a major barrier that will prevent Ukraine from exploiting their early advances. Portaging a boat on the middle Dnieper in AD was dangerous. Again, the appeal of the dam for Russia is that it is a lever which can be throttled up and down as the situation calls for it. Russia has been fighting an economy of force operation that aims to destroy the Ukrainian army through attrition. The eastern bank of the river is lower and thus more affected by flooding. Russia conducts regular troop rotations , while Ukrainian forces remain on the line due to the lack of replacements. While the defeat of the current counteroffensives demonstrate that it is still well on the path to victory, the mere existence of these counteroffensives suggests that Russia must raise its force deployment - taking advantage of its significant powers of force generation - and deny Ukraine access to its population pools, or else victory may well be slower and more costly than necessary. Share this discussion. It seems likely that Russia would want to retain water so that they could create a surge not by destroying the dam, but by opening the gates up to disrupt any Ukrainian attempt to cross the river.