Free Republic

Jul 16, 2023 Description: While systems like tanks, jets and cruise missiles tend to capture the public imagination, the war in Ukraine in 2023 is largely being fought with much the same tools as it was in 2022 - artillery. The constant exchange of fire has been critical to the battle, enabling attrition, blunting attacks and enabling advances. Both sides have continued to adapt, trying to refine their tactics and capabilities while wearing down their opponent. But in this attritional struggle, losses and resupply of systems, barrels and ammunition matter, not just tactics. Ukraine now finds itself in an ammunition...

The much expected Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive (sequel to the well known trilogy in 2022 "Kyiv" "Kharkiv" & "Kherson") has, alongside Bakhmut, been a major topic of speculation and discussion for months now. As a topic it is so heavily debated that there isn't even agreement over whether or not it has started, is yet to start, or will never start at all. For the most part, while some preparations are obvious, Ukraine has succeeded in keeping its actual plans secret, and even a leak of classified American documents did little to definitively answer the question of where and when Kyiv...

Description: Often we think of war and peace as binary states - one is either at war or at peace. But history is full of examples of the line between those two states being blurred, and in a modern world of nuclear weapons and globalised economic and military competition, that competitive state between war and peace has grown particularly prominent. When Russia overtook Crimea in 2014 with its "little green men" the world got a high visibility view of what a hybrid war, combining information warfare, unconventional methods and conventional military force might look like. Today, I want to give...

From the time NATO was founded in 1949 to the recent accession of Finland, the United States has remained the foremost military power in NATO. But a question that is not often asked is why? Why would a power like the USA continue to expand promises of defence to an ever larger group of nations that cannot hope to offer a similar level of capability or assistance in return. The acceptance of new allies into NATO or bilateral and multilateral security treaties has not always been without domestic and international opposition. And so today I wanted to follow up on...

After losing access to European markets for invading Ukraine, #Russia turned to #Iran and #India to make up for some of the shortfalls.

Before the war, the Russian Government had poured significant sums into the modernisation of its air-force, acquiring hundreds of new aircraft, deploying new weapon systems and testing the force over Syria. In Ukraine, the VKS has found itself as the stronger party, but none the less held off by Ukrainian air defences and fighters and incapable of delivering decisive support for ground forces. In this episode we look at the air war (building on previous discussions of ground based air defences and helicopters) and also at one of the most contentious issues for Western nations supporting Ukraine - whether UA...

Territory may be the most commonly used barometer for assessing the success or failure of the winter campaign, but just as important is the impact of the fighting on the forces. Attrition is intrinsically linked to war, as men and equipment are ground down by the effort and by enemy action. In this episode we look at loss estimates, discuss the challenges of attrition, and update on the efforts of both sides to make up losses and generate new offensive potential.

Description: While the news often focuses on the role of large, expensive systems in the Ukraine war (think of the attention given to tanks, aircraft, or MLRS and SAM systems in recent weeks and months) some of the most omnipresent and disruptive systems have actually been terrifyingly cheap and accessible. Off-the-shelf commercial drones converted for military use have been deployed by the truckload, while some of Russia's more successful weapons have been comparatively cheap loitering munitions and kamikaze drones like the Iranian Shahed and Russian Lancet. Videos of equipment destroyed by drones that might cost a thousandth of the price...

After a year of hard fighting there are a rush of observers trying to make sense of the current balance of power in Ukraine. The focus in often on (often small) movements in the frontlines, casualties, or the performance of particular platforms and systems. Those things matter, but wars are not generally fought to take individual trenches or solely to inflict casualties. They are fought for strategic objectives. In this episode I dig into Russia's history of Empire, its modern strategic objectives, and try to assess whether or not the war in Ukraine represents a success or failure by Russia's...

Much of the the defence content online focuses on what might be called major power competition and the cutting edge platforms that go with it. We often focus on the race by major military powers to field the latest and greatest expensive jets, ships, or submarines in quantity - and it's often those systems that capture the imagination But all those things have something in common - they cost immense amounts of money, and for most nations, keeping up with the USAF or the shipbuilding efforts of the PRC just isn't on the cards. So following a vote by my...

For centuries, leaders often depended on bands of mercenary warriors to make up their military strength in times of war, but as national militaries evolved, these formations shank from prominence, with modern PMCs generally being focused on support roles like base or VIP security or logistics (even if their contracts grew massively post 2001). Wagner doesn't follow that example. A force tens of thousands strong, Wagner has helped spearhead the Russian offensives around Bakhmut, and taken on international prominence. In this episode, I look at the evolution of PMCs, Russia's modern employment of them, and the implications of Wagner's role...

Over the last year, the Ukraine war has played out both on the battlefields of Ukraine, and on global markets where energy warfare, sanctions, and industrial mobilisation efforts went head to head. Russia wanted to freeze Europe, while the Western allies sought to strangle the Russian economy with sanctions. A year on - I want to look at how successful these competing economic campaigns have been. Setting the stage to look at battlefield developments, attrition, and force regeneration in the near future.

It has emerged that Russia is quickly reconditioning hundreds of old T-62 tanks to serve in Ukraine - a tank design 60 years old! Some are being taken from museums! But Russia is not the only country to plunder museums for vehicles and spare parts, as this videos shows.

drones, and the new Russian Ministry of Digital Development working on a centralized database for military commissions and will be a system that cross-references data from the ministry of internal affairs the Ministry of Education and science the federal tax service the National Guard the imagine China's social credit system but a militarized version of it upon completion Russia will be able to assign a conscription credit score to its citizens and then track and recruit Expendables within Russian Society it will be able to find those who are fit and liable for military service and thenreach out to them...

The Russian invasion of 2022 began with a multi-pronged winter invasion of Ukrainian territory. After a series of reverses in late 2022, the Russian effort to reclaim the initiative in Ukraine seems to have begun...with another multi-pronged winter offensive. In this episode, I look at the way that offensive has played out, what observations and lessons might come out of the last three months, and what that may mean for the war to come.