And yet, once the Ukrainians ask for long-range fires, all of a sudden their importance is downgraded and minimized. There was the widely-discussed piece in Foreign Affairs by Stephen Biddle which recently kick-started this argument—but it was an argument greatly amplified by Defense Secretary Austin a few days ago.
During the latest Ramstein meeting of Ukraine’s partners in Germany Austin basically said long-range fires were not that important. As it was relayed by PBS:
After the talks, Austin pushed back on the idea that long-range strikes would be a game-changer.
“I don’t believe one capability is going to be decisive and I stand by that comment,” Austin said. The Ukrainians have other means to strike long-range targets, he said.
Its hard to know what to make of that extraordinary claim. Is he saying that the US Army’s number 1 priority for modernization is not nearly that important? That would be bold of him—but more than likely he is desperately searching around for an argument because he knows just how important long-range fires are in war.
– Phillips P. OBrien (£)
I don’t think “long range fires” is grammatical. I assume he is referring to long range fire or firepower. But the point is well made. Russia has invaded Ukraine. Therefore Ukraine has every right to attack military targets in Russia. Expecting Ukraine to limit its defence to its own borders, which have been violated by the invader, is ridiculous, and guarantees that Ukraine will not be able to prevail.
All the Ukraine is not worth one Peoria hotel maid’s income taxes.
No, that is the correct jargon used by the world’s English speaking militaries these days.
Obviously I disagree, Staghounds.
Perry:
In that case, the world’s militaries is wrong!
“All the Ukraine is not worth one Peoria hotel maid’s income taxes.”
Containing Putin’s expansionism and imperial ambition is worth all of Peoria’s income taxes and then some.
Of course it matters. Take the war to Russia. Show the Russians in Russia there is a price to be paid for Putin’s “adventure”. Moreover, use “long range fires” to hit their logistics. Winter is coming. Cut the supplies. Leave Russia’s “finest” looking like Jack Nicholson at the end of “The Shining”.
– Adm. Jackie Fisher
PS. The whole quote is probs more relevant to Gaza.
The usage fire(s) was originally a US one. It gradually made headway into ABCA and NATO terminology from the 1980s on.
Long range fires (depth fire) definitely is important in wartime. What’s the use of perpetually battling with your enemy’s forward echelon if you can’t “reach out and touch him” in his strategic depth?
As others have pointed out, Russia invaded Ukraine. Therefore it is entirely acceptable for Ukraine to strike into the heart of Russia, hitting military and military industrial targets all the way to Moscow and out to Vladivostok, if deemed necessary.
After seeing a smug Lammy warmly embracing Blinken talking about Ukraine long range weaponry, I just wondered if I had this right – Jews, who were persecuted and massacred by Nazis, are denied weaponry in case they get used in war crimes, whereas Ukrainians, who conspired with the Nazis, get the ultimate kit to indiscriminately bombard Russian civilians at a distance?
Sigivald and NickM, you signed up to go yet? The EU has as many people, as much money, and as much skill as the U. S, and is the place “under threat”.
We just aren’t. The Russians can’t get to us, and nothing suggests that, absent our actions, they want to.
As a U. S. citizen, I don’t care which gang waves which flag in Kiev. I don’t want to be the arbiter of foreigners’ lives, let them kill their own snakes. Since 1945, my country has inserted itself in all matter of distant domestic disputes and has failed every time. The only result has been corpses, cripples, cost, and imported trouble at home.
The excuses and explanations for interventions are always the same too. Stop already.
The stupidity and danger of long range fires into Russia is that Russia has nukes and Putin has indicated that he is prepared to use them if need be. Are you folks prepared to accept that as a consequence? I call that insanity.
@NickM
The essence of war is violence! Moderation in war is imbecility!
I doubt you believe the second part of this unreservedly. We do moderate violence in war both out of reciprocity and basic human decency. We avoid civilian collateral damage, we don’t shoot POWs, even escaped ones, we don’t torture people to gain information to our military advantage, and we don’t use chemical and biological weapons, for example.
And when belligerents do these sorts of things we rightly speak out in outrage. And as much as is possible, decent people eschew these things unilaterally.
In regards to long range weapons used against Russian targets, of course the Ukrainians have a legitimate claim to do that, however, when using weapons borrowed from the west and the US it is not at all unreasonable for the west and US to place some limits on how they are used. If, for example, they decided to bomb Moscow and the bombs have the stars and stripes on them the Russians could certainly think that that amounted to a NATO attack on Moscow and may well respond in a way that violates both reciprocity and human decency. Does this reasonable moderation in war include avoiding things that might spark a nuclear weapons exchange with Russia? Me and my family certainly think so.
“Ukrainians, who conspired with the Nazis…”
How absurd. WWII ended in 1945 – 79 years ago. The youngest Ukrainian who could have possibly “conspired with the Nazis” would be around 97+ now. Or dead.
You might just as well say the US shouldn’t be allied with Germany because in WWII, Germans “conspired with the Nazis”.
JohnK:
Not sure what you mean. The world’s militaries are very much focused on long range fires these days.
JJM: Thank you for beating me to the punch in responding to Runcie Balspune’s absurdity.
I’d also suggest Mr Balspune has no basis whatsoever for the assertion that Ukraine would “indiscriminately bombard Russian civilians”. This flies in the face of all evidence of Ukrainian targetting to date; their long range fires on Russia have primarly gone after airfields and oil infrastructure, with side orders of radar installations, war production, ammo storage and suchlike. (I’d add the ships of the Black Sea Fleet to that as well, but most of those were in Crimea, not Russian territory.)
Henry Cybulski: What Putin has said he’ll do and what he has done bear little resemblance. Lying is a way of life for him; he is a product of his Soviet upbringing in that regard, a KGB man through and through. Is there any evidence of escalation in response to a single one of his red lines being crossed? Why would you think his threat of nukes is remotely credible in light of that?
staghounds: The commenters you prod at for not volunteering to go and fight were not asking that you or your countrymen go, so there is no equivalence which would make your jab meaningful.
You may not care whose flag flies over Kiev; that’s your right. For my part, I wish our forefathers had cared more about stopping dictators sooner rather than later–and so I care now that Ukraine remains free from Putin’s Russia.
@Perry de Havilland (Wiltshire)
Not sure what you mean. The world’s militaries are very much focused on long range fires these days.
I believe his comment was about the grammar not the strategy.
The EU has as many people, as much money, and as much skill as the U. S, and is the place “under threat”.
Sure and…
I think his entire quote is germane here:
This was a completely anti-war sentiment he was expressing, and I find it hard to fault him for it.
In the US, we’ve taken the opposite approach. There is always a political fight over the Go/NoGo question, and our approach has been “Go Halfway” for many decades, in order to preserve votes for “our side.” We don’t go halfway as a military strategy – we do it as an internal political strategy.
And it hasn’t worked at all.
Had we ever exhibited Fisher’s resolve, many many lives would have not been exterminated over our last 60 years or so. But because other actors can now calculate our responses and their resulting risks, war has become a tactical tool, and occurs frequently.
Of course, Fisher’s strategy only works if you hold military supremacy. We used to. Not so sure anymore . . .
(But . . . re: PdH’s chart – I saw someone else’s version just yesterday, and it gave a reversed result. I’ll try to find at again, but I suspect the difference has something to do with methods of measurement.)
Source is here, bobby
Thanks, Perry.
Here‘s an approximation of the chart I saw yesterday.
(The main article appears here: https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-humanitarian-and-financial-aid-donors/ )
Perry:
Fraser is right. I is objecting to the grammar.
@bobby b
This was a completely anti-war sentiment he was expressing, and I find it hard to fault him for it.
Thanks for the expanded quote, it was interesting. But I can find fault with it:
boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any), and torture his women and children
Now to be clear I don’t think for a second that the Admiral of the Fleet honestly advocated for this, it is plainly hyperbole. However, it makes a useful point. We don’t boil our prisoners in oil, and the fact that we don’t is a strategic disadvantage because some of our enemies do, and the fact that we don’t gives them an edge to exploit our decency and compassion. That hesitation when an Iraqi woman in bulky clothes walked toward some US troops and refused to stop when ordered, no doubt got many honorable American soldiers killed.
Our decency and compassion is, therefore, a strategic handicap that we must accept and compensate for by being stronger and more capable. And it makes me think of few things.
Firstly that perhaps our decency and compassion makes us better people, stronger and more powerful and that extra thing offsets the strategic disadvantage.
Secondly if you fight a war but in doing so give up all your values, everything that makes you a decent society, at what point are you fighting just to keep the powerful in power rather than preserving what your society is? At what point do you throw enough of your decency overboard that there is nothing left of what you are fighting for in the first place?
Thirdly, his broader point is that if you do “torture his women and children” then perhaps your enemy will fear you, and provide you with safety thereby. However, if you demonstrate the capacity to do it will not also your friends fear and revile you? Should we design or society principly with regards to our enemies or with regards to our friends? Heck, if we “torture his women and children” will we not also fear and revile ourselves?
Of course none of this is theoretical. These ideas were writ large in the middle east over the past twenty years where the west, and America in particular, wrestled with these issues daily, often honoring their decency, and occasionally bringing themselves shame.
I reread what I wrote and I realized that it seems like I am advocating for a weak military. I’m not. Fischer’s general point that we find safety when our defenses are strong is one I very much agree with. I’m really just saying that having that strong military force build on the basis of decency and strength is very important. War is overwhelming violence and it is much better to have overwhelming violence for a short time than low level half hearted violence for twenty years (the latter being what we now call “American foreign policy”.) But part of our strength is our decency. So that even during the overwhelming violence it is not without limits. And while it is crucial that our troops are trained how to fire their rifles straight that they also know when not to fire them at all.
And we must sacrifice some of our superiority to pay the price of our decency.
Fraser Orr, you sort of trigger the “lifeboat question” for me with what you said.
You escape the sinking ship with the last lifeboat. It holds you and 50 kids. (You are the only one who knows how to keep it afloat so you have to stay.) One more passenger (even just hanging on) will sink it and kill you all. Of course, you come across another kid about to drown.
You’re not faced with a “good versus bad” moral choice. It’s a “bad or worse” moral choice. It’s a “feed them your seed corn so you all starve tomorrow, or let them starve today” kind of choice.
It’s also the “Hamas is shooting at me while holding their own kids up as shields” kind of choice. There will be no clean moral positions coming out of such times. But I do not think that the stain of the deaths of Hamas’s kids would be on my soul.
@bobby b
You escape the sinking ship with the last lifeboat. It holds you and 50 kids. (You are the only one who knows how to keep it afloat so you have to stay.) One more passenger (even just hanging on) will sink it and kill you all. Of course, you come across another kid about to drown.
Right these things are not a bright line. You do what you can but the more desperate you are the less you can do. But of course the solution is to build a bigger lifeboat. If you grow as a society in part because it is a safe decent place to live you have more capacity to be decent and compassion. Which is one reason to have a big military so that it has not just the capacity to destroy, but the capacity to destroy within the bounds of decency.
And I think there is another part to this too. Namely that it causes you to make different choices within that extra capacity. So we have, for example, precision guided weapons instead of carpet bombing. And, in Israel, they have Iron dome precisely so that they don’t have to bomb Gaza into oblivion along with its many innocent victims. This is the bigger lifeboat.
“Sure and…”
All you appear to be illustrating there, is how much money the EU and ( of more interest to me ) the UK, has gambled and is set to lose.
Credit rating of C, is essentially default. Now, the question is, which country in the West has guarenteed the loans to Ukraine and is now on the hook to make the lenders good ?
Fraser, bobby,
I’m pleased to see you talking morality. But I’m not sure how important that is in the context practically speaking. Israel is doomed here because they have lost the narrative. Personally I believe that if someone launches military operations from schools and hospitals they are responsible for the inevitable “civilian*” casualties that follow. I appear to be in a minority about this in terms of the general feeling in “The West”.
Jean Baudrillard (in)famously said of Desert Storm that it never happened because it was on TV. I suspect, French Existentialist that he was, he was being perverse so maybe he made a valid point. The media is the vital front in any modern armed conflict. More so now than in ’91. Israel has lost that front. Hamas (and friends) are excellent at it. Every dead Gazan baby is small victory for Hamas. Again, a perverse inversion but one which matters more than any truth. Truth may exist objectively but to deny the importance of understanding that what people beLIEve to be true is a grave error. I don’t like this state of affairs but it is the case. And maybe it isn’t even that new, just more obvious now. Myths, legends and stories have always been imprtant.
Staghounds,
I don’t have to sign-up for a war to have a valid opinion on whether or not my country supplies weapons to a beligerant and what strings are attached to the use of those weapons. My view is that we should supply Ukraine with stuff it wants and how that stuff is used is a matter for Ukrainian commanders and not for the UK Foreign Orifice. It is well past the point where worrying about winding-up Putin is even a thing. He’s already gone full “Goblin-mode”. The only hope for Russia is that the bereaved of Russia Gaddafi him in Red Square and on every social media channel in the World.
*The extent to which there are civilians in Gaza is moot. The men are all jihadis living off the teat of aid. The women are jihadi breeding machines and the kids are taught to hate before they are taught to use a potty.
Moscow and other Russian towns were hit only a couple of days ago – and certainly not for the first time.
This discussion is being carried out on the implied (although not formally stated) basis that there have not been attacks on Russian towns, and on energy infrastructure (such as the Baltic pipelines) and so on, but there have already been such attacks – over a long period of time.
By the way talk of “military targets” (for either the Ukraine or Russia) is inaccurate – just as when the Russian armed forces fire drones and missiles at Ukrainian towns it is civilians who are likely to die (for example the Ukrainian forces will, understandably, try and shoot down the drones and missiles – and the crashing drones and rockets are likely to hit Ukrainian houses and blocks of flats – killing Ukrainian civilians, as will land to air defence missiles if they miss their targets and fall to earth – “what goes up, must come down”) the same is true of attacks on Russian towns.
Babies get burned to death – and so on. On both sides.
Mr Putin must bare the primary responsibility.
Both for his decision to go to war in 2022 – and for his lack of preparation to win the war, Mr Putin totally ignored the transformation of the Ukrainian armed forces since 2014 (when the pro American Administration people came to power) – the Ukrainian armed forces were vastly better trained and armed in 2022 than they had been in 2014, and the Russian armed forces had been neglected – both in terms of training (Russian military training has been very poor indeed – at least for the infantry and armoured units) and arms.
Even the most modern Russian rifle, the AK12, was defective – at least in 2022.
It was a target range or parade ground rifle – unsuitable for battlefield use.
As for training – the only really trained troops were the airborne troops, and they were largely wasted in a suicide attack on the area near Kiev in 2022 – I doubt Mr Putin has ever seen the British film “A Bridge Too Far” – but if he has he seems to have regarded the film as an instruction manual rather than a warning.
Sending in airborne troops in the hopes that tanks and infantry, advancing up very long and thin roads, will get to them in time – is insane (and that was the plan that Mr Putin personally came up with – the Generals, IF they wanted war at all [doubtful], wanted a conventional attack in the east of the Ukraine to take the Russian speaking areas, NOT a mad scheme to take Kiev). And it is widely known that the advance up the long thin roads was a hopeless botch – with some high ranking officers getting killed when they personally tried to sort it out. Although it was not as bad as 1914 when General Samsonov, with the 2nd Army, was ordered (by Jilinsky – the words of the order, translated into English, are “General Samsonov will not be allowed to play the coward – the advance will continue”) to march into a German trap which had been detected by his scouts – when the trap closed Samsonov made things worse by shooting himself in despair.
Mr Putin patted himself on the back for not allowing Crimea to come under American Administration control in 2014 – but he did not even bother to get a secure land route to Crimea (water supplies? no he did not think of that either). He did not even bother to repair the vast Cold War era base in Crimea (before the 1990s ships could sail INSIDE this base) – he had Russian ships anchor out in the open instead (where they were vulnerable to missile attack – as is the BRIDGE to Crimea he had built, when it finally dawned on him that there was no secure land route).
As for just assuming that the Ukrainian armed forces of 2022 would be the same as the Ukrainian armed forces of 2014 – well Mr Putin seems to live in a bubble with everyone being so terrified of being murdered on his orders, that no one dare tell him the truth.
Will the war develop into global thermonuclear war?
I do not know – hopefully it will NOT, but we shall have to see.
I have heard the argument that as Western cities are increasingly no longer inhabited by Westerners, global thermonuclear war, which would destroy these cities, would “save” the West – but I reject that argument, utterly reject it.
“…if you fight a war but in doing so give up all your values, everything that makes you a decent society, at what point are you fighting just to keep the powerful in power rather than preserving what your society is? At what point do you throw enough of your decency overboard that there is nothing left of what you are fighting for in the first place?”
When it’s 1918 or 1945. When you are no longer fighting just to keep the powerful in power, but rather preserving your society’s actual physical survival. You throw as much of your decency overboard as provides any strategic or tactical disadvantage to you. Like you’ve already jettisoned your children’s lives and your life savings.
A war, or any desperate survival struggle, is a special circumstance. We can’t all be John Quinton, decency to our own demands that we be Harry Truman to our enemies.
Mr Putin was not first head of state to sacrifice his best troops – in his case the airborne units.
“Why did the Imperial Guard not save the Czar?” is an old question – but one with a simple, but grim answer.
In 1916 at the Battle of Kovel the Imperial Rifle Regiment and the Preobrazhensky Guards were ordered to advance up three narrow causeways in marshy ground, with the Germans firing on them from three sides and from above (the air) and with their own Russian artillery shelling them (due to a confusion over where the attack was to take place).
And that was just one of the mess ups at Kovel (which, overall, was worse than anything Haig and co did).
Overall (not just the causeways – the whole battle) some 55 thousand men of the Guards Army were lost.
And this time the Czar was, formally at least, in personal command of the army (he had taken formal charge in 1915 – unlike the monarchs of the other powers in the First World War, with the exception of the King of Belgium – who was in personal charge of that fragment of the Belgium army that was still in the field).
After two years of war to lose 55 thousand of the most loyal men was a terrible blow on top of what was already a nightmare.
In 1905, in spite of terrible casualties in the war with Japan, there were still plenty of loyal men to defeat the socialists – in 1917 there were far fewer such men.
Most of the loyal men were dead or maimed after three years of war. MILLIONS had been killed or maimed.
Nicholas gave up without a real fight in February/March (depends which calendar you use), as for the Provisional Government in October/November…..
Well by then the Provisional Government was actually headed by a socialist (Kerensky) and such loyal men who still lived did not really trust him (or he them – indeed when they urged him to arrest “Lenin” Kerensky responded by ordering the arrest of the “reactionaries” instead) so a real defence did not take place. Moscow was defended by school boys (from the military school) – they died. And the Winter Palace in Petersburg was defended by women – some of whom were killed, others raped.
“Lenin” had plenty of German gold to pay hardened criminals to do his dirty work for him (and military units as well – such as the Latvian Rifles). And the more of Russia he took – the more gold (and other plunder – from anyone who had anything) he had. Cities first (where the loot was) – which gave the Marxists the interior lines (the railway system) – whilst forces opposing them were separated from each other by hundreds of miles.
Overall there were more “Whites” than “Reds” (although the Reds were soon in a position to conscript large bodies of men) – but not in particular battles.
Having friends of hundreds of miles away does not help you.
staghounds – to be fair to President Truman, and to President Franklin Roosevelt before him, there was a massive leaflet dropping campaign over Japanese cities urging civilians to leave BEFORE the cities were bombed. It was reasoned that as Japan was only recently an industrial society, most people still had relatives in rural areas – which was true, but ignored the fact that Japan had a totalitarian government that would not allow civilians to leave the cities, which is where the Japanese military factories were.
As for the position now – it is utterly different.
Germany and Japan were defeated partly by being cut off from supplies of raw materials – that is not going to happen to Russia (as it is the source of the raw materials).
The other reason that Germany and Japan were defeated was that American industrial production dwarfed that of everyone else.
That is no longer true – as, now, China alone has twice the manufacturing output of the United States.
And unless there is thermonuclear war, and I am against that, neither Chinese or Russian factories are going to be destroyed.
Russia is a source of raw materials. But its ability to turn them into manufactured goods isn’t so great. It’s more important that they have oil, gold etc, which are fungible.
The winner of this war will be like the winner of WWI — the polity whose population can no longer bear the strain and rebels.
The Iran-Iraq war showed that a similar war can go on almost forever.
I must admit, I’d forgotten about the Iran-Iraq war. The war that illustrated the USA as a fickle and useless ally. But then, let’s not forget all the other wars where the US abandoned its ‘ally’.
Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine.
Kissinger is reputed to have said; “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.
Of course, use of the word ‘ally’ above, actually means puppet.