Managing The Front In Ukraine: A Bottom-Up View
As brutal winter fighting continues across Ukraine, it's worth taking a close look at the essential rhythms that define the front. In this war, victory precedes effective peace talks.
For all the talk in the media lately about negotiations ending the Ukraine War, little material evidence has emerged suggesting this to be at all likely. In an utterly unsurprising development, Team Trump is already backing away from its campaign promise to end the conflict in a single day. Now the talk is a ceasefire by the end of the first hundred days of Trump’s final term.
Expect that goal to dissipate by spring, too. The first hundred days thing is another silly little American political ritual that means less with each incoming administration anyway. When a political system degenerates into pure theater, this sort of nonsense is all you can expect. That and predictably inane partisan bickering over stuff like fires stoked by unusually strong Santa Ana winds.
I’ll write a bit more on this and other global level matters at the end of the post. Fires on the West Coast might not seem like they’re related to Ukraine, but Kyiv is apparently sending over 150 firefighters to help, which is pretty neat of an ally in Ukraine’s situation to do. Especially when its partners continue to pretend that deploying NATO troops to Ukraine would magically trigger the World War Three so many people fear - and will probably wind up causing because of it.
But first, a brief on the fronts. After that, the science section will return to the topic of front line battlefield management, offering a general schematic of how Ukrainian teams on the front line cope with Moscow’s grind.
Quick note: the next weekly update will arrive on Tuesday, January 21st (Pacific Time) as Monday is a holiday where my wife works. Also, apologies that this post doesn’t fit in an email - ran low on time before figuring out how to be as brief as I wanted to. Subscriber numbers jumped well over 2,000 this past week with the rate of new arrivals not slowing down like I assumed it would a long time ago. If this post running too long deters folks, I suppose the stats will tell!
Thanks to everyone for reading, and extra appreciation is due to everyone who shares the blog. I’ll keep striving to make it of use to anyone who wants to understand the science behind victory in Ukraine. Which might, I hope, be the title of a book coming to shelves down the line.
2025: Week 2 Overview
Overall, the orc grind appears to be slowing down on every active front. A consequence of the severe losses of armored vehicles is a reduction in the intensity of the average orc assault. Constant infantry-led attacks are happening on every active front, and these will exhaust front line defenders, who must be frequently rotated to second line positions.
But over the past year it has been the ability to rapidly send in mechanized forces to force a tired Ukrainian platoon out of a tree line or village that has allowed the orcs to make rapid - if costly - two to three kilometer jumps on the Donbas front. The alternative is slower assaults on narrower fronts that get badly chewed up. The orcs are using light civilian vehicles and dirt bikes to quickly close range in many cases, but in groups large enough to pose an immediate threat these attract as much attention as an armored vehicle and die even faster.
What orc commanders rely on regardless of support levels is enough infantry slowly filtering near enough to Ukrainian lines to quickly seize a position. Then the bloody grind repeats.
If Ukraine had more rested line infantry available, intensive counterattacks could drive the orcs back before they accumulate in most cases. But preserving forces remains of paramount strategic importance, Ukraine trading territory today for a chance at recapturing far larger swaths during intensive operations this summer.
Generating more infantry is a priority, but naturally there aren’t any easy options. Trump administration officials are now parroting Team Biden’s insistence that Ukraine mobilize anyone over 18, instead of the current 25. This of course ignores the fact that younger Ukrainians can already volunteer - more would, and fewer already eligible for mobilization would evade it, if Ukrainian brigades had enough quality equipment and solid leaders - defined service obligations, too.
Ukraine does not seem to have drafted everyone last year’s mobilization laws allow because of serious issues with the training pipeline. This in turn has delayed the planned - and badly needed - transfer of exhausted veterans to training duties, something that absolutely must happen soon. It is to be hoped that the new corps structure being established can systematically expand on the work already done by some brigades to create working apprenticeships.
In the immediate term, the trend is for more and better drones to pick up as much slack as possible rather than throw bodies at the problem. War isn’t anywhere near being waged solely by remote control, but if a solution reduces risk to personnel, it’s sensible to jump on it as soon as possible. In the near future it looks as if a huge amount of combat will take place between drones and remote weapons stations in a broad grey zone between each side’s positions. The ultimate objective will remain, however, killing, capturing, or at least driving off the enemy’s drone operators.
Northern Theater
The fighting in Kursk has been notably brutal lately, with a Ukrainian Stryker crew captured on video literally running down orcs trying to advance across a field. Video games and simulations make for a surprisingly useful training ground for defense professionals, but I never thought that Grand Theft Auto 5 would prove to be one of them. What a world.
However, the big Ukrainian counteroffensive that seemed to be underway last week has turned out to be more of an opportunistic spoiling attack. It is now coming out that the orcs had begun intensive assaults on the critical town of Malaya Loknya, and what was reported as a Ukrainian surprise attack in a relatively quiet area is best seen as part of several local counterattacks meant to restore positions and undermine the orc assaults. Fighting is ongoing, with North Korean forces involved and being cut apart - a full third of the soldiers reportedly deployed by the radiant Kim dynasty, sons of heaven all (even the daughters) have already become casualties in Kursk.
Ukraine might have hoped - and might still even hope - to reach Bolshoe Soldatskoe and perhaps expand the perimeter east of Sudzha a few kilometers to increase Ukraine’s buffer around the town. If Malaya Loknya falls, Ukraine will probably need to either have traded it for Bolshoe Soldatskoe or pull the perimeter back to the edge of Sudzha. This is pretty much a localized switch from area to active defense.
Regardless of how far any effort is pressed, Ukraine’s operational logic in Free Kursk appears to be governed by the time-honored principle of taking advantage of interior lines. This just means that if your enemy is coming at you from multiple angles, that usually requires coordinating different sub-units. The timing of their moves is usually carefully orchestrated.
Naturally, it is extremely unpleasant to set a plan in motion only to have one vital component take a sucker punch, throwing off all calculations. The orcs have to worry that this is the start of something more; meanwhile Ukraine can evaluate the response and choose to double down or preserve assets for a more opportune moment. Ukrainian forces have been actively targeting orc headquarters and reserves behind the lines again, further supporting this sort of aggressuve disruption play.
Far too many pundits remain convinced that Kursk is a bargaining chip in negotiations, but it’s actually Ukraine’s best insurance against Putin pretending he’s accepted a ceasefire that the Kremlin fully intends to break as soon as Trump is distracted. So long as Ukraine holds Sudzha as a forward outpost protecting Sumy district from attack, two objectives are accomplished: Putin’s best ploy is negated, and Moscow is forced into a fight Ukraine carefully prepared for.
The initial assault into Kursk could have gone much farther, but that wasn’t the point: forcing Moscow into a fight that has drawn off tens of thousands of troops from reinforcing other fronts was. Instead of patiently building up a proper assault force, Putin threw in his troops piecemeal, eventually forced to pull in North Koreans to sustain the effort. Yet Ukraine looks set to remain in control of Sudzha past the six-month mark of the incursion, while Moscow is down around 40,000 more bodies with an additional 60,000 tied down.
Eastern Theater
Pokrovsk is once again the hottest front in Ukraine, the orc campaign to seize the flanks of this important crossroads in full swing. And making some visible progress too, with advance elements reaching the T-0406 highway passing southwest through Udachne and Kotlyne as well as the crossroads along the T-0504 highway on the northeastern flank beyond Vozdvyzhenka on the road to Kostyantynivka.
But zooming out is worthwhile for added context. The map below shows Moscow’s progress this January in solid arrows, and what the orcs are visibly hoping to accomplish this winter in dashed ones. They’re not moving quickly, that’s for sure.
The front line highways are not in and of themselves essential to hold, already being close enough to the front lines that major logistics probably don’t flow directly between Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka. The main rail line and E-50 highway leading to Dnipro are fortunately on the farther side of the town. But the front line highways run along ridges that form a useful defensive barrier on both of Pokrovsk’s flanks.
If the western flank of Pokrovsk is pushed north another ten kilometers, the main rail line into the town will be cut. And if Moscow is able to secure a lasting bridgehead beyond the Bychock between Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, Moscow can hope to drive around Ukraine’s defenses south of Kostyantynivka and support its attacks through Toretsk and Chasiv Yar.
Not a fatal development, but not optimal, either. If Pokrovsk does wind up partially encircled by March, this may force Ukraine to mount local counterattacks on either flank. Here as in Kursk Ukrainian forces benefit from interior lines, with Pokrovsk - so long as it holds - able to act as a pivot for Ukrainian counteroffensive efforts on this front.
Interestingly, aside from securing a couple fields near the road west of town, the Velyka Novosilka front has been pretty static over the past week. Ukrainian forces may be mounting some local counterattacks to hold the line which often don’t show up as confirmed changes in territorial control on open source maps.
Closer to the outskirts of Kurakhove, Ukrainian troops have been holding firm around Dachne, not withdrawing further west, at least not so far. Only about five kilometers separate ruscist positions near Shevchenko and Zelenivka, a rather narrow neck of lowland between the Vovcha and Sukhi Yali rivers. 46th Airmobile, 33rd Mechanized, and 79th Air Assault Brigade along with several attached battalions are still reportedly operating in the area.
The Khortysia operational grouping has recently had another spat with the highly respected open-source DeepState Map crew about the technical status of the front near Kurakhove. The place is obviously lost, yet officially the senior officers in charge of the sector insist it hasn’t been because some positions are still held on the outskirts of the defunct coal plant. I really hope they’re only responsible for PR, not ops.
I have to imagine that this pocket is already being evacuated. At the risk of playing armchair general from the other side of the world, considering the ongoing threat of a ruscist breakthrough north or south of the Andriivka-Ulakly-Kostyantynopil triangle, holding this particular seventy square kilometer area seems like an odd choice. Some Syrskyi divine intervention might be warranted.
Jumping north over Pokrovsk, the Kostyantynivka front is slowly deteriorating, with the orcs finally reaching the northern fringes of Toretsk and apparently seizing most or all of the Pivnichnyi neighborhood north of central Chasiv Yar. This may outflank Ukrainian positions in the important industrial plant just to the south, and if that’s lost the retreat from Chasiv Yar will likely have to begin.
A lot of analysts - including myself - had assumed that Chasiv Yar would fall months ago. But Moscow has only managed to move around six kilometers in the past year. The orcs have pushed forward about ten in the Toretsk area. Ukraine has also managed effective local counterattacks more than once on this front. Some appear to be underway.
Moving further north, the Siversk front continues to hold against sporadic ruscist attempts to push through. They’ve had more success on the Kupiansk and Borova fronts, though it is still very limited and focused, interestingly, on two river crossing operations.
North of Terny the orcs are still fighting for a bridgehead across the Zherebets they recently seized. There are a number of reservoirs in this area held back by dams, which tend to be both difficult and problematic to demolish. Moscow may be hoping to use these to sustain logistics as the orcs try to bypass and threaten to cut off Ukraine’s tough defenses further south.
The same approach appears to underpin the ongoing orc push into Dvorichna, north of Kupiansk. East of Kupiansk, Moscow has struggled all year to penetrate defenses anchored by Ukraine’s experienced 14th Mechanized Brigade. But a dam on the Oskil fifteen kilometers north of Kupiansk is apparently still intact, as demolishing it would have too great of an impact downstream. This unfortunately gives the orcs another hard logistics route to exploit as they can.
A battalion detached from 10th Mountain Brigade - the rest of it still covering a long arc of the Siversk front where it’s been for I think two years now - recently threw back an orc bridgehead north of Dvorichna. Hopefully it can block further enemy progress, however Moscow first secured a bridgehead without relying on the dam, so until this is eliminated the situation will worsen. Fortunately, Moscow is unlikely able to rapidly exploit any opportunity.
Southern Theater
Not much new to report on the southern arc of Ukraine’s defense. No big Zaporizhzhia offensive has emerged to date. The orcs launch drone, missile, and air attacks throughout the area, many of which actively target civilians, few having substantial military impact.
Crimea is intensively scouted by drones and partisans, but there hasn’t been a lot of major Ukrainian activity reported. Just drones knocking down helicopters and launching smaller drones to attack air defense targets. But the longer Crimea goes without attention, the bigger the hit when it comes, usually.
Air, Sea, & Strike
On the aviation front, it came out this past week that a Ukrainian F-16 pilot scored a full six kills against orc cruise missiles during one of the latest raids. Four were with missiles - AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9 Sidewinder - and two with guns: apparently a pair of cruise missiles flew close enough together that the dying blast from one did for the other.
Pretty sure that’s a historic performance, though maybe some U.S. Naval aviators who fought the Houthis could tell a different tale. Naturally, some commentators have manged to complain that Ukrainian Vipers are apparently aloft with only four missiles instead of six, leaving two full weapons stations empty (gasp!).
As Ukrainian Vipers are probably operating from austere landing strips, pilots swapping out after a mission while the jet is fueled and prepped for rapid launch, and also that most flights will not result in combat shots, I don’t know that there’s much point in lugging around a couple hundred additional kilograms. In the vast majority of engagements a pilot won’t have an opportunity to hit six targets because of fuel limitations if no other reason.
Me, having spent a lot of hours flying over simulated Ukraine as a kid, I simply enjoy imagining the thrill the pilot felt watching all their training pay off against targets there’s no reason to feel remorse about killing. Wish Juice and Moonfish hadn’t been claimed by the gods of war so soon.
With respect to the latter, the official story about his aircraft being destroyed by falling wreckage after an intercept now looks even more plausible. Just because it explodes doesn’t mean the debris is harmless. Although, as an American naval jet was not long ago downed by friendly fire over the Red Sea, mistakes with SAMs do happen even in integrated air defense systems.
At least the legacy of Ukraine’s Viper pioneers is already being felt. People aren’t dying and important stuff isn’t being destroyed because Ukraine finally, after years of fighting tooth and nail to make it happen, has a full squadron of modern multirole fighters. None have yet been destroyed by enemy action.
Mirage 2000s may also already be in action. At least one recent strike on an orc headquarters near the front line might have been an opportunistic hit enabled by a pilot receiving and acting on a request straight from the battlefield.
Next task: getting Ukraine at least a small squadron of Gripens. Even half a dozen working with the pair of Swedish AWACS aircraft that will hopefully arrive this summer will finally let Ukrainian pilots hunt and ambush Sukhois. Accelerating attrition of Moscow’s air power is an imperative, as the orcs have proven sensitive to this. Even a few confirmed losses drives a conservative shift in operations. Glide bomb strikes are still running well below 2023 averages, likely due to a combination of factors, but one absolutely being the threat of Viper or Patriot ambushes - this helps wear out airframes, too.
Ukraine’s drone and missile based strategic strike campaign is beginning to show new levels of nuance and sophistication, recently nailing an orc fuel depot that supposedly held a significant chunk of a specific type of used in strategic bombers. Always nice to deny the enemy a platform you can’t otherwise counter thanks to the range at which it fires missiles into Ukraine.
A warehouse containing a whole lot of drones got blown up in Rostov-on-Don, and hits were registered near St. Petersburg and Saratov, both quite far from Ukraine. Moscow’s own strategic strike campaign has been somewhat muted lately, reasons unknown. Possibly a signal to Trump, but perhaps a preparation for appearing to punish Ukraine for peace talks failing.
And speaking of drones, Ukraine has passed another milestone, deploying fighter drones armed with shotguns. I keep expecting remote controlled shotgun mounts to appear on armored vehicles, but drone teams are already making little cannons that are more than capable of knocking down hostile drones. Even harassing infantry, if there’s no better target.
I anticipate drones will evolve into miniature versions of existing combat jets and helicopters carrying rockets and guided missiles of their own. But until hard-kill drone defenses are widely rolled out to enhance armored vehicle survivability, whether using fiber-optic cables or signal repeaters small drones will get through. And that is having a huge impact on what is and is not possible to accomplish on the modern battlefield.
Understanding Local Battlefield Dynamics in Ukraine
The proliferation of drones is forcing important changes in the battle rhythms that define life at the front. There’s a reason nobody ever has enough infantry, and one of the most important concepts to get across to the public in Ukraine and abroad is that keeping these soldiers alive by giving them every resource they need - including quality leadership - is a strategic imperative, not a luxury.
A common misconception about military leadership is that detailed orders are supposed to flow down, with personnel on the front executing like robots. Unfortunately, many officers come to share it, thanks to certain unfortunate aspects of the professional education most receive. It takes a great deal of deliberate training to produce officers who can understand that their real job is enabling others to do theirs as efficiently and effectively as possible.
When training is done correctly, every individual soldier understands the purpose of their mission. They understand the intent, how it fits into a broader plan for achieving victory. This allows them to fill key roles in their team when casualties are taken and take advantage of fleeting opportunities that emerge during the natural ebb and flow of combat.
In the field, individuals and the teams they comprise should be given a designated sphere of responsibility that’s their own to manage and be responsible for. The same is true of all higher level organization as well; the primary task of leaders at all levels is smoothing out inevitable differences of opinion as well as competing demands for support. This is the function of the chain of command: creating distinct, nested areas of responsibility.
Ideally, orders in the classic sense aren’t strictly required, because to form and distribute these takes time, which means they can quickly become obsolete. Personnel in their areas of responsibility are given certain priorities and are expected to maintain close contact with neighboring and supporting forces, but otherwise self-manage. That’s why common standards and doctrine are essential; some rules enable freedom and creativity, but they must be carefully selected.
One of the biggest reasons for having an area-based chain of command structure is so that any team in contact with the enemy can swiftly call on a level of fire support sufficient to either repel an attack or buy time to retreat. At the same time, they don’t have to manage the required asset themselves on an ongoing basis. This enables flexibility.
As soon as anyone shoots or moves on the drone-infested battlefield, their location is spotted and sent to something with enough firepower to do serious harm. No team can wait for orders to evacuate a compromised position: they must have the freedom to decide the parameters of their engagements and always act to preserve their people.
Coping with the consequences is the job of front line officers at the company level. More locally, platoons and the fire teams at their heart live in a world where mutual survival depends on maintaining continuous fire coverage along a defined frontier of control, so they can be run by experienced sergeants.
To visualize the dynamics I’ll reference here’s a company-level battlefield diagram overlaid on a map. The area is a chunk of the front northeast of Velyka Novosilka, in what is reportedly 37th Marine Brigade’s assigned area. Any similarity to actual dispositions is totally accidental, and I’d love some day to see a sketch of the ground truth to evaluate how projections differ from reality. I did an earlier version of this overlaid on a chunk of the front north of Avdiivka last year, and funny enough, it’s as if the orcs made a point to avoid it ever since. Fluke, I’m sure.
This generally depicts a company’s dispositions over 2km section of the front. Platoons spread out as much as possible to mitigate the danger of area bombardments, teams staying just close enough that their fields of fire overlap. Minefields are liberally sown between and actively replenished. Teams occupy and constantly improve fighting positions, ideally several for each team, linked by narrow trenches if possible. Tunnels are even better if there’s time, but if nothing else a trail through barrier minefields under cover beats nothing.
Teams spend their days on the zero line in bunkers or covered fighting positions waiting to hear news over the radio of inbound orcs. These can come in pairs riding electric scooters or as part of several waves of armored vehicles, even several dozen at once. How long initial positions can be held is a function of attack size and frequency and the availability of fire support. The line can’t be held much denser than this because you want to minimize losses if Moscow decides to literally obliterate a tree line with glide bombs and thermobaric strikes, as it sometimes will.
One of the biggest challenges troop leaders face is rotating people and shipping in supplies on a regular basis. Doing this on the scale of a battalion or even company attracts enemy attacks to test the incoming formation before it can get settled. So it’s best to rotate platoons between companies operating on the first and second lines every 2-3 days, with a company level swap between the second line and the reserves happening every 2-3 weeks.
Those in zero line positions face the prospect of attacks coming in as frequently as hourly, though size declines with frequency in most cases. Thanks to the danger posed by drones, during attacks both sides move troops into position as quickly as possible, overwhelming enemy positions and taking them over to secure shelter. Life in them is generally spent in one of three modes: on watch, digging in, or handling hygiene.
A key difference between Ukrainian and ruscist tactics is that the Ukraine seeks to preserve the lives of personnel, while the orcs actively ignore the impact of casualties. For orc generals, failure is a simple function of inadequate meat. To displace Ukrainian teams from their positions, wave after wave of attackers is sent until enough survivors can form a combat team and hit the nearest Ukrainian bunker at the first available opportunity.
Ukrainian drone teams have rapidly scaled up their operations in response, transforming the no-man’s land between each side’s most forward positions into a killzone that imposes maximum attrition on incoming orc teams. Their ability to spread out a few kilometers behind the front and rapidly mass firepower wherever Moscow sends it out to play is what has prevented the front line from collapsing under the raw weight of the numbers being sent at it.
Drones are of course assisted by the traditional panoply of military kit - mortars, tanks, artillery, air strikes, and the rest. The scarcity of the really good stuff coupled to the range at which most of it can deliver fires further necessitates the familiar pyramid structure of most military organizations. An artillery or drone team’s area of responsibility can be much larger provided communications are maintained.
For reference, the template I see as roughly optimal in Ukraine’s case, given the persistent lack of appropriate resources, can be summarized like so:
Squads of about ten, with six members serving in a fire team, are the base unit. They employ small arms, medium machine guns, and grenade launchers to defeat infantry and armored targets out to a kilometer, plus or minus half a klick, maintaining a continuous arc of fire coverage. Lead by a trained non-commissioned officer.
Platoons have two squads that offer mutual support, each covering the other’s blind spot as it engages hostiles or cooperating to set up a crossfire. Led by an experienced sergeant, having eight members out of twenty in reserve allows for limited replacements - even if there aren’t casualties, people get sick or are needed to handle supply runs. This group effectively constitutes a third squad that manages the platoon’s two armored and two support vehicles, assisting with logistics and casualty evacuations. A junior officer assists the platoon sergeant, but shouldn’t be in formal command.
Companies have five platoons, with a sixth sometimes attached. One of the platoons is a heavy weapons platoon equipped with anti-tank guided missiles, shoulder-fired surface to air missiles, and automatic grenade launchers. Instead of simple armored vehicles - as often as not an MRAP as opposed to a proper APC - this platoon gets a pair of infantry fighting vehicles for added fire support. It serves as a local fire brigade for the four standard platoons. Companies are the smallest group formally led by an officer, who works closely with a company sergeant with substantial combat experience.
Battlegroups are reinforced battalions split into two components: line and support. The first is five companies, four as outlined above, one a Heavy company with two tank and two mortar platoons plus a headquarters platoon. A sixth containing specialists can be attached, for example, engineers supporting a breach of the enemy front. The support element of the battlegroup is six companies with specific roles - drone, artillery, engineer, medical, headquarters, supply. An experienced officer supported by a staff is responsible at this level.
Corps comprise multiple battlegroups, their structure still a matter of debate, but generally including 8-12 brigades of various kinds, including at least one artillery and one drone. They are operational level formations, responsible for a hundred kilometers of front. A lot of their work is tied to logistics and administration, but the corps level command manages the allocation of heavy fire support. Air strikes, 155mm howitzer shots, and HIMARS strikes are costly and so must be used carefully to achieve maximum impact.
Another diagram, zoomed out to show how a full battlegroup can deploy to cover a 5km-6km stretch of front is useful here. Showing range rings would be a mess, but imagine overlapping fields of fire extending into the red zone.
At the edge of the blade, the zero line is defined by an arc of fire out to the next patch of cover, beyond which a drone kill zone stretches several kilometers into the gray zone. Here the enemy is battered by supporting elements to the degree possible, troops on the zero line facing a diminished threat they can hopefully clean up on their own. If not, successively higher levels of support are available, though rationed by command bu necessity.
If allowed to establish doctrine, I’d generally consider it necessary to keep two of four companies behind the zero line, allowing for platoons to rotate back and forth at need. Periodically a whole company filled with the most exhausted platoons will rotate into a reserve battlegroup maintained by the corps. A company under too much pressure can always fall back through the one behind it after doing as much damage to the attackers as possible, while the one on the flank can assist a third in mounting a counterattack - effectively a rotation through action.
Maintaining the front will, from the perspective of officers tasked with organizing everything, depend greatly on corps level commanders assigning manageable chunks of territory. As for going on the offensive, in a broad sense a good indication of what this probably looks like is the latest Ukrainian punch in Kursk. While this particular strike does not look likely to break through, another one in a different place and time will.
The first steps will be a company backed by most of the supporting assets from their parent battlegroup seizing control of a 2km by 2km chunk of the drone-sanitized grey zone to test the enemy defense. Where weaknesses is sensed, another company moves past the first to take advantage, securing a chunk of enemy territory after drone sanitization work. If the enemy proves strong in one place - try again somewhere else. Let them reveal where it is most profitable to do some serious damage.
When the cascade failure begins, it will be obvious at once. Until the time is right, patience is required. The alternative is needless casualties. As the orcs keep discovering to their cost.
More on this in the future. But as this is already running too long, and geopolitics is afoot, time to turn to that.
Geopolitical Brief
Ukraine-USA
The biggest American foreign policy scandal right now shouldn’t be whatever silly things a still-powerless president-elect Trump says, but a final betrayal of Ukraine by the Biden Administration. Despite every promise over the past few weeks, billions in aid will remain unspent, no sign of the hundreds of armored vehicles originally promised being shipped before Trump gets to decide whether or not to let Ukraine have any more US funds.
Over the past few weeks it has become abundantly clear that the moment Trump won, Biden and other leading Democrats were mostly concerned with the possibility of him using the government to go after them in revenge for them apparently doing that to him. Early talk of this in the media died almost as fast as any memory that anyone had once called Trump a fascist.
After winning, Team Trump likely assured Team Biden that all the election rhetoric was just that. I doubt there was anything so formal as signing a document in a train car to initiate Vichy America, but in the world of power politics vital information was exchanged and expectations set.
The worst kept secret of 2024 was that it didn’t matter what Trump did: if he wound up in the Oval Office again the most rabidly anti-Trump Democrats would shrug, lick their wounds, and wait for 2028. That’s what made calling fascism on Trump so incredibly stupid and counterproductive. Want to know what happens when fascism really does take over the US federal government? Nothing, now, because partisans have already cried wolf once and acted like it never happened when the ploy didn’t work.
The hard logic of American federal politics means that Team Blue was already looking ahead to 2026 and 2028 well before 2024 was over. Top minds have already decided that 2024 was unwinnable because of the economy and nothing else. Anything to evade accountability.
In their worldview, the biggest risk to their interests is a political realignment that truly alters the partisan landscape. Team Blue hopes to simply sweep all prior promises and defeats under the rug, wait for Team Red to reap the whirlwind of the ongoing unraveling of the Postwar Order, then wind up back in power by default. This is what happens when a party becomes a brand - and a church.
Team Blue couldn’t risk Trump getting credit for a properly invigorated Ukraine actually winning the war. The solution: punt an important chunk of aid to Trump, trusting that the delay will prevent Ukraine from achieving success before the Midterm elections, if ever. Trump is unlikely to take full ownership of Ukraine and power it to victory, allowing the Democrats to pretend that they left Ukraine as strong as possible and Trump is at fault for the war not ending at Trump’s command. And if Ukraine falls, well, then Trump has his Afghanistan.
To understand modern American politics under the partisan regime that has colonized the Constitution and turned it against both ordinary Americans and allies abroad, the first rule is that what is said on the campaign trail has absolutely zero bearing on future policy. The American partisan system has evolved to aid both parties in escaping true democratic accountability by exploiting the team sports aesthetic the media so adores.
America is not a real country in the conventional sense: a place-based society with deep roots and distinct sense of self that animates national policy. It’s a legal federation, a contract that emerged from a local landlord rebellion against their imperial masters. The dialect of English spoken as well as policy options that feel natural differ on a regional basis, with clusters of states united by cultural factors which stem mainly from economic ties.
Both partisan teams abuse the Constitution, each subverting the complex history of the USA. Forgotten is that the federal government used to have a lot less power; also that the majority of Americans dislike and distrust every branch of government except the military. And about it they hold serious misconceptions thanks to the media, some holding the sincere belief that any order issued by a superior is automatically legal.
A strange case to make - as an enlisted soldier two decades ago, it was burned into my brain that certain orders are inherently illegitimate no matter who issues them. But American partisans believe some very frightening things.
On the one hand, I completely understand the anxiety some folks abroad feel when American leaders and pundits yammer and bleat about annexing the Panama Canal, Greenland, or Canada . But in truth, this sort of thing is all just posturing by leaders already looking to distract their victims from the hard truth of a long con. The USA is far more likely to break apart after the federal government loses effective legitimacy than add new territory.
Always keep in mind that Trump’s basic strategy for success is to actively draw scorn then reach out to anyone who feels scorned. What’s hilarious is that his scam is basically the inverse of that the Democrats have always done: micro-targeting interest groups, telling them that only the Democrats listen to and will fight for their peculiar interests. Even more ironic is how the Democrats have cribbed tactics from Republican Evangelicals over the past two decades, insisting that their truths are sacred and anyone who disagrees is a heretic, class traitor, or just plain stupid.
Hegel was wrong. There is no thesis spawning antithesis that generates new synthesis. The thesis tribe fights the antithesis tribe until each adopts what it sees as the most valuable habits of the other. Everyone becomes what they fight, and in a two-party game that means trading places.
The core reasons that a supposedly isolationist Trump is talking up expanding the American empire are:
Distract attention from Jimmy Carter’s funeral;
Prime members of Team Trump for the Ukraine War dragging on.
Yes, American culture is so banal that attention paid to a mediocre but mostly honorable deceased president bothers any politician who can’t somehow get their face in a camera for a few hours. Biden loves his mourner-in-chief act for this very reason. And Trump of course can’t be satisfied with all the social and legacy media tycoons rushing to bend the knee, along with a fair few Vichy Democrats who define working class as anyone they can get to vote for them.
As far as reason two, well, every US president enters to office promising to end wars only to wind up backing away without much media comment. Biden screwing up the exit from Afghanistan so royally very likely made every future American war a forever war.
My evaluation continues to be that Trump is stuck with Ukraine. Putin’s objectives have not changed: he aims to destroy Ukraine, then NATO. He’s gone too far to pull back now, and he’s probably blown up his economy, so without a real prize at the end of all this his days are numbered. The Muscovite empire cannot tolerate such weakness at its core indefinitely. For their part, Ukraine’s leaders have known since the atrocities in Bucha and Irpin were revealed that this war must end with Moscow physically unable to dream of taking Ukraine ever again. That means NATO membership and a really big military or a nuclear arsenal and an even bigger one until the empire dissolves.
There’s not much daylight between those positions. Imagining that America can reduce an existential conflict to a bargaining session over scraps of territory is pure fantasy. The moment when D.C. could have dictated terms to anyone in this war was gone as soon as it became clear that Putin’s nuclear bluffs were being taken seriously.
Reportedly, Team Trump’s outreach to Putin has already hit a brick wall. Slowly but surely domestic affairs and obsession with Iran will make it attractive to quietly shelve talks and push responsibility for the conflict onto Europe, but not cut off material support or tear apart NATO.
The pro-Putin people who voted for Trump are no longer important to anyone but J.D. Vance, and he’s probably the Republicans’ Kamala Harris. I have no doubt that Vance will abuse any power he ever gets; fortunately, the Vice Presidency is a joke and a political trap. That’s why Trump picked Vance in the first place. The mature con artist recognizes the amateur. If someone gets Trump with a drone, though, all bets are off.
Ukraine-Europe
In Europe, Trump’s comments these days are taken as the rantings of a blowhard tourist. His type is oddly a dime a dozen in European politics thanks to so many European countries having proper multi-party democratic systems. Every kooky view is allowed to out, because a party can survive on just five to ten percent of the electorate.
During the Ukraine War, overall Europe’s domestic diversity has proven a source of strength, with more vulnerable countries like Estonia and Denmark constantly shaming larger and wealthier members like Germany to up their contributions. Europe is slow to get moving, but once it does, the tendency to award long-term contracts without guaranteeing huge profits creates incentives to scale rapidly where there’s proven demand.
Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that Europe produces around a hundred thousand 155mm shells every month, plus another hundred thousand can be imported from abroad thanks to the Czech initiative. After three years US industry can still only manage fifty thousand shells - about two weeks of selective use in Ukraine. The irony of Trump wanting to push NATO countries to spend a stupid high five percent of GDP on defense is that this will accelerate America’s relative military decline. Especially with the threat of tariffs factoring in, it’s going to be much cheaper to build kit in Europe, particularly Ukraine.
The trouble with Europe remains that NATO appears locked in the same self-defeating paradigm as the Pentagon. Too many political leaders seeking any excuse not to send all the aid they could have chosen to let military officials get away with saying they must keep their deep reserves fully stocked in case Putin suddenly turns from Ukraine to Lithuania. And so the majority of Ukrainian soldiers still rely on BMPs and T-64s instead of Bradleys, M113s, Leopard 2s, and M1A1 Abrams.
But here too European support is slowly changing the situation. Production of modern armored vehicles has begun in Ukraine, and though it will take another year to ramp up, once those German-designed factories get churning, they move fast. And maybe NATO will get those reserves of equipment shipped yet.
Middle East
Aside from Israel still bombing Gaza - as if that’s going to get Hamas to release the surviving hostages instead of a ceasefire - the Middle East happily hasn’t been driving the news this week. The US is still hitting the Houthis now and again from the Truman group, with Israel launching its own raids, but at least there have been no more friendly fire incidents on record.
Might even be a ceasfire with Hamas in the future - Biden is certain to want negotiating that to claim as his legacy, as little as it’s worth after so fully backing Israel’s chosen means of waging this war. Here’s hoping interests finally align.
Pacific
Geopolitically, the Pacific hasn’t thrown anything too unusual this past week. All China has to do is sit back, build up strength, and wait for the moment to push Trump into a confrontation he’ll either back away from or wind up stepping into a trap.
As is so often the case on the Pacific side of the planet, the most significant hazard of late has been natural. Los Angeles was struck by some nasty fires powered by Santa Ana winds. As someone who grew up in fire country on the other end of the state, I sympathize.
I’m increasingly convinced that repeated evidence of lack of preparedness for catastrophic events that predictably recur every few years suggests that the idea of defense (sorry Commonwealth folks, but to me “defence” is something large animals have an irritating tendency to do in the night) has to change. You can tag whatever disaster you like as a consequence of climate change, but this alters neither the inevitability of much more atmospheric warming over the next generation nor the fact that military forces must evolve to see defense in a comprehensive sense.
Someone has to defend people when governments fail. Because that’s going to happen more and more in a warming climate.
Given the worsening political situation in the USA, I’ve long believed that functionally splitting the federal government into regional units is the most sustainable way forward. As part of this, I’d like to see the military split into distinct region-based defense commands, the West Coast Defense Force being responsible for defending the Constitution against all hazards, foreign or domestic, inclusive of natural catastrophes.
This would allow military assets to be rapidly integrated in disaster relief efforts. These would be explicitly incorporated into training as part of an effort to train personnel in holistic management of affairs in their area of responsibility.
But that’s another topic for another time. For now, here’s hoping the Santa Ana winds die down. Climate change or no, they’re a feature of the landscape.
Concluding Comments
The Ukraine War has always been defined by the malignancy that is Putin’s russian fascist regime. Itself little more than a decomposer preying on anyone it can, the internal structure of Putin’s regime now demands conflict to survive. The essential bluffs that allow it to prey on the vulnerable regions of the fading empire cannot be sustained if Moscow ends this war having traded upwards of a million casualties and most of the old Soviet reserves for Donbas and a land bridge to Crimea.
Moscow’s most potent weapon has always been the pure illusion that no one can deny its will once the full might of the empire is set in motion. Never mind that the only kind of major war Moscow has ever proven able to reliably win over the past three centuries is one where Moscow itself is threatened by conquest. But now, after hyping NATO involvement as the reason Ukraine has been able to survive, Putin’s war is with the NATO alliance itself.
Unfortunately, this means that any negotiations Moscow agrees to are bound to be part of a broader strategy to divide NATO. Visible fear of the consequences of a kinetic fight with NATO - if this were not present, Putin would have bombed a base supporting Ukraine’s fight in Romania or Poland long ago - paradoxically means that Moscow will feel compelled to launch a devastating strike at the first available opportunity.
It’s this harsh reality that now hangs over all talk of a negotiated end to the Ukraine War. Putin has to properly fear the consequences of the inevitable upheavals in his future: the best and perhaps only way to put them off is ensuring that the war never really ends.
To end his ability to prosecute the war, his combat power must be systematically degraded and destroyed. The work is ongoing. It ought to be accelerated by any means available.