Yes, USA has a lot of high tech, very complex gadgets. Russia has countered and nuetralized most of them to date, one way or the other. There are now near 300,000 Ukraine killed and missing, and another 300,000 wounded. Russia has about 20,000 dead, and perhaps 50,000 wounded. Ukraine has burned through many thousands of pieces of armor and artillary and 90% of its Air Force. Russia has prepared actively for this war since 2007. At the end of the day, results matter. Russia is rapidly destroying Ukraine military, and likely 2 months away from fully decapitating it, at the current pace.
Funny how life imitates art sometimes. Real war is turning into an RTS game, complete with map hacks and unit-micro
To me this explains a bit why Ru has been moving as slowly as it has. They are probably limiting movement to ranges where they have peer ISR capability.
Incidentally I would have thought that buttoning up in urban fortresses (as Ukr is) would negate this advantage, but what do I know
I did hear of China exporting a lot of high-end digital optics to Russia some time last year, and the theory was that these would be used in a new range of intel satellites. There was a flurry of military launchings by Russia toward the end of last year, not in the kind of numbers to counter Starlink, but presumably fulfilling something of the same function. Musk has also admitted that Russia has made attempts to hack Starlink and I can't help wondering if some of these were more than just 'attempts'. The stalled UKR advance down through Kherson, along the Dnieper, was curious in this regard, as was any advance past Kupiansk in Lugansk. Something certainly stemmed the work flow there quite apart from troop losses.
This only show how misjudge everybody regarding the technological advancement of the Russian Federation. Even here in Vietnam, a sitting on the fence country, many people, highly educated people, believes that Russia is just a backward country with primitive tech from the 50s and everything HighTech is provided by the West and China. All wrong. Russia, in and by themselves, a superpower with tier 1 technologies. Gives Russia 5 years and they will even be able to produce 5nM chips.
The challenge pose by the US/NATO on Russia is something, in term of magnitude and scale, nobody would even comprehend how can Russia overcome this challenge. I concur that the US, if put into the same situation face the Russian today, would be able to fare that well as the Russian without resorting to nuclear threat.
For China, on the surface they cannot outright support Russia, due to China economy still pretty much intertwined with the West, unlike Russia. So best they can do is behind the scenes intel supply to Russian's forces through front enterprises for plausible deniability. But honestly, I believe the Chinese Armed Forces is actively helping Russia in one way or another, because they know, after Russia, China will be next.
Anyway, I have been missing you from the Saker blog, your NightVision era post is one of the reasons why i follow the Saker.
I'm not a war historian, but I do remember reading that radar gave the RAF a huge advantage against the Luftwaffe in WW2 over England. The RAF "seemed" to always have just the right amount and mix of fighters to counter German raids. This tech definitely would give the Ukrainian's a strong ability to do something similar. A sustained and distributed push against large sections of the line by Russia probably reduces the effectiveness of this as the Ukrainian's can't line up counters across the entire line constantly.
Given America’s awesome technology I wonder how she has managed lose all her recent wars. The Taliban probably had very limited satellite and network capability. But they still won.
Maybe the intended “innovation” in Ukraine is to marry US technology with more local cannon fodder. Although all of America’s wars seem to involve large proxy armies too. Afghan National Army deaths exceeded NATO ones by a factor of ten. Similar story in Vietnam.
So hard to see what is different here from the normal US model which ultimately will end in failure. It always does.
All very complex, very expensive systems, which is why they fight a proxy war and will never directly fight Russia or China or even North Korea. A direct war would mean all that expensive equipment gets scrapped in the first strike, and then no more video games for Uncle Sam.
In the event of actual NATO and US intervention in Ukraine? And if Russia actually starts fighting a "war". What would the best way be to be interdict these capabilities? I am guessing the AWACS would be the primary target? The drones and Starlink are too dispersed and numerous. Even the satellites are too numerous. And of course, the analysis sites could be anywhere and difficult to find. What assets would Russia use against the AWACS? Or is there another way for Russia disrupt these capabilities? Short of a EMP of course.
In any event, I find your analysis incredible and informative. I have forwarded your posts to everyone I know. But my fellow 'Muricans aren't too interested in reading. Which of course is why we are where we are at.
Great article. Now I understand why UKR badly needs more artillery ammo. This NATO operated C4ISR is useless without UKR artillery which is useless without ammo. My guess is that the new Penicilin medicine is making life of UKR artillery and NATO planners very difficult as recent UKR artillery losses seem to be quite high. When UKR and NATO run out of artillery pieces then C4ISR will become quite expensive Playstation 6. Is this the ultimate RUS strategy?
Now go deeper. What does it mean to have this level of surveillance and targeting capability? It simply means that if you can be identified, located, and targeted; you very likely can be destroyed by a stand-off weapon. And small, fast, stealthy, and cheap drones are the perfect stand-off weapon of the modern battlefield. They are difficult to detect and interdict, have a huge cost-benefit ratio, and do not put military personnel at serious risk.
OK, now let's assume that "intelligent" military staff personnel foresee these advantages and begin to move toward better ISR and drone technologies. What good is an expensive tank battalion if a drone swarm can take it out far behind enemy lines at trivial cost? In classic military countermeasure warfare, anti-drone technology becomes an existential necessity. Jamming can suppress communications (and potentially disable drone functionality), but what if the drones are AI-driven, self-contained, hunter-seekers?
At some point in the future evolution of modern warfare, death to electronics becomes a critical necessity if you want to stay alive on the battlefield. And then what happens? Has anyone modeled this wargame scenario? And for those who still adhere to the belief that EMP hardening will save the day, you might want to look at the trackrecord of these efforts against a high-altitude, high-energy pulse; which is also relatively cheap to implement and repeat.
Despite China offering a peace plan- essentially providing its services as a mediator- the USA still rejected it outright.
Notably, Russia said okay and I believe Zelensky did not reject it outright.
With the loud silence over the Nord Stream bombings from EU and USA, I think this really shows the international audience as to who wants peace and who wants war. Hopefully, this adds up to more pressure across the international audience to press for peace and influence the US to start making more sensible choices.
Of course, the global economic plates begin to shift... de-dollarization, regionalization etc...
In fact, better that they start shifting- at least it means we see what the USA is doing and countries are taking steps to avoid war.
Otherwise, we're really getting dragged to some nonsensical conflicts.
The C4ISR and the strike capability is amazing. The question I pose to my friends, for 800 billion a year, where the heck is the ammunition?
Yes, USA has a lot of high tech, very complex gadgets. Russia has countered and nuetralized most of them to date, one way or the other. There are now near 300,000 Ukraine killed and missing, and another 300,000 wounded. Russia has about 20,000 dead, and perhaps 50,000 wounded. Ukraine has burned through many thousands of pieces of armor and artillary and 90% of its Air Force. Russia has prepared actively for this war since 2007. At the end of the day, results matter. Russia is rapidly destroying Ukraine military, and likely 2 months away from fully decapitating it, at the current pace.
So essentially it's a war of live online video games
Funny how life imitates art sometimes. Real war is turning into an RTS game, complete with map hacks and unit-micro
To me this explains a bit why Ru has been moving as slowly as it has. They are probably limiting movement to ranges where they have peer ISR capability.
Incidentally I would have thought that buttoning up in urban fortresses (as Ukr is) would negate this advantage, but what do I know
"He claims that his own system of satellites allows Wagner to observe all points of the world.
Now what could that mean?"
More proof that Prigozhin is a Grandmaster troll.
I did hear of China exporting a lot of high-end digital optics to Russia some time last year, and the theory was that these would be used in a new range of intel satellites. There was a flurry of military launchings by Russia toward the end of last year, not in the kind of numbers to counter Starlink, but presumably fulfilling something of the same function. Musk has also admitted that Russia has made attempts to hack Starlink and I can't help wondering if some of these were more than just 'attempts'. The stalled UKR advance down through Kherson, along the Dnieper, was curious in this regard, as was any advance past Kupiansk in Lugansk. Something certainly stemmed the work flow there quite apart from troop losses.
This only show how misjudge everybody regarding the technological advancement of the Russian Federation. Even here in Vietnam, a sitting on the fence country, many people, highly educated people, believes that Russia is just a backward country with primitive tech from the 50s and everything HighTech is provided by the West and China. All wrong. Russia, in and by themselves, a superpower with tier 1 technologies. Gives Russia 5 years and they will even be able to produce 5nM chips.
The challenge pose by the US/NATO on Russia is something, in term of magnitude and scale, nobody would even comprehend how can Russia overcome this challenge. I concur that the US, if put into the same situation face the Russian today, would be able to fare that well as the Russian without resorting to nuclear threat.
For China, on the surface they cannot outright support Russia, due to China economy still pretty much intertwined with the West, unlike Russia. So best they can do is behind the scenes intel supply to Russian's forces through front enterprises for plausible deniability. But honestly, I believe the Chinese Armed Forces is actively helping Russia in one way or another, because they know, after Russia, China will be next.
Anyway, I have been missing you from the Saker blog, your NightVision era post is one of the reasons why i follow the Saker.
I'm not a war historian, but I do remember reading that radar gave the RAF a huge advantage against the Luftwaffe in WW2 over England. The RAF "seemed" to always have just the right amount and mix of fighters to counter German raids. This tech definitely would give the Ukrainian's a strong ability to do something similar. A sustained and distributed push against large sections of the line by Russia probably reduces the effectiveness of this as the Ukrainian's can't line up counters across the entire line constantly.
Great article and an eyeopener for me.
It goes a long way toward making sense of the apparent incongruities between Russia's successes and failures on the battlefield.
Very interesting article.
Given America’s awesome technology I wonder how she has managed lose all her recent wars. The Taliban probably had very limited satellite and network capability. But they still won.
Maybe the intended “innovation” in Ukraine is to marry US technology with more local cannon fodder. Although all of America’s wars seem to involve large proxy armies too. Afghan National Army deaths exceeded NATO ones by a factor of ten. Similar story in Vietnam.
So hard to see what is different here from the normal US model which ultimately will end in failure. It always does.
All very complex, very expensive systems, which is why they fight a proxy war and will never directly fight Russia or China or even North Korea. A direct war would mean all that expensive equipment gets scrapped in the first strike, and then no more video games for Uncle Sam.
To me, this is just as well boots on the ground. Probably worse
In the event of actual NATO and US intervention in Ukraine? And if Russia actually starts fighting a "war". What would the best way be to be interdict these capabilities? I am guessing the AWACS would be the primary target? The drones and Starlink are too dispersed and numerous. Even the satellites are too numerous. And of course, the analysis sites could be anywhere and difficult to find. What assets would Russia use against the AWACS? Or is there another way for Russia disrupt these capabilities? Short of a EMP of course.
In any event, I find your analysis incredible and informative. I have forwarded your posts to everyone I know. But my fellow 'Muricans aren't too interested in reading. Which of course is why we are where we are at.
Great article. Now I understand why UKR badly needs more artillery ammo. This NATO operated C4ISR is useless without UKR artillery which is useless without ammo. My guess is that the new Penicilin medicine is making life of UKR artillery and NATO planners very difficult as recent UKR artillery losses seem to be quite high. When UKR and NATO run out of artillery pieces then C4ISR will become quite expensive Playstation 6. Is this the ultimate RUS strategy?
Now go deeper. What does it mean to have this level of surveillance and targeting capability? It simply means that if you can be identified, located, and targeted; you very likely can be destroyed by a stand-off weapon. And small, fast, stealthy, and cheap drones are the perfect stand-off weapon of the modern battlefield. They are difficult to detect and interdict, have a huge cost-benefit ratio, and do not put military personnel at serious risk.
OK, now let's assume that "intelligent" military staff personnel foresee these advantages and begin to move toward better ISR and drone technologies. What good is an expensive tank battalion if a drone swarm can take it out far behind enemy lines at trivial cost? In classic military countermeasure warfare, anti-drone technology becomes an existential necessity. Jamming can suppress communications (and potentially disable drone functionality), but what if the drones are AI-driven, self-contained, hunter-seekers?
At some point in the future evolution of modern warfare, death to electronics becomes a critical necessity if you want to stay alive on the battlefield. And then what happens? Has anyone modeled this wargame scenario? And for those who still adhere to the belief that EMP hardening will save the day, you might want to look at the trackrecord of these efforts against a high-altitude, high-energy pulse; which is also relatively cheap to implement and repeat.
Despite China offering a peace plan- essentially providing its services as a mediator- the USA still rejected it outright.
Notably, Russia said okay and I believe Zelensky did not reject it outright.
With the loud silence over the Nord Stream bombings from EU and USA, I think this really shows the international audience as to who wants peace and who wants war. Hopefully, this adds up to more pressure across the international audience to press for peace and influence the US to start making more sensible choices.
Of course, the global economic plates begin to shift... de-dollarization, regionalization etc...
In fact, better that they start shifting- at least it means we see what the USA is doing and countries are taking steps to avoid war.
Otherwise, we're really getting dragged to some nonsensical conflicts.