Further to “Divine Intervention”: Too good to be true?
I am glad to see that my last newsletter found a strong reception among subscribers and that a goodly number of you have sent me emails asking whether my newfound optimism regarding an early end to the war in Ukraine is justified.
The maximum consequence of the political stalemate in America is that the Ukrainians will run out of munitions before Congress can authorize additional military aid to them. At a minimum, the Ukrainians and their backers in Europe will be demoralized by the chaos in America even if appropriations are eventually voted. Given the importance of the psychological dimension, that alone can hasten the denouement of regime change in Kiev and Ukrainian capitulation.
Allow me to add here an additional consideration underpinning my argument for the ”vacancy” of the House Speaker’s post being a godsend.
No one can say how long the Senate Republicans will be fighting among themselves before they reach a consensus on who should succeed McCarthy in the speakership, putting an end to the present chaos. However, this period of confusion provides the Russians with a window of opportunity to proceed with their new thinking on how to end this war quickly and with minimum loss of life among their armed forces.
There has been very little coverage of this in the media, Russian state media as well as Western media, but the fact remains that in the past few weeks the Russians have been testing the effectiveness of using heavy bombs, both expensive smart and cheap dumb bombs, to pound Ukrainian fortified positions and troop concentrations. So far these have been 1.5 ton bombs. But there are in the Russian arsenal larger and still more devastating bombs weighing up to 9 tons.
On yesterday’s morning edition of Sixty Minutes, the regular military expert panelist on the show who is also a contributor to the country’s leading newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, stated explicitly that this is the best way to end the war quickly.
He pointed to the NATO operations in a bombing campaign on Belgrade and more widely in Serbia during 1999. Though there were more than a thousand NATO aircraft engaged in bombing Serbia during that campaign from bases in Europe, the expert drew attention to the heavy bombs flown in directly from the States on B2 stealth bombers and even on transport planes. He maintained that heavy bombs can be a game changer today, especially while the Russians still enjoy unchallenged air dominance. As we know, F16s and Typhoons will be made available to the Ukrainians rather soon.
Washington is usually intimating that Russia plans to use tactical nuclear weapons to have its way in the war. However, Moscow is now saying it can take a page from U.S. military practice and get the job done with highly impactful conventional weapons. Forget the drones, artillery duels, trench digging and war of attrition: the Russians can perhaps bomb their way to victory.
Confusion and navel gazing in Washington provide excellent cover for a Russian breakthrough, one way or another. The other way is, of course, to stage a massive ground offensive, for which the Russians have the men and materiel prepared already. But that will be more costly in the lives of their own men and will take longer, giving the Americans and their allies time to implement a new round of escalation that brings us closer to a full-blown NATO-Russia war.
How this plays out will be clear in the coming weeks.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023