Here's What Is Going To Happen With Ukraine

[babylonsister]

Pretty much.

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/03/wee-prediction-about-ukraine



Here's What Is Going To Happen With Ukraine

—Kevin Drum on Sat. March 1, 2014 3:59 PM PDT





Following up on the previous post, if you do want to fret about Ukraine, I have just the thing for you. I'm going to tell you how this will all unfold:

Vladimir Putin will do something belligerent. (Already done.)

Republicans will demand that we show strength in the face of Putin's provocation. Whatever it is that we're doing, we should do more.

President Obama will denounce whatever it is that Putin does. But regardless of how unequivocal his condemnation is, Bill Kristol will insist that he's failing to support the democratic aspirations of the Ukrainian people.

Journalists will write a variety of thumbsuckers pointing out that our options are extremely limited, what with Ukraine being 5,000 miles away and all.

John McCain will appear on a bunch of Sunday chat shows to bemoan the fact that Obama is weak and no one fears America anymore.

Having written all the "options are limited" thumbsuckers, journalists and columnists will follow McCain's lead and start declaring that the crisis in Ukraine is the greatest foreign policy test of Obama's presidency. It will thus supplant Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iran, and North Korea for this honor.

In spite of all the trees felled and words spoken about this, nobody will have any good ideas about what kind of action might actually make a difference. There will be scattered calls to impose a few sanctions here and there, introduce a ban on Russian vodka imports, convene NATO, demand a UN Security Council vote, etc. None of this will have any material effect.

Obama will continue to denounce Putin. Perhaps he will convene NATO. For their part, Republicans will continue to insist that he's showing weakness and needs to get serious.

This will all continue for a while.

In the end, it will all settle down into a stalemate, with Russia having thrown its weight around in its near abroad—just like it always has—and the West not having the leverage to do much about it.

Ukraine will....

Actually, there's no telling about #11. Maybe Ukraine will choose (or have foisted on them) a pro-Russian leader that Putin is happy with. Maybe east and west will split apart. Maybe a nominally pro-Western leader will emerge. Who knows? What we do know is that (a) the United States will play only a modest role in all this, and (b) conservative hawks will continue to think that if only we'd done just a little bit more, Putin would have blinked and Ukraine would be free.

You may now go about your regular weekend business.

[flamingdem]

1. Minor correction: seems like it's Lindsey Grahm doing the Sunday shows not McCain

John McCain will appear on a bunch of Sunday chat shows to bemoan the fact that Obama is weak and no one fears America anymore.

[Junkdrawer]

2. Or Poland will counter-invade and we'll have nuclear forces toe-to-toe...

If Ukraine threatens to split apart, Poland will want a chunk. And Poland is a member of NATO.

[AnalystInParadise]

4. Poland is not going to invade.

If you want a reasoned thoughtful analysis by an intelligence analyst, all you have to do is ask. But Poland will not invade. Russia however is likely to do more than just throw its weight around, this is very different than Georgia in 2008.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Why not? Let's see your "reasoned thoughtful analysis"...

Call

[AnalystInParadise]

7. Poland

Two main reasons, first they can't.

Poland, since joining NATO has remodeled their Army on the Western/NATO model which means a high tail to tooth ratio. What this means is that for every combat soldiers, Poland has 5-10 soldiers (depending on the NATO model they use)employed keeping that combat soldier fed, supplied, and supported. Let's say Poland goes lean and only has 6 support for every combat soldier. The Polish Land Forces (Army) have 45,000 active duty soldiers, using our ratio above, that means that Poland has 7,000 TRAINED combat arms soldiers at this moment in time. However, the vast majority of their training has been in COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations in Afghanistan, meaning that they do not have adequate training in decisive action combat (conventional war). The U.S. Army has the same problem right now, we are great at smoking terrorists in caves, but ask the U.S. Army to move to contact with an opposing Armored Division and I will tell you, right now we can't. I work with the premier Armored unit in the U.S. Army and they just recently had a warsim to do this very thing, they couldn't do it, the enemy defeated us in the sim and we had to refight the battle again. But I digress, the Poles are in a very similar boat. They don't have the training. It can be summed up like this.

Poland has 45,000 active duty Army soldiers
1/7th are combat soldiers, that gives you 7,000 men to try and INVADE Ukraine with. So you say that Poland will call up its reserves. Ok, let's do that. Poland has 515,000 reserves, given that they divide their active component 2/3rd to land forces 1/3rd to naval and air forces this gives Poland around 350,000 men in the reserves for GROUND COMBAT. Ok are you telling me that Poland will call up all 350,000 at once for a prolonged fight and occupation in Ukraine? Because if you are, then I want what you are smoking. Let's say Poland calls up 1/3 of their military reserves for the ground component only. Sounds reasonable, leaves the majority in their civilian jobs keeping the economy going, and leave another 200,000 or so to call up if needed. So Poland calls up 120,000 men from their reserves, again the 6 to 1 ratio applies, but WAIT, it is now 7 or 8 to 1 as the Poles will need more manpower to staff training facilities, weapons depots and the install yards getting the thousands of tanks, trucks, and APC's transitioned from storage to war time usage. So let's say they scrimp and go 7 to 1. 120,000 reservists at a 7 to 1 ratio gives them an additional 18,000 sldiers to go with the 7,000 they previously have in the combat arms conventional force. So you are telling me that with 25,000 FRONT LINE Combat Arms soldiers Poland would invade western Ukraine?

If so, what deployment pattern do they use, what if they run into Russians or Ukrainian conventional forces that want to fight. 25,000 Combat Soldiers represents about 6 Brigades worth of combat power. I imagine they will employ the standard NATO Mech/Armor ratio so that gives you 3 Mech Brigades, 2 Armored, and 1 Air Mobile/Air Assault. So How does Poland occupy such a large territory with 6 brigades of poorly trained (the majority are reservists) combat troops? In reality it is 2 Brigades of active duty forces that know what they are doing ONLY if they are fighting in a COIN scenario. How will Poland fight if they meet up with Tanks, APC's and Attack Helicopters of the Russian or Ukrainian or even Belorussian military?

Answer these questions on manpower and we can move to the next phase which would be logistics. Phase three would be long term scenarios

[Junkdrawer]

8. So they counter-invade, get in trouble (high tail-to-tooth ratio etc.)...

and then demand NATO assistance.

[AnalystInParadise]

10. NATO

is not obligated to respond to an aggressive act by a member state. Now if Poland was attacked first, then yeah Article V can be implemented

[Junkdrawer]

11. *ahem*

Poland mobilises tanks to its border with Ukraine

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024592775

[bemildred]

3. Putin seems to have been well-prepared for just this sort of eventuality.

Just saying ...

[AnalystInParadise]

5. I think

Mother Jones needs to hire a new Russia analyst if they think this will all blow over. Not saying World War II either, that isn't happening, but this situation is nowhere near done.

[okaawhatever]

9. Thank you for jumping into this. We also need to be talking about the effects of doing

nothing. So many people feel like if we don't use the military right now we will have avoided war. Hopefully so, but we can't kid ourselves about Russia's intentions.

[AngryAmish]

12. This is the sum of what Americans know of Ukraine.

I read three articles today that identify the Crimian Tartars as the native people of Crimea. This proves Americans are so completely ignorant of this part of the world we need to shut the fuck up about it.