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It\u2019s not going as planned.<\/p>\n
Vladimir Putin\u2019s blitzkrieg of Ukraine is running up against strong resistance \u2014 more than many military analysts expected.<\/p>\n
Is this unusual? No, it\u2019s not. In war, it never goes as planned.<\/p>\n
You can do everything right in war and still lose or find yourself and your troops in a bad way.<\/p>\n
According to esteemed military author Gwynne Dyer, \u201cthe secret about military strategy, is that there are no secrets about military strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cTactics and strategy must be learned, but simply knowing the rules doesn\u2019t mean you win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No soldier can tell you how the battle will actually come out, making the plans is easy enough, making them work is quite another thing, he said in a documentary TV series on War<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many variables in combat. A commander cannot control so many things. He simply does not know. It happens to everybody in war.\u201d<\/p>\n On the second day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Syrians broke completely through the Israeli defenses on the southern half of the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n There were no Israeli troops at all in front of them. Another two hours, and they\u2019d be down off the Golan on the Jordan river, ready to strike northern Israel itself.<\/p>\n But they stopped.<\/p>\n Why? According to the Syrian major, who was later captured and interrogated, it looked like an obvious place for an Israeli defense.<\/p>\n The Syrians couldn\u2019t see any Israelis, but of course they were here somewhere waiting in ambush, said Dyer. So the Syrians had decided to wait for reinforcements.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a mistake and it cost Syria a whole battle,\u201d said Dyer. \u201cIf the Syrian commander had taken a chance and pushed on right away, and the Israelis had been waiting in ambush, he would\u2019ve been wrong too.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can do everything right in combat and still fail. Combat is a high wire act. If you don\u2019t move you risk falling off. If you make the wrong move, the risk is equally great. And there\u2019s no way of being certain what the right move is.\u201d<\/p>\n The Russians are finding themselves in exactly this position, as war rages across Ukraine.<\/p>\n What is it like for a tank to get hit by a Stinger or Javelin anti-tank missile?<\/p>\n During that 1973 conflict, commander Yossi Ben Hanan was leading the 7th Armored tank brigade on the southern half of the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n Down to just eight tanks after fierce fighting, somehow he managed to get behind the Syrian front lines, and took an exposed position.<\/p>\n \u201cFor about 20 minutes, we destroyed whoever we could see because we were in a great position there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided to charge \u2026 but I had to leave some tanks for cover. I charged with six tanks, and they (the Syrians) opened fire from the flank with anti-tank missiles.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a matter of seconds, three out of six tanks were blown up. There was a big explosion in my tank. I was left there, for a couple of hours, and, also the whole attack \u2026was a mistake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very big explosion. And the penetration is \u2026 an immediate penetration and a big explosion inside.\u201d<\/p>\n He would be rescued from behind enemy lines by\u00a0Yonatan Netanyahu, a member of the IDF\u2019s elite\u00a0Sayeret Matkal\u00a0and brother of future Prime Minister\u00a0Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n Ben Hanan was a very competent officer, but his attack failed and some of his men died. His tank had been hit by a\u00a0Sagger<\/a>\u00a0anti-tank missile<\/a>.<\/p>\n He would receive the\u00a0Medal of Courage\u00a0for his part in the battles of the\u00a0Yom Kippur War.<\/p>\n \u201cHe took a chance and he was wrong,\u201d Dyer said. \u201cThere are so many variables in combat. A commander cannot control so many things. He simply does not know. It happens to everybody in war.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes the job of the officer in combat unique, is the constant pressure of having to do something and risk the lives of his men. And also as far as possible, keep himself alive to go on leading them.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ukraine resistance proved to be much stronger than anticipated. Then again, it\u2019s one thing to invade another country, quite another, when you are defending your native land.<\/p>\n Ukrainian soldiers kissed their families goodbye, knowing they probably would not return \u2014 a fight to the death.<\/p>\n To quote Vietnamese revolutionary and politician, Ho Chi Minh:<\/p>\n \u201cYou can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.\u201d<\/p>\n And they did win.<\/p>\n Russian troops were generally considered by analysts to be top-notch, but perhaps they are not so good, after all.<\/p>\n Perhaps they are not motivated to kill their Ukrainian brothers. Perhaps their training is not as good as advertised. And perhaps they also lack real battle experience.<\/p>\n Former CIA director Robert Gates, speaking in an interview on Sunday, said Putin made two terrible miscalculations in launching this war and is now paying for it.<\/p>\n \u201cOne, the resistance of the Ukrainian people \u2026 the other, he didn\u2019t expect the kind of united response from the West. Not just from NATO and the US, but from others that are not part of NATO,\u201d said Gates.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he\u2019s ended with Russia being completely isolated \u201c<\/p>\n As for putting his nuclear forces on alert to threaten the world, Gates said, \u201cHe\u2019s gone off the rails. Maybe it\u2019s two years of isolation at his Dacha outside of Moscow \u2026 maybe it\u2019s the fact he is only talking to his hardest line people from his intelligence past.<\/p>\n \u201cBut this behaviour is different and very worrisome. He has made a gigantic miscalculation, regardless of how the war turns out.\u201d<\/p>\n Gates also said that Putin has gotten the exact opposite of what he wanted. He thought NATO was fractured, and that he would take advantage of it.<\/p>\n Instead, \u201che has given NATO a new sense of purpose, a new sense of unity. He\u2019s going to end up with more NATO forces on his border, and the Baltic states.\u201d<\/p>\n Germany, too, has announced a major expenditure on defense, US$113B worth. Vlad isn\u2019t going to like that.<\/p>\n As one of my intelligence sources said, the one thing everyone is terrified to talk about is if Putin is just crazy enough to go nuclear, rather than lose to the West.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a man that will go down, without taking out everyone around him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s hope, and pray, that is not the case.<\/p>\n Is there still hope for a diplomatic \u201coff-ramp\u201d solution?<\/p>\n Yes, but not for the reasons we think.<\/p>\n According to media reports, the war is costing Putin \u00a312 billion a day, and if this goes past ten days, the Russians will be potentially skint.<\/p>\n Dave Makichuk is a\u00a0Western Standard<\/em>\u00a0contributor.\u00a0<\/strong>
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