Mar 7, 2023·edited Mar 10, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson
And other problem is that the Russian regime is opaque. It is likely dominated internally by fear and bureaucratic imperatives more than mission focus and operational rationality. The leaders all up and down the pyramid are probably being lied to by their subordinates, because their subordinates are corrupt and afraid of being caught being corrupt. Putin is a classic solo dictator who is surrounded by yes men who are afraid to tell him the truth. One strength of the old Soviet union was that it was a bureaucratic despotism rather than an individual despotism. As a result the bureaucracies chugged along, and there were numerous power centers, and there were even people with an interest in telling the truth, because they were more afraid to lie, because they were multiple sources generating information, and people who lied would get caught. It is a serious analytic mistake to think of Russia as it is now and the old Soviet Union as being analogous in terms of their internal operations. Different beasts. Further, the senior personnel in the Soviet Union, all the way to the end of the Cold War, were veterans of the Great Patriotic War. They took war seriously. They understood how to plan operations, and they inherited a system that was battle-tested and had proven itself effective. My guess is that not much remains of this old machine. In short, stupid decisions may not have some coherent inner rationale. They may be stupid decisions because the process generating them is significantly less effective than it needs to be.
There are pundits who make predictions to attract attention, but there are also professionals who make predictions because they want to test their models against reality. When I wrote "Plans Are Predictions", my view of prediction shifted from "it's a fool's game" to "this is something we have to do in war so we should try to be good at it." The difference between a pundit and a professional then comes down to intent and accountability. Pundits are unaccountable and will say whatever they want to advance their interests. A professional says "here is what I think will happen, here is why, and if I am wrong then I will update my priors." That is the message I got from this post.
I liken the D-Day+0 Russian OPLAN with the difference between hitting someone with a five-fingered slap and an armored fist. Yeah, the first one hurts, but the second can straight kill you. Russia's decision to not concentrate forces anywhere to build a true center of gravity (to say nothing of their complete inability to organically build and integrate fires of any variety) meant they provided their own critical vulnerability: lack of proper supporting units on the flanks allowing a distributed operations force to blunt and destroy a (on paper) superior force. And it was glorious how they did it.
And other problem is that the Russian regime is opaque. It is likely dominated internally by fear and bureaucratic imperatives more than mission focus and operational rationality. The leaders all up and down the pyramid are probably being lied to by their subordinates, because their subordinates are corrupt and afraid of being caught being corrupt. Putin is a classic solo dictator who is surrounded by yes men who are afraid to tell him the truth. One strength of the old Soviet union was that it was a bureaucratic despotism rather than an individual despotism. As a result the bureaucracies chugged along, and there were numerous power centers, and there were even people with an interest in telling the truth, because they were more afraid to lie, because they were multiple sources generating information, and people who lied would get caught. It is a serious analytic mistake to think of Russia as it is now and the old Soviet Union as being analogous in terms of their internal operations. Different beasts. Further, the senior personnel in the Soviet Union, all the way to the end of the Cold War, were veterans of the Great Patriotic War. They took war seriously. They understood how to plan operations, and they inherited a system that was battle-tested and had proven itself effective. My guess is that not much remains of this old machine. In short, stupid decisions may not have some coherent inner rationale. They may be stupid decisions because the process generating them is significantly less effective than it needs to be.
There are pundits who make predictions to attract attention, but there are also professionals who make predictions because they want to test their models against reality. When I wrote "Plans Are Predictions", my view of prediction shifted from "it's a fool's game" to "this is something we have to do in war so we should try to be good at it." The difference between a pundit and a professional then comes down to intent and accountability. Pundits are unaccountable and will say whatever they want to advance their interests. A professional says "here is what I think will happen, here is why, and if I am wrong then I will update my priors." That is the message I got from this post.
I liken the D-Day+0 Russian OPLAN with the difference between hitting someone with a five-fingered slap and an armored fist. Yeah, the first one hurts, but the second can straight kill you. Russia's decision to not concentrate forces anywhere to build a true center of gravity (to say nothing of their complete inability to organically build and integrate fires of any variety) meant they provided their own critical vulnerability: lack of proper supporting units on the flanks allowing a distributed operations force to blunt and destroy a (on paper) superior force. And it was glorious how they did it.
One who has knowledge can not predict, and he who predicts does not have knowledge. Only wisdom can light the path.