Paul Krugman interviews military historian Phillips O’Brien, where O’Brien criticizes the problems with Western attitudes towards the war in Ukraine and towards Russians.
There’s a lot of talk about how Western countries need to train Ukrainian troops in warfare. This is certainly true in many respects, but the situation is also the other way around. Ukraine currently has the world’s most advanced combat methods in modern drone warfare. What does this mean for traditional armies?
O’Brien : I’ve been told that NATO did a maneuver with a Ukrainian drone unit and the Ukrainian drone unit destroyed a full NATO armored brigade in a few hours because they simply had no way to respond to what the Ukrainians were doing. They didn’t have any equipment, didn’t have any hint, it was an intellectual hinterland. So the Ukrainians were just flying their drones all around them, destroying whatever they wanted, and the NATO unit failed. So they’re not used to this kind of war. They’re going to have to learn it, but right now they don’t know how to do it.
It can be assumed that Russia has also adopted similar doctrines, as there are no longer personnel in dug-in trenches on the front line holding the enemy at bay. Instead, the front line is a kill-zone several tens of kilometers wide, where nothing larger than a squirrel survives for long.
For example, the “breakthrough in the Pokrovsk area” that received significant attention a few weeks ago was anything but a collapse of the front. The situation on the front line is that in order to make a breakthrough, troops must be concentrated near the front and be able to move through the breach point. This is impossible for both sides.
Krugman : So let’s just back up for a second about the ground war. Last week, there was a Russian incursion near Pokrovsk. And I’ve been reading about the strategic city of Pokrovsk has been imminently falling for well over a year now. And it’s not clear how strategic it is. But there were these screaming headlines about a Russian breakthrough. And this is not my field, but even I thought I understood that this is not that kind of war, right?
O’Brien : Mm-hmm. There can’t be a breakthrough, Paul, because what you can’t do is mass vehicles near the front. You can’t support supply depots and logistics depots because they’ll be blown up by ranged weapons, like drones, artillery. So you can make a hole or infiltrate with very small numbers of infantry, which is what the Russians did.
They got infantry on motorcycles and on foot sneaking through the lines. They found a weak part in the Ukrainian line, but there was no way they could exploit it because there’s no follow-up. You can’t actually have another echelon ready to go. And it’s just sort of a weird view of what they thought was happening. One of the analysts said, “This might lead to a Russian operational breakthrough.” Operational breakthroughs are what the US did in the Second World War, when they broke through the lines and sent their tanks charging 50 miles. That just was never going to happen in Ukraine. And that’s the thing that drives me crazy, that they seem to not understand the war they’re looking at.
Europeans do not get absolution. We have infantilized ourselves into dependence on the opinions of the current US leader, and this became particularly evident during Trump’s presidency. Is our only option really to send all of Europe’s leaders to fawn over Trump, just so he doesn’t criticize us again?
O’Brien : You know, Paul, one thing that has been a shock to me in the last few years, is that I just don’t think the Europeans have the capacity now to think for themselves. I think the US domination has been so strong that they have become infantilized strategically and they don’t look at the world from a real strategic, European perspective. They ultimately look on the world as, “we need the US to defend us. So let’s get the US on our side and then we can do other things.” I think they still are operating within this world that they have to keep the US on their side first. I think both economically, strategically and almost psychologically, it would be better for Europe now to move on from the USA. And I say this as an American living in Europe that what we see now is really unhealthy. Like they prostrate themselves and call him daddy. It’s just not good.
Here is the cold truth.
O’Brien : It’s bizarre. It’s like the Stockholm syndrome. Basically, it’s a continent suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.
The entire interview is worth reading/listening to. A key factor to remember is that if Russia takes control of Ukraine and combines their war expertise with its own, Europe will be in deep trouble. If a Ukrainian drone company can destroy a NATO battalion in an exercise just like that, what will Russia do when they have their own and Ukraine’s combined forces?
Russia will do what it has done throughout its history. Expand.
