13.10.2022

Notes on the war

Sabotage of pipelines, annexations, crazy talk of nuclear weapons and plans for regime change - but the socialist alternative is sadly lacking. Jack Conrad calls for unity in the serious business of party-building

Apply this famous dictum from the Chinese general, strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu (544-496 BCE), to the ongoing ‘special military operation’:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.¹

Clearly Vladimir Putin knows neither himself - that is the mood, the disposition, of the Russian army and the wider Russian population - nor does he know the Ukrainian army and people, let alone what he calls the Satanic western countries - above all, of course, the Biden administration in the United States.

Putin must have thought that Russia’s 29th, 35th, 36th, 41st combined-arms armies would score an easy, lightening-quick victory. His comparatively small force would power down upon Kyiv, surround the city within days and capture, kill or send Volodymyr Zelensky fleeing into exile. Perhaps the Russian president even believed that Kyivians would greet his invasion force with bouquets of flowers, Russian flags and offerings of bread and salt - that or a shrug of indifference. Either way, it was a staggering intelligence failure, not least given that the FSB had handlers, sleeper agents and bribed officials placed deep inside Ukraine’s “defence, security and law enforcement sectors”, going all the way to the very “top”.²

Instead of collapsing - as Putin seems to have expected - the Ukrainian army, retrained and re-equipped by Nato since 2014, put up stiff resistance. Furthermore, to the cry of ‘Slava Ukraini!’, volunteers flocked to the blue and yellow colours and the Ukrainian-speaking population rallied behind the national cause. Quelle surprise!

That and, on Putin’s side, sheer military incompetence saw phase one end in a humiliating failure. There were astounding logistical and tactical failures too. Fuel, food and ammunition ran dry. Russia’s T-72 and T-80 battle tanks proved to be sporting targets for a Ukrainian army equipped with Javelins and Nlaws on the ground and US Phoenix Ghost and Turkish Bayraktar drones in the sky. However, Russian rank-and-file soldiers decided the matter by preferring flight rather than fight.

Nor did Putin know his main enemy. By giving covert approval to attacks on the pro-Russian Federation ‘people’s republics’ in the Donbas, by demanding the return of Crimea, by supplying military hardware, training and advisors, by holding out the distant prospect of Nato and EU membership for Ukraine, Putin was lured into a US trap. On February 24 2022 he fell straight into it.

Interestingly, though it is, in general, a good rule not to treat anything he says seriously, Donald Trump has made that exact same accusation. Speaking on Real America’s Voice, the former president attacked the Biden administration for having “taunted Putin” and “almost forcing him to go in with what they’re saying. The rhetoric was so dumb.”³ Dumb or not, the US state department - and the Demorep war party - got what was long looked for: Russia bogged down in an unwinnable war that allows for a regime-change operation in Moscow.

True, phase two of the war, which began in April 2022, went much better for Putin. Though Kharkiv was successfully defended, most of the Donbas was taken (‘liberated’ if you like). The land corridor joining Russia and Crimea was fully secured with the fall of Mariupol on May 20 2022. A largely undamaged Kherson was quickly taken and Ukraine’s remaining Black Sea ports successfully blockaded (though there has been an agreement to allow outgoing grain shipments). However, Russian forces failed to get further west to Odessa, let alone beyond to Transnistria (and thereby leave Ukraine landlocked).

Two fronts

But now we have Ukraine’s two-front counter-offensive in full swing. In the south the aim is to cut off Russia’s estimated 20,000-strong army located on the west-bank of the Dnipro and force an abandonment of Kherson. Progress has been slow, grinding and costly. Nonetheless, some 450 square miles of territory, including the important town of Dudchany, has been retaken. Note that this involved Ukraine’s use of tank formations - significant, because it highlights the relative technological backwardness of the Russian army. Its anti-tank missiles, such as the 9M133 Kornet, are heavy, unwieldy and have to be launched from a large tripod. So no equivalent of Ukraine’s lightweight shoulder-launched Javelins and Nlaws.

In the north-east Ukrainian forces have moved much faster. To avoid encirclement, Russia abandoned Izyum and Lyman in obvious haste and “redeployed” its army away from the Kharkiv oblast in order to defend Donbas. Given that this counteroffensive is Ukraine’s first attempt to proactively shape the war, it is right to call this phase three.

Putin responded to Russia’s territorial losses by ordering the partial mobilisation of his country’s reserves: 300,000 men in all. Yet not only was the call-up shambolic, with the sick and over-age being drafted, there was a rash of protest demonstrations and a mass exodus to remaining open borders: eg, Georgia. Some 200,000 men are “reported to have already gone into exile”.⁴ Evidence, surely, that wide swathes of the Russian population have not bought into Putin’s war aims. De-Nazification, saving Ukraine’s Russian minority from genocide, Ukraine and Russia being one nation - all are utterly unconvincing and certainly not worth dying for.

Like all great men down on their luck, Putin has ratcheted up the rhetoric. Eg, following the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2 - presumably by US navy submersibles - he bloodcurdlingly spoke about how he is prepared “to defend Russian land by all available means” and how the US had “set a precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons.⁵ Doubtless, Putin wants to appear just crazy enough to press the nuclear button in the attempt to frighten Kyiv into agreeing to a ceasefire and resuming negotiations on Russia’s terms.

Yet, in the Ukraine war, as any student of military affairs will tell you, the actual use of tactical - ie, not strategic - nuclear weapons, would not “confer much battlefield advantage”⁶: we have no huge concentrations of men and armour nor underground fortifications, such as the Maginot line. Of course, another option is to nuke Kyiv or Lviv. That would leave hundreds of thousands dead. But to what military advantage? Would Ukraine surrender? No. Would the US and Nato stand aside? No. Any use of nuclear weapons would, as Biden has warned, risk “Armageddon”. Take that not as the threat of initiating a suicidal generalised nuclear exchange: rather direct US involvement in some sort of 2022 version of shock and awe.

Russia has between 1,000 and 2,000 one- to 50-kiloton tactical nuclear weapons, so even the smallest of them has an explosive power bigger than the biggest conventional bomb. They are, however, crude devices. Developed in the cold war, tactical nuclear weapons represented a specific rung on a ladder of escalation in the event that a hot war broke out between Nato and the Warsaw Pact: to be used on the plains of central Europe either as a warning shot or as part of a limited nuclear war.

So it is worthwhile noting that the US has largely abandoned its arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. Not because the Pentagon has been won over by the pacifist pleadings of CND. No, the US has replaced tactical nuclear weapons with cruise missiles, which can, of course, hit targets with pinpoint accuracy. That and a new generation of bunker-busters, such as the 2.4 ton GBU-57. Delivered by a B2 stealth bomber, this Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to bore through 200 feet of protective concrete before exploding. Why bother with nuclear weapons and the resulting toxic fallout, when such conventional weapons can do the same job so much better? This is the reasoning of the US top brass.

Russian military doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons in the event of an attack on its home territory. So there are real reasons to worry, given the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and now Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. Battle zones all. Nonetheless, the attack on Kerch Bridge - doubtless organised by Ukraine’s military intelligence agency - resulted not in a retaliatory nuclear strike, but salvo after salvo of cruise and other such conventionally armed missiles and drones. Electricity and water supplies were knocked out in Kyiv and Lviv. Biden has, though, predictably, pledged to supply Ukraine with “advanced air defence systems”: eg, the medium to short range NASAMs, which can shoot down incoming drones, cruise missiles and aircraft.

Russia could, if Putin were desperate enough, explode a nuclear device in the Black Sea, over an airport or some other such target for purposes of demonstration, but what we are dealing with at this present moment is threat, display: in other words psychological warfare. There is “no current sign” that Russia is considering the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war, according to Sir Jeremy Fleming, head of GCHQ.⁷

Frankly, at least as we see things at this particular moment, the whole ‘special military operation’ has been a disaster for Putin. Far from the eastward march of Nato being halted, Putin, the generalissimus who oversaw the defeat of Georgia in a mere five days, who reunited Crimea with mother Russia and who faced down the US over Syria, has seen France, Italy and Germany thoroughly subordinated to US strategic plans, Finland and Sweden apply for Nato membership and Ukraine act as a militarily successful US proxy in what is a (Nato-armed) people’s war.

Splits and divisions

No wonder all manner of splits and divisions have opened up amongst Russia’s ruling elite. Chechnya’s strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been vocal in his criticism of military failures and the botched mobilisation of reservists. A hawk’s hawk, he positively advocates the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The same goes for Yevgeny Prigozhin of the Wagner Group. Incompetent commanders should be stripped of their medals and sent barefoot to the front with a machinegun, he demands. Given that Russia has banned any criticism of the conduct of the Ukraine war by making it illegal to “discredit the armed forces”, such language is momentous.

And the state media, military correspondents, even members of the usually pliant duma have joined in too. Minister of defence Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of general staff, in particular have been singled out. However, inevitably, suitable scapegoats have been found. General Alexander Dvornikov, commander of operations in Ukraine, has been dismissed, likewise colonel general Andrey Serdyuhov and colonel general Alexander Zhuravlev. But, so far, no-one at the top has made the call for Putin to go.

Now aged 70, he has taken no obvious measures to put in place a successor. Instead Putin appears intent on staying on as president for life. Constitutionally, prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, former director of the tax service, is next in line, but the expectation would be that the siloviki - that is the heads of the FSB, the security and spy agencies - would not want a technocrat, but one of their own, to take over when Putin dies … or is eased aside.

Though a career soldier, and not a former member of the KGB, one name that has been widely mentioned is general Sergei Surovikin. He is worth watching. Just appointed to overall command of operations in Ukraine, Surovikin, despite his fearsome reputation, eg, Syria, is, though, unlikely to turn out to be Russia’s Napoleon Bonaparte. Well, unless he can dramatically turn the tide in Ukraine. Not impossible - after all, Russia has plenty of human cannon fodder still available and possesses a huge arms industry, which, in spite of western sanctions, could be radically upgraded. Though huge sums have been spent over the last decade or so in producing superoruzhie (‘super weapons’), the gap between Russia and the US remains considerable, especially when it comes to battlefield weapons.

That Russia has been importing Iranian drones - Shahed 136s and Mohajer-6s - speaks volumes. They are cheap, but low-quality and unreliable. Russia is, in fact, way behind in producing its own drones: eg, the Kronshtadt Orion, a Bayraktar competitor, only came into service in 2020.

Surovikin could conceivably launch a blitzkrieg - sacrificing huge numbers of men, tanks and aircraft, in a second attempt to take Kyiv - and come home the conquering hero. But such a scenario is highly unlikely. More likely he will prove to be yet another scapegoat. The reason is simple. Russia has a first-rate arms industry but, because of poor strategic leadership, massive corruption and low morale, its armed forces are performing in a decidedly third-rate manner.

Predictably, therefore, Volodymyr Zelensky speaks of wanting “everything back”. This means the whole of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson - and Crimea too. In other words, total Russian defeat. An uncompromising stance, which, as we have repeatedly argued, owes less to Ukraine’s unexpected military success; more to geo-strategic calculations made in Washington and London. Zelensky, is, after all, totally dependent on US-UK arms supplies, finance and diplomatic support (the UK being very much the junior partner).

Whereas France, Italy, Germany … and Henry Kissinger, wanted a negotiated settlement, the US-UK axis - yes, emboldened by Ukraine’s successes and the Russian army’s third-rate performance - is quite prepared to sacrifice the core economies of the EU, countless Ukrainian lives and billions of dollars and pounds in paving the way for regime change in Moscow. Biden has been quite explicit on this score: the “butcher” Putin, he said, cannot be allowed to “remain in power”.⁸

Whether Ukrainian forces are really capable of driving the Russians out of Donbas and Crimea is questionable. Most military experts doubt it. So, the US is probably not banking on an outright Ukrainian victory: rather Russia getting bogged down in an unwinnable war, which creates the conditions needed, not only for the siloviki retiring Putin to a sanatorium, but much, much more.

The US wants to degrade the Russian Federation. That means one, two, three, many Ukraines - in other words, promoting ‘national liberation wars’ in Belarus, Moldova and Georgia and separatist movements too: in particular amongst the Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis, Crimean Tatars, Yakuts and Volga Tatars - all options which are surely under active consideration.

If the US state department could get its man into the Kremlin through a ‘colour revolution’ - say, the already presidential Alexei Navalny - there could well be a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement. But that would be Russia’s Versailles. The defeated country would be saddled with crippling reparations and stripped of its high-end arms industry and reduced to an oil- and gas-supplying neo-colony.

There is already excited talk of demilitarising, denuclearising and decentralising a post-Putin Russia, so as to “remove” it as a threat to world peace and make it safe for its neighbours.⁹ Meanwhile, more sober voices are being raised, warning of a Pax Sinica: that is, a post-Putin Russia throwing itself into the arms of China and becoming its Austria-Hungary. Either way, the main US strategic target remains China itself. Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjian are already set up for such purposes.

In that context, it is worth recalling Biden’s address to the regular Business Roundtable of top American CEOs back in March 2022. He talked of instituting a “new world order” - led, of course, by god’s blessed US of A.¹⁰ In such a new world order the US would, so he hopes, be able to “manage” the Eurasian world island - as envisaged by Zbigniew Brzezinski.¹¹ The result would not, however, be a new age of democracy, peace and prosperity, as he promised: rather the imposition of breakdown, warlordism and social regression.

The declining US hegemon is the bringer, nowadays, not of new heights of (capitalist) civilisation: eg, the post-World War II social democratic settlement (in western Europe, Japan and, with a final flourish, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore). No, instead it brings barbarism (eg, the contras in Nicaragua, the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, sectarian fragmentation in Iraq, civil war in Libya). Fear of the pending US new world order, surely - at least in part - explains why a whole raft of countries - and not only the ‘usual suspects’ (eg, Belarus and North Korea), but China, Iran, India … even Saudi Arabia - have all refused to join its anti-Russia crusade.

Ominously Biden says the US will “re-evaluate” its relationship with the Saudi kingdom after the decision by Opec+ to reduce oil production by two million barrels a day. Talk in Washington is of cutting off “arms sales and security assistance”: a green light for well-placed royals, who have had their noses put out of joint by heir apparent, Mohammed bin Salman, to take revenge.

Main question

There is more than a whiff of pre-World War I about the present-day situation - ie, great power military conflict seems all too possible - but with the added danger of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. However, tragically, what is lacking is a viable socialist alternative.

Despite the betrayal of August 1914, two generations of workers were educated in Marxism by the Second International and its mass parties. The working class had state power nearly within its grasp in a string of countries - itself a factor in the descent into the abyss. The ruling classes of Germany, Russia, Austria, France, Italy and Britain preferred war to revolution and socialism.

Today the general secretaries of the countless confessional sects hold out the promise to their little band of followers that we are on the cusp of another Russian Revolution. The comforting myth is that the Bolsheviks went from nothing to everything in the eight short months between February and October 1917. Absolute and total nonsense, of course. From 1905 onwards, despite periods of brutal repression, the Bolsheviks were, in fact, the majority party of the working class. Proved by newspaper circulation figures, workplace donations, duma, trade union and, from the summer of 1917 onwards, soviet elections in Petrograd, Moscow and other such big cities.

No, we must do away with sect delusions - along with broad frontism and left Labourism - and get down to the serious business of uniting in the common struggle to build a mass Communist Party here in Britain and internationally. That is the main question of the day.

There has been a recent uptick in various individuals and little groups declaring themselves to be communist. If they are worthwhile, however, not mere social media poseurs, they will contact and enter into negotiations with the CPGB’s Provisional Central Committee.

This is no moment for time wasters: we face the very real threat of a World War III along with the reality of global warming reaching a qualitative tipping point. We have a world to save.

Sun Tzu The art of war New Delhi 2011, p31.↩︎
www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-russia-saboteurs.↩︎
Newsweek October 8 2022.↩︎
Financial Times October 6 2022.↩︎
tass.com/politics/1516155.↩︎
www.defenseone.com/technology/2022/10/tactical-russian-nuke-wouldnt-confer-much-battlefield-advantage-experts-say/378181.↩︎
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63207771.↩︎
The Guardian March 26 2022.↩︎
neweasterneurope.eu/2022/03/17/the-7d-plan-for-a-post-putin-russia-to-ensure-global-security.↩︎
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/21/remarks-by-president-biden-before-business-roundtables-ceo-quarterly-meeting.↩︎
Z Brzezinski The grand chessboard New York 1997, p30.↩︎