Lend-Lease and Western Strategy [Expert View]
We publish an expert view of Frank Ledwidge, who agreed to present us his assessment of the situation of the war in Ukraine. The text will be published in Molfar's daily military analytics on our Medium channel. The text of the author is published without changes.
Lend-Lease and Western Strategy
The new 'Lend Lease Act constitutes the embodiment of the declared US (and therefore NATO) policy announced by Lloyd Austin to see Russia "weakened to the point that it can’t do things like invade Ukraine”. The sum dedicated to military aid is about $27 billion (out of the total $40 billion announced). I think Russian defence budget this year is about $66 billion.
There should be no ambiguity about this. It is now US (and therefore Nato) policy to damage the Russian armed forces to a degree from which it will take a very long time to recover. The question is how they wish to do that. From the Ukrainian perspective this is very good news indeed - provided the US and its allies maintain their focus on defeating the Russian Army in the field. There are signs that the allies are not aligned with Ukraine on strategic objectives. Ben Wallace, the UK Secretary of Defence, said on Wednesday that the key has to be that we - help Ukraine negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness. And I think that's the most important thing. What they do with that choice is actually up to Ukraine'
This may look fine. However, there is a tension here. The day before he talked about ensuring that 'dishonour and defeat' are the fate of the Russian Army.
These are two very different things, and may point to a reluctance to see, and therefore support, Ukraine to pursue its aims of expelling the Russian Army from its territory. If the US and NATO share the Ukrainian declared objective, the resources set aside by the Lend Lease Act can equip the Ukrainian Army to counterattack in force to retake their land. In material terms, if the West is serious, it must consider equipping the Ukrainian Army with NATO weapons and institutionalise a training programme for Ukrainian soldiers to use them well.
For example, since this is not likely to be a short war, they might consider equipping some new units, or outstanding existing ones such as the First Tank Brigade with some of the many hundreds of M1 Abrams tanks in storage, rather than backfilling losses with old T72s
The next three months will determine if the west is looking to use Ukraine, frankly, as a proxy to embroil Russian forces for months or years - in which case a drip-feed of weapons will continue; or whether is is serious in Wallace's words - in bringing dishonour and defeat to the Russian army.
It must be conceded that there is a danger in 'catastrophic success'. It is entirely possible that Wallace, and others' concern is built around the prospect of Russia escalating to low-yield nuclear weapons in the event of a total collapse of Russian forces. In other words, the intention may not be to 'lock in' a stalemate to continue to bleed Russia, but rather to limit Ukraine's success.
From the strategic perspective, it is vital that both Ukraine and US/UK/NATO are very clear indeed on the answer to the question 'what is the strategic objective?' It is important that their answers are the same.
This does not seem to be the case now.
Heat Map of Russian Cellphones
We don't hear much about the US/NATO war in Afghanistan these days, understandably perhaps. The campaign was a strategic and operational failure. However there was a great many tactical innovations made. One of those was in the advances in the use of signals intelligence for targeting purposes.
Many hundreds of Taliban operators were killed because they persisted in carrying cellphones which were linked to them. The drone or air attacks were directed at their phone signals. Such attacks were known as 'signature strikes. After a few years of this, they learned their lesson and stopped.
I was talking to a friend involved in these strikes who observed (about the heat map of Russian cellphones) 'even the most stupid British soldier knows not to carry a cellphone on operations' .
The fact that there are clearly at least hundreds, or maybe thousands, of Russian troops carrying phones confirms a lack of consciousness of operational security, or carelessness as well as extremely poor discipline as well as a general unprofessional approach.
This much is clear. There is one area which does indeed seem to lie behind Izium where there does seem to be a particular concentration of signals. Looking at its location, it is be a staging area or dispersed billeting zone.
US Targeting Intelligence
As to the US denial that they provide targeting intelligence is interesting. However, one does suspect that there is a little but of sophistry going on. Open source intelligence is clear that NATO intelligence gathering aircraft (and refuelling aircraft, which indicates other assets invisible to eg flightradar24.com) are constantly on patrol. They are not there for curiosity or sightseeing.
One major role is identifying and locating signals sources, such as command posts, individual phones etc, as they did in Afghanistan. Ukraine also has its own excellent signals intelligence units which certainly will be doing targeting -based on the fusion of the information they receive from NATO air, cyber and space assets, and their own.