Ukraine's Offensive Remains Stalled: Western Media Begins Admitting Failures

Update on the conflict in Ukraine for August 9, 2023:

- Western analysts and media sources are beginning to admit the poor progress, heavy losses, and fundamental flaws of the Ukrainian offensive and beyond that, the unsustainable nature of the proxy war in the first place;

- Ukraine is shifting away from attempts to storm Russian lines and attempting instead to conduct attritional warfare, however, it lacks the material resources to do so which necessitated “storming” tactics in the first place;

- As Ukraine’s offensive falters on the battlefield, Kiev and its Western sponsors have been focusing on aerial and naval drone strikes to create the illusion Ukraine maintains the initiative;

- Quantities of artillery, armor, and trained manpower determine the duration of Ukraine’s offensive. The disposition of both Ukrainian and Russian forces including the reserves of both sides will determine if a breakthrough will occur;

- Russian military industrial capacity and the material resources it produces for the ongoing military operation ensures that no matter where Ukraine’s offensive ends on the battlefield, it will leave Ukrainian forces exhausted, depleted, and unable to sustain their fighting capacity;

- Industrial capability between the collective West and both Russia and China is and will remain into the foreseeable future leaning in favor of Russia and China;

- The West gambled and lost on “small wars” as it enters an end game for geopolitical unipolarity against Russia and China and the reality that modern warfare against peer and near-peer competitors requires industrial capacity the West doesn’t have and cannot obtain;

References:

NYT - ‘It’s Not a Sprint,’ Ukraine’s Marines Insist. ‘It’s a Marathon.’ (August 7, 2023):
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/world/europe/ukraine-marines-counteroffensive.html
US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence - Defeating the Russian Battalion Tactical Group (2017):
https://www.moore.army.mil/armor/earmor/content/issues/2017/spring/2Fiore17.pdf
Vox - What went wrong in Ukraine’s counteroffensive (August 8, 2023):
https://www.vox.com/23819064/ukraine-war-counteroffensive-russia-mines-tanks
New York Times - U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin’s advisers misinformed him on Ukraine. (March 2022):
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/world/europe/putin-advisers-ukraine.html
CNN - Western allies receive increasingly ‘sobering’ updates on Ukraine’s counteroffensive: ‘This is the most difficult time of the war’ (August 8, 2023):
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/08/politics/ukraine-counteroffensive-us-briefings/index.html

Syrian War Headlines

The New Yorker - The Redirection (by Seymour Hersh, 2007):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
Guardian - U.S. launches secret drone campaign to hunt Islamic State leaders in Syria (2015):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/07/russia-airstrikes-syria-not-targetting-isis
Washington Post - Russia’s military is unlikely to turn the tide in Syria’s war (2015):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russias-military-is-unlikely-to-turn-the-tide-in-syrias-war/2015/10/03/1b9fff04-686a-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html
NYT - Obama Sees Russia Failing in Syria Effort (2015):
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/world/middleeast/syria-russia-airstrikes.html
VOX - Why Putin is doomed to fail in Syria (2015):
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9431773/putin-russia-syria-doomed

Arming & Training the “Syrian Rebels”

NYT - Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A. (2013):
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/world/middleeast/arms-airlift-to-syrian-rebels-expands-with-cia-aid.html
Brookings Institution - An Army to Defeat Assad: How to Turn Syria’s Opposition Into a Real Fighting Force (2014):
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/an-army-to-defeat-assad-how-to-turn-syrias-opposition-into-a-real-fighting-force/
DW - The demise of the Free Syrian Army (2018):
https://www.dw.com/en/free-syrian-army-turns-to-turkey-for-support-in-war-against-assad/a-42462658

Industrial Output as the Determining Factor

RUSI - The Return of Industrial Warfare (June 2022):
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare

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