Lt. Col. James Zumwalt is a retired Marine infantry officer who served in the Vietnam War, the 1989 intervention into Panama and Desert Storm. He is a senior analyst for Ravenna Associates and heads a security consulting firm named after his father: Admiral Zumwalt & Consultants, Inc.
One key to a successful military operation is communication. Perhaps Russia is discovering this too late as it is in the second week of its invasion of Ukraine – an operation already lasting much longer than anticipated. Invading Ukraine, Russia obviously failed to grasp the import of good communications enhancing unit coordination and timely responses to evolving situations on the battlefield. Nor does it appear the Russians gave too much thought to establishing their logistical supply lines.
Both of these factors above contributed greatly to America’s immense success during the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991). They were factors resulting in Saddam Hussein’s army, ranked the world’s fourth-largest at the time, being defeated in a four-day ground war after Iraq’s unprovoked invasion of Kuwait.
While other factors influenced a quick resolution to the war against Iraq as well, such as open desert terrain, some of the same factors making Hussein’s army look impressive on paper but hollow in combat are plaguing the Russians.
When the Persian Gulf War ended, this author was able to interrogate a number of Iraqi army senior commanders. The most astonishing lesson learned was the absence of communication. It was so lacking that many Iraqi commanders had no idea what Iraqi units were operating on their flanks and knew even less about the U.S. forces they were confronting.
Iraqi commanders acknowledged that despite their impressive array of weaponry, they had never conducted combined arms training to familiarize their units on how to interact together on the battlefield. But why were such training and communications ignored?
Undoubtedly, it boiled down to a dictator’s sense of security. The one thing dictators fear more than anything else is a coup. Because Hussein feared this, he would never allow all his military commanders to train together. He worried leaving them alone might be conducive to their plotting against him. He felt safer having them train separately so they had no opportunity to determine if their peers were coup-inclined or not.
Another factor reflecting upon the Iraqi army’s poor performance during the conflict was that little effort was made to explain to the average soldier what was going on. While some knew they would be fighting U.S. forces, few realized the U.S. was part of a 35-nation coalition, including several other Arab countries, organized to evict Iraq from Kuwait.
Thus, a conflict Hussein promised would be the “Mother of all Battles” fizzled as the Iraqi army had been stripped of its fighting spirit, deprived of training to hone its combat skills, and left in a state of ignorance by its leaders. As noted, American forces, which provided the backbone of the operation to evict Iraq from Kuwait, achieved their mission in a four-day ground war, despite having to transport men, equipment, and supplies thousands of miles, positioning same in neighboring Saudi Arabia before entering Kuwait. As U.S. forces quickly advanced into Kuwait, we also had to establish logistical supply lines. But at no time during the conflict were U.S. forces deprived of fuel, ammunition, or food.
Such has not been the case for the Russian invaders. Despite having positioned an invading force of 150,000-200,000 on its border with Ukraine and faced with establishing much shorter logistical supply lines after the “peacekeeping” operation began, Russia has witnessed what was supposed to be a blitzkrieg invasion, along the lines of what the U.S. accomplished in Kuwait, bog down due to logistical nightmares.
Radio intercepts of Russian forces in Ukraine reveal there are serious communication problems, causing them to be in “complete disarray” according to British intelligence sources. Units are bogged down for lack of fuel and Russian soldiers are unable to fight for lack of ammunition. These intercepts also reveal the Russians are demoralized – some units have gone days without food. The low morale and lack of concern of senior commanders to address the needs of their fighting force have resulted in soldiers sabotaging their own vehicles by punching holes in their gas tanks and others surrendering. Conversations show some signs of moral courage among Russian troops that, in at least one case, refused to carry out an order from central command to conduct an artillery strike on Ukrainian civilians (referred to as “the goods”).
Other intercepts reveal parties losing their tempers, insulting each other, or crying as they talk. Some communications report soldiers taking action on their own, withdrawing back to Russia. No effort seems to be made by commanders to stop open communications by their troops using devices, such as walkie-talkies, that can easily be monitored. This also allows evidence about war crimes to be collected.
Additionally, there has been little communication down the chain of command as to what the Russian soldiers were told about going into Ukraine. Many Russian prisoners have reported they were led to believe they were on a training mission. A text message recovered from the cell phone of a slain soldier revealed he had sent his mother a message about how they were on a training mission one minute and a combat mission the next. He wrote “I’m afraid” before being killed minutes later.
Those who did recognize they were undertaking an invasion of Ukraine were told it would be a cakewalk. Ukraine reports that ‘cakewalk’ has so far killed an estimated 5,300 Russian soldiers.
Undoubtedly, Putin was told by his military commanders his invasion force was adequate to do the job. At some point, to deflect blame from himself, Putin will definitely hold his commanders accountable.
The longer Russia’s beleaguered blitzkrieg takes to complete, and the fact it may need assistance from its Belarus ally to do so, has been an absolute embarrassment for Putin. He is being forced to go additional rounds against a militarily weaker nation but one armed with an unflappable national spirit. As Putin may still bully the West with his nuclear arms, his aggression in Ukraine has demonstrated his conventional force – as far as NATO should be concerned – may well just be a tail-chasing paper tiger.
The paper tiger scenario is even scarier with a leader accessible to nuclear weapons.