Strategy

 source: Le Figaro, le 17 février, 2022

auteur: Paul Sugy

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Ukraine: "If the war takes place, it will be of very high intensity, with extremely violent use of artillery"

INTERVIEW – The art of war consists in increasing one's freedom of action as much as possible, recalls political scientist and specialist in military strategy Joseph Henrotin. He believes that the deployment of Russian forces by the Kremlin only responded to this one rule: if war breaks out, it will be violent, he predicts.

Joseph Henrotin is editor-in-chief of the journal Defense and International Security and research fellow at the Center for Analysis and Forecasting of International Risks. He is notably the author of a Precis of military strategy (ISC, 2018).

LE FIGARO.- Do you share Washington's concern, which is warning of a possible imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russia  ?

Joseph HENROTIN.- Everything ultimately depends on what is meant by "invasion of Ukraine". It's not white or black, concretely Russia has sufficient military capacity at the border to secure the annexation of the separatist republics of the Dombass region, or even to take territorial pawns, perhaps  the city of Mariupol located on the Sea of ​​Azov. In practice, the Russians have therefore massed around 175,000 men around Ukraine. And in theory, therefore, the possibilities open to Russia are numerous.

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https://www.areion24.news/2022/02/02/la-question-ukrainienne-entre-le-declaratoire-et-loperationnel/

source: Blog entry for Joseph Henrotin, 'Défense et Sécurité Internationale' magazine

February 2, 2022

Translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

The Ukrainian question, between the declaratory and the operational

In several Russian attack scenarios, crossing the Dnieper into Ukraine could be problematic. (© Sergey Rusanov/Shutterstock)

The news of the last few months will have been marked by the rise in power of the Russian system on the borders of Ukraine, in Russia but also in Belarus. US intelligence, relayed by the Washington Post, thus indicates that 175,000 men were being deployed at the beginning of December 2021, eventually organized into around a hundred combined arms battalions (around 50 being then deployed). Reserve regiments of 100,000 men would also be present. At the beginning of February, units of the Russian national guard – in these last two cases, as many useful capacities in stabilization – were also deployed. According to the Pentagon, an attack could be launched from the start of 2022, in particular because all the logistical, artillery and engineering support has been deployed. The volume of forces would, still according to the same sources, be twice as large as that committed in the spring of 2021, for border exercises which had already strained relations.

Strategically, the situation is even more complex.It is first necessary to step back to put into perspective all of Moscow's actions. The most obvious is the November 16 anti-satellite launch. A ground-fired missile destroyed Kosmos-1408 – a roughly one-tonne satellite launched in 1982 – generating 1,500 pieces of debris and for a time forcing ISS astronauts – including Russians – to seek refuge in their lifeboats. Whether or not the test was coordinated with the buildup of forces on Ukraine's border, Russian activity is notable, as are continued patrols and overflights in the Black and Baltic Seas. To complete the picture, Russia officially exited the Open Skies treaty on December 19. Finally, the deployment of russian forces at the Ukrainian border has come with a series of demands in the form of treaty changes addressed to the United States and NATO - thus by-passing both Ukraine itself and the EU.

The said treaties do appear to be difficult to accept as such. Features include in particular the obligation for the United States to refuse applications for NATO membership from former members of the USSR; the refusal to deploy forces in areas where they could be seen as a threat by Russia or the United States; refusal to deploy combat aircraft or ships in international airspace and seas; the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from the territory of those who possess them – thus signifying the end of NATO's “double key” mechanism; refusal to deploy intermediate-range or short-range missiles outside their national territory. Concretely, therefore, the underlying proposition results in the dismantling the principal collective defense mechanism of NATO while seeming to show a willingness to dialogue from Russia itself.

On the strategic-operative level, the Russian deployment obviously raises the question of its use. On the one hand, 275,000 properly supported and trained men represent a relevant volume of force for a major offensive against a country whose army is structurally in difficulty (see our file in DSI n°157). The Russian army has indeed progressed since 2008 and a war in Georgia that bears many lessons. The re-equipment, the multiplication of surprise exercises based on the mobilization of forces – and having, beyond that, an obvious declaratory function – then the engagement in Syria showed a coherent Russian increase in power over the entire DORESE spectrum (Doctrine, organization, human resources, equipment, support, training). On another hand, putting in place a coherent attack force does not mean itneeds to be used: sound strategy is never the inevitable.

In fact, potential Russian activitiess can be drawn along a broad spectrum. Structural since mid-January, harassment actions – cyber actions, numerous bomb threats – do not produce strategic effects per se – on the contrary, they are likely to strengthen Ukrainian societal resilience – but can support other forms of action. Diplomatic coercion is an option to obtain some or all of the benefits Moscow seeks without having to fight. De facto, the Europeans remain very divided on the question of Ukraine's accession to NATO and the pressure in the field of military declaration is a way of reminding them that Article 5 may have to be respected in the future … Enough to chill the most pacifist States. The option of an attack is obviously not to be ruled out, but what actions are we talking about exactly? Is it a territorial pledge accompanied by the installation of a buffer zone? A full-fledged invasion of Ukraine? If yes, how far? Of support for separatist republics? Between the two extremes of political pressure and offensive action, a third category of actions could see the military device being used in support of a process of annexation of the two separatist republics, for example. It would thenbe a simple matter of securing these positions against Ukranian counter-attack -- or perhaps provoking it.

The Russian organic scheme however, might well leave observers skeptical and has tactical-operative implications. It seems indeed perfectly suited to counter a (techno-) defensive guerrilla on Ukrainian soil – if the forces of Kiev are dysfunctional at the operational and strategic levels, they are remarkably combative at the tactical level, where the initiative is left to the combatants . In recent years, Russia has reformed its forces around the brigade, eliminating, before reintroducing it, the division (see DSI special issue n° 71). At the same time, the integrated joint battalions are an organic form certainly adapted to the rotation of forces over time – they come from the Russian brigades – but whose relevance had been particularly highlighted a few years after the invasion of Afghanistan, when the use of divisions had proved unsuited to the realities of guerrilla warfare. However, the latter will undoubtedly be the most relevant form of defense for Ukraine given the state of its forces. Battal-ready battle groups with strong artillery and air support could quickly conduct counter-guerrilla warfare while conducting a rapid advance centered on territorial control.

The question of the response to oppose to Russia in the event of an attack remains delicate. Although it is not a member of NATO, Ukraine benefits from the security guarantees that were included in the Budapest memorandum. Signed in 1994, it guarantees the maintenance of Ukrainian territorial integrity by the signatories – Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, later joined by China and France – against the return to Russia of Soviet nuclear weapons. Widely undermined by the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the memorandum remains in force. In this case, few concrete rpoposals are being put forward by the non-Russian guarantors of the memorandum: in December, the United States spoke of a robust response and military deployments in Eastern Europe; France, which evokes massive strategic consequences  ”, plays deterrence by ambiguity, but in a context where the options are, concretely, few. Sanctions that would be above all economic would come up against the fact that Moscow can also implement its own retaliatory measures. Indeed, the gas dependence of European countries is constantly growing and a disruption of supplies in the middle of winter would not be without consequences for the image of Paris – which has just taken over the presidency of the European Union – in the various capitals of said Union… These measures would have little impact in Moscow: Russian gas will easily find buyers in China. 

At the beginning of February, the picture is hardly more encouraging : the threat of a Russian ousting of Swift and therefore of a part of the global banking network, periodically agitated, did not have an impact on Russian behavior. While France is proposing the establishment of an EFP (Enhanced Forward Presence) type structure in Romania and several European states are announcing deployments – notably the Netherlands in Bulgaria – their deterrent value is weak with regard to the Ukrainian question. . On the contrary even, a refocusing on the members of NATO, moreover in small quantities – 2 Dutch F-35s in Bulgaria – could be misinterpreted by Moscow. On the other hand, the deployment of a FREMM – a building capable of carrying cruise missiles, capable of providing anti-aircraft defense and which above all runs the risk of hitting a French building – in the Ukrainian port of Odessa during a Christmas period which may have left bad memories appeared as a model of its kind. Model moreover little followed by the European navies…