One wonders who in the Administration prevented the permission to use long range missiles, or was Biden that stupid all by himself?
Here is what I publicly mused in March of 2022:
Another unbelievable act of negligence was the lack of armed counter measures by France, Germany, the UK, and the US, against the occupation of Crimea in 2014, to which they were at least morally obliged to, details see below. Including the destructing of the illegal bridge (voted illegal by the United Nations General Assembly), connecting Crimea with Russia proper, helping Crimea become a staging ground for attacking southern Ukraine.
So of all the countries in the World it was only Turkey which enabled in 2021 the Ukraine to pursue Fulda-type Vorwärtsverteidigung (an originally German concept, see here: [ https://bit.ly/3tOX2UO ]).
With the Turkish drones the Ukrainian Army was able early to silence Russian furnished artillery batteries in the Donbass, which destroyed their villages across the line of separation established in the so-called Minsk-Agreement [https://bit.ly/3AjNpyw ], another useless Chamberlain-Daladier-type of peace at all costs. And doing this without UKRAINE “transgressing” over the established lines of separation between proper Ukrainian forces and the Russian proxies in Ukraine in the middle of their own Ukraine territory. Bravo Turkey! From the putainesque (look it up: it is French for whore-like) outburst of Putin accusing Turkey to militarize the conflict (what gall!) it is clear the drones are an effective deterring Vorwärtsverteidigung. But the Ukraine needs thousands, not just 126, just like they need (and needed) 10 of thousands MILAN.
Good introduction into what is at stake here can be gained from Dyson Freeman’s description of his work in WW2 in the British Strategic Bomber Command. [https://bit.ly/3KAWwPR ] I can vividly imagine Russian strategists scratching their head over the alternatives of attacking with great force on one (or a few) spots along the 700 miles border between Belarus and Ukraine, and the 1250 miles between Russia and Ukraine, or a widely distributed attacks by a few tanks in dozens of places. Single tanks are very vulnerable against attacks from the air. The reduced turret height flat Russian tanks cannot well defend themselves against attacks from above. In WW2 one German Pilot, a Colonel Rudel, destroyed over 500 tanks with his StuKa. Tanks depend on neighboring tanks to defend against drone based missiles. But concentration of tanks can be attacked by a larger variety of weapons. Putin was mad at Turkey because Drones can be relocated quickly, and due to satellite Intelligence, the Russian posture will be known in rough outlays ahead of border penetration.
NATO would have had 6 years to quietly help Ukraine to saturate Ukrainian defense forces with anti-tank and anti-aircraft defensive weapons of all sorts. We missed it, NATO failed. Belatedly the UK has started to physically arm Ukraine at a faster clip, while US export licenses linger in the State Department’s red tape.
And “no-boots-on-the-ground” lingers in the so-called experts heads who focus on the self-defeating “no-escalation”. Imagine France and UK in 1939 not declaring War on Germany after the attack on Poland, and the and the US not issuing the “unconditional surrender demand”, because it would have aggravated Hitler. We need now an “unconditional retreat” demand and the start of long range missile bombardments on targets in Belorussia and Russia. And of the NATO Navies guaranteeing the “law-of-the-sea” access to Mariupol , Odessa, and other cities. And immobilizing Russian ships which send missiles into Ukraine.
Every day we wait, we will regret and will cost much life and money. Infrastructure damage to Ukraine is already estimated to be about $100 Billion. All this can be done without breaking the fetish of “no boots on the ground”. The law of war is mostly common law, and Putin’s Russia has set the markers of what can be done against Russia.
Ukraine ‘s population consists of about 30% cultural Russians, who in the majority do not want to be part of Russia, as Yale studies have established 2011. It is true the Donbass problem originally arose because nationalistic Ukrainians stupidly were trying to suppress the Russian Culture and wanted to Ukrainify the Donbass, instead of treating them like Swiss Germans treated 100s of years ago their French, Romansch, and Italian minorities. And naturally Putin used the opportunity to stir up trouble. But the problems of and with the Russian Minority was solved, theoretically, with the so-called Minsk-Agreement. [https://bit.ly/3AjNpyw ] Except the Russian side naturally did not keep their promises.
When Russia occupied illegally and against past international agreements the Crimea, Russia in 2014 very nearly managed to establish a land corridor through southern Ukraine through the (Russian majority) Mariupol. Preventing this was very costly for the Ukraine Army, in personal and material, because the Ukraine Army had no good anti-tank weapons.
Internationally for all of the world there is more at stake: nuclear proliferation.
When the Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons and missiles it had in possession when the USSR dissolved, promises were made from China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the US (in alphabetical order) to guaranty Ukraine’s borders in exchange for Ukraine’s 1000’s of nuclear weapons and missiles. The weaseling now out of the, at least moral, obligation to help Ukraine, by of the western powers with respect of the annexing of the Crimea by Russia, tells North Korea that the only justifiable security decision (from their national interest) is having nuclear weapons and missiles. Giving up their nuclear weapons and stopping development of long-rand missiles would be sheer stupidity from a N. Korean point of view, because any agreement is subject to the whims of an American President. And promises of food sanction relief are worthless, as proven by Trump. Kim Jong-un, a Nuclear Physicist himself, is no idiot [ some details about him, see here https://bit.ly/3qUr9rL ]
From the Iranian point of view, in hindsight it must look like reckless naiveté that in 2015 they gave up 1000s of kilograms of enriched Uranium (it was shipped to Russia for safekeeping, how ironic), and more important, disable permanently their Plutonium producing reactor. Especially the latter shows that they were serious with their claimed religious belief that the development of nuclear weapons was immoral. The fastest way to a nuclear bomb, as the US showed in WW2, is through Plutonium production. But, none of the promised removal of food and medical sanctions happened, because Trump’s US found a different pretense for enhanced sanctions.
Now the US has accused Iran that “they” have broken the US-Russia-China-France-Germany-Great Britain agreement with Iran, and levied even tougher food and medical item sanctions. But it was the US which destroyed the agreement using fake arguments for sharper sanctions.
Now the US with great fanfare states” “We are back, you have to forgive our violation of international law, because it just was the bad Trump”. And the US is naively surprised that Iranians have elected a hard line Government, unwilling to belief the US ever again. The honest US scientist-negotiator Ernest Moniz must feel like a treacherous double-tongued liar.
And with respect to Ukraine the US was not any better than Merkel: they gave them “non-lethal” weapons, what idiocy, and the few lethal weapons had many restrictions on them. And sniper rifles were outright denied, because you could use them to shoot at the enemy. Imagine!
As an example: the recent grandiose donation of 5 transport helicopters consisted of Russian build M5 helicopters which were in Ukraine anyhow, being brought there some time ago from Afghanistan for repairs. MAGA through-and-through. The world laughs at the US.
To saturate the country with enough anti-tank weapons like the Javelin thousands are needed, not 225 here, and 350 there. And the Turkish Drones have to be by the hundreds and not by the dozen. So it may be too little too late, especially since transfer to Ukraine from the US seems to be wrapped up in State Department red tape. And the Germans continue to refuse to transfer MILANs themselves, or even allow export licenses to the Baltic States who have them. They will probably send a few field hospitals for the Ukrainian victims of a Russian assault.
Of course, the Ukrainians have already been doing this with their own weaponry. For example, today they targeted a weapons factory in Izhevsk (1250 km from Ukraine). All reasonable rationales for not letting Western-supplied weapons do the same have long since fallen away.
It is till too little: Ukraine need missiles which can reach the Iranian built drone factories in Siberia,
Let's say: 1200 miles would be a good number.
Missiles may not destroy the whole factory, but it will make Russians t not want to work there. And it proves to the Russian people that Putin's fairy tail of a limited anti-Nazi police action is a lie.
Without saying so loudly, NATO should support anything which could help regime change in Russia. let's not repeat the ill advised peace-at-any-price Sudeten Peace Agreement (Munich) of 1938 which pulled the rug out from an well advanced plan of the German generals to remove Hitler because of military adventurism.
Munich proved to Hitler the western allies would do nothing. The way to attacking Poland and WW2 was free.
These arguments have been brought nearly 3 years ago - see here: [ https://bit.ly/3BxTyYq ] - and nothing happened. And nothing will happen now, because there is resistance, sabotage, in the Administration. It is not clear if this is just or mainly Sullivan, but every time weapons were authorized for the Ukraine, starting with the lowly Anti-tank weapons, the State Department and the National Security advisor have prevented speedy delivery, or delivery at all.
As I wrote as a summary at different occasion in April of 2022:
Enrichment: I wrote on March 8, 2022, and every thought I exposed is still true:
In an 11–23 December 2015 study by the Razumkov Centre taken in all regions of Ukraine other than Russian-annexed Crimea, and separatist controlled Donetsk, and Luhansk, a majority considered Ukrainian their native language (60%), followed by Russian (15%), while 22% used both languages equally. Two percent had another native language. For the preferred language of work, an equal amount chose either Ukrainian or Russian (37%) and 21% communicated bilingually. The study polled 10,071 individuals and held a 1% margin of error. And like Poles in the Polish Corridor 100 years ago liked Polish but did not want to be a part of Poland, a large majority of Russians in large cities like Mariupol like their Russian Culture, but do not want be part of Russia. About the Polish Prussians the saying went: "They may have hated the kaiser, but they loved the King".
I remember, as if it would be yesterday, a discussion in the 70s with, and lecture to me by, German naval military officer students, we all sitting on the concrete steps in front of the Computer Center of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. At NPS I was a Physics Faculty member; at first as NATO Fellow, and later with a personal grant from NSF. That morning, with the invitation of the Historian Marine Corps Colonel Professor Russell Stolfi, I had given a talk to the National Security Department of NPS, explaining why Germans were against stationing of missiles and using neutron bombs to fend off a Soviet attack though the infamous Fulda Gap. My friendship with Stolfi came from me telling him about Auftragstaktik in the German Wars of Unification 1864 to 1871 and in WW1 We became friends In particular after he researched, and found true, my obviously outlandish claim (I am ironic) that the highest Prussian, Bavarian, Hessian etc. [remember there was no German Army, just a German High Command] medal was given only for acts performed without order or against against a direct order. This Verdienstmedallie was given 1703 times in WW1.
One of my points in the lecture was that the average distance between German Villages was less than 2 miles, negating the purported advantageous of the neutron bomb to only kill enemy soldiers, and to destroy tanks and vehicles, while leaving the German population and buildings unscathed. This was well taken by them, but the German Officers said those bombs were unnecessary anyhow, because the defending German Forces were saturated with (relatively) cheap MILAN anti-tank weapons (from French for: Missile d'infanterie léger antichar; for the monolingual: "Light anti-tank infantry missile", curiously enough milan is also French for kite). The MILAN allowed to destroy a Soviet tank from 2 miles without being exposed and endangered, a veritable asymmetric warfare. Note: no line of sight necessary, means “they” could not see “you” behind a tree or in a basement.
The MILAN were under video control by the Operator by spooling of a thin copper wire pair, so the control was difficult to interrupt, and a line-of-sight was not needed.
My German Lt. Commanders (per-dominantly) basically said: in the German environment these tanks will become rolling coffins. The MILAN was developed around 1965 together with the French Army. 60 years later there are a variety of such weapons, see here [https://bit.ly/3rJ6k1N ]. Important to note: the present day US Javelin is about 10 times as expensive ($175,000?) than the present day MILAN ER ($15,000?), in other words the Return on Investment (ROI) for the Javelin is much lower than for the MILAN. The Ukrainians themselves have developed an anti-tank weapon which at $20,000 a piece is regarded very highly by NATO, but they only have been able to produce about 2000.
In the intervening decades, MILANs have been used with great success, penetrating 4 inch of the rolled steel of tanks, or 2 m of concrete of bunkers. It was steadily upgraded to overcome countermeasures, like reactive explosive armor, the Soviets, and later Russians, have successively come up with. The last time the world saw the MILAN in action, was their use by the Kurds against the ingenuously shielded, but only brute force defended, monster trucks of the Islamic State.
In addition, drone based [ https://bit.ly/3KoMS2Z ] anti-tank weapons have been developed, in particular by Turkey. The Turkish drones were decisive, for example, to save the NATO supported Libyan Government a few years ago. Ambushing tanks simultaneously from above and several sides with a mixture of HEAT ( High Explosive Anti-Tank ), EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator) and hydrodynamic penetration (HDP) drone-based anti-tank weapons, those Turkish swarms named Kargu can overcome the best designed active layer defense. With $100,000s worth of hardware you defeat a $6,000,000 tank. Cheap, asymmetric warfare at its best. It is amusing to read the vociferous criticism of US Defense Industry spokespeople of Turkish weapons, because they cut into the American Weapon Business’ profits. They even claim the Turkish swarms are Weapons of Mass Destruction, illegal under International Law. The US weapons Industry was very happy the Germans with the MILAN took themselves out of the business.
Even more amusing if you know that Turkey started to work on Weapons only after the US punished them with an US cure-all Weapons Embargo, when Turkey invaded Cyprus in the 1970s. Turkey now is in the same league in small arm production and sales as China and the US. People who know me know my love of proverbs. Applicable here is: “what does not kill me, makes me stronger”. Unfortunately the US has not applied this to their treatment of Iran and North Korea.
Now here is Merkel’s mistake: She refused in 2014 to arm the Ukrainian Army with MILANs when Russia annexed the Crimea, because then Ukrainians might believe there would be a military solution to the problem with the eastern, culturally Russian, Ukrainian provinces (the Donbass). And it might increase tensions. And President Obama was not any better.
But with the refuse to strengthen defensive capabilities of the Ukrainians, it was them who allowed Putin a military solution in his favor. The US continued along these lines until recently. Unfortunately the Social Democrat lead new German Government seem to follow the same dead-end-street.
Tuesday, Mar 6, 2022 · 7:49:38 AM PST · Abraham1771
Thank you for your essay. I enjoyed reading it. Please permit me to quibble just a bit about the reasons for the restrictions on using US donated missiles to strike deeply into Russia to destroy the airfields and bombers. You mentioned that the original reason for the restriction was to avoid escalating the war to a nuclear exchange. I suspect there is another reason, other than the fear of a nuclear strike, for restricting Ukraine from using US donated ATACMs to strike military targets located deeply within Russia. We are all alive now because for over 70 years, the two rival super powers, the US and the USSR/Russia, never fired a missile onto the other's homeland. And neither super power armed a third-party nation with whom their rival super power was at war with missiles for striking the other super power's homeland. If we were to grant Ukraine permission to use US donated ATACMs to strike 280 miles deep into Russia, why would Russia hesitate to arm a US enemy with missiles to strike targets deep within our own homeland? Allowing Ukraine to use US donated missiles to strike far inside Russia would set a dangerous precedent, one I fear we would have cause to regret in the future.
You really have to ask this? As a scientist familiar with logical and fact based thinking? Where due to the wonders of the Internet the facts are readily available.
I so agree with your entire case.
Fully agree. We should have doubled down on our Ukraine support long before now, but it is not too late to take all the steps you suggest.
One wonders who in the Administration prevented the permission to use long range missiles, or was Biden that stupid all by himself?
Here is what I publicly mused in March of 2022:
Another unbelievable act of negligence was the lack of armed counter measures by France, Germany, the UK, and the US, against the occupation of Crimea in 2014, to which they were at least morally obliged to, details see below. Including the destructing of the illegal bridge (voted illegal by the United Nations General Assembly), connecting Crimea with Russia proper, helping Crimea become a staging ground for attacking southern Ukraine.
So of all the countries in the World it was only Turkey which enabled in 2021 the Ukraine to pursue Fulda-type Vorwärtsverteidigung (an originally German concept, see here: [ https://bit.ly/3tOX2UO ]).
With the Turkish drones the Ukrainian Army was able early to silence Russian furnished artillery batteries in the Donbass, which destroyed their villages across the line of separation established in the so-called Minsk-Agreement [https://bit.ly/3AjNpyw ], another useless Chamberlain-Daladier-type of peace at all costs. And doing this without UKRAINE “transgressing” over the established lines of separation between proper Ukrainian forces and the Russian proxies in Ukraine in the middle of their own Ukraine territory. Bravo Turkey! From the putainesque (look it up: it is French for whore-like) outburst of Putin accusing Turkey to militarize the conflict (what gall!) it is clear the drones are an effective deterring Vorwärtsverteidigung. But the Ukraine needs thousands, not just 126, just like they need (and needed) 10 of thousands MILAN.
Good introduction into what is at stake here can be gained from Dyson Freeman’s description of his work in WW2 in the British Strategic Bomber Command. [https://bit.ly/3KAWwPR ] I can vividly imagine Russian strategists scratching their head over the alternatives of attacking with great force on one (or a few) spots along the 700 miles border between Belarus and Ukraine, and the 1250 miles between Russia and Ukraine, or a widely distributed attacks by a few tanks in dozens of places. Single tanks are very vulnerable against attacks from the air. The reduced turret height flat Russian tanks cannot well defend themselves against attacks from above. In WW2 one German Pilot, a Colonel Rudel, destroyed over 500 tanks with his StuKa. Tanks depend on neighboring tanks to defend against drone based missiles. But concentration of tanks can be attacked by a larger variety of weapons. Putin was mad at Turkey because Drones can be relocated quickly, and due to satellite Intelligence, the Russian posture will be known in rough outlays ahead of border penetration.
NATO would have had 6 years to quietly help Ukraine to saturate Ukrainian defense forces with anti-tank and anti-aircraft defensive weapons of all sorts. We missed it, NATO failed. Belatedly the UK has started to physically arm Ukraine at a faster clip, while US export licenses linger in the State Department’s red tape.
And “no-boots-on-the-ground” lingers in the so-called experts heads who focus on the self-defeating “no-escalation”. Imagine France and UK in 1939 not declaring War on Germany after the attack on Poland, and the and the US not issuing the “unconditional surrender demand”, because it would have aggravated Hitler. We need now an “unconditional retreat” demand and the start of long range missile bombardments on targets in Belorussia and Russia. And of the NATO Navies guaranteeing the “law-of-the-sea” access to Mariupol , Odessa, and other cities. And immobilizing Russian ships which send missiles into Ukraine.
Every day we wait, we will regret and will cost much life and money. Infrastructure damage to Ukraine is already estimated to be about $100 Billion. All this can be done without breaking the fetish of “no boots on the ground”. The law of war is mostly common law, and Putin’s Russia has set the markers of what can be done against Russia.
Ukraine ‘s population consists of about 30% cultural Russians, who in the majority do not want to be part of Russia, as Yale studies have established 2011. It is true the Donbass problem originally arose because nationalistic Ukrainians stupidly were trying to suppress the Russian Culture and wanted to Ukrainify the Donbass, instead of treating them like Swiss Germans treated 100s of years ago their French, Romansch, and Italian minorities. And naturally Putin used the opportunity to stir up trouble. But the problems of and with the Russian Minority was solved, theoretically, with the so-called Minsk-Agreement. [https://bit.ly/3AjNpyw ] Except the Russian side naturally did not keep their promises.
When Russia occupied illegally and against past international agreements the Crimea, Russia in 2014 very nearly managed to establish a land corridor through southern Ukraine through the (Russian majority) Mariupol. Preventing this was very costly for the Ukraine Army, in personal and material, because the Ukraine Army had no good anti-tank weapons.
Internationally for all of the world there is more at stake: nuclear proliferation.
When the Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons and missiles it had in possession when the USSR dissolved, promises were made from China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the US (in alphabetical order) to guaranty Ukraine’s borders in exchange for Ukraine’s 1000’s of nuclear weapons and missiles. The weaseling now out of the, at least moral, obligation to help Ukraine, by of the western powers with respect of the annexing of the Crimea by Russia, tells North Korea that the only justifiable security decision (from their national interest) is having nuclear weapons and missiles. Giving up their nuclear weapons and stopping development of long-rand missiles would be sheer stupidity from a N. Korean point of view, because any agreement is subject to the whims of an American President. And promises of food sanction relief are worthless, as proven by Trump. Kim Jong-un, a Nuclear Physicist himself, is no idiot [ some details about him, see here https://bit.ly/3qUr9rL ]
From the Iranian point of view, in hindsight it must look like reckless naiveté that in 2015 they gave up 1000s of kilograms of enriched Uranium (it was shipped to Russia for safekeeping, how ironic), and more important, disable permanently their Plutonium producing reactor. Especially the latter shows that they were serious with their claimed religious belief that the development of nuclear weapons was immoral. The fastest way to a nuclear bomb, as the US showed in WW2, is through Plutonium production. But, none of the promised removal of food and medical sanctions happened, because Trump’s US found a different pretense for enhanced sanctions.
Now the US has accused Iran that “they” have broken the US-Russia-China-France-Germany-Great Britain agreement with Iran, and levied even tougher food and medical item sanctions. But it was the US which destroyed the agreement using fake arguments for sharper sanctions.
Now the US with great fanfare states” “We are back, you have to forgive our violation of international law, because it just was the bad Trump”. And the US is naively surprised that Iranians have elected a hard line Government, unwilling to belief the US ever again. The honest US scientist-negotiator Ernest Moniz must feel like a treacherous double-tongued liar.
And with respect to Ukraine the US was not any better than Merkel: they gave them “non-lethal” weapons, what idiocy, and the few lethal weapons had many restrictions on them. And sniper rifles were outright denied, because you could use them to shoot at the enemy. Imagine!
As an example: the recent grandiose donation of 5 transport helicopters consisted of Russian build M5 helicopters which were in Ukraine anyhow, being brought there some time ago from Afghanistan for repairs. MAGA through-and-through. The world laughs at the US.
To saturate the country with enough anti-tank weapons like the Javelin thousands are needed, not 225 here, and 350 there. And the Turkish Drones have to be by the hundreds and not by the dozen. So it may be too little too late, especially since transfer to Ukraine from the US seems to be wrapped up in State Department red tape. And the Germans continue to refuse to transfer MILANs themselves, or even allow export licenses to the Baltic States who have them. They will probably send a few field hospitals for the Ukrainian victims of a Russian assault.
And steel helmets!
Too little, too late, and will likely be reversed by Trump, but after 33 months of dithering, the Biden administration has finally agreed to allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons for deeper strikes into Russia to take out assets targeting Ukraine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/17/ukraine-russia-north-korea-atacms/
Of course, the Ukrainians have already been doing this with their own weaponry. For example, today they targeted a weapons factory in Izhevsk (1250 km from Ukraine). All reasonable rationales for not letting Western-supplied weapons do the same have long since fallen away.
It is till too little: Ukraine need missiles which can reach the Iranian built drone factories in Siberia,
Let's say: 1200 miles would be a good number.
Missiles may not destroy the whole factory, but it will make Russians t not want to work there. And it proves to the Russian people that Putin's fairy tail of a limited anti-Nazi police action is a lie.
Without saying so loudly, NATO should support anything which could help regime change in Russia. let's not repeat the ill advised peace-at-any-price Sudeten Peace Agreement (Munich) of 1938 which pulled the rug out from an well advanced plan of the German generals to remove Hitler because of military adventurism.
Munich proved to Hitler the western allies would do nothing. The way to attacking Poland and WW2 was free.
These arguments have been brought nearly 3 years ago - see here: [ https://bit.ly/3BxTyYq ] - and nothing happened. And nothing will happen now, because there is resistance, sabotage, in the Administration. It is not clear if this is just or mainly Sullivan, but every time weapons were authorized for the Ukraine, starting with the lowly Anti-tank weapons, the State Department and the National Security advisor have prevented speedy delivery, or delivery at all.
As I wrote as a summary at different occasion in April of 2022:
To accelerate ending the war: one needed:
Boots-on-the-Ground April 30 [ https://bit.ly/3xQ3v3o ]
Missiles on Minsk and Moscow [ https://bit.ly/39kwHGj ]
(and drone factories in Siberia)
Boats on the Black Sea https://bit.ly/3zjwT2Y
:
Enrichment: I wrote on March 8, 2022, and every thought I exposed is still true:
In an 11–23 December 2015 study by the Razumkov Centre taken in all regions of Ukraine other than Russian-annexed Crimea, and separatist controlled Donetsk, and Luhansk, a majority considered Ukrainian their native language (60%), followed by Russian (15%), while 22% used both languages equally. Two percent had another native language. For the preferred language of work, an equal amount chose either Ukrainian or Russian (37%) and 21% communicated bilingually. The study polled 10,071 individuals and held a 1% margin of error. And like Poles in the Polish Corridor 100 years ago liked Polish but did not want to be a part of Poland, a large majority of Russians in large cities like Mariupol like their Russian Culture, but do not want be part of Russia. About the Polish Prussians the saying went: "They may have hated the kaiser, but they loved the King".
I remember, as if it would be yesterday, a discussion in the 70s with, and lecture to me by, German naval military officer students, we all sitting on the concrete steps in front of the Computer Center of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. At NPS I was a Physics Faculty member; at first as NATO Fellow, and later with a personal grant from NSF. That morning, with the invitation of the Historian Marine Corps Colonel Professor Russell Stolfi, I had given a talk to the National Security Department of NPS, explaining why Germans were against stationing of missiles and using neutron bombs to fend off a Soviet attack though the infamous Fulda Gap. My friendship with Stolfi came from me telling him about Auftragstaktik in the German Wars of Unification 1864 to 1871 and in WW1 We became friends In particular after he researched, and found true, my obviously outlandish claim (I am ironic) that the highest Prussian, Bavarian, Hessian etc. [remember there was no German Army, just a German High Command] medal was given only for acts performed without order or against against a direct order. This Verdienstmedallie was given 1703 times in WW1.
One of my points in the lecture was that the average distance between German Villages was less than 2 miles, negating the purported advantageous of the neutron bomb to only kill enemy soldiers, and to destroy tanks and vehicles, while leaving the German population and buildings unscathed. This was well taken by them, but the German Officers said those bombs were unnecessary anyhow, because the defending German Forces were saturated with (relatively) cheap MILAN anti-tank weapons (from French for: Missile d'infanterie léger antichar; for the monolingual: "Light anti-tank infantry missile", curiously enough milan is also French for kite). The MILAN allowed to destroy a Soviet tank from 2 miles without being exposed and endangered, a veritable asymmetric warfare. Note: no line of sight necessary, means “they” could not see “you” behind a tree or in a basement.
The MILAN were under video control by the Operator by spooling of a thin copper wire pair, so the control was difficult to interrupt, and a line-of-sight was not needed.
My German Lt. Commanders (per-dominantly) basically said: in the German environment these tanks will become rolling coffins. The MILAN was developed around 1965 together with the French Army. 60 years later there are a variety of such weapons, see here [https://bit.ly/3rJ6k1N ]. Important to note: the present day US Javelin is about 10 times as expensive ($175,000?) than the present day MILAN ER ($15,000?), in other words the Return on Investment (ROI) for the Javelin is much lower than for the MILAN. The Ukrainians themselves have developed an anti-tank weapon which at $20,000 a piece is regarded very highly by NATO, but they only have been able to produce about 2000.
In the intervening decades, MILANs have been used with great success, penetrating 4 inch of the rolled steel of tanks, or 2 m of concrete of bunkers. It was steadily upgraded to overcome countermeasures, like reactive explosive armor, the Soviets, and later Russians, have successively come up with. The last time the world saw the MILAN in action, was their use by the Kurds against the ingenuously shielded, but only brute force defended, monster trucks of the Islamic State.
In addition, drone based [ https://bit.ly/3KoMS2Z ] anti-tank weapons have been developed, in particular by Turkey. The Turkish drones were decisive, for example, to save the NATO supported Libyan Government a few years ago. Ambushing tanks simultaneously from above and several sides with a mixture of HEAT ( High Explosive Anti-Tank ), EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator) and hydrodynamic penetration (HDP) drone-based anti-tank weapons, those Turkish swarms named Kargu can overcome the best designed active layer defense. With $100,000s worth of hardware you defeat a $6,000,000 tank. Cheap, asymmetric warfare at its best. It is amusing to read the vociferous criticism of US Defense Industry spokespeople of Turkish weapons, because they cut into the American Weapon Business’ profits. They even claim the Turkish swarms are Weapons of Mass Destruction, illegal under International Law. The US weapons Industry was very happy the Germans with the MILAN took themselves out of the business.
Even more amusing if you know that Turkey started to work on Weapons only after the US punished them with an US cure-all Weapons Embargo, when Turkey invaded Cyprus in the 1970s. Turkey now is in the same league in small arm production and sales as China and the US. People who know me know my love of proverbs. Applicable here is: “what does not kill me, makes me stronger”. Unfortunately the US has not applied this to their treatment of Iran and North Korea.
Now here is Merkel’s mistake: She refused in 2014 to arm the Ukrainian Army with MILANs when Russia annexed the Crimea, because then Ukrainians might believe there would be a military solution to the problem with the eastern, culturally Russian, Ukrainian provinces (the Donbass). And it might increase tensions. And President Obama was not any better.
But with the refuse to strengthen defensive capabilities of the Ukrainians, it was them who allowed Putin a military solution in his favor. The US continued along these lines until recently. Unfortunately the Social Democrat lead new German Government seem to follow the same dead-end-street.
Tuesday, Mar 6, 2022 · 7:49:38 AM PST · Abraham1771
Thank you for your essay. I enjoyed reading it. Please permit me to quibble just a bit about the reasons for the restrictions on using US donated missiles to strike deeply into Russia to destroy the airfields and bombers. You mentioned that the original reason for the restriction was to avoid escalating the war to a nuclear exchange. I suspect there is another reason, other than the fear of a nuclear strike, for restricting Ukraine from using US donated ATACMs to strike military targets located deeply within Russia. We are all alive now because for over 70 years, the two rival super powers, the US and the USSR/Russia, never fired a missile onto the other's homeland. And neither super power armed a third-party nation with whom their rival super power was at war with missiles for striking the other super power's homeland. If we were to grant Ukraine permission to use US donated ATACMs to strike 280 miles deep into Russia, why would Russia hesitate to arm a US enemy with missiles to strike targets deep within our own homeland? Allowing Ukraine to use US donated missiles to strike far inside Russia would set a dangerous precedent, one I fear we would have cause to regret in the future.
Dear Prof. McFaul: What's your argument?
Terry Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
Los Altos Hills, California
terry_oldberg@yahoo.com
You really have to ask this? As a scientist familiar with logical and fact based thinking? Where due to the wonders of the Internet the facts are readily available.
Dear Rainer:
Do know Prof. McFaul's argument? If so, please share it with me.
Cordially Terry Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
Los Altos Hills, California
Oops: I meant to place the word "you" between the word "you" and the word "know."
Terry Oldberg