Author: Rong Ping Source: official account: Rong Ping (ID: rongping898) has been authorized to reprint
There is a kind of playing method called Soha in the card game. The player with large face decides to bet, and other players have the right to raise or give up the bet. The most attractive thing about Soha is that when the game reaches a certain critical point, the parties involved in Soha have already paid a huge cost of gambling, and no one is willing to withdraw before the disclosure of the bottom cards, so they can only continue to follow or increase the stakes until one party can no longer afford the chips or the winner or loser is revealed. Of course, there is also an unconventional outcome, the gambling table was overturned.
At this moment, in the distant Ukrainian battlefield, Russia and the West are carrying out the most dangerous power Soha since the Cuban missile crisis. The chips that both sides can increase are about to reach the bottom, but the winners and losers of the game are always in a state of anxiety, and no one knows what will happen next.
From this point of view, China chose to issue the position document concerning Ukraine on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Russian-Uzbekistan war because it saw that the situation was becoming increasingly out of control with the continuous contributions of the two sides and the three sides, and the death spiral of the war was getting faster and faster.
All this stems from a seemingly inconspicuous mistake made by Russia at the beginning of the operation.
Ukraine’s capital Kiev, Russia’s initial idea of military action was to fight a blitz, quickly besiege Kiev and force the Zelensky regime to surrender, and then replace it with relatively moderate politicians to ensure that Ukraine maintains permanent neutrality between NATO and Russia, and quickly restore relations with the West, just as the Crimean incident did.
The alternative is to seize the new Russian region east of the Dnieper River, including Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporoge, Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolayev, and some regions of Dniepropetrovskaya and Portava.
Judging from the crisp performance of the Russian army in the Russia-Georgia War and the Uzbek East battlefield, it seems that there is no problem with fast access to Kiev, and Russia also thinks so. But it was this misjudgment that led to the development of subsequent events that exceeded Moscow’s expectations.
Urban street war has always been a major problem in modern war. The Fajilu street war that broke out during the Iraq War has been described by the western military as a textbook case and model of modern urban street war. However, in the final analysis, Fajilu is only a small town with an area of less than 12 square kilometers, a population of only 300000 people, and a serious shortage of various infrastructure facilities, which is far from a modern metropolis.
By contrast, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is the seventh largest city in Europe, with a population of more than 3 million. Although the infrastructure is not advanced, it is very perfect. There are numerous high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete structures on the ground; There are also various infrastructure facilities such as parking lots, sewers, subways and civil air defense fortifications under the ground, and they communicate with each other, creating great pressure on the attackers.
These infrastructures can be aggregated into a set of defense systems, or can be divided into hundreds of thousands of independent combat units by deploying forces in different areas. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army dispersed its forces to several rooms in each building, and used the sewer to carry out mobile reinforcements and evacuation at any time. This made the German army have to go deep into every street, every building, every floor, and even every room to repeatedly eliminate the enemy’s vitality, which was ultimately dragged down alive.
To give another example of the situation in the early stage of the Russian-Uzbekistan war, the rapid pace of modern war depends in large part on rapid and accurate fire support, while modern urban street warfare is three-dimensional. We are on the fifth floor of the same building, and the enemy is on the fourth floor. Even if we find that you dare to launch missile support? The answer is obviously no, the vertical space distance is not as large as the horizontal space, and the building debris generated after the explosion is also lethal to us.
These factors determine that even if the US military goes to battle in person, it may not win Kiev, unless there is indiscriminate anti-human bombing. The most important thing is that the Ukrainian army has adopted the hedgehog tactics proposed by the US military consultant team. The field defense line has been abandoned completely, the suburban defense line has been abandoned partially, and the main force has been withdrawn to the city, so that the reinforced concrete buildings and the civilians inside become the hedgehog protection thorn. The Ukrainian army is the hedgehog body, which increases the decision-making cost of the Russian army using weapons of mass destruction to quickly pass through Kiev.
Therefore, it is not realistic for the Russian army to quickly capture Kiev with Blitzkrieg.
The United States and the West also made similar mistakes at the beginning of the war. In the view of the United States, Russia’s economy and fiscal revenue are highly bound to the export of oil and gas resources, and the trade of oil and gas resources is highly bound to globalization. So they take it for granted that as long as Russia is excluded from globalization, they can force Russia to withdraw troops through a comprehensive economic war, and even drive Putin out of power.
However, Russia, which has always been shown by its military muscle, has actually played better in economic war than in military war. Whether in response to being kicked out of SWIFT, or in the process of rapidly beautifying and de-Europeanizing the supply chain, Russia’s economic fortress is far stronger than the outside world thinks.
At the battlefield level, NATO’s judgment is no different from that of the general public. They all believe that Ukraine is bound to fail in the face of the powerful Russian military’s heavy cluster. Therefore, as far as the war itself is concerned, NATO’s attitude is only to hope that Ukraine will not lose too fast, which can be seen from the assistance provided.
In the first stage of the war, the assistance provided by the United States and the West was mostly portable anti-armor firepower, such as javelin anti-tank missiles, NLAW anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, and so on. Such weapons could only delay the Russian army’s attack, but could not make the Ukrainian army defend itself.
The second stage of the war began when the Russian army realized that it could not chew Kiev.
When the Russian army decided to withdraw its main forces from the surrounding areas of Kiev and reinforce the eastern battlefield, new troubles ensued!
Since the focus of the Russian army in the early stage was concentrated in Kiev and Mariupol, the Russian army undertaking other directions failed to completely eliminate the main active forces of the Ukrainian army in the first time because of its insufficient strength, which gave the latter a breathing space and organized an effective defense system. After the main forces of the Russian army arrived, the response of the Ukrainian army could not be said to be easy, but at least it could effectively fight back.
The Russian army concentrated a small number of troops on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, which is also closely related to the misjudgment of the situation. The eastern region of Ukraine is the same as Russia in religious belief and language. It is naturally pro-Russian. Moscow believes that as long as the Russian army arrives, even a small number of troops can promote the spread of a single spark of fire in eastern Ukraine to the east of the Dnieper River.
But the reality is that after eight years of brainwashing and repression by the Kiev regime, the pro-Russian power of Udong has not only decreased significantly, but the rest of the people have also become timid and dare not stand up!
On the NATO side, although the scope of weapons assistance has not been expanded, its intelligence system and satellite network in space have been involved in the battlefield to provide the Ukrainian army with the essential element of modern war: information! The landmark event was that the Ukrainian army, with the support of NATO intelligence, used Neptune anti-ship missiles to attack the USS Moscow, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Chinese and Russian Navy.
This is the first time that NATO has filled the Russian-Uzbekistan war.
The turning point took place in the third stage, when the Ukrainian army launched the summer counteroffensive. After seeing the unsatisfactory performance of the Russian army on the battlefield, NATO’s attitude towards the Russian-Uzbekistan war never hoped that the Ukrainian army would lose too quickly, but instead turned the Ukrainian battlefield into the second Afghan quagmire, and continued to bleed Russia. In view of this, the scope of NATO’s military assistance to Ukraine has expanded from portable anti-armor fire to offensive heavy artillery, such as the US Army’s Hymas rocket system.
NATO again!
The effect of the replenishment is quite obvious. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has made obvious progress. The Russian army withdrew from Kharkov first, and then suffered heavy losses in Kupiyansk, even losing the dividend of Donetsk.
After the great counteroffensive in Ukraine in the summer, the bitter Russian leadership finally realized that the war was gradually developing from a local war to a lasting comprehensive war under the intervention of NATO. In response, on September 30, Putin pointed out in his speech on the integration of the four states of Tonlukhza into Russia that the war of civilization has entered a critical stage. Subsequently, Russia tilted to the wartime state, announced part of the mobilization order, reorganized the military leadership, established a special action coordination committee, placed the industrial industry under more strict control of the government, and imposed more severe punishment measures for failure to implement the national defense mobilization order.
Russia has also increased its size, and this increase will add half its value.
But NATO, at least the United States, did not read the signal that Russia wanted to send, that it would not allow losing the Ukrainian war at all costs. But after seeing the results of the counter-offensive, they sprouted a more crazy idea: they should not only help Ukraine defeat Russia, but also use the defeat to defeat Russia at one stroke! To this end, the United States began to provide Ukraine with highly offensive weapons, such as the third-generation main battle tanks and fighter planes.
NATO follow up!
However, NATO’s follow up is not of great strategic significance, because Russia has entered the war economy, and the military machinery has already turned at full speed. The weapons and ammunition provided by NATO cannot keep up with the consumption of Ukraine, unless NATO continues to fill up, it also follows into the war economy.
The problem is that the wartime economic state has a great impact on economic development. If NATO and other countries choose to inject into the wartime economy, it will be even more difficult to ride the tiger: the United States is further involved in the abyss of war, while China is still out of the way, and the development of the two will inevitably be further unbalanced. Don’t forget that the fundamental reason for the rise of the United States after the First World War is that the European powers have been fighting incessantly, while the United States on the other side of the Atlantic is gloriously isolated.
If the United States gambles on the risk of being overtaken by China quickly, it will also continue to increase its chips. What does it mean?
It means that the United States cannot afford to lose in the Ukrainian war!
The risk of Suoha is that the huge investment in the early stage has made it difficult to stop
On the other hand, after Russia made it clear that this was an all-out war, its tactics became conservative. Instead of blindly pursuing land occupation or attack, it settled down to fight a war of attrition similar to World War I and World War II, which unleashed fire along the fixed front.
The Russian military chose to fight a war of attrition is reasonable: the United States and NATO can always provide weapons and ammunition, but the Ukrainian military’s living force is limited.
Before the war, the total population of Ukraine was 40 million. After the war broke out, nearly 20 million people went to Europe as refugees. The remaining 20 million people, excluding the old, the weak, the sick and the young, were estimated to be less than 10 million.
What will the United States do if the Ukrainian army is really exhausted? Is that how the Russian army took over Ukraine? Isn’t the huge investment in the early stage lost? How will Biden explain to the domestic? How should the United States explain to its allies? If it can’t be explained, will it be the only way to go on: directly send troops to the war on a large scale!
But can the United States and the world afford to do so?
If you can understand this level of interest, you can understand why China’s position paper on Ukraine has attracted the attention of the international community. Our attitude seems to be a cliche, but it is the most effective way to solve the crisis: the Russian-Uzbekistan war has reached a point where both the United States and Russia cannot lose and cannot afford to lose. Both sides feel that they have the reason to fight hard. The final result is either one of them has to give up the last drop of blood or finish the calf together.
Therefore, rather than losing both or all, China’s proposal for a local ceasefire political solution is more realistic
After all, there is no winner in the nuclear war or in the win-win situation!