Know Who’s Bummed About Russia’s Military Failure In Ukraine? China

[SVPete]

Know Who’s Bummed About Russia’s Military Failure In Ukraine? China

https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=51101

A goodly part of the world is pleased about the manifest failure of Vlad’s Big Ukraine Adventure, some are indifferent to it, but only Russia, client-state Syria, and puppet-state Belarus really seem upset about it.

Know who else is bummed? China.

Of the many issues that have contributed to Russia’s physical battlefield woes in Ukraine, one of the most important has been the lack of effective joint or combined arms operations, widely considered essential to any effective modern fighting force. Russia’s poor level of coordination between its various services and branches can only be generously described as incompetent. For example, it has repeatedly failed to provide effective air support to its ground forces or deconflict its air and air-defense forces to avoid friendly fire.

The PLA has long had its own serious issues with joint operations. Traditionally dominated by the Army, the PLA had little success developing a truly joint force until a series of sweeping reforms in 2015 that replaced the former Army-dominated system with a series of joint theater commands. The PLA is thus aware of its own shortcomings and taking steps to fix it, but likely remains far off from being able to conduct truly effective, seamless joint operations. Efforts to conduct joint exercises are becoming more common, but most senior PLA leaders are still relatively inexperienced with joint operations, and even new officers typically do not receive joint education below the corps level. Further, it remains to be seen how far these reforms will go or to what extent they will “stick;” indeed, one reason the PLA did not attempt these reforms until 2015 was because of strong institutional pushback from the Army, whose leaders wished to retain their dominant status.

To China, the Ukraine invasion will reinforce the importance of joint and combined arms operations, while also making clear that such operations are highly difficult to conduct in practice. Russia’s stumbles may give the PLA pause as to whether it is truly ready for all the joint elements that a successful Taiwan seizure would require, including close coordination between sea, air, and land forces.

[Drafe Hoblin]

It's always embarrassing when you back a loser.  Makes you look as inept and out-of-touch with reality as the loser is.

[Eupher]

I'm not convinced that the U.S. military, with its hypersonic focus on wokeness, CRT, and the rest of the Austin-inspired bullshit, is nearly as competent as we'd like to believe it is.

Combined operations, like rifle marksmanship, is a perishable skill. Austin, Milley, and the rest of the wokesters at the top levels of the U.S. military, have completely forgotten what it takes to win wars. Granting trannies the honor of putting a uniform on is far more important. 

[SVPete]

...
Combined operations, like rifle marksmanship, is a perishable skill. Austin, Milley, and the rest of the wokesters at the top levels of the U.S. military, have completely forgotten what it takes to win wars. ...

Finally getting their combined operations coordinated was a key in breaking the Hindenburg Line in WW1, yet the French and Brits managed to forget in 1940 what they should have learned from 1918. And the Brits didn't even have the necessary elements in place in Malaysia to fight the IJA's combined arms tactics. So, yeah, it's very possible for US military "leaders" to forget in the rarified air of DC.