General Milley as a prophet
A little less than a year ago, at the very beginning of last April, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, made a forecast of the development of the situation in Ukraine, which then seemed overly pessimistic and not very realistic: “I believe that this conflict will be very long. And I also think that its duration will at least be measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least a few years for sure.”
Almost 12 months have passed, and we can state that what used to seem exotic is now perceived by everyone as a basic scenario for the development of events .
So that the situation does not seem completely gloomy, here is a fresh forecast for you from General Mark Milley, who has proven his ability to “grab the truth by the tail.”
The main American military about the plans of official Kyiv «to return Ukraine to the borders of 1991»: «This goal, declared by President Zelensky, is too ambitious and extremely difficult to achieve by military means.» “Too big” and “extremely difficult” are all polite equivalents of the assessment of Zelensky’s plans that General Milli cannot give due to considerations of diplomatic politeness: no chance.
But the same assessment — “no chance ”- refers to the hopes for a speedy end to the military conflict.
In recent decades, we in Russia have learned many English words that are understandable without translation even in the most remote bearish corner of the country. And here is a word worth adding to this list: attrition — literally translated as exhaustion, exhaustion, wear and tear.
Excerpt from a recent interview with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg leaving his post this October to the British The Guardian. “The US, UK, France, Germany and other Western states must be ready to support Ukraine with weapons, ammunition and spare parts for a long time. The need will continue because this is a war of attrition. Everything depends on the ability of the industrial potential to maintain the necessary level of supply,” said the Secretary General.
At present, the fighting is so intense that Ukraine's use of artillery shells — between 4,000 and 7,000 per day versus Russia's 20,000 — is outstripping the capabilities of Western industry.
«Current munitions spending is higher than current production rates,» Stoltenberg said, although new contracts mean things are changing.
Reminds me of the famous saying of the German geographer and anthropologist Oskar Peschel. Analyzing on fresh footsteps the largest battle of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 — the Battle of Sadov — he wrote in his newspaper Zagranitsa: “Public education plays a decisive role in the war … When the Prussians beat the Austrians, it was the victory of the Prussian teacher over the Austrian school teacher.»
In the conflicts of the 19th century, “public education played a decisive role,” and in the conflicts of the 21st century, the defense industry plays the same role. Of course, such a formulation of the question is a strong simplification. The «motor» of the growth of political and military influence, first of Prussia, and then of united Germany in the century before last, was a sharp increase in the capabilities of the military-industrial complex of these state entities.
But now the conversation is not about that. The conversation is about the absolute readiness of the collective West to throw the necessary amount of “fuel” in the form of weapons into the furnace of the Ukrainian conflict, including those types that are considered prohibited in Russia.
Correspondence dialogue between Jens Stoltenberg and official Moscow. NATO Secretary General on UK plans to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine: “NATO members follow international rules and laws in everything they do in support of Ukraine.”
Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation: “The manufacture of ammunition with depleted uranium is used much more often in those countries that have uranium reserves, the technology for its processing, and their use is planned on foreign territory when there is no the need to think about environmental impact«.
At a briefing on the consequences of supplying depleted uranium ammunition to the Kiev regime, Kirillov emphasized that «in armed conflicts, depleted uranium ammunition was used exclusively by NATO countries.”
After the extremely harsh words of Sergei Shoigu earlier this week (“After the UK’s announcement of the supply of depleted uranium projectiles to Ukraine for a nuclear clash, «steps are getting smaller and smaller«) it seemed to me that the West would at least take a pause to assess the correctness of the decision to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine.
But, apparently, I again turned out to be an excessive optimist. I turn on the “realist mode” because there is no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of an early settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. And if some “light in the tunnel” is still visible, then this is the flame of a fire caused by a new escalation.