Kissinger isn’t off on Russo-Ukraine war

Speaking virtually at the World Economic Forum at Davos on May 23, former US Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger, made two important points with reference to the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war: it is time to think of a diplomatic solution to end the war and such solution will likely involve territorial concessions to Russia, even though “Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante”; “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”

Given the current mood in Ukraine, the United States and among US allies, Kissinger’s remarks drew a sharp, predictable pushback from multiple quarters, including from Ukrainian leaders and analysts.

The same day the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the US would not dictate the “end state” of the war. “We’re going to stick with doing everything we can to make sure that they [the Ukrainians] achieve their objectives. At the end of the day, what this looks like—what end state looks like—will be defined by the Ukrainians, not by us.”

Deciding the “culmination point of victory” is always difficult. For the Ukrainians, Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression is an emotional issue linked both to national pride and the expression of Ukraine’s sovereignty. To expect Ukraine to accept the nuance of what Kissinger said at Davos, nearly 3000 kilometres away from where Ukrainian cities are being pounded by Russian forces, is to ask for much.

But here’s the irony: what if the Russian campaign had been more effective and disciplined and some of the leading world powers had not joined to boost Ukraine’s military capabilities? If Russia had managed its maximalist war objectives more efficiently, would Kissinger’s suggestion about the diplomatic solution sound so outrageous? Most likely not. But let’s park that thought for a while and look at the ground situation.

After abandoning the plan to capture Kyiv, which was initially the main operation with three supporting operations, and reorganising to focus on the eastern Donbas region with a supporting operation in southeast, the Russian military has, despite taking many losses, steadily managed to streamline its problems of logistics sustainment — owed to many factors, not least poor planning and longer, vulnerable lines of communication along multiple axes of advance — and decided to rely on its strength, i.e., rockets and long-range artillery. It is also now, for the most part, operating on interior lines.

Among many assessments of Russia’s use of artillery, probably the best has been penned by John Schindler, Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. Schindler wrote, “At last, the Russian military is playing to its strengths in firepower. The Kremlin has decided to crush Ukrainian resistance, one punishing artillery barrage at a time.” As Schindler and others have noted, Russia has traditionally relied on firepower.

The strategy is pegged on placing artillery centre-stage so that it is not a supporting arm of infantry and armour but rather the centrepiece which is in turn supported by other combat arms. Secondly, before the advent of GPS-guided artillery munitions, the use of artillery was about saturating the area with explosives and out-ranging and out-numbering the enemy guns — essentially, to blast the targets, especially urban centres, and dent the adversary’s morale. Now, with GPS-guided munitions, counterforce accuracy against targets has further increased.

This is where the US-led alliance’s response comes in. Kyiv has been desperately looking and asking for state-of-the-art rocket systems and long-range artillery. And while Zelensky and his cabinet think the West needs to do more and expedite the flow of weapons to Kyiv, the fact is that Ukraine has already received some of the best anti-tank and air defence systems in the world along with MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) and long-range howitzers (with more to come in the pipeline).

For some perspective, the US has so far sent 11 military assistance packages to Ukraine worth $4.5 billion since Putin launched his war on February 24 this year. The UK, Canada, France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands have sent weapons and systems and trained Ukrainian military personnel to operate those systems. Some top-shelf systems include Javelin and NLAW anti-tank missiles, drones (including the Turkish Bayraktar TB2), M777 howitzers and their munitions; MLRS M270, Caesar self-propelled howitzers from France, Braveheart 155mm SP howitzers from Britain, Panzerhaubitze 2000 155mm SP howitzers from Germany et cetera. Additionally, the US has also cleared the highly effective HIMARS (M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) for Ukraine and Kyiv should be getting it soon.

However, some of the systems sent to Ukraine have been downgraded, presumably because the US doesn’t want some technology to fall into Russian hands; some guns do not have munitions that are long-range and could strike targets in the rear of Russian forces and also in Russian territory. For instance, the M777 howitzers supplied to Ukraine are without the Platform Integration Kit, which means the guns can’t fire GPS-guided munitions. They also lack the full digital fire control system. The guns are still accurate but have to be operated by relying on traditional gunnery methods.

Even so, most of these are cutting-edge artillery systems and platforms and meant to counter Russia’s preponderance of artillery guns (towed and SP) and rocket systems. It is also clear that after the initial setbacks that forced Putin and his commanders to refocus and redirect the war effort to the Donbas and in the southeast, Russian military has made consistent gains against Ukrainian defenders despite the latter’s dogged resistance. The operational details are out of the scope of this article, but given the force ratios and attrition, Ukrainian defenders by most count are getting killed and injured at a high rate.

There are two aspects of employing artillery in the main combat role: get guns and MLRS, more than the Russians have (because numbers matter); guns and platforms that out-range Russian guns and platforms and which can be deployed with less crew and greater mobility than traditional, heavy, towed artillery. That’s where MLRS 270, other SP platforms and HIMARS come in. It’s not without reason that Russia is sending constant warnings to the US and its allies against providing Ukraine with counter-battery capabilities, a term used to indicate the ability of guns to take out enemy artillery assets while staying outside the range of latter’s artillery — i.e., an artillery counter-attack.

Artillery can be very effective. Stalin famously called it the god of war. But it is also cumbersome to move around, especially towed artillery. This is why lighter guns have been developed and why howitzers like the M777 have a towing eye mounted at the base of the muzzle brake. It makes for easy towing and very low muzzle elevation. Self-propelled artillery and MLRS’ were and are developed for quick deployment, high mobility and increased firepower. But just like armour, APCs and Infantry Fighting Vehicles, SP guns and even field artillery have to cater for counter-battery kills from longer-range rockets and even drones.

As Frank Ledwidge, Senior Lecturer in Military Strategy and Law at the University of Portsmouth, says, “…crews are trained to move very quickly…from a firing position as soon as a ‘fire mission’ is completed on a target. They know that enemy radar-ranging equipment (which track shells back to their source) will be calculating a fix on them.” This is exactly what the Giatsint-S SP platforms are being used for by the Russian artillery. Get a fix on Ukrainian M777 positions, strike them and change the firing position.

It is this cat and mouse game that Kissinger spoke about. War, and its many battles, is a tricky, often uncertain affair. Fortunes can and do change. As Schindler wrote, “The possibility of a Ukrainian collapse in the Southeast, with a resulting encirclement and strategic defeat in the Donbas, therefore looms… [and] it seems unlikely that any amount of NATO largesse in gunnery can arrive in time to turn the tide in the coming days.”

Secondly, Kissinger’s warning against starting a new war against Russia is pertinent. Do the US and its allies want another dividing line and permanent hostility with Russia? Would they differentiate between Putin and Russia as a state that is both too big and too important to be labelled enemy? Despite the US effort to isolate Russia, the Kremlin remains in play and has developed ways to bypass and lessen the impact of sanctions. Within Europe, Germany, France and Italy want the war to end even though they are also helping Ukraine diplomatically and militarily. Others led by the US want a strategic defeat for Russia and humiliation for Putin. Are those achievable objectives? There are many questions.

Finally, there’s the problem of sustaining losses. As I wrote in March, “even if, in theory, Ukrainian losses were less than Russia’s (quite unlikely), are they enough as a share of military capacity to degrade it? On that score, as a share of military capacity, Russia is likely in a better position to take and sustain losses.”

Just like Putin failed through overreach to achieve his main politico-strategic objective, Kyiv might just be pushing beyond the culmination point of what is achievable by hardening its position.

The writer is a journalist interested in foreign and security policies