Boy is Hertling going full on Clausewitz this AM. I would read everything he said and is saying today. I will tell you from experience — the military really buys into Clausewitz — not that they are wrong, but they just do. Went to military grad school together with some of their officers - so I know they do. He is actually quoting him you know. Directly into the “war is politics by other means (which is not word for word what CVC said by the way) and straight to the Culmination treatise stuff. And more — he is saying too — if you understood On War one should have been able to predict general turns of events and/or what is about to come at operational levels. You can’t really ever get tactics or the small shit completely right — tactics can change on a dime. I sometimes did make predictions about them — I am very opinionated. Oh well. I do say what I think — at least at the time.
Yeah — the shot gun offensive sure looks like has started. This is NOT a general offensive in Kherson as you would envision one in WWII. But it ends in something like that. They cannot yet put together a combine arms attack in a large geography. But we will see more localized offenses with combined arms type movements in cut up smaller offensives — a lot of them. They will flood the line with them, smaller battalion or two type attacks and they will make Russia just shit a brick. The result they hope for will open larger lanes of attack — when that is done, they will pour through them. Really — Russia has no fucking idea if they face a smaller attack or a division strong type attack when they go off and have to adjust their lines — they will just chase their tail.
This is not just that he sees that Falaise gap type encirclement here — he is saying — and is right I think — that the Russian Navy is basically about trapped or about to be, too. They are about to corner about 20,000 Russian soldiers AND their naval force there looks like. Just WOW!!!!! Really, Ukraine does not even have a real navy! And a very small air force. Christ you have to admire them.
There are several threads and notes today from him — read all of them if you can, especially today. You can start here —
But really — read all of them if you can. The exchange with the Australian general is really interesting I think. Ukraine has a real shot at ending major combat operations by the year end — just as they say. Hertling is more into Clausewitz then me — but we sure both studied him. It really is kind of textbook CVC and he shows it. But Hart, Jomini, Mitchell and more — all lead to the same conclusion I think. About CVC — he has this thesis, anti-thesis approach to a given problem that gets VERY intense and can drive you nuts — very difficult to ever master. I think On War was about the most difficult reading I ever did in grad school. He mastered it — I just understood it.
This too — remember what happens to termite ridden houses — looks fine until it doesn’t.
I know they have Russia by the balls. Pretty incredible isn’t it — that some small country could take on a (supposed) super power and kick their ass in a few months. Is Ukraine that good or is Russia just that bad. You know — Russia had a really bad July, a worse August and September and into the fall is just going to be devastating. How could they not know this?????? The way Ukraine prepped these battlefields is just amazing, so well done and so quickly. England is saying to double down on UKR support here — old Boris — he is dead on right. End it.
You know what it is in the final analysis — Russia is going to kill civilians — Ukraine is going to kill their army. Russia can fire a bunch of guns and hit civilians — Ukraine is going to hit their army — the very ability to fire those guns, to supply those munitions, — to do war in the first place. Ukraine is fighting a war — Russia is committing murder. That simple. In the big picture — why they are going to lose and always were. So clear from the very beginning. Really. Hertling and a few generals really got it — most did not. How could they not see it?
All IMHO.