The view from the front: military matters and motivation for 6/28/22.
Discover more from The View from the Front. By Stan R. Mitchell.
The view from the front: military matters and motivation for 6/28/22.
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Hi friend,
Happy Tuesday! Hope your week is off to a great start.
We’ll start outside Ukraine for a change.
NATO meets today in a big meeting in Madrid. It’s expected to adopt a couple of measures.
-- An increase in troops on “high alert” from 40k to 300k (Hi, Putin).
-- And a resolution to cite China as a concern for the first time.
Moving to Ukraine, The Economist highlighted a few points I’ve been trying to make the past few weeks.
From the story:
Things look grim for Ukraine’s army in Donbas (see map below). In Luhansk province, the town of Severodonetsk, where a small number of Ukrainian fighters and civilians are holed up in a chemical plant, is now cut off by road. On Friday Ukrainian troops were ordered to retreat. Russian troops are also advancing from the south on Lysychansk, a town on the river’s other bank. Ukrainian officials warn that Russia may be preparing to mount an assault on Sloviansk, a city in the neighbouring Donetsk province.
Updates: 🇷🇺 have captured Vovchoyarivka and Bila Hora, solidifying their control south of Lysychansk and threatening any chance of 🇺🇦 withdrawal from the city.Whether it does depends on how much Russia’s army has left in the tank. Its recruits are receiving only three to seven days of training before being thrown into battle, according to BBC Russian. The army has also had to rely on mercenaries from the Wagner Group. An American shipment of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which arrived on Thursday, may yet enable Ukraine to mount a counter-offensive against their weary Russian foes later in the summer.
To me, the thing that stands out from that article was the fact that Russian soldiers are getting less than a week’s worth of training.
Having received three months of boot camp training, and then two full months of infantry-only training, I can say with absolute certainty that one week isn’t going to cut it.
It’s frankly almost criminal, but how could we expect anything more from Putin?
While the ground war grinds on with little real gain in either direction, Russia has stepped up its terrorism. (See below.)
I’m not sure I have anything to add. The Russian act like barbarians on a daily basis.
But there is so much that Ukraine must contend with.
Besides savage fighting in Donbas and missile strikes on residential areas, the Ukrainians are also having to deal with mines left behind.
It’s truly staggering what all the Ukrainian people are having to deal with.
I’ll end with one final point about Ukraine. If you watch the video below… (waiting for you to watch it) lol
You’ll see that this invasion by Russia is likely as much about envy and hatred as anything else. And clearly propaganda and poverty have helped fuel it.
Also, apparently, the Russians have no idea how to take care of their own yards or even pull weeds.
Moving to other news, I mentioned in a previous newsletter that China is launching its third aircraft carrier.
The Economist also had a great, in-depth piece on it since I wrote the above. What to make of China’s new aircraft-carrier. (See below.)
The interesting thing from the piece was that analysts are saying the carriers aren’t about a future war in America. Something I had wrong in my head. Rather, they’re about influence.
From the article:
China’s carriers are not designed for direct confrontation with America, naval experts say. In a war over Taiwan or in the seas around China (the likeliest conflicts involving China and America) ballistic and sea-skimming missiles would quickly destroy any big ships.
China is more likely to use its carriers against less powerful countries—much as America has since the cold war. Think, perhaps, of a confrontation with Vietnam over disputed islands or an intervention in Africa to protect Chinese interests. In the missile era, it is unrealistic to imagine a clash like the battle of Midway in 1942, which involved three American carriers and four Japanese ones, says Sam Roggeveen of the Lowy Institute, a think-tank in Sydney. “I really view it as a gambit to build a navy that will be useful when the Americans are far less powerful and when China has more space to coerce and punish smaller countries,” Roggeveen says.
Moving to a different topic, in not-so-great news for our military, there was this sad story.
Let’s not end on such a negative news note. Let’s instead end with this amazing video.
That’s it for this edition! Here’s some motivation and wisdom to send you off with.
As a reminder, please be kind and endeavor to love your fellow Americans. We need to pull this country together, and that starts with all of us.
And if you love what you’re reading, throw a couple bucks in the hat by subscribing below. (Here’s why you should.)
Semper Fidelis,
Stan R. Mitchell
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my books. I’ve written a CIA/Marine sniper series, a detective series, a private investigator series, an action-packed Western, a leadership/biography book, and two realistic war novels: one about World War IIand one about Afghanistan.
P.P.S. And here’s a short bio about me and what I’m trying to do with the newsletter.