Tecumseh Court's column has been most interesting. Particularly useful for readers not too familiar with things military is the stress he places on logistics. You can have hundreds of tanks, hundreds of howitzers, etc. But without fuel for the tanks and ammunition for the howitzers, etc. you've really got nothing. Military history, e.g. the North African campaign (1941-43), drives that lesson home. Though of course it's hard to be sure from my distant vantage point in NW Indiana, it does appear that logistics is a major weakness of the Russian Army. Modern combat consumes prodigious quantities of supplies of all kinds, particularly on the attack. The difficulty of supplying their forces at the sharp end may explain the Russians' failure to make much headway in eastern Ukraine.
Reading and listening to the commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian War, I've frequently been reminded of Carl von Clausewitz, who provided a very serviceable template for understanding the relationship between political objectives and actual warfighting. A couple of years ago I wrote a brief essay on Clausewitz, just a brief outline of his theory of war, for my military history website. As from today it's available on Substack, and perhaps may be of interest:
Tecumseh Court's column has been most interesting. Particularly useful for readers not too familiar with things military is the stress he places on logistics. You can have hundreds of tanks, hundreds of howitzers, etc. But without fuel for the tanks and ammunition for the howitzers, etc. you've really got nothing. Military history, e.g. the North African campaign (1941-43), drives that lesson home. Though of course it's hard to be sure from my distant vantage point in NW Indiana, it does appear that logistics is a major weakness of the Russian Army. Modern combat consumes prodigious quantities of supplies of all kinds, particularly on the attack. The difficulty of supplying their forces at the sharp end may explain the Russians' failure to make much headway in eastern Ukraine.
Reading and listening to the commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian War, I've frequently been reminded of Carl von Clausewitz, who provided a very serviceable template for understanding the relationship between political objectives and actual warfighting. A couple of years ago I wrote a brief essay on Clausewitz, just a brief outline of his theory of war, for my military history website. As from today it's available on Substack, and perhaps may be of interest:
https://unwokeindianaag.substack.com/p/the-philosopher-of-war?s=w