How an American would have conducted the Russian military operation in Ukraine
Or how Vladimir Putin is a bleeding-heart humanitarian when it comes to waging war
According to US Empire and Ukrainian propaganda, Vladimir Putin is a bloodthirsty genocidal maniac bent on the total destruction of Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and maybe the whole world. They point to atrocities, often atrocities committed by Ukrainian troops indoctrinated with a weird Nazi ideology, as proof of Russian evil.
They say the Russians are waging a merciless war on helpless Ukrainian civilians. But are they? Really? Let’s compare Putin’s campaign to how such an invasion would have been done by the likes of Grant, Sherman, Patton, LeMay, and MacArthur. Supposedly great American generals all.
In this scenario, the Russians would have waged a massive air and missile campaign to destroy every electrical power plant, every arms manufacturing facility, every bridge and highway leading from Europe into Ukraine, every airfield, every plane, every tank and truck(military or civilian) caught in the open. Civilian casualties are at best acceptable collateral damage, at worse regrettable consequences of war.
War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.—William Tecumseh Sherman
After several weeks of this, the ground invasion would begin. Belarus would have been pressured to invade as well in support of Russian forces pre-positioned there. Paratroopers would be dropped to secure key bridges and intersections. A massive armored assault would be launched from at least three directions at once, with plenty of air support.
Bypassed Ukrainian strongpoints would be surrounded and subjected to massive air and artillery attacks. Kiev would have been as flattened as Baghdad was, leaving little but rubble for Ukrainians to hide in as the Russian tanks and infantry “secured” the city.
A couple of weeks of hard fighting, maybe, and then a puppet government is installed after the old one is dead or fled, and peace is declared while remaining pockets of Ukrainian resistance are mopped up.
Half a million or so Ukrainian dead, 10 or 20 million refugees, border secured, friendly government installed, victory declared, Ukraine subjected to military occupation until the puppet government has real control. War over. Game, set, match.
This isn’t what happened. I think Putin was convinced by some advisors that the Ukrainians would fold quickly and the civilian population would welcome the Russians as liberators. If so, he made a mistake, but the entire Russian military operation up to the bombing of the Kerch Bridge was designed to minimize both Ukrainian Army and civilian casualties, according to statements from the Pentagon.
Now, the Russians have withdrawn from the Kharkov region, which isn’t even in the four separatist provinces now annexed by Russia, but they have occupied most of those provinces. The only possible outstanding Russian territorial objectives are the rest of those provinces plus the Black Sea littoral around Odessa, which is mostly ethnic Russian anyway.
As for foreign affairs, the US leadership in Putin’s place would have immediately cut off all fuel supplies to the European countries that sanctioned Russia. Maximum pressure, not just measured, tit-for-tat retaliation, which is what Putin has actually done.
Compared to past American behavior from the carpet and atomic bombings of Germany and Japan, through all of the imperial wars in Indochina, southwestern Asia and Africa, Putin is a pussycat of a bleeding-heart peacenik.
How an American would have conducted the Russian military operation in Ukraine
Amen - thanks for saying this. Fwiw - Vijay Prashad describes the US peace movement as juvenile....Just heard/saw an Medea Benjamin interview on the Zero Hour (RJ Eskow) and this exemplifies his point....Knew participated with Code Pink and Veterans for Peace and so many credible groups since 2002 (+/-); it's as if they became lobotomized with/from Trump Derangement Syndrome....which going back to your earlier posts referring to the Democratic Party, I want nothing to do with them.
For this soft war, I thank him. When this started, I said goodbye to my wife in Ukraine as I doubted I would be able to hear from her for weeks or months. Instead, they were able to reach Poland in a week, and stay in contact along the way. She can still talk with her neighbors in Ukraine most of the time, nearly a year in - though I don't know how long that will last.
There are still tens of millions of refugees, and it will already be a horrific body count when it's over and may be known, no thanks to Mr. "Diplomacy First" Biden.