Press
Overweight tanks, short-range artillery and fear of Putin’s aggressiveness: the USA under Joe Biden is seeking its position as a world power.
Washington, DC – “Starting with Ukraine, there is no shortage of observations to ponder,” said James Rainey, as quoted by the magazine Defense News The general heads the Army Futures Command, the US Army department responsible for modernizing the armed forces. The magazine Politico cites voices who see the use of US weapons against Vladimir Putin on his own territory as a “value”. The first major land war on European soil since the Second World War is the dress rehearsal for the next – possibly even bigger – war. The USA is searching for its future role as a world power.
“A senior US military official told parliamentarians in early May that easing restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American weapons on Russian territory would make ‘military sense,’ according to two participants in the meeting,” reports Politico. According to the WashingtonPost US President Joe Biden has now authorized Ukrainian commanders to “‘strike back against Russian forces attacking them or preparing to attack’ in and around Kharkiv, near the border in northeastern Ukraine,” as the post writes.
“Although the Army leadership has acknowledged the need to restore force resilience, very little concrete progress has been made to date. As early as 2016, we argued that the Army needed to practice how to rebuild units after devastating losses and improve the resilience of those who have to continue fighting in such difficult conditions.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been pushing for this change of direction with increasing vehemence. More and more US and Western politicians had also called for this step, so that Russia would no longer have any options in the north by remaining silent. It had become increasingly obvious to Western military officials that Putin’s troops were carrying out missile attacks from outside the range of the Ukrainian air defenses and were preparing or supporting infantry advances. The dilemma has been dragging on for several weeks.
The morale of the Ukrainian national defenders has fallen extremely as a result, says the post “and the lack of trained soldiers means that the front lines are still vulnerable despite the resumption of US military aid,” she writes. But fighting spirit is the decisive factor in at least keeping a war open, said Stephen Biddle to the ZDFThe US defense expert reminded us of the cardinal error that many battle leaders have made over the centuries: underestimating their opponents.
US military: Ukraine war has dynamized modernization – USA questions decisions
After the first six months of the Ukraine war with its horrendous losses, the magazine War on the Rocks Criticism of the resilience of US troops in the event of an armed conflict: “Although Army leadership has recognized the need to restore force resilience, very little concrete progress has been made so far. As early as 2016, we argued that the Army needed to practice how to rebuild units after devastating losses and improve the resilience of those who must continue to fight under such difficult conditions,” wrote David Barno and Nora Bensahel.
Defense News reports that the war in Ukraine has given the US Army a dynamic future planning – “from procurement to the structuring of formations to the redesign of logistics: the army has already reconsidered its plans to modernize tanks and changed its strategies for dealing with drones.” Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the USA has been questioning its attitude to tanks, helicopters, artillery – and its attitude to self-imposed “red lines”. Reach currently seems to be the determining factor in the discussion: the reach of political decisions and the reach of equipment, for example that of artillery, such as Defense Express executes.
US military: Developing new ammunition makes more sense than building new cannons
The magazine quoted Doug Bush in September last year as saying that “fire strategy will influence important decisions in his department, including how to meet the need for extended-range cannon artillery,” as the US Army procurement officer explains – he points out the complexity of these issues: “Where do you need towed artillery, where do you perhaps need tracked or wheeled vehicles? What can you do with ammunition to get range instead of building new cannons?”
Reach is also the central point of contention in the Biden decision: “Whether Ukraine should be able to use all weapons supplied by the West to attack military targets in Russia is currently the subject of controversial debate among NATO states,” writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And also Politico still sees a disagreement in the US – no longer along political lines, but between the military and politicians – the magazine quotes an anonymous Democratic congressman as saying that there is a “consensus” between intelligence officials and the military that “there would be real military benefits to allowing Ukraine to attack targets across the Russian border”. According to the source, however, the civilian leadership of the Defense Department is “more risk-averse”, writes Politico.
US military: West learns more from Ukraine than Ukraine can learn from the West
In fact, the world is on the threshold of a global conflict – the WashingtonPost repeated Vladimir Putin’s recent warning that further Western intervention could lead to “serious consequences” – for example, Russia attacking small European countries with nuclear weapons “if NATO allowed Ukraine to attack deep into Russian territory”. post is waiting for further measures from the West that could potentially escalate Putin’s situation – for example, the deployment of NATO soldiers to Ukraine as trainers.
Ultimately, the Western powers are learning more about the war from Ukraine than the Ukrainians are learning about the war from the West – the West has only ever experienced proxy wars in its conflict with Russia. The training of Ukrainian tank drivers has also only been able to slow Russia down, not suppress it, because the tanks were primarily built for a different war – which also applies to the British Challenger or the German Leopard. “If a tank breaks down or is hit in battle today, two recovery vehicles are needed to pull it out of the battle,” Glenn Dean told the Defense News above the American “wonder weapon” M1A1 AbramsThe major general is the US Army’s program manager for ground combat systems and advocates redesigning the tank as a weapon system or at least upgrading it from the inside out.
US military: Putin proves to the West that Challenger and Abrams are out of date
He called for the “logistics footprint” of the Abrams to be reduced – the aim here is also to increase the range: in mobility and the ability to survive battles unscathed. The tank of the future will be threatened by infantrymen with shoulder-launched guided missiles and, above all, remote-controlled drones – in the even more distant future, probably even decisive drones – which will crash onto the tank’s turret. The command structures will also have to be streamlined – a communications hub will control many networked weapons and will have to recognize and eliminate threats from its even greater range. War will be faster than individual soldiers can think and politicians can decide.
So far, the United States and NATO have tried to limit the consequences of their mostly coordinated behavior to the entire alliance, as the WashingtonPost According to the report, NATO diplomats stress that “any training would be organized on a bilateral level between the member states and Ukraine and not by NATO itself, which officially maintains its distance from the war,” the paper writes.
The post In this context, she once again stresses Joe Biden’s refusal to involve his own US Army personnel in the training of Ukrainians on the ground; however, she questions how long this decision will remain valid for the US government: “Whether this ban, like his other red lines, will fall by the wayside remains to be seen.” (Karsten Hinzmann)
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