The False Premise of Modern Warfare

November 1st, 2026

At Trebia the Romans lost some 30,000, at Lake Trasimene the Romans lost some another 30,000 dead - both in a single day. Carthaginian losses for both battle combined, less than 10,000. At Cannae the Romans lost more than 60,000 - in perhaps 5 hours. The Carthaginian losses were said to be less than 2,000. The Carthaginians cut the “SPQR” signet rings off the dead Centurions and sent 2 large barrels of rings back to Rome. 

In 217 BC, Rome and her Italian allies had a combined population of perhaps 3 to 4 million.

Think of those numbers, I’ll return to them in a moment.

Dominant Battle-space Awareness, Precision Delivery, Focused Logistics, Persistent Surveillance, etc., etc., etc.

These and another score of buzzwords emerged over the course of the last 35 years, promising that a new, more precise, perhaps even elegant and more humane style of war would emerge. The proliferation of drones, robots and most especially Artificial Intelligence has rekindled these dreams. AI will mean a revolution in weapons technology and a revolution in warfare. The army that masters AI will win the next war.

These are only dreams. Or, perhaps nightmares; technologies do not win wars, specifically, these new technologies will not win wars.

Don’t get me wrong, these are tools and in many cases very good tools. And any craftsman wants the best tools. I certainly want our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force to have the very finest weapons, and in great abundance. But that doesn’t assure victory. The woodworking shop doesn’t make a fine piece of furniture, the carpenter does.

A long time ago I recall sitting in a comfortable chair, from a million miles away, watching a US team of operators getting ready to leave their compound and head out into some hot, dry place, to grab a bad guy. There were several drones with beautiful, high resolution cameras, following the unit, and there were more drones over the bad guy and his troops, there were planes and more technology than you could shake a stick at. 

And then, as the various vehicles left the compound, in the model of the night, the drone camera zoomed in on some kid, maybe 12 years old, standing outside the gate, perhaps a half mile away, bare feet, with a cell phone, and the bad guy’s folks were alerted, the targeted bad guy moved, and the raid was a bust.

Years later, the bad guys are still there.

Anyone in the US or any NATO country, or many of our friends and allies in Asia or the Mid East, who has spent any time in the military working on some sort of war plan, has at one time or another “fallen in love,” at least for a short while, with a plan - and the associated technology - that was going to let us “poke out the other guy’s eyes” (break his sensors), “freeze him in place” (drop his bridges and destroy his mobility assets (aircraft ships and trains) while still in home port), we would “deny his command and control” (jam all those links), and, then as he had no idea what was going on, he had no weapons, and he had no mobility, and with his communications systems down, the evil dictator was isolated from his forces in the field, and he was left with no choice but to surrender. We’ll be home in 6 weeks - tops. Maybe sooner. Certainly before Christmas.

Why doesn’t it work? Why doesn’t all this technology, all this firepower end the war in 6 weeks?

Because the other guy gets a vote. And he casts that vote based on will. Because in the end war is about one thing and one thing only: will.

These technologies can, in fact, win battles. And winning battles is of great importance. But winning battles alone does not win wars.

A really smart friend of mine likes to remind me that killing everyone is one path to victory. It is. But, as he knows, if there were ever a strategy that required will, that is it. It’s a very hard, very unpleasant path. Remember that it was as much the blockade and starving of the German people, as it was the fighting in the trenches, that ended World War I. That tactic: the blockade, wasn’t targeted at armies, it was targeted at German civilians. And World War II involved slaughter at a never before imagined level, and in that case, the West, and the US, demonstrated the will to win - even if it meant slaughtering our enemy, slaughtering civilians.

Yes, we killed a great many Germans and Japanese. We had the will to do so in order to win the war.

Go back to Rome, 2,200 years ago: Rome and her allies lost more than 100,000 soldiers in just a few battles; 3% or more of the total population killed in three battles over the course of a year. What did Rome’s citizens do? They raised another army each time. They had the will to fight - and win.

Weapons, technology, wunderwaffe - these do not win wars. And insisting that because we have all the neat technology and all the neat buzzwords that we can fight and win this or that war isn’t correct. The premise that superior technology guarantees that we’ll win the war is simply false. We may win the battle, we may, as Col. Harry Summers said of US operations in Vietnam, never lose on the battlefield. But, as Col Tu answered him: “That may be so. But it is also irrelevant.”

One thing you can bank on, some guy in the future, looking out on his country, being invaded not by other men, but by robot crawlers and super-sophisticated drones, will know, down in his bones, that no matter who is controlling those drones, that that guy, his enemy, does not have the same spine, the same will, he has to fight the war.

Will wins. Everything else? Just tools. 

November 1st 2026

Crystal Ball

Since everyone else does it, I wrote down some thoughts on what’s ahead - if nothing else, for your amusement:

Domestically - the latest polls show that the earlier polls were skewed (no surprise there, polls have been gun-decked I suspect since Noah started asking whether building a boat was a good idea…) But, that suggests that perhaps it won’t be as dire as some have predicted, with the loss of the House by a narrow margin and the Senate either at a 50-50 split or 51-49 one way or the other. This will mean an ugly fight if one of the Supreme Court judges retires in the next 2 years, as has been postulated, but that is what it is…

Will there be impeachments of some cabinet officers? Probably. None appear to me to be deserved, but that doesn’t mean much. Somehow this really does need to be corralled. I may have gotten a little cheap thrill out of President Clinton’s impeachment, but it accomplished nothing positive. For that matter, the impeachment of Andrew Johnson may have been legally accurate - he did break the law, but the law was foolish and was stricken by Congress a short while later. 

The question, as one smart friend pointed out, is whether this sort of thing so wraps up the President’s attention and efforts that he is weakened on the international stage? That is, of course, a distinct possibility. On the other hand, president’s in the past have flexed to the international stage where they did have a more free hand and we might well find Trump more engaged abroad. We shall see, but my guess is that Trump will stay involved internationally and will still find ways to get what he wants, for the most part.

Other than that, the US is actually doing well. I spent a few hours going over crimes stats this past week and the US really does have the lowest violent crime rates since 1900 - yes 125+ years, and well below nearly all of our allies in Europe and Asia. Economically, we are not only independent in energy, we have tremendous reserves and our position relative to the rest of the world is improving a bit. Overall, very positive. We also have some 600 million acres of woodlands, 500 million acres of grasslands and more than 400 million acres of commercial farmland - we can feed ourselves and much of the world. Prices may be unpleasant from time to time (too high for consumers, too low for farmers), but the fundamentals remain solid.

Further there are sectors of our economy that are moving in the right direction, and at the head of it is Space, courtesy of Musk. And his efforts in AI may also soon take center stage. So, economically, very good. And, from a combat capability perspective, our weapon systems remain the finest in the world, though expensive and difficult to produce in mass - though perhaps we will turn the corner on that in the next two years - I am guardedly hopeful.

Socially, we have a great deal of strain. But I think it’s worth noting that in 1968 we had anti-war riots picking up momentum (remember the pictures of burned out blocks in Washington DC on the cover of Time?), a Presidential candidate assassinated, Rev. King was assassinated, and there was a general fear of a race war. We are not that bad today, not even close - and the crime figures that lean in that direction are all concentrated in perhaps 20 cities governed by the far left. The one issue that I have worries about are the cell phones and the disturbing fact that some 2/3rds of folks get their news of their cell phones and the cell phones overwhelmingly use 4 news aggregators (Apple, Google, MSN and Yahoo). It’s not simply that these 4 sites are left of center in what they report; it is also how they report it. Listening to some recent reports you could easily come away with the sense that the US has dissolved in into the Wild Wild West, that there are shoot-outs on every street corner, store shelves are empty and we will all be scrapping for food before Thanksgiving. In short, they love to promote doom, and AI will only make this problem more severe. And there is no easy fix for that.

I’ve been trying to get my hands around AI and the two issues that worry me concern the markets, and personal information and manipulation. The markets - the banks and big trading houses all around the world - have automated systems for stopping and starting trades in the event of certain movements in the market already defined as too high risk. I have read a number of major traders express real concern that AI systems will be no different EXCEPT that they will be more predictive and at the same time faster. But the predictive software isn’t perfect (it can never be, thank you quantum mechanics), it’s just faster and uses more variables, but can be just as wrong. But the auto-trading stops and starts will be faster. The risk here, again, as per a few traders, is that a system makes prediction of some trend and gets it dramatically wrong. And then acts on it with blistering speed… we could have market mayhem quickly - perhaps too quickly to prevent a major disaster. There is a very low probability that it will happen, but very high cost if it does.

The other issue with AI is what this software is doing: 

First, it is accumulating every stitch of information on everybody. I talked to a guy from one of the major tech firms a number of years ago and they were already working on what we would call a pattern of life (POL) file on everyone - everyone. 8 Billion POL files. Everyone will be analyzed and profiled and they will try to understand you - all of you, all of us.

But the second piece is that the AI linguistics models will take those individual files and will, based on models of each of us individually, attempt to modify any response  - any and every response - to you based on those files. This is already being done to some extent. If you use any of the AI systems, they are already cued to note your likes and dislikes, the types of language you use and don’t use, and they adjust their answers accordingly. The long-term goal here is to shape everything that hits your cell-phone, laptop, etc., so that it is tailored specifically for you so that you respond in the desired manner, from simply accepting their answer to buying their product. Of course, buying or selling sits soap its one thing. But the same process can, and presumably will eventually, be used to influence how you vote.

And it all rests on the ever growing mountain of data abut you that is held by all these various firms.

I would add my own personal soap box issue here: we need to strengthen the 4th amendment - a great deal. People should own their own data - just as we have done with college athletes; this would change the dynamic of what can be collected and held and used - used against you. And no organization should be allowed to hold more than a certain amount of data on you. If you have paid your taxes for the last 40 years, why is the IRS holding your data? Limit it to 5 years. Limit a bank to 5 years. Google or Amazon can only hold 3 years of data. It’s like a tennis ball in a pipe, push a new ball in, and an old ball falls out. And violation of the rule would have criminal penalties.

I would also add that any long-term fix to the issues in our country will, in the end require fixing education in this country, that children and young adults go to school to learn, not be indoctrinated. But that is an issue for another day.

As for the rest of the world: some other issues:

1) The various warnings about having 72 hours of food and water, etc., as has suddenly become of note in Europe and elsewhere, besides being a generally good idea, my sense is that several things have happened at once: 

a) The lack of any sense by much of the European leadership as to how to respond to the riots in Europe, beyond some meaningless words and minor tactical responses. They can restore order in limited cases and small areas, but they don't want to answer the real problem, the combined far left and Muslim immigrant alliance that is using their own words against them. Any real response must begin by undermining their own political positions for the last 25 years, and in a certain sense, undermines the EU itself. Political, social and economic problems have spread across Europe: Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the UK, now even Poland are all facing troubles that their leadership ill equipped to address. The answers seem straightforward, but politically nearly impossible. 

b) The EU has advertised Russia’s “hyper war” or "5th Gen War” for political purposes, but I think there is enough that they have found (and really, there is nothing new here, the Russians have been doing this since 1918) that they - the EU nations - need to act but doing so will require realigning real money and again, walking back policies they have championed for at least 35 years. That Trump has poked them all in the eye and insisted that they fix it themselves has them finally worried that he meant it. That an alliance with 3 times as many people and 8 times the GDP of Russia is struggling to fix readiness while also keeping the fight going in Ukraine is a real problem. That Ukraine has already come forward and said “We need another 70 billion Euros for next year” has served to demonstrate how weak they - collectively - really are.

So, "not knowing" what is going to happen next, but fairly certain they will have no coherent and effective response, the leaders of Europe are acting like they are waiting for the Fates to descend from Olympus and mess up the world, and they will simply need to respond when it happens - but they continue to act as if it certainly isn't their fault. 

It also helps that they seem to have come out of their delusional state and recognized that the US is not a parliamentary system; Trump will still be president for 26 months after the November elections no matter how the elections go. Intellectually, they know this; viscerally, they seem to regularly forget it. Yes, Trump may be weakened by all the intramural cat-fighting after the next Congress sits, but my suspicion is that he won’t be as weak as they hope on one hand, nor as weak as they fear on the other, when they try to figure out how to deal with Russia.

2) The Russia - Ukraine war is now a real problem. Someplace in the recent past the EU was still living in fantasy land and “knew” that Ukraine was going to win (not than anyone had a strategy that explained “how”) and all they needed to do was to fund it at 50 - 60 billion Euros per year. Ukrainians would continue to die but they - the EU leadership - didn't look too hard at the casualty counts, and there seemed to be enough Ukrainians and besides, they believed the reports on Russian deaths and 8 to 1 kill ratios. But, now we have clearly settled into a “post Somme” reality with folks arguing about taking back from the Russians 105.83 sq kilometers of land in the "just 9 months" of fighting, as if this were some amazing, D-Day level of tactical and operational success. 

And suddenly, the cash strapped EU, which still doesn’t have enough stored energy for this winter if it’s too cold (I get the feeling some of the EU leadership is praying for global warming), realizes that all the money they loaned to Ukraine was provided with the understanding that the EU nations are paying the interest on the loans, and Ukraine is only repaying the principle, but only IF Russia starts paying remunerations in the wake of a peace treaty. Which is looking pretty sketchy… I get the sense that for much of the EU, ending the war sooner rather than later is suddenly a priority before the EU sinks deeper into debt.

Whether they can is another issue. Zelenskyy I think understands that he has painted himself into a corner, that he needs to end the war, he is running out of men and the country is being destroyed. But, I think psychologically he doesn’t know how to let go. He is going to need to be helped off the stage… Trump’s unorthodox approach, as grating as it can appear sometimes, in fact, may be the only thing that works. And yes, Putin is an evil SOB. But he has killed far fewer people than any one of China’s leaders in the last 80 years and everyone talks to Beijing. EU leadership needs to accept the fact that they need to deal with unsavory people, like the Hamas figures they deal with all the time.

3) The Mid East is a mess BUT, my guess is that some important steps have taken place here in the last year and they are going to start to bear fruit. At the top, Sheikh Mohammed of the UAE (the Prime Minister) realizes that a great deal of what everyone has been fighting for - for decades and decades - is insane. I think he is going to keep pushing for the UAE to be increasingly independent of any sort of Pan-Arab thinking and focus on UAE political and economic security. The pipeline across Fujairah and doing something about the Houthis are both part of this - as is emasculating Iran. I think Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince), who is, perhaps not quite a smooth as Sheikh Mohammed, also gets this. Trump will take care of Iran, and Iran, which has the same problem with US presidents as does Europe (the “not a parliamentary system” issue), is waking up to the fact that Trump will still be here next year. I think it will be interesting to see how many of the IRGC relish martyrdom, and I think, IF we keep the squeeze on, many will have that opportunity next year. Whether there can be a successful revolution is another story. I think they - the people - need a real leader to mobilize them. IF one merges, the revolution will be VERY bloody. But how it turns out remains a mystery at this point.

Meanwhile, oil flow out of the Gulf states now exceeds what it was before the war started. Iran has forced the Arab world to make the Strait of Hormuz of little importance. Thanks.

4) China… China remains a country struggling with basic issues: they import 12+ million barrels of oil per day, they produce about 4.4 million per day, their consumption  reached 17 million barrels per day almost a year ago and their consumption numbers continue to rise. They are also net importers of food. And they have an economy that has been structured around manufacturing and cheap access to foreign markets as a “developing economy,” all of which has been weakened by Trump’s foreign policies. Add to that what they have observed of the wars both in Ukraine and Iran (wars never go according to plan), and a clear “signal” that directly confronting Trump will at least lead to unexpected results, add the renewed prickliness in South and South East Asia, and it is difficult to imagine that Xi will try anything while Trump is in office - which may give the US and its allies a tiny window to prepare.

But, there is the fear that is may soon be “too late,” which could push him to try something, if not a direct move on Taiwan, some sort of "5th gen war with Chinese characteristics.” 

And then there is the issue of China’s population: Yi Fuxian, a professor of demographics and obstetrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has spent years studying Chinese birth-rates. Last year he reported that China had the same number of births in 2025 as China had in the 1738 when the population was 150 million. He has pulled the numbers apart reaching back decades and his answer is that the Chinese population is currently 130 million less than the official 1.41 billion. Other estimates, based on salt consumption - a staple and stable number apparently - puts the delta between 200 and 400 million. Perhaps more importantly, the demographic trends suggest China’s population is contracting rapidly, and will fall below 400 million by 2100.

This too might prompt Xi to act now rather than later as the numbers continue to work against China

5) As noted above, there is the issue of AI. My own sense is that AI will be a great worry but less impactful than expected. Certainly, in medicine it offers great potential. In finance it could be a disaster simply because it will project trends faster and act faster, but not necessarily be any more accurate. In weaponry, we already have systems that function of full auto - I’m not that worried. Can AI be used by evil people to do horrible things? Yes. I think the way to address that is not with AI, it is with protecting personal data - everyone’s personal data. That we let college athletes do so is a start. Let’s go from there.

6) Finally, there is the Black Swan, the completely unexpected event. Coronal Mass Ejection, perhaps. Or some world-wide flu… Or… But those aren’t unexpected - folks have been along about them for decades. The answer here is to actually prepare, calmly, ahead of time. We need to begin with hardening infrastructures, and go from there..

v/r pete      

 

October 30th, 2026   

Politics - G20 meeting in Atlanta - October 30th-31st

- Putin comments on relations with Europe

- Ceasefire in Oleshky holding

Combat Ops - Strikes continue 

- Ship sinks off Bulgaria

Weather

Kharkiv

56 and sunny, gusting over 20. Rain tomorrow afternoon and evening, solid clouds for 5 days. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the low 50s. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Melitopol

55 and cloudy, gusting over 20. Rain tonight and tomorrow, mostly cloud through next week. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the 50s. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.

Kyiv

47 and cloudy. Cloudy all next week, daily lows in the low 40s, daily highs around 50. Winds variable, 5-10kts.

Politics

The G20 Foreign Ministers meeting has begun in Atlanta and will run through tomorrow.

Russia’s ForMin Lavrov is in attendance.

The G20 consists of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, the USA, and the EU and the African Union.

President Putin, at a summit with leaders of several African countries, commented on relations with Europe, a potential war, and his recent phone-call with Presidents Store and Stubb.

“Many people are constantly talking about preparing for war by 2030. Is this right or wrong? First of all, we are ready, but we don’t want any war with Europe.”

“If anyone wants to, let them prepare, but [Europe] not yet achieved their goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.”

“And if it goes too far, there will be no winners at all. Let no one forget this.”

Concerning his phone-call with Store and Stubb,  Putin said:

“I think it was right [that they called]. Ultimately, there are people in Europe who don’t want to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, like some, but rather want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue, [supports] any steps … aimed at restoring full and comprehensive relations with European countries. Either with all of them together, in the form of the well-known EU organization, or bilaterally. We’re all right, whatever they want.”

Stubb earlier noted that:

“The discussion was frank and substantive. We are neighboring countries to Russia. The outcome of this war will have a direct impact on our and the broader European security. Ending the war requires direct discussions.”

Store commented:

“The war comes with enormous human and material costs. The suffering and destruction will impact generations. In the call we stressed the importance of de-escalation.”

Sweden and Denmark had a different perspective, with Denmark’s PM Frederiksen saying she was “very skeptical about this Norwegian and Finnish initiative,” noted it was that it was not coordinated with Denmark or Sweden, and she “cannot see any signs that Russia wants peace with Europe.”

Sweden’s PM Kristersson commented: “… everyone wants peace except Putin…I have pretty low expectations for this kind of talk.”

The ceasefire in and around Oleshky is holding. 

Ukraine’s PM Koretskyi announced earlier today that the operations was about to include the evacuation of 527 residents, but he retracted that statement, and suggested the numbers keep changing.

There is a demining effort taking place around the town as part of the process of evacuating the citizens.

Air and Maritime Operations

Ukrainian Forces

Ukrainian drones and missiles again struck the oil facilities at Samara and Russia’s Vice PM Novak reported an attack on two other oil faculties and a chemical plant, noting “minor damage” at one plant, but did not provide any further details.

Restrictions on aircraft arrivals and departures were again in place today at Moscow's Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky airports, with flights in and out of Sheremetyevo Airport remaining on schedule.

During the day on October 29th Ukrainian drones struck the Sterlitamak chemical plant 650 miles east of Moscow.

During the period October 28th-October 29th Ukrainian forces struck targets in the Moscow area, with Russian forces reporting 613 drones launched into Russian airspace. Russian sources claimed that “most” were destroyed, and that 231 were destroyed “as they approached” Moscow.

Moscow’s four airports - Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky - were closed at various times during the day but returned to normal operations.

Russian Forces

During the period October 29th-October 30th Russian forces launched at least 7 x Iskander class ballistic missiles, 4 Kh-59/69 missiles, and 113 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace. The ballistic missiles struck in the Kyiv area and in Kremenchuk, Poltava oblast. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated 3 of the Kh-59/69 missiles and 96 drones.

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia oblasts. The attacks hit power and logistics infrastructure and related targets. A power outage was reported in Dnipro city.

Dnipro city and Zaporizhzhia city were both struck by several glide bombs. 

Civilian casualties included at least 7 killed and 77 wounded.

Contship Jet (Liberian flag), struck by 3 x USVs two days ago off the coast of Bulgaria (October 28th), sank yesterday 17 miles off Cape Kaliakra. All 18 crewmen had been rescued, taken off the ship as the ship began listing heavily to starboard. Several Bulgarian patrol boats rescued the sailors after they abandoned ship, with assistance from a French Atlantique providing spotting and overwatch.

The ship was carrying 421 containers when it sank.

The launch point and source of the USVs has not been determined but are being assumed to be Russian.

During the period October 28th-October 29th Russian forces launched at least 112 x strike drones and several Banderol loitering munitions into Ukrainian airspace. The UAF claimed it shot down or defeated 97 drones. 

Damage was reported in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kkharkiv, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Civilian casualties included at least 19 killed and 82 wounded.

Technology

There are some interesting notes: earlier reports had suggested that Ukrainian drone production and usage had already passed 4 million per year (11,000 per day) and that by the end of this year production numbers would reach 19,000 per day, and reach 30,000 per day by the end of next year. Just the other say, MinDef Khmer asked EU nations for additional funding to double drone production to 16 million drones. 8 million per year would place current production (and presumably usage) at 22,000 per day, and 16 million would equate to just under 44,000 per day.

Per the UGS, Russian FPV drone production was in excess of 10,000 per day as of July, Russian sources suggested it was higher, in the range of 13,000 to 15,000 per day, and would soon reach 19,000 per day.

This is of note as the bulk of casualties are caused by drones (estimates run from nearly 80% to over 90%).

Ground Operations

Operations on the ground continue much as before, with attempted infiltrations along much of the line, the bulk of them by Russian troops, some by Ukrainian troops, and some minor changes in the line.

Russian forces made some small gains south of Dobripillia (north of Pokrovsk), and Ukrainian forces continue to hold ground on the northern edge of Kostiantinivka.

Further south, Ukrainian forces made gains just north of Fillia (along the Vovcha river), and further west, activity was lighter, perhaps a reflection of the local ceasefire around Oleshky.

Economic Reporting

         Feb22  Jul9  Aug7 Sep8 Oct8 Oct29 Oct30

Brent      94.71   77.93 81.75 98.19 105.80 113.60 117.20

WTI     92.10   73.11 76.66 93.28 92.99 100.30 103.90

NG       3.97        3.12   2.64 2.95   3.16 2.94 2.84

Wheat     8.52           6.06   6.35   7.46  6.86 5.96 6.03

Ruble     85         76.31 82.61 86.21 85.20 81.23 80.59

Hryvnia 28.6 44.51 44.73 44.63 44.93 45.33 45.36

Urals 91.66 57.80 79.19 89.44 123.93 110.48 102.94

ESPO 94.52 73.53 78.79 98.44 108.70 123.32 122.88

Sokol 99.31 71.56 77.42 94.09 109.20 119.53 121.60

ESPO Forward, 30 October - 130.15

Thoughts

The Ukrainian General Staff (UGS) reported that Ukrainian forces inflicted 49,040 casualties on Russian forces as of October 28th, which, assuming normal casualty figures for the 29th, 30, and 31st, will push them well over President Zelenskyy’s goal last year of inflicting 50,000 casualties per month on Russian forces by the end of this year.

Excuse my skepticism but this feels a great deal like the body counts passed back to McNamara’s office during the Vietnam War.

The UGS numbers have climbed fairly steadily since late last summer when they started reporting monthly casualties near 30,000 per month. With only one or two exceptions, each month has been higher than the previous month’s numbers (September’s count was 46,230). But it gets more complicated. Gen. Syrskyi noted early this spring that the “normal” KIA to WIA ratio of 1 to 3 did not apply, that Russian KIAs out-numbered WIAs. 

Assuming a 50% split (KIA / WIA), that would mean the KIA count for these months would have been 23,000 and 25,000. It has also been noted - repeatedly - that about 30% of WIAs are severely wounded personnel who will never return to combat (both the Russians and the Ukrainians have used that number). So, severely wounded would have been 7,000 and 7,500 per month, for a total of 48,000 KIAs and another 14,500 severely wounded, no return to duty for the last two months; 60,000 in 2 months, 8% of the total force in 2 months. 

Further, the total numbers for 2026 are in excess of 350,000, suggesting 175,000 KIAs and another 80,000 severely wounded, 36% of the total Russian commitment to the Ukrainian theater. If that had happened, why hasn’t the Russian front collapsed? 

An army that held together with that scale of losses would have to be a superb fighting force with truly superior leadership…

More simply, since January the Russian army, which, per the UGS is suffering 8 times as many casualties as the Ukrainian army, has turned over the bodies of 4,995 Ukrainian soldiers. During that same period, during which the Ukrainian army claims they have inflicted perhaps 175,000 KIAs on the Russian army, the Ukrainian army has turned over the bodies of 258 Russian soldiers. 

Simply put, these numbers don’t track…

v/r pete