Henry Gondorff and Net Assessments

There is a wonderful scene in the movie “The Sting,” when Henry Gondorff, card shark and con man extraordinaire, master of the long con, (Paul Newman) takes Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) to the train station so “the Kid” can see their mark - mob boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Hooker watches Lonnegan walk across the train station and remarks: “He’s not as tough as he thinks.” Gondorff looks at him with just a hint of ridicule on his face and answers: “Neither are we.”

That exchange needs to be written above the desk of anyone planning to jump into a war, or expand an existing one. 

Last week as I talked to a couple of really smart guys about what’s in the realm of the possible in Ukraine. Specifically, is it possible for Ukraine to “win” this war?

The first thing is to make sure you clearly define what you mean by win, as there are several options:

1) Regain all Ukrainian territory, to include Crimea, and eliminate the Russian threat.

2) Regain all Ukrainian territory, to include Crimea; Russia remains a threat.

3) Regain all Ukrainian territory except Crimea.

4) Stop the Russian army in its current position and recover currently occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia, Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts.

5) Stop the Russian army in its current position.

There are other variations as well, but I think these are the main desired end states.

The question of eliminating the Russian threat, which is often raised - Russia must not be able to ever do this again - or words to that effect, raises a very high bar. 

It is, to use war college terminology, a declaration of unlimited war. Calling for eliminating Russia’s capability to raise an army and move that army across a border would require the destruction of Russian defense industry and a crippling of their economy, and a de facto overturning of their government by one means or another. This is existential war; Russia as it now exists would cease to be. The level of destruction that would be needed would be substantial and would, per stated Russian policy, justify the use of nuclear weapons.

This war aim also, as stated by pundits from time to time, runs counter to Clausewitz’s warning that “In war, no results are final.” Only when a country is literally erased, a la the Assyrian empire around 700 BC, can results be said to be final. When nuclear weapons are added into the mix, this is both a foolish and a dangerous war aim.

So, no matter what other goal is chosen, the idea that Russia will somehow stop being a threat has to be discarded, by the Ukrainians, and by Europeans.

This shifts thinking to, again to use war college terminology, “limited war.” But limited war does not mean “little” war, it means the goals are not unlimited, open-ended,  the overturning of the enemy government, and usually the utter destruction of the enemy. To place in perspective, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, US goals in Japan switched to a limited war aim: we would allow some form of the monarchy to survive (though we did insist on the Tojo government being held accountable), but Japan would be rebuilt, etc. This was technically limited war, vice the unlimited war we fought in Germany.

Returning to Ukraine, what’s the possibility of Ukrainian recovery of currently occupied terrain? 

It should be noted that nearly any war is winnable, and nearly any war can be lost. What matters is what price you are willing to pay.

To push Russian forces out of occupied terrain can happen one of two ways: either a rout of a large element of the Russian force and the line breaks, followed by other elements of the Russian force simply quitting the field even though the fight has not reached them, or, the methodical defeat of each element of the Russian army, in detail.

The first idea, smashing an element of the Russian army, circling and destroying several divisions in one dashing maneuver, seems unlikely to have any affect on either army. Casualties, while perhaps not as huge as some might think, have been very large , yet both sides seem quite willing to continue the grind until hell freezes over. The only possible collapse at this point (I could easily be wrong) is a manpower collapse, that is, there’s no reserve element to fill a gap simply because there are no troops left in that sector. And the only army that hints at that possible problem is Ukraine’s.

That being the case, how many troops would be needed to push the Russians out, unit by unit?

Assuming the current Russian disposition remains roughly the same, and the Ukrainian army had the “luxury” to attack in one sector, win, then regroup and hit the next sector, and the Russians didn’t shift forces, a strike force of perhaps 300,000 (over and above the current Ukrainian army) would be necessary (this per some smart Army folks I know). This assumes a very well trained, very well equipped force that also benefits from support which has eliminated the Russian tactical aircraft threat, eliminated the Russian air defense systems, and is able to fly close air support missions without threat from Russian forces. 

To create that force would require more than a year of training, as well as stockpiling of equipment and ammunition and fuel, a huge undertaking. (Who knows, perhaps this is taking place in Poland, Germany, France and the UK as we speak). 

So, is it possible to defeat the Russians and push them out? Yes. 

But it assumes something. Which leads us back to Doyle Lonnegan.

It assumes that you can pull it off. It assumes that when you attack, you achieve a breakthrough, that the Russians are no tougher than your earlier estimates.

History is full of faulty net assessments, from Hannibal forward. Like the US in Vietnam, Hannibal never really lost an engagement - until the last one. But Carthage did lose the war. Putting another 300,000 or more Ukrainians into the field and extending the war another year or two may succeed. Or it may not. And getting it wrong might well leave Ukraine in a substantially worse position than it is in right now. There needs to be a brutally honest assessment of the war and the possible ways ahead, and the likely costs. I’m not sure anyone is very good at all that right now… we need to get better at it in a hurry, before we find out that we aren’t as tough as we think.