Briefly Noted: Military Matters

In a remarkable development, Russia has stated that it is pulling back across the Dnieper River, vacating the city of Kherson, which was recently incorporated into the Russian Federation. The withdrawal seems to be well planned and exectuted, but it remains a withdrawal from a part of the Russian Federation. I assume that this is a temporary measure, as the official statement suggests, but it will certainly cause public upset in Russia. Here is the statement

Here’s a video of a press briefing:

tim anderson @timand2037

#Russian Commander #Surovkin announces strategic withdrawal to the left (east) bank of the #Dnieper River in #Kherson. Ukraine casualties have been much higher than Russian, but the west bank remains vulnerable, including to flooding from dam sabotage.

And here’s a remarkably frank assessment of the state of the US military:

'The Big One Is Coming': Top US Military Commander Warns American Capabilities "Sinking"

A top US military commander has warned that the power of America's military deterrent is 'fading' - and that America might not be adequately prepared for a large-scale military engagement.

"This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the warmup," Navy Admiral Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said at a conference last week, according to the WSJ Editorial Board.

"The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been tested" for "a long time."

According to Richard, things are getting worse.

"As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are," he said, adding "as those curves keep going," it won't matter "how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are—we’re not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem."

Note that modifier “near-term.” This is a more urgent vulnerability than most of the political class cares to recognize.

Adm. Richard noted that America retains an advantage in submarines—“maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have”—but even that may erode unless America picks up the pace “getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going.” Building three Virginia-class fast-attack submarines a year would be a good place to start. -WSJ

Meanwhile, America was caught flat-footed last year when China tested a hypersonic missile that flew around the world. This means that Beijing can put any US city or facility at risk - perhaps without even being detected.

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Obviously this is, in part, a request for more money. But if the assessment is accurate, the problems will not be resolved in the near term, no matter how much money gets thrown at them. Moreover, the use of the word “urgent” suggests that the “warmup” in Ukraine has been a wake-up call to the US military.

Meanwhile, Zhou’s on the job—at least part time—and we had a major election in which these issues never got discussed.