In any branch of the U.S. military, you can divide troops into two major categories: enlisted and officers. Officers are lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, and then generals. Officers are college-educated, having either gone through reserve officer training corps (ROTC) in college, a military academy like West Point, or an officer training program. They are management. They are the soldiers sitting in tents looking at maps. (Not all, of course, but conceptually, they’re making the broad strategic decisions.)
Then there are enlisted personnel. They start as grunts: privates and specialists. Most enlisted soldiers do their three- or four-year enlistment and get out. But for those who stick around and have the leadership chops, they become NCOs—noncommissioned officers. They are the sergeants of the military (or “petty officers” in the Navy). In the Army, the NCO ranks are corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, sergeant first class, master sergeant, and so on. You can get the full list for all the services here.
In an infantry unit, the lowest division is the squad, which is six to 10 soldiers and is commanded by a sergeant. The platoon is 42 soldiers, including three rifle squads, a weapons squad (carrying heavy machine guns and javelins), and a HQ squad. It is commanded by a platoon leader (a lieutenant) and a platoon sergeant (usually a sergeant first class).
An infantry company is four of these platoons, including three rifle squads and a weapons platoon, again, carrying heavier weaponry like mortars and anti-tank missiles. An infantry company is led by a captain and a first sergeant. Different types of units have similar setups, though the details may differ here and there. Point is, there are officers and then there’s a professional class of experienced enlisted soldiers. A sergeant first class usually has 15-18 years of experience. A first sergeant, at least 17 years. These guys know their shit.
That's me in 1990, at my Army barracks in Bamberg, Germany. That hair was trouble. But I was damn good at my job, so my platoon sergeant would look the other way.
So if officers are the management in the boardrooms, the NCOs are the soldiers who actually get shit done. Officers issue orders, NCOs make sure the orders are carried out. At the platoon level, lieutenants may be in charge, but the smart ones knew to let sergeants call the shots. Imagine one to two years of service as an officer versus that platoon sergeant with 15 years of experience. And once that officer gets experience, they get pulled out of that platoon. So really, NCOs run the joint. They’re the ones who made sure I got a haircut when I was dead set on being a punk rock rebel. But they’re also the ones who taught me to do my job, guided me in my training, gave me any necessary feedback.
In fact, as a junior enlisted soldier, I rarely came in contact with any officer, including my platoon leader. By my third year, as a specialist, I was in charge of the HQ fire direction section for my three-launcher platoon. (More on my unit here.) When the platoon leaders showed up to my vehicle during field training exercises, they knew to defer to me on certain decisions even though I wasn’t an NCO because I was damn good at my job. Expertise mattered.
And that’s the crux of it: expertise. Each section in my MLRS rocket artillery battery had sergeants in charge (except mine for the last year they put me in charge, because, as I mentioned, I was damn good at my job.) That was years of experience covering every single facet of the units’ operation. Our platoon sergeant had 15 years of experience. Our first sergeant had like, 20. All those years—even my own three—had value.
And American doctrine gives NCOs freedom to carry out orders. HQ may say “take that hill,” and the platoon leader may say “take your squad and flank left,” but it’s up to the squad leader, an NCO, to decide how to best carry out that task. In other words, the officers don’t have to worry about whether the troops can carry out commands. The troops are led by NCOs with tons of experience, able to carry out those commands. And that initiative allowed me to have that punk-rock hair (though I would flatten it with gel during work hours). My platoon sergeant valued my work, and he granted me this reward.
Russia’s army doesn’t have anything like that. There are officers, and then there are one-year conscripts. There is no institutional knowledge that can guide the new guys and make sure that orders are carried out efficiently. If you wonder why Russia can f--- up an ambush to the point where it costs them massive loss of life, it’s because they don’t have sergeants to drill scenarios like “turning into an ambush,” and their one-year service is certainly not enough to learn those lessons during their training. Only 1% of conscripts reenlist. Russia has contract soldiers—those who reenlist—but “Russia does not want well-rounded enlisted leaders, they want narrowly-focused, technically competent, professional, enlisted soldiers. Due to this very different system, Russian contract servicemen are probably more accurately described as ‘enlisted professionals’ than ‘noncommissioned officers.’” In other words, these are the guys manning complex weapons systems like anti-aircraft missiles. They're not in leadership roles.
Instead, “As soon as a new lieutenant graduates from an academy and takes command of their platoon, they are expected to immediately begin training and maintaining discipline [filling] the leadership, planning, training, and disciplinary roles of both a U.S. platoon leader and platoon sergeant.” But of course, instead of being trained by a soldier with 15 years of experience, you’re being trained by the guy fresh out of an academy where his training is likely theoretical and not practical. The end result is nonsense like this. Compare to this U.S. Army training led by NCOs.
And that suits Russians fine! They don’t want battlefield initiative and independence. They want soldiers who follow orders, no matter how ridiculous or stupid they may seem That’s why they kept dropping paratroopers behind enemy lines on those first few days of the war: Someone had orders to take airfields that moment, and so they kept doing the thing that didn’t work over and over again. Hundreds died? Russian leaders don’t care.
But this does mean that instead of sitting in those tents and the command center making the big tactical decisions, Russian officers have to drag themselves to the front lines to make sure their orders are being carried out. Because as we’ve seen, Russia’s army is one big clusterf---. And that’s why you see so many generals and colonels die. According to one European diplomat, “They're struggling on the front line to get their orders through. They're having to go to the front line to make things happen, which is putting them at much greater risk than you would normally see."
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Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 12:30:25 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
On Thursday, Russian landing craft and ships at Berdyansk, along the coast of the Sea of Azov, just a few miles west of Mariupol, came under fire. Reports indicate that one ship of the Black Sea fleet may be sunk in the harbor. Two others appear to have fled the area, trailing smoke. Explosions on shore mark the destruction of a Russian warehouse filled with ammunition.
Exactly how this happened isn’t clear, but it certainly appears to be a spectacular victory for Ukraine in a very unexpected location.
Two days ago, Russia put out a propaganda video bragging about their occupation of Berdyansk and showing all the equipment they were unloading. There’s a good chance everything in this video is now destroyed or in the hands of Ukrainian forces. The destroyed ship is reported to be the “Orsk” seen in this video.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 12:35:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
To add to the astonishment, the reports of the Russian ship’s destruction were issued by the Ukrainian Navy. Berdyansk is the port where Russian troops have debarked for attacks on Mariupol. It’s also solidly in the area that had been considered under Russian control.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 12:42:30 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In closed door sessions, Zelenskyy reportedly sought security guarantees of the type that were mentioned in some earlier descriptions of a potential peace agreement, but did not resume requests for a No-Fly Zone and did not ask that Ukraine be admitted to NATO.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 1:02:40 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
These are the other two ships reported to have been damaged in action at the port of Berdyansk. At the same time this was happening, Kherson ran up the Ukrainian flag, with Ukrainian forces reportedly approaching from the northwest. These two locations are far apart. Kherson is in the west, about 80 miles from Odessa. Berdyansk in the east, just 40 miles from Mariupol.
But two major actions underway at points 200 miles from each other along the coast shows how even the south, which has been reported as the area where Russia was “consolidating its gains,” is far from securely under Russian control. The recapture of Kherson would deprive Russia of the single large urban area they’ve captured since the invasion began.
Ukraine may not have scheduled these events to correspond with the NATO meeting, but they are certainly giving the world leaders a show.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 1:21:25 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This is Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, reporting that Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian plane and a cruise missile overnight, and that Ukraine is fighting “heavily” and “successfully” in the Kherson region.
If accurate, the shooting down of a plane and missile could indicate that Ukraine has been able to locate more anti-aircraft weaponry near Mykolaiv. Which could explain how the Ukrainian army was able to advance out of the city without being interdicted by Russian planes or UAVs.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 1:38:44 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
NATO leaders are discussing how to get anti-ship weapons to Ukraine. Based on the action at Berdyansk, it’s clear that Russia’s Black Sea fleet is already a lot less secure than it seemed.
It’s hard to underestimate the effect that the action at Berdyansk could have on Russian morale — if it becomes widely known in Russia. Short of Great Britain in the Napoleonic era, there are few nations that have more pride invested in their naval power than Russia. Their superiority at sea is just assumed, and the Black Sea is their bathtub.
For a Russian ship to be sunk in the Black Sea, is a gut punch.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 1:43:52 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
More sanctions being handed down. G-7 nations are also taking additional steps to restrict access of Russia’s Central Bank, including limiting transactions in gold. Remember, oligarchs, it’s just a heavy yellow brick if you can’t spend it.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 1:48:48 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This is a useful map — though it would be nice to have more detail and a better reflection of areas where Russian control is limited to a few highway corridors. The color coding show the areas reportedly under Russian control by the date of their capture, as well as areas recaptured in the recent advances by Ukraine.
Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 · 2:15:05 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
President Biden’s statement on the extraordinary summit of NATO leaders.
“We had the privilege of hearing directly from President Zelenskyy, and will continue to support him and his government with significant, and increasing, amounts of security assistance to fight Russian aggression and uphold their right to self-defense.”
