On the 19th of August, 1942 a mostly Canadian force of Allied soldiers numbering 6,050 infantry supported by the RAF attempted to raid the coastal town of Dieppe, France. Occupied by the Germans, the goal of the raid was to be a test run for the main invasion of occupied Europe while showing Stalin the Allies were serious about taking pressure off of the USSR by drawing German forces to the West. It ended up as a complete fiasco. 3,623 men were killed, wounded, or captured and very few objectives were accomplished. The only good to come from the operation was showing the Allies just how much work they had to do to prepare for the main invasion still being planned (The latter D-day Normandy invasion). Thankfully, the Allies were able to learn from the Dieppe raid and D-day was a success in part due to what was learned.
Dieppe wasn’t the only fiasco or setback the Allies experienced in WW2: France fell, numerous land and naval defeats in the Pacific to the Japanese, defeats in North Africa and so on. Wars rarely go smoothly without great setbacks. In fact, the relatively smooth sailing of the US during the Gulf War and Iraq War (during the initial invasion) are the aberrations, not the norms. It’s far more likely for countries to have a back and forth of ups and downs than a one-sided progression towards victory.
As such, I’m quite taken aback by numerous articles hyping the importance of the next Ukrainian offensive. I’ve seen claims that western assistance may depend upon the success of this offensive. While I can’t speak for my own government, let alone the European allies, it strikes me that basing western assistance on Ukrainian success is pure Russian propaganda. What incredibly poor allies we would be to blithely turn away from Ukraine due to a military setback. I personally can’t see Biden doing that. I have seen no official statements from any of the Allied government indicating that support is contingent upon success. Yes, Republican lapdogs of Putin are happy to spread his propaganda here, but they’ll spread any old crap.
If we wish to be allies, we need to stand with a country through the good and the bad. What good is an ally whose support changes with the wind? We already failed Ukraine in 2014 with a lackluster response. We supported them giving up nuclear weapons in the 90s. We owe it to them to see this through this time. And I think we will even if the offensive fails.
For one thing, this war is revealing deficiencies in military procurement with respect to our ability to ramp up to sufficient munitions should we find ourselves in a larger war. Russia is not the only bad actor in the world. A full scale conflict with China over Taiwan or a renewed Korean War are both possibilities. We are in the process of ramping up certain production which is a multi-year endeavor. While a significant amount of that ramp up is to replace our stockpiles, a lot of it is being earmarked for Ukraine. Are we going to order all this artillery ammunition and suddenly decide not to send it because Ukraine had a setback? When they would need it even more? We’re making commitments not just to Ukraine, but also to arms manufacturers who have significant clout. It’s an awful reason to pursue a course of action, but it is realistic and as it dovetails with more noble rationals I’ll go with it.
Please don’t interpret this as pessimism on my part regarding the success of the imminent offensive. I’ve always been on the optimistic side for Ukraine and I still am. Personally, I think Ukraine has a reasonable shot at achieving a full breakthrough and exploiting it well enough to rout a decent chunk of the Russian army. But I’m realistic enough to be cognizant of the many challenges any offensive has and the role that shear luck can play in battle. It is possible Russia gets leaked plans of the invasion. It’s possible Ukraine’s air defenses are more depleted than we suspect. It’s possible orders get mixed up resulting in a giant traffic jam that goes nowhere. I don’t think these are likely possibilities, but they are non-zero probabilities.
As such, it is my hope and belief that the allies are already planning out what Ukraine will need in 2024 should the worst happen and the offensive stalls. It won’t be the end of the world though. Russia is thin on offensive firepower. It appears they are burning through artillery pretty much as soon as they make it, meaning their stocks are most likely gone. Russia loses more tanks than they can replace. A failed Ukrainian offensive simply means they will need to bide time for them to train up the next troops on all those western tanks expected to arrive in late 2023 to early 2024. I would also expect that Western planes would be making an appearance in 2024 as well.
As much as I want to see Russia get its teeth kicked in now (and do expect that to happen soon), Ukraine will be able to fail in this offensive and not enter some death spiral born of Putin’s dreams. They will (hopefully) learn from their mistakes, build their strength, and try again when they are ready. It’s what the Allies did in WW2.
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― attributed to Winston S. Churchill but likely not. See comments
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― attributed to Winston S. Churchill but likely not. See comments
I wanted to highlight the following comment from Sun Dog:
The real crime of people here in the West talking about pulling the plug on Ukraine is that they become Putin’s main reason to keep fighting and killing Ukrainians.
“If Putin makes it THIS far then, yeah, he can have Ukraine.”
Anyone who values democracy at all should be showing nothing but a solid front against this invasion. We’ll do anything to stop you so the sooner you give up the better your own chances of survival. And that's it. But, of course, right wing Republicans and other numbskulls in this country don't value democracy because they have no idea what it means. They value power and their own comfort; little different than Putin and his band of gangsters they call government in Russia.
