By the way when the British were carrying out the anti-communist insurgency effort in Malaysia in the late 40s / early 50s the objective was already to wind up and leave. So it wasn't a case of win the war, but lose anyway. Not at all, and nor was that the outcome. Very complex subject and I don't think it is much relevant to the Ukraine situation on the current trajectory.
Very true.
And with careful, discreet guidance, postwar Russia could help disarm for us; the story below states "Political destabilization could lead to armed conflict within Russia itself.", so why not?
There are many scenarios where post war rebellion within Russia could cause a lot of problems. Russia is a nuclear armed state. When the USSR collapsed the bulk of people involved were more interested in a peaceful break up and getting on with their lives rather than settling old grievances or taking violence for some other reason.
That is the only example we have of a nuclear armed state coming apart. The mood in Russia today is very different and the probability of violence is much higher. With the army broken, Moscow will have fewer options to put down rebellions. The air force will be mostly intact, but their store of weapons will be depleted. One of the few things they will have left is nuclear weapons.
Even if Moscow is put off using nuclear weapons to put down rebellion in Siberia or some other distant province, most of Russia's nuclear weapons are stored in places very distant from Moscow that will likely end up being rebel territory and they may use nuclear weapons on the Moscow faction in the civil war. It's possible considering how poor Russian maintenance is that much of Russia's nuclear arsenal won't actually be capable of fission or fusion, they could still deploy the warheads as dirty bombs.
The west would also be in competition with China to see who could get influence over the new countries as Russia breaks up. China is well positioned to essentially control northern Asia in the event of a collapse of Russia. They would probably do it through puppets and economic levers, but the west is not going to want to see China get control over all the natural resources in Siberia.
A major civil war in Russia will also create a big refugee problem in all countries that border Russia.
Can stormshadow be re-purposed for this? Is the warhead large enough?
I don't think so. Anti-ship missiles have specific capabilities built in to avoid ship air defense systems as well as a warhead designed to penetrate a ship's armor and a standard cruise missile isn't going to have these capabilities built in. I suppose the armor piercing capability could be an option for the storm shadow, but I don't think it has the AD evading tech.
U.S. officials confirm a Patriot air defense system was damaged, but remains "operational against all threats". A U.S. official also confirms that Ukraine’s air defense intercepted 6 Kinzal missiles.
Ukraine's capabilities continue to increase quickly compared to Russia's. Lots more goodies on the way coming to support Ukraine...
U.S. officials confirm damage to a Patriot air defense system in the attack but say it remains operational.
"Damage" could mean a lot of things. It could mean one or more of the ground based units was destroyed or badly damaged, or it could mean that one of the ground based units was hit by some debris from an exploding missile. If the Patriot battery was targeted the Kinzhal was headed directly for the battery when it was intercepted. Even if it blew up, the debris would have continued on its previous trajectory and one part of the battery may have been hit with a shotgun blast of debris.
If something was shot down directly over the battery, whether aimed at the battery or not, the pieces of the intercepting missile and the intercepted missile would rain back to earth under the blast.
Back when AA was artillery only people and equipment often got hurt or killed by debris. These days AA involves firing large missiles into the air which produce much more and much bigger chunks of debris.
It's possible a missile made it through the air defense, but it's also possible that the battery was damaged by debris too.
Does anyone actually believe that the Patriot system that couldn't even intercept basic Yemeni missiles and drones in Saudi Arabia is now somehow able to intercept state-of-the-art Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles?
I mean, come on.
Just because the media insists on always referring to the Kinzhal as hyper-sonic does not make it a true hyper-sonic missile. Most ballistic missiles go hyper-sonic at some point in their flight. The German V-2 in WW II went hyper-sonic.
To meet the definition of a true hyper-sonic missile a missile needs to fly at low altitude like a cruise missile at hyper-sonic speeds. The true hyper-sonic missiles under development are also capable of maneuvering to avoid air defense. These capabilities also make these missiles insanely expensive.
The Kinzhal is nothing more than an air launched version of the Iskander missile. The Iksander is one of Russia's most modern ballistic missile systems, but it's been around since 2006.
Putin Lied When He Called Russia’s Kinzhal Missiles ‘Hypersonic.’ We Unraveled the Truth
Additionally no air defense system is going to be 100% effective. As
@bkp_duke pointed out ove the last 30 years the Patriot has improved from 20-25% kill probability to a 90% kill probability, but that lets 10% through.
By 1945 the US Navy had gotten very, very good at air defense. The first line of defense were the picket destroyers which detected incoming aircraft further out. Then controllers could vector the large number of fighters onto incoming aircraft. The Japanese were so poorly trained they were almost as easy to pick off as an unmanned drone is today. What got past the fighters had to wade through three layers of anti-aircraft artillery. First the 5 inch guns (125mm) with proximity ammunition would start picking off attackers from a couple of miles out. Then those that got through the 5 inch AA would have to face the 40mm AA which would take out more. Finally for point defense they would have to get through a hail of 20mm AA defense.
14-19% of kamikazes made it through all that and hit a target.
The Patriot is trying to hit missiles traveling many times the speed of a WW II piston engine aircraft and only allows 10% through. That's quite an accomplishment.
The media is characterizing a lot of thing wrong with this war. Especially the American media. One thing that irks me is always referring to the Kinzhal as a hyper-sonic missile. Like I said above, every ballistic missile is hyper-sonic in the same way the Kinzhal is. Don't buy the sizzle, look for the steak!
Other things the media has gotten wrong is speculating that the tank and manned aircraft are dead. Things are changing and the environment is changing. But both of those weapons still have a purpose.
The Russians have lost a lot of tanks because of the way they use them. Every army that has used tanks without support in the way Russia has against an opponent with any kind of reasonable anti-tank weapons have lost a lot of tanks. This was true in WW II as well as a number of wars between then and now. One reason the Israelis captured a lot of Russian made tanks was because their opponents didn't know what they were doing and made their tanks vulnerable. Israeli tank losses were always lower because they trained for combined arms and supported their tanks so anti-tank assets didn't get as many shots at Israeli tanks.
Drones will be replacing some of the missions for manned aircraft, but manned aircraft will still have a role. A human pilot with the proper training can figure out how to complete the mission even if communication with home base is disabled. Expensive drones can be programmed with an AI, but it's going to be a long time before an AI can handle the decision making chain a human can make in a no communication scenario.
One thing I have been seeing that will probably be coming is drone command from the air. So a manned aircraft will command a swarm of drones to carry out a mission. A fighter bomber instead of carrying smart bombs would carry smart bomb drones which would be directed at the target.
The nature of warfare is going to change coming out of this war. We have seen some new technology that will change things, but I expect cheap commercial drones that can be militarized are enjoying a brief moment in the sun. Jamming technologies in development now will make it virtually impossible to deploy these sorts of drones within a few years against any kind of developed country. They may still have use in bush wars between less technologically sophisticated foes.
www.theguardian.com
