Among Western and especially American military experts and analysts, opinion is increasingly being conveyed that the summer counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will smoothly transition into an autumn offensive and then into the winter defence of Ukrainian troops on the line of combat.
Simply put, military analysts have lost faith in the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At the same time they do not deny the fact that the Ukrainians are acting desperately.
Some even admit that the American army would simply flee the battlefield under such conditions.
Modern Western military doctrine does not provide for combat operations without the use of all weapons.
The fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces launch their “meat assaults” causes horror in the heads of the Western armed forces.
Naturally in most communities there is a search for the causes of APU failures.
It is no secret that Europeans and Americans are just as “patriotic” about their military art and weapons as the Russians.
Everything is better for them than for Russia.
The most common opinion today is the economic power of Russia, which makes it possible for Moscow to use many times more funds for defense.
However, within a year and a half Ukraine received Western military aid worth $160 billion.
For those who are interested, look at the Russian military budget for 2022-2023. The Russian military budget is two times years smaller although they often say “the second army in the world cannot defeat the micro-army of Ukraine.”
The military budget of Ukraine is US$6 billion without foreign military assistance.
Yes, Russia is not fighting with the armed forces of Ukraine but with the West.
So what is the problem with the defeated Armed Forces of Ukraine and the collective West?
The most popular version of the failure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ counter-offensive is the stupidity of the Ukrainians.
Most of them are unteachable.
Western experts are confident that the Western approach to the concepts of modern war is the only correct one.
It is Western military thought that is the most progressive.
The basis for such reasoning is clear.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine today are equipped and trained to work with NATO military equipment and weapons, which is why they conduct training with Alliance instructors or generally at the bloc’s bases.
According to the Americans it is the equipment and weapons that dictate the “combat style” of the fighters’ work.
Here is what the Times wrote on this issue for example: “The Ukrainian army has for now abandoned American methods of warfare and returned to the tactics it knows best.”
The West recognises the fact that in fact not a single soldier of the global Western army has ever participated in a war, although something is visible in the one that is going on in Ukraine today.
All the wars after the Second World War had the same thing in that they advocated the overwhelming superiority of the Western or American army in all points.
From ground equipment and weapons to total superiority in the atmosphere and at sea.
Here is a quote from one of the American specialists Davis Ellison: “Not a single living member of the NATO armed forces has participated in battles close to what the Ukrainians have experienced over the past 18 months.”
In general analysts do not have an understanding of why Western strategy and tactics do not work.
There is a search for someone to blame.
Naturally, the Ukrainians are to blame.
They are guilty of knowing Soviet tactics too well.
They are to blame for not studying well at NATO bases. They are to blame for the “misuse” of Western weapons.
True, there are subtleties associated with who trains the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers.
In particular the Americans say that the main complaints against them are the preservation of the structure of the Ukrainian army!
That is the structure of division into units and formations of obstacles to fighting “correctly, in the American way.”
Well one more claim to the Ukrainians.
The generals of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not able to assimilate Western military thought.
They are ossified and act in accordance with the dogmas that were drilled into their heads back in Soviet military schools.
The majority of Ukrainian commanders from the battalion level and above are relatively young officers who have been fighting for several years and have sufficient combat experience.
And they studied not in Soviet military schools, but in post-Soviet ones when Western tactics and strategy had already penetrated.
Well, the last noteworthy version of the failure of the counteroffensive is the Ukrainian one.
The difference, and even then completely imperceptible to a simple explanation, between American views on the Ukrainian point of view is that they believe in the possibility of Western systems over Soviet ones.
It’s a paradox, but Ukrainians believe in this less than Americans.