Analysis by Robert C. Castel was published by Neokohn. We quote from this.

It would be time to stop for a minute and think about the anomalies that "Putin was wrong" .

What are these anomalies? Facts, not opinions. Moreover, these are facts that are not covered by the veil of secrecy, and about which the interested layman can argue as equals with the intelligence analyst in possession of the secret information.

  • It is a fact that until now the Russians have deployed only a fraction of their military and technological assets during the campaign against Ukraine.
  • It is a fact that Russia did not strive to achieve complete air supremacy at all costs (see: The spirit of Kiev), which is considered an obligatory appetizer on the menu of Western analysts.
  • It is a fact that Putin did not deploy his country's cyber assets to cripple critical Ukrainian infrastructures - water supply, electricity grid and Internet (See: Ukraine's availability on the World Wide Web).
  • It is a fact that the firepower used is based almost exclusively on high-precision devices, which are not unlimitedly available even in the world's most modern armies.
  • It is a fact that Putin did not strive at all costs to physically liquidate the Ukrainian armed forces as comprehensively as possible (See: The relatively low number of victims).
  • It is also a fact that the Russians have so far not targeted the civilian population of Ukraine.

In order to understand the military plan of the invasion of Ukraine, it is enough to recall the most well-known and well-worn Clausewitzian clichés.

  • War is merely the continuation of politics by other means . When diplomacy, economic pressure, and other peaceful means fail, war follows as the ultima ratio regis , the last argument of kings. The fact that one half of humanity has given up on this argument does not mean that the other half does not find it very effective.
  • The purpose of war is to break the will of the opponent . In war, psychological factors are three times more effective than physical factors . These are quite banal, yet often forgotten truths. The Americans did not withdraw from Afghanistan because the Taliban destroyed their last Hummer. The war undermined their will and not their physical abilities.
  • The Clausewitzian triad: The triple unity of defeating the Government, the Army, and the People is a useful model for understanding war. Great Prussia liked to think in different "triads", and the above-mentioned triad is only one of many.

All the "anomalies" presented as Putin's mistakes and unexplained suddenly fall into place if we try to reconstruct the war plan of the Ukrainian adventure from the fragments of Clausewitzian clichés.

At the most basic level, the purpose of the war is to impose Russia's political will on Ukraine.

Since Russia wants to increase its power by conquering Ukraine and does not want to create an economic-social ballast out of it, it is important for it to achieve this goal by causing as little damage as possible. Therefore

the first phase of the war is directed against the top of the Clausewitzian triad, the Ukrainian Government .

The purpose of combat activities in this phase is to achieve a psychological effect on the Ukrainian leadership. The message they communicate to the Ukrainian government is very simple: "Resistance is hopeless, surrender!". This purpose is served by, among other things, the seemingly unnecessarily complicated, multi-directional offensive, the psychological effect of multi-dimensional encirclement, precision fire strikes, and various forms of psychological warfare. This goal is also served by the limited intensity of combat activity against the Ukrainian army, the sparing of civilian infrastructure and the population.

If it is not possible to use intense psychological and moderate physical means to force the Ukrainian decision-making to yield, or to destroy it physically, the next phase of the plan will be directed against Army

In this case, too, psychological tools will have first priority, since the Ukrainian army will be needed - as a lesson from the Iraqi occupation - to pacify the country after the capitulation. If the psychological effect does not bring the expected result, then what we will see next will be the methodical grinding of the manpower and military technology of the Ukrainian army. Instead of precision weapons, we will increasingly see the use of traditional firearms, and the slow and methodical advance will also give way to a more aggressive mobile war. This will be the moment when Russia will definitely wrest air supremacy.

If the disintegration of the Ukrainian armed forces does not bring the expected result, then the third pole of the triad, the Ukrainian people , will be in the center of the Russian crosshairs.

In this case, too, the first stage will be the increase of psychological pressure with cyber and kinetic strikes against critical infrastructures, the destruction of targets of symbolic importance, and deterrent terrorist bombings. High-precision devices are gradually giving way to less accurate fire devices based on the scenario seen in Grozny.

It is important to note that there are no firewalls between the three stages of the war plan. The newer degrees do not replace the existing ones, but complement them and raise them to a higher level.

Is this really Putin's war plan?

Only time can answer this question. More precisely, not even time, since, as we know, no war plan survives the first encounter with the enemy.

The task of analysts is to observe observable phenomena and try to understand and explain them. It is doubtful that this explanation based on the Clausewitzian theory of war would have any visionary abilities, but it is still a degree more useful than the never-ending " Putin was wrong" nonsense.

Source: Neokohn

2022plus commentary: with the right to be mistaken, today's news that there is a marching column of more than 60 kilometers from the north heading towards Kiev does not mean that the Russians are preparing for a blood sacrifice against Kiev. In our opinion, they would rather be surrounded and starved, deprived of all electrical and other communication channels until the current government resigns.