Posted on Jul 20, 2022
How is Lanchester's Square Law to be applied to the Russo-Ukrainian War?
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Lanchester's Square Law. Considering the forces of Russia vs the support the NATO Alliance is giving the Ukraine. Think about it and comment please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanchester%27s_laws
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Edited 2 y ago
Posted 2 y ago
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SFC Ralph E Kelley Lanchester's Square Law is overly simplistic for asymmetric warfare. It is predicated on aimed fire and deliberate engagements between combatants. Honestly, I don't think it could be applied at all except to show the constraints of the variables and assumptions given the difficulty that far superior forces have experienced in combat (historically).
However, you could make the case that should enough analysis be applied beforehand, a military could use Lanchester's Square Law as a basis for committing specific numbers of forces to a subset of a campaign given enough intelligence about a structured enemy. I would be willing to bet that Russian planners used some napkin math, but the campaign fell apart when the intelligence did not take into account the increased armament of the local population and asymmetric warefare.
Even if we were to postulate that NATO could use Lanchester's Square Law to predict the number of troops to commit to defending Ukraine (or some derivative that converted to dollars of support), the truth remains that Ukraine is not a NATO member and thus any potential involvement would have to be scrutinized to ensure compliance with NATO's mission. Short of a full-scale commitment of bodies by NATO, Lanchester's Square Law would dictate that even with enough money and equipment, there would not be enough people left in Ukraine to take part in the battle.
However, you could make the case that should enough analysis be applied beforehand, a military could use Lanchester's Square Law as a basis for committing specific numbers of forces to a subset of a campaign given enough intelligence about a structured enemy. I would be willing to bet that Russian planners used some napkin math, but the campaign fell apart when the intelligence did not take into account the increased armament of the local population and asymmetric warefare.
Even if we were to postulate that NATO could use Lanchester's Square Law to predict the number of troops to commit to defending Ukraine (or some derivative that converted to dollars of support), the truth remains that Ukraine is not a NATO member and thus any potential involvement would have to be scrutinized to ensure compliance with NATO's mission. Short of a full-scale commitment of bodies by NATO, Lanchester's Square Law would dictate that even with enough money and equipment, there would not be enough people left in Ukraine to take part in the battle.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
SFC Ralph E Kelley - Ukraine doesn't have enough real combat power to take back anything and Putin has made it pretty clear that an attack on the Crimea would be viewed as an Attack on Russia.
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CSM William Everroad
CPT Lawrence Cable - I think its a strategic buildup of populous support for Ukraine that they are relying on to push NATO to intervene with real combat power.
Or, way less likely but would make a cool Tom Clancy novel, its a big coordinated scam to get more countries in Eastern Europe to sign on to NATO to finally take on the bear.
Or, way less likely but would make a cool Tom Clancy novel, its a big coordinated scam to get more countries in Eastern Europe to sign on to NATO to finally take on the bear.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
CSM William Everroad I think that is probably as good a guess at the reason as any. It's pretty short sighted since it really doesn't leave much room to negotiate. The problem is that there isn't unified support inside NATO, the economic results of intervention has been a disaster to Western economies and as that gets worse, public support is going to go away. The Present Administration threw Afghanistan under the bus, this one becomes more unpopular, they will do the same with Ukraine.
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CSM William Everroad
CPT Lawrence Cable, agreed. They don’t let me in the room when they make these decisions, but if they did I would tell them to hold their cash until a NATO country is impacted. Ukraine had years to solidify a real alliance with somebody, but they enjoyed economic neutrality with a bully. I am all for World Peace, but not every country wants to participate in global governance and it doesn’t seem like the citizens of the U.S. are willing to through in behind the idea.
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Look at WWII, look at what the Russians did and how they did it. Look at their doctrine.
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SGM Mikel Dawson
SFC Ralph E Kelley - I heard an interview with Scott Ritter. He made the point that Ukraine has already lost, there is just a lot more fighting and dying to be done. He put it into prespective: When the Allies finally broke out of Normandy, the war was over for Germany at that point, there was just a lot more fighting and dying before the Allies finally won. Putin is too far into this thing to let it go, they have lots of resoources. I really doubt he has put his crack troops on line yet. He will continue to bleed NATO down. How much time would it take for NATO to build up to take on Russia? We seen how the build up was in the Gulf Wars.
The biggest mistake was made right at the beginning, when Putin first started talking about this, NATO, US, Europe should have said, "Ok, Ukraine will be neutral, BUT on the condition you(Putin) stay out of Ukraine, neither you or any of your allies support any kind of insurgancy in Ukraine, either money, equipment, bodies. If you do we will stomp a mud hole in you ass."
I have been deployed to the Balkens twice, I have learned these people only respect power and force. Putin is the school yard bully and in the past has gotten away with what he wanted. If he had been put in the corner at the very beginning, we may not be where we are now.
I also understand Putin not wanting Ukraine in NATO, this would have put the ability for missles to be with in about 5 minutes flight time from Moscow. Understand I don't condone what he did, but I do understand his side. He put the feeliers out there and got no response, so he did what he wanted, and here we are.
The biggest mistake was made right at the beginning, when Putin first started talking about this, NATO, US, Europe should have said, "Ok, Ukraine will be neutral, BUT on the condition you(Putin) stay out of Ukraine, neither you or any of your allies support any kind of insurgancy in Ukraine, either money, equipment, bodies. If you do we will stomp a mud hole in you ass."
I have been deployed to the Balkens twice, I have learned these people only respect power and force. Putin is the school yard bully and in the past has gotten away with what he wanted. If he had been put in the corner at the very beginning, we may not be where we are now.
I also understand Putin not wanting Ukraine in NATO, this would have put the ability for missles to be with in about 5 minutes flight time from Moscow. Understand I don't condone what he did, but I do understand his side. He put the feeliers out there and got no response, so he did what he wanted, and here we are.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
SGM Mikel Dawson - The problem is that NATO spent a couple of decades recognizing break-away republics in the Balkans behind the overt and covert support of the US/NATO. It gets pretty hypocritical in the view of a lot of the world to support/recognizing Bosnia and Kosovo, then claiming the vote in the Crimea isn't valid.
This event didn't happen in a vacuum. If you looked at the response of Putin to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, you could see this coming. Had Ukraine lived up to the 2015 Minsk Agreement, the supposed provocation for all this would have gone away. However, it was clear that the then Prime Minister nor Zelensky had any real control over the two Neo Nazi Militias, which not only continued to violate the ceasefire, but blocked implementation of the Agreement.
It doesn't help the situation that Bush Sr. promised not to expand NATO toward the Russian borders, and every President since has handed out NATO membership like candy, behind a large American Aid check.
This event didn't happen in a vacuum. If you looked at the response of Putin to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, you could see this coming. Had Ukraine lived up to the 2015 Minsk Agreement, the supposed provocation for all this would have gone away. However, it was clear that the then Prime Minister nor Zelensky had any real control over the two Neo Nazi Militias, which not only continued to violate the ceasefire, but blocked implementation of the Agreement.
It doesn't help the situation that Bush Sr. promised not to expand NATO toward the Russian borders, and every President since has handed out NATO membership like candy, behind a large American Aid check.
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SFC Ralph E Kelley
CPT Lawrence Cable - SGM Mikel Dawson - Thank you both for the viewpoints, explanations and discussion. Both are well thought out and concise.
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SGM Mikel Dawson
CPT Lawrence Cable - Yep, lots of that I seen, living here in Denmark and finishing out my military career over here as well. NATO struggled to find a reason for being, so much indecision by so many left a vaccum which Putin took advantage of.
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