The attempt to dispatch Main Battle Tanks to Ukraine for a Blitzkrieg offensive is an attempt to transform the Ukrainian armed forces in a NATO Wehrmacht. In several important respects, the Ukrainian armed forces are simply not up to the task, let alone capable of utilizing the MBTs as a Panzerwaffe, an elite force, in a Blitzkrieg with any measure of success.
It is a propaganda myth that the Wehrmacht in Germany derived its fighting power from the superiority of its highly sophisticated weaponry of death and superiority of equipment. The Wehrmacht, as the most efficient national fighting force in 1939 the world over, derived its military might, however, more so from the tradition of militarism in the German nation and its concomitant reliance upon Germany’s political economy.
Proof of this myth is the fact that British and French militaries maintained technologically advanced innovations in their tanks over and above what Nazis had well before World War II. British and French general staffs’s neglect of the doctrines espousing spearheads clad for armored warfare, however, led to German Panzerwaffe’s gaining the upper hand in France in the Low Countries where the implementation of an effective military doctrine combined with a tradition of militarism. It is not simply the cast that heavy weaponry alone determines the outcome of a battle. What is needed, most of all, is a plan or strategy.
What is NATO’s strategy for MBTs in Ukrainian armed forces? This is the subject of discussion among Germany’s ruling elite. Even the highest levels of the German government, which are discussing the role MBTs are to play on the battlefield, are aware of the fact that the supply of heavy weaponry in and of itself does not constitute and is not consummate with a replacement for the lack of a military theory and a strategy.
In Der Spiegel, for instance, members of Germany’s government are already posing the question and the discussions centering on how the MBTs are to used is spanning the entirety of the political parties from the Social Democratic Party to the Left.
In an article entitled, « Immer schwerere Waffen zu liefern, ist keine Strategie », the authors’ discussion of the MBT’s role on the battlefields of Ukraine is the subject. During the interview, left wing politicians such as Linkenchefin Janine Wissler have pressed the German government to clarify its strategy w.r.t. the heavy weapons, and describes its plan.
Although never mentioned during the interview, the discussion in and of itself is revealing and there is really only one way it can go. It can lead only lead back. And it is no accident that 90 years after Hitler took power and 82 years after the start of the Wehrmacht’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, German politicians are asking, “What is the plan?”
It is clear that the emerging strategy is to transform Ukraine’s military into a NATO Wehrmacht whose MBTs will serve as a Panzerwaffe in an impending Blitzkriege. The plan, to the extent that NATO allies have acknowledged it consciously, is not only deadly but bound for failure and its failure signals the inception of a broad, international and cross-continental war.
The primary proof of Ukraine’s inability to meet the muster is its failed September counteroffensives. Ukraine’s counteroffensives, which met great fanfare in the Western press, seized upon and took advantage of Russia’s weaknesses in defense, leadership, and morale, to effectuate the single greatest rout and setback for Russian armed forces since the inception of the war. But these counteroffensives are no longer in effect.
Although Ukraine’s armed forces made substantial territorial gains, removing Russians from the entirety of the Kharkiv region (which shamed the general in charge of Russia’s Army Group North), Ukraine’s armed forces seized no single unit or army group. Recently, Russia’s siege of recent territory, Soledar in the north of and Klishchiivka in the south of, Bakmut, terminated the September counteroffensives and returned territorial gains most important for Russia’s strategists to plan a successful spring offensive.
Overall, there three key reasons why Ukrainian armed forces are doomed and cannot effectuate the changes in military manpower, structure, or supply chain logistics that are required for transforming their mechanized armored fighting machines into a Panzerwaffe and founding a NATO Wehrmacht capable of executing on a successful Blitzkrieg against Russia. The Spring counteroffensives highlight these shortcomings.
In terms of manpower, the sheer number of armed forces Ukraine has at its immediate disposal is irrelevant. What is relevant is its system for reservists. Germany’s Wehrmacht, for instance, relied upon no less than 18 Wehrkreise based on an Ersatz plan established as early as 1939. Dividing the 18 Wehrkreise between six army groups, the Ersatz plan, a war mobilization plan, or “replacement” plan continuously provided fresh reservists. The Nazi’s Wehrkreise provided the Nazi’s fighting machine with the necessarily uninterrupted flow of human blood and guts to satisfy its war aims in Blitzkrieg and re-enter battle quickly and without hesitation or delay.
Ukraine, which does not have a system for reservists, operates consistently at a loss as to reservists. It appears to be incapable of organizing field replacement units. Absent the ability to organize, staff, or dispatch reservists, there is no reason to think that Ukraine’s armed forces are capable of leveraging the manpower necessary for NATO’s plan to transform their forces into a Wehrmacht and successfully execute on a strategy of Blitzkrieg against Russia with Panzewaffe of MBTs.
In terms of manpower, Ukraine’s armed forces lack organization. Blitzkrieg is effective, if and only if, the military structure from which its implementation is executed stems from and is the result of an attempt to train troops into a regular, fighting regimen, or highly hierarchical military force (i.e., a regular army).
It is difficult to run a marathon. It is much more difficult, however, to run a marathon before training to run for a marathon. But it is the most difficult of all, however, to train for a marathon in its midsts. Ukrainian armed forces, despite years of training by various NATO allies in hodgepodges with the UK, smorgasbords with Sweden, mélanges with French, salmagundi with Belgians, in short, all over the place with different militaries within NATO’s ambit, have not been able to form a regular army. Ukrainian armed forces are training a regular army for war in its midsts—the most difficult task of all.
Could Ukrainian armed forces form “a regular army” right away? It is unlikely in the extreme that Ukrainian armed forces are capable. The Ukrainian armed forces, which have undergone two successive waves of internal purges, one shortly before the September counteroffensives, another shortly after the fall of Bakhmut, have likely exhausted their bureaucracies’ internal intelligence and field information specialists to the point of no return and cached out whatever hope, motivation, or resolve these elements may have had for further contributions and, as a factual matter, neither wave succeeded ultimately in the required transformation and this is despite the assistance, information or resources the Central Intelligence Agency provided. Despite insistence upon and the recurring demand for a central command to marshal a regular army by the CIA, Ukraine simply hasn’t succeeded.
In terms of supply chain logistics, there is no reason to think that NATO’s plan to transform Ukrainian armed forces into a Wehrmacht has any hope of success. The Ukrainian armed forces, for instance, expend 30,000 plus artillery rounds per month. This figure is more than double the amount of artillery shells produced by the United States and it has caused the United States, as reported by the New York Times, to tap strategic reserves of military ammunition in places such as South Korea and Israel, to ensure that Ukrainian armed forces benefit from a continuous supply of artillery shells. In other words, Ukraine cannot cull its own factories, manufacturers, stockpiles or storehouses for munitions. It is dependent upon foreign powers in this regard.
It is important to note here that Ukraine is incapable of providing a spear with an internal column for supply. As a military commander once noted on the speed of Blitzkrieg, “the key lies within the organization of the striking spearhead. Armored forces came first closely followed by motorized divisions which peeled off forming solid walls and through thus formed raced the supply trucks to feed the ever-lengthening column.”
It therefore appears that there is little to no support an argument that the supply chain logistics of Ukraine’s armed forces are capable of forming a spearhead thus. The lack of any kind of military industry, production, or supply chain logistics entails the eventual collapse of any exertion of its forward operability at length. It is clear from the September counteroffensives, which were “disjointed, autonomous, self guided units” that Ukrainian armed forces do not have anything with which “to feed [an] ever-lengthening column.”
Based on Ukraine’s September counteroffensive, and Ukraine’s military manpower, supply chain logistics, and structure, Ukraine’s armed forces are scheduled to fail in the face of any offensive, Spring or otherwise, without the direct involvement of a NATO ally.
Consequently, there can be no expectation that NATO’s plan to transform Ukrainian armed forces into a Wehrmacht with a Panzerwaffe capable of carrying out a Blitzkrieg is to occur with any degree of success whatsoever.
Based on these shortcomings and the predictions for its failure, the only conclusion one can draw from the supply of MBTs is that the eventual collapse or failure of Ukraine’s armed forces in a Blitzkrieg entails automatically the direct involvement and entrance of a NATO ally into the Ukraine war: the death knell of World War III.