The Fate of Ukraine's Kursk Offensive

Disclaimer: The following article does not take a political stand on the right or wrong on either side of the conflict, merely on the interpretation of one of the battles and the prediction of its outcome based on a point of view not discussed by other pundits commenting on the battle. This is the updated version of one posted several days ago at the China Writers Group Forum.

When the news of Ukraine's Kursk Offensive first broke, I immediately recognized it as a wrongheaded application of a brilliant tactic. In chess, it is known as the "Opposite Wing Attack." When your opponent is amassing his pieces to attack your King side, rather than trying to meet force with force, you may try to attack your opponent's Queen side, which is less protected. It makes for an exciting match as each player tries to break down the other at the opposite wing.

A well-known descendant of Sun Tzu named Sun Bin (孙膑) also applied this stratagem during the period of the Warring States. It is best remembered as a Chinese idiom, "Besieging Wei to rescue Zhao" (围魏救赵). 

So, rather than defending the Donbas front in the east, Ukraine attacks Russia's weak wing at Kursk in the north. They try to rescue the Donbas by attacking the Russian motherland. It's wrongheaded because war is not chess. Ukraine is not equal in military power to Russia. By not supporting its King-side defence in the east, it may lose the game quickly to an overwhelming Russian attack. Meanwhile, Ukraine's attack on Russia's weak wing must be threatening enough to draw the Russian army away from the Donbas. To be threatening, Ukraine must have at least 200,000 soldiers, well equipped and supplied, with adequate air cover, ready to march to Moscow. Unfortunately, it's a fantasy. Ukraine's so-called Kursk Offensive is a mosquito bite. They will feed more men into another meat grinder for nothing. 

Whoever dreamed this up for Ukraine is making a Hail Mary play, but not understanding the concept nor having the means to execute the plan will spell a quick collapse for Ukraine's eastern defences. 

As an anecdote, the Prussian king, Frederick the Great was famous for a battle order known as the "Oblique Order," whereby the smaller but more agile Prussian army would attack the enemy's weaker wing while avoiding action against their stronger wing. His most famous battle employing this order is the Battle of Leuthen, in which he routed an Austrian army twice as large. When the Allied army of the French and Austrians tried to turn the tables on the Prussian king and attacked the Prussian army (which was half the size of the Allied army) in Oblique Order at Rossbach, they got wiped out instead in a matter of ninety minutes. This happens to people who do not understand the concept of a tactic and are neither equipped nor trained to execute it. 

I had made this prediction at the commencement of the hostilities: When Ukraine fails, NATO will follow and the House of Cards will come tumbling down. As I said early on, the Hegemon has blundered itself into an unnecessary existential war against Russia. It has too many fires it cannot extinguish. Empires always collapse gradually over the years and then all at once.