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US intel leak shows rising risk of NATO-Russia conflict
Are China's Taiwan war games losing their intimidation power?
No, I wouldn't say that. I would say that the response to a President Tsai meeting with Kevin McCarthy in California where no real news was made as opposed to a trip to Taipei is not as provocative, and so, therefore, China's response is not as provocative, and that was true both militarily, diplomatically, and economically in terms of very limited sanctions. And I think they're hitting the Reagan Library and the Hudson Institute, not a big deal. In other words, not meant to overly escalate, and I think that's good news on both sides, and what's otherwise not a very functional relationship politically right now.
What is the fallout from the Pentagon Intelligence leak?
Well, there's clearly going to be a level of concern on the Ukrainians that they're not as robust militarily, and that there's not as much support for what they can accomplish in their counter offensive as people might think. That's problematic because they'll put more pressure on them to engage diplomatically with the Russians earlier than perhaps they would like, or then Zelensky would be politically prepared to. The thing that I took away from this leak that was most concerning is how close a UK spy plane was to being shot down by the Russians in the Black Sea. Again, we have to understand that this is an environment where Russia is treated as a rogue state run by a war criminal by the United States and by all of NATO. That's a very dangerous place to be. This is a nuclear power with lots of massive military capabilities fighting an active war. And the West isn't in a direct war with them, but they're doing the intel. They're training the troops. They're providing the weapons, and there's lots of ways this could go very, very badly. We need to recognize that we are closer to that kind of a problem than we might otherwise think.
The Good Friday Agreements turned 25 this week. Is Brexit making it harder to achieve peace in Northern Ireland?
Well, I think it was when Brexit was first put into place and because people like Boris Johnson were playing politics around whether or not there would be a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. That has largely been resolved by Rishi Sunak with the EU. And clearly, an enormous amount has been accomplished over the last 25 years. Living in Ireland and Northern Ireland is nothing like it was during the so-called Time of Troubles. And that's a good thing, and I'm glad that we can celebrate that anniversary as opposed to, for example, the anniversary of the war in Iraq, which was devastating for pretty much everyone involved.
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NATO's darkest chapter: Afghanistan withdrawal (in contrast to unity supporting Ukraine)
The intelligence may have been there - but the ability to draw conclusions unbiased by what Americans needed to believe was not, says Elliot Ackerman, a former US marine who served four tours in Afghanistan and has just come out with a book on the American pullout from Afghanistan called "The Fifth Act."
America's chaotic withdrawal a year ago stands in stark contrast to the highly coordinated US and NATO response to Russia's war. On GZERO World, Ackerman tells Ian Bremmer that when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US had a degree of objectivity it had lost after 20 years in Afghanistan. The war, he explained, had come to define our military thinking and intelligence capability because the US was involved there for such a long time.
A year ago, Ackerman says that US intelligence hoped that the Afghan military would be able to defend the country from the Taliban for a "decent interval" of time, perhaps months or even years before collapse. But things didn't go to plan - and the US did not have a contingency plan.
Watch the GZERO World episode: The fallout from US Afghanistan withdrawal: a Marine's perspective
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File photo of Russian soldiers.
What’s wrong with Russian soldiers?
“Success [in war] never did and never will depend on position, or on ammunition, or even on number. [It depends] on the feeling that’s in me, in him, in every soldier.”
So says Prince Andrei on the eve of battle in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He predicts that the outnumbered and outgunned Russian soldiers defending their homeland will defeat the superior invading force led by Napoleon because the defenders have the stronger will to fight. The French forces won the battle but lost so many men in the process that their invasion ultimately stalled.
With that in mind, the Pentagon claimed this week that US intelligence sees a potentially debilitating low morale among some Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The publicly cited evidence includes reports that substantial numbers of Russian troops have surrendered their weapons with little or no fight, that some have sabotaged their own vehicles and equipment to stall their advance toward Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and anecdotal reports of lost and demoralized Russian troops begging for food.
Is the evidence credible?
Pentagon officials leave us to guess how they know all this or why they believe it. Is US intelligence relying on the testimony of captured soldiers? Electronic eavesdropping? Media and social media reports from Ukrainians?
GZERO can’t confirm official US assertions or assess the scale of this problem for Russia’s military. But military experts are at a loss to explain why Russia’s advance toward Kyiv has stalled, and why clearly superior numbers and weaponry have failed to score a quick victory.
We should all be wary of information that might be distorted by the fog that shrouds all wars while they’re in progress. Perhaps the Russians’ sluggish performance can be blamed more on poor planning and the unexpected intensity of Ukrainian military and civilian resistance than on the mood of troops.
We should also expect that levels of morale can vary widely across groups of soldiers. Russian forces who have scored successes in the east and south of the country, for example, are likely in a better mood than those now grinding their way toward confrontation in Kyiv.
We should also note that the US Defense Department, which sides with the Ukrainians, has reason to try to create Russian morale problems that may not yet exist.
But there have also been past reports of low Russian military morale even in peacetime. And no one has adequately explained why Russian forces have moved so slowly toward Kyiv, failed to control Ukraine’s airspace, and held back on using some of their more destructive weapons.
Why might Russian forces be demoralized?
First, by some estimates, 30 percent of Russia’s fighting force consists of lightly trained conscripts. These draftees have heard the same Kremlin propaganda that other Russians have:
This isn’t a war, it’s a special operation to be conducted with surgical precision. Its purpose is to liberate the great mass of our friendly Ukrainian brothers from the clutches of Western-backed neo-Nazis bent on doing vile things to Mother Russia. Ukrainians will cheer your arrival. Move in, restore order, and come home.
A confident soldier reassured by this message as he entered Ukraine might well be confused at this point, and when poorly trained, under-equipped soldiers discover that Ukrainians are screaming — or shooting — at them, rather than greeting them as liberators, it’s easy to imagine they might lose confidence in the mission.
What might this tell us about where the war is headed?
Those cheering the Ukrainian resistance might be encouraged by news that many Russian soldiers don’t want to fight. Not so fast.
If Moscow’s military strategists doubt the willingness of Russian soldiers to take Kyiv’s streets from Ukrainian soldiers determined to protect their homes and homeland, they may decide they need to rely more heavily on indiscriminately destructive weapons, which can be fired from a distance into the heart of the capital. This strategy, which we’ve already seen in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, can be far deadlier and more destructive than the large-scale entry into cities of Russian troops.
Tolstoy never imagined the heavy weapons at the disposal of today’s Russian commanders — and the will and morale of Vladimir Putin and his generals matter too.
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