Author’s Note: I suspect a lot of people won’t agree with this…

On January 12th, 1950 Dean Acheson, Truman’s Secretary of State, gave a speech at the National Press Club, the subject being “Crisis in China – An examination of United States Policy.” In that speech, as you may recall, Acheson made the following statement:

“Now the Pacific has become an Anglo-Saxon lake and our line of defense runs through the chain of islands fringing the coast of Asia. It starts from the Philippines and continues through the Ryukyu Archipelago, which includes its main bastion, Okinawa. Then it bends back through Japan and the Aleutian Island chain to Alaska.”

Conspicuously absent – at least to the Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans – was any mention of Korea. It has been argued by many that this statement was interpreted by the Soviets and Chinese as a “green light” to move on South Korea.

Five months later, on June 25th, 1950, 73 years ago today, the North Koreans, prodded and aided by the Soviets and the Chinese, attacked cross the DMZ into South Korea. On July 5th three North Korean regiments ran into Task Force Smith – an under-strength US army infantry battalion, augmented with a battery of 4 x 105MM howitzers and 1200 rounds of ammunition – near Osan (about 25 miles out of Seoul).

The US forces were, to put it simply, a mess. Just one of many examples, there was no ammunition that could penetrate the armor of a T-34 tank. In a battle that lasted barely 3 hours the 540 men of TF Smith took 60 killed in a action, 21 wounded in action, and 82 captured. Col. Smith (for whom the task force was named), withdrew southward.

On paper, the US was ready for war. In fact, we were not.

Today I read an article about Howitzers and HMMWVs (HumVees) that were pulled out of storage for transfer to Ukraine, listed as ready to go; in fact were not. Explanations and excuses have since come forward, but the simple fact is that “prepositioned stocks” were not ready to go. Meanwhile the stocks that were ready have been consumed and are, by many accounts, years from being replaced.

But, at least we’re far better than the Russians! And besides, combined, the US and EU have a GDP 25 times the size of Russia’s and spend collectively some 15 times as much on defense.

Before we put ourselves in traction patting ourselves on the back, a few cautionary notes: the war in Ukraine is not over yet, and Ukraine has not won. The numbers often quoted of 200,000 Russian dead is propaganda, not fact. And Ukrainian casualties are not being kept secret because they are wonderful. An educated guess is that both the Russians and the Ukrainians have each suffered about 50,000 killed and 100,000 – 150,000 wounded. And the total Ukrainian population is now about 60% of what it was 30 years ago. Ukraine has also suffered monstrous amounts of damage as a nation. The number quoted from the World Bank is $411 billion of damage. This is to a certainty a “low-ball” figure; Ukraine is being destroyed.

Meanwhile…

On January 2020 the Congressional Research Service reported on the NATO summit of November 2019:

In the five years since Russia occupied Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine, the United States has supported efforts to renew NATOs focus on territorial defense and deterring Russian aggression.

Two years later: NATO “focus” did not deter aggression, and most of NATO still has not, despite lots of good words, actually voted to spend 2% of their GDP for defense.

As for readiness, last November the Government Accountability Office published a report (GAO-23-106217) on “Aircraft Mission Capable Goals” and noted that between 2011 and 2021 not one of our “fighter” aircraft (Air Force, Navy or Marine) met its readiness goals for more than 3 years and 8 failed to achieve readiness goals even once in that 11 year period.

And as the US continues to flow equipment to Ukraine, the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes the US has “Empty Bins.” The DOD leadership has called for expanding the industrial base but progress seems glacial, and production lead time on certain missiles can be long: 2 years for a Javelin missile, 18 months for a Patriot missile.

While our forces have performed magnificently at the brigade and battalion and company level in virtually very engagement since early 1953, at the strategic level how have we performed? Who rules in Kabul? How is the fight going in Somalia? Iraq seems to be drifting into Iran’s orbit. Assad still rules in Damascus. Libya is still a mess. Al Qaeda still exists. We laugh at the Russians, but how many clear victories have we had?

As Prigozhin was marching on Moscow, it was viewed as some potential deus ex machina solution to this drama. Poof! As if we were watching a Greek comedy. Putin would go away and the war would end!

But is it possible that such an event could lead to something worse? Doesn’t the idea of a revolution in a country with 5,900 nuclear warheads seem a trifle dangerous?

This war has been grinding on for 16 months, and everyone appears happy to convince themselves that it will not escalate, even as it keeps slowly escalating. Churchill warned repeatedly that nuclear powers must not fight wars, yet we are very close to doing just that.

In 1953 Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end, accepting a divided peninsula and a ceasefire – which still holds – in order to contain the problem. The war in Ukraine is by no means a Greek comedy. But we need to stop it before the drama becomes a tragedy.

Copyright 2023 Arrias
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