FD 2030 - Putin's Missiles in Ukraine Cannot Win
Missiles Cannot Substitute for Capable Ground Forces
Bloomberg
(bloomberg.com)
US Edition
Opinion
Putin’s Air-Terror Campaign Against Ukraine is Already Failing
As plenty of militaries have learned — including NATO in Libya in 2011 — you can’t win a war without controlling the ground.
James Stavridis
. . . Most likely, however, Putin will continue his strategy of massive bombing through the winter, even as his stockpile of precision weapons dwindles to nothing. His best hope is that the Europeans will crack under high energy prices and cold homes, the demoralized Ukrainians will sue for peace, and the US will get caught up in fractious domestic politics.
Don’t count on it. The bet Putin is placing on air power, like so many other aspects of his strategic analysis, is a bad one. Missiles and planes are seldom decisive over a determined foe on the ground, a lesson the Kremlin will learn soon enough.
James Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A retired U.S. Navy admiral, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, he is vice chairman of global affairs at the Carlyle Group. He is the author most recently of "To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision." @stavridisj