Russian military's embarrassing failure in invading Ukraine shows an interesting contrast between autocratic and democratic governance, not just in the civilian but in the military action.
Reports from the front are eloquent:
Russia’s failings appear to trace to factors ranging from the Kremlin’s wrong assumptions about Ukrainian resistance to the use of poorly motivated conscript soldiers. They suggest that Russia and the West overestimated Moscow’s overhauls of its armed forces, which some military analysts say appear to have been undermined by graft and misreporting.
miles-long convoys of tanks and support trucks have stalled on highways out of fuel,
Hundreds of Russian military vehicles have been destroyed and others abandoned, sometimes because of mechanical breakdowns and poor-quality equipment, said Western officials and military analysts closely following the campaign.
Russian troops turned to use open telephone and analog radios following the failure of encrypted communications systems, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has said, making them vulnerable to intercept or jamming. Russian officers were likely targeted after their positions were exposed by their use of open communications, Western military analysts said
Russian military uses central planning where all decisions are made at the top and unmotivated draftee soldiers wait for orders and are punished if they act on their own,. The jammed lines of vehicles reflect the lack of experience and leadership that makes soldiers pack together in fear, offering a better target to their rivals.
The WSJ reports:
The movement of troops in bumper-to-bumper convoys is a clear sign of “soldiers who are untrained or undisciplined,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and now chair in strategic studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. “You need sergeants or NCOs constantly telling them to spread out. It’s a human instinct to huddle together when you’re in danger,
Ukrainians follow an opposite set of rules, gotten from their NATO and Marine Corps trainers, who emphasize mobility, individual initiative, and taking the decision level to the soldiers on the battlefield,
The contrast reminds of Rambo, the Silvester Stallone "army of one" marine beating up dozens of marshalls and regular soldiers by improvising on the terrain.
Ukrainians play Rambo while Russians fight as the clumsy marshalls in the film.
This is, actually, a contrast between liberal democracy, based on free initiative and entrepreneurship, and autocratic rule, based on central planning, fear, rigid rules, and punishing independent thinking.
There are, of course, other factors, such as one army defending its country and another of invaders that don't even know well the land (there are reports of Russian tank crews lost in the backroads asking locals for directions), but the key difference is between nimble and resourceful, well-motivated militias (such as those that George Washington led to defeat the British in the American Revolution War ) and what Milton Friedman called "An Army of slaves" when he proposed ending the draft during the Vietnam War,
One last note: autocracies are slow, clumsy learners, prone to repeat mistakes.
Francis Fukuyama seems to be right in his dire forecast for Putin's invasion.
I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine.
