Will Russia's Ground Forces Break?

And if they do, will we recognize that?

Who breaks first in the Winter War of 2022? I’ve wondered how long Russians will participate in the “meat assaults” that rely on dead Russians to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses. I worry that Ukraine could break, too. Often my worries about Ukraine feel stronger than may be justified. I think the chances of Ukraine breaking are lower. But the consequences of an army breaking are more dire for Ukraine. Collapse happens slowly and then suddenly. Will we recognize it if it happens to Russia first?

Right now it is difficult to see who is closer to collapse. Much is opaque. We see reports. But it is easy to assume that we can disregard such signs, judging one or both sides is immune because they have a history of enduring (which applies to both Ukrainians and Russians) or that they have superior morale because they are defending their country (which some say applies to Russians "restoring" their empire; but which should apply more to Ukraine). Or that they have superior manpower and materiel (which mostly applies to Russia—but the Iran-Iraq War shows it’s not quite that simple). The one sign that we can see is territorial control changes. And recently Russia is gaining territory more rapidly—still slowly—as ISW reports. And more Ukrainians are leaving their posts now, no doubt an effect of Russia’s seemingly relentless pressure. Do these visible sign pointing to Ukraine being the first to collapse outweigh the factors we can't fully measure or accurately interpret?

Yet at some level desertion—even if it is passive by getting lost and having no sense of urgency to find your unit—is common in war. And at some level understandable given the death and terror of combat. That’s one reason why America has Military Police behind the line in a conventional war. Russia is more brutal in its means. At what level is desertion a crisis for either side?

So who collapses first and who can exploit the collapse? World War I saw three significant collapses: French, Russian, and German. Russian troop morale collapsed in 1917. Germany was able to exploit that to push deeper into Russia to force Russia’s qualified surrender with massive territorial concessions.

But this was not a one-on-one war. Germany shifted troops to the Western Front and tried to win on the battlefield before American power could be decisive. Despite gaining ground in big chunks after three years of stalemate, the territory gained only looked good on maps without doing decisive damage to the Allies. German losses eventually broke the German army in 1918. And the Allies were able to begin pushing the German army back. Germany agreed to a qualified surrender and went home—which also saved Russia from its qualified surrender to Germany the year before. Russia still lost imperial territory as border regions escaped in the west. But much was regained.

So the ability to exploit a collapse is important to success. The third collapse, that of France's army that refused to attack only to die in huge numbers, went undiscovered by the Germans in 1917. The French army eventually recovered and the leadership committed to making sure firepower without regard to lives lost was the means to win. Had the Germans known about the collapse, perhaps they could have attacked and done to the French what they did to the Russians.

These examples make it seem as if Russia has the advantage in the battle for who collapses first and who can exploit it.

Despite massive losses in men and materiel, Russia has the initiative across the front—even in the Kursk salient. So if Ukraine collapses first (recall the increase in desertions), Russia will be able to exploit it. As the Germans did on the Eastern Front and the Allies did on the Western Front.

If Russia collapses first (who logically have more of a problem with desertion on top of anecdotal reports), Ukraine seems to lack the forces to exploit that collapse by attacking. So Russia may survive any morale breakdown and recover without serious repercussions. Indeed, I believe that Russia may have effectively collapsed—let's call it a serious culmination—by autumn 2022. But while Ukraine was able to push back on the Kharkiv and Kherson fronts, Ukraine lacked the military power to really hammer the Russians and fully crack Russia's depleted and teetering ground forces.

I was desperately looking for a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the fall or winter of 2022 and into 2023. And every week that passed without that counteroffensive raised my fear that Ukraine (and with an unknown contribution from the West by its failure or inability to send arms and munitions rapidly) was granting Russia the valuable gift of time. And by the time Ukraine organized and equipped enough troops to attack in the summer of 2023, its was too late. Russian morale recovered. Reinforcements were mobilized and deployed. And Russia dug in with multiple defense lines, planted minefields, and posted reserves behind the lines with artillery support. Ukraine failed.

So now we wait to see if either side collapses and if the other can exploit it. I’ve been reading Norman Stone’s The Eastern Front: 1914-1917 and I recently ran across a fascinating section on Russia’s manpower problem in that war (p. 214):

Like most autocracies, [Russia’s] great strength was not that it governed harshly, but that it governed less. It’s tax-collectors and recruiting-sergeants were little more than a nuisance; and the government rightly feared that, if they became more, it would be swept away in a tide of popular indignation. Real conscription was possible only where a partnership existed between people and administration. A partnership of this kind existed in England, but not in Ireland; in Germany, but not in Austria; in the Red Army of 1918, but not in the Tsarist one of 1916. In 1918, there was a great rush of volunteers for the Red Army, and men who failed to report for it would be ‘informed’ on by their fellows. After 1914, where was a rush to benefit from the various statutes of exemption, and most of the Russian people seem to have sympathized. The Tsarist army thereby came to suffer from a shortage of man-power that no-one could honestly explain.

The 2022 mobilization of “reservists” worked well enough to address the immediate crisis, but has not been repeated because of the grumbling and potential for unrest. Instead, Russia pays huge sums of money that it can no longer afford for volunteers, it emptied prisons of hardened criminals, sends even seriously wounded back into combat, if anecdotal evidence reflects reality. And now imports expensive North Koreans to maintain the meat assaults.

I’ve not infrequently noted that however awful Putin is, he lacks the authority and infrastructure of fear to match Stalin’s level of control. Putin’s Russia reflects Tsarist Russia more than the Red Army. How many Russian men fled abroad when Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine to avoid service? Millions?

And how many more evade service while remaining inside Russia? In part the evasion is part of a conscious government decision not to pluck men from the politically important St. Petersburg and Moscow regions. But other forms of evasion are unseen. Corruption no doubt allows many to evade service. Some remain in the civilian world, deemed missing, unfit for service, or part of a crucial defense industry. Others may have paid to get cushy military assignments in military units far from the front. Others may get into private military companies controlled by Russian industrial entities that keep them from the front. And other troops desert. I read that this is a major problem (although I haven’t read confirmation, so I can’t judge the scale). Nobody is “informed” on in Putin’s Russia for evading service. And much of Putin’s personally loyal National Guard paramilitary troops may be a haven for Putin’s supporters, keeping them out of the war and ready for unrest.

Is Russia following the path of the Tsar in World War I? And if so, will we recognize it if it happens? Let me cite one example of a sign I may be dismissing:

Russian milbloggers continued to criticize poor Russian military command decisions and poor training and discipline among Russian personnel.

I keep seeing stories about that. But Russia relies on firepower, I think. And after many reports followed by nothing of significance, I tend to gloss over the reports. Russia copes with that, I think to myself. They have for nearly three years. For any given week it is a safe prediction that past trends will continue.

But what if these reports are significant but just not causing anything yet? I mean, when I hear any report about Ukrainian morale I immediately worry more. Maybe I should take reports about Russian morale more seriously. Maybe hiring North Koreans isn’t so much about the math of replacing losses as it is a Kremlin worry that Russian cogs will decide they won’t do what the fresh North Koreans will do—join the “meat” assaults.

Let me go back to the Iran-Iraq War (one week, I’ll add this long summary of the war as a Classics Saturday post, which will give me a chance/force me to fix formatting glitches), that I had cited as an example to consider in an earlier link. I will quote from it liberally below. In that war, Iran was assumed to have the moral advantage. Iran had young men hopped up on Shia jihadi fervor after the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah. Iraq, which invaded Iran in 1980 out of fear of that fervor infecting Iraq, was a Sunni Arab-minority dictatorship oppressing the 20% Sunni Kurds in the northeast and the 60% Shia Arabs mostly in the south but also in the Baghdad region in large numbers. Saddam Hussein didn’t think his largely Shia conscript soldiers would die for Iraq against their Shia (albeit Persian and not Arab) co-religionists.

The Iranian Shia had no problem killing Iraqi Shia. But it was often portrayed as an effort to get at Israel through Iraq. The war dragged on until 1988, involving America and the West in the “tanker war” and seeing both sides strike enemy cities with ballistic missiles and conventional artillery to break the ground stalemate.

But I digress.

Iran eventually largely drove Iraq out of Iran and began human wave assaults to push into Iraq. Everyone assumed Iran’s edge in population (3:1) and fervor would overwhelm Iraqi defenders despite Iraq’s fortifications and ample weaponry—and eventually poison gas—that allowed Iraq to mow down attackers. For years, Iran would hammer at the Iraqis. No end was in sight as the war settled into stalemate punctuated by Iranian offensives. Iran even succeeded with a well-planned and competently executed amphibious operation in early 1986 that captured Iraq’s Fao Peninsula. Iraq seemed to be cracking:

The Fao success may have reinvigorated Iranian morale but economic reality could be put off only so long. As Iran's war machine was starved of funds, Iran faced a daunting task of ending the war victoriously. Despite the Fao victory and the still potent ground force poised to strike Iraq again, time was running out for Iran. In mid-1986, Iraq took steps to make sure that they would not have to be weak anywhere on the front as they had been at Fao. A major expansion of the army was commenced and by September 1986, each of Iraq's seven corps fielded 100,000 soldiers. In addition, the Republican Guards were expanded into a large corps-sized force.

Iran's September 1986 Karbala Two and Three offensives in Kurdistan and at Fao, respectively, failed to move the Iraqi lines. And despite Iranian hopes, nobody rose up in Iraq to overthrow Hussein, thus keeping the burden on Iran to attack again. On Christmas Eve, Iran struck again big in the south. Karbala Four sent 60,000 Pasdaran [NOTE: a.k.a. the Revolutionary Guards] across the Shatt al-Arab north and south of Khorramshahr. This time Iraq responded promptly and after 48 hours of furious fighting, threw the Iranians back across the river.

Iran's next big effort followed quickly. It was truly the "mother of all battles" and reflected the worst impulses of Iran's non-army high command by its directness and bloody-mindedness. Before the offensive, Rafsanjani exhorted volunteers heading for the battle:

Our aim is to completely destroy the Iraqi war machine. Here, near Basra, Saddam can not do anything but fight, for the fall of Basra is tantamount to his own death. We want to settle our accounts with Iraq at Basra's gates, which will open and pave the way for the final victory we have promised.

On January 8, 1987, Karbala Five signaled its beginning when waves of Iranians rushed the Iraqi lines northwest of Khorramshahr. As Rafsanjani predicted, the Iraqis stood their ground and fought. Final victory was not, however, the result. In standing to fight, the Iraqis gunned down the Iranians who stubbornly attacked in the face of crippling losses as they slowly shoved the Iraqis back. By January 22, 1987, the Iranians had advanced to within ten kilometers of Basra, the objective on which Iran pinned her hopes of victory. By the fourth week of the offensive, Iran's attack force was spent and the Iranians dug in to hold their exposed positions at the outskirts of Basra. Iraq's counter-attack called upon all the available reserves and smashed the Iranians to end the offensive for good. Perhaps 20,000 Iranians died in the battle. Iraq's casualties were about half of Iran's. Iraq's performance is notable in that Iraq withstood and won the kind of brutal bloodletting that supposedly only Iran could endure. Observers at the time saw only that Iran had launched yet another in a seemingly endless series of big offensives. They speculated about how many more of these attacks Iraq could endure. Actually, Iran broke at Karbala Five. It would be many months before observers began to wonder what was wrong with Iran when no further attacks were begun, yet it was true that the "Islamic Revolution bled to death in Karbala V."

Observers saw that Iran eventually became relatively quiet. Not that unusual as offensives culminated and its troops required resupply and reconstitution. But the quiet went on and the human wave assaults dried up. Nobody guessed Iran had broken. Even a clear Iraqi ground victory was not absorbed as significant by observers:

While Iran continued to insist that ultimately it would be infantry who would decide the war, Iran had already let the usual season pass without launching a major offensive. This failure began to raise questions about what Iran was doing. One answer came in April 1988 when, after fewer than two days of fighting, Iraq recaptured the Fao peninsula with Operation Ramadan. Iraqi regular troops and Republican Guard forces backed by 2,000 tanks and 600 heavy guns plowed south and struck from the Gulf with a supporting amphibious assault. The Iranians were overwhelmed and showed no spirit of resistance. While it is true that the Iraqis outnumbered the Iranians by 8 to 1 odds, the contrast is amazing between April 1988 and February 1986, when Iranians fought hammer and tong for every square inch of worthless swamp on that peninsula. The day that Iranian infantry could not exact a heavy price for the terrain on which they stood was the day that Iran lost the war. April 18, 1988 was that day.

Speculation was that Iran was aiming for bigger and better. Iran continued to beat its chest and fling poo:

The April disasters [at the hands of both the Iraqis on the ground and the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf] failed to teach anybody, least of all the Iranians, that Iran was in danger of losing the war if it went on much longer. One Iranian commentator's observation after Operation Ramadan well reflected this blindness:

This first great Iraqi victory in years, which will boost Iraqi morale, is bad news as it will prolong the war even more... it will make Khomeini and the Iranians even more determined to win the war at any cost.

Iraq began testing the waters by hitting the Iranians successfully:

The Ayatollah Khomeini refused to adapt to the new reality of Iranian vulnerability, asserting:

The combatants must continue their fight by depending on their faith in Allah and their weapons. The outcome of this war will be decided on the battlefield, not through negotiations.

The Ayatollah was correct. And the battlefield had decided for Iraq. Perhaps with the convenient excuse of the Vincennes incident* of America mistakenly shooting down an Iranian airliner during another clash in the Persian Gulf, the Iranians sued for peace. Despite a 3:1 advantage in population, despite an advantage in fervor, and despite “only” losing twice as many troops as Iraq, Iran was the side that broke.

So if either side breaks in the Winter War of 2022—and it could be either side that can’t continue to wage war in 2025—I think the odds of the Russians breaking first is what you should bet on. Despite the more rapid Russian advances lately that make me worry Ukraine could be reeling, consider the context:

Russian forces have thus suffered an estimated 125,800 casualties during a period of intensified offensive operations in September, October, and November 2024 in exchange for 2,356 square kilometers of gains. (Or approximately 53 Russian casualties per square kilometer of Ukrainian territory seized.)

I don’t know what the precise odds are between Russia and Ukraine breaking with these competing metrics. So Ukraine could break first even if I think the odds indicate Russia goes down first. And if Ukraine’s ground forces do crack, because Russia has the initiative I think it will be easier to detect a Ukrainian collapse because we’ll see rapid Russian advances.

If Russia breaks first, will we recognize it with all our satellites and signal intelligence? If Russia does break, can Ukraine exploit it to make it meaningful? Or will Russia get the time to recover?

Yet even if a Russian collapse is unrecognized, Russia could turn around and go home—to whatever line they define as “home” rather than risk discovery and battlefield defeat. China went home in the Korean War. America and China went home in their Vietnam wars. And Russia and America went home in their wars in Afghanistan.

But until one side’s morale erodes significantly or collapses—and if we recognize it—we wait to see if the Ukrainians and Russians, who may see clearly the factors opaque to outsiders, will welcome an opportunity provided by a Trump presidency to end the war on barely acceptable terms rather than risk collapse and disaster. That could be particularly bad for Ukraine as Russia digs in further inside Ukraine preparing for another round.

But one thing we will be able to say with some certainty is that another revolution in military affairs that promised a silver bullet for a short and glorious war will die in the mud and blood of trenches.

*As an aside, I was in Army basic training—my service in uniform was easy so I claim nothing more than serving—during the incident. I suspect the drill sergeants spread a rumor that our training company could be sent to war. I quickly squelched that rumor by explaining that under no circumstances would our barely trained company be sent to war over that incident.

NOTE: For this essay I edited and expanded on this comment in a CDR Salamander post.

And I made the image with Bing.