STRATFOR thoughts on Ukraine scenarios.
March 10, 2015 2 Comments
Neat that they decided to do this, but hey, blackbox much?
They consider six scenarios, from little to big, and blithely come up with numbers of troops needed and time in days to accomplish, even the one that considers total Russian mobilization. One wonders, one does wonder….but the final paragraph restores a sense of reality to the exercise:
“For all of the scenarios considered, the findings were consistent: All are technically possible for the Russian military, but all have serious drawbacks. Not one of these options can meet security or political objectives through limited or reasonable means. This conclusion does not preclude these scenarios for Russian decision makers, but it does illuminate the broader cost-benefit analysis leaders undertake when weighing future actions. No theoretical modeling can accurately predict the outcome of a war, but it can give leaders an idea of what action to take or whether to take action at all.”
“<a href=”https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/gaming-russian-offensive”>Gaming a Russian Offensive</a> is republished with permission of Stratfor.”
About brtrain
Judging on what they’ve published so far, these wargames don’t appear to be wargames at all, since there is no evidence of any sort of adversarial process. Instead they appear to be desk estimates, based on (as you note) who-knows-what-assumptions and models. I guess they sound more impressive when you apply the “wargame” label, though!
Yep, I think so too.
For all I know, it might have been just some kind of spreadsheet exercise where they applied more or less arbitrary troops per km and troops per conquered population ratios, and imaginary march rates.