Crucial ways to defeat Russia’s invasion can be found in the Soviet Union’s multi-pronged strategy in Vietnam, analyst Oleksandr Danylyuk says. Here, US Marines wade through a rice paddy in an assault on Viet Cong positions in 1965.
AP Photo/John T. Wheeler
The first prong of this strategy would be to “stabilize the frontline and to render any successful offensive actions by Russian troops impossible.” This would require stopping the Russian glide bomb attacks that are devastating Ukrainian frontline positions. Rather than trying to stop the bombs themselves, Danylyuk suggests the West provide more fighters armed with long-range air-to-air missiles — in particular Sweden’s Gripen jet with Meteor missiles — to shoot down Russian aircraft before they can release glide bombs. His paper notes that the Soviets provided Vietnam 155 MiG fighters in three years alone.
Or, if the West is willing to provide “several billion dollars,” Ukraine can produce enough long-range Neptune cruise missiles to destroy the Russian airbases and aircraft from which the bombing runs are launched. These weapons would also force Russia to redeploy air defense systems, such as S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, from Ukraine back to Russia. In addition, Ukraine should also try to kill as many Russian troops as possible to force the Kremlin into another mobilization likely to be deeply unpopular. “Accomplishing this task directly depends on Ukraine’s ability to achieve fire parity on the contact line, which requires the West, in turn, to produce a sufficient amount of artillery ammunition,” Danylyuk said.
In 1965, when major US combat operations in Vietnam began, the majority of the American public backed US intervention. But a US commitment that swelled to 543,000 personnel by 1969, along with growing resentment over the draft and 58,000 American personnel killed, eroded that support.
On the economic front, Danylyuk urges the West to bankrupt the Russian war effort by seeking to lower the price of oil, which provides much of Russia’s revenues. He points to the collapse of the Soviet Union, caused in part by falling oil prices in the 1980s. This would require other nations to boost oil production to depress prices.
“It must be recognized that attempts to apply restrictions on the price of Russian oil alone have not worked, and without replacing Russia’s share of the world market by increasing production elsewhere, the situation will remain favorable for Moscow,” said Danylyuk. Indeed, Saudi Arabia and some of its OPEC allies plan to produce more oil and cut prices.
Psychologically, the West should tap into Russian anti-war sentiment — heavily suppressed by Vladimir Putin’s government, but still simmering. “The only explanation for the lack of a mass anti-war movement and large-scale protests is the absence of an organized and popular opposition in Russia,” Danylyuk said. “Under such conditions, there is no alternative to providing organizational and financial support for such a movement from the outside.”
Danylyuk’s plan is ambitious, to say the least. Compelling Russia to make peace on the battlefield seems unlikely at least in the short term, as Russian forces advance slowly, painfully but inexorably. Whether Saudi Arabia and other oil producers would choose to depress oil prices in the long term remains to be seen. Banking on the Russian public’s anti-war sentiment is chancy, given the intense repression and propaganda of Putin’s government.
But the alternative is even worse, Danylyuk warns. Without a strategy to force Russia to end the war, the outcome will be to “exhaust Ukraine and the West and allow Russia to implement its own multidimensional plan to end support for Ukraine, according to which Kyiv would be added to the list of cities that have become symbols of the West’s geopolitical defeats: Kabul and Saigon.”
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Source link : https://www.businessinsider.com/america-vietnam-war-loss-ukraine-victory-2024-11
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Publish date : 2024-11-15 20:04:00
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