The Ukraine miscalculations by both sides

 Richard Fernandez:

It was a tale of two blunders. Both Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin made the mistake of believing that the Russian army could conquer Ukraine in two days. The New York Times wrote in perplexity, “In Afghanistan, intelligence agencies had predicted the government and its forces could hold on for at least six months after the U.S. withdrawal. In Ukraine, intelligence officials thought the Russian army would take Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in two days. Both estimates proved wrong.”

The unforeseen consequences of that mutual mistake are driving the reactions of each. In the face of his failed blitz, Putin reportedly purged his intelligence chiefs and the ranks of senior officers and has had to commit conscripts and even scour Syria for mercenaries to replace and augment the manpower losses in what has become an unexpected war of attrition. But it’s not clear even that will recoup his failed game. Biden’s belief that Ukraine would quickly fall (as evidenced by his offer to evacuate Volodymyr Zelensky soon after the invasion began, which the Ukrainian leader declined) resulted in no mea culpas, even though it caused him to severely under-budget the logistical support it would need and from which he is also trying to recover.

Western security officials say their strategy initially envisaged equipping a nascent Ukrainian insurgency—recalling the transfer of weapons to mujahedeen fighters who defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—that would employ guerrilla tactics against Russian occupiers. Instead, because Ukraine’s military has managed to keep Moscow’s forces at bay in much of the country, the task has become equipping a regular army engaged in a large-scale conventional war. “The Ukrainians are expending a lot of ordnance, and this is more than we anticipated,” said a Western security official. “We are trying to step up the flow of weapons to meet that new requirement and there are constant shortages.”

The other casualty of the short war miscalculation was the world wheat supply. According to agricultural machinery chief executive Eric Hansotia, about “13% of the global calories came out of production” when Russian and Ukrainian borders shut down. “This is a really big deal, because when that volume of calories comes out of the food chain, it triggers other things. Not only hunger, but unrest. The last time we had this kind of disruption, it was one of the major triggers for the Arab Spring.” Egypt and Yemen are the obvious first victims. Egypt announced it will jail farmers who don’t deliver their wheat quota to the government as a price spike jeopardizes the country’s 270 million daily loaves.

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Food prices were already being driven up by shortages in “fossil fuels” even before the Russian invasion. “Oil trickles down to everything,” said Josh Lee, the financial chief for chemical distributor CJ Chemicals to the Wall Street Journal, even the cost of your potato salad to go. “And then this stupid war happened.” Like the weapons shortage, Biden did not see it coming. Joe Biden casually told the press that food shortages were going to be real — even for Europe and America.

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The shortage of fuel is mainly a Biden and Big Green fiasco.  They deliberately reduced the supply of fuel driving up the cost and contributing to inflation of everything transported to market or produced in the fields and the factories.  The miscalculations by Putin were more fateful.  He did not plan for the Ukraine resistance to be so effective and thus extended his troops beyond their supply lines while lacking enough combat power to deal with the resistance.

The Ukraine resistance had been trained by US Green Berets and they clearly learned the lessons.  The effectiveness of the Javelin missiles against the Russian armor was probably a surprise to both sides.  The same goes for the Stinger missiles against the helicopters and some of the Russian jets.  I think the Russians were also surprised by the cohesiveness of the Ukraine's resistance as whole villages and towns rose up against Russian troops and chased them out of town.