Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war updates, Israel vs Hezbollah enters a new stage.
Ukraine War Updates.
1) Bombshell documents seized in Kursk - Russian soldiers saw it coming.
The Guardian reported on the Russian military documents seized by Ukrainian forces reveal that Russian frontline troops had anticipated Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk region and had prepared defensive plans for months - but to no avail as senior central command apparently ignored these warnings.
Despite these preparations, the attack in early August exposed significant disarray among Russian forces, including low morale, inadequate unit strength (apparently, the frontline troops were filled only at around 60-70% on average), and poorly executed tactics.
The documents highlight efforts to maintain soldier morale through propaganda and to confuse Ukrainian assault troops via elaborate decoy strategies.
They also reveal concerns about suicide rates among soldiers, reflecting deeper psychological issues within the ranks.
2) EU steps up cash support for Ukraine.
In her visit to Kyiv on September 20, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced two new loan mechanisms totaling up to €80 billion (or $89bn).
The first tranche is to be distributed by December of this year.
Most of the cash will be used to purchase weapons and to prepare Ukraine’s grid for the winter attacks from Russia.
And, an increasing proportion of foreign aid is now being allocated towards Ukraine’s own domestic military production.
Indeed, the Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov stated recently that with additional funding, Ukraine could domestically produce $20 billion worth of defense equipment by 2025.
This are great news for the Western allies hoping to see Ukraine emerge as a military power capable of standing on its own.
3) Putin issues a threat against NATO.
In an attempt to re-establish credibility of his ever-disappearing ‘‘red lines’’, Putin warned NATO leaders like the US and UK against enabling Ukraine with long-range deep strike capabilities to be used against targets in Russia (like the unrestricted ATACMS);
“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
Putin’s response to NATO being in the state of war with Ukraine is to promise making ‘‘appropriate decisions’’ in response.
Should Putin be taken seriously?
Yes and no.
Yes in the sense that there will surely be consequences, no in the sense that this is not going to involve a nuclear war with NATO.
Or even a direct conventional confrontation against NATO.
Russia loses a conventional war against NATO quite easily (especially after 2.5 years of significant attrition at the hands of Ukraine) - and a nuclear war ensures total annihilation of Russia (no matter the costs to the West.)
There are two plausible possibilities for Russia’s response within the remit of ‘‘appropriate decisions”: 1) Escalating military support to Iran, Houthis, and North Korea (all three are already happening but could be expanded into more dangerous capabilities), and/or 2) Increased frequency and magnitude of sabotage campaigns on NATO territories.
There is obviously a trade-off here but;
1) Russia will be doing those activities in any case - and even escalation to more significant help to the aforementioned countries can only be delayed and not necessarily precluded (unless the war is settled definitively - which would make the entire issue almost a moot point in any case);
2) In the meantime, Ukraine is being handicapped and prevented from inflicting even more cost on Russia, and;
3) Blanket opposition to supplying Ukraine with these long-range strike capabilities due to the risk of Russia-NATO war is just not credible.
4) Ukraine’s battlefield progress keeps rebutting the argument that long-range strike capabilities aren’t useful.
There are a number of pundits and analysts arguing these days that Ukraine didn’t even really need any missiles like ATACMS/Storm Shadows.
That ostensibly, Russia already moved most of the airplanes/helicopters to airfields/bases well far out of the border with Ukraine, and that even ATACMS (at 190 miles range) wouldn’t necessarily reach them.
This is a nonsensical argument to begin with, because:
1) Russia was forced to move these aforementioned assets well behind enemy lines precisely because Ukraine was granted access to long-range missiles like Storm Shadows/SCALPs.
2) Ukraine needs continuous access to these missiles to preserve this status quo - otherwise, things will go back to how they were and Russia’s air force will once again gain access to the frontlines bases - making it easier to resume carpet bombing Ukrainian cities and frontline positions with glide bombs.
So at the very minimum, Ukraine needs these capabilities as a matter of deterrence.
3) At the minimum, missiles like ATACMS can help Ukraine hold onto its newly acquired territories in Kursk - enabling Ukrainian troops to target the Russian supply chain that equips the counter-offensive troops trying to capture back the taken territory.
Just this fact alone - helping Ukraine hold onto Kursk territories - and thus, important bargaining chips in potential negotiations with Russia, is already worth the supply of long-range ammo.
4) Not all of the high-value military targets are going to be airplanes/helicopters etc.
Not all them are easily movable.
Some of these are going to be ammo depots.
A good example of this was last week’s drone-swarm attack (a deep strike 310 miles away from the border with Ukraine) on Russia’s GRAU arsenal depot near Toropets.
This depot actively supplied frontline Russian troops with various ammo - including 122mm rockets for BM-21 Grad, and artillery shells.
(side note: explosion at this depot was so big that it registered as an earthquake).
There are many excuses provided for a refusal to equip Ukraine with long-range strikes.
But it is simply plain old nonsense to claim that Ukraine doesn’t really need them - they most definitely do.
Hezbollah pager explosions demonstrate asymmetry in the appetite for risk.
Israel’s covert and overt (airstrikes) actions against Hezbollah did understandably grab worldwide attention.
Formally, Israel denies complicity in the two-stage attacks (pagers on Tuesday and walkie-talkies on Wednesday) that targeted thousands of Hezbollah fighters.
But there is of course any doubt that Israel was behind these - and there are now credible reports that the US intel officers were notified by Israelis shortly after these attacks.
Preliminary observations.
1) Israel has demonstrated next-level capabilities but more importantly, a significant appetite to escalate the confrontation with Hezbollah.
The explosive devices were implanted into newest pagers acquired by Hezbollah - a senior Lebanese security source reported that the group had ordered 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers from Gold Apollo, which multiple sources confirmed were brought into the country earlier this year.
Those with older pagers were spared - and some were saved due to dead batteries or devices being turned off.
There are no indications that Hezbollah was planning an imminent attack on Israel - or even that they were planning any campaign whatsoever.
But Israel proceeded regardless.
There is of course of an enormous political benefit to Netanyahu - a year after October 7th attacks, Gaza is in ruins, Ismayil Haniyeh is killed on Iranian soil (on the day of inauguration of a new Iranian President), a number of senior Hamas and Hezbollah commanders have been killed by Israeli soldiers, and IRGC had suffered embarrassing security breaches throughout the year.
Add to this, the escalation dominance vis-à-vis Hezbollah is yet another prestige boost for Netanyahu.
But this is not just about politics.
Israel is clearly also expanding its war aims (more on that later below) to include return of 80k internal refugees from Northern Israel (forcibly resettled due to Hezbollah rocket attacks).
And to do so, it is conducting operations to weaken Hezbollah’s offensive capabilities.
In addition, there are some strategic gains as well.
Now, some analysts have criticized Israeli actions as being merely ‘‘tactical’’ and shortsighted.
As in: cool tactical measures, but what does it actually accomplish beyond angering thousands of combatants on the Israeli border to take revenge?
But this is nonsense.
There are in fact many strategic benefits, but one often overlooked advantage is this: Israel demonstrates to Washington that acts of brazen sabotage against Iran and its proxies are relatively costless to conduct.
That, it is not the end of the world and that Tehran is actually a) unable, and b) disinterested in escalating into a full-scale war.
And for a country that wants the US to help its direct action against Iran’s nuclear program, these are indeed some significant strategic accomplishments to consider.
2) Possibility of a “use it or lose it” scenario.
There are some reports that a number of high-ranking Hezbollah officials were suspicious and onto this whole sabotage.
As such, there is some chance that pagers were blown up out of concern that there would no longer be a similar opportunity coming up anytime soon.
(side note: apparently, the original plan was to detonate them as an opening salvo during an all-out war.)
This is plausible but not necessarily dispositive - it may have been a factor in deciding to trigger these explosions but the primary causal reason has to be the fact that Israeli leadership was not worried about huge costs and significant repercussions.
Israel did not mobilize its northern units in advance or immediately after the attack.
This indicates lack of belief/worry that there would be an immediate and significant retaliation from Hezbollah.
Which leads us to the following observation.
3) Iran and Hezbollah have lost significant deterrence capacity.
There are reports of 19 members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) killed, and 150 others wounded, after their pagers exploded in Deir ez-Zur, eastern Syria.
Not only that, even Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was injured by the explosions.
(side note: this is extremely embarrassing for Tehran. What happened to the claim that Iran was not directly behind Hezbollah? In fact, they are so close that they end up finding themselves in the physical proximity of Hezbollah pagers.)
And yet, Iran and Hezbollah are yet to respond with something significant and meaningful.
Let’s not forget that Iran also hasn’t yet responded to Ismayil Haniyeh killing either (even though they had previously promised revenge.)
Both Hezbollah and Iran have been shown to be weak and ineffective.
This has been a major security breach that has gone undetected.
4) Some questions around Hezbollah’s actual capacity.
It is peculiar that only around 4-5k pagers and several hundred walkie-talkies were blown up.
Why is the number not higher?
One potential answer is that many were not switched on.
Now, there is a perfectly legitimate reason for this: those that are not at high-enough levels of command, should not be constantly pinging their locations/revealing their whereabouts.
But this presumes that this was indeed the plan.
There is also an alternative explanation: that Hezbollah doesn’t really have as many fighters/commanders as they claim to have.
For a number of years, Hezbollah claimed to have more than 100k combatants.
So then, why are only 4-5k of these are in possession of pagers?
What about the rest? Are they whatsapping instead?
Or is it more likely that 4-5k pager holders are not 4-5% of total combatants but more like 20-25%?
And so the total number of combat-ready fighters is much lower at around 25-30k?
A ratio of one pager holder to 4/5 nonholders is more plausible than 1/20.
So either: 1) Hezbollah is much smaller than it claims, or 2) It is of the claimed size but then that would imply that the rest of the combatants are communicating via less secure means.
Neither scenario is good for Hezbollah.
5) Israel expands its desired expected outcome.
It is also clear that Israel has expanded its objectives shortly after the initial explosions: since after two days of Pager/Walkie-talkie explosions, Israel proceeded with bombardment of southern Lebanon and of Beirut itself (killing a number of senior Hezbollah leaders (like Ibrahim Aqil) belonging to the Radwan brigade).
The bombings happened after the initial shock and awe - and not simultaneously - even though the latter would have caused much more chaos and confusion (catching Hezbollah totally off-guard while dealing with mysterious explosions).
But bombing southern Lebanon so soon after the pager sabotage is also advantageous - not as ideal as doing so simultaneously, but Israelis likely observed Hezbollah coordination to be weak and ineffectual enough to proceed with these strikes.
In other words, Hezbollah is being perceived as much weaker and vulnerable than before.
It doesn’t help that Hezbollah chief didn’t respond in a decisive manner - true, he described Israeli actions as a possible “declaration of war”, but stopped short of declaring war himself - and this surely wasn’t missed by Israeli analysts watching closely.
Consequently, as the perception of Hezbollah’s weakness and fear of escalation solidified much further, Israeli leaders may calculate that further offensive operations are worth conducting - that Israel should double down and hit Hezbollah harder while it can.
This is not an unreasonable conclusion to arrive at - something that Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders will surely appreciate.
And so the incentive for Hezbollah is in turn to escalate much stronger in response to these acts of sabotage/bombings.
In other words, this conflict may escalate much further - and if it doesn’t, then Hezbollah will suffer even further loss of deterrence.
6) Questions around legality under international law.
The UN’s Secretary-General described pagers as ‘‘civilian objects” - condemning their “weaponization”.
But are these really civilian objects?
These were not iphones belonging to Hezbollah fighters (which could easily end up in a child’s hand.)
The pagers in question were reportedly part of an emergency communication system used by a non-state actor/armed militia.
It is a little strange to describe them as civilian objects.
Now, of course there is still an argument that they could have ended up under civilian control/fallen into a child’s hands.
That may be true, but that would be a breach of operational security for Hezbollah - they would need to worry about their fighters violating basic OPSEC guidelines and allowing for the distribution of these pagers.
But there is another legal issue - they may be considered to be booby traps under the international humanitarian law.
For example, here is the relevant protocol on the use of mines and/or booby-traps:
“It is forbidden to use certain types of weapons in civilian areas where active ground combat is not happening or is not expected to occur, unless either: (a) the weapon is specifically targeted at a nearby enemy military objective, or (b) steps are taken to actively protect civilians from the weapon's effects, like warnings or barriers.”
Clearly, no steps were taken (or could have been taken - without endangering the efficacy of the entire attack) to mitigate these attacks, but then again, these were actions targeted at an enemy.
And one could even argue that these are far more targeted measures than air strikes could ever be (given that blasts are more contained and pager access should be dominated by Hezbollah fighters.)
Regardless, it is likely that a lot of attention will be deployed to this debate.
This may or may not harm Israel’s reputation even further.
But thus far, most of the Western observers have been impressed with technological prowess on display.
Whether this will be the view shared by the rest of the world is an open question - but then again, Israel doesn’t necessarily care about that.
And given the strategic benefit gained from shocking Hezbollah and displaying their (and Iran’s) weakness, Israeli leaders probably shouldn’t care.
And once again, it is important to remember that the (collateral) casualties have been minimal.
7) Likely near-term implications.
Three likely consequences emerge:
1) As discussed above, there will be a risk of a significant escalation cycle.
To maintain some semblance of deterrence, Hezbollah would have to respond in a way that completely changed the narrative.
But by definition such a response would risk starting a full-blown war - is Hezbollah really ready for this? Is Iran really ready to risk losing its crown jewel proxy?
2) If the above doesn’t happen, there will be a lot of tension at the top of the chain within both Hezbollah and Iran/IRGC.
Thousands of Hezbollah fighters were subjected to embarrassing attacks and senior military leaders were killed in airstrikes.
There is clearly a very powerful signaling pressure on Hezbollah leader Nasrallah to act: and if he doesn’t, then other senior commanders (more radical and less risk-averse than Nasrallah) may grumble.
Who knows how that will end - we don’t really know the internal dynamics of Hezbollah.
They don’t have figures like Prigozhin and Popov who openly challenge Russia’s military leadership on telegram/social media.
But is is likely that there will be some level of tension: whether that will spill over into an open challenge against Nasrallah (and end up with his replacement with someone more radical and less strategic/risk-averse), or lead to subdued internal tensions that will result in weak operational performance is unclear.
But something unfavorable to Hezbollah’s internal cohesion and operational readiness is likely to materialize.
Same (to a lesser extent) applies to the IRGC.
There, the situation is more convoluted: the new President Pezeshkian wants to revive a deal to lift/ease sanctions (and is willing to sidestep the US and work with Europeans exclusively to get this done), and rocking the boat too much is not in Pezeshkian/foreign affairs establishment’s interests - but the IRGC may have desires for a more robust response.
A lot of insight could potentially be gleaned from the Iranian delegation’s rhetoric at the UNGA summit in New York next week.
3) Hezbollah fighters will likely a) lose morale/confidence in their leaders, and b) end up distrusting current tech capabilities at their disposal.
Whether that distrust leads to a better or worse alternative tech is an open question.
One possibility is that they develop some secure encrypted messaging network.
Certainly, one shouldn’t discount the cyber capabilities of the IRGC in helping Hezbollah getting this set up.
Another possibility however, is that Hezbollah will be pushed towards using less secure forms of communications.
A good analogy would be the UK’s decision to cut German underwater cables during WWI in 1914.
This led to Germans resorting to wireless comms - which made it much easier for Brits to intercept German messages.
Similar results could materialize here.
Finally, there is also the possibility of a third option: that Hezbollah doesn’t develop something more secure and doesn’t move into less secure platforms.
This is a scenario where there is less overall communication and coordination between Hezbollah fighters/commanders - leading to overall weaker performance on the battlefield.
To conclude, no sunny prospects for Hezbollah any time soon.