Kursk and the Importance of Operational Reserves

For those of  us familiar with the eastern front in World War II, seeing Kursk in the news is deja vu all over again.  Then, the battle was not just operational but strategic significance since it destroyed the reserve of German armored vehicles General Heinz Guderian had created with great effort.  Germany never managed to build up such a reserve again.

The question with regard to today’s Ukrainian offensive toward Kursk is whether it and Russia’s potential response are of operational or just tactical significance.  The Ukrainian invasion of Russia itself at first appeared to be nothing more than a raid.  It has since expanded and, according to the August 23 Wall Street Journal, has evolved into an attempt to encircle about 3000 Russian soldiers.  By World War II standards that is a trivial number, but with today’s smaller armies it is not entirely so, although the troops in question seem to be mostly poorly trained and equipped conscripts.  Still, on its own such a Kesselschlacht is unlikely to be of operational significance.

Ukraine’s operational objective appears to be drawing higher-quality Russian units away from the eastern Donbas, where they are slowly advancing, to deal with the Ukrainian invasion.  That does not seem to be occurring, so far at least.  

What are the operational opportunities facing both parties?  As I have written before, an operational move that could win the war for Ukraine would be to drive into Russian, as it has now done, then turn south and advance between the Russian front line in the Donbas and the Russian border.  The Russian army manning the Donbas front would likely disintegrate in a full scale rout.

The Russian operational opportunity is to cut off and encircle the Ukrainian forces in Russia.  To do so, it would have to drive two strong armored forces into Ukraine, perhaps with the Ukrainian city of Sumy as their meeting point.  A shallower encirclement is unlikely to be successful.  The August 23 WSJ wrote,

In Kursk, Ukraine is stretching the breadth of its incursion rather than seeking a deeper advance that would be easier to cut off, said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired major general in the Australian Army.

Both of the options depend on having large operational reserves of mobile forces.  Here is the lesson for the U.S. military: reserves are often a war winner.  Both the Army and the Marine Corps tend to disregard the importance of reserves.  Units held in reserve are to a certain extent shamed, as if they are not good enough to be put into the front lines.  This is a false and dangerous attitude.  Especially at the operational level, the side with the last large reserve often wins because when it commits that reserve, the enemy has nothing left with which to counter it.  France 1940 provides one of many historical examples: after the German thrust to the Channel, Churchill flew to France to meet with the French general staff.  He asked the French Chief of Staff, (I think Weygand at that point) “Where is the operational reserve?” The French commander replied, “There is none.” Churchill later wrote, “At that point I knew we had lost.”

I do not know whether either Russia or Ukraine has sufficient operational reserves to make the latter’s thrust into Russia or Russia’s response operational significant.  I do know that is the key question. 

There is one other potentially war-winning opportunity facing Ukraine.  Russia has a long history of failed wars resulting in coup attempts or revolutions.  If Ukraine has sufficient operational reserves to drive between the Russian lines in the Donbas and the Russian border, the Russian defeat might be so great as to create political turmoil inside Russia.  

In terms of America’s interests, that would not be a good thing.  If Putin goes, he is likely to be replaced with someone harder, not softer.  Worse, the Russian Federation could itself come apart, creating a stateless region with thousands of nuclear weapons and delivery systems that can reach the United States.  That would be the worst possible outcome from our perspective.  Let us hope somebody in Washington can grasp this and act accordingly.