Meat Part 4: Some Carefully Rendered Thoughts on the Politics of Meat

25 Minute Read

While I touched briefly on it in Part 1, I will now go into depth on the political thinking and decision making that led to the common use of expendable infantry in the Russo-Ukraine War, which has no ending in sight.

"Birds of a Feather Flock Together"

Honesty time.

I bought into the prewar hype that the Russian Armed Forces had actually improved greatly since the 2010s era New Look Reforms. I won’t say I spent a lot of time researching the topic, but I read a little bit on it, and there was nothing credible that I found that was suggesting anything less than flowery praise and some pretty heavy fear involving the growing military capabilities of the Russian military.

Then this war started and showed me the error of my ways. The Russians hadn’t really changed all that much, still prone to the same old habits. Still corrupt. Still ruthless, callous, and cruel to their own troops. Still loving their centralized command processes with regards to planning and mission executions. Still stubborn, and most of all, still requiring embarrassing failures to learn and adopt, needing to get punched in the nose HARD to then get further permission to duck the next time.

Likewise, early in this war, I was initially taken in by the talk about how much the Ukrainian Armed Forces were Basically NATO™. I knew very little about them when this war started, but they did seem to perform so well early on, I thought the stories were true. But after watching how they performed since, and diving into their history too, I have come to realize the AFU has far more in common with the Russian Armed Forces than any NATO military that isn’t a recent Eastern European addition.

Here is an apt quote I find accurate, from the Austrian defense analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, to describe this war, based on his Summer 2023 observations:

This is essentially two Soviet militaries fighting one another.

So true.

Take two societies with the shared cultural baggage of military history and traditions, and it shouldn’t be surprising that they both end up finding similar solutions to similar problems. And I’m not just talking about the use of Meat either, I mean they both view warfare similarly too, both the strategic and political aspects.

On Strategy

It’s important to be clear with words, phrases, and their meanings. I’m no military philosopher that gets giddy arguing about what a bunch of old men in the 18th-20th Century said about warfare, philosophy makes me sleepy, but I think it’s a good idea to bring up a couple in particular just to be on the safe side, as their ideas have become popular enough to have been commonly accepted. Namely Clausewitz and Delbrück.

I won’t go into great detail about their works, only summarizing their views on the two types of strategies used to prosecute wars: Annihilation and Attrition/Exhaustion.

A strategy of annihilation is most easily described as an attempt to remove the enemy's ability to resist by military means. It’s most typically viewed as a campaign designed to destroy the opponent’s field armies with a decisive victory using maneuver. Even concepts involving strategic bombing can be included as facets of strategies of annihilation, such as targeting the enemy’s means of war production to make further military resistance impossible without sufficient equipment and supplies.

Interestingly, a strategy of annihilation can use tactics and operational-level campaigns focused on attrition as a mechanism to destroy the enemy’s means to resist.

Attrition/Exhaustion is a strategy that aims to cause maximum pain and suffering to the enemy's military and/or society to force them to quit by eroding their morale, resolve, and willpower to continue resisting. In some cases, only the leadership's morale, resolve, and willpower matter, though in other cases, the people can pressure the ending of a war with revolutions, rebellions, and coups, or even just with protests and votes against the war.

Interestingly, a strategy of attrition/exhaustion can use tactics and operational-level campaigns focused on maneuver to cause a diminishment in the enemy’s morale, resolve, and willpower by way of repeated military thrashings, as nothing says “What’s the point in continuing?” like repeatedly getting your ass endlessly kicked on the battlefield.

Niederwerfungsstrategie ist Kaput

The Russian invasion plan was so badly conceived that it’s not worth even debating which strategy it attempted to follow. But by mid-April 2022, when the Russians launched the Donbas Offensive, the signs were there that a victory against Ukraine by way of annihilation was likely not possible. By July, it was out of the question, meaning the only conceivable way to win the war was a strategy of attrition and exhaustion. Not just eroding the morale, resolve, and willpower of the Ukrainian people and its government, but also that of the key Western patrons making this war possible (seemingly the weaker link in the chain).

With Ukraine being the underdog in this war, lacking the capabilities to neutralize Russia’s military capabilities, a strategy of annihilation was never really a possibility. But Russia did seem potentially vulnerable to a strategy of attrition and exhaustion, which is what Ukraine adopted from the get-go of this war, through a mix of causing unacceptable military losses of manpower and equipment, in conjunction with the hopes of Russian economic ruin caused by Western sanctions, later adding long-range deep strikes into Russian territory against Russian commercial energy as a way of increasing the pain factor.

Note, I’m not trying to suggest Ukraine didn't seek out decisive strategic military campaigns at every opportunity, as their many maneuver-centric ground offensives attested, but they did those for the practical reason to reclaim lost territory, increasing pressure against Russia, while using the successes to undermine Russians morale, resolve, and willpowers.

Hate is Bad

There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent. – Lao Tzu

Truer words have seldom been said. And yet, all military strategy requires an assumption that the enemy can be defeated, so all strategies require some degree of underestimating the opponent. After all, if one believes the enemy possesses no weaknesses, then how can they be beaten?

But some strategies are worse than others when it comes to assumptions about enemy strengths and weaknesses, and a strategy of attrition/exhaustion is one of the worst. Besides the enemy’s military needing to seem weak, a strategy of attrition/exhaustion requires underestimating all facets of the enemy's way of life: they must be a weak people, with a weak economy, with a weak government, and especially weak leadership. If any of these are assumed to be strong, a strategy of exhaustion makes no sense, it can’t work. Therefore, those who recommend a strategy of exhaustion think very little of their opponent.

And that's especially the case with Russia and Ukraine. For those not paying attention, this war is fundamentally an ethno-nationalistic conflict. Those who support the Russian ethnicity and nationality despise the Ukrainian ethnicity and nationality, and vice versa. Naturally, they think less of each other as a result, which feeds a confirmation bias. And as a result of their contempt for one another, that affects their decision-making when it comes to military strategy. Disdain for their opponent lends itself to underestimating them.

Balls to the F’ing Wall

In 2002, the mixed martial artists Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama beat the ever loving shit out of each other in a Pride match in a shocking display of brutality that was as insightful as it was entertaining. It’s not a long fight, I highly recommend taking the time to watch it, as it’s the perfect analogy for how Russia and Ukraine have chosen to fight this war. If nothing else, watch the clip.

As previously mentioned, Russia and Ukraine are both using similar strategies of attrition and exhaustion, targeting each other’s morale, resolve, and willpower, which both sides underestimate due to a shared hatred of each other.

But also previously mentioned, they are two Soviet successor states with the same cultural baggage with one another, and that especially includes their thoughts on warfare, and that plays a big part in why they think pummeling their opponent so aggressively, despite getting pummeled in return, is an effective strategy.

The theorists who created Soviet operational art all agree that maintaining an extremely high operational tempo (OPTEMPO) to exert maximum pressure against the enemy is a great idea. And that theory never eroded into the heyday of the Soviet Union, and it is being adhered to this day, as this war shows.

However, that same Soviet doctrine also required total war measures for it to work correctly. To sustain the pain and suffering that must be endured to succeed in a large-scale combat operation between major industrial nation states, society and the economy must be mobilized to ensure the military is at its strongest.

Makes sense, right? Exerting relentless pressure with an extremely high OPTEMPO is a two-way street, pressure to wear out an opponent also wears oneself out, so endurance is key, which means maximum level of manpower, equipment, and supplies must be ready and available in great numbers.

But did Russia and Ukraine prepare themselves to go balls to the wall? Did they mobilize properly?

The Great Patriotic Limited War

Despite going balls to the wall for three years, despite the fiery public rhetoric that makes one suspect that this is a war of extermination, amazingly enough, the political leadership responsible for the prosecution of this war, for both parties involved, treat it as a very limited war.

Putin is scared to escalate. So far, all the nuclear saber-rattling and “red line” rhetoric has proven only to be bluffs. He waited eight months into the war before finally taking it seriously, a mistake that gifted Ukraine its September-November 2022 offensive strategic victories at Kharkiv, Lyman, and Kherson. Since then, Putin authorized a single partial mobilization for 300k troops in 2022, but otherwise has refused to perform another. He also refuses to alter the legal state of war, it’s still a “Special Military Operation,” further limiting his options. He still won’t use Russia’s +300k conscripts either; not even when Kursk was the victim of a surprise Ukrainian offensive in August 2024 with the Rodina itself invaded, did Putin dare authorize the use of conscripts to fight Ukraine. Surely he’s got reasons to justify his decisions, and no doubt some are legit and some stupid, but the point is that Russia is holding back.

Likewise, Ukraine is holding back, because Zelensky is scared too. He was scared before the war started to authorize a mobilization to properly prepare for or deter an invasion, going as far as to criticize the West for instigating panic over a supposed Russian invasion. He’s not improved either since the war started; he still won’t fix the great mobilization problems Ukraine has faced at least since February and March 2023, which have only gotten terribly worse since. As Ukraine loses the war due to a manpower crisis, Zelensky hasn’t even done the bare minimum to reform the mobilization process, which is now in a very sorry state of affairs. It’s hard to take seriously the morale, resolve, and willpower of Zelensky and the Ukrainians when they take object half measures.

Both sides know their opponent’s leaders are afraid to escalate, which has dramatic effects on justifying their decision for their increased OPTEMPO. But the decision not to take the mobilization and the war effort seriously comes with major repercussions.

Actions Have Consequences

Almost two thousand words later, I can hear your thoughts:

“Duncan, what the fuck does all of this have to do with Meat?”

Russia and Ukraine are fighting each other using total war strategies when they haven’t taken total war measures, instead investing in half-assed mobilization policies. That means they are going to have manpower problems. Quantity will almost surely be a problem, but quantity with quality will be impossible. And we’ve seen that play out.

This was a voluntary decision both sides made, one that was unique too. The need to mobilize properly to sustain oneself in an industrial war of attrition isn’t just some lofty ideal outlined in archaic treatises on warfare, it’s a requirement. Most major power militaries in modern history who’ve fought the nasty meat grinder wars of the 20th Century still managed to maintain quantity and quality because they made the sacrifices. The British during WW1 and WW2, the Germans in WW1 and WW2, the US during WW2, the Japanese in WW2, etc. Even the Red Army, after 1942, tried to legitimately pursue better quality than the Russians or Ukrainians had so far attempted in this war.

Therefore, contemporary Russian and Ukrainian leadership are the foolish outliers for favoring policies to limit the war for whatever reasons, while having an unwillingness to throttle back the OPTEMPTO, making quantity with quality impossible to maintain. Neither side entered this war prepared to sustain heavy losses to their infantry in particular, not Russia as I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, nor Ukraine either. And yet they half-assed the effort to reconstitute and expand, forcing them to take shortcuts. Denied sufficient numbers of talented individuals, instead, they most often were stuck with too few, never possessing the time and resources to properly train their force. Quantity suffered, quality suffered.

What is most amazing about this situation, where Russia and Ukraine both made the same disastrous decisions, is that one side’s weakness was balanced out because their opponent didn’t possess the strength either to exploit the weakness, as they made the identical mistakes too. Neither can capitalize on their enemy’s mistakes when they made the same mistakes too.

“When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade”

Despite being set up for failure by their political and strategic level leadership, tactical level military leadership, Russian and Ukrainian, must still do their duty to execute strategic policy and carry out the orders imposed on them. More so, as professional officers, they must get results, because losers don’t get promoted. But how can they achieve offensive or defensive success when they are denied the tools?

They can hope their leadership will end the war and quit. But in this war, quitting isn’t an option when the political leadership and their people, shielded from the worst effects of war, are adamant they want total victory. So that’s out.

Another option is to militarily practice “economy of force” on a strategic level. They can call off major offensives, perform maneuver/mobile defense prioritizing the preservation of their forces, shorten the overall strategic frontage as much as possible to free up forces, pull as many units from the line into the reserve as possible, all to create the breathing space needed to rebuild the force structure with quality. However, as stated, neither Russia nor Ukraine is willing to throttle back their OPTEMPO. After all, “The enemy is so close to breaking!”, as both sides’ leadership have believed for three years.

They can’t quit the war, and they can’t slow it down either. The only decision left is to game their system to try to achieve whatever success is possible despite the self-imposed limitations. And that is where expendable infantry becomes an option that makes some sense.

Limited war led to limited mobilization systems that provided larger numbers of low-quality troops than high-quality, requiring each side to elect to use the larger number of lower-quality troops to perform the necessary dirty jobs required for tactical success. Making the decision easier is that both have an identical shared military history of making this decision in the past, as dedicated Meat worked in WW2.

Allowed to suffer the higher burden of losses, the lower-quality inducted infantry serves to preserve the lives of the higher-quality infantry. Protected from the most dangerous missions with the lowest chances of survival, the lower-quantity, higher-quality infantry are then used to perform missions that lower-quality infantry can’t perform.

Or in the case of the Ukrainians, they seem not to even bother anymore trying to find high-quality infantrymen, they push their higher-quality inducted personnel into non-infantry combat support roles, specifically drone operators, to use as technological force multipliers. At this point in the war, I’m not even being facetious saying that AFU infantry units, filled with mobilized cannon fodder, seem to exist almost entirely to serve as “tethered goats” in isolated forward defensive positions to attract predatorial Russian attacks, which can then be attrited by a well-supplied and efficient reconnaissance fires complex.

“If It’s Stupid But Works, It’s Not Stupid”

A lesson that was beaten into my head during my military service and throughout my amateur military history education is that any military solution that works isn’t stupid. Costly, cruel, wasteful? Sure. But if it works, then it works. And in the Russo-Ukraine War, Meat works, especially considering the aforementioned political and strategic realities that have been self-imposed by Russia’s and Ukraine’s leadership.

For the Russians, they can maintain the offensive for extended periods in a war dominated by costly infantry attacks without bothering to invest into better infantry, using a mix of manpower nobody in Russia seems to give a shit about: Pro-Russian Ukrainians, convicts, deserters and other military criminals, and Superfluous Russians of dubious socio-economic classes willing to accept the big bonuses to sign contracts for the ultra-dangerous job of Shturmoviki assault troops.

And the Ukrainians can better replicate the Japanese at Peleliu, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa with ultra-tenacious “Hold at all costs” defensive mandates, directed by political leadership, performed largely by barely-trained 45-year-old infantrymen deemed expendable by Ukrainian society, allowing them to take high losses without worrying about troubling their youth with the threat of military service.

It’s a Win-Win situation for them both. Well, except for the Meat. But if they truly mattered, they wouldn’t be Meat.

But, and I can’t state this enough, it didn’t need to be this way. While using expendable troops seems to have worked in this war for the leadership, I think there were better options, namely making the proper decisions not to half-ass the mobilization processes, and throttling back the insanely high OPTEMPO to take a breather to properly regroup.

In closing, I want to say that, regardless of which military they belong to, the troops used as Meat deserve better (even the convicts). My interest in the plight of infantrymen is not only having spent quite some time being one myself, not just as a matter of basic human decency, but also in terms of good leadership. Caring for subordinates is the right choice. Any person fighting for their nation deserves loyalty from their political and military leadership just as much as is expected of them to provide up the chain in return. Duty is a bitch, but it goes both ways.

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Rest assured, I plan to post some more articles on the topic of Meat in the future, as I’ve got more to say on the matter. But for now, I’m wrapping this bastard of a series up.

I want to give a special shout-out to the Reddit user Larelli, who helped me with the research going into this project, especially finding sources describing the trials and tribulations of Ukrainian fighting men. Grazie!