The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-10-06 17:23:27 | Updated at 2024-10-06 19:16:30 2 hours ago

The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure
Center For Strategic & International Studies ^ | September 24, 2024 | Eliot A. Cohen and Phillips O'Brien

Posted on 10/06/2024 10:16:20 AM PDT by tlozo

Surprise occurs in many forms. Many think of it in terms of a surprise attack, but it occurs in other dimensions. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a good example: the attack was foreseen, but the immediate outcomes were astonishing. To use an old Soviet phrase, analysts misunderstood in fundamental ways the “correlation of forces.” Their judgments about Russian and Ukrainian military capacity were not merely off—they were wildly at variance with reality. And even more perplexing, leading and widely acknowledged experts misjudged with a degree of certainty that in retrospect is no less remarkable than the analytic failure itself.

Their misjudgment was not a case of normal error or exaggeration. The expert community grossly overestimated Russian military capabilities, dismissed the chances of Ukraine resisting effectively, and presented the likely outcome of the war as quick and decisive. This analytic failure also had policy implications. Pessimism about Ukraine’s chances restricted military support before February 24, 2022. For years, voices in the analytic community argued publicly against providing crucial military aid for Ukraine precisely because Russia was presumably so strong that a war between the two countries, particularly a conventional one, would be over too quickly for the aid to make a significant difference. Once the war began, some of Ukraine’s most important international friends hesitated to supply advanced weapons, in part out of the mistaken belief that Ukraine would prove unable to use them or would be overrun before it could deploy them effectively. Today, such hesitation remains, with Ukraine still lacking the weapons systems it needs to defeat Russia in its relentless effort to destroy Ukraine as a state. Thorough consideration of why responsible and expert analysts made egregious misjudgments is the best way to avoid a similar outcome in this part of the world or elsewhere. This report documents and explains a large, consequential failure.

TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia; Ukraine
KEYWORDS: eliotacohen; phillipsobrien; russia; ukraine; war

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Conclusion: Remedies

The analytic failure at the outset of the war rippled beyond the conflict. The initial estimates seem to have influenced the tentativeness with which the West armed Ukraine, holding back on advanced weapons systems in part based on the argument that the primitive Ukrainian military could not operate them successfully. Pessimism about Ukrainian chances, hesitation about reinforcing Ukrainian successes, and difficulty in seeing Russia’s true weaknesses were all hangovers from the initial failure, even though many analysts eventually adjusted to the reality of the situation. The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure | 50

The broader implications of the failure are even more important. It is striking how small the analytic community was that made the judgments that shaped public perceptions and, in some measure, government policy. These individuals, for the most part, had similar backgrounds—degrees in political science and experience almost exclusively in think tanks, along with occasional stints in the intelligence community. They were not historians and certainly not military historians. Few had field experience as soldiers. They were overwhelmingly “Russia military analysts” by trade and not experts on Ukraine, often accepting, at a tacit level, deep-seated Russian views about the unreality of Ukrainian nationhood. Their internal system was mutually supportive. They constantly approved citations of one another’s work and treated both the underlying uncertainty and commentary of those outside the community with a degree of disdain.

This was a recipe for what the pioneering social psychologist Irving L. Janis referred to as groupthink.164 Indeed, the analytic community exhibited many of the characteristics Janis noted: underestimation of the group’s susceptibility to error, stereotyped views, self-censorship of dissent and commitment to unanimity, and even “self-appointed mindguards” who enforced orthodoxy.165

Full Report: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-09/240924_Cohen_Russia_Ukraine.pdf?VersionId=1YNnRnwS.6DkrwNcAkdb5Dbsfjclg0JR

1 posted on 10/06/2024 10:16:20 AM PDT by tlozo

To: tlozo

Wait, was this a “full scale invasion”? /s LOL

2 posted on 10/06/2024 10:21:41 AM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )

To: tlozo

The shock is going to be epic as Russia finishes off Ukraine.

3 posted on 10/06/2024 10:22:22 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (.You will suffer from one: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. )

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