Introducing From the Cheap Seats

As I have noted before, this is not a smart military blog, but I do have one friend who can be considered an expert in the subject, Col. Andrew Dziengeleski, a former Pentagon planner, recently retired, and relatively free to offer his expertise. I got news via Facebook today that, in his copious free time, that will no doubt decrease once fishing season gets going, he was going to start a blog. Well, here it is Andrew Dziengeleski. His first post was a simple introduction, FROM THE CHEAP SEATS

I’ve decided to start writing. I enjoy writing, when done well, it can be an art form regardless of the length of the story. I will write about anything I find interesting, but will concentrate on military history, military strategy and operational art, book reviews, fish and fishing, foraging for wild mushrooms, Philadelphia sports, music and who knows what else. It’s partially therapeutic, partially informing whatever audience might accumulate over time, and hopefully interesting, humorous and worth the time the reader puts into the piece.

I’ve decided to call my column “From the Cheap Seats” as an homage to the Eagles Seasons Tickets my Dad had when I was a kid.. . .

And his second is a piece on how he sees the invasion of Ukraine by Russia going, FROM THE CHEAP SEATS: Russia and Victory Disease. Just a taste of his conclusion:

I see a lot of gloating on-line, in the press and on the television about the failures of the Russians. I would caution these people and remember the old line about the Russian Army, “It is nowhere near as bad as they seem at the start of a war, and nowhere near as good as they seem at the end of a war.” This war is not over yet, and while the initial military and political objectives have not been attained by the Russians, they still possess a large arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and Russian military doctrine takes a much different approach than Western military doctrine on the employment of these weapons.

For now, it seems clear that the Russian victories over the last 20 years deluded the senior leadership about Ukrainian resistance. Russian leaders believed a quick decapitation campaign to seize Kyiv and arrest or kill Ukrainian political leaders would result in a sudden strategic victory. As we all have seen, the Russians believed their own hype, had no idea how to adapt to changing environments once their initial plan failed, and the age old virus of victory disease came to fruition once more.

I've added his column to the blogroll on the right hand side.