This was our first attempt at producing a nested gaming framework. I'm not sure that we altogether succeeded, but it's interesting to look at where we feel uneasy. We wanted to keep the geopolitical element of the nesting relatively simple. We were looking for a straightforward geopolitical narrative that we could play over a deeper economic and financial game. The game Putin's War provides one such possibility. It offers the potential to create a geopolitical narrative based around Russian activity in Ukraine and the Baltic States in the near future.
One feature of this part of the world is that Belarus sits between Ukraine and the Baltic States. Belarus is often seen as a Russian proxy, which is normally a reasonable assumption, and one fear of NATO is that combined Russian and Belarussian wargames could provide a launch pad for Russian intervention in the region. There are two lovely possibilities here: (a) the wargames provide a launch pad into the Baltic States - the the Belarussian Left Hook, and (b) the wargames provide a launch pad into Ukraine - the the Belarussian Right Hook. It is this latter possibility that we wanted to examine in this game, leaving the former possibility for a subsequent game.
In setting up the game, elements of the Russian Western Military District would start in Belarus, with the intention of falling upon Ukraine from the north, between the River Bug and the Pripyat Marshes, starting in the region of Brest. The Belarussian forces would support the Russian forces if Belarus was invaded and would not undertake any activity outside of Belarus. Elements of the Russian Southern Military District were available for the Russian player, at the outset from the region of Rostov and Kursk, or through Crimea after a delay (determined by a dice roll). They would be joined by reinforcements from the Central and Far Eastern Military Districts after a delay (determined by a further dice roll). The NATO and non-NATO blue team forces would operate under current operating policies. Each turn represents roughly three days in real time, with somewhere between two to three turns representing a week.
At the outset of the game, the main force invading Ukraine originated from the Russian Western and Southern Military Districts. As NATO wasn't involved at that point, Russia had air superiority, which was used to assist an assault and capture of Kharkov. Ukraine responded to the invasion by attacking the Operational Group Transnistria (OGT), an army strength formation based in Transnistria. This formation was routed and forced to withdraw into Moldova, which not only brought Moldova into the conflict, but also Romania. The Romanian Army destroyed the OGT and then advanced to secure Odessa. By D+3, Russian forces had advanced far enough to lay siege to Kiev.
The Russian 49th Army went on to capture Kiev and President Putin held a rather hastily assembled victory parade. The Ukrainian and Romanian Armies fought back and made territorial gains in southern Ukraine. By D+6, Russia had started to garrison the cities captured in Ukraine, despite Ukrainian forces having crossed the Dnieper. Russia counter-attacked across the Dnieper, at which point reinforcements from the Southern Military District arrived through Crimea. By D+9, most of the Ukrainian Army had been destroyed and the Romanian Army had been pushed back towards Moldova. Russia had cleared the territory east of the Dnieper, cleared all Ukrainian cities other than Lvov, and enjoyed almost complete air superiority.
This proved to be the turning point in the game. Russia continued to enjoy air superiority and used that feature to destroy the Romanian Army. The destruction of the Romanian Army prompted a response from Poland. The Polish 2nd Army Corps invaded western Ukraine to meet the Russian challenge. By D+12, the Polish forces had advanced to almost reach Kiev. In the north, the Lithuanian Army, avoiding Belarussian territory, crossed into Russia south of the Dvina River. NATO was gradually being drawn into the conflict. The North Atlantic Council met and decided that although the Romanian actions had been outside of the scope of the North Atlantic Treaty, the destruction of the Romanian Army did constitute a breach of Article 5, justifying the actions of the Polish and Lithuanian Armies. This released the NATO air capacity.
The intervention of NATO air power allowed, by D+15, the Polish Army to capture Kiev, the Lithuanian Army to move southwards to capture Smolensk and then Bryansk, the Estonian Army to capture Rzhev, and the Latvian Army to secure the Russia-Belarus border. At this point, Belarus was cut off from Russia. The Russian reinforcements from the Central and Far Eastern Military Districts then entered the fray. Whilst seeking to consolidate their gains in southern Ukraine, the main focus of the Russian forces was to repel the invasion from the Baltic States. By D+18, the forces of the Baltic States had been pushed north of the Dnieper River, but at the cost of Russian losses in central Ukraine as the German Army reinforced the Polish forces in the area of Kiev and the 13th Ukrainian Army Corps occupied Odessa. Elsewhere, the Swedish and Finnish Armies, as part of the EU Nordic Battlegroup, landed in Riga and had started to deploy for action through Latvia.
The Russian push continued, aided by control of the air. In the east, the main focus was an advance across the Dnieper to recapture Smolensk. By D+21, this resulted in the Lithuanian Army being destroyed, but the Swedish and Finnish Armies advancing to contact along the line of the Dnieper. Whilst in the west, the focus was a push to recapture Kiev. The Russian 5th and 58th Armies laid siege to the Polish 2nd Army in Kiev. The Poles were aided by a reconstituted Romanian Army, the German Army, and the Czech Army Corps, which had just entered operations. This proved to be enough to mount an effective counter-attack. By D+24, the NATO forces had pushed the Russian forces back as far as Kharkov and threatened to invade western Russia from Ukraine. The Russian advance north across the Dnieper continued, resulting in the destruction of the Finnish Army, but at a heavy cost to the Russian forces. By D+27, the German Army had occupied Dnipropetrovsk, the Romanian Army had occupied Kharkov, and the Polish 2nd Army had occupied Bryansk. The Nordic Battlegroup was advancing towards Smolensk.
At this point we ended the game. We rather felt that it was something of a NATO win. Russia had failed to secure their objectives in Ukraine and the NATO allies had the opportunity to determine a peace that was worse than the opening position for Russia, possibly giving Crimea back to Ukraine. I think that we ought to have kept more detail of the moves, which is from where my disquiet about the game originates. However, I may be worrying unnecessarily. By photographing each move, I was able to retain a certain amount of detail that I have been able to recreate here.
If I were to play this game again, I would like the right hook to come in Turn 1, and for it to be heavier than a single unit. I would have the OGT stay in Transnistria and the additional forces come into play sooner. We need to work on the NATO political mechanism. It's far more complicated than we modelled and I don't feel that we adequately captured that complexity. However, looking back, it was a reasonable first stab at creating a timeline, so perhaps I'm being a bit too hard upon myself?
Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2020
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