This Just In: War Is Hard

Photo: Putin’s top military advisors explain that the Ukrainian situation is so dire they are forced to meet around a shuffleboard table.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is proving to be far harder than the Kremlin — and indeed, most outside observers — expected. This is above all a tribute to the grit and determination of the Ukrainian people, whom many expected, through no fault of their own, to be little more than speed bumps under the treads of Russian armor barreling toward Kyiv.

They have been anything but.

It is also due in part to skillful diplomacy by the West, and — ironically — a revitalized and freshly unified Western alliance, with Vlad the unintentional agent of that revitalization.

But the mess Russia faces is also an immutable principle of armed conflict.

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” as the old saying goes. (Attributed to the 19th century Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, the elder, the literal quote is: “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main enemy force,” or “Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus,” if you want to be Teutonic about it.)

Or in the words of Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Putin has taken several punches in the mouth over the last few days, both on the literal…