Article suggests lessons to be learned from Ukraine conflict
My oldest friend sent me a link to an MSN article in which the authors pontificate on the lessons we should take note of from the Ukraine conflict. It’s not a quickie, so I’ll summarize:
Mass matters. Attrition warfare is not dead. This mode of warfare emerges when neither side can achieve a clear asymmetric advantage. Standing armies are the only instrument nations can use to prevent, deter, and fight invading aggressors. Mass is required in a war of attrition. Funding and maintaining land power may seem like an expensive insurance policy but doing the opposite is to risk state collapse. Wars can only be won on the ground where nations exist, and people live.
Remember when Heinlein said that you only really HOLD territory when some pimple-faced kid with a rifle is standing on it?
Maritime operations are vulnerable. Expensive naval forces are threatened by inexpensive weaponry. Ukrainian attacks have minimized the impact of the Russian Black Sea fleet and little by little the Russian Navy drifted further back toward the mainland.
Maritime forces DONE RIGHT – trained, adequately protected – enable force projection like no feasible air force can offer. Smoky, poorly maintained, conscript manned junk? Yeah, they are in trouble.
Deep attacks are ineffective.There is a desire to employ rotary attack aircraft – and to some extent, fixed-wing aircraft – deep behind enemy lines for strategic effect. In Ukraine, soldiers operating short range anti-aircraft defensive equipment and using small arms fire, have been taking out multi-million-dollar aircraft. Control of the air remains contested and this will be a continual feature of future conflict.
They suggest the West needs to develop drones/counter drones and says “synergistic integration” has proven effective. Think we have called this “Combined Arms” for about 75 years.
Airborne and amphibious warfare has been minimized. These modes of warfare have their place in specialized units but the conduct of these methods at a large-scale, using thousands of soldiers and marines, is resource intensive, high risk, and perhaps even anachronistic.
Too risky, too hard, and anyone trying it will be blown out of the ether or water, whichever is appropriate.
Artificial intelligence has arrived. It has been said that advanced algorithmic warfare systems equate to having a nuclear weapon. Ukrainian forces have compressed their “kill chains,” and used software engineers on the frontlines to calibrate algorithms for devastating effect.
AI is worth a nuke? Our new gee-whiz tech will replace marines and grunts? Perhaps another line of thought is “what happens if you throw billions of dollars in support and ammo resupply to a surrogate?” We learned that in ’73…at least we’re on the smarter side of the equation this time, albeit possibly temporarily. Their suggestions make limited sense – for Ukraine – but what happens when the focus is, say, Taiwan?
Reminds me of a conversation with an MI Major (later General) Claudia Kennedy who complained of being the range officer … said all future wars would be push-button and rifles were outmoded. Satellites would replace them. Think the Desert Storm and OIF guys would disagree.
H/T to my old squad leader Bill when I was a young PFC fresh outta LostintheWoods.
Category: Air Force, Army, Bloggers, Marines, Navy, Russia, Ukraine
