For more than two years, Western observers have produced a seemingly infinite number of articles and reports trying to derive key lessons from the war in Ukraine and predict their implications for the future of warfare. Beyond the obvious but too often ignored fact that this war is a single and very unique case, drawing meaningful lessons has been further complicated by the fact that most of these studies suffer from confirmation bias due to their authors’ inability to abandon their Western, Clausewitzian analytical lenses and their apparent desire to keep such a theoretical paradigm alive and prove its universal relevance. As a result, important and informative observations have been either ignored or interpreted in completely wrong ways, generating false understanding of the war and leading to meaningless changes in many European countries’ national defense strategies, military doctrine, command and force structures, training and education systems, and equipment acquisition. While many European countries responded to Russia’s invasion by promptly increasing their defense budgets and expediting their acquisition of new equipment, they have largely been applying these increased resources toward the wrong solutions to the security challenge they face. This conflict has confirmed that besides a small number of large European countries such as Poland, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, for most there is no point in building and maintaining more conventional military forces. Contrary to the argument of many experts, the war in Ukraine is evidence of the limited utility of the Western way of war for most European countries.
There have long been reasons, which should have been obvious, that many European countries should not invest in Western-style conventional defense frameworks. Among these are their close proximity to Russian forces, their comparatively small populations, the lack of natural obstacles on their territory, little to no strategic or operational depth to develop a multilayered conventional defense, the lack of history and institutional culture of combined-arms maneuver warfare, limited defense industry production capacity, and their small and insufficiently equipped militaries. But the war in Ukraine makes clearer than ever that these countries should instead develop defensive approaches geared toward fielding formations customized to the unique historical, cultural, geographic, and other features of their operational environments, rationalized for budgetary and manpower considerations, and sustainable with or without the conventional might of any allies and partners. While the Ukraine conflict is indeed very unique, and we must be cautious when trying to apply its lessons elsewhere, there are several observations that are worth close examination by other European countries.
Observation 1: Never present your adversary with a type of war that he is organized, trained, and equipped for.
Like the conflicts of the last two decades in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine has proved that an underdog can only be successful by avoiding fighting on the terms of its conventionally superior enemy. David cannot defeat Goliath by trying to become a small and poor version of Goliath but becoming the best David possible. At the beginning of the invasion Ukraine was extremely successful by avoiding fighting the Russians on their own terms, but as soon as Ukraine shifted its strategy to a more conventional approach, like its much anticipated 2023 counteroffensive, the war become a matter of material competition in which the underdog always comes out defeated. The underdog, as most European countries would be in a war with Russia, can only hope for success if its war strategy focuses on creating multiple dilemmas and the largest possible asymmetry between the stronger and the weaker sides. European countries watching the war in Ukraine should understand this lesson and design national defense approaches that avoid fighting on conventional terms at all costs and are purpose-built for ensuring asymmetry with conventional formations.
Observation 2: Like it or not, war happens in the cities and among the people.
The war in Ukraine is continuing the decades-long trend that modern conflicts are not being waged on remote battlefields away from civilian populations. The idea of separating and protecting the civilian population and protecting urban areas from the horrors of wars has become an illusion. European countries should understand, accept, and even embrace the importance of urban areas in national defense strategies. Through appropriate infrastructural preparation of urban areas, the capabilities of adversaries’ conventional intelligence collection, targeting, and weapons systems can be significantly degraded or even rendered irrelevant. European countries should enhance and fortify existing features and build new artificial ones to limit the maneuver abilities of attacking conventional formations. Preparation in advance should allow urban areas, in the event of conflict, to be turned into fortresses, with underground avenues of approaches to potential targets, preestablished escape routes, prepositioned weapons caches, camouflaged field hospitals, a plan to quickly mine key terrain, and dummy positions to mislead the enemy`s intelligence.
Observation 3: Strategic depth is crucial for survival.
Most European countries completely lack strategic depth in both a physical and a societal sense. The only way to overcome such disadvantages is stronger partnership with allies and partners. European countries need bilateral or multilateral defense agreements going way beyond the scope of current ones, which would likely even require transactional commitments that impinge on national sovereignty. Defense industrial production capacity, equipment depots, troop training centers, civil population protection facilities, and more should be established and maintained on the soil of foreign countries far away from the reach of a possible aggressor. This ensures the long-term sustainability of critical functions and prevents them being taken over and exploited by the aggressor for its war needs. The lack of physical strategic depth, of course, is a function of small territorial size, and along with this, European countries also have populations small enough to create manpower problems in the event of conflict. To overcome their shortages in human capital and expedite the inclusion of trained foreign citizens into the ranks of their militaries, European countries also should create the legal framework enabling other countries’ soldiers, civilians, and private military contractors to serve in each other’s armed services.
Observation 4: Friends are important in war, but they can become detrimental for the success of the defense efforts.
Ukraine has arguably been fighting the kind of war it has been fighting because of the advice and the type of equipment it has been receiving from its Western allies and partners. Beyond Western defense industry production capacity and Western political will becoming necessary conditions for Ukraine to be able to fight, the Western way of war has also become a must. Simple logic dictates that if the Ukrainian leadership received advice from sources socialized in different military cultures and equipment suited for a different type of war, then Ukraine’s strategic approach would have been also different (as it arguably was at the early phases of the war). The Russian experience in Chechnya and our own wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might have suggested a different approach about how to effectively counter a numerically and technologically superior conventional enemy, instead of presenting it with a type of war that it is organized, trained, and equipped for. European countries need friends but the level and type of reliance on them should be carefully considered. Building interoperability with allies and partners is a good idea for fighting alongside each other but blindly following international standards developed by more advanced nations might kill adaptability of those with limited resources.
Observation 5: Prewar exercises should be platforms of losing and learning instead of always winning.
Exercises should focus more than they currently do on finding gaps in capabilities and capacities and experimenting with solutions. Realistic scenarios must be more than a buzzword exercise planners pay lip service to; this must be made reality through the inclusion of all sectors of society into national defense exercises. The war in Ukraine has further proved that national security is no longer a function solely of the government, let alone the defense forces. The complexity of the modern battlefield and the distribution of capabilities and capacities among different stakeholders necessitate the inclusion of the entire society into national defense plans. Exercises provide the perfect platform to experiment with the utility and integration of the different parts of society and to identify necessary legislative changes leading to more effective national defense efforts.
Observation 6: Intimate knowledge of your enemy is an invaluable force multiplier.
Ukraine’s longstanding historical and cultural ties with Russia, the similarities between the Russian and Ukrainian language, the fact that many senior Ukrainian military leaders served in the Soviet forces, and the fact that the Soviet Union and later Russia were for many years the primary providers of military hardware, training, and education provided an unparalleled understanding of Russian military tactics, techniques, and procedures for the Ukrainians. After the end of the Cold War, European countries (like the United States) systematically get rid of their Russian cultural experts, eliminated all remnants of Soviet doctrine from their military schools, and largely stopped teaching the Russian language. The war in Ukraine should incentivize European countries to reintroduce Russian cultural and language studies in their professional military education institutions. Additionally, close attention should be paid to Russian force designs, command-and-control practices, tactics, techniques, and procedures, and equipment and weapon system capabilities, which should serve as foundations for future military training and education of European military personnel.
Observation 7: Forget armor and other big-ticket, traditional military platforms.
The war in Ukraine has produced unbelievable attrition, on both sides, of traditional military platforms. The figures are especially telling in comparison to the total number of soldiers and military equipment available for all Eastern European countries together. Additionally, most of the tanks and armored fighting vehicles were not destroyed in big tank battles but by small, fast, low-cost, easy-to-develop, and difficult-to-detect unmanned platforms. Ukraine also sunk one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, not in large naval battles but through the use of similar unmanned platforms. Most European countries have long been struggling to purchase and maintain tanks, armored fighting vehicles, airplanes, and ships due to their ever-increasing price tags. Now, the war in Ukraine has shown that these are among the worst investments they can make when it comes to national defense. European countries should move away from these high-tech traditional platforms toward right-tech solutions that are not large, expensive, and easily targetable but small, cheap, abundant, stealthy, and highly effective. Naturally such a transition would—and should—affect force design, tactics, techniques, procedures, training, and education.
Observation 8: Not everyone will fight and those who will are not necessarily those most fit to do so.
Ukraine’s society has been celebrated by many Western countries’ political leaders as the prime example of national cohesion and resilience. The will of Ukrainian people to fight against Russian aggression has also been glorified by many academics and the sources of such will have already been extensively studied. However, the war has also demonstrated that such strong unity and resilience notwithstanding, a large part of a society at war is very likely to try to avoid being drafted into the military forces either by fleeing the country or going into hiding within the country. Another troubling observation from the war is the reluctance of younger generations to fight for their country. As of late 2023, the average Ukrainian soldier was forty-three years old. It is unnecessary to explain the difference in physical capabilities and performance of such middle-aged people compared the forces of a much younger army. European countries with much smaller pools of human resources should take these observations into serious consideration when planning for their national defense. They need to take both legislative and executive actions now to prevent a similar situation to that Ukraine is currently facing from occurring, which would seriously degrade their already limited capabilities to mount a meaningful defense against aggression.
Observation 9: National defense is not only a military or government function.
The war in Ukraine has shown that the totality of a government’s military and other resources can very easily be inadequate for defending a nation. Domestic and international commercialization of the battlefield and crowdsourcing of intelligence collection and targeting have been significant force multipliers and proved to be a significant challenge for the Russians. Besides major legislative actions, the integration and employment of nongovernmental and nonmilitary capabilities into national defense systems require fundamental changes in the training and education of future European military leaders as well as full integration of these capabilities into national exercise programs.
Observation 10: Deception is still a force multiplier.
The war in Ukraine War has repeatedly demonstrated the wisdom of Zig Ziglar’s quote—that “you cannot hit a target you cannot see.” It has also shown that you will waste a lot of resources by hitting fake targets. Both sides seem to have rediscovered the art of deception and its force-multiplier effects and have been using it in both physical and virtual spaces. Similarly to the integration of nongovernmental and nonmilitary capabilities, the need to become batter in deception warrants fundamental changes in military education and training in European countries. It also points to new requirements for defense industry stakeholders to research and develop deception tools for both physical and virtual environments and commission them en masse into European countries’ military structures.
European countries sit at a historical turning point, one that potentially affects their long-term national survival. The existential-level shock that many suggest is a necessary condition for groundbreaking changes has been delivered to them by the Russian attack on Ukraine. All of them responded with more and faster investment in their national defense. Unfortunately, too many have been pursuing misguided responses to this shock and continue investing in poorly suited and even meaningless capabilities based on the continued illusions about the conduct of conventional war. Observations from the war in Ukraine point toward a need for a complete paradigm shift. A theory of war that works for one country and in one time may prove to be wholly inapplicable to other countries in a different time. When that happens, leaders must be prepared to modify or even abandon that theory of war. European countries should completely redesign their national defense approaches based on the realities of the twenty-first-century battlefield. Failing to do so may force them to pay the ultimate price in the event of Russian aggression.
Dr. Sandor Fabian is a former Hungarian Special Forces lieutenant colonel with twenty years of military experience. He was previously an MWI nonresident fellow and is the author of the book Irregular Warfare: The Future Military Strategy for Small States.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Junior Specialist (OR-2) Synne Nilsson, Allied Joint Force Command Naples
I spent many Times in such areas even recently and met from private to général, from simple worker to high level politician and a Can only agree with the majority of your observations that pinpoints a lack of imagination of our "leaders" when designing exercices.
First, western military thought is far more heavily influenced by Jomini than Clausewitz; who (while read by a few is largely given lip-service by most and blamed by the many who feel their service – be it 20 years in SOF or four years of PowerPoint lectures and a couple months of summer camp – qualifies them to “fix” the problems with the western way of war) is too often held up as some kind of messiah of strategy by those who have never read him – the penultimate appeal to authority in martial contexts, only eclipsed (in both appeal and rebuttal) by Sun Tzu. Like putting Bruce Lee’s face on the cover of a martial arts magazine will drive up sales, mentioning Clausewitz is going to draw attention from the military community. Clausewitz’s work was inspired, no doubt, but it is hardly this lens through which (most) conservative planners are viewing this current situation in Ukraine. That’s not to say Jomini’s work was any less inspired, though the two definitely were not in-sync (if you are looking for some disconnect in western military thought… that might just be a fundamental place to start).
Please don’t misunderstand, Dr. Fabian, I completely agree that most of these nations are misapplying their military resources. I disagree that any loyalty to Clausewitz is to blame. I also disagree that they are inherently wrong to focus on conventional assets. I do agree that these resources should be spent in a manner that supports the local sociocultural factors. Perhaps we have two different understandings of the term “conventional” (I doubt either of us are referring to “not nuclear arms”); given your background in Hungarian Special Forces, I assume you are referring to conventional warfare in the sense of weapons and tactics primarily targeting the enemy’s uniformed forces – vice sabotage, subterfuge, propaganda, guerrilla warfare, et al. that may constitute unconventional warfare. If so:
Observation 1:
There is nothing to suggest conventional weapons/personnel cannot be adapted to suit the vagaries of the respective nation. Conventional engineers focus on the triumvirate of mobility, countermobility, and survivability – SOF are not the arbiters of how one uses the environment to win (who invented the foxhole?). Air insertion (glider, paratrooper, fast rope, helocasting, etc.) were all conventional adaptations to changing technology, just as the Roman adoption of slinger and peltast units was a conventional application of cultural differences. Russia relied its natural terrain to hold off Napoleon, the Kaiser, and Hitler – relying overwhelmingly on conventional troops to do so (granted, at a cost in blood we’d like to avoid). Working to avoid the enemy when he is strong and to hit him when he is weak is part of every conventional strategy I’ve ever seen.
Observation 2:
Western conventional warfare is not why we suck at urban warfare. Artillery pieces in a direct-fire mode, grenades tossed through a door, and blowing mouseholes in a wall were all conventional tools of urban warfare long before everyone tried to stack outside of rooms like it was Son Tay.
The issue, here, is an inability by those who will judge us after the fact to inform us, in no uncertain terms, what is the standard to which we will be held afterwards – in a way that makes sense and within limits that not only allow us to win but empower us to do so. You’re issue is with The Hague, not Karl. Could conventional forces suck less at urban warfare, even if better lawyers aren’t forthcoming? Absolutely. Looking from the inside out at over two decades of nation-building and COIN, so could SOF/UW.
Observation 3:
Your argument is that many of these nations are simply too small to field conventional forces. This does make some sense as, despite their “special” status, Special Forces soldiers are the consummate generalists. Smaller forces can mean a focus on better (more concentrated, more comprehensive) training – they can all be held to a higher standard. Still, I don’t see how focusing on unconventional soldiers is a way around the population issue – high standards are not what separate conventional and unconventional forces. Bad soldiers are bad soldiers, no matter what color hat they wear – and you’re still going to get similar percentages of intelligent and dedicated troops.
Observation 4:
Interoperability, also, is not the sole purview of SOF personnel. Yes, more and better training with allies would help – but, while language training and experience with foreign cultures are an aspect of SOF training, they are not what sets it apart and plenty of conventional soldiers also possess these skills. True, few infantrymen speak target languages and few intel soldiers can hit targets, but a well-trained conventional force can do this almost as well as a SOF component.
Observations 5 & 6:
These both deal with cultural awareness (yours & the enemy’s). Both are important, especially as available battlespace shrinks and normal society becomes directly impacted. For the last 60+ years, this has been part of the purview of SOF (intel wasn’t quite up to the task, as our wars moved further and further beyond our shores). Yet, these are advisory roles or staff functions – even for the smallest national forces, they are a drop in the bucket of manpower; especially when there are so many exchange training programs at schoolhouses across Europe and the US. Yes, planners are short-sighted and forget far too much information they should retain – that is hardly unique to conventional forces. Aside from a small contingent of Civil/Special Reconnaissance and HUMINT collectors, there’s far too much overlap with non-uniformed agencies to prioritize these concerns.
Observation 7:
Here is where we’ll probably most differ on the definition of special operations. I don’t consider new or even disruptive technology to belong to either. Special operations elements tend to be quicker to adopt new technologies – but that is due to their smaller footprint and lower degree of oversight rather than anything inherent in their work. Airborne, air assault, submarines, and satellites are all defined by the technology they use and all were novel at one point – none are particularly special in the way that sets special operations apart from conventional operations (though airborne is often a required qualification for such, so is shooting a rifle). For much of history, especially during the Napoleonic era that solidified it, conventional western military planning led the way in technological development. It was your common infantryman who would capture command bunkers, or your standard commo specialist uncovering a channel the Germans were using, that allowed a bunch of otherwise-housewives at Bletchley Park to collate all that information so mathematicians with no rank at al could break the Enigma. Yes, absolutely, the Jedburgh teams, the Devil’s Brigade, La Résistance, the various SAS formations, and so many other unconventional elements helped immensely to buy the time they needed to buy – we wouldn’t have won without them – but it was the conventional war machine that dealt the deathblow.
Drones are no more special than are tanks.
Observation 8:
I’ll concede that a small unit of properly-trained Special Operations Forces can be more efficient than a larger unit of properly-trained conventional soldiers. I’m not convinced that that extends to a country that can only field one or the other. Nor am I certain that a single, well-trained ODA can be more effective than a well-trained armor company when maneuver and firepower matter. I can guarantee that a poorly-trained ODA won’t be. Training less fit or less capable soldiers to do a tougher job doesn’t make much sense.
Observation 9:
Here, I wholeheartedly agree. The western model has failed to adapt to a broader paradigm that doesn’t compartmentalize its foreign policy into convenient and internally-competitive cabinets. “Whole-of-government” is a nice buzzword that means nothing as long as State and Defense have to keep fighting like abused step-children over their various allowances.
Observation 10:
This is another case of misappropriating a particular tactic or strategy exclusively under the umbrella of special operations. The Ghost Army has received a lot of (overdue) attention over the last few months and their soft-SOF PSYOP protégés are no doubt bragging about it, they were hardly the first to ever employ deception.
The most famous such example is, of course, the Trojan Horse. While the men inside were certainly elite and specifically chosen for the mission, they were all conventional warriors who, aside from the infiltration itself, did not use any special techniques that would separate them from modern conventional forces adapting to the unique situation at hand.
Hate-me, You do realise the author does not at any point suggest using SOF as a solution to anything? You have built a very long-winded straw man argument here…
Bob,
The author doesn’t define his terms at all, nor offer any alternative approach to conventional warfare. His objections to conventional options are glaringly myopic when it comes to what conventional war actually consists of (suggesting it is incapable of adapting to societal difference, changing technology, urbanized terrain, strategic depth, international cooperation, stepping away from some fictional Clausewitzian rigidity, etc.).
Yes, I framed my argument around an admitted assumption about his perspective, and because the term “special operations” can be seen as an umbrella term for most approaches that are not “conventional.” UW would be a better term, had it not already been co-opted to specifically refer to the raison d’être of SF. I admit, upon review, that I leaned a bit too heavily into this as I wrote. That hardly makes my critiques of (or agreements with) his various observations into a straw man argument – his claims about the nature of conventional warfare are wrong, which was my intended point. I apologize if it came off otherwise.
You can replace my SOF comparison by contrasting Dr. Fabian’s claims about conventional war’s shortcomings against any other non-conventional approach (nuclear, civilian intelligence, pure diplomatic channels, hybrid warfare, etc.), his criticisms of conventional warfare remain misguided.
Many of his arguments are valid if the target is an overly rigid, centralized, and risk-averse bureaucratic form of warfare. To equate that with conventional warfare as a whole, especially as it applies to Clausewitz’s influence on such, is categorically incorrect.
Excellent Article, Well Balance & Reasonable In Its Presentation … Thank you
Drones win , hidden underground , swarms form out of nowhere.
This is an interesting article, quite thought provoking. However, its focus seems entirely on the defensive. One would think that a successful answer to an attack would involve not only arresting and frustrating the initial attack but to counter attack as soon as possible to make sure that it is the country of the aggressor that's devastated and not that of the defender. None of the points raised in the article explain how a successful strategy for counter attack could be informed by the lessons learned in Ukraine. The population and industrial capacity of western Europe exceeds that of Russia.
I think one of the biggest lessons is an old lesson. Controlling the airspace matters. I think if either Russia or Ukraine had a decisively superior air force this war would have gone very different.
Instead neither side has dominated the skies so this war has become a slog.
Drones are nice, but helicopters are better, helicopters are only safe if there are not opposing fighters around.
I think if Russia went up against a truly modern military with a decent air force they would have lost badly. Their air defenses would have been targeted and crumbled early, then with their opposition controlling the skies, they would have a much harder time on the ground.
Observation 7: Right on the money. Warfare is changing rapidly and will always change, but right now, Tanks, Aircraft, and Ships are nothing but targrts.
I think that the conclusion drawn in Observation 1 is potentially misleading. Yes, guerilla and unconventional warfare tactics are and can be a useful tool in the toolbox of a nation outmatched in both materiel and manpower but isn't the end of the story. Ukraine only resorted to guerilla tactics because it had to for national survival in the earliest stages of the war, and it only worked A. as a stopgap measure until large amounts of conventional support could arrive + internal mobilization achieved and B. it necessitated giving up large amounts of territory to achieve (see Observation 3).
Once it gained relative conventional parity, it switched to using conventional force because that was the best way it could find to retain and deny large swaths of territory. The counteroffensives at Kharkiv and Kherson were conventional combined arms assaults that exploited weaknesses in Russia's conventional defense-in-depth, preceded by shaping operations and strikes. If Ukraine did not use conventional means in those operations, it would not have achieved said breakthroughs.
I think Observation 7 also draws the wrong conclusion. Yes, drones, arty, and other cheap means of precision strike are destroying and disabling large numbers of tanks and IFVs but if they were truly obsolete, why are both Russia and Ukraine desperately trying to procure and field as many as possible even while acknowledging said high attrition?
The answer is that armored vehicles are still the most survivable means of transport, maneuver, and assault on the modern battlefield. As vulnerable as the tank and IFV are on a battlefield where all maneuver is observed, a dismounted soldier or soldier in an unarmored vehicle is far more vulnerable. The answer isn't to produce less, the answer is to produce more. As for other big-ticket items, traditional IADS and fighter/bomber forces have been utterly crucial to success and lack thereof have been one of the biggest reasons for battlefield attrition and failure on both sides, as there are no alternatives to them that currently exist for the purpose of gaining and maintaining crucial air superiority. If you're fighting for national survival, you can't just give up your airspace and say "well, it's too expensive, might as well buy 1,000,000 FPV drones instead of a Patriot battery". You don't have that option if you want to win.
Looks like someone's been reading my articles.
I think the concept of NATO has been quietly missed here. The point is that an attack on say Latvia is also an attack on Finland, Spain, Germany, France, UK and most importantly USA and Canada. That is a vast strategic depth in geography, industry and about 5 times Russia's total population. The principle is deterrence, so we never have to have such a terrible war.
Should NATO be dismantled then yes, everything in this article is logical and worth considering, but at that point it'll be pretty obvious to all that the World has changed far beyond anything that can be learned from Ukraine. Every one of Russia's EU neighbours will be building nukes and drones and missiles to carry them…
Good point, but the historic parallel with mutual defense treaties and the road to WWI is difficult to ignore.
Bring in the cult of the offensive and the way then-modern conventional warfare was adapting to social and cultural disruption… it’s a timely rabbit hole to revisit,
I’m not suggesting NATO be dismantled, or anything like that – just that we recognize that that deterrence only works until it doesn’t. When it fails, the only options are betraying the pact or escalation.
Crimea 2014 was an infliction point which even with its proximity the EU missed more than the US. Less force applied at that point would have saved the need for much greater cost in blood and treasure today. Also unlike the US, an ocean away, Europe did not have the luxury of duplicating failed policies in Caucasia, Middle East and Africa. Ignoring the invasion of Georgia, alienating Turkey, squabling over Libya, not taking a stand against Syria, conduct in Africa all helped create fertile permissible environment for an expansionist Russia. All these mistakes green lit the Russian invasion.
Even when the lunge to Kiev failed due to heroic Ukrainian defense with help from last minute deliveries of armed drones, the slowness and flip flopping military support by all but the UK, US and Turkey was a message. It showed that Putin did not need to rush, a faits acompli was not necessary, and could play to his own strength in a long war of attrition as the author correctly states.
Modern weapons reach, cheap sensors, decades of ignorance on Russian inteligence encroachment in places like Austria, Germany, Hungary, business interests, aging European populations as well as the blind faith in the peace dividend and unclde Sam has turned European nations as well as the EU in to a very brittle force. Europe, more than the US, lost its deterrence and now has to deal with its aftermath. Russia, after muddling around careless of even its own loss of human life, is mobilizing its industry for a long slog betting that western patience, not to mention its purses, will wane.
So in summary while the author makes very valid points, more than your selected technology, depth of magazine, TTP, or the width of your country it is European deterrence that needs re-thinking. Europe can ill afford to ignore any more infliction points in its periphery.
"Every war is unique and may not fit the paradigm expectations of the last war."
1. Attritional warfare requires fast mass-produced fairly affordable good-enough hardware: quantity-vs-quality. (opinion)
2. Maneuver warfare is degraded by obstacles and terrain. (situational).
3. Warfare in contested near-peer airspace hampers needed air-support. (observation)
4. All warfare is strength-vs-weakness based on calculation-vs-deception plus situational-variables. (Sun Tzu).
This Ukraine-Russo war has situations, that other European countries don’t have. Ukraine has had a pr Russian government since the breakup of the USSR. They had no real military, only 4 voluntary militias, NE, SE, NW, SW, each with its own commander, supplied their own troops, and were not under the control of the military. In 2014, Ukraine had a revolution, replaced the pro Russian government with a pro wester government. Also, in 2014, Prigozhin mercenaries invaded the eastern Ukraine, only the militias in that area were fighting them.
Ukraine had to beef up its military, relying on Soviet trained officers, old tanks, old weapons. Ukraine still had pro Russian officials in the upper echelon of government, and this was the delay of securing the east. Even though, Ukraine was warned of impending 2021 invasion, they still were not prepared. Since then, there has been a turn over of officials within the government and military.
Modern weapons , tanks, anti aircraft missiles, and others were sent to Ukraine, but, the strategy of using them , was poor.
Military officials did not have the war education for utilizing modern equipment , and developing strategies. Equipment was used haphazard, here and there, only to defend, not offensively. Kyiv survived because Russia invaded in the spring, their military compassed of draftees, and logistics were not planned. Once Russia left the northern areas, they concentrated on the eastern and southeast Ukraine, using Prigozhin mercenaries, independent of the Russian military. The eastern section has been dug in, trench warfare with tunnels by Russian fighter since 2014. They know the geography. They are dug in. They hold the high ground. They used terroristic warfare, phosphorus bombing, killing civilians, bombing non military sites. Ukraine has not signed a conscription bill until last month, while over 600,000 possible draftees have fled. Ukraine doesn’t have the population, Russia does. Russia controls nuclear power plant, dams, and ports in Crimea . Russia has halted transport of grain from Ukraine.
In other words, Ukraine , once dependent on Russia, was not prepared for the invasion. No intel, no modern weapons, no educated military officers, no large conscripted military, no air support, no preparation of the public, hospitals, air fields, energy, water supply, ..nothing. Europe doesn’t want to supply Ukraine, fearing they will need it later. They talk a good gain, but no action. The European Peace Facility needs to be revised. This isn’t a war, it’s a slaughterhouse.
What europe has learned..better start buying / manufacturing modern weapons, start conscription, increase military, increase intelligence collection, and make NATO more powerful. The rest is common sense. Murphy’s Law.