There is only one principle of war and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quick as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’.
Last year, I argued that Ukraine was correct in pursuing an attritional approach against Russia. I had not foreseen, as Russian General Valery Gerasimov also apparently had not, Ukraine’s General Oleksandr Syrskyi launching the surprise Kursk offensive and opening a new front in the war. Without having to face the prepared, continuous, defense in depth that characterized the Russian positions on the war’s increasingly static front lines, Syrskyi created a new context, which has allowed Ukraine to pursue maneuver as an operational approach.
Bringing back maneuver may be the most important aspect of the Kursk offensive. Many writers have already discussed the strategic-level implications of the offensive—changing the narrative of the war, embarrassing Vladimir Putin, or providing Ukraine with bargaining chips in negotiations. But by finding an alternative to having to break through prepared Russian defenses, this offensive could fundamentally change Ukraine’s approach to fighting. By launching surprise offensives across the thinly defended border, Ukraine can pursue operational-level guerrilla warfare to support an overall strategy of exhaustion.
These terms—attrition and maneuver, along with exhaustion and annihilation—are often muddled, but if properly understood, they can offer clarity about the war in Ukraine and its shifting operational contexts. Hans Delbrück explained that a strategy of exhaustion seeks to wear down an enemy across military, political, and economic fronts until they lose the will to continue a war. He contrasted it with a strategy of annihilation, which tries to concentrate a country’s power into a single, decisive victory. While exhaustion and annihilation are best seen as opposing strategies, maneuver and attrition are best seen as differing approaches to employing military forces at the operational level of war.
As an operational approach, maneuver uses tempo and surprise to exploit vulnerabilities and prevent enemies from reforming their defenses, repositioning their forces, conducting logistics, and synchronizing their efforts. Their combat systems fall apart, their forces are bypassed or encircled, and they cease to be able to provide effective resistance.
On the opposite end of a sliding scale from maneuver, attrition seeks the material wearing down of an enemy through the efficient and synchronized use of combat power that results in favorable loss ratios. Attrition focuses on cumulative destruction and allows operational simplicity, provides relative predictability, and minimizes vulnerabilities. While attritional approaches prioritize synchronizing friendly forces to minimize the effects of the fog, friction, and chaos of war, maneuver tries to desynchronize an opponent and exploit the resulting disorder.
Not Quite Dead Yet
Some authors have discussed the death of maneuver. Often such commentators channel Carl von Clausewitz and discuss the changing the character of war, but they myopically focus on technological change. However, Clausewitz discussed his contemporary character of war in political terms and never mentioned Gribeauval cannons or any other technological change. Authors with a technocentric lens miss all the other contexts that influence war: political objectives, societies, economics, mobilization rates, geography, density of forces, and time.
In 2023, once Russia had the time and force density to establish a continuous defense in depth, maneuver became infeasible for Ukraine. Maneuver requires vulnerabilities to exploit and when Russia had time to emplace minefields hundreds of meters deep, overwatched by thousands of drones, and covered by an overwhelming superiority in artillery, Ukraine did not have any opportunities to pursue maneuver.
Some commentators have argued that Ukraine could overcome this problem if it just properly synchronized (or converged) its capabilities. There is a deep-rooted misunderstanding of maneuver being tied to a combined arms, mechanized breach, mostly stemming from the myth of blitzkrieg. Instead of trying to pursue Germany’s World War II approach to maneuver, which relied on surprise and speed, such commentators are arguing for an approach similar to the Soviet Union’s interwar doctrine of Deep Battle to achieve a breakthrough using overwhelming, concentrated combat power across the depth of a defense. However, Ukraine will not be able to achieve the correlation of forces considered a requirement by Deep Battle theorists like Vladimir Triandafillov and Georgii Isserson. Even if Ukraine did have such advantages, it is hard to find historical examples of armies successfully pursuing a maneuver approach, led by mechanized forces, against a prepared defense in depth backed by operational reserves.
The best example of an army successfully pursuing Deep Battle against a prepared defense was Operation Bagration. However, the Soviet Union succeeded in this case due to deception, surprise, a thinned German line in Army Group Center, and an overwhelming Soviet combat power advantage. Even then, it was not a combined arms breach that created the breakthrough. It was infantry infiltration that identified a gap in the German lines and initiated a breakthrough, which mechanized forces exploited.
During the Battle of France, the most cited case of maneuver, the Germans exploited the thinly defended French center as France concentrated its forces in a rapid advance into Belgium. German infantry created a breach at Sedan and then passed the Panzers into the open fields beyond.
Ukraine pursued a similar approach in Kursk. It conducted small raids to probe for Russian vulnerabilities with the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades and then exploited them with mechanized forces. Ukraine has once again shown that maneuver requires identifying a vulnerability and exploiting it with a speed that prevents the enemy from addressing that vulnerability.
How Maneuver Works
Ukraine has demonstrated how maneuver works as an operational approach. Maneuver has often become a confused, overly theoretical concept going back to the writings of J. F. C. Fuller, who aimed for cognitive paralysis. More recently, Shimon Naveh tried to tie it to “shock.” Such thinking makes maneuver overly conceptual. In desynchronizing an enemy, maneuver works in many ways, but it primarily acts through time and physical dislocation. The father of the concepts that led to Germany’s doctrine in World War II, Hans von Seeckt, saw it in simple terms: continuously attack at a rate that prevents opposing forces from effectively reforming their defenses.
One of the best examples of how this plays out is with the fate of the French 2nd Armored Division. Armed with some of the world’s finest tanks in 1940, it was tasked with counterattacking the vulnerable flank of the XIX Panzerkorps. If it had conducted a successful counterattack, it could have enveloped the overextended German tanks and saved France. Instead, it disintegrated as it received conflicting orders to move to new locations to try to keep pace with the Germans even while its tanks were already moving on rail cars. The division arrived to battle piecemeal, without coherence or a rehearsed plan.
In Kursk, we have seen similar friction among Russian forces. The forces thrown against the Ukrainian attack did not have prepared defenses to occupy, they did not have rehearsed plans, they did not have clearly delineated areas of operations to prevent fratricide, they had not tied into their adjacent units, and they often did not have time to deploy into fighting formations.
This chaos resulted in embarrassing outcomes. The Ukrainians overran command posts, capturing commanders from the elite 810th Naval Infantry Brigade and hundreds of troops. Ukraine has encircled Russian forces and pinned a couple thousand against the Seym River. Ukrainian drones easily identified and targeted convoys full of troops trying to reposition to the front. Russian social media even bragged about strafing Ukrainian convoys, which ended up consisting of Russia’s own artillery. In the chaos, Ukraine began capturing Russian vehicles again. Russia has been the largest provider of tanks to the Ukrainian army, but that generosity had tapered off during the attritional phase of the war. The Kursk offensive brought back the memories of Ukraine’s successes in 2022.
Maneuver is enabled by fluid, open battlefields found in Kursk and previously in the defense of Kyiv and the Kharkiv counteroffensive. In those situations, both sides had not been able to solidify their lines and minimize their vulnerabilities. Such contexts play to Ukraine’s advantage in maneuver warfare.
Ukraine has an advantage over Russia in maneuver warfare due to the relative initiative of its soldiers and social tendency toward decentralized, self-organization. These traits enable high-tempo operations through rapid, flexible decision-making similar to what the US Army calls mission command. A century ago, Aleksandr Svechin explained that “initiative in the army can only exist on the basis of extensive initiative in civilian society.” He noted that during the Soviet invasion of Ukraine, the Red Army factored in “its Cossacks . . . and its characteristic national, autonomic, anti-state, and anarchist tendencies.” Contemporary Ukrainians have increasingly used the legend of the self-organizing Cossacks, who inhabited the lawless lands between great powers and fought with elected military leaders, as a constituent point of their society to provide inspiration.
Svechin further wrote that “when a revolution starts, there is no need to worry about private initiative because it is everywhere.” While Ukraine has centuries of bottom-up resistance to Russian imperialism, during the Maidan Revolution decentralized, grassroots activism truly flourished. Volunteer units grafted onto the professional army helped force changes to old, Soviet, centralized leadership. These volunteers provided initiative, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a willingness to take independent action and reject impracticable tasks.
Ukraine’s leadership reinforces this culture. Syrskyi emphasizes deception, surprise, and decentralized action, which he displayed previously in the defense of Kyiv and the Kharkiv counteroffensive. Ukraine also enables rapid action by decentralizing its assets. For example, artillery provides direct support to battalions and companies. Ukrainian forces employ an Android application, an “Uber for artillery,” that flattens fires requests and enables them to be filled by any artillery in range. Like Ukraine, Germany in 1940 also decentralized artillery. Infantry units used accompanying batteries to provide responsive fires during a fluid fight to enable maneuver.
Playing to Ukraine’s Strengths
Since 2023, Ukraine has had to accept the attritional context of the war, which played to Russia’s strengths. With its overwhelming advantage in fires and expendable soldiers, Russia could focus on creating deep, defensive lines to shore up its vulnerabilities, and then conduct slow, grinding attacks at a pace that prevents is culmination and does not put its leaders or high-value assets at risk. In Pokrovsk, the Russians gradually advanced with a four-to-one advantage in troops and a ten-to-one advantage in shells. Ukraine may have stripped forces from defending Pokrovsk for the Kursk offensive, but like the Germans learned in World War I, placing forces forward in a defense against an enemy with an overwhelming artillery advantage just risks more casualties.
Ukraine has found itself in a position like Finland after the initial period of the Winter War. After some initial spectacular Finnish victories against strung-out Soviet columns that had attempted a quick victory, the Soviet Union transitioned to a methodical, attritional approach that minimized its vulnerabilities for Finland to exploit.
With the Kursk offensive, Ukraine has discovered a way to not suffer Finland’s fate. Ukraine can continue to exploit vulnerabilities along its border with Russia. Syrskyi claimed that Russia repositioned thirty thousand soldiers to Kursk. With twice as much frontage to defend, Russia cannot achieve the same force densities it has in Ukraine without a massive, politically unpopular mobilization. Desperate for new recruits, it is already paying soldiers three times the median wage. Russia cannot effectively defend everywhere.
If Russia does establish a force density in Kursk that precludes maneuver, Ukraine should not get too attached to the land it seized. Like some Viking marauders raiding undefended towns and abbeys, or like the English chevauchées of the Hundred Years’ War that eschewed prolonged sieges to raid deep into France and bypass its castles to exhaust it politically, Ukraine should maintain its forces’ flexibility to conduct operational-level raids elsewhere. This approach will play to its advantages and, combined with Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure and military industrial base, will support an overall strategy of exhaustion.
Maneuver is often associated with a strategy of annihilation, and I have argued that the US Army should pursue annihilation through maneuver in the expected context of a future war. However, in its current situation, Ukraine cannot use maneuver to achieve a decisive victory over Russia. What it can do is use maneuver to exploit vulnerabilities, force Russia to overextend, create chaos, encircle Russian forces, and capture Russian equipment. By attacking as operational-level guerrillas, Ukraine will return initiative to Ukraine and not allow Russia to dictate the war’s tempo. By continuously hitting the Russians as quickly as they can, as hard as they can, where it hurts Russia the most, and when Russia ain’t looking, the Ukrainians stand a chance of exhausting Russian forces. The Kursk offensive’s successes make that clear.
Major. Robert G. Rose, US Army, is a Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James M. Dubik writing fellow and serves as the commander for Alpine Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Security Force Assistance Brigade. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Harvard University and, as a Gates Scholar, from Cambridge University.
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: Mil.gov.ua
Excellent analysis. Cuts through a lot of chaff to get to the core issue of why maneuver failed and how Ukraine can restore it. The key insight is that Kursk does not have to be a one-off, but rather a pattern.
Two minor nits. First, while technology may not be appropriate to a philosophical framework like Clausewitz, nor can it be ignored as a key factor in enabling or sabotaging operational maneuver. As we learned at USMA, tactics often lag technology, leading to periods of operational stagnation and forcing both sides into attrition warfare. World War One is the classic example.
Drones are a game changer precisely because they make breaching prepared defenses infinitely harder. Many in the West take the chauvinist view that Ukraine failed in 2023 due to poor execution. I suspect that NATO forces may not have fared any better without a way to sever the link between drone ISR and standoff fires.
Second, the author tries to go a bridge too far with the Operational Guerilla metaphor. Unconventional warfare is a well defined operational method, and it does not add to the discussion to use it sloppily.