'Another element of Western strategy is identifying the key operational and institutional problems requiring support. The United States may need to accept that its doctrine for highly complex air-land warfare is not fully suited to Ukraine. This fact does not mean that combined-arms warfare is not effective. But NATO needs to lead a rapid reevaluation of its doctrine now to develop the tactics and doctrine of combined arms on a shoestring. That means, collectively, that the states of the West have to find a way to conduct ground combat in an environment where they will be subject to frequent air attacks—something they have not had to do in generations, but that Ukraine must do now.''The challenges created by Russian defenses have received insufficient attention by Ukraine’s supporters. These obstacles should not have been overlooked: the perils of minefields are well known in Western military doctrine. NATO states ought to have provided Ukraine with more mechanized breaching and mine-clearing equipment. Their failure to do so is indicative of the intellectual shortfalls that infect many Western military institutions. Battle is king, and so in many armies, the units that operate the complex equipment required to clear and break through minefields are underfunded. They are underfunded even though breaching is a high-risk undertaking and even though large amounts of equipment are lost in the process (as the Ukrainians have discovered). More engineering equipment of this type could and should have been provided to Ukraine earlier.
This failure is compounded by the fact that the doctrine and training for combined-arms obstacle and minefield clearance are decades old, and the West had limited time to prepare Ukrainian formation-level combined-arms teams—particularly in newly formed brigades. The glories of the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led coalition quickly pushed the Iraqi military out of Kuwait, are simply not possible in an environment where friendly air control is absent and the battlefield is covered by a dense mesh of sensors that allow Russians to quickly detect and then hit Ukrainian targets.
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Ukraine’s complex and interrelated series of campaigns would tax even the largest and most sophisticated Western military institutions. For Kyiv, the ability to orchestrate these strategic, operational, and tactical challenges has been normalized over the past 18 months. In improving how they coordinate various levels of war across multiple campaigns under modern conditions without clear air, naval, or firepower superiority, the Ukrainians have blended NATO and Soviet-era weapons and doctrine. In doing so, the Ukrainians have developed their own distinct approach to modern war.
This evolving Ukrainian way of war is worthy of study because most Western military institutions probably resemble the Ukrainian military more than they do the U.S. armed forces, whose doctrine they all inevitably copy. And a central part of the Ukrainian way of war is the ability to learn, absorb new equipment and ideas, and adapt tactics and strategy.
The West must accept, as the British did in World War I, that it will take time to carry out the recruit training, technical training, leadership development, and collective training needed to make a military organization like Ukraine’s into a large, integrated, and durable force capable of major offensive maneuvers under its own umbrella of air control and mastery of electronic warfare.
What comes nextBoth the Ukrainians and the Russians possess the resources and the will for an extended war. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in particular, has sustained his narrative that NATO poses a threat to Russia. He continues to advance the deluded notion of a greater Russia. On August 2, for example, he gave a speech promoting “the integration of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions into the common Russian cultural space.”
The West must therefore accept that this will be a long war. Many generations have flirted with the notion that wars between large, populous, and technologically savvy states can be short. At the time each began, for example, analysts argued that World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Iraq war would be brief, only to be proved incorrect. The same will be true with today’s conflict. It will take time to continue enhancing Ukraine’s ground, air, naval, cyber, industrial, and information capabilities so the country can prevail over Russia. Although the Russians have made many strategic and tactical errors in this war, they have also learned and adapted. As Oleksandr Syrsky—the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces—put it, the Russians “are not idiots.” Kyiv will need many months to defeat and eject them from the approximately 18 percent of Ukraine they illegally occupy.
The West is now engaged in a generational struggle against big, ruthless, and wealthy authoritarian regimes. In accepting that this will be a long war, the West should make explicit that its goal is a Ukrainian victory achieved through a Russian defeat. By committing to support Ukraine for the duration of the conflict, the West can undermine Putin’s efforts to outlast Ukraine’s patrons. This commitment also provides certainty to donor countries, which can scale up production and engage in necessary research and development for counter-drone and counter-mine endeavors.
Another element of Western strategy is identifying the key operational and institutional problems requiring support. The United States may need to accept that its doctrine for highly complex air-land warfare is not fully suited to Ukraine. This fact does not mean that combined-arms warfare is not effective. But NATO needs to lead a rapid reevaluation of its doctrine now to develop the tactics and doctrine of combined arms on a shoestring. That means, collectively, that the states of the West have to find a way to conduct ground combat in an environment where they will be subject to frequent air attacks—something they have not had to do in generations, but that Ukraine must do now.
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A new Western strategy could also promote the standardization of equipment and training support for Ukraine. The menagerie of armored vehicles and artillery provided to Ukraine has been generous, but it is not sustainable. There is a reason why armies generally have one type of tank or one kind of artillery for each need. The training and logistical burden of holding multiple types of similar systems would be large for a peacetime military. It will become unbearable for Ukraine over time. A more strategic approach to support Ukraine would provide standardized equipment sets for the country’s army.
At the same time, the training of personnel needs to shift beyond training recruits and offering technical instruction on how to use equipment. Collective training is a vital aspect of building effective military institutions, and it is an area where the West should provide additional support. The development of company, battalion, and brigade leaders and command teams will, over time, give Ukraine the basis of an army that can orchestrate major operations and campaigns across time and space. Informed by Ukrainian battlefield experience and evolved NATO doctrine, collective training would provide Ukraine with a crucial advantage over its Russian adversary.
This kind of Ukraine strategy would let Western governments more rapidly offer Kyiv support, ending the sluggishness that has been one of the war’s biggest issues. “We need speed, speed of decisions to limit Russian potential,” Zelensky said during his 2023 Munich Security Conference address. “There is no alternative to speed. Because it is the speed that life depends on. Delay has always been and still is a mistake.” Western decisions on tanks, air defense systems, and fighter jets have taken many months. But when received, these new systems have been quickly absorbed into Ukrainian organizations and used in an innovative fashion. A new strategy must accept that Ukraine is capable of absorbing advanced weapon systems quickly and, indeed, has much to teach the West about their use.
Offering Kyiv enduring support may not be welcome news to many Western politicians, given the upcoming elections in the United States and some European countries. But over the past 18 months, the Ukrainians have demonstrated a will to fight, the capacity to absorb new weapons, and the ability to learn, adapt, and improve their military effectiveness. The next way to help the Ukrainians continue their evolution in quality and endurance is making sure they know the West is prepared to support them in their fight to defeat Russia and to offer this support in 2024 and beyond.'
- Mick Ryan,
How Ukraine Can Win a Long War -
The West Needs a Strategy for After the Counteroffensive, August 30, 2023
Context(Ukraine needs ATACMs) - '..Ukraine is doing immense work for European security and suffering massively in the process..''..Ukraine .. what they need now is a firepower boost with M26 cluster rockets''..European militaries to start thinking about how they, alone, could defend Europe against Russian aggression..'(Outdated US & NATO strategy) - Ukraine Proves, Once Again, That Our Idea of War Is All Wrong - Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James M. Dubik(Ukraine needs ATACMs) - '..Providing more aid to Ukraine .. could shorten the existing conflict.'