Going to school in Ukraine: U.S. Army closely watches conflict for clues

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Ukraine’s 2-year-old fight to hold off a Russian invasion force is providing an object lesson in how modern war is waged against a dangerous adversary, and the U.S. Army’s top officials say they are paying close attention.

The problem, strategists say, is that Russia’s military is also learning on the battlefield. It is adjusting tactics while churning out a ready supply of weapons and ammunition.

After two years of brutal fighting in what has become the largest ground conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia has made marked improvements in areas such as drone technology, electronic warfare and the use of “loitering” munitions — aerial weapons with built-in warheads that can remain on or near the front lines until needed.

“Don’t underestimate your enemy. That’s never a good place to start,” Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff, said Tuesday during a forum with the D.C.-based Defense Writers Group.

“Like any other organization, [the Russians] are adapting and they are learning. They’ve also done very well by pumping money and energy into their industrial base,” Gen. George said.

The U.S. Army is also going to school. It is investing in programs such as integrated air and missile defense systems and long-range precision artillery. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters Tuesday that the course of the fighting in Ukraine shows that the Army is on the right path.

“Many of the ‘lessons learned’ we’ve seen from the battlefield in Ukraine underscores that a lot of what the Army is doing in terms of the kind of modernization programs that we’re pursuing are the right ones,” she said.

After a string of reverses in the early phases of the war, Russia has gained the initiative on the front lines in southern and eastern Ukraine. Its marked advantage in weaponry and manpower is starting to show.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is preparing for an offensive that could start in the summer. The Institute for the Study of War said Kyiv’s timeline is consistent with its own assessment that Russian forces will soon be able to pursue offensive operations after a lengthy period trying to hold back advancing Ukrainian forces.

“Russia will likely be able to determine the time, location, and scale of future offensive operations in Ukraine if Ukraine conducts an active defense throughout the theater in 2024, thereby ceding the strategic initiative to Russia,” the Washington-based think tank said in an updated analysis posted on Monday.

As long as the Russians maintain the strategic initiative, their commanders will maneuver reserve troop concentrations and determine how to allocate resources while forcing Ukraine to respond defensively, the institute said.

‘Emplace and displace’

Stiff Ukrainian resistance and logistics challenges halted Russia’s lumbering advance toward Kyiv at the start of the war in February 2022. One lesson to be drawn is that a successful ground force needs to be agile on the battlefield, Ms. Wormuth said.

“We have to be able to emplace and displace more rapidly,” she said.

During a recent trip to Grafenwoehr, Germany, the Army’s primary training area in Europe, Ms. Wormuth saw that one of the units had reduced the size of its tactical command post in the field. The unit formerly consisted of three armored Stryker combat vehicles, with full crews and a tactical radar array, but got rid of one of the vehicles and the radar.

“The whole tactical command post can be set up and taken down in 15 minutes. That’s an important lesson,” she said.

Although the Army has invested more funding into drone technology than any other service, Ms. Worth said it is insufficient to meet the needs of the modern battlefield. Ukrainian and Russian commanders have said large-scale, open-field troop movements are becoming obsolete because surveillance drones have largely undermined the element of surprise.

“What we’ve seen in Ukraine underscores that we in the Army have got to do more,” she said.

Faced with a changing battlefield landscape and recruiting struggles, the Army is cutting the official size of its force by 5%, or 24,000 soldiers. Some of the cuts have been in Special Forces, which were critical to the counterinsurgency and anti-terrorist fights in Iraq and Afghanistan but are far less central to the potential “great power” clashes likely to come.

The Associated Press reported that an Army restructuring blueprint circulated Tuesday calls for adding approximately 7,500 troops for other functions, including air defense and counterdrone units. Five new task forces are being set up around the world with enhanced cyberwarfare, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities.

The Army is “significantly overstructured,” according to the report. The cuts will affect “spaces,” not “faces,” and the Army will not be asking soldiers to leave the force, AP reported.

Iran has strongly backed Russia’s war against Ukraine, initially by providing the Kremlin with Shahed drones that are now produced at a factory in Alabuga, about 630 miles east of Moscow. The drones have allowed Moscow to attack critical Ukrainian infrastructure and military targets while depleting Kyiv’s stock of interceptor missiles.

“If Iran indeed provides Russia with a substantial number of ballistic missiles, it will significantly expand Russia’s long-range strike capacity while stretching Ukraine’s air defenses,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. “This is all the more reason why Congress should stop stalling on passing vital aid funding for Ukraine.”

Russia’s casualties from two years of fighting are staggering. Several estimates put the count of dead and wounded troops at 300,000, but Russia has at least a 3-1 advantage against Ukraine on the battlefield and a much larger population pool.

“What you see with Russia really underscores that quantity has a quality of its own,” Ms. Wormuth said. “They have the ability to push thousands and thousands of soldiers into the meat grinder, and they’re willing to do that.”