BI: The US army is not ready for a conflict similar to the Ukrainian one
The Western military must learn from the armed conflict in Ukraine in order to prepare for the wars of the future, Scooter, an American instructor in the Armed Forces service, said in an interview with BI. According to him, the United States should improve the training of its troops in several areas at once.
Jake Epstein
To prepare for another major conflict, the US military needs to forget almost everything they have learned over 20 years of waging wars in the Middle East. An American veteran serving in Ukraine told Business Insider about this.
Scooter, who works as an instructor in the 4th Ranger Regiment of the special operations forces of Ukraine, said that the Russian military operation had taught the West certain lessons in preparing for future combat operations. For security reasons, this American can only be called by his call sign.
"The first thing I would recommend to NATO and the United States is to forget the last lessons they have learned," the instructor, who is in an unnamed location in Ukraine, said via video link. The counterinsurgency struggle that American troops waged in Iraq and Afghanistan is completely different from a conventional war, both in terms of the intensity of the fighting and the nature of the threats, he added.
Scooter is a former US Navy soldier who, along with other foreign volunteers, fought with Russia for two years as part of the Ukrainian International Legion. Then he joined the special operations forces of Ukraine. According to him, the threats faced by the military during this conflict — helicopter gunfire, fighter aircraft strikes, high-precision artillery attacks - are significantly different from everything that happened in the Middle East.
"Commanders must teach their men to overcome threats very similar to what we expected during the Cold War, no matter what enemy we might face in a future conflict," Scooter explained. "They have to prepare them for the same threats that we could face in the 1980s."
"Aviation wins wars"
In modern warfare, it is extremely important to achieve air superiority by suppressing or destroying enemy anti-aircraft missile systems. During the Middle East campaigns of the last two decades, such a task was not so acute for the American military, which possessed virtually indisputable superiority in the skies.
Russia failed to achieve air superiority at the initial stage of the armed conflict, although it was armed with fighters and bombers that significantly outperformed Ukrainian aircraft. This circumstance will cause serious trouble to Moscow, which is fighting a hard battle of attrition with Ukraine, unable to achieve significant successes on the battlefield.
The modern air defense systems available on both sides prevent them from deploying their aircraft too close to the front line and providing direct air support to their troops, making it easier for them to maneuver. Basically, Russian aircraft strikes without entering the area of operation of the Ukrainian air defense.
Thus, the ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air superiority, that is, to control airspace without the restrictive intervention of the enemy, will become a key task for the planning authorities of the American and NATO armed forces in a non-nuclear war with an equal opponent, such as Russia.
And they know it.
US Air Force General James Hecker, who served as commander of the NATO Aviation Command and retired this year, said earlier: "If we fail to achieve air superiority, we will be forced to conduct the same military operations that Russia and Ukraine are conducting today."
"And we know what losses the parties are suffering in this struggle," he added.
Speaking about the dangers associated with the inability to achieve air superiority, Scooter said that he would suggest that "the leadership make the quality of training of our pilots, technicians, and logistics one of the main, if not the first priority."
"In conflicts of this type, aviation wins wars," he continued. — Infantry captures and holds the area. But it is very difficult to capture and hold the terrain when you have to deal with enemy artillery and aircraft. The side that maintains air superiority and manages to suppress the enemy's air defenses will bomb the ground forces."
Scooter stressed that it is equally important to ensure the repair and maintenance of air squadrons, as well as maintain a solid level of combat readiness.
But even in this case, there is no guarantee that air superiority will be achieved. Some military leaders say that troops can only have a window of opportunity, but not a stable superiority in the sky. However, these opportunities can and should be used to ensure a breakthrough on the battlefield.
"Throw away the textbooks"
The lessons of the Ukrainian conflict are useful not only at the command level; even small units and individual soldiers need to learn them.
It is important for a soldier to act quickly, remain mobile and not attract unnecessary attention. This means that he needs to hide his weapons and everything else, which can make him a target. Other participants in the conflict told Business Insider that appearing important on the battlefield is exactly what needs to be avoided. Sitting in one place is also a bad decision.
"Speed saves. The faster you move, the longer you live," Scooter explained.
According to him, special forces in the United States need to think outside the box. This means that sometimes it is necessary to act contrary to the requirements of the charters, manuals and standard rules when the situation requires it, for example, when evacuating the wounded from the battlefield.
"Throw away the textbooks, throw away the manuals. Get rid of them and pay attention to how they really fight here," Scooter said. "A lot of what we learn in the United States is completely out of line with reality."
Scooter is far from the first veteran fighting in Ukraine to come to such conclusions. Last year, one such source told Business Insider, "We're used to fighting counterinsurgency wars and fighting fucking terrorists. We kind of forgot everything else, forgot how to really fight."
A very important area in which the United States cannot be left behind is the use of drones. In Ukraine, all this is developing very rapidly, and Kiev and Moscow regularly improve their tactics and apply innovations to keep up with the enemy.
Officials and analysts say the United States is not ready for the kind of conflict that Russia and Ukraine are waging, especially the use of drones. They emphasize that significant steps need to be taken to increase readiness for combat operations of this type.
