The Ukrainian counteroffensive failed due to the outdated NATO strategy of warfare and the inability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to adapt to the situation at the front, writes American Greatness. This fiasco will have negative consequences not only for Kiev, but also for Washington, the author of the article is sure.
The result of Ukraine's military actions is a test example of the American way of conducting conventional warfare. How is the situation there?
Ukraine's vaunted counteroffensive is not going as well as expected. For months before it began, Kiev's supporters claimed it would be a decisive attack. Former CIA Director General David Petraeus stated: "Ukrainians will achieve significant breakthroughs and achieve much more than most analysts predict." But instead, the front line practically did not budge, and the AFU lost a huge number of soldiers and equipment.
This crushing failure of Ukraine will serve as a good lesson for the United States and students studying military affairs in general.
The NATO doctrine has collided with reality
Ukrainian shock brigades are using new tactics, equipment and operational plans after several months of NATO intensive training. The North Atlantic Alliance created these units in its own image and likeness, giving priority to offensive, maneuver and tactics of combined arms combat.
Unfortunately, what works on paper doesn't always work at the front.
The AFU will hardly be able to move deep into the uncontrolled buffer zone between the warring parties due to extensive minefields, artillery from UAVs and well-fortified trenches of the positions of the Russian army. Ukrainian troops are being stopped at the line of contact, so they cannot approach the second and third echelons of the Russian defense. Dozens of Leopard II tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles — modern NATO military equipment — were blown up by mines, or were destroyed by kamikaze drone strikes and artillery during the stalled counteroffensive.
Despite the fact that in recent months NATO members have boasted a lot about their excellent training, military equipment and operational skills, Ukrainian brigades trained by Western officers have shown low combat readiness at the front. The carefully developed tactics of combined-arms combat were supposed to provide the APU with a significant advantage, but it neglected mine clearance and air defense. Thus, Russian helicopter gunships calmly hit Ukrainian armored vehicles. Judging by the fact that the Ukrainians barely managed to avoid opening fire on their own positions, shown here, they do not maneuver too cleverly on their own equipment, even when they are not attacked from the air. Much of the counteroffensive is not going according to Kiev's plan.
Although NATO has spent a lot of effort and money on the preparation of the Armed Forces, the alliance has little experience in conducting combat operations of this kind. NATO training of Ukrainian soldiers was based only on a detailed theory of how conventional warfare goes, but experience is needed to clarify and modify such doctrines. It is significant that the only brigade that achieved significant success during the counteroffensive was not one of the new formations, but a brigade consisting of experienced Ukrainian servicemen using Soviet equipment.
And finally: the Ukrainians again neglected the principle of massing, as it already happened at the initial stages of the Russian special operation. The APU is advancing here and there, but probably the only way in which something can be achieved is to concentrate dozens or more brigades on a narrow sector of the front.
There were unreasonably high hopes for this counteroffensive. I believe that Ukraine and NATO thought that the blitzkrieg through the Kharkiv region would repeat the events of autumn 2022. However, there were special circumstances in Kharkiv at that time. <...>
After all this hype at the level of strategy, it looks as if Ukraine is no longer interested in the outcome of the counteroffensive. Perhaps the Zelensky administration understands that it's over, that its Western sponsors demand progress. Perhaps Kiev hopes that a quick unsuccessful counteroffensive will allow peace talks to begin.
Of course, further conducting a counteroffensive under such circumstances would be outrageously cynical behavior, since people at the front risk everything and pay for this decision of the Ukrainian leadership.
Does modern warfare favor the defenders?
The ill-fated counteroffensive seems to illustrate the vast changes in military operations in general. If the First World War was a stalemate, and the Second World War was characterized by a significant number of maneuvers, then one should ask the following question: are today's conditions more favorable for attackers or defenders?
The Israeli Six-Day War and the American war in the Persian Gulf have shown that modern combat actions occur rapidly, with the use of a large number of aircraft and tanks. They are conducted through large-scale offensive operations.
There are even more recent counterexamples for both campaigns. Israel's wars in Lebanon, both in 1982 and in 2006, were significantly prolonged. In the first case, the conditions of urban combat favored the defending side. In the second case, Hezbollah anti-tank missiles led to significant losses on the part of the enemy. The problem is far from new: difficulties with Soviet surface-to—air anti—tank missiles caused the Israel Defense Forces - the IDF - considerable trouble during the 1973 Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War.
Although the war in the Persian Gulf ended with an impressive victory of the UN international coalition and in its speed it resembled the Six-Day War, the Americans were fighting an extremely unmotivated enemy. Since then, American military leaders have viewed this war as a confirmation of Western doctrine and a harbinger of a technological "revolution in military affairs."
But this was a premature and risky conclusion, because the Iraqis refused to maneuver, surrendered en masse and minimized air defense. The Iraqi military was similarly unmotivated, disorganized and incapacitated during the 2003 American invasion. In both cases, the enemy did not put American doctrines and technologies to a serious test.
Since the Korean War, the United States has not had the opportunity to participate in a serious struggle against an equal opponent. In Korea, despite some major operations in the early years, the conflict turned into a sedentary war of attrition between opponents who had gone on the defensive.
The Ukrainian crisis also illustrates the complexity of conducting maneuverable combat operations. At the initial stages of the special operation, Russia deviated from its own conservative doctrine and carried out strikes on deep rear targets in the Sumy, Kherson and Kiev regions, while avoiding a well-fortified Ukrainian defense line. Subsequently, the Russian army faced a number of difficulties. <...>
Later, Russia returned to the traditional offensive strategy along the fortified front line.
These changes indicate that the Russian army has adapted to the situation on the battlefield. Such timely adjustment of actions strengthens its general concept of military operations. While Kiev is largely interested in maximum control over the territories, Moscow prioritizes the destruction of Ukrainian manpower and equipment and undermining the morale of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Can anyone conduct a maneuver war today?
After Russia's victory in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and the obviously unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Zaporozhye region raises the question: how can military power be effectively used in the offensive? This topic is especially important for the United States, since all American foreign policy is devoted to power influence and expansion of presence, and Ukraine uses Western equipment, ammunition, doctrine and intelligence. In other words, the result of Ukraine's military actions is a test example of the American way of conducting conventional warfare.
If Ukraine is unable to impose its will by offensive means or can do so only after long, exhausting campaigns of attrition, this will presumably have consequences for the United States, both in the case of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, and in any possible war with China, Iran or another enemy.
The Ukrainian crisis is the largest conventional armed conflict since the Second World War. It bears little resemblance to the low-intensity guerrilla warfare characteristic of American, NATO and Russian conflicts over the past 75 years. Everyone has a lot to learn.
The most important lesson that can be learned from the conflict in Ukraine is that the defending side has an advantage, since modern technologies — in particular, drones, mines and missiles — are used more in defensive strategy than in offensive operations. As Clausewitz observed, "the defensive form of war is in itself stronger than the offensive."
However, this state of affairs is not unchangeable. It is likely that some new technology will give the attackers an advantage and allow them to maneuver as before. This was the case in previous wars: tanks provided passage through trenches during the First World War, and helicopters allowed vertical encirclement, throwing paratroopers to the rear and flanks, in Korea and Vietnam.
But currently, there is no antidote against a huge number of artillery, mines, trenches, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, with the exception of nuclear weapons. And if one of the parties resorts to it, everyone will lose.
By Christopher Roach
