Addressing The Bear In The Room – Learning From The War
Much can be learnt from the War in Ukraine, but the West must learn the right lessons.
Three years of ceaseless high-intensity conflict in Ukraine have seen many kinds of tactics and technology come and go, and in some cases come back again.
Drones rose to dominance and since the full-scale deployment of the likes of FPV drones have stayed as now indispensable tools of war, particularly in Ukrainian hands.
For a while towed artillery felt like it was doomed to destruction by loitering munitions and FPV drone attacks, but today, an emplaced Towed artillery piece with sufficient camouflage and drone protection is actually safer than mobile artillery due to drone saturated skies.
Tanks likewise seemed destined to be nothing more than expensive fodder but again, better tactics and technology mean the tank will remain a battlefield predator alongside increasingly deadly Infantry Fighting Vehicles like the CV-90.
In short, this vast peer-to-peer conflict has many lessons to impart, even into its potential end game.
The lessons must be both recorded in the first place and the lessons must be carefully analysed to determine which ones can inform the next war.
Especially if, as recently Dutch intelligence reported, it may only take Russia a year to reconstitute it’s forces.
Just as with Afghanistan and Iraq, some lessons will prove exceedingly useful into any future conflict e.g. the development of mine and IED resistant transport vehicles. Whilst others will be confined to only conflicts of a similar nature e.g. insurgency conflicts not peer to peer engagements.
Cherry picking
Yet this is where a warning must be issued.
It is simply all too easy for politicians, military analyst's, policy makers, civil servants, and military officers themselves to ‘cherry pick’ what they believe are the lessons to be learnt, based not on practical application but on other, sometimes irrelevant factors.
A British politician might conclude that with the vast scale of the Ukrainian conflict, some form of conscription is needed in Britain to provide the necessary manpower; this is not necessarily a good ‘quick fix’ as Matthew Palmers excellent article covers.
Additionally military officers, seeing the effects of drones on individual soldiers might conclude that more anti-drone guns are needed. Despite the fact that evidence suggests that area jamming, and impact based anti-drone technology would be a better option.
Instead, what is needed is not just that Lessons Learnt are documented, but actively updated to reflect the current battlefield reality, right up until the official end of fighting.
That when it comes to reviewing Lessons Learnt, it must be done in a complete and multi-agency manner. No one individual or department should take precedence because just like individual eyewitnesses in a murder case, they will observe different aspects from different angles with different previous experience; balancing each of these views is vital to determining just what lessons should be carried forward.
The right lessons
But how do you decide which lessons to take on board and which do you disregard?
This is where proper discussion, debate and sometimes a needed ‘devil’s advocate’ are required across a multi-disciplinary and multi-departmental team:
Discussion: this can only happen not only once all potentially tactics, strategies, technologies, and other aspects have been properly documented and up to date, but most importantly, all those involved in the discussion are aware of them. They come to the needed meetings having read the necessary reports and papers. They come informed and up to date. That’s not just a ‘nice to have’; that’s vital.
Debate: those considering these lessons need to be willing and able to not only discuss but to actively debate the merits and demerits of both their own ideas and those of others. Military officers need to stand up for what weapons they believe will merit particular attention in the future, whilst pushing back on ideas that could see expensive ineffective ‘Gucci’ kit purchases instead. Politicians must seek to emphasis political and strategic considerations should their country go to war. Civil servants will need to consider not only the effect on the government balance sheet but on support infrastructure and society as a whole. Everyone needs to be willing to fight their corner.
Devil’s advocate: this is not so much someone designated to pock holes in other people’s suggestions. Instead, this is someone to consider something outside the group; what a potential adversary’s reaction to tactics, technology etc would be. This would need to be an analyst of some kind with no stake in one department or individuals’ ideas. An outsider with detailed knowledge of what’s known in the business as ‘External Threat Actors’; Adversarial states and organizations that could be potential opponents in future conflicts. They would be the ‘special sauce’ of any Lessons Learnt that are taken forward. An outsider advisor that hopefully would ensure that the meetings produce the right kind of results; lessons that will be most relevant to future conflicts.
Learn from past mistakes
That all sounds sensible, ration and hopefully, a perfectly straight forward plan for applying the right lessons from the War in Ukraine.
But all participants in such an exercise should also bear in mind the lessons from the past.
The right, and the wrong.
A good example of the wrong lessons applied was with the American armies ‘tank destroyer doctrine’, setup as America entered the second world war.
On paper, it was a good idea. A layered defence doctrine that brought together fast moving tank destroyer units and towed anti-tank guns to combat expected German ‘blitzkrieg’ tactics, leaving actual tanks as infantry support units not specifically designed or trained to engage enemy tanks.
The problem was this good idea was a few years too late.
By the time America was entering the war, German tactics and technology were ahead of America thinking.
The Germans were on the defensive, having taken a beating by Russian counter attacks; blitzkrieg style attacks were no longer the standard; instead, rapid counter attacks and the use of ‘kampfgruppe' task forces were the mainstay of German efforts.
Additionally, the Germans were deploying increasingly heavier tanks, such as the Tiger and Panther. The existing Tank Destroyers and towed anti-tank guns were not configured to engage such monsters on the battlefield.
As a result, in the early years of American involvement in the war, the likes of Sherman tank crews were neither trained nor equipped for tank against tank combat. Thankfully they performed their infantry support duties well but when engaging heavier German tanks they were at a distinct disadvantage.
Fortunately for the American’s this thinking did not translate into battlefield failure and the doctrine was considered ‘guidelines as opposed to actual rules’.
German Panther and Tiger tanks were rare in comparison to older German tanks like the Panzer IV and STUG tank destroyer. These the Sherman’s could deal with on more or less equal terms and were far more likely to be encountered. Additionally, American industrial might meant that in any given engagement, America had a numbers, firepower and, in other means, technology advantage, not to mention formidable air superiority.
However, this was still a doctrine that was not updated during the war. Whilst it was not strictly and rigidly adhered to, it still should have been updated to reflect battlefield realities to provide necessary guidance, especially to new commanders going into battle for the first time. Because doctrine didn’t represent reality, green troops and commanders had to look to veterans in the field to show them the needed tactical changes; shifting the burden from planners to field troops; not ideal when those in the field had enough to deal with…
Commanders and leaders of every kind must be willing to change when things don’t go their way; that sounds like stating the blindingly obvious, but it still needs stating.
Ukraine learnt such lessons the hard way; as the 2023 counter offensive faltered, so tactics were changed. It did not produce the battlefield result required but it at least adapted to the battlefield reality.
Future planning
I hope my example and suggestions are useful. There is of course a lot more that could be written about this and I will likely return to this subject sometime in the future.
NATO is already learning a huge amount from the War in Ukraine. Ukraine will likewise have a great deal more to impart once the conflict ends.
All that learning must be very carefully analysed, documented and acted on.
If Russia really does pick another fight in the next few years, we must be ready.
Enjoy your bear.
