September 06, 2023
The Russians Are Getting Better
Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive has moved more slowly than many of the country’s allies and supporters had hoped. The Ukrainian military has proved remarkably adept at rapidly incorporating new capabilities and technologies into its operations, fighting bravely and for the most part effectively against an enemy with superior numbers, little regard for its own losses, and no regard for the laws of war. Even so, progress has been gradual, and every piece of liberated territory has come at an immense cost. Only after three months of grueling combat has Ukraine started to make more significant progress, penetrating some of Russia’s entrenched defensive lines in the country’s southeast and reclaiming territory in the provinces of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.
The West will need to recalibrate its expectations to match reality, which is that this is a war of attrition.
Some analysts have attributed the counteroffensive’s slow pace to the challenges of successfully executing joint military maneuvers or coordinating artillery, infantry, and airpower. Others have questioned whether the training the United States and NATO have provided—focused on conducting fast offensive operations rather than wearing the Russian military down through attrition—was well suited to the type of enemy and war the Ukrainians are fighting. Still others have argued that Kyiv’s Western allies have been too slow to provide weapons and equipment, which delayed the Ukrainian counteroffensive and allowed Russia to fortify its positions and mine large swaths of contested territory. Finally, the Ukrainian military is not a NATO-style force, and the armed forces’ legacy and doctrine remains, in part, beholden to the Soviet military when it comes to the way it organizes, mobilizes, and sustains itself. Although this is not necessarily a weakness, it does require that Ukraine’s Western allies reconsider what types of weapons, equipment, and training would enable Ukraine to fight the way it fights best.
Read the full article and more from Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
The United States Must Avoid AI’s Chernobyl Moment
Commentary
The United States cannot let speculative fears trigger heavy-handed regulations that would cripple U.S. AI innovation....
By Janet Egan
-
Lawfare Daily: Tim Fist and Arnab Datta on the Race to Build AI Infrastructure in America
Podcast
Tim Fist, senior adjunct fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Security, and Arnab Datta, Director of Infrastructure Policy a...
By Tim Fist
-
Expect Trump Administration to Come Down Hard on Chip Exports, Says Chinatalk’s Jordan Schneider
Video
Jordan Schneider, an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and MCC Global’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, join ‘Power Lunch’ to discuss the chips trade an...
By Jordan Schneider
-
International Governance of AI
Video
Ruby Scanlon, research assistant for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), partook in a panel which discussed the comp...
By Ruby Scanlon
