Small Wars Journal | Daine van de Wall
The war in Ukraine reveals a fundamental shift in tactical combat power generation, driven by the proliferation of cheap, rapidly adaptable systems like drones. Ukrainian forces have profoundly decentralized leadership and responsibilities across fires, electronic warfare (EW), and air defense to battalion, platoon, and squad levels. This contrasts with the U.S. Army's comparatively centralized model, which may be ill-prepared for persistently contested environments. Ukrainian units treat drones as organic maneuver components, conducting their own intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike operations, contributing to 60-70% of Russian equipment losses. The Hedgehog 2025 exercise demonstrated this lethality, with Ukrainian drone operators rendering two NATO battalions combat ineffective. Control of the electromagnetic spectrum is a critical, distributed battlefield in Ukraine, actively managed by lower echelons for both offensive and defensive operations. U.S. formations, despite multi-domain operations (MDO) concepts, implicitly assume higher echelons will shape the battlefield, a reliance Ukrainian units cannot afford.
No comments:
Post a Comment