Maneuver is so back

Not that it ever went away

I had planned on digging back into amphibiosity this week, but Ukraine launched a risky but thus far successful offensive into two Russian provinces this week. It’s unclear what their objectives are, and I won’t speculate here. On substack alone, David Axe dug into some of Ukraine’s tactics, Mick Ryan examined it through the lens of strategic surprise, and Phillips P. O’Brien ran through what we know and don’t know.

There are two things I want to note though: First, maneuver is back. There’s been a lot of talk about attrition warfare and how pervasive ISR on the battlefield makes maneuver impossible, and other similar commentary mostly by people who misuse the terms in the first place. I covered attrition and maneuver in the early days of this newsletter.

This offensive makes clear that widely reported death of maneuver warfare was false. Ukraine successfully concentrated roughly a corps’ worth of troops, prepared an offensive, launched it, and are now exploiting it. Whether it achieves its likely aim of shifting Russian reinforcements away from other sectors remains to be seen. Its full strategic effect also remains to be seen. There are reports that Russian General Gerasimov will likely take the blame and be fired. I for one hope not because if he is fired there’s a chance that someone more competent will take over the war. If he did indeed ignore intelligence indicating an upcoming offensive, it’s one of the biggest general officer failures since Douglas MacArthur’s similar failure to heed warnings of a Chinese offensive in Korea in 1950.

Secondly, one thing I’ve noticed about this offensive is that Russian counterattacks are getting disrupted and even wiped out before they even reach their objective. Ukrainian troops were waiting to ambush Russian counterattacks on at least two occasions. The Ukrainians even destroyed two Russian tanks that were still on their transporters moving to the battlefield. They know exactly where the Russians are going to be and the Russians clearly are not exactly sure where the Ukrainians are. This cannot be just good luck, attention to screening flanks, or rapid reactions on the part of the Ukrainian troops. It indicates that the Ukrainian offensive was planned in detail prior to its execution, likely Russian reactions were wargamed and analyzed, and likely Russian routes of advance identified well ahead of time.

In other words, the Ukrainians have succeeded in reaching a level of competency in operational art higher than that of their Russian opponents. Russian offensives are gaining ground, but they are poorly coordinated, unsynchronized, suffer extremely high casualties for modest gains, and are otherwise poorly planned. Operational art is the planning, preparation, conduct, and sustainment of tactics for strategic effect. Without it, tactical action is disconnected, uncoordinated, and either achieves no strategic effect or has a counter-productive effect, which is an accurate description of Russian tactics in this war so far. Ukraine’s military, or at least the units involved in this offensive, are getting it right. This speaks to Ukraine’s ability to modernize its force even as it has to hold the line against a frankly antique Russian force that only has numbers on its side.

Speaking of which, it’s important to remember that Russia is making gains, slow and expensive as they are. Ukraine can develop modern and effective forces, but so far not enough of them. They still have to solve their infantry problem. All of the advanced weaponry, technology, AI and algorithms in the world don’t matter if you don’t have the infantry necessary to do the dirty work of war.