The_Capt

This got me to remembering. Recall back in the good old days when the pro-Russian crowd called this all propaganda? Sigh, I wish they were right. They are all pretty much gone now, not sure if we will see them again. I will miss the accusations of being pro-US and short changing the Russians/Soviets. The arguments about crappy T-72 spotting…harkens to a kinder gentler time…January.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/15/ukraine-facial-recognition-warfare/ (paywall but someone else will pick it up). So when we talk about old-school political warfare, this is what it starts to look like.

Natural gas makes no sense, we already covered that. Ukraine has a tiny fraction compared to what Russia already owns. Water, Lithium and Neon, now that is a twist, maybe. I am not sold on the "economic theory" of this war, or at least any I have heard, the cost/benefits do not add up. I think this is about power overall, but I am not sure it is all about economic power.

I have been seeing some of this in the mainstream as well. From where they are now to Dnipro is 160kms of basically the same terrain. I think the Russians might try this, as they have not shown any realistic objectives management in this war but it is the height of military insanity: - They will likely not make it 50kms, let alone 150km unless the do some major re-tooling. This is not at a "hey let's throw in more troops" this is at a doctrinal level. They need to re-invent the BTG, or at least only ask a BTG to do what it can realistically accomplish and make more of them, along with a coherent formation structure on top of it. - If they do success in carving a 160 km corridor to Dnipro they now have to defend it from both sides. That is a lot more challenging than a corridor half that length between Izyum to Donetsk, which was going to be hard enough. - You also have to take the entire length of the Dnieper River to Zaporizhia or you leave an open resupply corridor for the UA, albeit a river crossing. I am not sure why mainstream military analysis is still thinking in terms of big sweeping muscle movements for Russia at this point. They tried that in the first phase of the war and failed. We have discussed how "more troops" does not translate into "more combat power" extensively. But I am still seeing talking heads discussing Russian offensives in pretty expansive terms. Maybe there is something we are missing or seeing incorrectly but I just can't square it off.

I don't know to be honest. A lot of the longer range stuff uses IR and thermals, I am not sure what fog/hazy does for that. I do think that the Javelin is made for this country as it locks quickly and then takes off above tree lines until it goes for the terminal attack. I would save the swtichblades for deep strike on engineering stuff and enemy artillery and then own arty and UAV strike for logistics. This plus Javelin/NLAW in this country will again create enormous friction along the entire Russian axis - attrit, slow, stall and then roll in your own conventional mass to completely crush. As Steve points out the Russians do not have anywhere enough "fast" infantry to be able to sustain momentum and their tanks will become coffins without that. They need recon pull, highly linked in as well. This is highwater mark combined arms type stuff. But even before all that, how about pre-strikes on Ukrainian information infrastructure? The UA can still use irregulars seasoned with SOF up front to make life miserable but they have been using cell infra (allegedly); however, the UA SOF may very well have satellite backbone via the west by now, so Russia is screwed unless they can deny LEO and geosynchronous, which is a laughable idea. Nope my bet is the Russians are going to try more "dim-mass", now very brittle because their expertise is looking at the map and going "tank country...yay". However, they have not read the fine print, nor really figured out the implications. If they had they would not have given the UA nearly a month to prepare, maybe. I get the sneaking sense that Russia is doing this war like a scene from Tenet - backwards. They should have started in the south with much narrower operations, with their best troops, in this country before the UA could prep and then expanded once they broke the back of the UA. They had surprise at the very beginning as well. By trying to play this war in reverse it is all sorts of messed up...just like that freakin movie.

Ok, so apologize for what will be a longish post, even for me. So welcome to The Capt's terrain analysis for the possible upcoming fight between Izyum and Donetsk. Basically I wanted to get a view of the terrain this next major fight is squaring off over and try and pull some deductions from that. So here is what I did. I booked an MS Flight Simulator (MSFS) flight from Donetsk to Kharkiv roughly along this google maps line: For reference you can see the ISW map of where this next great Russian offensive is spooling up: They buried Donetsk under the legend but this is the area of concern. So I did not use live weather as it is pissing rain there right now and based on what I am seeing it is a big reason the Russian have not started anything. I flew at 1000 feet up but employed the drone feature to get down and grab a birds eye view. Overall I would summarize the terrain in military terms as such: On the 8th day, while recovering from a hangover God looked upon the earth and said to himself "You know these shaved apes are going to go at each other the second I turn my back so I may as well make it interesting. Let there be tank country!" These shots are just south - southwest of Izyum. So on the surface you can immediately see a lot of room for manoeuvre tailor made for armored warfare. I mean I can see frontages of kms just aching for big ol tank formations to come charging through with all sorts of room for bypassing, flanking and all that good stuff. But then go a bit deeper: So if you take a look at that last one, check out the VFR map in the upper right. There are a lot of water features distributed all over this area and in the spring they are going to be deep and muddy. Little lakes and rivers just about everywhere that amphib IFVs can probably bounce but tanks, arty and logistics are going to have trouble with. So what? Target the engineering stuff with all them fancy switchblades, then arty, then C2...we will get to logistics. Next how about all them rectangles: Yep, a lot of these little and big squares all over the place...damn Ukrainian real estate laws. For armored warfare these are going to be a problem. Easy button answer...arty them all! Well no one on earth has enough arty for that as these things are everywhere. Each one a short range tank hunting dream, with ready made tractor trails to boot off on once you have fired off a couple NLAWS and are falling back to the next one to re-set. These thing will soak up attacking infantry to sweep and will slow things down a lot. Oh wait there is more: These are not CM3 previews (but we can dream) but in MSFS you can drop right down to eye-level and wow. First off this area is not flat. "Undulating" is the term we would use, with lots of small hills and ridges, all of which give some sightlines we normally only see in a desert. So if I had a smart, fire and forget ATGM system with a listed range of 4.0km and was trying to sell it, these are the marketing shots I would take. I found these everywhere along the route but more so towards the south end of the likely Russian advance (or North from Donetsk but that is all trench country from the last war, so not likely). Ok so what? - First off if this thing goes off it will be a conventional battle for the history books. I mean the next one with this sort of potential is likely Armageddon itself. We have a near perfect storm of mass meets mass forming up. The collision on this has potential to be heard around the world. - Second, this will be a major exam for conventional armored warfare. "End of Tanks: No They Are Not" may very well be settled in this one. You cannot really find much better terrain for armored warfare on one hand. While on the other, this is also excellent terrain for an mobile defence. The Russians should be able to create a break out with overwhelming mass here, if they play it right. While at the same time between prepared defenses and a combination of short and very long sightlines the Ukrainian defence should be able to stop them cold - that is an epic collision in the making. - Third, so much of this will hinge on C4ISR it is looking more like an aerial dogfight than a traditional land-battle. The side that can see first at the tactical level will likely hit and win first. We should see more exchanges like were seen in the Nagorno-Karabahk which were very long range and then working in for the dirty work. - Fourth, the Russian offence is going to have to evolve. They cannot bring their last fight to this one. They will need to rethink C4ISR collection and sharing, logistical planning - pushing a lot more forward faster, and targeting. The UA can keep doing what it was to be honest but it had better have made use of this pregnant pause to put in a lot of AT minefields that tie those water obstacles and rectangles together, they had the time and I can only hope they have the resources; this country is set up for nightmare defensive belts. - Fifth, this will also be an exam for artillery, ATGMs, self-loitering and unmanned systems. This will show what they can really do together, primarily in the defense but let's not forget the offence as well. There are sightlines that can make full use of the ranges these systems can come bring to bear. Honestly if I were the UA, I would stick with hybrid at the front end, and then wait for my moment for a conventional c-attack because it could be a bone crusher. Given enough gas, a UA formation could drive right into the Russian rear areas and cry-freakin-havok back there looking at this terrain. - Sixth, the awkward conversation about airpower. This is perfect CAS country, the Russian's need it, the UA needs to deny it. With full on air superiority this country would be a challenge for an attacker, without it we could be looking at a nightmare. Finally, I would close by saying that I also get the sense that this is perfect terrain for an operational trap - it is what I would do. #1 - Resist Russian main axis of advance...but just enough to attrit but give them hope. I would use obstacles to keep them on those axis and help channel them to what they want. #2 - Oh look at how happy they Russian are, they have their great pincer BUT do not give them time for reorientation or to dig in, or they could use this country against you. #3- Bil Hardenberger. That old bastard has snap the jaws closed on me more times than I care to remember. This country is made for a conventional c-attack to cut that corridor up and off.#4 - Feeding time. This terrain supports this and the Russians have given the UA a lot of time to set it up. Higher risk but the payoff is intense. Just spit-balling here and I have every confidence they UA commanders on the ground have a grip on this but for a defender that 1) knows what they are doing, 2) are well resourced and 3) have the time to prepare, this could make for a textbook defence that could be turned into something else.

Maybe, but based on Russian reactions I am thinking the UA pulled it off. Why not show video? Any number of OPSEC reasons. For example, it could be that it wasn't a Ukrainian Neptune missile but a western missile system that we have not "declared" or how the film would show how the UA pulled it off. Remember that most of the social media we have seen is from irregulars and territorial defence, the conventional UA is pretty tight on this stuff.

I think I am going to take an MS Flight Simulator spin over the area, maybe take some screenshots.

All the while your LOCs are getting hit by laybacks and long range strike because you do not have the forces to secure or an ability to screen enemy ISR. So you run out of arty ammo after the first day and now have to dismount infantry to sweep every tree line, taking hits the whole way. With patchwork units glued together out of remnants and newbies who have had a weekend to train together. What could possibli go wrong.

So cut fields of fire. I would put money on the bar that the Russians are dumb enough to drive right through them. Oh and that sort of closed rectangles is perfect for shorter range system like NLAW. My point being that wide open does not suddenly make the tank supreme unless it can actually manoeuvre. And the RA is not really setting the bar on that so far.

Yes this is true, however those Javelins will have beautiful sight lines. I am not sure open terrain is good news for the RA if the UA can stay ahead of them.

I met Dr John Arquilla once, now there is a guy can see the future. That right there is likely where we go from here.

Definitely some parallels. Another thought experiment for any interested. If you want to see a war were The Capt's definitions and concepts break down read World War Z by Max Brooks: - No communication, negotiation or concept of sacrifice for zombies. - No null or negative decision space as zombies cannot be put into dilemma, nor are their decisions meta-stable, - All mass and attrition, manoeuvre is nearly impossible as zombies have no Center of Gravity beyond the horde itself. - Technically this is not a war as it is not a social interaction, it is more of a pest infestation. Well that was fun...back to Ukraine.

And on Russia and the long game. Perun has a new one up:

You are very welcome, yes Bil H and I were game leads for CMCW, she is our angry screaming baby but we love her and have not forgotten her either. Book on this sort of operational thought…tough one as most of this is my stuff and frankly I can’t remember who I stole it from. If you want to get into it I read stuff like: Azar Gat - “A History of Military Thought” and “War in Human Civilization” The famous “Makers of Modern Strategy” edited by Peter Paret. These are the classics. “Unrestricted Warfare” “Russian Hybrid Warfare” by Fridman and “The Strategy of Subversion” by Bkackstone (an old Cold War book). These are really good works on null and negative decision spaces. But if you really want to up your game read Dune by Herbert, Foundation series by Asimov and The Expanse series by Corey. Non-fiction is the well documented lies we tell ourselves, fiction is the truth we can only bare to speak through lies. As for some of it, well I guess it is a book I have yet to write to be honest, just the ramblings of a homeless man on a wargaming forum street corner.

This is why we need new folks, they keep us on point by (re)asking the central questions. So what happens next? No idea. I have ideas, opinions and what my instincts are saying but I really do not know. In my thinking the main effort here is to create a mental framework that allows us to understand what we are seeing, when it happens. As we confirm phenomenon a lot of other realities die quickly. For example, we knew about 3-4 days into this war that it was not going to be quick because all the observable phenomenon killed that reality, it collapsed into unreality and fantasy. So what am I looking for now? Strategically - The major shift and re-framing of strategic ends by Russia clearly signaled a change in negotiation position. Ukraine's increasing strength in dictation of the terms they will accept was another signal. We should keep an eye on this as it will continue to evolve; negotiation positions are directly tied to viable options (which I have gone on about at length) and as options spaces collapse or expand negotiation positions shift. Further it is a sign of confidence in those options, we have seen Russia shift its negotiation position dramatically in this war: hard-medium-softer-hard. That last "hard" negotiating position was the last we heard, likely because Putin thinks his current offensive options will give him what he needs now that the political ends have been conveniently reframed. So for the strategic, track the options and negotiation positions. Operationally - There is an indicator here that we have not discussed much but for what is coming will be important: decisions. A "decision" in military terms seems simple on the surface but it is in fact very complex. Basically a "decision" is the "death of alternatives" or a collapsing point of options. Germans lost at Stalingrad, Russians won = German strategic offensive options die in the East...forever (insert ironic trombone sound). This is primarily how conventional operational military planning thinks, in terms of lines of effort/operations that link "decisions" together in a linked framework that creates a successful outcome - victory (yay!). These are what I refer to as "positive decisions". However, in the wacky world of warfare, there are more than "positive decisions". There are at least two, maybe three more types: null, negative and strange. A null decision is basically a "non-decision" or an undecidable condition. It can be generated and projected. Ukrainian defence has been a master class in the projection of null-decisions onto an opponent; the Ukrainian approach has left the Russian military machine unable to solve for X operationally. The end result of all those unsolvable decision spaces, along with attrition, create positive decisions for the Ukrainian defence when the entire Russian operational offensive collapsed - so you can see how this can get complex fast. Wait, there is more! All human decisions are metastable, which is a fancy word for "semi-permanent but subject to review". So it is possible to "undecide" something within human perception and cognition to very real effect. For example, SOF's primary contribution to warfare is not primarily positive decision space, or even null -they contribute here but this is not home turf - they are at home in creating negative decision, or undeciding things. Classic example is the SOE in WW2. Its job was not to create positive decisions in Western Europe, it was to "undecide German victory and control" - in the minds of the home front in the UK, the populations in Europe and in the minds of the Germans themselves. Through demonstration-thru-communication (e.g. raids) the SOE did a lot of damage to German reality in undeciding things. I am not going to get into Strange but it speaks to a human ability to "remember the future" and relative rationality, but let's leave off that one. So what? Well for the upcoming fight in the SE, I will be looking for decisions (all types) at the operational level. The Russians need positive, the UA will likely project null and negative on that...right up to a moment when they think they can get positive ones of their own. The playout of that decision space will be key in reading the operational flow of things. Next question is "which ones", well that could fill a separate post but for the Russians is likely means a decisive use of mass to pull off this pincer movement they are lining up, and then resist the UA c-moves. However, we will likely see a lattice work of decisions form up, the shape of that will dictate how things are really going. Tactical. Steve covered off a lot of this already. I will add: - Russian Mass - will it start working again? Because it has failed (erm) decisively, so far. Is there a tipping point in this war where mass will still work? I suspect yes, but can the Russians build it and project it effectively? This includes some sort of re-invention of combined arms and joint integration, which Russia desperately needs to create any of those operational decisions I was talking about. - Russian Fragility - A tactical warfighting unit, within a formation system is a complex beast. It has redundancies built in but it takes years to build an effective tactical unit and minutes to destroy it. The Russian war machine has been severely beat up. Estimates are now circling 25% losses for the initial invasion force. Normally it would take months to re-constitute damage like this and Russia is going to make a run at fixing it in days/weeks. This will mean the Russian machine going into this phase is more fragile than the first attempt. What remains unknown is what offsets the Russians have been able to bring to bear for this, if any. - Ukrainian Friction - What has been amazing to watch in this war is the Ukrainian ability to create and project friction. This is a primary role in defence, along with attrition but the breadth and scope that Ukrainian defence has been able to project friction in all domains has been breathtaking. Ukrainian defence has been able to create friction across the entire length and breadth of the Russian offensive. If they can keep that up tactically, they will likely simply grind this next Russian offensive to a halt. - Ukrainian Mass - they have conventional mass in this fight but are using it judiciously. I suspect the UA is waiting for its moment, and if it times it right, it will be spectacular. Beyond these big ticket items, we should be looking out for shifts in equipment and vehicles. More T90s (and T-14...everyone wants to see a tractor pull on that one) or T62s all start to show something. Cannon fodder troops in front with the good ones in the back will likely be the order of march, massed dumb artillery fire across broad frontage with little precision. All this sort of stuff adds up, along with mass surrenders and uncontrolled movements. Anyway, strap in because we should see at least a few more big muscle movements before this thing winds down, or falls apart on the Russian side. How this goes will determine if a stalemate option is even on the table for Russia and what the end-game will look like. I still consider this the "posturing for end-game" phase with Russia racing for some sort of stalemate and Ukraine not letting them. Either way, we will be here doing this for the duration.

Just…wow…seriously, we are going to be studying what the Ukrainian military pulled off in this war for the rest of the century.

This is a very good point but a couple clarifications that might help. A lot of signatories have clauses built in, in the "case of self-defence war" and I do not think anyone would blame Ukraine for their employment in this case, so long as they are employed against legitimate military targets - which is basically any and all Russians on Ukrainian soil. The US lead the planet on self-neutralizing scatterable mines and ICM, with things like 99.9% reliability, it is one of the reasons they did not feel they had to sign on, that and the Korean peninsula. The US has done this for the exact reason you layout above, particularly after they saw the mess in Lebanon when the IDF used older US munitions. So unless those are 80s era FASCAM and DPICM, we are not talking about massive RoW problems and the battlefield payoff is potentially significant. So the primary issue is really political and I have no idea what the spin on that will be.

Actually at the end of the day we are a wargaming community with deep interest (and some expertise) in the history of warfare. This is the first peer-on-peer conventional war of the 21st century and likely the most intense since the Iran-Iraq war back in the 80s, so you can understand why it is kind of a big deal. As to the games, no small amount of effort you see here is to try and figure out how to make CM more realistic, particularly the modern titles. So let’s call this game design in contact. Finally we are about analysis and assessment that cut through a lot of the noise out there, so we have seen a lot of people migrate here because we try and remain unbiased- as far as we can as we stand with Ukraine on this one- and offer a different picture than a lot of mainstream military analysis. Moreover, we will toot our own horn as we have been noted as out in front of events thanks in large part to information sharing and a robust online debate. We are also on the internet and get whackies, which have been warned and in some cases banned. That all said, do not worry BFC is still in the gaming business but right now they have their eyes on this history in the making. They (and “we”: check out CMCW while you are in the gift shop!), will be back to making the game series you love shortly but right now the best good we can do is try and keep a clear eye on things and keep each other informed while supporting those of us in the middle of all this.

Damn, so that is how was done, even if it was somewhat "organic". So if one were to attack a nation with this sort of infrastructure you need a pretty long and comprehensive campaign to hit towers, nodes and servers either via cyber or kinetic. The very short preparations by the Russians were no where near enough to suppress this. The UA has its own architecture (UANET as you mention) but using volunteer/irregular defenders along a 1300km frontage with this public architecture in place means they could communicate and synchronize locally, now armed with UAVs and NLAWs. UA with its closed info architecture could focus on decisive points while getting feeds from the civilian structure. Add to this western/US ISR feeds and the RA using the same civilian architecture in the clear means finding the Russians and where they were moving to was much easier. Interestingly most of the Russian gains are in areas of spottier coverage in the S and SE. The Russians were screwed from the start-line and dead on arrival. Seeing this, I am thinking we were too conservative on the Russian failure in the early days of this thing to be honest. They basically left the primary means through which Ukrainian defenders broke the Russian operational system wide open. I would love to see a map of comparative data flow. I bet the Russians are pretty dark, while Ukrainian defence looks like an Xmas tree.

And on the topic of how badly Russia has lost the "big picture". On all this let's say that Russia somehow manages to defeat Ukraine. Not some poncy re-definition but actually take the whole country installs a puppet government and holds victory parade in May '23 [aside: the odds of this happening are so extremely low that we are in "alien virus wipes out UA" type scenarios, but let's just play along]. So what? - Russia gets Ukraine and all its oil, gas and wheat...all of which are a small fraction of what Russia already has, but it is technically in the plus column. Of course to access all that you need a functioning Ukraine, so who is paying to re-build all the infrastructure the Russians blew up in order to gain all said cool stuff? - Russian has demonstrated the exact opposite of what they need to the world. The great Russian bear nearly bled out taking a single country in its near abroad, leaving destroyed and abandoned equipment and bodies all over the place. It looks weaker than we thought going in even if Ukraine surrenders right now...that part is done. - Geopolitically it has made its enemies stronger (see above). If someone told me Sweden and Finland were going to be seriously be moving to join NATO six months ago, I would have laughed them out of the room. Hell, we heard rumours of this 6 weeks ago and were not really thinking they were serious. So NATO is bigger, more unified and better funded - really not seeing the master plan here. - Geopolitically, it makes Russia much weaker. Those sanctions are not going to be forgotten in a year. In fact I doubt the investigation into the mass war crimes from this war will be over in a year. You wanna talk stalemate, no western politician is going to even hint at "re-normalization with Russia" for maybe a decade. So that means that Russia has to pivot heavily to people who will trade with them...enter the Chinese. The Chinese may very well send Russia support but it is a poison pill. China wants Russian resources...cheap. And a weakened Russia who can only trade with a narrow market is extremely vulnerable and desperate. They will have to live with what they can get from China price-wise because they literally have no other options than "leave it in the ground and become a third world nation". And even if it isn't China, it will be India then who sets the conditions but that gets more complicated. - Internally it makes Russia much weaker. Putin is going to have to spend billions on the wave of resentment and pushback that is likely coming his way from all the Russians that do not buy off on this whole thing, and even if that is only 17 percent that is 24+ million people that are going to be extremely agitated that Putin has to deal with. Being an autocrat and creating a closed society takes money, ask North Korea. So all that funding to counter backlash is going away from "other things", but you cannot simply cut all social programs and infrastructure funding, or that percentage goes up. So what takes the hit? The Russian military is the most likely candidate. Everything but internal security will be on shaky ground, while being run by a corrupt administration. So here I do agree with Steve, Russia has already lost this war. It is just a matter of determining what that loss looks like. Worse, Russia has likely already lost its next war and does not even know it yet.

I have no doubt Ukraine is highly connected but if you are going to lob dozens of cruise missiles and air strikes, hit the information architecture as a priority as opposed to freakin baby-hospitals. I mean "c'mon!" use cyber to hijack and control what you can, and then all those fancy hypersonics to actually hit something that matters. Of course to do that they would need some form of Joint Targeting architecture built around a unified Joint Command...ok, now I am getting pulled into "the Russian's suck" too.

I agree, I have no idea why Russia failed to crush the Ukrainian information architecture. That, is a primary failing that led them to this mess and they should have known better. A bunch of civilians providing reams of open source while your military backbone is still up has put Ukrainian defenders so far out in front I am not sure Russia can catch them. Then the value of getting that open source out to the world probably did more to sway public opinion - and by extension politicians - than anything else. One of the key indicators that something was very wrong for the Russians was about 48 hours in when it dawned on me "why am I seeing Ukrainian social media feeds?" Further, ok, so Russia says "screw you, you can have your Toc-Tic...shirtless bears..etc", everything points to the fact that they did not do the same for their own troops. In the future, I am not sure where IT is going but I am pretty sure it is "everywhere" so "stopping the signal" is going to get harder and harder, not easier. What this war has proven is that ignoring information is crazy, like ignoring integration of air power into land battle...wait...whoops.

All good questions. Air Supremacy. I have been thinking about this, and I am not sure we can do it anymore, particularly in a peer/near-peer environment. Based on what we have seen you need to establish a pillar of superiority (let alone supremacy) from the surface of the earth to space and sustain it. If an opponent has modern MANPADs, which can reach up to 23k feet, UAVs of all sorts, and satellites, I think we might have to start thinking the unthinkable, and that is air supremacy is unattainable. I have no doubt we will spend billions on C-UAV and next-gen SEAD and c-measures but the concept of air supremacy has run headlong into democratization of airpower (and even spacepower is up for grabs). So how do we operate in an less-than sir supremacy, or even less-than-superiority environment? This is total heresy in western doctrine. Whole lot to unpack there. Information Dominance. Russia completely failed on this one, which is odd for what was supposed to the Dark Sith Empire of Cyberwarfare. I don't think they really understood what it was capable of, "so why worry?" type thing - massive Kruger-Dunning whoopsie there. However, how do you control/deny or shut down the modern information space? You point to Startlink but there are all sorts of ad hoc networking solutions. Some have posited that "well we will sweep the atmosphere with our massive EM/EW weaponry and fry their systems...bow before us". A lot of problems with that, not the least of which is anything pumping out a bunch of EM noise/Microwaves is going to be lit up and hit very quickly. Further, it does nothing for emerging LOS information technology. So we are at "what can cyber do?" which frankly I am sure a lot of people are asking right now. As a pre-condition for this war absolute fail but as the technology accelerates we have to be asking ourselves "what happens when we need to do what Russia failed to do?" Finally, what if our opponents can attack our systems, we could find ourselves as blind as the Russians. So now we have a competitive information space that is not a "nice to have" it may be more important than air superiority. Force Sizes/Commitment. No idea what this might mean. We have glanced off implications but I suspect force estimates need to be re-visited in planning. As to "not putting boots down" well that is a significant discussion on what Phase 0 means and what options and scene setting can be done in this space years before a conflict happens. I suspect a lot of people are wondering what political warfare options could have been available to prevent this war because the West has basically left the old Cold War playbook in the outhouse - seriously I have attended numerous conferences where the answer to Russian Hybrid, Chinese Unrestricted/3-Warfares/Systems Warfare is "teamwork". Considering that Russia has played the nuclear deterrence card and we are really nervous about what that means, I suspect we will not want to go into the next war with strategic options left on the table...the stakes get way too high too fast.

I do not disagree that we would likely do better on LOCs but I am not convinced it would be "better enough". @acrashb proposed that: And here I do not disagree but the magnitude of "less-extended front", "fewer pincers" and "better rear-echelon defence" "solving a lot" is potentially enormous. Translating this into theory we are talking about force-to-space ratios in the frontages, manoeuvre restrictions we do not have a playbook for, and "better rear-echelon defence" are four words that could very well mean "redesign our entire logistics system". As a minimum our force planning density is in question, our "just in time" logistics model which we spent the last 20 years building is in question - which impact the entire tooth to tail discussion, and while rear area security as an area defence problem is not new, defence against self-loitering munitions swarm attacks from the ground and/or the air is very new. I guess my point is that as a long time professional there are some fundamental and foundational concepts that are being challenged by what I have seen, and they extend well past the fact that the Russian military definitely and definitively failed the opening rounds in this war.