The_Capt

Well let me start by saying we are all making a lot of assumptions here kinda the biggest hint we are in a disruptive time.  I think you and I are looking at different envisioning of the near-future battlefield and both of us are probably wrong.  However, it is also possible we are both correct, just at different points of time.   To your point above, conventional land warfare combat systems unable to defeat both the ISR and kinetic effects of long range, highly lethal smart unmanned systems is not an assumption it is a fact - one the Russians are living with every long hard day in this war. 
Right now every western (and no doubt eastern) military is having a "huh?" moment.  And they will no doubt suddenly escalate spending in defensive systems to try and re-create a level of symmetry in order to preserve the conventional systems that they have already invested trillions in for defence.  Frankly this is the wrong reason to do this as they should be investing in what will work better in defence but welcome to military procurement strategy.  
Very good point on naval power and an awkward one to be honest.  The last time we had a fleet-v-fleet action outside of a video game was during WW2.  So we really have no idea what that would look like and likely why every modern navy has tried desperately to only face 5 Somalis in a fast boat armed with RPGs as the high water mark of counter-fleet actions.  If a US carrier group were to face off against a Chinese NTG we have no idea how that would actually go down.  Would they be able to "shoot down" with multi-layered systems against hypersonic?  Smart, multi-munitions?  Or simply the weight of missiles one side could put in the air?  Theoretically we want to say "absolutely" because if you think we invest a lot into land systems, all that floating hardware is too "big to fail"; however, the real answer is really, really scary and could quickly include tactical nuclear systems. This is largely why naval power has been relegated to where it can easily establish sea control and project/support operations ashore.
So important here to understand which "surprise" I am talking about; surprise for conventional mass.  Like land based full spectrum area defence, the ability for ISR to reliably detect small dispersed infantry, all armed with said smart unmanned, does not currently exist.  Light Infantry, or in the case of Ukraine - hybrid infantry, with smart weapons are the submarines in our naval analogy.  They have the asymmetric capability to still be able to move and fight without being detected easily.  Conventional mass, down to the tactical level cannot.  Why?  Because with a highly illuminated battlefield trying to hide tons of hot steel and the system to keep it "hot" is impossible to hide...even from satellite.  This fact alone may be turning land warfare on its head at a pretty foundational level. 
And no, we did not have "perfect drone cover" in Afghanistan, not even close.  In fact our COIN experiences underline the above reality as well.  In Afghanistan it was very hard, almost impossible to surprise the TB.  They were asymmetric in their ability to hide amongst the people and we were tied to out big lumbering IED-magnets.  The only time we could effectively surprise them was when we 1) got actionable intelligence from locals and 2) used SOF or something fast and light in the dark, or a drone strike/artillery/air.  Our conventional mass was nearly useless.  So yes, ambushes did happen...they happened to us and the insurgents didn't even need drones to do it, they had unconventional anti-mass.
So I already covered why dispersed small units have an advantage but let's unpack the collective area defence argument for a second.  I am not sure what this would look like to be honest, you seem to be pointing at a sort of land borne B17 formation mutual defence cover concept.  Ok, maybe?  I mean it is not a bad idea and may turn us back to mass being able to better defend than dispersed offence can attack.  However, there are several problems with it.  First, is it possible?  I mean we are not just talking missiles, which are bad enough, but ground based systems can cover a suite from direct fires, to minefields that can get up and walk.  I am not sure how one could build a full defensive suite to counter all that, but let's for argument sake say we can but it is only effective when mass is in formation, like the good old days of the Roman testudo.  Well second, is mobility.  Staying together for collective defence will hamper mobility, already does, but it may mean greater restrictions on formation which is going to cause problems.  Third, LOCs.  You would also need that mass all the way back to along your logistical tail, which now needs to be an iron pipe.  This further restricts mobility and flexibility.  Fourth, Cost.  I am getting the sense that to trick out current APS, all one needs do is tinker with a Javelins software, whereas to do what we are talking about with respect to full collective defence is going to cost an enormous amount of money.  In the end, we might wind up with rigid, slow moving and incredibly expensive mass that in the end minor tweaks to the offensive systems could sidestep.
The current manoeuvre warfare theory states that one can move-to-exploit by outpacing/tempo an opponents ability to cover their vulnerabilities and/or exploit you own.  This assumes that we cannot see the entire battlefield when it comes to conventional mass.  The UA is absolutely making effective use of this principle right now but they are doing it by employing "anti-mass" in combination with mass.  So in the future manoeuvre warfare is still going to be a thing but how we do it will likely change.  We will need anti-mass that can attrit the snow globe to the point of collapse and then we move in with conventional mass to finish...this is pretty much what was seen in the NK War, except the Armenians did not have a snow globe to start with.  Essentially our current understanding of manoeuvre warfare will need to shift under this sort of battlefield, particularly if we adopt the wide and powerful area defence systems you are describing.  Those will need to be defeated in order to create the conditions for manoeuvre; we no longer move to exploit vulnerability, we create vulnerability to move.
Again, for conventional mass.  For unconventional/hybrid/anti-mass they are still very hard to detect even in the open.  Terrain will still matter for mass on mobility; however, less so for fires.  We will no longer really have dominating ground as a conventional land formation would have effective ranges well beyond LOS.  Urban terrain is another excellent example.  It is toxic for conventional mass, while anti-mass can thrive in that space. So this builds on the asymmetry theme.
Finally, I am not saying conventional mass is dead as its ability concentrate force will likely be decisive for years to come.  How we generate and employ that mass is looking more and more like it will undergo major revisions.  Will we see anti-mass in layers out in front of mass in some sort of very intense Recon battle?  What does snow-globe war look like?  What vote will defensive systems cast?  If tactical surprise, let alone operational, is dead for conventional mass, that alone is going to mean re-writing great swaths of land warfare doctrine, and frankly I have no idea how far that rabbit hole goes.
Hey I am glad you appear firm in your convictions.  I have been in this business for over three decades and I am frankly freakin out a bit here, which is inexcusable because the signs have been on the wall for awhile now.  I am sure we will go to immense effort to try and ignore/wish away/justify/ what we are seeing in Ukraine right now but the evidence is mounting to an uncomfortable level here.  The inconvenient truth is that the Russians are fighting our fight.  We still think in terms of Battle Groups and TFs sweeping across the field to create shock and paralysis in an opponent.  It worked in '91 and '03, all that COIN stuff was State Dept's fault.  Russian performance in 2014 just underlined that smart mass was the was to go.  NK, reinforced it, all while we missed some obvious implications. 
So here we are with a war where Russia should be crushing a much smaller - dispersed force and is failing gloriously.  We are falling back in "ya but Russians suck" (which definitely has some truth to it) but everyone in the business has to be asking themselves "ya but what if we had to fight the Ukrainians right now?  We have big fat formations with very vulnerable LOCs as well...huh?"
 

Well let me start by saying we are all making a lot of assumptions here kinda the biggest hint we are in a disruptive time.  I think you and I are looking at different envisioning of the near-future battlefield and both of us are probably wrong.  However, it is also possible we are both correct, just at different points of time.   To your point above, conventional land warfare combat systems unable to defeat both the ISR and kinetic effects of long range, highly lethal smart unmanned systems is not an assumption it is a fact - one the Russians are living with every long hard day in this war. 
Right now every western (and no doubt eastern) military is having a "huh?" moment.  And they will no doubt suddenly escalate spending in defensive systems to try and re-create a level of symmetry in order to preserve the conventional systems that they have already invested trillions in for defence.  Frankly this is the wrong reason to do this as they should be investing in what will work better in defence but welcome to military procurement strategy.  
Very good point on naval power and an awkward one to be honest.  The last time we had a fleet-v-fleet action outside of a video game was during WW2.  So we really have no idea what that would look like and likely why every modern navy has tried desperately to only face 5 Somalis in a fast boat armed with RPGs as the high water mark of counter-fleet actions.  If a US carrier group were to face off against a Chinese NTG we have no idea how that would actually go down.  Would they be able to "shoot down" with multi-layered systems against hypersonic?  Smart, multi-munitions?  Or simply the weight of missiles one side could put in the air?  Theoretically we want to say "absolutely" because if you think we invest a lot into land systems, all that floating hardware is too "big to fail"; however, the real answer is really, really scary and could quickly include tactical nuclear systems. This is largely why naval power has been relegated to where it can easily establish sea control and project/support operations ashore.
So important here to understand which "surprise" I am talking about; surprise for conventional mass.  Like land based full spectrum area defence, the ability for ISR to reliably detect small dispersed infantry, all armed with said smart unmanned, does not currently exist.  Light Infantry, or in the case of Ukraine - hybrid infantry, with smart weapons are the submarines in our naval analogy.  They have the asymmetric capability to still be able to move and fight without being detected easily.  Conventional mass, down to the tactical level cannot.  Why?  Because with a highly illuminated battlefield trying to hide tons of hot steel and the system to keep it "hot" is impossible to hide...even from satellite.  This fact alone may be turning land warfare on its head at a pretty foundational level. 
And no, we did not have "perfect drone cover" in Afghanistan, not even close.  In fact our COIN experiences underline the above reality as well.  In Afghanistan it was very hard, almost impossible to surprise the TB.  They were asymmetric in their ability to hide amongst the people and we were tied to out big lumbering IED-magnets.  The only time we could effectively surprise them was when we 1) got actionable intelligence from locals and 2) used SOF or something fast and light in the dark, or a drone strike/artillery/air.  Our conventional mass was nearly useless.  So yes, ambushes did happen...they happened to us and the insurgents didn't even need drones to do it, they had unconventional anti-mass.
So I already covered why dispersed small units have an advantage but let's unpack the collective area defence argument for a second.  I am not sure what this would look like to be honest, you seem to be pointing at a sort of land borne B17 formation mutual defence cover concept.  Ok, maybe?  I mean it is not a bad idea and may turn us back to mass being able to better defend than dispersed offence can attack.  However, there are several problems with it.  First, is it possible?  I mean we are not just talking missiles, which are bad enough, but ground based systems can cover a suite from direct fires, to minefields that can get up and walk.  I am not sure how one could build a full defensive suite to counter all that, but let's for argument sake say we can but it is only effective when mass is in formation, like the good old days of the Roman testudo.  Well second, is mobility.  Staying together for collective defence will hamper mobility, already does, but it may mean greater restrictions on formation which is going to cause problems.  Third, LOCs.  You would also need that mass all the way back to along your logistical tail, which now needs to be an iron pipe.  This further restricts mobility and flexibility.  Fourth, Cost.  I am getting the sense that to trick out current APS, all one needs do is tinker with a Javelins software, whereas to do what we are talking about with respect to full collective defence is going to cost an enormous amount of money.  In the end, we might wind up with rigid, slow moving and incredibly expensive mass that in the end minor tweaks to the offensive systems could sidestep.
The current manoeuvre warfare theory states that one can move-to-exploit by outpacing/tempo an opponents ability to cover their vulnerabilities and/or exploit you own.  This assumes that we cannot see the entire battlefield when it comes to conventional mass.  The UA is absolutely making effective use of this principle right now but they are doing it by employing "anti-mass" in combination with mass.  So in the future manoeuvre warfare is still going to be a thing but how we do it will likely change.  We will need anti-mass that can attrit the snow globe to the point of collapse and then we move in with conventional mass to finish...this is pretty much what was seen in the NK War, except the Armenians did not have a snow globe to start with.  Essentially our current understanding of manoeuvre warfare will need to shift under this sort of battlefield, particularly if we adopt the wide and powerful area defence systems you are describing.  Those will need to be defeated in order to create the conditions for manoeuvre; we no longer move to exploit vulnerability, we create vulnerability to move.
Again, for conventional mass.  For unconventional/hybrid/anti-mass they are still very hard to detect even in the open.  Terrain will still matter for mass on mobility; however, less so for fires.  We will no longer really have dominating ground as a conventional land formation would have effective ranges well beyond LOS.  Urban terrain is another excellent example.  It is toxic for conventional mass, while anti-mass can thrive in that space. So this builds on the asymmetry theme.
Finally, I am not saying conventional mass is dead as its ability concentrate force will likely be decisive for years to come.  How we generate and employ that mass is looking more and more like it will undergo major revisions.  Will we see anti-mass in layers out in front of mass in some sort of very intense Recon battle?  What does snow-globe war look like?  What vote will defensive systems cast?  If tactical surprise, let alone operational, is dead for conventional mass, that alone is going to mean re-writing great swaths of land warfare doctrine, and frankly I have no idea how far that rabbit hole goes.
Hey I am glad you appear firm in your convictions.  I have been in this business for over three decades and I am frankly freakin out a bit here, which is inexcusable because the signs have been on the wall for awhile now.  I am sure we will go to immense effort to try and ignore/wish away/justify/ what we are seeing in Ukraine right now but the evidence is mounting to an uncomfortable level here.  The inconvenient truth is that the Russians are fighting our fight.  We still think in terms of Battle Groups and TFs sweeping across the field to create shock and paralysis in an opponent.  It worked in '91 and '03, all that COIN stuff was State Dept's fault.  Russian performance in 2014 just underlined that smart mass was the was to go.  NK, reinforced it, all while we missed some obvious implications. 
So here we are with a war where Russia should be crushing a much smaller - dispersed force and is failing gloriously.  We are falling back in "ya but Russians suck" (which definitely has some truth to it) but everyone in the business has to be asking themselves "ya but what if we had to fight the Ukrainians right now?  We have big fat formations with very vulnerable LOCs as well...huh?"
 

Well let me start by saying we are all making a lot of assumptions here kinda the biggest hint we are in a disruptive time.  I think you and I are looking at different envisioning of the near-future battlefield and both of us are probably wrong.  However, it is also possible we are both correct, just at different points of time.   To your point above, conventional land warfare combat systems unable to defeat both the ISR and kinetic effects of long range, highly lethal smart unmanned systems is not an assumption it is a fact - one the Russians are living with every long hard day in this war. 
Right now every western (and no doubt eastern) military is having a "huh?" moment.  And they will no doubt suddenly escalate spending in defensive systems to try and re-create a level of symmetry in order to preserve the conventional systems that they have already invested trillions in for defence.  Frankly this is the wrong reason to do this as they should be investing in what will work better in defence but welcome to military procurement strategy.  
Very good point on naval power and an awkward one to be honest.  The last time we had a fleet-v-fleet action outside of a video game was during WW2.  So we really have no idea what that would look like and likely why every modern navy has tried desperately to only face 5 Somalis in a fast boat armed with RPGs as the high water mark of counter-fleet actions.  If a US carrier group were to face off against a Chinese NTG we have no idea how that would actually go down.  Would they be able to "shoot down" with multi-layered systems against hypersonic?  Smart, multi-munitions?  Or simply the weight of missiles one side could put in the air?  Theoretically we want to say "absolutely" because if you think we invest a lot into land systems, all that floating hardware is too "big to fail"; however, the real answer is really, really scary and could quickly include tactical nuclear systems. This is largely why naval power has been relegated to where it can easily establish sea control and project/support operations ashore.
So important here to understand which "surprise" I am talking about; surprise for conventional mass.  Like land based full spectrum area defence, the ability for ISR to reliably detect small dispersed infantry, all armed with said smart unmanned, does not currently exist.  Light Infantry, or in the case of Ukraine - hybrid infantry, with smart weapons are the submarines in our naval analogy.  They have the asymmetric capability to still be able to move and fight without being detected easily.  Conventional mass, down to the tactical level cannot.  Why?  Because with a highly illuminated battlefield trying to hide tons of hot steel and the system to keep it "hot" is impossible to hide...even from satellite.  This fact alone may be turning land warfare on its head at a pretty foundational level. 
And no, we did not have "perfect drone cover" in Afghanistan, not even close.  In fact our COIN experiences underline the above reality as well.  In Afghanistan it was very hard, almost impossible to surprise the TB.  They were asymmetric in their ability to hide amongst the people and we were tied to out big lumbering IED-magnets.  The only time we could effectively surprise them was when we 1) got actionable intelligence from locals and 2) used SOF or something fast and light in the dark, or a drone strike/artillery/air.  Our conventional mass was nearly useless.  So yes, ambushes did happen...they happened to us and the insurgents didn't even need drones to do it, they had unconventional anti-mass.
So I already covered why dispersed small units have an advantage but let's unpack the collective area defence argument for a second.  I am not sure what this would look like to be honest, you seem to be pointing at a sort of land borne B17 formation mutual defence cover concept.  Ok, maybe?  I mean it is not a bad idea and may turn us back to mass being able to better defend than dispersed offence can attack.  However, there are several problems with it.  First, is it possible?  I mean we are not just talking missiles, which are bad enough, but ground based systems can cover a suite from direct fires, to minefields that can get up and walk.  I am not sure how one could build a full defensive suite to counter all that, but let's for argument sake say we can but it is only effective when mass is in formation, like the good old days of the Roman testudo.  Well second, is mobility.  Staying together for collective defence will hamper mobility, already does, but it may mean greater restrictions on formation which is going to cause problems.  Third, LOCs.  You would also need that mass all the way back to along your logistical tail, which now needs to be an iron pipe.  This further restricts mobility and flexibility.  Fourth, Cost.  I am getting the sense that to trick out current APS, all one needs do is tinker with a Javelins software, whereas to do what we are talking about with respect to full collective defence is going to cost an enormous amount of money.  In the end, we might wind up with rigid, slow moving and incredibly expensive mass that in the end minor tweaks to the offensive systems could sidestep.
The current manoeuvre warfare theory states that one can move-to-exploit by outpacing/tempo an opponents ability to cover their vulnerabilities and/or exploit you own.  This assumes that we cannot see the entire battlefield when it comes to conventional mass.  The UA is absolutely making effective use of this principle right now but they are doing it by employing "anti-mass" in combination with mass.  So in the future manoeuvre warfare is still going to be a thing but how we do it will likely change.  We will need anti-mass that can attrit the snow globe to the point of collapse and then we move in with conventional mass to finish...this is pretty much what was seen in the NK War, except the Armenians did not have a snow globe to start with.  Essentially our current understanding of manoeuvre warfare will need to shift under this sort of battlefield, particularly if we adopt the wide and powerful area defence systems you are describing.  Those will need to be defeated in order to create the conditions for manoeuvre; we no longer move to exploit vulnerability, we create vulnerability to move.
Again, for conventional mass.  For unconventional/hybrid/anti-mass they are still very hard to detect even in the open.  Terrain will still matter for mass on mobility; however, less so for fires.  We will no longer really have dominating ground as a conventional land formation would have effective ranges well beyond LOS.  Urban terrain is another excellent example.  It is toxic for conventional mass, while anti-mass can thrive in that space. So this builds on the asymmetry theme.
Finally, I am not saying conventional mass is dead as its ability concentrate force will likely be decisive for years to come.  How we generate and employ that mass is looking more and more like it will undergo major revisions.  Will we see anti-mass in layers out in front of mass in some sort of very intense Recon battle?  What does snow-globe war look like?  What vote will defensive systems cast?  If tactical surprise, let alone operational, is dead for conventional mass, that alone is going to mean re-writing great swaths of land warfare doctrine, and frankly I have no idea how far that rabbit hole goes.
Hey I am glad you appear firm in your convictions.  I have been in this business for over three decades and I am frankly freakin out a bit here, which is inexcusable because the signs have been on the wall for awhile now.  I am sure we will go to immense effort to try and ignore/wish away/justify/ what we are seeing in Ukraine right now but the evidence is mounting to an uncomfortable level here.  The inconvenient truth is that the Russians are fighting our fight.  We still think in terms of Battle Groups and TFs sweeping across the field to create shock and paralysis in an opponent.  It worked in '91 and '03, all that COIN stuff was State Dept's fault.  Russian performance in 2014 just underlined that smart mass was the was to go.  NK, reinforced it, all while we missed some obvious implications. 
So here we are with a war where Russia should be crushing a much smaller - dispersed force and is failing gloriously.  We are falling back in "ya but Russians suck" (which definitely has some truth to it) but everyone in the business has to be asking themselves "ya but what if we had to fight the Ukrainians right now?  We have big fat formations with very vulnerable LOCs as well...huh?"
 

Not pure conjecture in my opinion.  The Russian military, particularly its ground forces still have the roots of Soviet doctrine in their makeup.  However, they have adapted somewhat in the intervening years.  At the operational level (so the wiki map), that is a very Soviet style attack plan.  It aims to overwhelm an opponent with multiple axis of advance in a single very mass based push.   A series of objectives in depth and avoiding cities and urban combat where possible.
A the tactical level, however, things get a little weird.  Russia abandoned the MRR/TR model in favor of the BTGs which a far more combined arms integrated, looking more like western Battlegroups.  Even with these new structures the Soviet system would see a series of echelon attacks along this major axis, that did not happen.  In a lot of cases the advances just appeared to have stalled (e.g. the long lines of vehicles along single roads), tactically what we are seeing does not have the tempo or velocity of a Soviet style attack. 

Well let me start by saying we are all making a lot of assumptions here kinda the biggest hint we are in a disruptive time.  I think you and I are looking at different envisioning of the near-future battlefield and both of us are probably wrong.  However, it is also possible we are both correct, just at different points of time.   To your point above, conventional land warfare combat systems unable to defeat both the ISR and kinetic effects of long range, highly lethal smart unmanned systems is not an assumption it is a fact - one the Russians are living with every long hard day in this war. 
Right now every western (and no doubt eastern) military is having a "huh?" moment.  And they will no doubt suddenly escalate spending in defensive systems to try and re-create a level of symmetry in order to preserve the conventional systems that they have already invested trillions in for defence.  Frankly this is the wrong reason to do this as they should be investing in what will work better in defence but welcome to military procurement strategy.  
Very good point on naval power and an awkward one to be honest.  The last time we had a fleet-v-fleet action outside of a video game was during WW2.  So we really have no idea what that would look like and likely why every modern navy has tried desperately to only face 5 Somalis in a fast boat armed with RPGs as the high water mark of counter-fleet actions.  If a US carrier group were to face off against a Chinese NTG we have no idea how that would actually go down.  Would they be able to "shoot down" with multi-layered systems against hypersonic?  Smart, multi-munitions?  Or simply the weight of missiles one side could put in the air?  Theoretically we want to say "absolutely" because if you think we invest a lot into land systems, all that floating hardware is too "big to fail"; however, the real answer is really, really scary and could quickly include tactical nuclear systems. This is largely why naval power has been relegated to where it can easily establish sea control and project/support operations ashore.
So important here to understand which "surprise" I am talking about; surprise for conventional mass.  Like land based full spectrum area defence, the ability for ISR to reliably detect small dispersed infantry, all armed with said smart unmanned, does not currently exist.  Light Infantry, or in the case of Ukraine - hybrid infantry, with smart weapons are the submarines in our naval analogy.  They have the asymmetric capability to still be able to move and fight without being detected easily.  Conventional mass, down to the tactical level cannot.  Why?  Because with a highly illuminated battlefield trying to hide tons of hot steel and the system to keep it "hot" is impossible to hide...even from satellite.  This fact alone may be turning land warfare on its head at a pretty foundational level. 
And no, we did not have "perfect drone cover" in Afghanistan, not even close.  In fact our COIN experiences underline the above reality as well.  In Afghanistan it was very hard, almost impossible to surprise the TB.  They were asymmetric in their ability to hide amongst the people and we were tied to out big lumbering IED-magnets.  The only time we could effectively surprise them was when we 1) got actionable intelligence from locals and 2) used SOF or something fast and light in the dark, or a drone strike/artillery/air.  Our conventional mass was nearly useless.  So yes, ambushes did happen...they happened to us and the insurgents didn't even need drones to do it, they had unconventional anti-mass.
So I already covered why dispersed small units have an advantage but let's unpack the collective area defence argument for a second.  I am not sure what this would look like to be honest, you seem to be pointing at a sort of land borne B17 formation mutual defence cover concept.  Ok, maybe?  I mean it is not a bad idea and may turn us back to mass being able to better defend than dispersed offence can attack.  However, there are several problems with it.  First, is it possible?  I mean we are not just talking missiles, which are bad enough, but ground based systems can cover a suite from direct fires, to minefields that can get up and walk.  I am not sure how one could build a full defensive suite to counter all that, but let's for argument sake say we can but it is only effective when mass is in formation, like the good old days of the Roman testudo.  Well second, is mobility.  Staying together for collective defence will hamper mobility, already does, but it may mean greater restrictions on formation which is going to cause problems.  Third, LOCs.  You would also need that mass all the way back to along your logistical tail, which now needs to be an iron pipe.  This further restricts mobility and flexibility.  Fourth, Cost.  I am getting the sense that to trick out current APS, all one needs do is tinker with a Javelins software, whereas to do what we are talking about with respect to full collective defence is going to cost an enormous amount of money.  In the end, we might wind up with rigid, slow moving and incredibly expensive mass that in the end minor tweaks to the offensive systems could sidestep.
The current manoeuvre warfare theory states that one can move-to-exploit by outpacing/tempo an opponents ability to cover their vulnerabilities and/or exploit you own.  This assumes that we cannot see the entire battlefield when it comes to conventional mass.  The UA is absolutely making effective use of this principle right now but they are doing it by employing "anti-mass" in combination with mass.  So in the future manoeuvre warfare is still going to be a thing but how we do it will likely change.  We will need anti-mass that can attrit the snow globe to the point of collapse and then we move in with conventional mass to finish...this is pretty much what was seen in the NK War, except the Armenians did not have a snow globe to start with.  Essentially our current understanding of manoeuvre warfare will need to shift under this sort of battlefield, particularly if we adopt the wide and powerful area defence systems you are describing.  Those will need to be defeated in order to create the conditions for manoeuvre; we no longer move to exploit vulnerability, we create vulnerability to move.
Again, for conventional mass.  For unconventional/hybrid/anti-mass they are still very hard to detect even in the open.  Terrain will still matter for mass on mobility; however, less so for fires.  We will no longer really have dominating ground as a conventional land formation would have effective ranges well beyond LOS.  Urban terrain is another excellent example.  It is toxic for conventional mass, while anti-mass can thrive in that space. So this builds on the asymmetry theme.
Finally, I am not saying conventional mass is dead as its ability concentrate force will likely be decisive for years to come.  How we generate and employ that mass is looking more and more like it will undergo major revisions.  Will we see anti-mass in layers out in front of mass in some sort of very intense Recon battle?  What does snow-globe war look like?  What vote will defensive systems cast?  If tactical surprise, let alone operational, is dead for conventional mass, that alone is going to mean re-writing great swaths of land warfare doctrine, and frankly I have no idea how far that rabbit hole goes.
Hey I am glad you appear firm in your convictions.  I have been in this business for over three decades and I am frankly freakin out a bit here, which is inexcusable because the signs have been on the wall for awhile now.  I am sure we will go to immense effort to try and ignore/wish away/justify/ what we are seeing in Ukraine right now but the evidence is mounting to an uncomfortable level here.  The inconvenient truth is that the Russians are fighting our fight.  We still think in terms of Battle Groups and TFs sweeping across the field to create shock and paralysis in an opponent.  It worked in '91 and '03, all that COIN stuff was State Dept's fault.  Russian performance in 2014 just underlined that smart mass was the was to go.  NK, reinforced it, all while we missed some obvious implications. 
So here we are with a war where Russia should be crushing a much smaller - dispersed force and is failing gloriously.  We are falling back in "ya but Russians suck" (which definitely has some truth to it) but everyone in the business has to be asking themselves "ya but what if we had to fight the Ukrainians right now?  We have big fat formations with very vulnerable LOCs as well...huh?"
 

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

Well let me start by saying we are all making a lot of assumptions here kinda the biggest hint we are in a disruptive time.  I think you and I are looking at different envisioning of the near-future battlefield and both of us are probably wrong.  However, it is also possible we are both correct, just at different points of time.   To your point above, conventional land warfare combat systems unable to defeat both the ISR and kinetic effects of long range, highly lethal smart unmanned systems is not an assumption it is a fact - one the Russians are living with every long hard day in this war. 
Right now every western (and no doubt eastern) military is having a "huh?" moment.  And they will no doubt suddenly escalate spending in defensive systems to try and re-create a level of symmetry in order to preserve the conventional systems that they have already invested trillions in for defence.  Frankly this is the wrong reason to do this as they should be investing in what will work better in defence but welcome to military procurement strategy.  
Very good point on naval power and an awkward one to be honest.  The last time we had a fleet-v-fleet action outside of a video game was during WW2.  So we really have no idea what that would look like and likely why every modern navy has tried desperately to only face 5 Somalis in a fast boat armed with RPGs as the high water mark of counter-fleet actions.  If a US carrier group were to face off against a Chinese NTG we have no idea how that would actually go down.  Would they be able to "shoot down" with multi-layered systems against hypersonic?  Smart, multi-munitions?  Or simply the weight of missiles one side could put in the air?  Theoretically we want to say "absolutely" because if you think we invest a lot into land systems, all that floating hardware is too "big to fail"; however, the real answer is really, really scary and could quickly include tactical nuclear systems. This is largely why naval power has been relegated to where it can easily establish sea control and project/support operations ashore.
So important here to understand which "surprise" I am talking about; surprise for conventional mass.  Like land based full spectrum area defence, the ability for ISR to reliably detect small dispersed infantry, all armed with said smart unmanned, does not currently exist.  Light Infantry, or in the case of Ukraine - hybrid infantry, with smart weapons are the submarines in our naval analogy.  They have the asymmetric capability to still be able to move and fight without being detected easily.  Conventional mass, down to the tactical level cannot.  Why?  Because with a highly illuminated battlefield trying to hide tons of hot steel and the system to keep it "hot" is impossible to hide...even from satellite.  This fact alone may be turning land warfare on its head at a pretty foundational level. 
And no, we did not have "perfect drone cover" in Afghanistan, not even close.  In fact our COIN experiences underline the above reality as well.  In Afghanistan it was very hard, almost impossible to surprise the TB.  They were asymmetric in their ability to hide amongst the people and we were tied to out big lumbering IED-magnets.  The only time we could effectively surprise them was when we 1) got actionable intelligence from locals and 2) used SOF or something fast and light in the dark, or a drone strike/artillery/air.  Our conventional mass was nearly useless.  So yes, ambushes did happen...they happened to us and the insurgents didn't even need drones to do it, they had unconventional anti-mass.
So I already covered why dispersed small units have an advantage but let's unpack the collective area defence argument for a second.  I am not sure what this would look like to be honest, you seem to be pointing at a sort of land borne B17 formation mutual defence cover concept.  Ok, maybe?  I mean it is not a bad idea and may turn us back to mass being able to better defend than dispersed offence can attack.  However, there are several problems with it.  First, is it possible?  I mean we are not just talking missiles, which are bad enough, but ground based systems can cover a suite from direct fires, to minefields that can get up and walk.  I am not sure how one could build a full defensive suite to counter all that, but let's for argument sake say we can but it is only effective when mass is in formation, like the good old days of the Roman testudo.  Well second, is mobility.  Staying together for collective defence will hamper mobility, already does, but it may mean greater restrictions on formation which is going to cause problems.  Third, LOCs.  You would also need that mass all the way back to along your logistical tail, which now needs to be an iron pipe.  This further restricts mobility and flexibility.  Fourth, Cost.  I am getting the sense that to trick out current APS, all one needs do is tinker with a Javelins software, whereas to do what we are talking about with respect to full collective defence is going to cost an enormous amount of money.  In the end, we might wind up with rigid, slow moving and incredibly expensive mass that in the end minor tweaks to the offensive systems could sidestep.
The current manoeuvre warfare theory states that one can move-to-exploit by outpacing/tempo an opponents ability to cover their vulnerabilities and/or exploit you own.  This assumes that we cannot see the entire battlefield when it comes to conventional mass.  The UA is absolutely making effective use of this principle right now but they are doing it by employing "anti-mass" in combination with mass.  So in the future manoeuvre warfare is still going to be a thing but how we do it will likely change.  We will need anti-mass that can attrit the snow globe to the point of collapse and then we move in with conventional mass to finish...this is pretty much what was seen in the NK War, except the Armenians did not have a snow globe to start with.  Essentially our current understanding of manoeuvre warfare will need to shift under this sort of battlefield, particularly if we adopt the wide and powerful area defence systems you are describing.  Those will need to be defeated in order to create the conditions for manoeuvre; we no longer move to exploit vulnerability, we create vulnerability to move.
Again, for conventional mass.  For unconventional/hybrid/anti-mass they are still very hard to detect even in the open.  Terrain will still matter for mass on mobility; however, less so for fires.  We will no longer really have dominating ground as a conventional land formation would have effective ranges well beyond LOS.  Urban terrain is another excellent example.  It is toxic for conventional mass, while anti-mass can thrive in that space. So this builds on the asymmetry theme.
Finally, I am not saying conventional mass is dead as its ability concentrate force will likely be decisive for years to come.  How we generate and employ that mass is looking more and more like it will undergo major revisions.  Will we see anti-mass in layers out in front of mass in some sort of very intense Recon battle?  What does snow-globe war look like?  What vote will defensive systems cast?  If tactical surprise, let alone operational, is dead for conventional mass, that alone is going to mean re-writing great swaths of land warfare doctrine, and frankly I have no idea how far that rabbit hole goes.
Hey I am glad you appear firm in your convictions.  I have been in this business for over three decades and I am frankly freakin out a bit here, which is inexcusable because the signs have been on the wall for awhile now.  I am sure we will go to immense effort to try and ignore/wish away/justify/ what we are seeing in Ukraine right now but the evidence is mounting to an uncomfortable level here.  The inconvenient truth is that the Russians are fighting our fight.  We still think in terms of Battle Groups and TFs sweeping across the field to create shock and paralysis in an opponent.  It worked in '91 and '03, all that COIN stuff was State Dept's fault.  Russian performance in 2014 just underlined that smart mass was the was to go.  NK, reinforced it, all while we missed some obvious implications. 
So here we are with a war where Russia should be crushing a much smaller - dispersed force and is failing gloriously.  We are falling back in "ya but Russians suck" (which definitely has some truth to it) but everyone in the business has to be asking themselves "ya but what if we had to fight the Ukrainians right now?  We have big fat formations with very vulnerable LOCs as well...huh?"
 

I think this might be one of the key take aways from this war to be honest, the entire loss of an ability to surprise. It may be at the heart of what killed, or at least severely wounded Russian mass.  I think our ability to process all this ISR data may have also caught up with our ability to collect it, or perhaps the UA distributed approach is one way to deal with it.
We have been focusing on ATGMs/UAV strikes but these are just the end of the kill-chain.  What may have crippled the Russian military here is the simple fact that they could not mass without being detected and hit...along with a healthy does of just plain old incompetency.  I am getting a whole "they were ready for the last war" vibe.

If one goes by Barry Watts:
1. danger
2. physical exertion
3. uncertainties and imperfections in the information on which
action in war is based
4. friction in the narrow sense of the resistance within one's own
forces
5. chance events that cannot be readily foreseen
6. physical and political limits to the use of military force
7. unpredictability stemming from interaction with the enemy
8. disconnects between ends and means in war. (i.e. bad strategy)
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA316730.pdf
 
And this does not even count the other deeper sources that Clausewitz missed, such as cultural blind spots, prejudice, progressive unreality in centralized leadership and the list goes on.
All we are really talking about is #3 and I don’t think perfect information is attainable.  What we are talking about is an illuminated battlefield where conventional mass cannot move or stand without being detected at ranges where it can be engaged.
Deception will always be a part of warfare but what viable options and what that looks like will likely dramatically change and the character of land warfare with it.  Spoofing and decoys are an option but “illuminated” means multi-spectral and multi-resolution.  It doesn’t mean trickery is dead but how and what one can do with it will likely narrow dramatically without penetrating the cognitive systems of an opponent.  It is the principle of surprise that is under strain at least as we know it.
I suspect that we will instead see land warfare evolve to prioritize two things as forces meet; Sense war as each side attempts to blind the other and collapse that snow globe, and Projecting friction onto an opponent through any means possible along all of those other possible pressure points above.  Then an attritional phase to strip away shield system and then manoeuvre to defeat a blinded, sticky and vulnerable opponents fighting power.  This is akin to the knife fighting in Frank Herbert’s Dune, fast race to position, then slow and steady attrition, then a fast finish.
 

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

Someone write this down: "March 26th 2022, Slightly cloudy, chance of rain.  Hapless kills all the contemporary theories of war."

I think this might be one of the key take aways from this war to be honest, the entire loss of an ability to surprise. It may be at the heart of what killed, or at least severely wounded Russian mass.  I think our ability to process all this ISR data may have also caught up with our ability to collect it, or perhaps the UA distributed approach is one way to deal with it.
We have been focusing on ATGMs/UAV strikes but these are just the end of the kill-chain.  What may have crippled the Russian military here is the simple fact that they could not mass without being detected and hit...along with a healthy does of just plain old incompetency.  I am getting a whole "they were ready for the last war" vibe.

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

If one goes by Barry Watts:
1. danger
2. physical exertion
3. uncertainties and imperfections in the information on which
action in war is based
4. friction in the narrow sense of the resistance within one's own
forces
5. chance events that cannot be readily foreseen
6. physical and political limits to the use of military force
7. unpredictability stemming from interaction with the enemy
8. disconnects between ends and means in war. (i.e. bad strategy)
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA316730.pdf
 
And this does not even count the other deeper sources that Clausewitz missed, such as cultural blind spots, prejudice, progressive unreality in centralized leadership and the list goes on.
All we are really talking about is #3 and I don’t think perfect information is attainable.  What we are talking about is an illuminated battlefield where conventional mass cannot move or stand without being detected at ranges where it can be engaged.
Deception will always be a part of warfare but what viable options and what that looks like will likely dramatically change and the character of land warfare with it.  Spoofing and decoys are an option but “illuminated” means multi-spectral and multi-resolution.  It doesn’t mean trickery is dead but how and what one can do with it will likely narrow dramatically without penetrating the cognitive systems of an opponent.  It is the principle of surprise that is under strain at least as we know it.
I suspect that we will instead see land warfare evolve to prioritize two things as forces meet; Sense war as each side attempts to blind the other and collapse that snow globe, and Projecting friction onto an opponent through any means possible along all of those other possible pressure points above.  Then an attritional phase to strip away shield system and then manoeuvre to defeat a blinded, sticky and vulnerable opponents fighting power.  This is akin to the knife fighting in Frank Herbert’s Dune, fast race to position, then slow and steady attrition, then a fast finish.
 

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start. 

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start. 

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start. 

So we are not talking about EW, or at least not just EW.  We are talking about an ISR superiority bubble, that if collapses results in a quick ignoble death.  A Sense bubble included data and information superiority.  If everyone has these then
1) surprise is pretty much dead because we are talking decentralized bubbles not a singular big brain one can hit.  You can collapse a Local Bubble but what about the rest?  You might even degrade the operational systems but any given maneuver unit has enough integral capability to create their own bubbles.
2) You have to re-think manoeuvre warfare from the ground up.  The whole thing is predicated on avoiding strength and hitting vulnerabilities, which is pretty hard if an opponent can see you coming miles off.  Further a local Sense bubble collapse also sends a clear signal of effort, which one can also not hide.
3) Mass might be suicidal.  As in Airland battle concentration leading to death does not necessarily flow from air superiority.  By seeing high mass concentration from well back, or even at it is forming means interdiction can come from many vectors.  This plus PGM means NLOS over the horizon massed fires before you even make contact can destroy concentrations of mass.  This indicated land warfare might start to resemble naval warfare but distributed.
And I think this only scratches the surfaces as that Sense bubble has to include a logistics tail or security is impossible.  Honestly I am going to need a bit of time to digest this all, it was Hapless’ mention of snow globes that clicked it. 

Ok, coalesced into a deduction.  It is naval warfare principles on land.  Naval forces already live under these conditions, so how they fight is very different and extremely high stakes.  We are talking a form of naval-like warfare on land.  Very attritional.

Terrain means a lot less, rethink of key terrain and vital ground
Denial and control as transient concepts, not take and hold.
Attritional based on a competition of overwhelming Shield capability
Very long engagement ranges, over the horizon
Power projection and shaping means something quite different, which calls into question decisive land outcomes.
Positioning, not manoeuvre.
These are just for a start. 

Guys,
So beyond the obvious competing narratives out there (nazis, bio-weapons, crisis actors etc) let's remember what this entire thing is, an egregious violation.  There has been no, and I mean zero, casus belli established for this invasion. 
People are pointing to the US invasion of Iraq in '03 in some weird "well two wrongs make it ok to kill thousands of civilians", however, the US did take their case to the UN, they were attacking a strongman dictator who had; invaded a neighbor for "reasons", used massive oppression on his own people, and had even employed chemical weapons against civilians.  So we are not even in the same strategic context here as Ukraine; a free democracy that had not even coming close to behaving like Saddam Hussein.
I have stayed out of a lot of these conspiracy theories floating around but even if the wildest ones are true (which I do not believe for a second) and let's say the Ukrainians were employing a combination of recovered nazi-occult and alien technology to make all Russian bears impotent...in the modern world your first response to that is not rolling in 120 BTGs!!  Worse, you cannot back that up with "well they were gently rolling in 120 BTGs"...no such reality exists.  That much metal + ammo + scared teenagers is never going to equal "gentle violation of sovereignty".
We can play the point-counter point game all day and try to gain political points but all of that is noise around the central and incontrovertible fact that Russia illegally invaded another sovereign European nation in a gross violation of sovereignty and global order...this is not "ok", this will never be "ok".
Finally, I know there are theories floating out there that the Russian Restraint can explain the slowness and stalling on the Russian side.  This is abject nonsense.  It is much, much harder to try and do a soft invasion.  The US military tried in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it nearly impossible to avoid collateral damage and civilian deaths.  I have seen nothing to suggest that Russian ISR and Joint Targeting is so sophisticated and disciplined that they have any idea what they are hitting beyond..."hit there".  This baby hospital thing has been brought up, right sure....how exactly did Russian Joint Targeting know the hospital was empty (which it was not)?  How did Russian C2 know this when they don't even know where most of their own troops are?
So I am going to offer some simple rules that people can chose to adopt or not:
- Precision is hard, incredibly hard.  If your theory depends on greater Russian precision in anyway shape or form stop and think.
- Organization is hard.  If your theory depends on highly organized Russian capability...stop and think.
- Conspiracies are hard, in this day and age nearly impossible.  If your theory is relying on a "big secret"...stop and think.  All western governments leak like a sieve and even the autocratic ones bleed data like a stuck goat.  No government on earth, even NK, has an airtight seal on what information it leaks out.  So if you are relying on a "star chamber" or "black sites"...stop and think.
- If it looks like a Duck, stop calling it a Kitty Cat.  War is incredibly hard so the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.  It is the principle that has actually put this thread and forum out in front.  We have avoided over-analyzing (I know right?!) compared to others chasing some theories.  If Oryx has 297 open source pictures of destroyed/abandoned Russian tanks, well given the UA was outfitted with thousands of next gen ATGMs...it is not a hard squint to see the freakin quacking water fowl.  This is not some photoshop campaign for the ages, the Russians have lost a lot of tanks.  Is it 297, probably not could be more or Orxy might have some double accounting but it is a lot. 
- Assumptions, Factors and Deductions.  All this comes down to Assumptions, Factors (or Facts) and Deductions.  As I tell dead-eyed Majors, "make sure the line between these items is as straight and short as possible".  Make damn sure your Assumptions and Facts stay on speaking terms and then do not under any circumstances let the line between Factors and Deductions turn into a Pollock painting.  War is hard enough, complex enough and weird enough...it does not need your help in any of these areas. 
Go with the god of your choice grognards,  and try and stay out of trouble.
 

So we are not talking about EW, or at least not just EW.  We are talking about an ISR superiority bubble, that if collapses results in a quick ignoble death.  A Sense bubble included data and information superiority.  If everyone has these then
1) surprise is pretty much dead because we are talking decentralized bubbles not a singular big brain one can hit.  You can collapse a Local Bubble but what about the rest?  You might even degrade the operational systems but any given maneuver unit has enough integral capability to create their own bubbles.
2) You have to re-think manoeuvre warfare from the ground up.  The whole thing is predicated on avoiding strength and hitting vulnerabilities, which is pretty hard if an opponent can see you coming miles off.  Further a local Sense bubble collapse also sends a clear signal of effort, which one can also not hide.
3) Mass might be suicidal.  As in Airland battle concentration leading to death does not necessarily flow from air superiority.  By seeing high mass concentration from well back, or even at it is forming means interdiction can come from many vectors.  This plus PGM means NLOS over the horizon massed fires before you even make contact can destroy concentrations of mass.  This indicated land warfare might start to resemble naval warfare but distributed.
And I think this only scratches the surfaces as that Sense bubble has to include a logistics tail or security is impossible.  Honestly I am going to need a bit of time to digest this all, it was Hapless’ mention of snow globes that clicked it.