JRL NEWSWATCH: “How Russia Stopped Ukraine’s Momentum; A Deep Defense Is Hard to Beat” – Foreign Affairs: Stephen Biddle
“… By late spring, the Russians had adopted the kind of deep, prepared defenses that have been very difficult for attackers to break through for more than the last century …. Breakthrough … has long required permissive conditions … now absent in Ukraine: a defender … whose dispositions are shallow, forward, ill prepared, or logistically unsupported or whose troops are unmotivated and unwilling to defend their positions. That was true of Russian forces in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson in 2022. It is no longer the case. … A favorable outcome for Ukraine in a war of attrition is not impossible, but … will require [that they] outlast a numerically superior foe in [potentially] a very long war. … Others trace the problem to a broader military revolution in … new technology … making the battlefield too lethal for successful offensive maneuvers …. [such as with] [d]rones, satellite surveillance, and precision weapons …. Yet all were present for Ukraine’s offensive successes in 2022 as well as its offensive failure in 2023. … Still others emphasize training and strategic decision-making. … Ukraine[‘s] … summer offensive [featured] mostly inexperienced formations [with] just five weeks of Western training …. not enough … to master the complexities of modern battle. Some U.S. officers also believe that the Ukrainian general staff diluted the country’s combat power … across three fronts rather than a single axis … too weak to make headway [on a given front]. … [T]o exploit a permissive enemy properly requires expensive training, equipment, and officer preparation. … The U.S. military has long privileged quality over quantity. … [I]f the lesson of Ukraine’s 2023 offensive, in light of past experience, is that deep and well-prepared defenses remain robust … quality alone may not be enough to ensure … short wars [and] quick decisive breakthroughs …. Quality is necessary for opportunity but may be insufficient in itself for success. …”