JRL NEWSWATCH: “Lessons from Ukraine; The war in Ukraine shows how technology is changing the battlefield” – The Economist
“But mass still counts, argues Shashank Joshi in the first of seven chapters of a special report on the future of warfare.”
“… [The Russo-Ukrainian War has turned out to feature] old-style attrition: an industrial-scale contest of manpower, steel and explosives. … [with Russian casualties thought to number] over 200,000 … killed and wounded. … four times the … Soviet casualties in Afghanistan …. [Reportedly] more than 20,000 Russians died [just] between December 2022 and April 2023 …. Leaked [late February] American intelligence reports … suggest [Ukraine] … has suffered over 100,000 casualties … including more than 15,000 killed. … [Both armies include] conscripts and volunteers with little or no military experience[] [m]any … Ukraine’s current counter-offensive … [with] just a few weeks of training. … The result is a paradox. Precision warfare can counter some advantages of mass: Ukraine was outnumbered 12 to one north of Kyiv. It can also complement mass. Software-based targeting [reportedly] saves around 15-30% in shells …. But [reportedly] what precision cannot do … is substitute for mass. The idea behind the Soviet reconnaissance-strike complex or America’s rma was to win by paralysing the enemy, not wearing him down. But there seems to be no escape from attrition. …”