JRL NEWSWATCH: “The War That Defied Expectations; What Ukraine Revealed About Military Power” – Foreign Affairs/ Phillips O’Brien
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“Ukraine fought back with determination and smarts … halting Moscow’s advances and … driving Russian troops back from roughly half of the territory they seized in the last year and a half. As a result, Ukraine’s military looks far more powerful and Russia’s looks far weaker than virtually everyone expected. … [T]he entire shape of the war is very different from what experts imagined. Rather than the fast-moving conflict led by phalanxes of armored vehicles, supported by Russia’s advanced piloted aircraft, that the analytical community imagined, the invasion was chaotic and slow. There has never been a quick armored breakthrough by the Russians and only one by the Ukrainians …. [A]lmost all of the war’s gains have come gradually and at great expense. The conflict has been defined not by fighter jets and tanks but by artillery, drones, and even World War I–style trenches. … The war in Ukraine has been a learning experience for the Ukrainian military, which has had to study how to operate new weapons systems in rapid order. It has, to a lesser extent, also been a learning experience for Russia, which is figuring out how best to fortify its positions. But it should be a learning experience for defense analysts as well. The conflict shows that many variables determine whether complex military systems function properly, and that the odds of failure are very high. …”