Western armies are learning a lot from the war in Ukraine

Submission Statement

Warfare is a continuous learning process, both for the parties to the conflict, and for those merely observing. This article provides a summary of western perceptions on takeaways from the war in Ukraine. Specifically, it finds the keys to the modern battlefield are ever-better sensors and shooters. Dispersion and concealment are the best means of protection, but these come with logistical and organizational constraints. I would add a fifth lesson to those stated here: the importance of information operations to successful mobilization and morale. Steven Kotkin in particular loves to point out that Ukraine is effectively being governed by a TV production company, to enormously successful results. Western governments have been slower to adapt, but have also managed to pick up a touch of flair themselves.

This article is the seventh in a series by the Economist focused on lessons learned from the Ukraine war. The articles are written for a layman audience, but even dedicated watchers can derive value from the interviews and novel information sprinkled throughout. I plan on posting them in sequence here, and the full set of 7 articles can be found here.

Shashank Joshi is The Economist‘s defence editor. Prior to joining The Economist in 2018, he served as Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Research Associate at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Programme.

Western armies are busily identifying what lessons they can find from Ukraine. Every two weeks the British army collects data from the battlefield and from Wiesbaden in Germany, a hub for supporting Ukraine. A “Russia-Ukraine Insights Hub” led by Rear Admiral Andrew Betton has written a highly classified 70-page report. “It’s reinforcing some age-old lessons,” says the rear admiral. “Resilience is one of the core strands that comes out of our work: the resilience of your military, the resilience of your industrial base, but fundamentally the resilience of your society.”

First, the modern battlefield can be an unsparing place. Modern sensors can see things with unprecedented fidelity. Modern munitions can hit them with unprecedented precision. Artificial intelligence, whether on board a drone or in a corps hq, fuelled by torrents of data, can identify and prioritise targets with unprecedented speed and subtlety. But Western armies are not optimised to master these technologies. America’s years-long procurement cycle is “fine for tanks or helicopters”, says T.J. Holland of America’s XVIII Corps, but “too slow to keep up with the pace of cyber”.

Second, armies that want to survive must disperse, hide and keep on the move. Camouflage and deception are back in vogue. Headquarters must shrink in size, frequently change location and mask their radio emissions. “I haven’t met a soldier who hasn’t learned something from our Ukrainian partners,” says Major-General Chris Barry, director of the British Army’s land-warfare centre. “The way they dig their positions…it drives [our] standards up.” One official notes that Ukrainian troops, having learned the hard way to minimise electronic signatures, do not switch their mobile phones on even in the English countryside.

Third, technology is pushing firepower and intelligence further down the chain of command. A platoon with access to Ukraine’s Delta app, loitering munitions and Starlink terminals can see and strike targets that would once have been the preserve of higher echelons. “This journey of combining arms is getting lower and lower,” says General Barry, pointing to Russia’s failure to seize an airfield north of Kyiv on the war’s first day. “The defining act at Hostomel, the destruction of the first aircraft that really unpicked the Russian assault, was probably done by an individual with a phone, a Stinger [missile] and a drone.”

This has many implications. It will complicate logistics: how do you push food, ammo and medical care to a larger number of smaller units that are increasingly spread out? It will change recruitment and training: soldiers need more initiative, technical knowledge and skill. It is also an opportunity. Armies once had to concentrate forces in one place to achieve mass. Now they can deliver the same effect in a decentralised way. The US Marine Corps, which is pushing precision weapons down to squads of 13 people, is reorganising itself on these principles.

There is a fourth lesson, too. Technology can make war more efficient. But if both sides have the technology, even a highly efficient war is likely to involve enormous costs in blood, metal and treasure. Armies without the size and depth to absorb losses and remain viable on the battlefield may find that no amount of digital wizardry or tactical nous can save them