Russia has built heavily fortified defenses along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, honed its electronic weapons to reduce Ukraine’s edge in combat drones, and turned heavy bombs from its massive Cold-War-era arsenal into precision-guided gliding munitions capable of striking targets without putting its warplanes at risk. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills. As long as that remains so, as long as the weapons keep flowing from the west and not so much from the east, the Ukrainians have a chance.Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv’s forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. (Whether the Army’s generals always act on those lessons is another matter.) Less formally, just about every fighting unit that succeeds on the battlefield-organized armies, ragtag militias, and everything in between-does so, in part, because they adjust to conditions on the ground they learn lessons about what’s working and what isn’t.īut not so much the Russians.
Army has a Lessons Learned Command, which studies recent battles and issues reports on how they might have been fought better. The idea of an army as a “learning organization” has taken hold in several countries that have been fighting wars over the past couple decades. Military officers absorb these lessons-which encourage caution, not creativity. In a sense, then, the top-down structure of the Russian military reflects the top-down structure of Russian politics-a feature intensified by the climate sown by President Vladimir Putin, in which even the slightest criticism or questioning can get your rank demoted, your assets seized, or your body thrown out a window. Republican Cowardice Is Creating a Mess for the U.S. Some Friendly Advice to Kenneth Chesebro on Pleading Guilty and Cooperating Against Trump The Supreme Court’s Fake Praying Coach Case Just Got Faker
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