Asymmetrical Warfare

Never Give Your Enemy the Battle He Wants

Funeral for a Ukrainian soldier, early days.

I've been thinking about the American Revolution recently, and how the English soldiers - and particularly their officers - were incensed that the Americans would not fight like proper soldiers, lined up in a field or pasture, facing an opposing line from the other side, firing off a volley or two of musket fire, and then charging with fixed bayonets. Instead, the Americans hid behind trees and stone walls, and sniped at the English as they marched in a column down a charming New England dirt road in the equally charming New England countryside. And then melted away. 

Pretty much what the locals did to the Americans in the Vietnam war. 

Welcome to asymmetrical warfare. Here's a simple rule - never give your enemy the battle he wants. 

I think this is what is happening in Ukraine right now, and I think the media, as well as the Russians, simply don't understand what is going on, or how the dynamic of this war is going to play out. 

Because I think they're making the famous mistake of expecting to fight the last war - or maybe the last war they won. 

Everyone seems to be waiting for Kursk, the mammoth battle in 1943 that took place between the Russians and the Germans, killed simply fabulous numbers of soldiers - mostly Russian, but also great gobs of Germans - and essentially broke the Germans, who never recovered the initiative. It was the largest tank battle in history, and it took place near the Russian city of Kursk, which is not terribly far from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. 

Kursk is not going to happen in Ukraine. What will happen? I don't know. But I have some ideas.

The Russians want to replicate Kursk, fighting mainly with tanks and cannon. Their infantry sucks. Look for the Ukrainians to fight with infantry, probably at night, and probably in small groups. 

A lot of people, including me, were wondering why the Ukrainians held on so long in Severdonetsk. But, at the very least, they spent their time learning how to fight the Russians at night. Apparently the Ukrainians had night-vision goggles, and the Russians did not. But knowing your advantage in the abstract, and knowing how to use it, when lives are at stake, are two different things. 

The value of a tank on the battlefield has declined dramatically with the development of shoulder-fired antitank missiles, such as the Javelin, which proved very effective against the Russian columns advancing on Kyiv early in the war.

And then there are the drones, often bought at craft stores and MacGyvered to carry explosives over enemy lines and release them at opportune times.

And of course there are the missiles from the United States, which allow the Ukrainians to attack Russian supply depots and headquarters far behind the front lines. And also things like bridges.

Ukraine appears to have launched a major counteroffensive around Kherson. People still seem to be looking for battalions of tanks charging across fields of sunflowers.

I think the real action will not be on the "front line." I think forces will move forward to occupy "front line" positions that the Russians are no longer capable of defending, or have perhaps abandoned, because of activity in their rear that deprives them of food, fuel, ammunition, reinforcements, and contact with their headquarters.

The real infantry fighting, I think, will take place well behind Russian lines, attacking supply depots, military airfields, military headquarters, and choke points on supply lines. These would be bridges.  

I think the Russians have made a major mistake by putting gobs of troops into the Kherson area, on the wrong side of a river where the bridges are being pummeled by the Ukrainians. If those troops get cut off - and it seems like we're pretty close to that - you can look for long columns of Russian prisoners marching out to prisoner of war camps further inside Ukraine, where they will sit out the war. And possibly count themselves lucky to be out of a war where their commanders are such blithering idiots.

See also A Lesson From the Berlin Wall.