Great Power contentions

[Montmorency]

A measure that can boost Ukraine's potential without compromising combat capabilities should involve the training of ~500 NCOs and mobilized officers in the US, in a 6-7 month program similar to the US TBS and OIC courses. This will help to prepare platoon and company commanders.

There is indeed plenty of ground-based recon going on in the war, but it's not a specialized role most of the time as we're seeing. Though it does have a specialized operational structure by Soviet/post-Soviet doctrine, so maybe it's more precise to say that while there are some dedicated recon elements, anyone can be expected to carry out accountable recon activities. We see a lot of ad hoc squad-level recon by fire among both sides. Squad and platoon-level UAS capacity is usually crowdsourced and not supplied by regulation, so if you don't have a drone, there's no choice but to hoof it. There is a heavy reliance on SOF for more complex recon missions, or those that venture through the grey zone into enemy-controlled territory, which shouldn't be that dissimilar to US doctrine. (I think the Ukrainian trainee above was most critical however of a mindset that prioritized doing everything analog and by muscle, so to speak.)

There could be reasons for the US not to universalize ground recon operations in this way, given the much higher level of both professional training and specialization, and greater availability of large, high-echelon recon drones. I'm definitely not familiar with the current discourse. But even the point about the difficulty of drones with forests only goes so far, since we know consumer drones have been used extensively in the Serebryanka Forest, the Svyati Hori national park area along the Siversky Donets River west of Kreminna that's been contested for almost a year. Videos aren't hard to find, such as this longer one of a Russian drone team guiding infantry through the woods in real-time*. Thermals help a lot too. (In a truly dense forest or jungle, only light or airmobile infantry can really work anyway; we may even recall Vietnam.)

As you indicate, it can be profitable to emphasize organic tactical drone capabilities among infantry while retaining a more focused, specialized element for appropriate circumstances. Just like mobile firepower (e.g. tanks) in the immediate area is more responsive than air support, giving a squad visibility on their immediate area is more responsive than liasing with battalion or brigade HQ. Establishing organic drone platoons/companies at all levels, or special army or theater-level drone units that are assigned on a task basis are also approaches that have been observed.

What's clear with respect to Ukraine IMO is that to the extent Ukrainian soldiers are being given abbreviated courses of individualized training as opposed to comprehensive and prolonged generation of large units, it's inappropriate to insert US doctrine that is contrary to the day-to-day practices on the real battlefield and is too inefficient to supplant them. It wastes precious training time.

And to be cliche, every war is different and there will be good lessons to be discerned both toward general best practices as well as contextual adaptations. Moreover, every country has different circumstances, so there may be some sound lessons that the US, as opposed to other countries, could ignore in favor of emphasizing others (e.g. maybe for sake of argument massive EW and countermeasures could compensate for lack of tactical UAS).


But some lessons are still inevitable:

Boxer, a toy that costs almost 30 million dollars. It will still die to an ATGM, an FPV drone, and will be immobilized by a mine.

Planners in the West must understand that wonder weapons only work against weak opponents, where enemies have limited capabilities.

If the NATO country takes part in the big war, they will end up with 2 armored brigades (6000 people) and 200000 infantry on trucks.

What the war in Ukraine has shown is that scale matters. Paying 80% more for a 20% efficiency upgrade only works on paper.

Have you heard about the new British ASRAAM-mounting Supacat? Seemingly in a few months they jerry-rigged trucks with ASRAAMs, and their double-digit range counters helicopters well, perhaps being better in range and pop-up availability than Buks with Sea Sparrow. I bet designing a new mid-range SAM platform from scratch - albeit with better specs overall - would cost several billion dollars in R&D, take 5-10 years to reach serial production, and then contract for $10+ million a unit. This is just the kind of frugality and improvisation we need more of.


*It's been commented a lot that ubiquitous drone technology will push advanced militaries back towards centralization and micromanagement of tactics, maybe not at the staff level but up through the lieutenant-colonel or equivalent. The availability of real-time information will reactivate those managerial impulses in the command element, so the argument goes, and though it may be effective in some cases (e.g. Wagner's MO), it can also undermine mission-oriented tactics at the lowest level. Not a high-level example, but one that comes to mind is one of the more famous Ukrainian emplaced defense videos, in which a squad commander frequently receives updates over his radio, like "Hostiles inbound 11 o'clock", "Do this", "Do that", "Throw a grenade", "Reposition"... How do you interpret this trend? The revival of "network-centric warfare?" The videogamization of command?