Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recently wrote in the Economist that the war against Russia had entered a stalemate in which neither side currently seems capable of a strategic breakthrough. His comments came after five months of heavy fighting, during which the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve significant territorial gains. Reasons for the lack of progress include the Russians’ formidable system of layered defenses, willingness to take high losses in lives and materiel, and fierce local counterattacks. Ukraine’s initially uncoordinated and poorly executed attacks, as well as some delays in the delivery of Western weapons and limits to the amounts and types of arms given to Ukraine, surely played a role as well.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recently wrote in the Economist that the war against Russia had entered a stalemate in which neither side currently seems capable of a strategic breakthrough. His comments came after five months of heavy fighting, during which the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive failed to achieve significant territorial gains. Reasons for the lack of progress include the Russians’ formidable system of layered defenses, willingness to take high losses in lives and materiel, and fierce local counterattacks. Ukraine’s initially uncoordinated and poorly executed attacks, as well as some delays in the delivery of Western weapons and limits to the amounts and types of arms given to Ukraine, surely played a role as well.
Some analysts, however, argue that the Ukrainian advance has been stopped by something much more fundamental than minefields and trenches: the changing character of warfare itself.
The advent of pervasive surveillance, these observers argue, has created a newly transparent battlefield. Ubiquitous drones and other technologies make it possible to track, in real time, any troop movements by either side, making it all but impossible to hide massing forces and concentrations of armored vehicles from the enemy. That same surveillance then makes sure that forces, once detected, are immediately hit by barrages of artillery rounds, missiles, and suicide drones. Sustaining any attempt at a breakthrough has become a most difficult proposition.
In other words: If the enemy can see everything on and behind the front lines, including units and even individual troops moving in the rear, the classic ground attack made up of massed armored formations is dead. In the age-old race in military tactics between hiding and detection, the latter appears to have won—at least until the next wave of technology shifts the balance again.
As much truth as there is in this line of argument, however, as a sweeping generalization, it falls far short. Even in a drone-covered, 21st-century battlefield, there are still various ways to advance, as both Ukrainians and Russians are discovering. Based on my observations on a recent research trip to Ukraine, the battlefield is less transparent than technology enthusiasts make it out to be. Along the front line, so-called bite and hold infiltration tactics—smaller-scale, incremental attacks by infantry supported by artillery strikes—are still taking place. The transparent battlefield has significantly shrunk the window of opportunity for such attacks to succeed, but it has not closed the window entirely.
There are various ways to reduce or even deny the enemy the ability to conduct real-time tracking. To stay hidden as long as possible from the enemy eyes puts a focus on dispersal and concealment—which often means going underground to evade visual observation, a tactic that Hamas has mastered to perfection in the Gaza Strip.
But staying hidden also has to do with simple environmental factors that have influenced success and failure on the battlefield throughout military history, such as terrain, time of day, and weather conditions. Indeed, a major takeaway from my last trip is that the pervasive presence of new technologies on the battlefield makes individual soldierly virtues—intense discipline, synchronization, physical fitness, and a deep understanding of the terrain and environment—even more important than in the past.
To take a first example: On a more transparent battlefield, the time of day one chooses to attack has become critical again. Most Ukrainian attacks occur pre-dawn or late in the evening, under the cover of darkness. The reason is simple. Without sufficient light, it is much more difficult for Russian drone operators to spot attackers. Although drones with infrared cameras can see in the dark and are widely used, they are costlier than ordinary drones—and therefore far fewer in number than simple daytime drones, creating gaps in coverage along the front that can be exploited.
Based on my observations, the Ukrainians usually attack Russian trenches in assault groups of roughly 10 to 16 soldiers. These troops are dropped right into the enemy’s trench network by two or three infantry fighting vehicles or armored personnel carriers, supported by two or more main battle tanks. Once the Ukrainian soldiers are in the Russian trench system, the armored vehicles retire.
If the soldiers take the trenches in a dawn attack, they will then need to hold them against counterattacks until nighttime, when they can either move again or receive reinforcements. The cycle of day and night thus dictates the operational pace in ways that modern military doctrine and training don’t always emphasize. These types of operations not only require extreme discipline and focus from individual soldiers and their commanders, but also physical fitness.
Second, the nature of the physical terrain can make or break an attack. For example, first-person view (FPV) drones armed with explosives can be more effectively deployed from high ground, since they require line-of-sight communications with the ground station. Otherwise, there could be a loss of communication and even loss of the drone.
From lower ground, however, FPV drones usually requires additional communication relay drones to effectively strike at distance. This puts the force on lower ground at a disadvantage, since it increases staffing and equipment needs for every attack and introduces a source of friction. Even drone pilots need a rest; additionally, the more often you use a drone, the higher the chance that you will lose it. In a war of attrition, the side with higher staffing and equipment requirements for individual operations is at a long-run disadvantage.
Third, weather conditions achieve a new importance. Once again, the reason is straightforward: Many drones cannot operate in conditions of high wind, heavy rain, or subzero temperatures. On a sunny, somewhat windy day at the front with comparatively good drone coverage, I observed repeated artillery strikes until groups of Russian soldiers were hit, with the time span from detection by drone ranging from about 30 seconds to several minutes. During a cloudy day with heavier winds and some rain, there were fewer drones in the air, resulting in less surveillance coverage and a lower rate of artillery fire. In a conflict as dominated by artillery as the Russia-Ukraine war, poor weather may therefore offer opportunities to the side that can more quickly exploit reduced drone coverage.
That does not mean, however, that winter conditions necessarily favor an attack. Reduced drone coverage due to snow, rain, and cold may offer opportunities to maneuver. But this potential advantage will be offset by the difficulties in ground movement due to muddy ground or snow. While frozen ground makes it easier to maneuver, bare trees in the winter offer fewer opportunities for concealment. At the end of the day, the side whose troops are better prepared to deal with freezing temperatures and inclement weather will have an advantage.
Beyond daylight, terrain, and weather, there are other factors that make the battlefield in Ukraine less transparent than some commentators think. These include the use of jammers and other electronic warfare technologies that block or reduce the other side’s ability to detect soldiers and vehicles. Right now, Ukraine and Russia are waging an ongoing technological adaptation battle. Both sides increasingly rely on small jammers installed on vehicles or next to trench lines to create protective umbrellas over their positions, which may cause attacking FPV drones to deviate from their course and crash.
Even more than the physical factors described above, the fight over the electromagnetic spectrum will be decisive in raising or reducing battlefield transparency for one side, with all its consequences for the future character of warfare in Ukraine and elsewhere. Currently, it seems that Russia still holds an advantage in jammers and other electronic warfare, in terms of both numbers and quality of the systems deployed.
Despite the apparent stalemate, the battlefield in Ukraine still presents various opportunities for breakthroughs and other successful advances if they are well coordinated and can exploit environmental factors such as darkness, bad weather, and the physical terrain. The new conventional wisdom that ever-present swarms of drones have made it almost impossible to attack and achieve success therefore needs to be qualified.
It may well be true that the massed armor attacks taught by the NATO training books will be extremely difficult on a more transparent battlefield, but the idea that pervasive surveillance has put an end to decisive offensive operations is incomplete at best.
The timing and synchronization of military operations, when factoring in the environmental conditions of the battlefield, creates windows of opportunity to escape surveillance. While seizing these windows of opportunity may not immediately lead to decisive outcomes, it can help set the conditions for future larger-scale assaults and ultimately contribute to breaking the deadlock.
To say that larger-scale attacks are a thing of the past and that the deadlock will define future warfighting in Ukraine—and perhaps elsewhere—is certainly premature.
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