Asymmetric Warfare and Defense Strategies

From: jimruttshow8596

The Ukraine-Russia War has provided significant lessons for military strategists worldwide, particularly regarding network warfare, the utility of traditional stockpiles, and the rapidly evolving nature of technology in conflict [01:32:00].

Obsoleting Traditional Military Stockpiles

A primary lesson is that military stockpiles of various equipment are “much less useful than previously assumed” [02:35:00]. This is due to two main factors:

• High Attrition Rate The rate of attrition in drone-intensified warfare is extremely high for traditional equipment like tanks, trucks, and artillery shells [02:51:00]. Artillery has returned in a positional warfare role, demanding “huge quantities of shells” that are nearly impossible to stockpile for future conflicts [03:08:00].
• Rapid Technological Transformation The next war will be waged by an even more transformed technological set of tools, making it difficult to predict what to stockpile [03:17:00]. The rapid evolution of technology, such as Ukraine’s production of 80,000 suicide drones a month, indicates that the “curve is now so steep on the cutting edge” that envisioning future needs is almost impossible [03:42:00] [04:41:00]. There is a tendency for decision-makers to downplay this transformation, possibly due to institutional inertia and established relationships with traditional military contractors whose product lines may become obsolete [04:00:00].

Shift from Offensive to Defensive Dominance

The Ukraine-Russia War has revealed a significant shift from offensive to defensive dominance in warfare [11:17:00].

Historical Context of Offensive vs. Defensive Dominance

Historically, military dominance has swung between offense and defense, often driven by technological innovation [11:19:00].

• Napoleonic Era: Smoothbore muskets (75-yard effective range) favored frontal assaults, making offense dominant [11:37:30].
• US Civil War: The invention of the Minié ball and rifled muskets increased effective range to 200 yards, shifting dominance to defense, where the tactical defensive side almost always won [12:30:00].
• World War I: The machine gun and rapid-fire light artillery made breakthroughs exceedingly difficult on compact fronts, solidifying defensive dominance [14:13:00].
• World War II: A return to mobile warfare occurred with advancements in air-land coordination, radio, and tanks [14:40:00].

Current trends, particularly the widespread use of drones and inexpensive anti-tank weapons, indicate another shift toward defensive dominance [15:26:00]. This means that a country’s military academies may have learned incorrectly from past US examples, where mobile warfare was highly successful against less sophisticated opponents (e.g., Gulf War, Iraq War 2004) [15:36:00]. These successes relied on information warfare and a technological edge, but were fundamentally “20th-century wars” [16:16:00].

The Rise of Drones and Their Impact

The drone warfare in Ukraine showcases an “amazingly rapid evolution” [35:05:00].

• Off-the-shelf Components: Militarily useful drones can be built from civilian electronics components, such as cameras and engines, with explosives attached, requiring only a secure communication line [35:15:15].
• Pilot Skill and Experience: There is a significant difference in skill among drone pilots, who can gain thousands of hours of combat flight experience with almost no personal risk of death [35:45:00]. This allows for the development of highly skilled operators, akin to snipers, who can achieve astounding kill ratios [36:44:00]. Younger individuals with faster response times and higher neuroplasticity may be optimally suited for these roles [37:15:00].
• Evolution of Warfare: The rapid evolution of drone warfare mirrors the development of aviation during World War I, which went from reconnaissance to sophisticated fighter aircraft in just four years [38:19:00]. The “real cutting edge” is now suicide drones, with Ukraine aiming to produce 80,000 per month [39:30:00]. This changes how light infantry and armor combat plays out, as surveillance drones can spot movement, and suicide drones can “swarm them” [40:01:00].
• Obsoleting Manned Air Forces: The relevance of traditional air forces has been “very muted” in the Ukraine war because drones have become the “new Air Force” for reconnaissance and munition delivery [42:08:00]. This poses a significant challenge for countries like the United States, which possess large, expensive, 20th-century manned air forces [42:32:00]. Institutional and bureaucratic pressures from pilot corps resist this shift [43:19:00].

Economic Exchange Ratios

Smart weapons are rapidly changing the economics of asymmetric exchanges [46:06:00]. A $1,000Ukrainiandronecanpotentiallydisablea$2 million Russian tank, creating a “hell of an economic exchange ratio” that is decisive in a long war [46:21:00]. This principle applies to expensive military assets like aircraft carriers (costing $25 billion), which become “big old fat sitting ducks” against even relatively inexpensive missiles [46:43:00].

Battleship Analogy

Aircraft carriers today are analogous to World War II era battleships: massive investments that become too risky to deploy in militarily useful ways, serving mostly as “empty symbols of military strength” for prestige [47:20:00].

Logistics and Industrial Capacity

The Ukraine-Russia War is fundamentally a “war of production” [01:10:39], highlighting the critical importance of industrial capacity and logistics.

• Artillery Production: Both Russia and Ukraine have struggled to meet the demand for artillery shells, relying on imports from countries like North Korea and South Korea, respectively [01:05:16]. This reveals that even large existing stockpiles are insufficient for a prolonged peer-level conflict [01:05:27].
• Domestic Production: Countries now realize they must build their own drones to adapt technology rapidly for combat conditions [01:05:00]. This will lead to the creation of many drone factories and rapid prototyping, potentially resulting in countries like Ukraine becoming top global drone producers [01:05:57].
• Industrial Base: The United States has given away much of its industrial base, making it challenging to sustain a prolonged war [01:11:40]. For example, the US, a global naval power, has “very few dry docks” capable of building modern ships, ranking 23rd in ship tonnage building [01:11:47]. In contrast, China is rapidly expanding its civilian and military shipbuilding capacity [01:12:03].

Challenges of Peer-to-Peer Warfare

The Russia-Ukraine War is considered the first major peer or near-peer level war since World War II [05:13:00], exposing “lazy assumptions” made by stronger powers [05:43:00].

Russian Miscalculations

The Russian miscalculation was attributed to four major factors:

1. Fleeing Leadership: The gamble that Ukraine’s leadership would flee, similar to the Afghan government’s collapse, proved wrong [07:44:00].
2. Overestimation of Mobile Warfare: The belief that 20th-century tank warfare would be effective on the plains of Ukraine was incorrect [09:16:00]. Drones and anti-tank weapons negated the advantages of mobile armor [15:26:00].
3. Ukrainian Preparedness: Since 2014, Ukraine had extensively pursued military training, modern equipment acquisition, and security sweeps to remove Russian sympathizers [17:24:00]. The brutal nature of Russian proxy regimes in Donbas also solidified anti-Russian sentiment even among ethnic Russians in Ukraine [17:51:00].
4. Russian Military Corruption: Western analysts and the Russians themselves greatly underestimated the level of corruption within the Russian military, which led to widespread supply shortages and dysfunction [19:08:00].

• Importance of Reserves: Ukraine rapidly scaled up its active military from 200,000 to 700,000 by July 2022 through a massive reserve force [21:40:00]. This highlights that “having ready reserves that you can deploy within a couple of months may turn out to be really important in peer-to-peer warfare in the future” [23:11:00]. The US military reserve force is surprisingly small in absolute numbers compared to Ukraine’s [22:51:00].
• Re-evaluation of Conscription: The war demonstrates that a professionalized military alone cannot sustain defense in a total war; the capability to institute a wide draft is crucial [25:27:00]. Many countries that abolished mandatory military service in the 1990s and early 2000s may bring it back [25:52:00].

Demographic Considerations in Warfare

The Ukraine-Russia War is unique because both countries have “extremely old” populations, with average ages of 40.5 for Ukraine and 40.7 for Russia [28:32:00]. This is likely the “first war where more 40-year-olds are dying than 18-year-olds” [29:09:00]. This demographic decline affects manpower and may lead to strategic implications for countries with low fertility rates like South Korea [30:26:00]. In a long-term peer-to-peer conflict, “numbers are going to matter” [31:54:00].

Implications for Future Conflicts: The Straits of Taiwan

Lessons from the Ukraine-Russia War offer significant implications for global military conflicts, particularly a potential conflict over the Straits of Taiwan [01:13:01]:

• Sanctions: Countries now understand that sanctions only matter if both China and the US sanction them [01:13:15]. If only sanctioned by the US and its allies, an economy can survive if it maintains ties with China [01:13:23].
• Untested Military: An untested military cannot be relied upon [01:13:55]. China’s military, despite significant spending and good hardware, has not undergone stress tests on a large scale [01:14:49]. Its bureaucracy and logistical capabilities are likely “a mess” [01:15:37].
• Autocratic Regimes’ Resilience: Autocratic countries can rally public opinion for aggressive wars; theories that leaders like Putin would be overthrown by anti-war protests proved incorrect [01:16:35].
• Drone Invasion: The short distance across the Taiwan Strait means that a “truly huge” invasion via electric motor airflight drones, perhaps 300,000 of them, is a plausible scenario that could overwhelm Taiwanese defenses [01:17:41]. Such drones could impose curfews or psychological operations [01:18:09]. This would require a willingness to inflict civilian casualties, which might go against China’s narrative of a “policing action” [01:18:43].
• Amphibious Assault: The lack of significant amphibious warfare in Ukraine, coupled with the observed favor for the defensive, suggests that a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be “really, really, really dangerous” for China due to the magnified challenges [01:21:38] [01:24:52].
• Naval Vulnerability: Ukraine’s success in driving the Russian Navy out of the eastern Black Sea using inexpensive anti-ship missiles (like the Neptune) demonstrates the vulnerability of large surface fleets [01:22:50]. Taiwan could produce thousands of anti-ship missile equivalents for a fraction of its GDP, capable of neutralizing an attacking fleet [01:23:40].
• Autonomous Submersibles: The next scenario for blockading Taiwan might involve autonomous submersible vehicles (like self-deploying mines), which could interdict and blockade the island [01:24:21] [01:25:40].

Autonomous Drones

The progress of truly autonomous drones is expected to be more incremental than many technologists might expect [01:50:11].

• Complexity: Similar to autonomous cars, which faced a “long tail of problems” despite solving 98% of issues, the battlefield is far more complex and less structured than road traffic [01:50:50].
• Data Limitations: There will not be vast datasets of combat encounters for training AI, and the nature of warfare constantly changes, making it difficult to train machine learning algorithms effectively [01:52:10]. Human pilots are expected to remain relevant for a longer time, primarily in a remotely piloted capacity [01:53:11].
• Forcing Function of ECM: The rapid evolution of electronic countermeasures (ECM) that jam communication links (e.g., GPS jamming by Russia) may force a faster development of truly autonomous drones [01:53:41]. If remote piloting becomes too difficult, the premium on autonomous capabilities increases rapidly [01:54:58].
• Acceptance of Casualties: In warfare, the acceptable rate of “friendly fire” or civilian casualties is higher than for civilian applications like self-driving cars [01:55:08]. This means a 99.9% effectiveness rate, which is insufficient for civilian safety, might be acceptable for military applications, accelerating autonomous drone deployment [01:55:12].
• Ground Warfare Autonomy: Autonomous ground vehicles, while facing additional difficulties due to the complexities of ground warfare, could still be used for logistics and supply delivery in dangerous zones where human survivability is low [01:59:56]. The technology for autonomous driving already exists (e.g., Waymo), and companies like Yandex in Russia have similar capabilities [01:00:50]. This could lead to a return of mobile warfare when autonomous tanks roll onto the battlefield [01:00:27].