Why US War Tactics Are Failing in Ukraine
5 Min Read
According to New York Times, NATO training tactics used in Ukraine's counteroffensive may not be as effective as previously assumed.
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A Ukrainian soldier helps another wounded soldier in the Kharkiv region on September 12, 2022. (AP)
Ukrainian military have assimilated NATO combat tactics into their armed forces, as well as Western weapons, including US-supplied tanks and armored vehicles, more than two months into their summer counteroffensive.
However, according to a story in The New York Times on Wednesday, NATO training may not have been as beneficial as intended.
According to the publication, "Ukraine's army has for now set aside US fighting methods and reverted to tactics it knows best."
Experts told Newsweek that there is one major explanation behind this. NATO countries value integrated armaments or the cooperation of all military components. However, Ukrainian troops require air superiority to succeed with Western and NATO tactics, which they do not have.
Read more: Putin says Ukrainian counteroffensive failed, Ukraine lost 26k troops
According to retired British Army Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who previously commanded UK and NATO chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense forces, "For the Western approach to work effectively, you need all elements, and a key element of that is airpower."
In June, Ukraine claimed its forces were moving along in its counteroffensive but were battling to counter Russian air and artillery power, which was impeding their advances in the east and south.
Ukrainians 'Fighting with one hand tied behind their back'
Bretton-Gordon continued that without aircraft capable of challenging Russia, Ukraine's troops "are fighting with at least one hand tied behind their back."
According to analysts, the NATO battle strategy, which is highly focused on dominating the sky, has only been tested in recent years in theaters where the alliance possessed air supremacy.
Davis Ellison, a strategic analyst with the Hague Center for Security Studies (HCSS), told Newsweek that no NATO forces have come close to what Ukraine is dealing with now facing Russia.
"The NATO way of land warfare has never been seriously tested against a major state adversary, despite decades of investment and training," he remarked.
Paul van Hooft, another analyst from the HCSS, told Newsweek that in the Iraq and Gulf War of 1991, the US and allies quickly achieved air superiority.
Without it, Ukraine's military forces have gone through rapid-fire NATO training to shed Soviet-era doctrine, which is somewhat dissimilar to Moscow's ways. According to Nick Reynolds, a research fellow for ground warfare at the United Kingdom's Royal United Services Institute military think tank, several components of this long-held doctrine are fundamentally different from how Western troops are now instructing Ukraine to fight.
Not only that, but there is a "massive shortage of experienced personnel," he added, and those getting experience frequently do not receive the rigorous tactical training that Western forces receive.
Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Times that the assumption that a few months of training would have Ukrainians fighting like American troops was a problem. Instead, he argues, they should have been helped in order to fight "more the best way they know how."
"It is unsurprising that Ukrainians have given up on some of the Western training as their experience and adaptation under fire trumps Western peacetime concepts," Ellison added.
Bretton-Gordon noted that ideally, Ukrainians would have needed at least a year to learn training styles. In difficult situations, he elaborates, one might "revert to what is "intuitive" rather than what was taught.
Pentagon Press Secretary, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, divulged to the media Tuesday that the US has been training Ukrainians "since 2014," noting that he has confidence in their capabilities and that they would employ them when they needed to.
Ex-CIA analyst: UK excuse of shrubbery for failed counteroff. 'stupid'
Yesterday, Former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Larry Johnson called the UK military's claim that shrubbery was stopping Ukraine's efforts in their counteroffensive operation "stupid," and "ignorant."
Johnson elaborated that the claims the UK was making were "nonsensical - you’ve got to wonder how in the world can alleged professional military people in Britain say something so stupid, so incredibly ignorant that they want to blame it [Ukraine's failed counteroffensive] on summer growth."
Days ago, the UK Defense Ministry attempted to hide Ukraine's publicly well-documented failures on "undergrowth regrowing” in south Ukraine, calling it the reason for the "slow progress of combat."
In July, Bild newspaper reported, citing a confidential German intelligence assessment, that Ukraine's counter-offensive is facing challenges due to poor execution of tactics.
According to Richard Kemp from The Telegraph, Ukraine has had no meaningful breakthrough in its counteroffensive in the last seven weeks, wondering if it will ever succeed.
