The War for Ukraine – Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire. By Mick Ryan. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2024.
Reviewed by Tim Coyle
In December 2021 the RIA state news agency reported President Vladimir Putin as saying, in a documentary film ‘Russia’s New History’, that the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘…was a disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union’. ‘We turned into a completely different country, and what had been built up over 1,000 years was largely lost.’
Twenty-five million Russian people in newly independent countries suddenly found themselves cut off from Russia, part of what he called ‘a major humanitarian tragedy’. Critics at the time predicted his foreign policy would henceforth be directed to a form of recreation of the Soviet Union, fundamental to which was Ukraine.
Ukraine, and more specifically, Kyiv, was the genesis of the Rus tribes – the core civilisation of the Russian, Belarussian and Ukrainian peoples. As such, Kyiv was regarded as the ‘mother of Rus cities’ by the 12thcentury. Kyiv still holds a spiritual significance which many, including Putin, insist is an integral part of Russia and has no right to exist as an independent state.
In 1954, the Soviet Union Presidium transferred the Crimea from the Russian Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to commemorate the tercentenary of the Russian/Ukrainian Union. Post the breakup of the Soviet Union relations between the newly emergent Russian Federation and independent Ukraine continued largely as before until internal Ukrainian agitation against Russian influence, and the desire for a closer association with Europe gave rise to the Russian time-worn phobia of Western, and more particularly, NATO encirclement.
The 2014 ‘referendum’ for the return of Crimea to Russia was based on this fear and the claim that, as the populations of Crimea and the Donbas were Russian speakers, those eastern territories should be returned to Russian sovereignty.
Given this historical background it might be surmised that the 2022 Russian invasion and subsequent war is a ‘hot war’ continuation of the 1946 to 1991 Cold War. Russia, under Putin, is claiming Ukraine as Russian, based on his interpretation of Russian history, and, at the same time, claiming Russia is again under threat from NATO.
In The War for Ukraine; Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire, retired Australian Army major-general Mick Ryan provides a forensic analysis of the war from its beginning in February 2022 to the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023.
Since his retirement from the Australian Army, Ryan has established himself as a foremost analyst at the strategic and operational levels of war. He travels and lectures internationally and his blog is a valuable commentary of, not only the Ukraine war, but other active and potential conflicts. His previously published writings include War Transformed; The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict and White Sun War; The Campaign for Taiwan; the latter a fictionalised account of a People’s Liberation Army invasion (both works have been reviewed in these columns).
Ryan’s core principles are those in the book’s title: Strategy and Adaptation’. Part One: Strategy examines both protagonists’ strategic aims. For Russia, it the subjugation of Ukraine under its rule, and for Ukraine the expulsion of Russian forces and a return to the 2014 statis quo ante. Ryan looks at Russia’s Strategic Foundation for Ukraine. The dismal miscalculation in the initial February 2022 invasion was the result of the expected immediate collapse of the Ukrainian government. Ryan demonstrates the weaknesses displayed by the Russian army, on which billions had been expended, to create a post-Soviet volunteer force but with stultified command structures reporting to a dictatorial system of government. Ukraine’s response, buttressed by Western arms transfers and personnel training, has shown itself to be resilient and flexible. Not least in Ukraine’s strategy is its rapid indigenous development of unmanned combat systems. Foreign observers have marvelled at the short time scales in fielding innovative combat systems many of which are fabricated from commercial sources.
Ryan develops his Strategy analysis to how Ukraine has struck at Russia’s bumbling early incursions while formulating a victory plan. Ukraine’s heavy reliance on Western support requires a study on US and wider NATO strategy; this having evolved from timidity to a gradual increase in the level of sophistication and lethality. However, this is by no means a settled strategy, as Zelenski continually urges further relaxation of weapons operational employment restrictions – progressively denied for fear of ‘escalating’ the conflict with Russia. While Ukrainian strategy is fundamentally sound, Russia’s is decidedly ad hoc, based on the traditional ‘meat grinder’ troop employment and overwhelming artillery and missile bombardment with the singular aim of pounding Ukraine into submission. This is largely driven by Putin’s interpretation of Mother Russia’s historical wholeness which he wants reconstituted as his legacy. His enlisting of Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church, to deify the sacred mission adds an element of a holy war mystique which has parallels in Russian history.
In Part Two, Ryan turns to his other major theme of Adaptation. Both sides have adapted technically, operationally and tactically; Ukraine much more quickly than Russia. Neither of the two armies are the same as they were in February 2022; Ryan assesses they undergo some form of change every few months.
Ryan discusses adaptation as a battle – to innovate and trial in peacetime before ultimate testing in combat; it is a core component of military effectiveness. Ryan gives examples of failed adaptations and provides guidance on Learning for the Future: Others Are Also Observing and Adapting (a prime example of which is China’s People’s Liberation Army intensive study of western military organisations’ strategy, equipment and operational campaigns and preparedness since the 1991 Gulf War).
Ryan examines The Power Vertical; Foundations of Russian Adaptation in Ukraine through experiences in recent Russian incursions in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia and Ukraine 2014. The Russian propensity for centralised control (a Soviet characteristic), force design deficiencies, and disconnections between theory and practice all culminate in impeding adaptive capacity.
A significant, although lesser mentioned, Russian military characteristic is ‘dedovshchina’; a holdover from the vast Soviet conscript armies which encouraged brutality. This involved second year conscripts inflicting routine hazing on first years, thereby instilling a fear of authority. Senior ranks fear operational failure and rarely report it as a vindictive higher command structure will fire/demote perceived ineffective commanders in the field.
In the Chapter ‘Dysfunctional Warfare; Russian Adaptation in Ukraine’, Ryan states: ‘While the performance of Russian forces in Ukraine has at times been professionally awful, it has still demonstrated learning at the unit and higher levels during the war’. He follows with a Chapter, ‘Not Idiots’, which furthers the examination of how the Russian command and support environment have transitioned from initial incompetence. The performance of the Red Army in the Second World War (‘The Great Patriotic War to the Russians’) illustrated these characteristics on a vast scale. Under Stalin’s fearsome dictatorship, most of the Red Army’s commanders were liquidated in the show trials of the late 1930s. In the first stage of the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939, the Finns initially imposed severe loses on the Red Army, only to be defeated following Red Army reorganisation. However, Operation Barbarossa of May 1941 saw a repeat disaster at the hands of the German Wehrmacht which pushed the Red Army back to the gates of Moscow. Stalin’s refusal to accept warnings from the military staff exemplified the Russian dictatorial characteristic exercised for centuries through Tsardom and continued into the Soviet era.
The Soviet Union was victorious in the east through harnessing of the population with industrial production moved eastwards to enable the manufacture of vast quantities of armaments. The battles at Stalingrad and Kursk (assisted by ‘General Winter’ and collapsed German logistics), saw defeat for the Wehrmacht. The Red Army forged west to take Berlin and to this day Russia celebrates ‘Den Pobeda’ – Victory Day – on 09 May. (General Winter also defeated Napoleon’s Grand Armee before the gates of Moscow in 1812).
Turning to Ukraine, Ryan reviews the transformation of the Ukrainian army in chapters entitled Ukrainian Post 2014 Reforms and The Asymmetric Horizon. These chapters detail how Ukraine adopted a baseline for wartime adaptation, transitioned to a NATO-style military and integrated air defences. Ukraine’s indigenous unmanned platform developments have stunned traditional military forces, mainly by use of commercially available sensors and platforms and their rapid introduction into service. This is in stark contrast with the ponderous equipment acquisition processes of most Western militaries. This is a result of Ukraine’s existential threat and the immediacy of its requirements; a scenario the West has not experienced since World War 2.
Ukrainian Tactical Adaptation is covered in a further chapter featuring autonomous systems to shorten the detection to destruction time interval, and command and control digitisation.
From the foregoing chapters, Ryan applies his arguments to a wider analysis applicable to emerging contemporary warfare. In Adapting for Future War, Ryan offers five Observations:
- Military institutions must establish learning cultures before wars;
- Adaptation and Innovation are not the same as enhancing effectiveness;
- Building military effectiveness through adaptation is not just about technology;
- Adaptation processes need to close the interval between new technologies and new modes of employment; and
- The lethality versus dispersion adaptation battle continues.
In the Conclusion, Ryan sees Ukraine as the Pattern for Future Warfare. While many commentators have viewed the Russo-Ukraine war as having elements of World War One, Ryan claims Ukraine is changing the Character of War. Some examples are Meshed Civil-Military Intelligence (unprecedented release by intelligence agencies of their analyses and the ready availability of open-source intelligence through commercial satellite imagery, Strategic Influence Operations and Autonomy and Counter-Autonomy.
Many wars have been fought since 1945 but only the Korean and the Falklands wars have been state-on-state (arguably Vietnam as well). Lessons learnt from the Falklands War were largely maritime and most have been forgotten. In The War for Ukraine, Mick Ryan has exposed ‘old-fashioned’ territorial war to modern exigencies. He has masterfully advanced Strategy and Adaptation as the two overarching fundamentals of not only the war for Ukraine, but for future clashes, most notably in the Indo-Pacific region. He has also shown that Strategy and Adaptation have always been a feature of war.
At time of writing there are many imponderables. These include the outcome of the US presidential election and the question of indefinite on-going support to Ukraine by the US and Europe. The emergence of far-right political movements in Europe add to future uncertainty. History has shown Russia is a formidable monolith. Though reduced in power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it still harbours immense reserves in a vast country ruled by a dictator. Fear and subjection have been constant throughout Russian history, and these traits are as powerful today as ever. The Soviet Union’s collapse was sudden and unpredicted; the same may occur in Russia through an internal ‘bolt from the blue’; however, commentators have not seen any such indication. Despite Ukraine’s superior strategy and adaptation its military manpower, civil population and national infrastructure continue to suffer losses which may become unsustainable.
The War for Ukraine is written from the standpoint of a generational shift in warfighting, while retaining age-old principles. Despite quantum technological advances, the human factor remains predominant of which Strategy and Adaptation are paramount. Mick Ryan’s strategic, operational and academic background, exhibited in this book, places him at the apex of contemporary military thinkers of this generation.
.
