The infographic above does a gorgeous job of making plain Russia’s sometimes difficult-to-quantify hybrid warfare against Ukraine.
Over at Jane’s, Reuben F Johnson uses that chart and some cold analysis to determine that Russia’s newfangled operational art “is working” to keep Ukraine destabilized:
Overall, the Ukrainian military continues to be severely disadvantaged by not being equipped with a list of the items that are becoming well known to those watching the current situation in eastern Ukraine: secure communications systems; anti-tank guided weapons with tandem warheads; counter-battery radars; UAVs for both reconnaissance and strike missions; and the ability to stream multiple intelligence sources into centralised command centres to get inside the ‘decision loop’ of the Russian-backed forces.
As I’ve noted before, the beauty of Putin’s warmaking is that he can dial it up or down on the X or Y axis virtually at will, which serves to keep NATO divided and confused, while giving himself a working combination of political cover and military gain.
This is the Operational Art of War brought fully into the 21st Century, allowing a much weaker actor (Russia) to leverage its few strengths against a much stronger potential opponent (NATO) to get what he wants (Ukraine) without a full-scale war.
This is what President Look At Me Looking At Me derided with “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion.” But we know who is really living in the 21st Century and who is stuck in the past.
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