RAJ SHUKLA
It all began in February 2022 as an attempted surgical occupation of Ukrainian cities by Russian armed forces, considered the world’s fifth largest in terms of personnel. But that dissolved into a grinding back and forth of infantry-tank assaults punctuated with massive artillery, missile and drone strikes.
Over the past one year, the most striking feature has been Ukrainian creativity in weaving smart technological prowess into trench warfare skills to evolve a unique brand of military resilience that has helped liberate 54 per cent of the territories that the Russians had seized since February 24, 2022. The conflict has thrown up a host of valuable lessons in statecraft and warfighting, for our collective reflection. I list seven here.
Need Modern But Tenacious Army
One: the conflict has breached the long standing norm against territorial conquest. In consequence, the instrument of force has returned decisively to the centre of the power calculus. Two distinct conflict dyads seem to be emerging : one in Europe, the other in the Indo – Pacific.
Given the ballooning strategic uncertainties around India, the surest guarantor for peace in the coming decades, will be a modern, joint, calibrated, technologically enabled, ready, instrument of force : each one word descriptor, indicative of deep military capacities that take decades to create. Comprehensive and wide-angled resourcing of the military is therefore critical. Crafting a war winning instrument in the highest state of combat readiness, should be a priority for Indian statecraft to focus on.
Two: Many paradigms regarding the “character of war” have been upended. Most notable amongst them being that all-out wars are a thing of the past and that modern conflicts will be sharp and swift. The abiding lesson from the conflict for militaries worldwide, is to focus on wide spectrum preparedness, arduous slogs and long haul industrial sustainment.
Comprehensive techno-strategic competitiveness, grey zone proficiencies, traditional warfighting, industrial era prowess, digital combat and nuclear capacities are all equally salient. Even as the Indian military pursues technological sophistry, it must not be at the cost of the fundamental tenets of combat - that is the central lesson from Ukraine.
Nukes Command Respect, Fear
Three: the conflict also tells us that nuclear capacities as the ultimate backstop and guarantor in national security does matter. The fact that Russia boasts of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal (4,447 warheads) has been a significant factor in limiting the arc of US and NATO defence planning.
The Chinese nuclear posture is growing in size, precision and sophistication – it has two distinct orientations in the form of a strategic nuclear force and a theatre (tactical) nuclear force – its targeting of India, both, in terms of counter value and counter force dispositions, is precise and focussed.
The Chinese FOBS (Fractional Orbital Bombardment System) has introduced the possibility of an additional hypersonic, nuclear vector through space. It may be wise therefore, to revisit the conceptual metrics of our nuclear posture as also the modernisation of our nuclear triad, to ensure that our nuclear deterrence does not seem fragile in moments of grave crises.
India’s Precision Munition Challenge
The fourth aspect is the game changing role of precision strike regimes / long range fires also merits deeper analysis. Precision has been the dominant theme through the conflict. The defining role of the HIMARs or even the precise targeting of critical Ukrainian infrastructure by the Russians has demonstrated the distinct role of precision in modern combat.
In India, our ordnance factories are these ammunition behemoths with little capacity to manufacture smart and precise munitions of the future – they need to transform comprehensively in thought, form and structure. The marriage of explosives with micro-electronics is the enduring technological challenge of our times. The critical role of long range fires is also instructive.
The momentum of Ukrainian frontline operations has often been stymied due to Ukrainian inability to secure its depth areas through the threat of retaliatory long range strikes in kind - of Russian cities and infrastructure. The Indian military needs to revisit the mechanics of its operational posture/deployment along our Northern borders – the need to fight distributed and dispersed to thwart the might of the PLA’s Rocket Force, as also its own options in terms of retaliatory strikes.
A sophisticated ecosystem of precisionary and long range strike, with distinctive counter value and counter force capacities, is the need of the hour.
Limits To Russian Airpower
The fifth lesson is the underwhelming performance of Russian airpower despite an overwhelming superiority in numbers across aircraft types, merits deeper analysis, especially since our own IAF operates a fleet, largely of Russian origin. Traditionally, air forces use their precision strike capacities to take out mobile AD systems and leverage the space so created to establish air superiority over the wider battle space with unguided munitions. This strategy has not quite worked. Given the sophisticated A2AD (anti-access and air denial) Wall in the Chinese Western Theatre Command, penetration of the same by the IAF is a challenge that we need to revisit.
Additionally, the great democratisation of capacities in space, air and intelligence are severely challenging the ability of conventional air forces to operate with the same freedoms as in the past. Given the significant contribution of unmanned systems like the Bayrakhtars and Switchblades in impacting combat outcomes, we may consider the embrace of hybrid air fleets (manned and unmanned) to enhance our combat prowess in aerial combat.
Age Of Algorithmic Warfare
Sixth and perhaps most significantly, the salience of digital combat / algorithmic warfare has been proven. It turns out that the formidable Russian military machine has come a cropper on account of a severe deficit in chips and allied microelectronics. As many as 27 Russian military systems (from tactical radios to kill chains to high end missiles) and 450 micro components have been subjected to Western sanctions, leading to declining levels of Russian combat effectiveness on the battlefield.
Data, algorithms and the miniaturisation of combat power have emerged as the new engines of war. Coders wedded to Infantry Battalions have proved to be as critical as ammunition stockpiles. Private sector competencies, in both, capacity building and warfighting have also come to the fore with great vividity.
Private Sector Heft: From Elon Musk’s Starlink Terminals (off grid, high bandwidth, internet access that links low flying satellites with day-to-day combat operations) to the Microsoft Cyber Threat Identification Centres to the Palantir Algorithm that is powering intelligence fusion, battlefield management and devastating kill chains, the private sector’s influence is ubiquitous and game changing. These electronic kill chains were extremely useful during the liberation of Kherson, Izium and Kharkiv .
What makes these systems truly revolutionary however, is the ability to aggregate data from commercial vendors as well. Using a Palantir tool called Meta Constellation, the Ukraine military can see what commercial data offers about a given battle space. A wide array, from optical pictures to synthetic aperture radar that can see through clouds, to thermal imagery that can detect artillery or missile fire, myriad sources have been leveraged to upgrade combat operations qualitatively.
In Kherson, for example, Palantir drew on imagery from some 306 commercial satellites, focused to an accuracy of 3.3 metres. The final link in the system is the meshing of broadband connectivity provided from overhead by Starlink’s array of roughly 2,500 satellites in low-earth orbit, enabling Ukrainian soldiers to upload intelligence or download targeting information using handheld tablets. A secure chat system, called “eVorog,” has allowed civilians to provide 453,000 reports of military value, since the war started ; a 200-strong “Army of Commercial Drones” is being used for air reconnaissance and targeting .
A battlefield mapping system called “Delta” that provides actual data in real time, completes the digital combat loop. Logistics problems which once took months to resolve, are now resolved in seconds courtesy the algorithm. A key lesson from Ukraine is this : innovation, enterprise and entrepreneurial skills associated with private sector/startups lend to modern armies the critical edge that could define the victor and the vanquished.
Generalship: Seventh and last, a glaring deficit in the Russian campaign has been the visible lack of generalship – in terms of imagination, creativity, critical thinking and the inability to speak truth to power, the latter leading often to tactical reality colliding with strategic expectations.
The Indian military will do well to consider the aforestated points and take measures as deemed appropriate.
No comments:
Post a Comment