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19 September 2024

The Kursk Offensive: How Ukraine’s Operational-Level Guerrilla Warfare Is Bringing Maneuver Back

Robert G. Rose

Last year, I argued that Ukraine was correct in pursuing an attritional approach against Russia. I had not foreseen, as Russian General Valery Gerasimov also apparently had not, Ukraine’s General Oleksandr Syrskyi launching the surprise Kursk offensive and opening a new front in the war. Without having to face the prepared, continuous, defense in depth that characterized the Russian positions on the war’s increasingly static front lines, Syrskyi created a new context, which has allowed Ukraine to pursue maneuver as an operational approach.

Bringing back maneuver may be the most important aspect of the Kursk offensive. Many writers have already discussed the strategic-level implications of the offensive—changing the narrative of the war, embarrassing Vladimir Putin, or providing Ukraine with bargaining chips in negotiations. But by finding an alternative to having to break through prepared Russian defenses, this offensive could fundamentally change Ukraine’s approach to fighting. By launching surprise offensives across the thinly defended border, Ukraine can pursue operational-level guerrilla warfare to support an overall strategy of exhaustion.

These terms—attrition and maneuver, along with exhaustion and annihilation—are often muddled, but if properly understood, they can offer clarity about the war in Ukraine and its shifting operational contexts. Hans Delbrück explained that a strategy of exhaustion seeks to wear down an enemy across military, political, and economic fronts until they lose the will to continue a war. He contrasted it with a strategy of annihilation, which tries to concentrate a country’s power into a single, decisive victory. While exhaustion and annihilation are best seen as opposing strategies, maneuver and attrition are best seen as differing approaches to employing military forces at the operational level of war.

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