The Ukraine-Russian war has become a grinding mess. One reason is that this year, in contrast to most years, winter never really came. The result was only a two-to-three week window in which offensive operations could succeed due to the rivers of mud encountered at any other time when a unit strayed off paved roads. Then, for a couple of weeks in June, the Ukranians launched their vaunted “counter-offensive” against what may have been the most fortified defensive lines in history. The predictable – and predicted – result has been the annihilation of attacking Ukranian forces before even getting through minefields to the first Russian line of defense. More grinding mess.
However, in addition to the weather during the winter and the tactical stupidity during the summer, there appears to be another factor. The failure of air supremacy.
The recent “wars” fought by the US against far less technologically advanced enemies in Iraq et. al. were conducted on the premise that, after a few days, the US would achieve complete air supremacy, which it in fact did. Air supremacy, as opposed to mere “air superiority”, exists when you have (a) neutralized all enemy aircraft and offensive missiles, (b) neutralized virtually all air defense systems, and (3) eliminated any enemy ability to conduct airborne reconnaisance, whether from drones or satellite systems (neither of which these hapless third world nations had anyways). At that point, you can use your air assets – aircraft, missiles, and drones – to destroy any enemy that moves on the ground (by definition at that point the enemy has nothing moving in the air and no ability to interdict your aircraft from the ground). In addition, and importantly, it means that the enemy is unable to observe your ground force movement from the air, since the enemy has no more air assets, while you can observe almost anything the enemy does via drones, observation planes, and satellites. Meanwhile your own forces can move almost at will, since all they have opposing them is air-harrassed enemy ground forces and no enemy air forces or missiles or air observation. At this point, as might seem obvious, a Wehrmacht-style blitzkrieg form of war was not only possible but highly favored. This gave observers in those earlier wars the misleading impression that modern technology favored the offense.
However, what happens when neither side achieves overall air supremacy sufficient for offensive operations? What happens when each side has satellite communications and information, each side has drones for observation and attack – drone swarms, in fact – even worse if each side still possesses some residual offensive missiles.[3]
The answer up till now: Ukraine.
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