Working on more than two books at the moment (not sure this is the best idea). Just proofing a chapter in one book on the Russo-Ukrainian War and noted the following paragraph I had written about the war. Is this meaningful dialogue or am I just stepping in it?
It has been claimed by one the authors that “Any war that lasts longer than six weeks becomes a war of attrition.”[1] This appear to be the case with this war. Six weeks of the dynamic maneuver warfare that made this modern military campaign looks vaguely like the revolution in military affairs (RMA) that some theorists had postulated. It had now ended. We now had transitioned into the next stage of the war, which looked much more like the typical day-by-day grind between extended front lines that more defined World War II. Eventually this would devolve down to something that looked more like World War I, leaving the RMA theorists surprisingly silent.[2]
[1] See Battle for Kyiv, page 204.
[2] Having worked in the U.S. defense analytical community for decades, we were all too familiar with the claims of the RMA theorists and their willingness to declare that warfare of the future was going to be nothing like the warfare of the past. As our specialty at The Dupuy Institute was analysis of historical data, this was particularly frustrating as they seemed dismiss the 3,300 years of military history as irrelevant, replaced by their appreciation of new technology and its proposed revolutionary impact on the battlefield. If anything has been established by the now extended war in Ukraine, is that there has not been a revolution in military affairs. New technology is clearly a factor in the war, but it is, shall we say, an evolution in military affairs (EMA) vice an RMA. As the author Jim Storr stated in a conversation in 2023 “Much of the story of the war in Ukraine is a story of old lessons learned again.”
Now, the shop inside the pentagon that supposedly taking the lead on the RMA was OSD Net Assessment, under the leadership of Dr. Andrew Marshall. The Dupuy Institute was contracted to them to evaluate some aspects of the RMA and did a study for this office on “Measuring the Value of Situational Awareness (2004).” This was a study of the combat effects of superior situational awareness based upon a detailed examination of 295 World War II division-level engagements. So at least Andy Marshall (nicknamed “Yoda”) had not dismissed the value of historical analysis and was willing to fund such work. Many of the other RMA theorist did not show such wisdom. Our report on situational awareness is available from The Dupuy Institute and is also summarized in two chapters in the book War by Numbers (2017).
