Mick Ryan, AM Profile picture
Mar 9, 2022 25 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Thirteen days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Today I examine reports that Russia has committed 100% of forces assembled before the invasion, including what it means for their campaign. War, among other things, is also about maths. 1/25 (Image - @ForeignPolicy)
2/25 As always, a shout out to those reporting on the Russian invasion. This includes @KofmanMichael @maxseddon @IAPonomarenko @RALee85 @shashj @DanLamothe @ikhurshudyan @IanPannell @thestudyofwar @siobhan_ogrady among others. Please follow them.
3/25 There is a relationship between resourcing military operations (personnel numbers) and campaign design.
4/25 Campaign design is an important component of military professionalism. Through good campaign design, commanders and their staffs’ sequence and orchestrate tactical goals and actions.
5/25 A vital aspect of campaign design is the prioritization for allocation of forces, logistic support, intelligence, transport, and inter-service collaboration. At least in theory, campaigns should be largely joint rather than service oriented.
6/25 The Russian Campaign in Ukraine should (in theory) also act as the interface between the tactical battle and activities on the ground, and the achievement of Russian strategic end states.
7/25 The Russians, who have previously demonstrated high competence in campaigning and operational art, seem to have forgotten many of its fundamentals in their design and execution of the invasion of Ukraine. Force size and commitment is just part of the evidence for this.
8/25 Today, in his daily Pentagon briefing highlights, @danlamothe reports there has been “no appreciable change in combat power Russia has put in the fight. They are still at nearly 100 percent of the combat forces they had arrayed at the border before the invasion.”
9/25 Most sources agree Russia arrayed up to 190K troops around Ukraine before the invasion. Open sources note that the size of the Russian ground forces sits at 340K (incl paratroops). Therefore, Russian committed around 55% of their total ground forces to Ukraine.
10/25 In comparison, at the peak in November 2007, the US Army and US Marines had 170K soldiers and marines in Iraq. US Army total force size was 519K and US Marines was 184K. This represents around 24% of their total regular force deployed in Iraq. sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R40…
11/25 The size of the Russian deployment means that it has taken a major strategic risk in deploying such a significant percentage of its ground combat power on a single mission. It also means that it probably did not expect to use it.
12/25 This can be traced back to Putin’s flawed strategy, which assumed that the Ukrainians would not resist. And if they did resist, they could be quickly overwhelmed by Russian forces. thehill.com/opinion/intern…
13/25 Committing this percentage of combat power as its first echelon in on a single mission presents a significant strategic challenge for Russia. Responsible military institutions always plan for worst case. If you deploy it, you need to assume you might use it.
14/25 In military operations, casualties & fatigue, as well as equipment losses, wear & tear, will decrease force strength over time. Rotation of forces is necessary for any missions of even medium length duration. Humans can only fight for so long before becoming non-effective.
15/25 Russian also had to adapt its campaign design. The first days saw attempts to use light forces & rapid strikes to achieve objectives, including the capture of Kyiv. It has now changed this to a methodical campaign of attrition. These are logistically expense and complex.
16/25 At the same time, the Ukrainians have the advantages of operating on interior lines. This enables the more rapid redeployment and reinforcement of forces. It also simplifies command and control as well as logistic. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
17/25 The Russians are operating on exterior lines. They seek to advance on multiple axes from different parts of Belarus, Crimea, Russia & Donbas. This is complex, and in war, the more complex a plan is, the more likely it is to run into problems. We have seen these manifest.
18/25 Russia now finds itself in a situation where it has not achieved key military objectives in the north, east & south. It has concurrent offensives in different, disconnected parts of Ukraine. It has committed all the military forces it had for Ukraine on these missions.
19/25 There is little prospect of a quick resolution, so fighting we continue for at least weeks and perhaps months. All of this time will see the Russians and Ukrainians lose more personnel and equipment, which on both sides will be hard to replace.
20/25 The Russians will need to find solutions to this ‘100% committed’ problem soon. There are three key problems that they must solve.
21/25 First, they need a theatre level reserve in the north if they are to complete encirclement of Kyiv & follow-on attack on the city. The size of Russian forces currently in the north is likely to be insufficient for both tasks. They may have to pause other ops to do so.
22/25 Second, the Russians more broadly may need to start planning for more reinforcements and rotating forces. Both humans and equipment need breaks in combat to retain effectiveness over the medium and longer term. And Russian losses have probably been higher than anticipated.
23/25 Third, Russia must look at other military commitments both within & beyond its borders. Does the importance of their strategic goals in Ukraine justify stripping more Russian troops from other missions and garrisons to reinforce a combat weary and degraded force in Ukraine?
24/25 The Russian campaign design for Ukraine is flawed. It sets too many operational objectives for a Russian ground force that is not large enough to secure them. They will seek other methods – more airpower, artillery, rockets – to prevent a stalemate setting in.
25/25 That ends update 13. Russian campaign design, and their ability to achieve campaign outcomes on the ground, has been found wanting. With all their theatre forces committed, the Russians will become increasingly desperate to achieve their aims. Image - @UAWeapons

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Mick Ryan, AM

Mick Ryan, AM Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @WarintheFuture

Jun 26
Ukraine and Russia have learned and adapted at multiple levels since 2022. Over the last couple of years however, the adaptation battle between Ukraine and Russia has metastasized into a global adaptation war. Democracies now confront an ‘authoritarian learning and adaptation bloc’. 1/7Image
2/ For some time, it has been clear that the four major authoritarian regimes – Iran, North Korea, China and Russia – have a shared interest in degrading American influence and destroying the post-WW2 order. This has led to a range of different agreements, leader summits and collaborative relationships between these four nations. It may have begun years ago but has been accelerated since 2022 by the war in Ukraine.
3/ This evolving ‘learning and adaptation bloc’ has resulted in its four key participants sharing battlefield lessons, collaborating in technology development and sanctions evasion, while also sharing and collaborating on methods of coercion, subversion, misinformation and, of course, learning and adapting.
Read 7 tweets
Jun 17
In war, stupidity and intellectual laziness gets punished. So, selection and development of good leaders matters. But, also punished is a suboptimal learning and adaption culture. A special assessment of what Iran should have learned from military conflicts in the past year - and didn't. 1/4Image
2/ To attack Iran, Israel had to first work its way through proxies closer to Israel, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. At some cost, Israel was able to remove these two organisations as consequential threats, which then left Iran as Israel’s key adversary. But Iran, through its lack of learning from how Israel destroyed the Iranian proxy forces around Israel, left itself open to the kind of attack that it is now enduring.
3/ Over the past few days, the Israeli’s have exploited the Iranians inability to systemically learn and adapt from the very obvious and accessible lessons about leadership vulnerability, air defence, and partner reliability presented in the past year.
Read 4 tweets
Jun 14
Operationg Rising Lion is now in its second day. What insights can be gleaned, and what are the key questions about the ongoing Israel-Iran war? 1/8 Image
2/ I think these are the ten key issues, and questions, at the 24 hour mark of the war. I will cover a couple briefly.
- Israel’s decapitation operations.
- The U.S. reaction.
- The battle of narratives.
- Has Iran learned from Russia?
- Have Israel and Ukraine Been Collaborating on Creative Drone Operations?
- Lessons for crewed-uncrewed teaming.
- Reinforcing the need for national air, drone and missile defence.
- How long can Israel sustain operations?
- Impact on Ukraine?
- Who else might exploit this opportunity?
3/ Israel’s decapitation operations. Israel targeted multiple military and scientific leaders in the first wave of attacks. Israel’s decapitation operations. There are short-term and long-term reasons for this. First, the immediate desired impact was to degrade strategic decision-making.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 2
The spectacular Ukrainian attack on multiple airbases today highlights the progress that #Ukraine has made building an effective long-range strike capability since 2022. There are many lessons that western military organisations might take from this. But there are also some insights on this war, and the future of war, as well. 1/5 🇺🇦 🧵Image
2/ The attacks, part of a longer campaign to place cumulative pressure on Russia’s economy, political leaders and war-making capacity, will probably not be a decisive turning point in the war. They will however have a military impact.
3/ Military impacts include a reduction in Russian missile carrying / launching aircraft, a reassessment of the locations of these aircraft, possible changes in the air and drone defences at Russian bases, as well as a nice morale bump for the Ukrainians.
Read 5 tweets
May 29
In the coming months, Russia will execute a series of campaigns in #Ukraine to exploit western political discord and achieve a decisive outcome before the end of 2025. What might this look like and what are Putin's goals? 1/5 (Image: @DefenceU) Image
2/ What is Putin trying to do? Putin has, so far, successfully strung the American president along without any negative impacts. He will try to continue this while watching with glee the corrosive relationship between Trump and Zelenskyy.
3/ Putin will have a series of objectives to achieve by the end of this year including: Image
Read 5 tweets
May 25
I have just published my weekly update on war and global conflict. This week, a focus on Russia unleashing larger aerial assaults on Ukraine's cities and the prospects for a stepped-up Russian offensive in Kharkiv. 1/5 (Image: @maria_avdv) Image
2/ This weekend, we see Putin conform to his worst instincts & unleash large-scale missile & drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. Dozens of Ukrainians have been killed or wounded. His massive attacks on Ukraine over the weekend are indicative of Putin’s mindset now: “Trump has walked away so anything goes.”
3/ Putin hardly possesses a strong set of cards however. Even if he was to agree to some form of ceasefire now, Putin has very little to show from his three-plus years of war. This is why the ground offensive, which will increase in tempo, is so important to Putin. He really needs a decisive outcome from the 2025 offensive.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(