Thread by @WarintheFuture

Recently, comparisons with the WW1 stalemates on the western front from 1915 have been used by some observers of the war in #Ukraine. It makes for good headlines but there is one problem; it just isn’t true. 1/22 smh.com.au/world/europe/n…

2/ At the beginning of 1915, the war on the Western Front had reached a stalemate. There were technical, strategic and doctrinal reasons for this. The machine gun changed tactics and killed soldiers by the thousands, as did more accurate and concentrated artillery.

3/ Poor communications hampered the coordination of the different elements of the massive armies. A lack of protected mobility meant that even when a breach was made in enemy lines, the enemy could more quickly fill the gap than the attacker could exploit it.

4/ The dictionary defines stalemate as a “deadlock, draw, impasse…a situation in which neither side in an argument or contest can win or in which no progress is possible.”

5/ Therefore, a stalemate in war implies a situation of geographic, economic, military and intellectual stasis. This is not the case in #Ukraine. Both sides in the conflict, and their supporters, have an enormous range of tactical and strategic options available to them in 2023.

6/ What we are seeing instead is the normal ebb and flow of a long war being fought by well-resourced countries with external sources of support.

7/ After the initial burst of activity where each side seeks large, hard blows against the adversary to hopefully compel them to concede quickly, most wars settle into a cycle of pulses and pauses.

8/ The most recent pulse, with the successful Ukrainian offensives in #Kharkiv and #Kherson, saw huge amounts of territory returned to Ukraine through the courage and innovation of its military forces, and the military, intelligence and technical support of the West.

9/ These offensives provided a boost to the morale of the Ukrainian people. They also reinforced that the Ukrainians are very capable of defeating the Russians.

10/ Importantly, these offensives also resulted in a lower tempo of operations. Humans, even well motivated ones, need a break from operations to reflect, reinforce and relax before the fighting begins again. This is the low ebb of the cycle of war that we are seeing right now.

11/ It is a long way from a stalemate. There is a huge amount of activity being conducted even in this low tempo phase. Most of it remains invisible to the layman because it is not as exciting to report or because it is hidden by operational security and the normal fog of war.

12/ The Battle of Bakhmut-Soledaar is draining away lives. The Russian Army and the Wagner Group have competed to hurl tens of thousands of Russian soldiers against Ukrainian defensive lines which have been developed and improved since 2014. bbc.com/news/world-eur…

13/ The towns of #Bakhmut & #Soledar have little strategic importance beyond their propaganda value for a Russian Army that has no victories for some time. Yet the fighting there is a bitter as any in this war and is resulting in mass casualties that few armies can sustain.

14/ To the north, the Ukrainian Army presses on with its methodical advance towards the Kreminna-Svatove-Starbil’s’k triangle. Unlike the battle to the south, this offensive will have important strategic outcomes if the Ukrainians succeed.

15/ If Ukraine secures this critical triangle of cities, the Russian position in Luhansk is probably untenable, and its forces in Donetsk will be forced into a dilemma about how to orientate their troops.

16/ There is much more occurring that we don’t see directly. Tactical reconnaissance on the ground, in cyber space and in the air is occurring across the entire front, seeking weaknesses to exploit in the offensives to come in 2023.

17/ The strategic fight rages unabated, with the Russians continuing their deliberate targeting of Ukranian civilians and infrastructure. At the same time, both #Ukraine and Russia continue to be energetic in the conduct of information operations in their own nations and beyond.

18/ So, while we may not be witnessing the rapid advances of late 2022, there is still much activity going on in #Ukraine.

19/ More importantly, both sides retain the military, economic and intellectual potential to innovate and act in creative ways to win battles and drain the resources of their adversary.

20/ By no means are the main belligerents or their supporters yet in a position where “neither side in an argument or contest can win or in which no progress is possible.”

21/ We may be in a lower tempo phase in this war, but this is a long way from a stalemate. End. smh.com.au/world/europe/n…

22/ Thank you to the following whose images and links were used in this thread: @IAPonomarenko @DefenceU @TDF_UA @POLITICOEurope @smh @TheStudyofWar @criticalthreats @BBCNews @War_Mapper @AWMemorial