Battlefield failure can be the harbinger of defeat, or the beginning of adaptation & intellectual renewal that leads to victory. This is the challenge that faces #Ukraine after President Zelensky accepted that the 2023 counteroffensive failed to meets its objectives. 1/17 🧵 
2/ This was accompanied by the late 2023 paper by General Zaluzhny on Positional Warfare. Unfortunately, too many have equated positional warfare with stalemate. That is unfortunate because they are certainly not the same.
3/ What is Positional Warfare? A 1990 RUSI Journal article examined the concept as part of a wider exploration of the likely forms of war open to European armies in the wake of the Cold War. Their definition of the application of Positional Warfare is worth quoting…
4/ …An army using positional war seeks to maintain cohesion by exploiting ground and fortifications to increase fighting power, whilst limiting the opportunities open to the enemy. It strives to use time to permit the mobilisation of resources & increase attrition of the enemy.
5/ My proposition is that in 2024, #Ukraine should embrace Positional Warfare to deny Russia any major success, bleed them white and to reconstitute and to prepare Ukraine’s physical, intellectual and moral elements of its fighting power for larger scale offensives in 2025.
6/ This would allow Ukraine to focus on five key priorities.
7/ Priority 1 is reconstituting the Ukrainian army. Individual & collective training need to be improved in #Ukraine & #NATO countries so Ukraine can plan & execute offensive operations at scale. The inability to do this was one of the challenges with the 2023 counter offensive.
8/ Another priority is rebuilding Ukrainian & Western defence industrial capacity. While artillery production is a significant issue, producing other elements like drones, precision munitions, air defence missiles & other basic military equipment needs to be stepped up.
9/ A 3rd priority is to rethink strategy. The West's strategy of giving Ukraine just enough to defend itself but not enough to beat Russia must change. It needs to embrace defeating Russia to stop them in #Ukraine, stop other Russian adventures and send a message to Iran & China.
10/ But Ukrainian military strategy needs to change including rethinking military doctrine for modern war. Extant NATO combined arms & air-land doctrine is not fit for purpose. We must undertake an intellectual renewal, and develop new doctrine & organisations for battled.
11/ A 4th priority is to rethink & reinvigorate strategic influence operations. Part of this is the responsibility of the Ukrainians. They were inspiring in using influence operations as part of defending their nation in 2022. They need to use some of these themes again in 2024.
12/ Western nations also need to step up their game. Politicians must better explain to their citizens the purpose of helping Ukraine & why investing in a Ukrainian victory now will ultimately be cheaper – and less bloody – than just limping along as Western governments are now.
13/ This doesn’t mean #Ukraine needs to be passive in 2024. A 5th priority is strategic strikes in Russia, against Russian military operational targets & maritime strikes in the Black Sea as shaping activities for the offensives to come.
14/ Clearly there are political challenges with Ukraine adopting Positional War in 2024. But it should not be seen as passive and it is not an acceptance of an inevitable Russian victory.
15/ It is defensive, but only as a temporary strategy while the Russians are attrited, their drone and missile attacks defeated and the Ukrainians rebuild their strength for a larger and more capable offensive in 2025.
16/ You can listen to my full commentary on this issue in my latest War Shorts commentary at Futura Doctrina. mickryan.substack.com/p/positional-w…
17/ Thank you to the following whose images were used in this thread: @Militarylandnet @DefenceU @combined2forces
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