The Russo-Ukrainian war is often described as a technological revolution and a paradigm shift in the very nature of warfare. Every technological twist and turn on the battlefields of Ukraine is studied by top military officials around the world.
For Ukrainians – from the soldier on the front line hunting down Russians with UAVs of all kinds, to the civilians in Kyiv, Lutsk or Chernivtsi enduring massive overnight attacks by hundreds of strike drones and missiles – these technological shifts also mean they need to be constantly adapting their daily survival strategies.
In a situation of rapid and deadly change, it is crucial to retain the ability to generalise not only on the level of day-to-day survival, but also to adopt a helicopter view – to try to grasp the full scope of the current situation and understand where it is heading on a strategic level.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and now Ukraine’s Ambassador to London, is one of the most knowledgeable and qualified experts in the world, one who is genuinely capable of comprehending the depth of change brought about by this new kind of war and forecasting where this technological war of attrition is taking humanity.
Ukrainska Pravda presents an excerpt from the foreword Zaluzhnyi wrote in autumn 2024 for the book What Will Be Used to Fight World War III? by UP journalist Roman Romaniuk.
Despite having been written some time ago, Zaluzhnyi’s predictions are striking in their eerie accuracy and complete alignment with the harsh new realities both on the front line and deep in the rear.
Technologies of the new war of attrition
…From 1917 up until the early 1970s, there was parity between offensive and defensive technology. This parity meant that successful offensive actions depended on the concentration of efforts or the effective organisation of their application. The only way to ensure that offensive operations were effective during this period was by seeking out better tactical and operational approaches (such as the Blitzkrieg doctrine during World War II) or by physically concentrating a very large number of strike assets and personnel on a very narrow section of the front line.
The situation shifted again in the 1970s when high-precision weapons and guided munitions entered the battlefield. Precision air defence systems, anti-tank guided missiles, and air-to-air, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface cruise missiles completely transformed the paradigm of war once again. With the advent of powerful electronic intelligence systems, aircraft gained the ability to keep the enemy at bay from over 100 km away, and air superiority began to depend on radar power and aircraft profile. A prime example of this is Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf in 1991.
The strategically significant effectiveness of precision weapons was made possible by a revolution in satellite technology – the emergence of remote Earth sensing technologies, the global GPS satellite navigation system, and satellite communications. It was the integration of satellite communications into military command-and-control that enabled the development of situational awareness systems and the C4ISR doctrine. This technological breakthrough pushed combat operations beyond the boundaries of classic 20th-century warfare doctrine. A new principle emerged: inflicting maximum military and material damage on the enemy at minimal cost, both in defence and in offence. At the same time, precision weapon technology did not tip the scales in favour of either offensive or defensive operations, since technically it could be used with equal effectiveness in both.
Precision weapons revealed a new dependency. The effectiveness of warfare became directly tied first and foremost to scientific and technological potential. Yet, just as during World War II, superiority was also determined by the quality of the troops’ training and the level of operational artistry in their deployment.
The Russo-Ukrainian war that began in 2022 started within this historical technological cycle as a war involving the use of precision weaponry. Today, I can confidently state that overall, Ukraine has succeeded in being more effective – primarily due to a higher level of organisation, tactical application, and technological support from partner countries.
Anti-tank guided missiles such as the FGM-148 Javelin, NLAW and Stugna-P became means of destroying armoured vehicles. Man-portable air defence systems like the FIM-92 Stinger and Igla prevented enemy aircraft from entering our airspace. R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles helped destroy the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and the M142 HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system disrupted enemy logistics and contributed to the success of operations from April to November 2022, despite the enemy’s numerical superiority.
By the end of 2022, this historical technological cycle had come to an end, and from 2023 onwards, the war entered a stage resembling the stalemate of World War I. This time the deadlock has been due to at least two technological factors:
- The rapid development of electronic warfare systems, which has blocked the effective use of most guided munitions.
- The battlefield has become saturated with tactical-level reconnaissance and strike drones. This has made movement across the battlefield impossible, thereby making it impossible to achieve operational and even tactical objectives.
Accordingly, based on the logic of technological development on the battlefield and current trends in the defence tech industry, an attempt may be made at forecasting how the technology of war will evolve.
According to the logic previously outlined, the first thing we can expect in the next two years is the undeniable restoration of the parity between offence and defence, which will once again enable effective offensive operations to be conducted on the battlefield.
This will likely become possible thanks to the following trends that our experts have identified:
- The impact of electronic warfare (EW) on intelligence assets and high-precision weapons is expected to be mitigated by a shift to alternative communication and data transmission channels that operate outside the radio-electronic spectrum of electromagnetic waves. These may include optical navigation channels, odometry based on digital maps of magnetic or radar fields of the Earth’s surface, autonomous guidance using neural networks, laser communication technologies and so on.
The development of equipment to destroy EW systems will also play a role. This will not eliminate EW from the battlefield, but it will significantly narrow its range of effective applications. - The emergence of capabilities for the physical destruction of the enemy’s visual reconnaissance assets, particularly unmanned aerial systems at the operational and tactical levels, as well as stationary optical surveillance systems. This will be enabled by interceptor drones of all types, as well as laser technologies capable of blinding optical sensors.
- Most importantly, once precision strike systems – primarily attack drones of all types – are scaled up and made more cheaply, with an extended range and increased autonomy, it will become possible to remotely wipe out enemy personnel and destroy weapons and military equipment at strongholds along the front line, and to disrupt supply chains and ensure effective logistical blockades. This will enable forces not only to drive the enemy out of defensive areas, but also to subsequently take control of positions that are in effect already abandoned.
Of course, once the technological parity between offence and defence is restored, it will be theoretically possible – as previous historical technological cycles have demonstrated – for the two sides to regain the ability to conduct effective offensive operations at the operational and strategic levels by concentrating assets and personnel. However, I believe that such a development currently appears problematic and unlikely for the following reasons:
- Mobilisation potential. Offensive actions require substantial mobilisation resources and reserves, and clearly neither Ukraine nor Russia can rely on this in either the short or the long term. Moreover, the demographic situation in both countries is set to worsen further, approaching catastrophic levels in direct proportion to the duration of the war. In all likelihood, human resources will become unreplenishable – and consequently extremely expensive.
- Economic and material constraints. Offensive operations in conditions of parity would necessitate building up and concentrating assets and personnel in significantly greater volumes than are required to maintain defensive positions. This in turn would demand substantial economic resources and stockpiles of material and technical supplies – as well as human resources that cannot be quickly replenished.
Both Ukraine and Russia will likely face mounting economic difficulties that will limit their ability to build up and concentrate the potential needed for classical offensive operations at the operational and strategic levels as we traditionally understand them.
At the same time, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies continue to develop at a rapid pace. This progress will result in even greater precision in target engagement and an increased ability to inflict heavier losses using fewer resources. For the first time in history, precision strike systems are becoming not only widespread and affordable, but cheaper than conventional munitions – and possibly entirely immune to electronic warfare.
Furthermore, it is possible that for the first time ever, human involvement will be fully or partially removed not only from the process of control, but also from decision-making about target engagement. Poor Sun Tzu will not witness this. After all, the principles he laid down remain valid only as long as wars are run by human beings.
In other words, the revolution in military technology based on unmanned systems and artificial intelligence will primarily offer unprecedented tools for the destruction of the enemy’s military-economic potential by targeting strategic military and civilian infrastructure right across the country. Large-scale attacks by autonomous swarms of cheap precision drones using entirely new navigation channels will destroy not only frontline personnel, weapons and military equipment, but also the enemy’s critical economic and social infrastructure.
Thus, it can be concluded that the development of technology, along with the demographic and economic situation in the coming years, is likely to favour a war of attrition. The positions held by both sides along the line of contact will increasingly serve to maintain the overall paradigm of attritional warfare and sustain tension domestically.
In contrast, what will increase is the capacity for the large-scale and effective destruction of the enemy’s economic potential and essential services. Taken together with Russia’s ability to conduct effective information war operations, this leads us to the assumption that the war may shift towards the remote dismantling of a nation’s capacity to resist.
This would entail an escalation in the intensity of attacks on infrastructure, energy systems, transport hubs and other key elements of state governance and essential services. Information operations will continue in parallel, against the backdrop of unfounded expectations. As a result, war strategy will focus not so much on capturing territory as on depleting the enemy’s resources and capabilities, creating chaos and ultimately eroding the nation’s capacity to resist.
Whether we like it or not, in 2023 the global development of military technologies entered a new cycle, triggered by the Russo-Ukrainian war, which has rendered the previous paradigm of applying known technological solutions completely obsolete.
In all likelihood the military technological revolution now underway is creating the ideal conditions for this type of warfare – war of attrition. In my view, this conclusion provides an understanding of the main – perhaps the only – viable strategy for victory for Ukraine in the future. It will mean not only focusing on the front line, but also building a system of national "resilience" and developing asymmetric capabilities based on technological solutions.
Of course, all this will only be possible with absolute control of the situation on the battlefield and effective counteraction of information threats. The key to our victory is not just resilience, but decisive and timely responses.
A completely new kind of war lies ahead of us. A war governed by new rules. But we have already shown what we are capable of, even in this new kind of war. Ahead of us lies the development of a fundamentally new doctrine of modern warfare. And it is on the battlefields of the Russo-Ukrainian war that this doctrine is now being shaped.
I fully agree with Dr Sean McFate: "Half of winning is knowing what it looks like… Brains are more important than brute force."
Valerii Zaluzhnyi
Translation: Anastasiia Yankina, Anna Kybukevych
Editing: Teresa Pearce