Ukraine Breaks Out From Under Killer Drones and Reestablishes Maneuver Warfare

Reports began appearing of Ukrainian forces penetrating Russian border defenses on Aug. 6 in the Kursk Oblast. As is usual in fast-moving combat operations, the scale and intent of the operation was unclear, but as of Aug. 15, the operation continued, and it appears to be growing into a larger-scale campaign that is having a significant impact on the entire Ukraine theater of conflict.

It doesn’t seem likely that the Ukrainians have enough mass to continue along Route E38 to the city of Kursk and continue on the route to the next major city of Voronezh, which houses Russian nuclear weapons (close to where Wagner Group fighters passed through on their drive to Moscow in July 2023), but if the Ukrainians keep moving, this would cut off much of the Russian force fighting the Ukraine War from lines of communication with Moscow.

Ukrainian tanks involved in the assault into Russia showed the large “Mad Max” cages that have become common on both sides since the summer of 2023 in the warzone. These bizarre-looking structures are the field-expedient response to the rise of small First Person View (FPV) drones that had effectively shut down any form of movement since the much anticipated Ukrainian Offensive in 2023 that never quite appeared. The FPV drones brought ground maneuver warfare to almost a total halt along the long battle line of Ukraine from the Donbas Region, from along the Dnipro River all the way to the Black Sea. Ukrainians ran low on artillery ammunition and used the FPV drones as a counter to Russian numerical superiority. It worked, but the Russians responded and did the same back to the Ukrainians.

The “Mad Max” cages were hurriedly created by tank crews. The effect of the FPV drones was a multi-month standstill in which it was very dangerous for troops or tanks to be in the open, and drone units operated from bunkers to fly drones across the battlefield looking for anyone daring to step outside.

The tactical, cheap drone on the battlefield in Ukraine was becoming the modern equivalent of World War I’s barbed wire and machine gun.

Length and Goal

Commanders in combat normally seek maneuver as one of the principles of war. In World War I, until tanks, more airplanes, and fresh troops were introduced to allow maneuver, the conflict became a multi-year bloody stalemate.

The Ukraine move into Russia may have started as a simple, small-scale raid for propaganda purposes, but it seems to have, at least temporarily, broken the period of static warfare that descended upon the zone of conflict.

The Russians are not necessarily panicking, but there seem to be some mass surrenders going on—a sign of successful maneuver warfare that caught large numbers of troops by surprise.

Initiative is another principle of conflict—commanders who make decisions based on the chaos and do what is instinctively correct but may not have been part of the original plan.

Possibly, Ukrainian commanders who pushed into Russia realized that they were dealing with a region that had very little structured defense and decided to push further and deeper than originally planned and still met little resistance. This works until a point.

The Ukrainians can themselves possibly become cut off as their logistics and lines of communication become overextended and vulnerable to Russian counterattacks.

But the gathering of greater numbers of Russian prisoners and the holding of some Russian terrain does provide Ukraine with important leverage in conflict negotiations.

Lessons

Taiwan has been lectured endlessly by American national security personalities on its need to become more “prickly” through drones, missiles, and sea mines and spend less on “prestige weapons” such as tanks, ships, and helicopters.

The killer drone model from Ukraine has been repeatedly raised as the correct model. Adm. Samuel Paparo of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has raised the vision of a drone “Hellscape” in the Taiwan Strait, which, like the Ukraine thrust into Russia, mixes operations with information warfare projection.

Taiwan is raising defense spending significantly, and it is now at about 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), but because of the precarious situation, it should seek to double defense spending to 5 percent of GDP within three years.

This more rapid increase in defense spending will allow Taiwan to leverage the lessons of Ukraine and build the pervasive and inexpensive killer drones it needs to degrade a kinetic invasion if it occurs but also have the types of weapons that are visible and may deter conflict from even happening and, if necessary, conduct maneuver warfare to decisively out-maneuver and defeat any opponent bogged down in a drone “Hellscape.”