Introduction

In its third year since the 2022 invasion, the Russo-Ukrainian War shows few clear signs of abating. What many assumed would be a short, decisive war has become a test of endurance and adaptation. The U.S. Army is studying the conflict as it “continuously transforms” for large-scale combat operations (LSCO).¹

Building on AUSA Spotlight 23-1, The Russia-Ukraine War One Year In: Implications for the U.S. Army,² this paper analyzes the war through three interconnected lenses: protracted conflict, the dynamic character of warfare and military transformation. These lenses focus on trends in the Russo-Ukrainian War relevant to U.S. Army transformation for protracted LSCO.

The paper provides one or more observations that discuss critical features of the Russo-Ukrainian War for each lens (Figure 1).

Each observation is linked with one or more implication(s). Implications suggest actions that the U.S. Army, DoD and Congress can take to close gaps in the U.S. ability to deter or prevail in LSCO (Figure 2). These implications identify the significance of land power trends and challenges as the U.S. joint force transforms to remain effective across regions and against various potential adversaries. Some implications discuss how observations from Ukraine could be relevant to war with China in the Indo-Pacific, DoD’s priority theater.

Protracted Conflict

Neither political nor military leaders typically seek to launch protracted, attritional wars, but they still occur. The U.S. joint force would attempt to avoid fighting such a conflict, but its readiness to prevail in one may make its occurrence less likely.

Observation 1: Though many onlookers in February 2022 believed the Russo-Ukrainian War would be short and sharp, it has become a phased, multiyear and protracted conflict.

That the Russo-Ukrainian War would last multiple years was not evident in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin (and many outside observers) misjudged his military’s balance of power, anticipating a short, decisive war in Russia’s favor. Instead, the conflict has become an attritional contest of political wills and of the strength and depth of industrial capacity.

Implication 1.1: The U.S. Army and the joint force should strengthen deterrence by preparing to wage protracted, large-scale conflict.

Predictions of quick, decisive outcomes in war are often overly-optimistic. DoD must apply this insight from Ukraine as it considers possible future demands on U.S. forces, particularly in a potential U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan, given its prominence in U.S. security. Though the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could conduct a range of operations, including a naval blockade or the seizure of a smaller Taiwanese territory, the possibility of China attempting to take Taiwan’s main island receives significant attention due to its potential to spark a war between the United States and China. Many analysts posit that such a conflict would be short and decided quickly, with either a Chinese fait accompli or a successful U.S. and coalition defense of Taiwan.

Analyst Andrew Krepinevich has argued that the potential for a protracted conventional conflict is underappreciated.³ Like Moscow’s 2022 failed attempt to deal Ukraine a decisive blow by taking Kyiv, an initial PLA operation to capture Taiwan could fail. The high political stakes for Chinese policymakers could incentivize a decision to continue fighting despite such a failure. Krepinevich contends that the United States and China—in an attempt to avoid nuclear escalation—would be pushed to fight a conventional war of attrition and exhaustion for months or even longer.

A Taiwan conflict could trigger significant horizontal escalation. Fighting may not be contained to the Taiwan Strait and could extend throughout the Indo-Pacific. Furthermore, should the United States become engaged in a large-scale conflict in the region, Russia, Iran or North Korea (whose interests have increasingly converged around the Russo-Ukrainian War) could see an opening for opportunistic aggression.⁴ The United States could become directly involved in conflicts in multiple regions or be required to conduct LSCO in one region while supporting its allies in another. A multi-regional conflict would be unlikely to terminate quickly or to see minimal involvement of land forces, as is often assumed when considering the Indo-Pacific.

Adversaries who perceive that the United States and its partners are unprepared for the demands of a lengthy conflict may be more willing to risk aggression. They may calculate that, even if they fail to achieve their goals initially, they can prevail through their ability to mobilize and their willingness to sustain high casualties.

Observation 2: As the war has lengthened, the race between Russia and Ukraine (and their external supporters) for industrial base scalability, adaptability and resilience has become increasingly important.

The Ukraine conflict has become a contest of which combatant (and their external supporters) can mobilize their defense industrial potential. After failing to prepare for a protracted confrontation, Russia is now on a war footing, with defense spending accounting for nearly one-third of its federal budget in 2024.⁵ Moscow is increasing the production of critical military hardware by more than twofold and has advantages in equipment production, including tanks, rocket launchers, artillery and missiles.⁶ Kyiv has mobilized its industry, but it is at a disadvantage due to Moscow’s asymmetric ability to strike infrastructure throughout all of Ukraine. In addition, Ukraine did not possess a comparable DIB when the war began.

External supporters have played a significant role. Russia has received materiel support from Iran—which has delivered thousands of drones (often referred to as unmanned aerial systems, or UAS) and signed an agreement to produce them in Russia.⁷ Additionally, North Korea has reportedly sent more artillery ammunition (though of questionable quality) to Russia than all of the European Union combined has delivered to Ukraine.⁸

Although limited, the U.S. and Western nations have made efforts to remedy their defense industrial shortcomings in order to aid Ukraine. The U.S. Army’s 155mm artillery ammunition production is one area of significant progress. As of October 2023, the Army was producing about 28,000 155mm artillery shells per month — doubling its capacity of 14,000 per month in 2022. The service plans to increase production to 60,000 shells per month by October 2024 and up to 100,000 per month in 2025 (Figure 3).⁹

This progress has been insufficient to meet Ukraine’s needs. Ukraine’s Western supporters have mainly relied on delivering munitions from national stockpiles and international markets instead of new production. According to an analysis by the Royal United Services Institute, Ukraine requires about 2.4 million rounds of ammunition in 2024 to achieve localized artillery superiority. Its Western partners may only meet half of that need.¹¹

Implication 2.1: Congress should consider increasing the use of multiyear procurement to ensure a sustained and robust demand signal for the DIB.

U.S. economic strength and industrial capacity directly underpin deterrence. Deterrence may be more credible if the U.S. government continues shifting from “just-in-time” procurement to accepting targeted risk in the defense sector. As Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, said, “If larger stockpiles are a way to mitigate risk for an extended conventional conflict, then that needs to be looked at.”¹²

The U.S. Army’s progress in increasing the production of 155mm artillery demonstrates the value of multiyear procurement authorities. With predictable and sufficient funding, the DIB can produce munitions at the scale required to support U.S. allies while also creating stockpiles that could be critical to deterring or fighting a protracted war.

Sustained funding is essential for higher-end precision munitions—such as Patriot missiles, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) or the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). Research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggests that the joint force could run out of most of its precision munitions within days of a high-end conflict, such as a Taiwan invasion.¹³ Demand is increasing for many of these capabilities. With the demand for air defense on the rise globally, the Army is funding the production of Patriot interceptor missiles to grow from 550 to 650 per year.¹⁴ While this increase is warranted, more is likely needed.

Congress has authorized some multiyear procurement for precision munitions. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorized DoD to issue multiyear contracts for Patriot missiles,¹⁵ and the FY 2024 NDAA approves six munitions for multiyear contracts.¹⁶ However, in part due to concerns that multiyear contracts limit budgetary flexibility, Congress has not fully funded all the multiyear procurement contracts authorized in the FY 2023 NDAA.¹⁷

The challenges to increasing production, particularly for precision munitions, are not only budgetary. DoD’s first National Defense Industrial Strategy, released in January 2024, describes the effects of supply chain bottlenecks, limited access to critical minerals and energetics, and workforce limitations.¹⁸ Despite these challenges, multiyear procurement can be valuable, for example, by sending a strong demand signal for workforce development.

The Dynamic Character of Warfare

Like all wars, the war in Ukraine has been a violent, unpredictable clash of human wills fought to achieve political objectives. The nature of war endures across time, geography and combatants.

However, each war is unique in how it is fought— its character—and is influenced by the specific political, social and technological contexts of the time. The protracted Russo-Ukrainian War has featured a blend of both novel and enduring characteristics. Centuries-old fundamentals remain essential, including mass unguided artillery, cover and concealment and small unit lethality in close combat. However, the ubiquitous surveillance, autonomy and precision targeting that have made exposure and maneuvering on the battlefield more costly have generated innovations in force employment.

Observation 3: As the Russo-Ukrainian War has become increasingly attritional and consumed higher-end capabilities, cheaper, attritable materiel has become more critical.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has juxtaposed exquisite, expensive capabilities with relatively cheap and readily producible ones that both forces have been willing to attrit at high rates. The complementary capabilities of long-range precision fires and FPV drones have demonstrated this phenomenon.

Russian and Ukrainian forces have employed high-end missiles to strike targets precisely at range, including Kyiv’s use of GMLRS and ATACMS and Moscow’s first reported use of the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile.¹⁹ These exquisite capabilities are limited due to their expense and the difficulties of producing them. Even conventional artillery ammunition mass production faces constraints, often due to dormant production lines that take time to regenerate after a conflict begins.

The demands of protracted war have compelled Ukrainian and Russian forces to creatively leverage cheap, off-the-shelf equipment. FPV drones are the most prominent example of this. These are typically small, highly maneuverable UAS that provide operators with a live video feed, allowing them to guide the device to its target using a controller.²⁰ FPV drones are inexpensive—sometimes costing as little as $400²¹—compared to the platforms they can destroy. The cheaper devices typically have a maximum range of 10km,²² which is sufficient to provide standoff for lower echelon formations. The Ukrainian military has set a target to produce one million of these drones in 2024.²³

Implication 3.1: The U.S. Army and DoD should account for the cumulative effect of attrition in protracted warfare by striking the right acquisition balance between fewer exquisite systems and more significant numbers of cheap, attritable capabilities.

The Ukrainian experience with FPV drones indicates that there are areas where DoD can make targeted investments in cost-effective, attritable systems to help achieve mass. Some of these platforms may already be commercially available, and others may need relatively small investments to transform existing capabilities into ones with military value.

The Army and other services may also decide, on a limited basis and when evidence supports doing so, to allocate investment away from more advanced platforms toward procuring large numbers of cheaper capabilities better suited to prolonged attritional warfare. According to the Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, “Employing simple, cheap tech faster is giving people a tactical edge.”²⁵ The Army’s February 2024 decision to end the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program was partly motivated by these observations from the Russo-Ukrainian War.²⁶

DoD recognizes the importance of this balance. The objective of its Replicator Initiative is to field thousands of autonomous, attritable systems across multiple domains within 18 to 24 months (from August 2023). As Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks described it, Replicator “can help a determined defender stop a larger aggressor from achieving its objectives, put fewer people in the line of fire, and be made, fielded and upgraded at the speed warfighters need without long maintenance tails.”²⁷

Replicator is relevant to all services of the joint force. For the Army, these unmanned capabilities are predominantly ground and aerial platforms that enable deep sensing and targeting functions. As observed in Ukraine, unmanned capabilities will not replace unguided artillery or precision munitions but will supplement both, creating additional mass that forces can employ with precision.

Though Replicator currently focuses on unmanned systems, the initiative’s broader objective is to adapt DoD’s acquisition culture to prioritize delivering capability at relevant timeframes. Should the initiative succeed, it may serve as a model for the future acquisition of technologies that rapidly demonstrate their relevance on the battlefield.

A potential limitation is that Replicator uses existing funding. DoD can likely achieve much through institutional change and using existing authorities and current budgets. However, if Replicator’s first phase proves successful, Congress should consider providing additional funds to multiply its impact and duplicate its success for other technologies.

Implication 3.2: The U.S. Army should continue experimenting with human-machine integration (HMI) to enhance force protection. If testing results are positive, Congress should provide sustained funding for the Army to field these capabilities at scale.

In future conflicts, U.S. and coalition forces could face adversaries who hold mass advantages and are willing to accept high casualties for military advantage, as Russia has demonstrated in its grinding offensive in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. Army can leverage advances in autonomy and robotics to increase mass at a relatively low cost and to better employ its human talent in ways that place a higher value on Soldiers’ lives.

The U.S. Army’s development of integrated formations of Soldiers and robotic systems is driving innovations in force employment and protection vital to overmatch in protracted warfare. According to General James Rainey, commander of Army Futures Command, HMI can enable the Army to “never again trade blood for first contact” while “preserv[ing] our humans to do the things that only they can do: ethical decision-making in combat.”²⁸ Autonomous systems will complement human intuition, reducing unnecessary demands on Soldiers—who will continue to be responsible for the ethical application of violence.

The Army has established two prototype platoon formations for HMI: one for light infantry at Fort Moore, Georgia, and another for mechanized formations at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. The potential value for robotic systems to perform the “dull, dirty, and dangerous”²⁹ tasks in place of Soldiers is apparent. These experimental units have tested concepts such as using robots:

• in the initial stages of building clearance to scan the inner structure and transmit a detailed blueprint to the Soldiers nearby;
• acting as advance scouts to locate enemy formations before U.S. Soldiers are within sight or range; and
• casualty evacuation, using unmanned vehicles to transport wounded Soldiers and free up other platoon members to focus on other tasks.³⁰

HMI does not mean that robots will soon replace humans on the battlefield. An excessive focus on these long-term possibilities can be an unhelpful distraction; as General Rainey put it, the “quest for what’s aspirational is absolutely blinding us to what’s doable.”³¹ The Army is right not to wait to begin leveraging these promising technologies as it transforms.

Military Transformation

A protracted conflict that exhibits the evolving character of warfare like the Russo-Ukrainian War compels military forces to adapt or to lose. Kyiv has faced the imperative to adapt rapidly to the constantly shifting characteristics of the battlefield while setting the foundation for the force it will need to deter future aggression and to interoperate with Western militaries. As it resolves the tension between present and future force requirements, the Ukrainian armed forces’ transformation offers insights to the U.S. Army as it undertakes its own transformation—the most significant in 40 years.

Observation 4: Ukraine’s military transformation has occurred across several concurrent—and seemingly competing—timelines.

With a more decentralized command structure, the Ukrainian military has excelled at bottom-up “tactical adaptation.”³² In rapid cycles of innovation, empowered small units have employed emerging technology, including drones, AI and electronic warfare. These on-the-fly adaptations have proven critical to the Ukrainian army’s ability to read and react to the changing conditions of the battlefield. (Moscow has evolved, too, with a slow but centralized approach that has allowed it to systemize changes at the operational and strategic levels³³—for example, hardening ammunition depots and creating layered defensive lines in 2023 after failing to defend against Ukrainian counteroffensives in late 2022.)

Political leaders in Kyiv have also taken steps that are necessary for Ukraine’s long-term deterrence and integration into Western military structures. A notable example of this longer-term adaptation is the delivery of Western F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine.

But observers of the war have, at times, failed to distinguish between transformation across these near- and long-term timelines. This trend has been noticeable in the discussion surrounding the United States’ long-range ATACMS and F-16s. These systems are sometimes portrayed as capable of independently altering the war’s outcomes in the near term without considering the factors that make equipment effective: capacity, training, logistics, employment and personnel, among others. While the systems themselves have been delivered, only with time can Ukraine align this range of military factors to produce actual military effect.

On the other end of the spectrum, others question why Kyiv has been adamant about acquiring capabilities like ATACMS or F-16s if they will not alter the war’s course in the near term. This viewpoint also fails to distinguish between these timelines of transformation. While its urgent priority is the ongoing war, when it ends, Ukraine will require qualitative superiority over Russian forces and interoperability with NATO militaries to deter a renewal of the conflict. Building this sophistication by integrating the military factors described above requires years.

As it fights a drawn-out war, Ukraine’s military cannot choose between adapting for today or transforming for the future. It must do both simultaneously.

Implication 4.1: U.S. Army “continuous transformation” should continue to reconcile present force needs with future force needs across multiple time horizons.

Though the U.S. Army is not at war as Ukraine is, it does face transformation challenges on multiple time horizons that are interlinked. In response to this challenge, Army Chief of Staff General Randy George has made “continuous transformation” one of the service’s top four priorities.³⁴ As he described it, “Continuous transformation means iteratively adapting and evolving how we fight, how we organize, how we train and how we equip.”³⁵

The rapidly changing character of warfare in Ukraine has made clear to the U.S. Army that transformation is not something the service can afford to do periodically every few decades. Instead, transformation must be continuous and work across three interconnected timeframes:

• transforming in contact as deployed warfighters rapidly integrate capabilities into the Army over 18–24 months for testing and analysis;
• deliberate transformation focused on what the service will require in the next two to seven years; and
• concept-driven transformation to build and sustain advantages from 2030 to 2040 and beyond.³⁶

With forces deployed globally for strategic competition and deterrence, Army forces must be prepared to “fight tonight.” The Army—and the joint force for which it is the “linchpin”³⁷—cannot afford to sacrifice readiness today for readiness tomorrow. Soldiers must constantly integrate emerging technologies as they demonstrate their relevance in battle.

The Army must simultaneously build the force it will need to deter peer adversaries or prevail in protracted LSCO in the conditions that may characterize the security environment of 2030 to 2040 and beyond. While the 2040 timeframe seems distant, given the time required to prototype, test and field new capabilities at scale, the Army is already making decisions critical to this future force. Therefore, choices made in force structure or technology acquisition as the Army “transforms in contact” must be aligned with the service’s “concept-driven transformation,” and cannot foreclose capabilities that the future force may require.

Continuous transformation reflects that kit alone does not equal capability; capability alone does not mean a land force has the capacity to bring this new capability to bear at scale; and capacity alone does not signal that an army has developed doctrine and training to employ it effectively. As the U.S. Army has seen in Ukraine, delivering a system is often only the first step in building military power. That is why efforts like the Army’s publication of the Multi-Domain Operations doctrine and the creation of new formations like the Multi-Domain Task Forces³⁸ are essential in adapting how the service trains and fights with its new capabilities.

Implication 4.2: As the U.S. joint force attempts to “continuously transform” to keep pace with the relentlessly evolving character of war, continuing resolutions (CRs) impede transformation and hurt readiness. Yearly on-time passage of the NDAA and appropriations bills enable transformation, readiness and national security.

When considering the need to transform the Army at the rapid pace of change occurring on the battlefield, the pernicious effects of CR-induced delays are multiplied. According to DoD, the total time spent under a CR since 2011 is five years³⁹—time that the joint force cannot buy back, no matter how much money they throw at it. Without on-time appropriations, the Army cannot launch necessary programs, such as new starts to achieve planned production rates of munitions critical to deterrence.

However, the total costs of CRs materialize in the delta between the time required to field new equipment, develop sufficient capacity, train with it adequately and integrate it at scale into formations that can deliver combat power. As General Rainey summarized it, “We buy things, but we fight formations.”⁴⁰ Soldiers deployed worldwide in strategic competition acutely feel these effects, as they cannot adequately “transform in contact” when CRs prevent them from rapidly integrating new capabilities. CRs delay achieving these ready-to-fight formations that the joint force cannot afford.

Implication 4.3: The U.S. Army must ensure the success of its recruiting overhaul to acquire Soldiers with the right mix of physical and intellectual capabilities for modern combat.

The Russo-Ukrainian War has shown that, even as technology becomes pervasive on the battlefield, war remains intensely physical, and human beings will continue to drive its outcomes. Soldiers must be able to close with an adversary under brutal conditions and remain resilient to combat’s physical and mental demands.

While the U.S. Army’s technological, doctrinal and organizational transformation are key, it must have Soldiers who can innovate and adapt faster than their adversaries. The Army’s transformation of its recruiting enterprise,⁴¹ announced in October 2023, is essential for rebuilding endstrength. But it is just as critical for preserving a force that can meet modern combat’s intellectual and physical demands.

As the Army becomes increasingly multi-domain, data-centric and technologically advanced, it requires Soldiers with the right talents assigned to the proper formations under the right leaders. Without a Soldier’s physical and intellectual talent, the service cannot fully transform. As Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer stated, “People are our advantage, and Army readiness is predicated on the fortitude and resolve of our personnel.”⁴²

The joint force’s human talent will remain fundamental to its combat capability. For over 50 years, the all-volunteer force has provided this talent, with the joint force seeing marked increases in education levels, professionalism and proficiency. It is a force worth preserving.

Conclusion

The Russo-Ukrainian War allows the U.S. military to identify and assess potential challenges to deterring or prevailing in conflict against a peer adversary. This Spotlight provides considerations across three lenses: protracted conflict, the dynamic character of warfare and military transformation. The U.S. Army’s continuous transformation is on the right path and can be accelerated by sustained commitment to preparing to fight and win a protracted conflict, continuously adapting to the changing character of warfare and learning from Ukraine’s military transformation.

This conflict is a reminder that grueling land warfare is not relegated to the past. The character of any war will vary, but its nature remains exceptionally violent and fought by a state’s most precious resource: people. As the historian T.R. Fehrenbach observed, “You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground . . . by putting your young [soldiers] in the mud.”⁴³