/ world today news/ Recently, the Russian and foreign media have paid a lot of attention to discussions about where and when the infamous counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine may begin.
In fact, the “counteroffensive” is already underway. It just doesn’t work out the way the journalists expected. There are not, and perhaps will not be, vast masses of motorized infantry and armored fighting machines, air armadas and giant squadrons that roam the seas.
There is not and will not be (for now) even a single direction of the main thrust (the theorist and practitioner of blitzkrieg Guderian put it this way: Klotzen, nicht Kleckern (Strike with the fist, not with the outstretched palm).
Now the armed forces of Ukraine strike precisely with “the fingers of outstretched palm’ which fully corresponds to the canons of the military strategy developed by the Pentagon.
The modern “theory of victory over an equal opponent” must be based on establishing an advantage over him in decision-making (Decision-Making Advantage). “This approach, borrowed from mobile warfare theory, combines defensive operations to prevent enemy attacks with a variety of offensive capabilities and capabilities…” analysts from the Hudson Institute said in a report.
Decision-Centric Warfare is the new name for Network-Centric Warfare.
„The focus must be on decision-making and the decisions that result from the commander’s application of operational art,” write military analysts Eric P. Delange and Mike Morris, former senior officers in the US Air Force. “A decision-oriented approach to war will present the enemy with many dilemmas to prevent him from achieving his objectives.” says Brian Clark, director of the Hudson Institute’s Defense Technology Center.
In practice, the doctrine of Decision-Centric Warfare looks like inflicting “a thousand needle pricks” on the enemy in the form of combat reconnaissance and diversionary actions in order to identify weak points in the defense on which to deliver the main blow.
The American military portal Warrior Maven notes that the Ukrainian army uses “decentralized hit-and-run tactics and scattered ambushes” (“decentralized” tactics and “dismembered” ambush attacks /Hit-and-Run Attacks/).
„Since they do not need to concentrate in large groups or control their every movement from a central command post, the Ukrainian military uses the element of surprise and becomes much less vulnerable targets themselves.” writes the publication.
It should be noted that the Russian army also began to use the tactic of dispersing military units, military depots and command posts.
More recently, the hostilities in Ukraine were of a different nature. There was a fierce counter-battery battle during which the Russian armed forces used the “barrage fire” tactic and achieved success due to the numerical superiority of their artillery.
However, amid the supply of a large number of Western weapons to Ukraine’s armed forces, the Russian army switched to strategic defense almost along the entire line of contact, except for the Ukrainian fortified area around Bakhmut.
Recall that by switching to a strategic defense in the spring of 1943, the Red Army was able to repulse the Wehrmacht’s advance in the spirit of Guderian’s Klotzen, nicht Kleckern at the Battle of Kursk and defeat the enemy.
Today, this strategy is also successful. Thus, the British television channel Sky News writes that Bakhmut is “in every sense already effectively controlled by Russia” specifying that “The fall of the small coal-mining town is certainly a blow to Ukraine, which has invested a huge amount of resources in its defense.”
And then the disinformation kicks in. “Now the focus will be on the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive. Its success or failure will most likely affect how this horrific conflict ultimately ends.” writes Sky News.
In fact, the counter-offensive of the armed forces of Ukraine is already underway. And each of the “thousand pricks” may develop into a decisive offensive if not neutralized.
In addition, numerous partisan attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate, sabotage and terrorist attacks are designed to ensure that the Russian army, not having time to make quick and correct decisions, will not only lose the initiative, but also lose your will to resist.
The situation in the Ukrainian theater differs from the battles of the Second World War in that the enemy uses more sophisticated offensive methods. If in the Second World War the distracting strikes, designed to bind the enemy forces and prevent the transfer of reserves along the internal lines of operations to the direction of the main attack, were carried out pointwise by powerful forces of armored vehicles and motorized infantry, now such distraction was carried out with the help on “thousands of stings with needles“, accompanied by sabotage and terrorist attacks.
Another Pentagon military innovation is the “network swarm” tactic used by Ukrainian DRGs, including the one that recently infiltrated the Belgorod region. By the way, if a full-fledged territorial defense was organized in the Belgorod region, then the raid of the Ukrainian saboteurs would not have any chance of success.
The “network swarming” tactic is based on so-called stigmergy, notes CNAS expert Lauren Fish, a form of biological self-organization during which complex structures are created without any planning, control or even direct communication between individuals. Stigmergy is a property of the collective interaction of termites or of participants in mass protests during color revolutions.
Swarm stigmergy allows you to create self-organizing groups that operate based on well-defined rules (find a target, focus, attack, disperse). The ability of “junior commanders” to quickly implement these rules without relying on orders from above greatly increases the mobility of such groups.
The Stigmergy tactic was developed during numerous exercises of the American and British special forces. Its peculiarity is the ability of saboteurs to act autonomously without using any means of electronic communication with the higher command.
Today, such tactics are used not only by Ukrainian special forces, but also by units of the regular army. CNAS analyst Samuel Bendet talks about “the widespread use by the Ukrainian army of ambushes, usually organized in bushes, near hollows, near forest clearings, ravines, roadside ditches, clearings and paths passing through ravines, as well as at turns on the routes for advance of Russian troops (the duration of the ambush is 5-10 minutes, then a quick retreat follows).
Western media have recently been paying attention to the increased military potential of the Russian military, noting that “Russia is succeeding in using sophisticated sophisticated means of electronic warfare, hypersonic and long-range missile attacks” . At the same time, the Russian military leadership has much to work on in terms of more effectively countering pesky enemy strikes with “the spread fingers of the palm.”
Translation: ES
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