NATO political leaders have been very vocal about responding with heavy sanctions against Russia 'should it invade Ukraine'. But what if it 'only' conducts cyber, artillery, missile and air strikes on Ukraine? What if Russia doesn't plan to send ground forces into Ukraine at all?
In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the West is fully focused on forestalling a possible Russian invasion. But Russian war fighting doctrine is less about grabbing territory and more about neutralising threats. Russia could be planning to attack Ukraine, but genuinely have no plan to invade it.
An interesting analysis of Russian war fighting doctrine was released by the US based think tank, Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), in August last year – ie before the current crisis. In essence it presented Russian military strategy as being grounded in a theory of ‘active defense’: of disrupting threats before they can be realized. But more importantly, it concluded that ‘the center of gravity (in Russian military strategic thinking) lies in degrading a state’s military and economic potential, not seizing territory’.
If CNA is correct, what does this tell us about possible Russian military aims in Ukraine? Assuming that Russia has twin aims - to return Ukraine to the Russian sphere of influence and prevent it joining NATO - and it primarily wants to destabilise Ukraine’s regime, not seize Ukrainian territory, what would it do?
The answer is, exactly what it has done so far:
Mass ground forces on the borders of Ukraine to create an international crisis which will force engagement on the issue from NATO political leaders
Conduct electronic warfare and cyber attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure
Position its ground and naval forces to support long range precision strikes on Ukrainian military and economic infrastructure (artillery and missile capabilities)
Position its air forces to support air strikes on Ukrainian military and economic infrastructure and attrition of Ukrainian air offense/defense capabilities
Russia may have held out a slim hope this would lead to concessions from NATO countries or unrest in Ukraine. As that has not happened, what would the next step in escalation from Russia be? It has puzzled me why Russia is letting the most suitable weather for ground operations (Jan – Feb when ground is frozen) pass without taking action. But this would make sense if it does not plan a ground invasion. If the CNA analysis is correct, the next steps in Russian escalation will not be a lightning ground war at all, but rather long range attacks intended to ‘degrade Ukraine’s military and economic potential’. This also fits the rhetoric from Moscow insisting that it sees Ukraine as a threat and that it has no desire to invade but will respond if provoked. Respond how?
Missile and artillery strikes on civil strategic targets such as roads, railway lines, pipelines, power generation
Cyber attacks on defense (command, control and intelligence) and economic targets
A large scale air offensive on military targets such as Ukraine air bases and ground forces
If these failed to destabilise the regime and force it to flee, then:
Insert special forces and covert intelligence assets to foment civil unrest and attempt to achieve regime change using sympathetic police, army and political forces within the country.
The implications of looking at Russia’s strategy through this lens are that NATO countries are sounding the alarm and arming Ukraine to defend itself against a lightning conventional war, when it fact it may be facing a long, drawn out and very unconventional war.