Russia’s forces have stalled on several fronts in Ukraine after almost three weeks of fighting, surprising analysts who felt Moscow's vast military would overwhelm defenders, despite making strategic errors.
The Russian military boasts world-class tanks, the second-largest air force in the world and fearsome attack helicopters. While its military doctrine stresses overwhelming the enemy with terrifying barrages of rocket artillery, it also has large stockpiles of ballistic and cruise missiles.
Ukraine, despite the support of allies, lacks most of these arms.
Western military simulations conducted in 2016 indicated Russia could take over the Baltics, overrunning local and Nato defenders in a matter of days. A US general recently said the assessment for Ukraine holding out following the February 24 offensive was 72 hours.
Russia’s setbacks have refocused analysts on the human aspects of war rather than the material — the motivation and morale of soldiers, often described as the “will to fight”.
“Napoleon said it best. He said: ‘The moral is to the physical as three is to one.’ And he was a brilliant strategist, he was definitely on to something,” retired US Lt Gen Mike Barbero said.
Lt Gen Barbero, who commanded US forces in Iraq for 46 months over three tours between 2003 and 2011, said that while Russian forces could still use brute force to break the will of Ukrainians it's the defenders' fighting spirit that is trumping the strength of arms.
He told The National: “Russia's armed forces are experiencing tremendous supply shortages and problems, to the basic level. Are their troops getting fed?
“And they're experiencing unexpected casualties and resistance. The troops have been told one thing and are experiencing something totally different, you know, in training exercises, ‘this will be a cakewalk,’ etc. So, all of that has a tremendous impact on morale.”
Many commentators have pointed to the huge logistical challenges the Russians have faced.
“It's more than just logistics,” Lt Gen Barbero said. “It's a question of morale, and leadership. Quantity has a quality all of its own. But leadership and morale are often throughout history decisive.”
The US Army’s doctrine manuals stress this dimension of fighting.
“War is a human endeavour — a fundamentally human clash of wills often fought among populations,” the US army operations doctrine manual reads. “It is not a mechanical process that can be controlled precisely, or even mostly, by machines.”
The Russians have an absolute advantage in terms of material that hasn’t translated yet into strategic, operational, or tactical advantage, Larry Regens, founding director of the Centre for Intelligence and National Security at the University of Oklahoma, told The National.
“Russia’s large military doesn’t, however, exhibit a qualitative advantage over the smaller Ukrainian defence forces,” Mr Regens said.
“Russia has a large number of conscripts of dubious quality, experience, or morale coupled with its leadership displaying poor ability to plan and conduct combined arms operations.”
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