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Ukraine needs drastic changes to realize the full potential of its new F-16s.
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High-ranking officers in Ukraine started their careers in the Soviet army and are imbued with the mentality of that army.
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Against the larger Russian forces, the Ukrainian military must employ a coordinated warfare style.
Ukraine will finally F-16 fighters later this year.
Now all that is needed is a good plan on how to use them against Russia, which involves a larger air force, newer aircraft and many anti-aircraft missiles.
But according to two U.S. experts, those F-16s could enable Ukraine to actually defeat Russia and reclaim lost territory. But only if Ukraine’s battered air force is able and willing to drastically change the way it fights in the midst of war.
“Senior Ukrainian Armed Forces “Leaders must shed the Soviet/Russian doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures in which they have been trained,” David Deptula and Christopher Bowie wrote in a report for the Mitchell Institute think tank.
“Old habits die hard. They must be willing to embrace new concepts and training — and also be willing to ‘rewrite the books’ on military employment. Finally, Ukrainian Air Force leadership must be integrated into the Ukrainian General Staff to promote and facilitate integrated, all-domain concepts, planning and employment.”
“The bottom line is that it’s not going to be easy,” Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, told Business Insider. “It’s going to take years for Ukrainian military culture to shift from a model based on their Soviet military history to Western military doctrine.”
Soviet doctrine was generally rigid and top-down, with commanders expected to stick to the plan rather than take initiative in response to opportunities or setbacks on the battlefield. Joint operations were absent: when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, failed to provide significant air support and fighter cover to ground forces. Russian Air Force has demonstrated its ability to deliver devastating area bombardments, but not the precision strikes needed to defeat a moving enemy or eliminate its strong points.
The problem for Ukraine is that many of its senior officers began their careers in the Soviet army, were trained in Soviet military academies, and created the country’s armed forces in the Soviet image. They tend to fall back on this background when they struggle with advice from Western militaries, as happened during the 2023 counteroffensiveThis changes as younger officers rise through the ranks, but embracing a radically different military culture and mindset—especially in wartime—is extremely difficult.
The U.S. military struggles with its own bureaucratic problems that hinder effective operations. For example, Deptula pointed to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which aimed to eliminate rivalries among U.S. forces that hampered joint operations (such as incompatible radios, which prevented army troops from communicating with naval ships during the 1982 war). invasion of Grenada). To encourage jointness, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was given more power at the expense of the service chiefs, who also lost operational control of their forces in favor of regional combatant commands. Promotion to general or admiral also required prior experience in joint operations.
Nearly 40 years after Goldwater-Nichols, interservice rivalries — from football to finance — have hardly disappeared from the U.S. military. But the U.S. military has at least gotten used to fighting joint wars.
This is something Ukraine must do to win, or even survive. Against superior Russian numbers and resources, the Ukrainian military must extract maximum efficiency from its forces. This means a flexible, coordinated style of warfare. For example, ground-based artillery and missiles can destroy Russian air defenses, allowing the Ukrainian air force to operate above the battlefield and provide close air support to the military. Missions such as close air support have a major impact on the battlefield, but Ukraine must move toward greater coordination between its air traffic controllers and air defense teams or risk shooting down its own fighter jets, the Mitchell article points out.
Many others have warned that F-16s are very vulnerable in Ukraine’s contested airspace and that the country may not receive enough to sustain the losses that missions to push back Russian forces could entail.
These reforms will not be easy. “The U.S. military has taken decades to adapt to the principles of joint operations and the joint structure that was established in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986,” Deptula said. “Some would argue that some services, such as the Army and Marines, have never fully adapted. That said, that does not mean that the Ukrainian military cannot immediately adapt for certain operations. They will have to do so if they want to gain an advantage over the disproportionate size advantage that Russia has.”
Deptula believes the desire to reform the Ukrainian military is there, at least at the lower levels. “It will take a combination of leadership push, new generation officers and a collective desire to reform to accept and adopt a Western way of warfare versus the Soviet model,” he said. “The platoon and squad levels are already willing and eager to embrace new ways. It is the leadership at the general staff level — and individual service levels — that needs reform.”
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter And LinkedIn.
Read the original article at Business insider
