Lessons for Canada from War in Ukraine
Canada's government and military leaders need learn 5 lessons from this war
As we watch the sad and horrifying brutality of modern warfare play out on the city streets, children’s playgrounds and farmer’s fields of Ukraine, there are some timely and harsh lessons to be learned from this horror by Canada’s politicians, bureaucrats and generals.
Will they listen? Will they learn? There are rumblings of activity in Ottawa, but as yet no real evidence the men and women who make decisions our behalf, confident in the self-assurance they know everything, have any real interest in being taught anything.
Among the myriad lessons Canada should be learning right now, there are five that I think are most important. I’ll write about each of them in a five-part series over the course of this week.
Lesson 1: Canada’s collective training is no better than Russia’s
The world expected Russia to bulldoze Ukraine in a fortnight. Actually, many thought the war would be over in 48 to 72 hours. But, that was always unrealistic.
Even at Blitzkrieg speed, the race to Kyiv was going to take days. During the actual Blitzkrieg, as well as the American blitz to Baghdad, armoured troops advanced at an average pace of 32km (20 miles) per day. Remember, it’s not how fast the tanks can drive – even unopposed – it’s how often and how quickly can you refuel them? Can you protect the long train of soft-skinned and vulnerable supply vehicles hauling fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts, kit and equipment? If not, expect it to be attacked and your advance to be stalled.
Even by highway, the drive from the Belarus border to Kyiv is about 169 km. At Blitzkrieg speed, that’s still five and a half days on the march. I’m sure Russian president Vladimir Putin expected his “special military operation” to be largely wrapped up in a week. He probably assumed Ukraine would surrender, rather than submit to a punishing, devastating war that will kill thousands of Ukrainian citizens and destroy their homes and cities. He was wrong.
Ukraine put up a fight. And, it’s still fighting hard over a month later. Russia’s losses have been staggering. It’s hard to tell truth from propaganda, but a Russian media report pegged it’s country’s losses at 10,000 soldiers. The report was quickly deleted. That number is breathtakingly high compared to other Russian misadventures in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria. But, with the assault bogged down and entering its second month, it’s believable.
What is Russia doing wrong?
Russia massed over 200,000 troops in thousands of armoured vehicles on Ukraine’s borders – drawing forces from all five of its military districts. Many of them conducted weeks of training in Belarus as a rehearsal for the invasion. They have modern military equipment. They’re a top tier military force – the fourth or fifth largest in the world, depending on whether you count their reserve forces.
With one million regular force troops backed by more than two million reservists, the Russian military is a force to be reckoned with. So, why has it failed to mop up a rag-tag army 1/10th its size in Ukraine?
Low morale. Russian forces are reportedly suffering from low morale and that’s easy to believe. Their frontline soldiers in Ukraine are far from home, and have been for a long time; they’d been mobilizing for months before they crossed the border. There are many reports of Russian soldiers stealing cellphones from Ukrainian villagers and using them to call home. I wonder what they learn about why they’re at war?
Russian troops are not well paid and, apparently, not well fed. Lots of reports indicate field rations recovered from destroyed or abandoned Russian military vehicles are years beyond their “best before” date. Though, one wonders how good “best” ever was when it comes to Russian army field rations.
Disorganization. We first noticed how poorly the Russian Air Force was performing shortly after the invasion. Russia fields a top-tier air force with many modern aircraft including the Su-35, Su-30 and a few state-of-the-art Mig-35 (2019) and Su-57 (2020) fighters in service. All these aircraft are newer and arguably more lethal than Canada’s F-18 (1983) fighters. Russia also has a full fleet of airborne surveillance, command and control, signals intelligence and mid-air refuelling aircraft that can direct and sustain its fighters for complex operations. But, they’re not flying complex operations in Ukraine.
A Royal United Services Institute analysis suggests Russia is flying combat sorties of just 2 to 4 aircraft at a time. Not hundreds, as we might have expected in the early hours of the war. Meanwhile, Ukraine can still put ones and twos of its own fighter aircraft into the sky for short sorties. Although Russia dominates the Ukrainian sky, it does not own it. The reasons why seem to be the same factors complicating Russia’s success on the ground: Culture and Training.
Russian ground forces have, so far, been very risk-adverse and focused on small-scale actions in battalion and brigade-sized groups. Like their brothers in the air, Russia’s army has not been able to effectively coordinate its operations between units, between arms or between air and ground elements.
Russia’s command and control culture restricts operational discretion to the highest level. Generals commanding divisions and corps (i.e. Combined Arms Army) make the plans and issue the orders. There is very little discretion afforded subordinate commanders for tactical flexibility. When unexpected obstacles, resistance or even opportunities, arise frontline commanders must report back to the generals for new instructions. This makes their army slow and cumbersome in the face of a nimble opponent.
As a result, many Russian generals have moved far forward into the combat zone, presumably to be better positioned to react more quickly. This exposes them to higher risk and an unprecedented number of generals have been killed in combat. With each dead general, the attack stumbles and morale suffers while a new commander is spawned.
The inability of Russia’s army in Ukraine to conduct coordinated operations with infantry, tanks and artillery all working closely together in an orchestral symphony with air forces appears to be a result of insufficient collective training.
The world’s armies train in much the same way. First, individual soldiers are taught the skills they need to perform their jobs on the battlefield. Then, they’re taught to work together as small teams of four to 10 soldiers. Those teams then learn to work with other teams as platoons, then companies, battalions and brigades. Finally the brigades train as divisions, etc. At each level, the training becomes more complex. It’s the latter stages of training that seem most glaringly deficient in Russia’s army today. They just aren’t working well together at higher levels.
That failure on the battlefield is a direct result of poor formation-level training.
Canada’s in no better shape
Russia’s failure in Ukraine should be ringing alarm bells in Ottawa. Canada’s army has not conducted formation-level training of any consequence in years. I will wager Canadian solders are better trained individually than Russia’s are. But, our army is unlikely to fare any better on the battlefield today than the Russian army has. For the same reason: lack of formation-level training.
Why hasn’t Canada’s army conducted large-scale manoeuvre training for so long? In a word: money. With all the capital equipment Canada’s military needs and the desire to increase individual pay and benefits for our soldiers, we have slashed training budgets not just to the bone, but through the bone. We’ve lopped off entire limbs and pretended, like Monty Python’s Black Knight, it’s just a flesh wound. It’s not.
Without proper annual training at every level, Canada’s army cannot win on the battlefield.
Canada’s Minister of Defence should take note as she considers plans to deploy 3,000 more Canadian soldiers to NATO service as a build-up of deterrence against further Russian aggression. Those Canadian soldiers are ill-equipped to defend themselves, let alone deter an aggressor. Even worse, they haven’t been trained to fight together. If forced to fight, we can expect them to be little more capable than Russia’s failed army in Ukraine.
What Canada should do about it
This is something we can quickly rectify. Authorize the Chief of Defence Staff to conduct formation level training as soon as possible – which is much sooner than General Eyre may be comfortable with. Flow the funds so he can expedite the process.
Gather all of Canada’s army at its training centre in Wainwright, Alberta as quickly as practical. A two month training exercise from May to June should be doable.
Run soldiers through a round-robin of individual and team battle task training stands, then quickly build up to company-level, then battalion and brigade level training. Add in the air force to practice combined arms operations at a formation level. For the first time, perhaps since the Second World War, conduct a divisional exercise with all three of Canada’s miniature-sized brigades working in concert with Canadian and US air forces.
This is doable. And, the war in Ukraine has reminded us that even modern, peaceful nations may face war when they least expect it. It’s time to expect it. Preparing for war is the best way to prevent war.
If we do this now, Canada can celebrate its 155th birthday on July 1st this year with a small but combat-ready army on parade.
Come back tomorrow for Lesson 2: Buying kit to dress out the shop window isn’t enough.