If the United States and China want a glimpse of what war over Taiwan might look like, they need look no further than Ukraine, where Russia’s conscripted army more than met its match in Ukraine’s scrappy, Western-armed freedom fighters.
There are significant differences between Europe’s second-largest country — Ukraine, a recognized sovereign nation with friendly nations on its western border — and Taiwan, which has about half as many people packed on an island one-sixteenth the size while democratically self-ruled and lacking full international recognition.
But one thing Russia’s ill-fated foray into Ukraine has shown is that with enough outside support, an extremely motivated, highly trained, and well-equipped indigenous force can fend off an invading superpower’s army and make any victory a Pyrrhic one. Pentagon planners often warn against “fighting the last war” — overcorrecting for past mistakes instead of realizing all wars are different.
Nevertheless, some takeaways from the David-and-Goliath battle for control of Ukraine should give both the U.S. and China pause.
Here are a few of the lessons learned or relearned:
Will can be the decisive factor.
“Moral factors are the ultimate determinants in war,” said Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century Prussian general who fought against Napoleon and whose posthumous treatise, On War, is required reading in American war colleges.
After the fall of Kabul last year, a rueful Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted that despite 20 years of training and billions invested in Afghanistan, “We couldn’t provide them with the will to win.”
But in Ukraine, the U.S. is finally supporting an ally willing to fight.
“We’ve learned that armed with the right capabilities, a determined force can do tremendous work in terms of defending itself,” Austin told Congress this month.
If China were to invade Taiwan, it would likely face the same fierce fighting spirit displayed by Ukrainians. The Taiwanese would likewise be fighting for their homes, freedom, and defense of democracy.
And unlike Ukraine, which in many cases must rely on obsolete, Soviet-era weaponry, Taiwan has been supplied with top-of-the-line U.S. systems to shoot down Chinese planes and coastal defenses to sink Chinese ships.
In urban combat, the advantage goes to the defenders.
“We call the urban terrain the great equalizer,” writes retired Col. John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. “They’re superior in military technologies, they’re superior in numbers, well, guess what? In the urban terrain, that doesn’t matter.”
Ukraine’s decimation of Russia’s ground units and destruction of hundreds of tanks bear testament to the ability of defenders in cities to make every street, alley, and window a death trap.
And Taiwan is one big urban battleground.
“Taiwan is a very complex piece of terrain, lots of mountains, high density, urban areas, and Taipei. There’s a lot that the Taiwanese can do,” said Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley in congressional testimony.
“So, if your opponent tries to invade you, and every military-age man or woman is armed, and they have a little bit of training, that can be a very effective use.”
Intelligence is the secret sauce.
The proactive release of U.S. intelligence turned out to be an extremely effective tool to undercut Russia’s propaganda campaign to conduct false flag attacks creating a bogus narrative that Ukraine was the aggressor.
U.S. intelligence agencies are usually reticent to release information gleaned from SIGINT, or signals intelligence, for fear of compromising sources and methods.
But in just one example, intercepted communications between Putin and his field commanders allowed the U.S. to reveal the exact time frame of the planned invasion, even as Russia lied about it repeatedly.
And there’s another untold part of the intelligence success story: the ability of the U.S. to inform Ukrainian forces in real time of the precise location of Russian troops, where they were headed, and what they were planning to do.
“I’m not going to go in open hearing about the intelligence we’ve collected and how we did it,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee, “but this war has arguably been the most successful intelligence operation in military history. And it’s really tremendous, and someday, that story will be told.”
Wars are won and lost over logistics.
Kill a tank, and you eliminate a tank. Take out a few supporting fuel trucks, and an entire column of tanks can be stopped in its tracks.
“There are not a ton of war movies made about logistics, but maybe there should be,” quipped CNN’s Brianna Keilar after interviewing retired Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson, a logistics expert, about Russia’s inability to resupply its beleaguered troops in the field.
Russia’s supply lines, which relied on control of the roads and rail lines, were cut early by effective Ukrainian tactics, including ground attacks and drone strikes, leaving demoralized Russian soldiers freezing and without sufficient food, fuel, or ammunition.
Meanwhile, Russia failed to cut off Ukraine’s resupply across the western border, allowing the U.S. and its allies to pour tens of thousands of munitions into the country.
Like Russia, China would have to bring everything with it in any invasion of Taiwan. But unlike Russia, all of the Chinese military support would need to be loaded on ships for the 100-mile trip across the Taiwan Strait, and during the transit, the ships would be targeted by Taiwan’s robust coastal defenses — not just from anti-ship missiles in Taiwan proper but also Taiwan’s heavily defended outlying islands.
20th-century weapons are increasingly vulnerable to 21st-century technology.
After World War II, the Soviet Union had one of the great tank armies in the world.
But in Ukraine, Russia’s older T-72 main battle tanks have proven to be lumbering dinosaurs, fat targets for American-made portable anti-tank missiles such as the now-famous shoulder-fired Javelin and the lesser-known NLAW, for Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapon.
Unsuited for urban combat, tanks will “probably not play a very significant role in a war against China in the 2030s,” said Milley.
Citing the changing nature of war, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger has divested the Corps of all its M1 tanks as it prepares for war with China.
“They are heavy or too difficult to logistically support, and in some cases, vulnerable to attack from the top from a proliferation of very inexpensive missiles,” he said in a Washington Post interview.
But what the tank-busting Javelin is to tanks, China’s new DF-21 “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile could be to America’s vaunted aircraft carrier fleet.
The missiles, never deployed in combat, are designed to track large ships, strike them at hypersonic speeds, and detonate after penetration, destroying a ship with a single blow.
And they could pose a fatal threat to America’s supercarriers.
Drones and robot systems can be game-changers.
Ukrainian forces have made effective use of drones to blunt the advance of Russian forces, particularly the relatively cheap Bayraktar TB2 drone made by Turkey, armed with lightweight, laser-guided bombs.
While the Russian campaign plan for Ukraine seemed modeled on the U.S. 2003 “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq, albeit without any of the American military prowess, the Pentagon is planning for a totally different kind of war in the future — one with smaller ships, hypersonic weapons, and robot systems on land, in and under the sea, and in the air and space — all powered by artificial intelligence.
“What will play a really significant role will be space and cyber, but also air defense systems, long-range precision fires, naval capabilities, and air capabilities,” said Milley.
“Artificial intelligence in my view is … the mother of all technologies,” added Milley, “because what that will enable you to do is … to go through the decision-making process at rates of speed far greater than your opponent … So that side that masters artificial intelligence and applies it to military operations is going to have a … very, very significant advantage.”
Forget about defensive no-fly zones.
No matter how many times the Pentagon knocked down the idea of imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, the calls for it continued, not just from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but also from prominent U.S. lawmakers such as Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a pilot in the Air Force National Guard.
“Enforcing a no-fly zone actually means that you’re in combat,” said Austin during a visit to Slovakia last month. “There’s no such thing as a no-fly zone-lite.”
No-fly zones simply aren’t practical if you’re up against a “near-peer competitor,” argues Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a West Point graduate and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Establishing and enforcing a no-fly zone against a near-peer competitor like Russia is far more complex … It would also put the women and men tasked with flying such missions at great risk and would almost certainly drag the United States and the entire NATO alliance into direct armed conflict with Russia,” said Reed on the Senate floor.
A few final bullet points
- The threat of sanctions is generally not an effective deterrent, while the imposition of sanctions can be an effective punishment and bargaining chip.
- Nuclear weapons states can deter the biggest superpower with even the smallest nuclear arsenal.
- Conscript armies are generally not as well-trained nor as combat capable as volunteer militaries. (Israel may be an exception.)
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
