These seven points are crucial in the war in Ukraine

The trench warfare and tank battles in Ukraine seem anachronistic. Nevertheless, American experts draw important conclusions from the conflict for possible future military conflicts, for example in Taiwan or in the Middle East.

The war in Ukraine is a test for sensor fusion, says Columbia University defense expert Stephen Biddle, 64. It combines data from multiple sources to provide a more complete picture of the battlefield. The US company Palantir has equipped the Ukrainian military with artificial intelligence-based technology that processes massive amounts of data, enabling commanders to understand the war in real time – that is, the movements of Russian troops, their positions and those they target.

Both sides make extensive use of drones in Ukraine. The next level would be autonomous drones that are programmed own boss attacks without a human making the final decision. Such “killer robots” raise fears that generals and politicians could lose control of a war. But in a sense, that future is already a reality: Ukrainians are using the US drone stilettothat can detect potential targets.

open-source Intelligence (osint) is considered critical to modern warfare. Information from freely accessible sources is used for military purposes. In both Ukraine and Russia, secret services and civilian activists are searching commercial Telegram groups satellite photospublic weather maps and wildfire maps Tiktok Videosto draw conclusions about the opponent’s locations and strategies. There were indications of an impending invasion on such channels even before February 24, 2022, says Candace Rondeaux of the New Think Tank America.

Despite all the investment in stealth bombers, manned aircraft play little role in Ukraine and even larger missiles have had only a limited effect. The reason for this is the anti-aircraft defenses, which are on the ground missile attack intercept from the air. The Russian attack on Ukraine has shown that countries need much more anti-aircraft batteries. That’s expensive: The coveted US Patriot batteries cost more than a billion dollars.

The most important lesson, according to military experts, is that an incredible amount of ammunition is needed so that it is currently difficult to get supplies for Ukraine, even with the help of the Allies. The US should make its technologies available to NATO partners to enable coordinated production, Rondeaux says.

Ukraine’s flexible, decentralized command practices have proven to be a major advantage over Russia on the battlefield. “A rigid, centralized command and control structure based on the Russian model has long been a bad idea,” says defense expert Biddle. Some NATO countries are still organized in this way, which is difficult to change.

At the beginning of the Russian invasion, there were doubts both in Moscow and in the West that the Ukrainians would vigorously defend their country. “Fighting motivation is hugely important,” says Biddle. “Whether the Taiwanese army would be as motivated as the Ukrainian army is a very important question.”

Source: Blick