Six weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, observers are having doubts about Russia’s military strength.
Nonetheless, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced at a March 25 news conference that the main objectives of the first stage of its “special military operation” had mostly been accomplished and it would now focus on the complete “liberation” of the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
Many observers ridiculed this announcement, saying that Russia is making excuses for its stalled offensive.
Regardless of whether Russia’s objectives in the next stage remain centered on Kyiv or shift to the southern port city of Mariupol, why the Russian army has not advanced as expected needs to be answered.
Why have so many generals and other high-ranking officers been killed on the front lines? These are questions that many researchers are likely asking.
The command and control of a military is inseparable from the design of its bureaucracy and its use of technology. Even in this age of information warfare, the organizational design of an army can still limit its command authority and the effectiveness of its coordinated warfare.
Russia’s relatively good performance in the Syrian war benefited from the small scale of its troop deployment, the limited capabilities of its opponents and the limited support that the Syrians received from foreign forces.
By contrast, in the current conflict, Russian armed forces launched simultaneous offensives from the northern, southeastern and southern sides of Ukraine, using nearly 200,000 troops — not including militia forces in the eastern breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which roughly correspond to the Donbas region.
How to coordinate these forces on multiple fronts has naturally been a major problem.
Media images show that Russian-allied forces in eastern Ukraine are worse equipped than the regular Russian army, which has resulted in surprising battlefield incidents such as the use of unencrypted communications and obsolete machine guns.
Electronic interference from the US and NATO has resulted in further havoc to the Russians’ communications, forcing commanders to resort to inspecting the battlefield in person.
Another serious issue is the Russian military’s command structure. Unlike militaries in the US or Europe, the Soviet Union in its time had a type of warrant officer called a praporshchik that made up the core of each combat unit.
However, in 2008 and 2009, the Russian army reclassified these praporshchik as contract noncommissioned officers (NCOs) with technical specialties, while their leadership duties were handed over to primary officers.
Although the root of this reform was in the need for specialist operators in modern-day, information-based warfare, the lack of seasoned NCO leadership in the ground forces has resulted in poor performance in combat.
As the Cold War came to an end in 1991, Russia abolished the Main Political Directorate of the Soviet Army and Soviet Navy. This relegated the term “political commissar” to history.
Not until 2018 was the directorate revived in the form of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which was formed on the basis of the previously existing Main Directorate for Work with Personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The chief of the directorate is one of the deputy ministers of defense.
The revived directorate restarted the old practice of assigning political officers at all levels of the armed forces. Could this also cause confusion in the command system? Could that make it necessary for senior military officers to be present at the front line to command when large forces are integrated and deployed?
All of these factors might be reasons for the Russian army’s poor performance.
No matter how far technology advances, wars are still waged by humans. The outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine remains uncertain, but the lessons that can be learned from the Russian army in terms of its organizational command and control should provide stimulus and inspiration for future developments.
Above all, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, which has a similar organizational structure to that of Russia’s military, is certainly paying close attention to what happens in this war.
Lin Ying-yu is an adjunct assistant professor at National Sun Yat-sen University and a researcher at the Association of Strategic Foresight.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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