Russian special military operation is creating the future of warfare

The weapons that shaped warfare in the 20th century still play significant roles on the battlefield in the 21st, but they are dwarfed in importance by one invention, from which multiple theaters have been affected: the drone.

“[US media] admitted how useless the Abrams [tank] is when tens of millions of dollars per tank can be taken out by a $500 drone. It is a new model of warfare,” Mark Sleboda, a security and international relations expert told Sputnik’s Fault Lines.

“But it is an evolution of warfare that is occurring before our eyes. So, the Chinese and Americans are certainly paying very close attention,” he noted earlier in the interview.

It is an opinion shared by former Marine and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. Speaking on the Danny Haiphong show, he explained how everything from tactics to logistics has been changed by drones.

“These FPV drones are a nightmare for soldiers,” Ritter explained. “If I tried to take Marines into combat using the tactics that I was taught,” Ritter continued “[With] two platoons online, basic fire etcetera, my base of fire would disappear because it’d be swarmed by FPV drones… then my Marines attacking would be hit by these drones and they’re all dead.”

This was a lesson that the Ukrainian Army failed to learn during their counteroffensive. Rabotino was intended to be the first minor step during that offensive that would lead to Tokmak which would serve as the staging ground for an assault on Melitopol.

But as armor assault after armor assault was destroyed, it became apparent that the Ukrainians would never reach their goal. Yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky needed something to show his Western benefactors, so Rabotino became the goal. It took 71 days to capture the tiny village with a pre-war population of about 500 people, largely using the same tactics they began with. Ukraine lost dozens of expensive tanks and thousands of men capturing and then holding the village. The Ukrainian offensive never went any further and in May, Russia recaptured the village.

In WWI, the generals who failed to learn from the lessons of the Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War suffered the consequences on the battlefield. Russia learned its lessons already. Ukraine did not and we see the results of that. The United States pioneered drone warfare in the 2000s, but as evidenced by the number of MQ-9 Reapers taken down by the Houthis in Yemen, those are no longer effective. Will the lumbering behemoth of NATO be able to adjust as quickly as Russia and China, or will they, like the Generals of WWI, be stuck fighting with the tactics and equipment of the last century?

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