Ukraine’s military has grown fourfold since Russia’s full-scale invasion began three years ago, holding off a much bigger force with soldiers who have gone from civilian to battle-ready in just weeks.
Their success on the battlefield, where cheap drones are taking out tank formations, has forced a rethink of what a lethal ground-combat force actually looks like.
“There’s often super soldiers, and super soldiers are a function of training and discipline and how you adapt people to different combinations of combined arms,” Ben Jensen, a senior fellow at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, said during an event Thursday. “And I think that innovation right there—that rapidly being able to turn civilians off the street into some of the most lethal fighting formations we’ve ever seen.”
“It also shows us that some of the discourse around lethality that we’re hearing in the news now might be slightly flawed,” Jensen said. “I’m not fully convinced that modern lethality is ‘the most physically fit stud muffin killing the other most physically fit stud muffin’.”
He and others said that the U.S. military could benefit from studying not just Ukrainian tactics but how the Ukrainian military has grown from just under 200,000 troops to some 980,000 that have held off a Russian army of 1.5 million.
“I do worry that [with] so much emphasis on technology and drones and all that, that we are losing sight of the fact that ultimately it’s about women and men who are properly trained, properly led and determined to win,” said Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “And so this is where Ukraine, I think—it’s why they’ve been able to do what they’ve done, despite Russia having all the other advantages.”
Compare that to the North Korean army, Jensen said, which has deployed thousands of its troops to help Russia in Ukraine.
“I’m not saying we sacrifice training and discipline and physical fitness in our formations. I’m saying that the North Koreans, who are insanely physically fit, are getting killed by people – who probably wouldn’t sometimes pass our own Army physical fitness test – with a drone,” he said. “So I think it also is a moment to pause and think about what actually generates real battlefield lethality in 2025.”
At the same time, it’s a moment to think about the role of mobile protected firepower.
“With the development of drones, everything has shifted and changed,” said Ukrainian Col. Roman Kostenko, who is also a member of his country’s parliament. “Tanks can no longer be used in the same way they were before, because as soon as a column of tanks lines up within the gray zone, they become an easy target. Even a single tank or multiple tanks become almost useless once drones are involved.”
But that doesn’t mean that a tank is useless, Hodges said, only that the current design and employment of tanks may need an update.
“I always want mobile protected firepower in my formation. I think every commander wants what a tank gives,” he said. “Now, does it have to weigh 75 tons with a crew of four, you know? Perhaps not. Eventually we’ll get away from that.”
The Army has begun fielding a lighter tank, the M10 Booker, but Jensen suggested some other ways to think about mobile protected weapons.
“What if we were to imagine, not just the unmanned turret, but one thing that the tank does really well is it generates a lot of power,” he said.
Energy is key to running all of the advanced technological equipment that allows multidomain combat, so what if the tank was more like a mobile, self-defending power plant?
“Power is your limiting factor in both electronic attack and electronic protection, as well as use of drones,” Jensen said. “So I think we’re on the cusp of willing to be creative, of really re-imagining what that tracked beast does.”
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