Learning Victory: Lessons from the War for Ukraine
BOOK REVIEW: The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire
By Mick Ryan / Naval Institute Press
Reviewed by: Jean-Thomas Nicole
The Reviewer — Jean-Thomas Nicole is a Policy Advisor with Public Safety Canada. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policies or positions of Public Safety Canada or the Canadian government.
REVIEW — Mick Ryan is a retired major general in the Australian Army and a distinguished graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, as well as the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College and School of Advanced Warfare.
Ryan is a passionate advocate of professional education and lifelong learning. He has held commands at the platoon, squadron, regiment, task force, and brigade levels. Ryan has also led strategic planning organizations in the Australian Army and led several reform programs in the past decade.
He is a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Lowy Institute. He is the author of War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First Century Great Power Competition and Conflict (Naval Institute Press, 2022).
Going along the same thematic lines from his previous book, The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire, the book under review here, is therefore written about the people and soldiers of Ukraine and starts, fittingly, with a methodological warning: this book, like any other to be written about the Russo-Ukraine War, can only ever tell part of its overall story.
However, at the same time, it clearly delineates its scope and time limits; accordingly, following the author’s reasoning, at this point in history, there are sufficient stories to tell, and ample observations, which might inform other government and military institutions to evolve and improve their future effectiveness.
As such, this book tells the story and makes observations about the period from the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022 through to 2023 NATO Summit in Vilnius, during which the initial phase of the Ukrainian 2023 counteroffensive was being executed.
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Ryan’s central hypothesis is that while many factors have had an impact on the course of this war, there are two that have been of overriding importance.
These two factors, around which the contents of this book are framed, are strategy and adaptation. It is these two areas where the differences between the approach of the Ukrainians and Russians in this war have been most stark. And arguably, Ryan demonstrates it at length, it is these two areas where Ukraine has developed an asymmetric advantage over Russia.
There is an important reason that the first part of this book is about strategy. The war in Ukraine offers academics, politicians, military leaders, and civil servants an abundance of observations on the development and execution of strategy from the perspectives of the Ukrainians, Russians, Americans, and others.
The closing chapter in part I provides observations for contemporary strategists. The issues raised in this chapter also provide the starting point for further examination of the strategic elements of this war, and how they might apply to future warfare.
As Ryan notes sensibly, no government, military organization, or business institution can predict the future with any certainty. While trends can be utilized to prepare for “most likely” and “most dangerous” future scenarios, every human organization is surprised to some degree about how future events play out. This has unquestionably been the case for this war as well. Indeed, surprise is an important continuity in all wars, and this war has been no different.
This second part of the book is an exploration of how Ukrainian and Russian military reforms before the war provided a foundation for their respective adaptive stances during the war. Both nations had undertaken institutional-level reforms of their military and national security enterprises in the decade leading up to this war.
But because the emergent behavior of military forces after fighting begins cannot be fully predicted, these prewar reforms only form a starting point for adaptation during the war. Therefore, most of the chapters in this part of the book are dedicated to exploring tactical, operational, and strategic Ukrainian and Russian adaptation.
While the book covers many aspects of the war, its focus is on observations about what can be learned by government and military institutions in Ukraine, Europe, and beyond. Ryan argues convincingly that war, the most destructive human endeavor yet devised, is also a complex learning opportunity for military institutions. Thus, he proposes that there are six guidelines that might be useful in a professional, strategic approach to learning and adaptation.
A foundational issue is that of purpose. Why should military organizations look at lessons from war in general, and this one in particular? The answer is that the world is constantly changing, and a clever institution will learn from the mistakes of others rather than constantly making its own mistakes in adapting to change. It is nevertheless possible to learn and change, as historically successful military forces show.
A second consideration in learning is to distinguish between lessons that are specific to this war and those that are broader and more widely applicable. This is hard because only in retrospect can such a judgment generally be made. Consequently, at this point in the war (and given limited insights into Ukrainian military strategy and force generation), almost all observations appear to have wider—or general—utility. These include leadership, combined arms, air-land integration, information warfare, air defense, alliances, and logistics.
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A third consideration for exploring military learning from the war in Ukraine is the level at which this occurs. In their 1988 exploration of learning, innovation, and military effectiveness, Williamson Murray and Alan Millett propose a four layered approach—political, strategic, operational, and tactical. In making the most of the opportunity to gain experience from the Russo-Ukrainian War, military institutions, operational analysts, and academics must invest in each of these four levels to gain a full view of the war and understand how each level interacts with (and changed) activities in the other layers.
A fourth issue in learning from Ukraine is that it provides the opportunity to identify both solutions (from either side) as well as future challenges for which there no current solutions. A strategic learning and lessons process that examines the Russian invasion and subsequent war must not only be about copying what the eventual victor did. Military institutions and strategists must dig deeper for other challenges that are not obvious or that neither side may have produced a robust solution for.
A fifth consideration in collecting, analyzing, disseminating, and absorbing the lessons from this war is understanding the difference between “lessons” and “lessons learned.” It is one matter to make observations. It is quite another to effect change in a military (or other government) institution based on those lessons. For the purposes of this book, Ryan describes his observations and analysis as lessons rather than lessons learned.
Finally, in observing the war and analyzing its many lessons, Western military institutions will also have to assess what other potential adversaries might learn from it. China has previously demonstrated a deep capacity for learning and change, given the right political and strategic impetus. As with previous Western conflicts, it is highly likely that Chinese analysts will explore the war in Ukraine for its many relevant lessons.
In closing, readers should remember that while this book can only cover part of the war, there are a myriad of old and new observations to be drawn from it. These observations should inform Western military and national security institutions as they attempt to deter—and prepare for—conflicts against the authoritarian powers.
We, in the collective West, Europe, Americas and South Pacific alike, must ensure that the sacrifices of the Ukrainian soldiers and the Ukrainian nation are honored not only through our support for them but also through our preparations to minimize the opportunities for predatory authoritarians, foreign and domestic, to force similar catastrophes on other democratic nations in the future.
Will we learn the difficult, bitter, hopeful lessons from the war for Ukraine?
The War for Ukraine: Strategy and Adaptation Under Fire earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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