Learning Through Defeat — from William Sayers

A new posting from William (Chip) Sayers. This is his eleventh post here.

———-William (Chip) Sayers—————-

Learning Through Defeat

In April 1980, US military forces of all services participated in a slap-dash operation to liberate US Embassy personnel held by the Iranian government in Tehran.  The mission ended in disaster. Through the lessons we learned from that failure, US Special Operations Command was born, and it has hundreds of successful missions under its belt since formally standing-up in April 1987.  As such, it has become an indispensable element of the sharper end of US foreign policy.

In October 1983, US Army Rangers, 82^nd Airborne paratroops and supporting US Air Force units were assigned the task of taking down one half of the Caribbean island of Grenada. Since our military did not play well together, the US Marine Corps and supporting US Navy units were assigned responsibility for the other half of the island. The lack of coordination did not go well, and it was fortunate that we faced a small force of enemy troops on the ground. Partially as a result of this embarrassment, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act forcing a radical integration of US military operations was passed in October 1986. In its first real test, 1991’s Operation DESERT STORM, the system passed with flying colors and has vastly improved how the US military conducts operations when compared to the 1775-1986 disjointed model of independent, uncoordinated and often counterproductive actions by the separate services.

It is an historical truism that military organizations throughout history have learned far more from defeat than they have from victory — if the conditions are right for a learning experience. The relevance of this question for us today is in its application to Russia’s military forces. Russia has already lost the war in Ukraine and, short of using tactical nuclear weapons, there will be no coming back from this disaster. The real question is, can they learn from this experience and do better next time? A bonus for militaries that learn from failure is that their opponents not only tend to not learn from victory (“We’re number 1, we’re number 1!”}, but they tend to underestimate the vanquished the next time around. If Russia can learn from her mistakes, it could make for a rather ugly surprise the next time we square off against them.

Studies show that the first requirement for a military organization to learn is the ability to freely self-critique. A great example is that poor air forces will return from a training mission and the senior officer dresses down his subordinates for their failures, but is himself immune from critique. In a learning air force, the most junior 2^nd Lieutenant in the room can call out the Prince flight-leader for his mistakes and have a free-wheeling discussion about it.

In a dysfunctional, severely authoritarian system a military organization cannot effectively learn because it cannot analyze its failures honestly. And, in fact, it’s much worse than that. In such a system, the truth itself is banished. If sewage flows downhill, lies flow uphill. Telling the boss the truth can get you a follow-on billet in the secret-police dungeon, so the boss is told only what he wants to hear. Not only can militaries not learn in such an environment, but their command actions are based on self-delusion. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a huge storm came up and blinded both sides with a massive dust cloud. While Allied forces slowed down, they continued moving. Meanwhile, Saddam was told by his military leadership that they were winning. When the dust storm lifted, US forces pounced on Baghdad, while Republican Guard forces were out of position and battered by airpower. The disconnect between Iraqi lies and ground truth was so great that Iraqi propagandists were claiming US forces were not within Baghdad when M-1s could literally be heard in the background. The real payoff was that Iraqi forces were commanded based on that misinformation.

Recent media reports from Russia claim that yet more generals have been sacked by Putin and that Defense Minister Shoigu himself may be on the way out. Along with the generals that have been killed in action, these firings have drastically thinned out the senior leadership so much that Russia may be running out of senior officers with the proper level of experience to step up to replace them. Historically, in a situation like this, less experienced officers worried about having their careers ruined make poor, indecisive leaders leading to indecisive, reactive performance on the battlefield. There is a small chance that such a culling of leadership could push forward the rare energetic and aggressive commander, and that must be watched for, but that eventuality is highly unlikely. Far more often, however, the result is a leadership of sycophants and yes-men, likely to visit disaster on their own commands because they fear giving the boss bad news more than they fear the enemy.

Putin is calling up 200-300,000 men to replace losses and expand the Ground Forces, but it will take months for them to obtain the level of training necessary to succeed on the battlefield. Reports have it that they are only getting a few days of training, indicating that they will be used as mere cannon-fodder. What’s more, it is rumored that they are being equipped with T-55 tanks—with a design dating back to the early 1950s—and bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifles dating back to the 19^th century. While that last bit is difficult to believe, there is little doubt that this offers Russia little chance of rolling back gains by the Ukrainian Army.

At this point, Putin’s one chance of forestalling defeat is the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. It is, after all, his declared policy to use nuclear weapons to make up for shortcomings in conventional defenses, should it come to that. We must prepare a response — whatever it might be — for the eventuality that Putin may execute his policy. However, it is highly unlikely that he will actually pull the trigger.

In the last 60 years there have been at least five publicly known incidents where Soviet/Russian officers have undertaken the positive decision not to launch nuclear strikes on the United States when their doctrine and warning systems called for it. For instance, in one now famous incident from the Cuban Missile Crisis, a conventional Soviet submarine was being dogged by US Navy destroyers to the extent that the commander felt he was under attack and would have to either surrender or launch a nuclear-armed torpedo. In 1983 during the Able Archer War Scare incident, Soviet forces in the Far East were on a war footing, which is why Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down when it wandered off-course over the Sea of Okhotsk. Tensions subsequently ratcheted up to the point that at the climax of the NATO Able Archer exercise, which the Soviets expected NATO to use as cover for a first-strike, they took the historically unprecedented precaution of uploading nuclear weapons onto their aircraft. In the most recent incident in 1995, Russian warning systems indicated a missile launch toward their territory and it was initially identified as a precursor Electro-Magnetic Pulse attack. 

In each of these cases, Soviet/Russian officers evaluated the context and circumstances and came to the right conclusions that nuclear responses would be inappropriate. It should be understood that these incidents happened under a doctrine that called for a preemptive attack, such that a launch would be made on orders from higher headquarters with no corroborating evidence of attack. And still these officers came to the right conclusions. It’s a good bet, then, that if Putin calls for nuclear strikes, he just might get a strike of his own. After all, at least one oligarch has already put a price on Putin’s head.

This leads to a fairly high probability of Russia losing this war, being pushed back to the lines that existed prior to 24 February, and quite possibly being ejected from Ukrainian territory, altogether. Given this probable end state, what’s next for Russia? If our premise that militaries learn more from defeat than victory holds, there is at least the potential that Russia will have the opportunity to learn a great deal from this conflict. The question is, is Russia a learning military? Most evidence points to the negative. During the Cold War, most of the norms Soviet forces expected to achieve under combat conditions were extracted from historical data not from the war against Nazi Germany, but from the final campaign of the war against the Japanese in Manchuria. The problem is, by the time the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, the once-elite Kwangtung Army was a hollowed-out shell of its former self, devoid of nearly all armor, artillery and first-line troops who had been redeployed to fight on the Pacific islands. Before the attack, Japanese commanders knew that they would be unable to effectively resist the Red Army and that their only hope was to avoid conflict. By basing its norms on a campaign with an already defeated enemy, the Soviet General Staff was, in effect, lying to itself as to what could be expected in a war with NATO armies in Western Europe.

Clearly, whatever expectations the General Staff had of its Air Force in the Ukrainian invasion were grossly exaggerated, as were those of its Navy. For the Russian military to become a learning organization will obviously take a massive cultural shift. What form would that shift take and what should we look for to avoid strategic surprise?

First, Russia must face the truth. Literally. They must ditch their culture of lying to satisfy their superiors. Recent articles in the Russian press seem to be calling for just such a shift in miliary culture by ending all the lies that the Russian military tells itself, its governmental leadership, and the nation as a whole. 

Second, the Russians have an excellent system of professional military education schools through which to promulgate the new culture of professionalism should the Russians see the value in this shift and successfully extricate themselves from those habits. If the Russians are serious about developing a learning military, we should see this reflected in their PME curricula.

Third, their PME curricula should reflect a culture of honesty in self-critique. School solutions should not be completely disdained (after all, some student answers are just wrong) but free critique of the school’s and other student’s answers should not only be encouraged, but insisted upon.

Fourth, the Russian General staff must be open and honest about its failures and defeats, both with the political leadership and with the people. This will engender trust, which will, in turn, create strength.

Since the Chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev, visited the United States in 1988, the Soviet/Russian military has been attempting to build a strong, professional non-commissioned officer corps. In 34 years of effort, they have yet to achieve this, despite periodic claims to the contrary. Two of the major obstacles to success are the legendary brutality directed toward its own junior soldiers and low pay. So, Fifth, the Russian military must suppress and root out its brutality, ending the hazing and extreme abuse has long been legend within the Russian armed forces. Sixth, they must raise NCO pay and ensure that it reaches the individual soldier in a reliable and timely manner. 

Seventh, Russia must pay more attention to logistics. There is no excuse for the breakdown of the supply system in Ukraine as Russia inherited a large and robust logistics corps from the Soviet Union. Obviously, this was allowed to atrophy over the years, probably as fallout from our final point.

Lastly, the culture of abject corruption that permeates both the nation and its armed forces, must be thoroughly dismantled. It is clear that much of the Russian Army’s problems stem from corruption and they will never have the fuel and supplies needed for training and operations while the system, from the richest oligarch to the local supply sergeant, syphons off the lifeblood of the Russian military. It seems highly unlikely that Russia could pull this off, and certainly not in time to assist them in the current war. This will take years, and probably only a catastrophic event — like losing a war to a smaller, much less powerful neighbor — could trigger the necessary actions. Such events are unlikely to go unnoticed, but the implications must be recognized and understood.

In the early 1990s, the DIA Soviet Division’s senior analyst, my analytical partner (I was definitely the junior member of the team), and I sat across from BGen Huba Wass de Czege who was the brain-trust of SACEUR. We listened as our senior analyst, a senior executive service officer, dismiss the Soviets (and by implication, the Russians) as a failed power that would never, ever make trouble for the US again. Gen Wass de Czega turned to my partner and I, and after a brief pause, we continued the discussion, pointedly ignoring what had just been said. I’m sure I didn’t say it at the time, but my opinion was that the only thing the Soviets/Russians needed to be right back in our face was the infusion of sufficient cash.

Should the Russian military learn from its mistakes, it would be a fatal error for the West to miss this transformation and assume we are engaging the same enemy they’ve faced off against for the last 80 years. However unlikely, transformation is possible, and we must be vigilant to watch for it.