Army Formulates Plans to Deter Russia’s Growing War Machine

Defense Dept. photo

WIESBADEN, Germany — The narrative of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has changed.

Images of the aggressor’s tanks and vehicles in retreat at the outset of the war and easy kills with drones and Javelin anti-tank weapons were heartening. It resulted in some ridicule as Russia had to rely on Soviet-era equipment and tactics.

But three years later, the stalemate continues, and those images have been replaced by the ubiquitous Shahed drone — a flying bomb that Russia, along with its Iranian and Chinese partners, can seemingly produce in the hundreds every day.

The U.S. Army, meanwhile, has cast a wary eye at these developments. It not only must be able to deter Russian forces on land borders, but it is also responsible for theater missile defense.

That has given rise to a new concept, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, which senior leaders describe as any European land border between NATO allies and Russia.

When it comes to a full-scale land invasion, Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, in a speech at the Association of the United States Army’s LandEuro conference in July, struck an optimistic note.

“If you now look at everything that is happening throughout the world, the land domain is not becoming less important. Rather, it’s becoming more important. You can now take down [anti-access, area denial] bubbles from the ground. You can now take over the sea from the ground. All of those things you’re watching happen in Ukraine,” Donahue said.

“We’ve developed the capability to make sure that we can stop that mass and momentum problem, approximately 22 divisions worth of capability,” he added.

But when it comes to weapon masses flying over the line of demarcation, Donahue and other senior Army leaders weren’t so confident.

In July, Russia demonstrated the ability to send hundreds of bomb-laden one-way drones and hypersonic and cruise missiles at Ukraine night after night.

Brig. Gen. Curtis King, commanding general of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, said he could not have predicted a couple years ago that Russia would have had the ability to launch 500 to 700 one-way attack drones and then demonstrate the ability to do it every day.

“Then combine that … with their cruise missiles and their ballistic missiles and the increase in their targeting cycle to do a complex attack — meaning they can do all those threats simultaneously on multiple targets across Ukraine — it is very concerning,” King said in a panel discussion.

After the comments — and shortly before press time — the senior Army leaders’ fears seemed to be borne out when nearly two dozen Russian unmanned aerial systems flew into NATO member Poland’s airspace.

Several days later, NATO member Romania reported an incursion of a lone Russian drone.

Some analysts and European leaders said the incursions were deliberate.

King at the conference told reporters that Operation Spiderweb in June — where Ukraine infiltrated some 117 drones deep into Russian territory by hiding them on flatbed trucks and used them to destroy previously out-of-reach aircraft on airbases — has also given European militaries cause for concern, as the tactic could be copied.

“It was a threat we knew, technically, already existed, but seeing it demonstrated with that level of skill in two countries that were already at war with each other, yeah, it definitely added emphasis on our ability to defend ourselves in our garrisons, our bases,” he said.

Russia’s drone blitz was a main topic of conversation at the Conference of European Armies that took place two days prior to the conference, Donahue said. There, U.S. Army leaders went over the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line concept with each of the allied chiefs.

NATO ground forces in Europe previously had a series of regional plans to defend and counterattack a Russian invasion, he said. The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line plan is intended to unify them.

King said the plan has three basic elements.

The first idea is that ground forces can no longer rely on one single system with an interceptor that’s going to be able to hit everything from a small drone all the way to a ballistic missile. “We have to have a mix of capability to be able to counter that threat,” he said.

While Ukraine has had some success using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to fly up and intercept low-cost drones, that is not the solution when hundreds are swarming at targets, he said.

Ground-based air defenses are critical to the fight, “because you just can’t count on the mass from the air alone. You’ve got to have significant capability at the ground, and you’ve got to have attritable and low-cost capabilities, both with sensors and effectors,” he said.

Donahue stressed the need for defensive firepower that costs less than the target it is trying to destroy. It has been a well-known problem in missile defense circles over the past few years that using an expensive Patriot Air and Missile Defense System interceptor such as the PAC-3 MSE — said to be about $7 million per shot — to take down a drone that costs only a couple thousand dollars is a losing proposition.

Ukrainian soldiers pack up a drone used for aerial observation evaluation during an exercise. (Defense Dept. photo)

“Whatever you’re shooting at something, … it has to cost less than what you’re shooting down as a general rule, and we have to develop that capability as fast as humanly possible,” Donahue said.

The second part of the concept is to quickly return defensive systems back to the field, King said.

“It is a strategic deterrent to be able to quickly regenerate combat power and get that back into play, especially when we look at our more exquisite weapon systems and the ability to produce parts at scale,” he said.

The ability to do advanced engineering and repairs on exquisite systems such as the Patriot that would normally be done in a depot is critical “to get those systems back in the fight to counter that mass,” King added.

Complex overhaul and maintenance have been demonstrated recently with Patriot systems coming out of Ukraine. NATO allies have shown they can quickly repair the batteries and return them to action, King said.

The third — and perhaps most important part of the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line concept — is data sharing, King said.

“The currency of this fight, and especially what we’re doing with the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, is how we transport that data, how we store that data,” he said.

It is important while an attack is occurring and to improve defenses, he added.

The idea is to collect data about what happened in a fight, then quickly carry out software upgrades back into those weapon systems, he said.

“Every single time that happens, we get tremendous amount of data. And just from those instances, there’s a lot that we’re learning right now on how we improve and optimize our air missile defense systems,” King said.

He called on industry to help the Army integrate and speed up data processing.

“We can’t wait three weeks. We can’t wait three months. We can’t wait nine months to do that. We’ve got to look at how we use AI, machine learning tools embedded in the weapon systems. We have to gather that data, give us immediate feedback that we can then implement changes, because the fight … is changing so quickly, we can’t wait on those historical models that we’ve done previously,” he said.

One industry member agreed. John George, a retired Army major general who is now a vice president and the Army strategic account executive at Leidos, said during the panel discussion: “I think for the sustainable fires for those prolonged attacks, there are multiple ways to facilitate that — it’s more than just the quantities of munitions — but having better intelligence and understanding how you can find positional advantage for your formations to provide the levels of protection required.”

“And then, I think really an important aspect for the Army is transitioning from the defense to the offense, because we — the U.S. Army — generally like to be on the offense to achieve the objectives laid out in our strategy,” George added.

Donahue told reporters the Army is already working with some big-name U.S. tech companies to build the cloud computing environment needed to carry out the data sharing. He declined to name them but noted that they all already had major contracts with European governments, so there is already a degree of trust among allies.

The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line will require help from industry, he added.

“We already know exactly what we have to develop. We know the network. We know what to do. We just have to do it right. And we’ve got to work with industry. They have to fill the capability that … actually makes this work,” Donahue said.

The first order of business will be to duplicate Ukraine’s success with a network of acoustic sensors that detects low-flying drones. The sensors will most likely be deployed first with Baltic NATO members — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, King said.

Ukraine has been successful using acoustic sensors to detect drones, then passing that information back so commanders can decide to shoot or use other weapons near the border, he said. “They’re also low cost. So, that’s one of the systems that we’re definitely prioritizing first to demonstrate in other countries.”

King also saw promise in the small Group 1 and 2 drones Ukraine sends to intercept and destroy the larger Shahed drones. “It’s not killing all the drones that are coming across, but they’re seeing success right now. … We’re actually starting to do some experiments with that,” he said.

Donahue added: “Anywhere in Europe during a conflict could be a target for an adversary. Our job is to make sure that nowhere in Europe is a target for any adversary.” 

 

Topics: International, Warfare