The Adaptation Battle Intensifies

In my latest for the Lowy Institute, I examine how learning and adaptation has accelerated in the last year in Ukraine through the lens of drone warfare.

As many of my readers know, I have been visiting Ukraine in the past ten days on another research visit. I have had the opportunity to speak with many people in the capital as well as in units on the eastern front and elsewhere. The war in Ukraine changes quickly. Every six months it is a different war, and therefore regular visits are a must.

I have learned many things during my visits to Ukraine during the war. And among all the insights I have taken from my current trip, one stands out above all others.

The adaptation battle, a feature of this war since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, has intensified. It is now occurring at a pace that I believe is largely incomprehensible to the majority of politicians and defence procurement bureaucrats in the west. That is a problem.

This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute.

I am in Ukraine on my fifth research visit, and it is clear that the adaptation battle between Ukraine and Russia has intensified in the past year. It has battlefield elements as well as aspects founded on pre-war capacity and military-industry links. Each side is learning and adapting based on the actions and reactions of their enemy.

The best example is drones. At the start of the war, neither side had significant quantities of drones in their inventories. The Russians had capable loitering munitions, and both sides had small numbers of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance.

Once the Russian invasion began, Ukrainian drone operators offered their services to friends in various units, particularly in the Battle for Kyiv. Thereafter, a modern Cambrian Explosion in drone capability occurred. Largely, this has been driven by the Ukrainians, who have been nimble innovators capable of exploiting their pre-war tech base. They also have the capacity to liaise directly between units and drone makers to evolve various models.

The Russians have been fast followers of the Ukrainians, and they possess one significant advantage: they can rapidly scale up production of solutions to Ukrainian adaptations.

Adaptation is the mechanism to build advantage in many areas of warfighting concurrently, while at the same time negating enemy advantage by attempting to interfere with their learning and adaptation. To understand this better, here are six dictums which I believe guide military adaptation.

First, adaptation is an essential foundation for continuous generation of battlefield advantage. Effective adaptation must be nurtured at every level of a military institution.

Second, adaptation is central to learning about the enemy and improving the capacity of friendly forces to negate an adversary’s advantages in technology, tactics, people and generation of smart ideas and massed capability over time. This occurs in war but must start in peacetime.

Third, learning and adaptation cultures and processes must be well established before wars start, to minimise the shock of the transition. Russia and Ukraine both endured periods of military reform before the large-scale invasion in 2022, which provided the foundation for their “adaptive stance” in this war.

Fourth, understanding adaptation is vital to execute the most effective transition from peace to war for military organisations. This topic is one of the least studied areas of adaptation but is explored in detail by Meir Finkel in On Agility.

Fifth, adaptation is key to continuously improving productivity in defence industry in peace and war. There should be close links between military units and those who research and produce all forms of military materiel from boots to precision munitions to drones.

Finally, adaptation is crucial for the cognitive elements of war. It underpins learning about enemy misinformation and the impact it is having on populations and political systems. Adaptation is important to winning a war but also to winning the “story” of the war.

In Ukraine’s war against Russia, the drone adaptation battle is characterised by three key trends.

First, the use of fibre optic control lines for drones has severely limited the impact of electronic warfare against drones. Drones employing fibre optics are not only impossible to jam, they are harder to detect because there are no transmissions to give away their presence. This has led to a second adaptative trend: drone interceptors.

Drone interceptors were originally tried in units with existing drones but have now been systematically developed as a crucial capability in many Ukrainian brigades. With the help of organisations like Come Back Alive and the Drone Fall and Drone Fall 2.0 projects (undertaken in close collaboration with the Ukrainian Armed Forces UAV Training Centre), counter-drone teams now deploy sensors, intercept and command teams in many areas of the front line to deny the Russians the use of fibre optic controlled drones. And the Ukrainians have achieved a key objective of making their interceptors much cheaper than the Russian drones they are bringing down.

But the Russians are now deploying similar teams, and they have learned and adapted to the Ukrainian interceptor teams, resulting in a third trend, Russian counter-adaptation measures for interceptors. These include assessing new Ukrainian capabilities based on videos posted on social media, flying drones at higher altitudes, painting drones to make them harder for Ukrainian operators to spot, and the ability to detect interceptors and take rapid evasive manoeuvres. Russian adaptation occurred very quickly after Ukraine introduced interceptors and was quickly scaled up through Russia’s superior industrial capacity.

Military institutions that hope to be successful in war must never remain at a steady state. They must have the intellectual battles that develop new ideas, doctrines, technologies and organisations to respond rapid technological change and the changing threats posed by adversaries.

The war in Ukraine, and particularly the drone adaptation battle, offers many insights into how contemporary military organisations might hone their ability to learn and adapt in modern war. The Australian Defence Force would do well to pay close heed to these adaptation lessons for the battlefield, strategy and industry.

This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute and is available to be read (for free) at this link.