The US Army’s power to rapidly defeat enemies may be a thing of the past

Modern weapons have become so accurate and lethal that soon armies will not be able to maneuver rapidly on the battlefield.

Instead, they will trudge forward under the protection of defensive “bubbles” designed to stop drones and missiles. According to this vision, swift battlefield maneuvers will be replaced by grinding wars of attrition where victory goes to the side that has the most firepower as well as the most resources to replace losses.

It’s a grim vision of warfare that has more in common with the slaughter of the First World War than the mechanized blitzkriegs of World War II and Desert Storm, where infantry and armor backed by airpower seized vast territory. But it’s a future the West must prepare for, warns Alex Vershinin, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel, in an essay for Britain’s Royal United Services Institute think tank.

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that — at least for now — firepower dominates maneuver. Russian and Ukrainian have painfully learned that with surveillance and attack drones constantly overhead, emerging from cover is dangerous and slow. Long-range guided missiles and shells can decimate armored columns that dare to thrust through minefields and layered defenses covered by artillery and airpower. Instead of sweeping offensives, the Ukraine war has become a largely static conflict where immense preparations are made for attacks that might gain an obscure village or a few square miles of territory before the attacker halts to dig in and regroup.

READ MORE HERE