How US forces can adopt Ukraine’s unconventional multidomain approach

For all the reports of battlefield setbacks along the front line, Ukraine is conducting a novel hybrid campaign combining long-range drone strikes and unconventional warfare. The question is: Could the United States similarly integrate conventional and unconventional operations in future campaigns?

Despite renewed interest in the 2020 National Defense Strategy, irregular warfare often remains focused on ideas linked to legacy Cold War constructs focused on overthrowing regimes using guerilla forces. Too often, analysts make a sharp distinction between conventional and unconventional conflict when in fact all war involves both forms working in tandem.

For Sun Tzu , it was the balance of the orthodox and unorthodox that kept an adversary off balance. Even Hannibal — the archetype at Cannae for conventional maneuver — actually used a mix of sabotage and political intrigue to set conditions for his seminal campaign.

French support to the American revolution involved both front companies supporting pirates attacking British shipping lanes as well as foreign material support.

During the Second World War, the British integrated the Special Operations Executive with its military campaigns while the Office of Strategic Services supported U.S. campaigns with morale operations designed to undermine enemy cohesion.

Faced with resource shortages and the brutal reality of 21st century trench warfare, Ukraine has found new asymmetries by combining elements of conventional and unconventional warfare. First, Ukraine is pioneering long-range, low-cost, one-way attack drones to strike strategic economic targets throughout the depth of Russia. The targets increasingly appear to be linked to critical infrastructure connected to Moscow’s oil and gas transit and processing facilities — a critical requirement for generating revenue for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

Over the month of March — and coinciding with the Russian presidential election — the Security Service of Ukraine has reportedly successfully attacked over 10 oil refineries, disrupting as much as 12% of Russia’s oil processing capacity , often using salvos of 35 drones each costing less than $100,000. In other words, Ukraine likely spent only $40 million to damage up to $40 billion worth of Russian critical infrastructure.

These conventional strikes focused on economic centers of gravity most likely to hold the regime at risk. The attacks also forced Russia to pull additional air defenses back to protect its critical infrastructure, setting conditions for front-line air operations by Ukraine as new equipment, like F-16 fighter jets , starts to arrive this summer. Of note, the activities coincide with increased targeting of Russian air defenses since the summer along the front . In other words, attacking Russian critical infrastructure achieves multiple objectives at low costs to Ukraine and sets conditions for future operations.

Second, Ukraine is combining unconventional warfare with these long-range precision strikes. In the lead-up to the election, there was been an increase in proxy raids into Russian border areas, cyberattacks and ballot sabotage , alongside calls for a wider symbolic uprising.

The surge of activity surrounding the election fits with broader trends in the conflict. Over the last two years these measures have included running deepfakes and disrupting Putin’s speeches. This approach reflects time-tested unconventional warfare campaigns that create conditions likely to foster local acts of sabotage, work stoppages and protests.

Ukraine isn’t just attacking the Kremlin’s wallet by hitting its economic center of gravity; Kyiv is attacking the mind of the Russian population and amplifying the stark contrasts between regime rhetoric and reality lived by ordinary people.

This approach stands in contrast to U.S. joint and service concepts that preface converging multidomain effects and downplay the role of people and perception. While space and cyber domains play critical roles, there is no discussion about a human domain or the contest of wills at the heart of every conflict. The focus instead is on disrupting enemy battle networks and destroying high-value targets at range, not on how to leverage discontent, compound morale issues or undermine cohesion.

As a result, special forces tends to overemphasize direct action and special reconnaissance. These conventional approaches tend to discount the utility of information warfare and cyber operations capable of setting conditions for protests and social unrest — which are more likely to threaten autocratic regimes than long-range precision strikes.

It is also unclear whether the United States has the necessary capabilities and concepts to defeat a hybrid campaign attacking its critical infrastructure and social cohesion. China has already demonstrated an interest in holding American critical infrastructure at risk through cyber operations.

Furthermore, most U.S. critical infrastructure nodes — from key telecommunications relays connecting sea cables and satellites to oil and gas — are not protected by air defenses capable of defeating a complex drone attack .

Lastly, Russia has shown the world a playbook for how to create discord online through a mix of computational propaganda and cyber operations . The United States still hasn’t found a sufficient defense against these influence operations.

As a result, the United States needs to revisit key military concepts — including future iterations of the joint warfighting concept — with an eye toward combining conventional and unconventional approaches to competitive strategy. The concepts should provide a blueprint for future campaigns, including defense operations, defending U.S. critical infrastructure and countering foreign influence operations. These concepts should think as much about will and perception as they do exquisite battle networks while keeping an eye on cost curves. The next war will not be won by a salvo of hypersonic missiles alone.

Benjamin Jensen is a senior fellow in the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. He is also a professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps University’s School of Advanced Warfighting. The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect an official position of the U.S. government.

尽管有报道称前线战场遭遇挫折，但乌克兰正在开展一场结合远程无人机打击和非常规战争的新型混合战役。问题是：美国未来能否在战役中也采用类似的方式整合常规和非常规作战？

尽管人们对2020年《国防战略》重新燃起了兴趣，但非常规战争的理念往往仍然局限于冷战时期遗留下来的、以游击队推翻政权为核心的框架。分析人士常常将常规冲突和非常规冲突截然分开，而事实上，所有战争都是这两种形式协同作用的结果。

在孙子看来，正统与非正统的平衡才是令对手难以捉摸的关键。即使是汉尼拔——坎尼战役中传统战术的典型代表——实际上也运用了破坏和政治阴谋相结合的手段，为他那场意义非凡的战役创造了条件。

法国对美国革命的支持包括支持海盗袭击英国航运路线的幌子公司以及提供外国物资支持。

二战期间，英国将特别行动执行处纳入其军事行动，而战略情报局则通过旨在破坏敌方凝聚力的士气行动来支持美国的军事行动。

面对资源短缺和21世纪堑壕战的残酷现实，乌克兰通过结合常规和非常规战争手段，找到了新的作战优势。首先，乌克兰率先研发远程、低成本的单程攻击无人机，用于打击俄罗斯纵深地区的战略经济目标。这些目标似乎越来越多地与莫斯科的石油天然气运输和加工设施相关的关键基础设施相连——而这对于俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京发动的这场战争而言，是获取收入的关键所在。

据报道，在3月份——恰逢俄罗斯总统选举——乌克兰安全局成功袭击了10多家炼油厂，导致俄罗斯高达12%的石油加工能力瘫痪。袭击通常使用35架无人机同时进行，每架无人机的成本不到10万美元。换句话说，乌克兰可能只花费了4000万美元就破坏了价值高达400亿美元的俄罗斯关键基础设施。

这些常规打击主要针对最有可能威胁到该政权的经济中心。这些袭击还迫使俄罗斯撤回更多防空力量以保护其关键基础设施，为乌克兰在前线开展空中作战创造了条件，因为包括F-16战斗机在内的新装备将于今年夏季开始陆续交付。值得注意的是，这些行动与自夏季以来沿前线对俄罗斯防空系统的打击力度加大相吻合。换言之，攻击俄罗斯关键基础设施对乌克兰而言成本低廉，却能实现多重目标，并为未来的行动创造条件。

其次，乌克兰将非常规战争与远程精确打击相结合。在大选前夕，乌克兰境内针对俄罗斯边境地区的代理人袭击、网络攻击和破坏选票的事件有所增加，同时还出现了呼吁发起更大规模象征性起义的声音。

围绕选举的一系列活动与冲突的整体趋势相符。过去两年，这些措施包括投放深度伪造视频和干扰普京的讲话。这种做法体现了久经考验的非常规战争策略，旨在制造可能引发局部破坏、罢工和抗议活动的条件。

乌克兰不仅通过打击克里姆林宫的经济重心来攻击其钱包；基辅还在攻击俄罗斯民众的思想，并放大政权言论与普通民众所经历的现实之间的鲜明对比。

这种方法与美国的联合作战和军种作战理念截然不同，后者强调多域融合效应，并淡化人员和感知的作用。尽管太空和网络空间发挥着至关重要的作用，但这些理念却只字未提人员领域或冲突核心的意志较量。其重点在于扰乱敌方作战网络和远程摧毁高价值目标，而不是如何利用不满情绪、加剧士气问题或破坏凝聚力。

因此，特种部队往往过分强调直接行动和特种侦察。这些传统方法往往忽视了信息战和网络行动的作用，而这些信息战和网络行动能够为抗议和社会动荡创造条件——相比远程精确打击，这些手段更有可能对专制政权构成威胁。

目前尚不清楚美国是否具备应对攻击其关键基础设施和社会凝聚力的混合型网络攻击所需的能力和策略。中国已经表现出通过网络行动威胁美国关键基础设施的意图。

此外，美国大多数关键基础设施节点——从连接海底电缆和卫星的关键电信中继站到石油和天然气——都没有能够抵御复杂无人机攻击的防空系统保护。

最后，俄罗斯向世界展示了如何通过计算机宣传和网络行动相结合的方式在网络上制造混乱。美国至今仍未找到有效防御此类影响力行动的方法。

因此，美国需要重新审视关键军事概念——包括联合作战概念的未来发展方向——着眼于将常规和非常规手段相结合，以制定更具竞争力的战略。这些概念应为未来的军事行动提供蓝图，包括防御行动、保护美国关键基础设施以及应对外国影响力行动。这些概念在构建精密作战网络的同时，也应充分考虑意志和感知，并密切关注成本曲线。下一场战争的胜利绝非仅仅依靠高超音速导弹齐射就能取得。

本杰明·詹森是战略与国际研究中心未来实验室的高级研究员，同时也是美国海军陆战队大学高级作战学院的战略研究教授。本文观点仅代表作者个人立场，并不反映美国政府的官方立场。