*David Petraeus is a former CIA director who, as a four-star general, led US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He speaks to the historian Niall Ferguson about the war in Ukraine.*
NIALL FERGUSON: General, I wanted to ask you to give your assessments of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If you were grading Russia’s military performance and Ukraine’s, what grades would you give?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Clearly Russia has failed. That’s the only way to describe the campaign thus far. And the Ukrainians, gosh, I think you have to give them an A at least and perhaps even more for just the sheer determination.
But it’s much more than fighting for their very survival. They have done it very, very impressively. The entire nation has been galvanised by a leader who has been positively Churchillian. There are four tasks of strategic leadership, and President Zelensky has performed each of these brilliantly. First, he has got the overarching big ideas right. Second, he has communicated the big ideas effectively throughout Ukraine and around the world. Third, he has overseen the implementation of the big ideas relentlessly. And, fourth, he has determined how he needs to refine the big ideas again and again. I think you give an A-plus since we’re using Harvard and Stanford grades.
Even on that scale, you can’t give Russia anything but a failing grade. Russia has realised that by attacking everything they attack nothing, and therefore have achieved very little so far. They appear to have withdrawn just about everything that they had in the north and north-east. The Russian command, control and communications have failed, too. That’s why generals have to go up to the front, where they get killed by these very skilful Ukrainian snipers. I’d give an ‘incomplete’ grade on what Russia is seeking to accomplish now: shifting focus to the south-east, trying to reinforce the one area in which they’ve had a modest degree of success. Then they’ll attack to the south-west and perhaps even try to trap some of the Ukrainian forces that are defending against the Russians coming out of the Donbas. And then they’ll try to do the same thing from the south-east around Mariupol, where there still is an unbelievably determined group of defenders. Mariupol has become the Ukrainian Alamo: just fighting to the last defender. But when eventually it does fall, the Russians will be able to refocus.
It’s a race right now between the Russians trying to reconstitute their forces – Russia has lost well over 15,000 soldiers in the first six weeks, four times what we lost in 20 years in Iraq – and the Ukrainians, who have to do the same for many of their forces that have fought in the north, and then push them a minimum of 450 miles from Kyiv to the south-east. That’s a long distance. Having invaded a country where we went these kinds of distances, I can tell you it’s very challenging.
NF: Given all that you’ve just said, what’s the probability that Russia can succeed in winning the coming battle for the Donbas? What seems to be happening is a very hurried reconfiguration of Russian forces, which – considering the losses they’ve suffered – strikes me as too hurried. I can’t help feeling this next Russian plan, which we might call Plan C, isn’t going to work, or at least that there’s a decent chance it could fail. Do they really stand a chance of winning some kind of victory in the east of Ukraine, given all the casualties and losses of equipment that they’ve suffered?
DP: I think the odds, as you imply, are against the Russians achieving control of all the south-east. But the odds are not sufficiently against that possibility that you don’t have to be seriously concerned. This is a perilous moment for Ukraine, because shifting all these forces down there is not a trivial task. They’re going to require every means of transportation. They don’t have enormous expeditionary logistics; rather they use fixed-base logistics. This would be challenging for any army. This is why it’s a race.
What the Russians seem to be doing ‘well’ is destroying what is in their path. They can just keep pushing that way, and take the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk, solidify their gains along the south-east coast, and enable Putin to say: ‘This is what we always wanted to achieve.’ But like you, I think the Ukrainians have a reasonable chance of not just defending against this new offensive, but they could also counterattack as they did outside Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy. By the way, I also think if you look at the embattled city of Kherson, which was the first major city taken by the Russians, they’ve never really solidified their grip. They do control it, but the citizens are out demonstrating every day. If the Ukrainians can take that city back that would be a huge statement.
**The art of warfare**
NF: Let me take a step back now and ask a question about the character of the war. Would you say that a 20th-century invasion has been defeated, or at least checked, by 21st-century defence? Is this a war that we understand partly in terms of two different technologies? The Russians seem to have used 20th-century forms of warfare, such as columns of tanks, and the Ukrainians have used not only drones but also state-of-the-art US technology. Is that the right way to think about this?
DP: You’re the historian, and I think it’s a wonderful way to characterise what we are seeing except that it may be a little bit overdrawn. The Russian army is surprisingly unmodernised, given all the hype about money spent on reviving it. It is largely a throwback to the old Soviet army and the Warsaw Pact. All the same features except, frankly, the skill, because we believed that they did actually train to some kind of standard in those days. By contrast, it’s a mystery to me as to what the Russians accomplished in all the training, manoeuvres and exercises that they conducted for months on the border just east of Ukraine and in Belarus. It’s very clear to me they were camping, not training.
But on the Ukrainian side, you see some throwbacks to the Cold War as well. Ukrainians also use old Eastern Bloc battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and air defences. But then they also use very cutting-edge anti-tank guided missiles which lock on a target and can attack a tank from the top, where it’s most vulnerable. Certainly the Ukrainians have been using drones to great effect. They have state-of-the-art night-vision goggles in some of their organisations; they have counter-fire radar; they have advanced communications. So it’s really a mix. What we need to do is get them some additional new high-end capabilities.
I’ll mention one item in particular: the Switchblade drone. It’s a loitering munition that takes a one-way trip. The light version can loiter for 15 to 20 minutes. Heavy version, 30 to 40 minutes with a range of at least 40 km. The operator selects a target, it locks on and it follows. Then it strikes when the operator gives that order. This is extraordinarily effective because you can’t hear it on the ground. The first time the enemy knows it’s there is when it blows up. If we can get enough of those into Ukraine, they could be a true game-changer. I don’t know if we can, however. I don’t think the production is ramped up. The latest commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars from the US includes Switchblade drones, but there are only 100 of the lighter ones, and six of the heavy announced so far.
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*David Petraeus is a former CIA director who, as a four-star general, led US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He speaks to the historian Niall Ferguson about the war in Ukraine.*
NIALL FERGUSON: General, I wanted to ask you to give your assessments of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If you were grading Russia’s military performance and Ukraine’s, what grades would you give?
DAVID PETRAEUS: Clearly Russia has failed. That’s the only way to describe the campaign thus far. And the Ukrainians, gosh, I think you have to give them an A at least and perhaps even more for just the sheer determination.
But it’s much more than fighting for their very survival. They have done it very, very impressively. The entire nation has been galvanised by a leader who has been positively Churchillian. There are four tasks of strategic leadership, and President Zelensky has performed each of these brilliantly. First, he has got the overarching big ideas right. Second, he has communicated the big ideas effectively throughout Ukraine and around the world. Third, he has overseen the implementation of the big ideas relentlessly. And, fourth, he has determined how he needs to refine the big ideas again and again. I think you give an A-plus since we’re using Harvard and Stanford grades.
Even on that scale, you can’t give Russia anything but a failing grade. Russia has realised that by attacking everything they attack nothing, and therefore have achieved very little so far. They appear to have withdrawn just about everything that they had in the north and north-east. The Russian command, control and communications have failed, too. That’s why generals have to go up to the front, where they get killed by these very skilful Ukrainian snipers. I’d give an ‘incomplete’ grade on what Russia is seeking to accomplish now: shifting focus to the south-east, trying to reinforce the one area in which they’ve had a modest degree of success. Then they’ll attack to the south-west and perhaps even try to trap some of the Ukrainian forces that are defending against the Russians coming out of the Donbas. And then they’ll try to do the same thing from the south-east around Mariupol, where there still is an unbelievably determined group of defenders. Mariupol has become the Ukrainian Alamo: just fighting to the last defender. But when eventually it does fall, the Russians will be able to refocus.
It’s a race right now between the Russians trying to reconstitute their forces – Russia has lost well over 15,000 soldiers in the first six weeks, four times what we lost in 20 years in Iraq – and the Ukrainians, who have to do the same for many of their forces that have fought in the north, and then push them a minimum of 450 miles from Kyiv to the south-east. That’s a long distance. Having invaded a country where we went these kinds of distances, I can tell you it’s very challenging.
NF: Given all that you’ve just said, what’s the probability that Russia can succeed in winning the coming battle for the Donbas? What seems to be happening is a very hurried reconfiguration of Russian forces, which – considering the losses they’ve suffered – strikes me as too hurried. I can’t help feeling this next Russian plan, which we might call Plan C, isn’t going to work, or at least that there’s a decent chance it could fail. Do they really stand a chance of winning some kind of victory in the east of Ukraine, given all the casualties and losses of equipment that they’ve suffered?
DP: I think the odds, as you imply, are against the Russians achieving control of all the south-east. But the odds are not sufficiently against that possibility that you don’t have to be seriously concerned. This is a perilous moment for Ukraine, because shifting all these forces down there is not a trivial task. They’re going to require every means of transportation. They don’t have enormous expeditionary logistics; rather they use fixed-base logistics. This would be challenging for any army. This is why it’s a race.
What the Russians seem to be doing ‘well’ is destroying what is in their path. They can just keep pushing that way, and take the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk, solidify their gains along the south-east coast, and enable Putin to say: ‘This is what we always wanted to achieve.’ But like you, I think the Ukrainians have a reasonable chance of not just defending against this new offensive, but they could also counterattack as they did outside Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy. By the way, I also think if you look at the embattled city of Kherson, which was the first major city taken by the Russians, they’ve never really solidified their grip. They do control it, but the citizens are out demonstrating every day. If the Ukrainians can take that city back that would be a huge statement.
**The art of warfare**
NF: Let me take a step back now and ask a question about the character of the war. Would you say that a 20th-century invasion has been defeated, or at least checked, by 21st-century defence? Is this a war that we understand partly in terms of two different technologies? The Russians seem to have used 20th-century forms of warfare, such as columns of tanks, and the Ukrainians have used not only drones but also state-of-the-art US technology. Is that the right way to think about this?
DP: You’re the historian, and I think it’s a wonderful way to characterise what we are seeing except that it may be a little bit overdrawn. The Russian army is surprisingly unmodernised, given all the hype about money spent on reviving it. It is largely a throwback to the old Soviet army and the Warsaw Pact. All the same features except, frankly, the skill, because we believed that they did actually train to some kind of standard in those days. By contrast, it’s a mystery to me as to what the Russians accomplished in all the training, manoeuvres and exercises that they conducted for months on the border just east of Ukraine and in Belarus. It’s very clear to me they were camping, not training.
But on the Ukrainian side, you see some throwbacks to the Cold War as well. Ukrainians also use old Eastern Bloc battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and air defences. But then they also use very cutting-edge anti-tank guided missiles which lock on a target and can attack a tank from the top, where it’s most vulnerable. Certainly the Ukrainians have been using drones to great effect. They have state-of-the-art night-vision goggles in some of their organisations; they have counter-fire radar; they have advanced communications. So it’s really a mix. What we need to do is get them some additional new high-end capabilities.
I’ll mention one item in particular: the Switchblade drone. It’s a loitering munition that takes a one-way trip. The light version can loiter for 15 to 20 minutes. Heavy version, 30 to 40 minutes with a range of at least 40 km. The operator selects a target, it locks on and it follows. Then it strikes when the operator gives that order. This is extraordinarily effective because you can’t hear it on the ground. The first time the enemy knows it’s there is when it blows up. If we can get enough of those into Ukraine, they could be a true game-changer. I don’t know if we can, however. I don’t think the production is ramped up. The latest commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars from the US includes Switchblade drones, but there are only 100 of the lighter ones, and six of the heavy announced so far.