Success denied: Finding ground truth in the air war over Ukraine

Maximillian K. Bremer, Kelly A. Grieco

Ukraine’s recent two-front counteroffensive has dealt a heavy blow to the Russian military. Contrary to Western military orthodoxy, air superiority was not a prerequisite for battlefield success. Ukrainian forces advanced rapidly despite the absence of aerial cover and fire support from high-end fighter jets and bombers—two mainstays of the American way of war. Some observers may conclude – all too hastily – that the air domain and airpower is less relevant to future wars, or that Russian ineptitude renders lessons about airpower’s role unhelpful.

This is a dangerous misreading of events.

Far from irrelevant, control of the air domain was the battle’s center of gravity. By adopting an air denial strategy, that is, maintaining an air defense in being to keep Russia’s manned aircraft at bay and under threat, Kyiv thwarted Russia’s ability to not only to ascertain the disposition of Ukrainian forces but also to respond rapidly to events once it became obvious where the counterattacks were taking place. Quite simply, air denial – not the traditional concept of air superiority – was a prerequisite for Ukraine’s battlefield success.

For months, Kyiv telegraphed its plans to launch a counteroffensive in the southern Kherson region. But Ukrainian forces had a surprise in store for the Russians: they not only counterattacked in the south, as expected, but they also pushed north in the Kharkiv region. This second – surprise – counteroffensive caught the Russians off guard: they had redeployed many units in anticipation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson and left their defenses in the northeast too thin. As Russian forces fled, Ukraine liberated more territory in a few days than the adversary had captured over the last five months.

How did Ukraine manage to catch the Russians unawares? Ukraine’s strategy of air denial enabled its counteroffensive in two key ways:

First, it facilitated Ukraine’s use of military deception to pin down Russian forces in the south. Without air superiority, Russia could not freely operate its manned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft over the battlefield, which limited its ability to track Ukrainian movements. The alternatives, employing unmanned aircraft (drones) and space-based assets in ISR roles, were not effective. Though less costly than manned aircraft, ISR drones’ high attrition from both being shot down and electronic jamming meant they were needed in mass. Russia, however lacked sufficient numbers of ISR drones, particularly the Orlan-10 which took heavy losses early in the war, and have become problematic to replace due to Western sanctions.

Russia’s only other “eyes in the sky” are its space-based capabilities. But Russian satellites lacked the coverage and resolution required to detect a coming counteroffensive. Pavel Luzin, a Russian military expert, admits as much, explaining: “Our two optical reconnaissance satellites yield such [low] resolution [images] they can only map flight missions [for launching] missiles.” These satellites, he added, “pass the same point only once every 16 days. There’s no possibility to quickly receive data.” Far from limiting Ukraine’s military effectiveness, a strategy of air denial made operational deception possible by effectively blinding the Russians.

Second, Ukraine’s air denial strategy prevented Russia from responding rapidly to halt the Ukrainian advance even once it recognized a second counterattack was underway in the Kharkiv region. The comparative advantage of airpower is the ability of aircraft and other airborne systems to bypass terrain that would otherwise impede the movements of ground forces for the rapid maneuver of firepower over significant distances. This combination of lethality and responsiveness makes airpower particularly effective against mechanized ground forces operating offensively. Whereas a defender in position is harder to detect from the air, an attacker on the move generates noise, heat, and electronic signals that makes it easier to find and attack. Ukrainian tanks and military vehicles rumbling down highways and across open fields in broad daylight should have made easy work for the Russian air force. But Ukraine’s air denial strategy made Russian pilots wary of flying into Ukrainian airspace at all, much less loitering and hunting for targets on their own.

Instead, Russian warplanes reportedly only attack targets with known coordinates, as called in by Russian ground forces. But Russia’s shortage of reliable tactical reconnaissance drones means many of its ground units cannot see what is over the next hill, further degrading reconnaissance-strike capabilities. In sum, Ukraine’s air denial strategy in combination with insufficient quantities of attritable Russian drones were critical enablers of Ukraine’s counteroffensive success.

Airpower’s contribution to victory was perhaps more subtle and indirect but no less vital than the role it played in recent U.S.-waged wars. To be sure, Ukraine’s strategy of air denial resulted more from military necessity than deliberate stratagem, given the relatively small size of the Ukrainian air force. But the key point is that Ukraine’s success stemmed from more than merely capitalizing on Russian failure.

Russia’s suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) campaign failed, but Ukraine’s employment of vertical depth, layering the effects of air defenses, electromagnetic jamming, drones, and missiles in increasing degrees of strength together with the advantages of dispersion and mobility suggest the defender now has the advantage. Put simply, the widespread diffusion of advanced technologies indicates the SEAD mission is harder than many Western air forces and defense analysts fully appreciate. It may be possible to suppress the adversary’s air defenses for a while or in a small area, but not to the point of making the airspace operationally useful as in the past. To maintain combat credibility, modern air forces – built around smaller numbers of expensive and exquisite systems operated by highly skilled crews – need to avoid attrition risk. But procuring large numbers of these high-end systems is a losing game against cheaper and more sustainable networked air denial technologies. Today, and for the foreseeable future, it is exceedingly difficult, nigh impossible, to deny a strategy of air denial.

Two significant policy implications follow from this recognition. First, Ukraine ought to avoid an attempt to gain air superiority outright against Russia. The United States has sent Ukraine high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs), fitted for MiG -29 fighters, to allow the Ukrainian air force to hunt Russian air defense radars in Ukraine. In addition, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl has said the transfer of fourth-generation Western fighter jets to Ukraine is not “inconceivable.” These capabilities raise the prospect of Ukraine shifting operational objectives from air denial to the achievement of air superiority outright. Such a change misses the real lesson of the air war – the success of Ukraine’s air denial strategy stems not from Russian shortcomings but a more fundamental and systemic shift from offense to defense dominance. Any attempt by Ukraine to achieve air superiority would thus likely fail for the same reasons that Russia’s did.

Second, the United States Air Force ought to pay attention. Instead of insisting on expensive and exquisite capabilities – such as next-generation fighter jets and stealth bombers to conduct deep strikes and pulsed operations – it ought to move more rapidly toward unmanned and autonomous systems and swarming tactics with thousands of small and cheap drones. Otherwise, the Air Force runs the serious risk of repeating Russia’s mistakes by holding tight to a force structure centered predominately on manned aircraft, creating a situation where the force is too costly to risk and too small to sustain losses during a prolonged war of attrition.

Future attempts to overcome defense dominance are likely to falter, because air denial favors defense. Ukraine’s recent battlefield success is no exception to this rule. Russia is on strategic offense, and the Ukrainian counteroffensive is precisely that – a response to Russian aggression.

Critically, air denial enabled Ukraine to survive and regroup. Ukraine traded time for space to grind down the Russian offensive, weakening Russia’s attacking forces and rendering them vulnerable to counterattack. As Clausewitz wrote, “the defensive form of war is not a simple shield, but a shield made up a well-directed blows.”

Similarly, a strategy of air denial aligns well with U.S. strategic objectives. The United States is on the strategic defensive in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and it seeks to preserve the territorial status quo. If the Air Force moves away from the few and exquisite high-end fighters and bombers it continues to favor, and invests instead in low-end, attritable capabilities, it will make it next to impossible for future adversaries to succeed on offense. But if it clings to an offense-first, air superiority mission, it may share the fate of Russia’s air force: surprised, unprepared, and largely sidelined from the fight.

U.S. Air Force Col. Maximillian K. Bremer is the director of the Special Programs Division at Air Mobility Command. The opinions in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Defense Department or the U.S. Air Force.

Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and an adjunct associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University.

Biden leaves no doubt: ‘Strategic ambiguity’ toward Taiwan is dead

 President Joe Biden has further stoked U.S.-China tensions by unambiguously pledging a U.S. military response if China tries to invade Taiwan.

The U.S. military would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack” on the self-governing island, Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

Biden didn’t define what an “unprecedented” attack on Taiwan would look like, but his comments marked the fourth time since August 2021 that he has stated that the U.S. would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt. And in every case, aides have walked back comments that appear to reverse the longtime policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding U.S. willingness to defend Taiwan.

Biden’s assertion reflects his administration’s recognition that the U.S. must apply a more robust deterrence to Beijing given its worsening military intimidation of Taiwan. That harassment is rooted in China’s concerns that the island is on an irreversible course toward independence.

“I think we can all be pretty certain at this point that it was not a gaffe — four times in a row … [means] what’s happening is there are people in the administration who think that by demonstrating a greater willingness to defend Taiwan, that'll help reestablish deterrence,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, center fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Biden’s pledge of U.S. military defense of Taiwan breaks new ground in his administration’s willingness to take a more uncompromising approach to the possibility of Chinese aggression. And it reflects deepening concerns about Beijing’s intentions following the live-fire military drills it launched around the island after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s contentious Taiwan visit last month, as well as ongoing violations by Chinese military aircraft of the median line between Taiwan and China.

“No previous president has chosen to prejudge the decision that he will take in the event of a hypothetical Chinese military action,” Daniel Russel, former assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs and vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told POLITICO. “[It] doesn't really have the hallmark of an off-the-cuff remark — this was a sit-down interview in which it seemed the White House would have understood that this topic would be certainly fair game and one would have expected to prepare the president for the answer that he wanted to give.”

Face-off over Taiwan

Biden’s remarks sparked cheers in Taipei.

“[Taiwan] extends its sincere appreciation to President Biden for once again emphasizing the staunch and rock-solid US security commitment to Taiwan,” the island’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

But his comments infuriated Beijing.

“The U.S. remarks … severely violate the commitment the U.S. made not to support Taiwan independence,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.

The Chinese Communist Party considers “reunification with Taiwan,” a territory that the CCP has never ruled a “historical task.” It’s also key to Xi Jinping’s credibility as he seeks a third term as China’s leader next month. Liu Jieyi, director of the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office, in July described “national reunification” — Beijing’s shorthand for a Taiwan takeover — as an “inevitable requirement” of Xi’s hawkish “national rejuvenation” policy.

“We will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” said a Chinese government white paper on Taiwan published last month.

The U.S. relationship with Taiwan is spelled out in the U.S.-China Three Communiqués, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Six Assurances. The TRA commits the U.S. “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.” None of those documents specifically obligate the U.S. to military intervention to protect Taiwan in the face of a Chinese invasion. But the TRA suggests an active U.S. role in maintaining the island’s status quo.

Some Republican lawmakers welcomed Biden’s comments.

“I’m glad the president has once again taken a clear position on Taiwan’s defense. … I hope this is the end of flip flopping on U.S. security interests for Taiwan,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.   

No surprises in Beijing

White House officials rushed to defuse Beijing’s anger by insisting that Biden’s remarks were in line with U.S. commitment in the Three Communiqués.

“The president's remarks speak for themselves, [and] I do think our policy has been consistent and is unchanged and will continue,” Kurt Campbell, the U.S. National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, said on Monday at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event.

That response reflects an effort by the administration to warn Beijing of the potential consequences of an attack on Taiwan while insisting that the U.S. remains committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

“Call it a two-pronged approach in terms of the administration statements and the President's speech on this … to increase the deterrent effect on China and enable us to keep tensions at a somewhat reduced level,” Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, professor of practice at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School for professional public policy, said in an interview.

Biden’s comments will come as no surprise to the People’s Liberation Army, whose planning for possible military action against Taiwan has long factored in the likelihood of U.S. military intervention.

“The PRC is pretty well convinced that we would come to Taiwan’s aid and I think they're planning on the assumption … so I'm not sure how much [Biden’s statement] adds to deterrence,” Aaron Friedberg, former deputy assistant for national security affairs in the Office of the Vice President and professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, told POLITICO.

Bluster and danger

Biden’s comments have prompted calls from some China experts for the administration to rethink existing U.S. government commitments to China regarding Taiwan’s status due to Beijing’s worsening bellicosity toward the island.

“So far, everything Xi has done since 2012 is to make it even less desirable for Taiwan to be part of his grand ‘rejuvenation’ experiment,” David R. Stilwell, former assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in an interview. “The question is, why do we continue to insist on this one China policy? Why don't we update it?”

Beijing has long warned that any attempt by the U.S. to try to alter the status quo across the Taiwan Strait would reap a fierce response.

“The Taiwan question is the most important and most sensitive issue at the very heart of China-U.S. relations,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement last month. The ministry has warned that any U.S. moves to change its relationship with Taiwan are “like playing with fire, are extremely dangerous.”

That may be more than bluster.

“Each action on the part of the U.S. or on the part of the president of the United States that seems to reaffirm the worst-case scenario in Beijing's eyes strengthens their hostility, their paranoia, their anger [and] reinforces their most extreme right-wing elements,” Russel said. “It works against the prospect of any kind of reconciliation or of cooperation between us, and accelerates the downward spiral of strategic rivalry.”

The Biden administration’s challenge is to balance its desire to deter a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan with a clear understanding of its willingness to sacrifice blood and treasure to keep the island out of Beijing’s clutches.

“Most people assume the U.S. will do something to defend Taiwan. The big question is, what are the costs we're really willing to pay?” Stanford’s Skylar Mastro said. “Are we going to stick it out after 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 casualties? There’s nothing about Biden’s statement that adds any clarity to the Chinese on that issue.”

Debunking the idea viruses always evolve to become less virulent

 As evidence mounts that the omicron variant is less deadly than prior COVID-19 strains, one oft-cited explanation is that viruses always evolve to become less virulent over time.

The problem, experts say, is that this theory has been soundly debunked.

The idea that infections tend to become less lethal over time was first proposed by notable bacteriologist Dr. Theobald Smith in the late 1800s. His theory about pathogen evolution was later dubbed the "law of declining virulence."

Simple and elegant, Smith's theory was that to ensure their own survival, pathogens evolve to stop killing their human hosts. Instead, they create only a mild infection, allowing people to walk around, spreading the virus further afield. Good for the virus, and, arguably, good for us.

But over the past 100 years, virologists have learned that virus evolution is more chaotic. Virus evolution is a game of chance, and less about grand design.

In some cases, viruses evolve to become more virulent.

Continued virus survival, spread and virulence are all about the evolutionary pressures of multiple factors, including the number of people available to infect, how long humans live after infection, the immune system response and time between infection and symptom onset.

Unfortunately, that means it's nearly impossible to predict the future of the pandemic, because viruses don't always evolve in a predictable pattern.

There have been thousands of identified COVID variants, each with unique mutations. But most new variants emerge and then quickly die out, unable to compete with the reigning dominant variant.

Some variants, however, have clear "advantages to continued survival, such as those that evade the immune system and spread easily," said Dr. Abir Hussein, associate medical director for infection presentation and control at University of Washington Medical Center.

Experts warn that it is important to assess the severity of omicron in the context of existing immunity through vaccines and prior infections.

"It is difficult to determine with new variants like delta and omicron if variants are evolving to be more or less virulent. This is because these variants emerged at a time when we had a good deal of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in certain countries," said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

People who are vaccinated or recently infected will have milder symptoms if they experience a breakthrough infection or a reinfection, studies show.

"This is not because the variant is less virulent, but because your immune system was primed from prior vaccination and infection," said Pekosz.

Experts say omicron should not be taken lightly or thought of as a less lethal form of COVID. Even if less deadly, the omicron variant is also significantly more transmissible, leading to more deaths overall.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict that 22,000 more people could die of COVID-19 over the next two weeks.

People who are unvaccinated remain significantly more at-risk, with officials estimating they are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized and 20 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared to people who are vaccinated.

"The available COVID vaccines provide immunity for a range of variants and continue to be the first line of defense," said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

As for the future of the pandemic, experts say new variants may emerge in the future, but they won't be easy to predict.

Jess Dawson, M.D., a masters of public health candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

EXPLAINER: Why is China so angry over UN report on Xinjiang?

 BEIJING (AP) — China has responded furiously to a United Nations report on alleged human rights abuses in its northwestern Xinjiang region targeting Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim ethnic minorities.

The report has been in the works for years and was released despite Chinese efforts to delay or block it, aware of how it could validate claims that more than 1 million ethnic minority members were forcibly sent to centers it says were for vocational training.

Those who were held, their relatives and monitoring groups describe them as prison-like reeducation centers where inmates were forced to denounce Islam and their traditional culture, while swearing fidelity to the ruling Communist Party.

The camps have been part of a widespread campaign of repression in Xinjiang, allegedly including involuntary sterilizations of women, forced labor, the demolition of mosques and other religious sites, the separation of Muslim children from their families and the harassment of minority members living abroad.

WHERE IS XINJIANG AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CHINA?

Xinjiang is a vast but sparsely populated region of mountains, forests and deserts in far northwestern China that borders Russia, Pakistan and several Central Asian nations. The ancient Silk Road ran through parts of it and various nationalities and Chinese empires controlled its cities and oases over the centuries, with the Communist Party taking complete control following its 1949 victory in the Chinese civil war.

The region contains a wealth of natural resources, including oil, gas and rare earth minerals, but perhaps its most important value is as a strategic buffer that extends China's influence westward. While China and Russia have largely aligned their foreign policies in recent years, Xinjiang was on the front line of their Cold War rivalry and remains important as an assertion of Chinese influence in Moscow's back yard.

WHAT PROMPTED CHINA'S CRACKDOWN ON MINORITIES?

Xinjiang's Uyghurs, along with the closely related Kazakh and Kyrgyz, are predominantly Turkic Muslims who are culturally, religiously and linguistically distinct from China's dominant Han ethnic group. Repression under Communist rule, particularly during the violent and xenophobic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, stirred deep animosity in Xinjiang toward the government, aggravated further by the migration of Han to the region and their domination of political and economic life.

Uyghurs established two short-lived independent governments in Xinjiang prior to the Communist Party's seizure of power, and the desire for self-rule endured and was nurtured by resentment against heavy-handed Chinese rule. A protest movement began in the 1990s and remained at a relatively low level until simmering anger exploded in a 2009 riot in the regional capital of Urumqi that left an estimated 200 people dead. More violence followed within Xinjiang and as far away as Beijing, prompting Chinese leader Xi Jinping to order a massive crackdown starting in 2014.

WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR THE UN ACCUSATIONS?

With Xi's blessing, Xinjiang's hard-line leader, Chen Quanguo, who took office in 2016, began sending Uyghurs and others into a vast network of fortified camps without legal due process. It remains unclear what criteria were used to determine if a person needed to be sent for what the authorities called retraining or de-radicalization, but those who showed religious tendencies, the well-educated and anyone with foreign connections were especially susceptible.

Conditions in the camps have been described as overcrowded and unhygienic, with those inside forced to renounce their religion and culture and praise Xi and the Communist Party. Harsh punishments were meted out for those who refused to comply and the length of sentences were indeterminate. While China says it has closed the camps, many of those held have since received lengthy prison terms within a system that remains overwhelmingly opaque. The U.S. and others have labeled China's policies against Xinjiang minorities as “genocide."

WHAT HAS BEEN CHINA'S RESPONSE?

China has always denied targeting Uyghurs and others for their religion and culture, denouncing the accusations as a confection of lies by the West and saying its crackdown was aimed at quashing separatism, terrorism and religious extremism. It has said camp attendance was voluntary and no human rights were abused, although internal Chinese documents have frequently contradicted such claims.

Beijing has also cited carefully choreographed visits by journalists, diplomats and, most recently, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, as validating its claims. Some observers say the tide of criticism may have prompted Beijing to wind down the detentions earlier than planned to salvage its reputation among Muslim nations and in the developing world.

In a note accompanying the U.N. report, China’s diplomatic mission in Geneva registered its strong opposition to the findings, which it said ignore human rights achievements in Xinjiang and the damage caused by terrorism and extremism to the population.

“Based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt, the so-called ‘assessment’ distorts China’s laws, wantonly smears and slanders China, and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” the note said in part.

WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME FOR CHINA?

China's authoritarian leaders have outwardly defied criticism of their policies in Xinjiang, but have been unsuccessful in thwarting international sanctions on officials who were involved and bans on cotton and other commodities from the region. The report's release comes despite China's growing influence within the U.N. and its pressure campaign against critics in the human rights community.

China has maintained its defiance and appears to believe its policies have been effective and should continue, despite any costs to its international reputation. On Thursday, its Foreign Ministry scoffed at the U.N. report, saying it was “orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is completely illegal and void."

“It is a patchwork of false information that serves as political tool for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China," ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.