A U.S. veteran who fought in Ukraine said the U.S. military has spent so long focused on fighting insurgents that it has forgotten “what it really means to fight a war.”
“We neglected a lot of the training” on “how to fight and survive in a war between peer-to-peer adversaries,” the veteran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Business Insider.
He said that “in the U.S. military, we’re primarily focused on guerrilla warfare” and fighting insurgents, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military has invested decades, billions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting in these places.
The former soldier spoke about how his training in the U.S. Army several years ago was compared to what he saw in Ukraine, where he began fighting when Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022 and left last December.
He said he fought in Iraq as a contractor after leaving the U.S. military, and in Ukraine he fought in hot spots like Kharkiv and Bakhmut. He served as his unit’s combat medic, treating his comrades when they were injured in combat.
An aerial view of the town of Bakhmut totally destroyed by the violent fighting of September 2023. Libkos/Getty Images
“We’re so used to the idea of waging guerrillas and fighting terrorists and everything else that we’ve sort of forgotten what it actually means to fight a war,” he said.
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were real wars that took a heavy toll in human lives, but the war in Ukraine is an industrial war at levels of destruction the world has not seen in a long time.
By focusing on wars in the Middle East for much of this century, the United States and some of its NATO allies in Europe have allowed the skills needed for this type of conflict to atrophy.
The veteran said that when he went through training, he never received any real training on peer conflict. “A little bit of talking about it and just a little bit of training, but nothing that would have prepared me for the war in Ukraine,” he recalls.
He said he saw many Western soldiers fighting in Ukraine. because “they already have a clear idea of how things should be and everything, and it’s just not that way in Ukraine.”
He said U.S. soldiers are used to fighting at an advantage in equipment and manpower, but against Russia in Ukraine, “I often fought at a disadvantage to the enemy.”
In the U.S. Army, he explained, “I think a lot of the training we have is geared more toward fighting a guerrilla war these days than fighting a close adversary, as would be the case with Russia or China. ” He said this is a problem many NATO members face.
Another U.S. veteran in Ukraine told BI this month he had similar concerns. He said his friends still in the U.S. military ask him for advice on how to fight with drones or in trenches because they don’t receive training that fully reflects what’s happening in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks in a trench near the frontline town of Bakhmut, Ukraine, May 2023. REUTERS/Yevhenii Zavhorodnii
Questions about Western training
Several NATO countries have trained Ukrainian soldiers, but the veteran said some of the Ukrainians he fights with have described some of that training as irrelevant or inadequate.
The veteran said some British-trained Ukrainian soldiers told him that when they asked how to cross the vast Russian minefields, they were told to just go around them.
But the problem is that Ukraine says some Russian minefields stretch for miles, making such a strategy virtually impossible. Additionally, open areas that are not mined may already be targets for artillery or other battlefield threats.
He described some of the training the Ukrainians received as making sense on paper, but it “doesn’t work (in Ukraine) because it’s not the same type of war.”
A State Emergency Service sapper carries an anti-tank mine as he inspects an area for mines and unexploded shells in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in March 2023. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynsky
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has repeatedly raised questions about Western training. Some foreign-trained Ukrainian soldiers said the training they received was not suited to the type of fighting needed in this war.
A Ukrainian commander trained by American, British and Polish soldiers said last year that if he had followed those countries’ advice exactly, he would have been killed.
Many Ukrainian units used NATO training and tactics when Ukraine launched its counteroffensive last summer, but some approaches, such as an excessive emphasis on maneuver warfare without support air force in the face of dense minefields and other formidable obstacles, ultimately failed. The Ukrainians then changed tactics after suffering heavy losses in a change welcomed by some war analysts, but it was not enough.
Another U.S. Army veteran who fought and trained soldiers in Ukraine told BI last year that Ukrainian forces would have been worse off if they had followed U.S. battlefield doctrine.
He said the Ukrainians actually understood some aspects of modern warfare better than the United States, although they sometimes made costly mistakes in their execution, but such can be the nature of any war.
Another type of war
The veteran said many foreign fighters came to Ukraine expecting the same benefits they got in previous conflicts and many were killed because of a “bad mindset.”
Other U.S. veterans who fought in Ukraine said they found the fighting far worse than in Afghanistan and Iraq, describing Ukraine as at a disadvantage compared to the United States and recalling Russia’s relentless attacks.
One previously told Business Insider that the constant fighting in Ukraine often means that, unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no respite or chance to relax. This is a type of combat that takes a heavy toll, both mental and physical, on a soldier.
He said that in many places he fought in Ukraine, “there is no safe place”, while when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq, if you were 800 meters behind the front line, “you could stay outside and have a barbecue.” , a sandwich and a drink.
Ukraine is fighting under conditions very different from those under which the United States and its NATO allies have fought in recent decades. And while there is renewed interest in preparing for peer-to-peer, or even peer-level, combat against an adversary like China or Russia, rebuilding the skills needed for great-power conflict is not happening. not overnight.
Lessons from the Cold War and World Wars must be relearned, and some modern developments require learning new methods of warfare from scratch.
Ukrainian soldiers fire an M101 howitzer toward Russian positions on the front line near Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in March 2024. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
The war has often been transferred in a fierce fight characterized by trench warfare and where both sides rely on decades-old equipment.
Many soldiers have described the war in Ukraine as more resembling World Wars I and II than any modern conflict, although there are also modern elements like drones and missiles.
This is also a comparison that the veteran made. He said fighting to clear Russian trenches made him feel like “fighting World War I.” The predominant role of artillery also testifies to this.
Ukraine has been widely praised for its ability to fight back against Russia, which has a much larger military, and many experts say Ukraine has much to teach the West about fighting Russia.
The veteran said: “I believe the Ukrainians could teach the Western armies, NATO, some things, just because we haven’t fought a conventional war in forever. »
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