The old phrase “horse, foot and guns” covers it. Cavalry, infantry, artillery. The trinity of ground combat since before Napoleon, still true in the age of drones and satellites. You need all three, working together, or you lose.
I’ve written before about the fiction of “defensive” versus “offensive” weapons. There’s no such thing. There’s only intention. A rifle is defensive if you’re behind a wall, offensive if you’re advancing. A howitzer is defensive if you’re firing from your own lines, offensive if you’re firing to support a breakthrough. The weapon doesn’t know. The intention is everything.
For the first phase of this war, Ukrainian intention had to be defensive. They were outnumbered, outgunned, facing an enemy that supposedly had every advantage. The defensive form is stronger than the offensive—always has been, always will be. But it’s rarely decisive. You can win a hundred defensive battles and still lose the war if you never take the fight to the enemy.
That’s changed.
Major Russian maneuver units have been gutted. The ones that crossed the border in February aren’t the ones still fighting. They’re dead, wounded, captured, or withdrawn in pieces. The Russians are down to second and third-rate troops, foreign auxiliaries scraped up from Syria and Libya and wherever else they’ve been fighting, mercenaries whose loyalty runs to whoever pays. The household troops of warlords, as someone put it.
The objective situation and the psychological situation both cry out for the same thing: Ukraine taking the offensive.
For that to happen, they need the trinity.
Artillery first. The M-777s will do, if they have enough of them and enough ammunition. Light enough to move, accurate enough to hit what they aim at, destructive enough to break up Russian positions. The Ukrainians have shown they know how to use what they’re given. Give them tubes and shells, and they’ll make the Russians pay.
Infantry next. Brave men riding in good APCs, not walking into machine guns. The Ukrainians have the grunts. They’ve proven that. Every village they’ve held, every city they’ve defended, every counterattack they’ve launched—the infantry has done the work. Give them protected mobility and they’ll do more.
Tanks. The modern heavy cavalry. The thing that breaks through when the artillery has softened the way and the infantry holds the ground. How many do they have? I don’t know. They keep asking for more, which suggests the answer is not enough. Tanks die in this war—everything dies in this war—but you can’t exploit a breakthrough without them.
And yes, the sky. Contesting the air. Not winning it outright—that’s not happening against Russia’s remaining air force and air defenses. But contesting it enough that Russian helicopters can’t hunt Ukrainian columns at will. Enough that Russian bombers can’t operate with impunity. Enough that the ground troops can move without looking over their shoulder every second.
Horse, foot and guns. Plus air. Plus the will to use them offensively, which the Ukrainians now have in abundance.
The Russians have spent months proving they can’t win a war of attrition against a determined defender. Now they get to find out if they can win a war of maneuver against a determined attacker. I wouldn’t bet on them.
