Ukraine is conducting a campaign with few precedents in military history. It isn’t merely defending its front lines or carrying out occasional deep strikes. It is imposing persistent strategic pressure on a much larger adversary by attacking Russia’s front lines, air defenses, fuel depots, logistics and military infrastructure and by trying to isolate occupied Crimea.
Ukraine almost certainly can’t destroy Russia’s war machine, but if it can keep enough of that machine disrupted, degraded and short on fuel, it can change the strategic equation.
Kyiv appears to be succeeding. Recent attacks inside Russia have hit refineries, oil terminals, pumping stations, air-defense systems, headquarters, logistics nodes and infrastructure. Russia’s Energy Ministry has acknowledged that strikes on fuel and energy infrastructure have contributed to supply problems as far east as Siberia and in occupied Crimea. Reports describe Russia’s worst nationwide fuel shortages in years, with restrictions on gasoline and diesel sales in multiple regions.
Crimea, once Vladimir Putin’s prized symbol of conquest, is becoming a liability. Ukrainian strikes have caused fuel shortages, power outages and logistics disruptions across the peninsula. Russian authorities there have declared a state of emergency.
This isn’t strategic bombing in the old sense. During World War II, the Allies attacked Germany’s synthetic-fuel plants, refineries, aircraft factories, rail networks and transportation system. Those campaigns required immense industrial capacity, thousands of aircraft, enormous logistics and, eventually, command of the air. The U.S. submarine campaign against Japan offers another comparison: It strangled Tokyo’s economy and war effort by destroying the shipping that carried fuel, food and raw materials.
Ukraine is pursuing a similar strategy by different means. It doesn’t have fleets of heavy bombers or a blue-water navy. It is using drones, missiles, commercial communications technology, intelligence networks, special operations, software adaptation and operational ingenuity.
Ukraine’s objective isn’t a single decisive blow. It is cumulative disruption. A refinery today. A radar tomorrow. A fuel depot the next night. Together, these strikes have a strategic effect. They force Russia to defend everywhere, repair constantly, disperse assets, reroute logistics and explain increasing shortages to its population.
This is adaptation warfare. The side that adapts faster imposes costs on its enemy. To be sure, Russia has adapted by improving electronic warfare, hardening facilities, expanding drone production and developing new glide-bomb tactics. But can Russia adapt quickly enough when Ukraine is adapting even faster and applies pressure simultaneously across many arenas?
It remains to be seen whether Russia can rebuild air defenses and refining capacity and protect the rear without weakening the front, all while maintaining Crimea as a viable base.
History suggests that Ukraine’s strategy will give it the upper hand. The Allied oil campaign against Germany showed that modern armies can’t fight without fuel. The U.S. submarine campaign against Japan showed that a country can be strangled by attacking its logistics and supply lines. The Battle of the Atlantic showed that victory often goes to the side that adapts faster. Ukraine is combining elements of all three—cutting off Russia’s energy, targeting its supplies and adapting faster—while using a 21st-century tool kit.
As Ukraine has shown, a single breakthrough, weapons system, or offensive is unlikely to decide the outcome of future wars. Instead, outcomes may turn on whether one side can impose persistent pressure faster than the other side can recover.
This has implications for the U.S. and its allies. Western militaries tend to rely on hardware-heavy, platform-centric, campaign-oriented warfare. Ukraine is demonstrating the importance of agile, software-driven, distributed warfare and unmanned systems at considerable scale.
The war also underscores the importance of agile industrial depth. Russia has traditional depth: It can absorb significant attacks because it is large and has enormous resources. But Ukraine has achieved modern technological and strategic depth. It can impose disproportionate costs because it adapts, continually out-learns the enemy, and manufactures unmanned systems at greater scale and with greater skill.
The U.S. should draw three lessons. First, persistent strategic pressure requires substantial, resilient strike networks, not only exquisite weapons. Short- and long-range drones, missiles, cyber capabilities, intelligence, targeting systems and battle-management software must be integrated into a campaign that can adapt continuously and is enabled by considerable manufacturing capacity.
Second, defending national infrastructure is critical. Refineries, ports, power grids, logistics hubs, communications networks and transportation systems are no longer rear-area assets immune from war. They are strategic terrain.
Third, adaptation itself must become a military capability. The ability to improve drones, update software, change targeting methods, exploit new intelligence and field new tactics in days or weeks appears to be as important as traditional measures of combat power.
Despite its achievements, Ukraine hasn’t solved every problem. Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, and the front remains brutal. Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of missile-defense systems and interceptors, and the introduction of jet-powered Shahed drones may pose a new challenge for Ukraine’s largely piston-driven drone interceptors.
Still, Ukraine has changed the central question of the war. For much of the conflict, observers asked whether Ukraine could survive Russia’s mass. Increasingly, the question is whether Russia can withstand Ukraine’s adaptation and persistent pressure. That is a remarkable reversal. Ukraine is writing the first draft of this new form of warfare. America and its allies should study it carefully.
Mr. Petraeus, a retired U.S. Army general, commanded the surge in Iraq, U.S. Central Command and the coalition forces in Afghanistan. He served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2011-12) and is a co-author of “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine.” He is a partner in KKR, which is invested in defense and technology companies. Ms. Kaluderovic is CEO of Mental Help Global, an AI initiative in Ukraine, founder of ex2 and a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center’s Ukraine Program.
