The military operation waged by Russia and Vladimir Putin has been conducted in an unconventional manner, flouting traditional war strategy while not adhering to multiple principles of war.
The U.S. armed forces and military-based organizations list the principles as follows: objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise and simplicity. But these nine war principles can be interpreted differently by different nations.
Dan Rice, the president of Thayer Leadership, who is currently on his fifth trip to Ukraine since Russia's February 24 invasion, told Newsweek that Russia's military struggles can be attributed to only following two of the nine principles: mass and offensive.
"They throw more and more bodies at the same objectives with no significant changes each attack," said Rice, who serves as special adviser to General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. "They are not a learning organization."
Any country will play to its perceived strengths in such planning, said John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
He told Newsweek that U.S. and Russian military ideology differs in that regard, as the U.S. emphasizes advanced technology and industrial superiority while Russia tends to rely more on territory and superior numbers.
"That's how Russia has approached war in Ukraine, by sending in lots of troops and vehicles hoping to overwhelm," Erath said. "When that didn't work, they had no plan B. Ukraine understood how Russia would approach a conflict and prepared accordingly."
Russian emphasis was on the principles of economy of force and operational maneuver, he added, allowing for effective resistance.
Jasen Castillo, associate professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, told Newsweek that while he agrees with Rice's assessment, it may not be a useful way to understand Russia's operation against Ukraine.
He instead tells his students that countries involved in conventional wars often employ three strategies: blitzkrieg (Germany in France in 1940), attrition (Germany in France from 1914 to 1918), and limited aims (Russia seizing Crimea in 2014).
"In this war, Russia foolishly miscalculated its ability to conduct a blitzkrieg, like the U.S. did against Iraq in the spring of 2003," Castillo said. "They tried to take down the country [in] a quick, decisive campaign. But Putin's Russian army is not the Russian army of 1943 to 1945, and it's certainly not the U.S. Army in 2003. Moreover, they misjudged the Ukrainian will to fight."
It left Russia with a strategy centered on attrition, he added, which proves fruitful by grinding down the capabilities of the enemy and breaking their will to fight—citing repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets.
If Russia had employed a less ambitious limited aims strategy at the onset of its invasion, similar to the strategy employed in 2014 leading to the annexation of Crimea, Castillo thinks it would have better played to their strengths.
"The problem for Russia is that defending the territory they conquered early in the war is hard because they lack enough forces in depth, mobility and cohesion to preserve their gains," he said. "Another problem is the volume of aid from the U.S. and NATO that helps Ukraine stay in the field."
Mikhail Troitskiy, professor of practice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Newsweek that war is complicated and that it can be difficult to point to particular principles of warfare to explain victories or defeats.
"That said, Russia's failure to pull off the planned blitzkrieg against Ukraine is likely due to a number of factors—the main being the self-reinforcing dynamic of underperforming on key goals," Troitskiy said.
He referenced Russia's failure to seize Ukrainian government headquarters in Kyiv in the first several days of the invasion, and a lack of agility later on in the war, aside from Russian forces pulling out of Kherson.
"If there is one key principle which may help to ultimately prevail in a war, it would be adaptability—learning from mistakes, regrouping, changing goals and strategies to more realistic ones, etc.," he said. "On that, both sides have not been too bad, and Russia's record is at worst mixed, so short of some breakthrough dynamic, both sides still have enough bullets and significant determination to fight."
Erath said a bigger question remains regarding Russia's desperation and its consideration of nuclear force as a substitute for its failed conventional military.
"No sign of that yet, but should the futility on the ground continue, there remains the possibility that some in Moscow will look for alternatives and think of nuclear weapons as an option," Erath said.
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