Monday, October 01, 2018

Crash Course in Warfighting

I noted my impression that Russia used the Syrian intervention to rotate officers through the campaign to spread experience throughout the Russian military:

So that's 26,172 officers leading 36,840 enlisted men. Which means each officer led 1.4 enlisted men.

Clearly, Russia was rotating officers through Syria to get some real world experience, which they know is a major American military advantage.

Politico confirms that:

The exercise also offers an opportunity to spread lessons the Russian military has learned in Syria more broadly, Kofman said.

While the Russian military presence in Syria is small, all of Russia’s military branches have used it as an opportunity to rotate as many senior officers through as possible on short, three-month deployments to gain real-world experience.

My question is whether the Russian officers who briefly served in Syria learned to lead a fight or just punched tickets in a simulation of learning.