“Russia has rotated over 30 Brigades and regiments through the Donbas in the last few years, and they have gained valuable combat experience,” retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told Military Times in an emailed statement.
“And that is a different kind of experience than the US Army’s 31 Brigades have learned rotating through Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two decades,” he explained.
I'm not so sure about that assessment. Although I agree with the scarily effective artillery skills the Russians have displayed in the Donbas--seriously "I need to change my underwear" scary (do watch the embedded video at the link).
Russia has rotated elements of brigades through the Donbas--not full brigades but only battalion tactical groups scraped up from the brigades and regiments. And their experience has been as a firepower provider to a shell of militias around the BTGs.
And the last few years have seen static low-level fighting along the so-called ceasefire line.
So I don't think that more than 30 Russian brigades and regiments have conventional combat experience. It is experience. Which is valuable, no doubt. But is it really an edge over us?
While it is true that the Army's experience since the 2003 conventional invasion of Iraq has been in counter-insurgency, the combat experience of individual soldiers is very valuable as long as the units are refocused on conventional combat.
And honestly, I think our National Training Center brigade rotations do a far better job of preparing our brigades for conventional combat than the actual Russian rotations through Russian-occupied Donbas have provided the Russians. As I noted in this post about training for conventional combat, NTC rotations had been so good that our own OPFOR was far tougher than actual Iraqi ground forces we fought in the 2003 invasion.
Mind you, I'm not saying that the Russians lack the ability to seize and hold lightly defended NATO territory. They clearly do have that ability. And the Russians will have the time to dig in and prepare for a NATO counterattack.
But that's a different issue, as I've argued.
UPDATE: And don't discount the experience NATO gained in Afghanistan that transfers to great power competition.
