Ukraine should focus on being a army-centric combined arms (across all domains) military rather than seeking a "porcupine" defense.
Now it is Ukraine's turn to get quills?
By "going porcupine," Ukraine can make it clear to Russia that invasion will be costly and unsuccessful. But Kiev needs help.
To be fair, some of what the authors advocate are simply increasing Ukrainian military capabilities. That's fine. So I'm not saying the suggestions are necessarily bad. Some are great.
But using the "porcupine" label might confuse the situation and lead Ukraine down a bad path.
This strategy is modeled on Hezbollah strategy in its conflict with Israel. Hezbollah relies on dragging on a war while it kills Israeli soldiers and civilians behind human shields. The strategy relies on having an enemy like
Israel that is sensitive to its own losses and sensitive to world opinion, and so wary of killing too many of their
enemy.
Sometimes it seems like "porcupine" strategies are sold on the false notion that there is a cheap way to guarantee an enemy won't strike. It is the new and improved "asymmetric" or "Hezbollah" strategy that have long been raised.
A major flaw is that Ukraine isn't going to focus on a strategy of killing Russian civilians. And if Ukraine tries to focus on killing Russian soldiers without stopping them, the flaw is that if the enemy decides it is willing to accept the casualties it will invade and win. How sure are we that we can calibrate the acceptable losses? How do we know when the potential invader's calculations change?
Mind you, I've long been in favor of Ukraine having
long-range fires to strike Sevastopol bases and having naval mines to put
Russian warships at risk. But I wouldn't rely only on inflicting pain on the Russian fleet to deter Russia any more than I'd rely on only killing soldiers or killing civilians, period.
Why are so many analysts enamored with "porcupine" strategies that don't try to defeat invaders but increase the cost to invaders of winning? This isn't sports betting where you "win" even if you lose by beating the spread.
Defeating enemies is the best way to increase their cost.
And if you aren't advocating a "porcupine" strategy but simply want to increase combined arms or multi-domain integrated military capabilities, say that. Don't use the trendy terminology. It just confuses the issue. Which can lead to defeat as you forget the real reason for having a military.
