// More significantly one of the things being discussed is equipping Ukraine to fight like a NATO military. What that means is complicated and something I intend to touch on in a few weeks when I do my maneuver warfare primer, but in practice NATO forces rely less on artillery and more on speed and maneuver and so the idea is to give Ukraine the tools to use speed and maneuver to counter Russian mobilized numbers. The unknown here is if the NATO style of fighting will even work against the firepower density and capabilities of the Russian army. Since 1990, NATO has had the advantage of picking pretty favorable fights against fairly weak opponents and enjoying absolute air superiority doing so; all of that has enabled the NATO combat ‘package’ of rapid maneuvers supported by air strikes as much as by artillery. The chances of Ukraine achieving that level of air superiority, with or without western fighters, is basically nil. Moreover, Russia presents a potentially much harder target to do maneuver to than, say, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army. So it is both unclear if Ukraine will be able to transition to a US or NATO style of warfare but also unclear if that style of warfare will confer the benefits many in the West seem to think it will. That’s not to say it isn’t worth trying, just that it isn’t sure of success.3//