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Ukraine Doesn’t Need to Win, It Just Can’t Lose – The “Thousand Cuts” Winning Strategy for Kyiv

There is a huge difference between Kyiv’s and Moscow’s strategic goals: on one hand, Zelensky is trying to survive, which means that Ukraine can’t lose. On the other hand, for Putin, after almost half a million Russian casualties, more than 20,000 pieces of military hardware destroyed, damaged, or captured, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and the image of the formidable Russian military badly stained around the world, he needs to do more than just “not lose.” He can’t just give up…he HAS to WIN!

This difference in reality for Russia and Ukraine is something that Kyiv and its Western supporters can exploit. They can do so by not trying to defeat Russia outright—such as by taking Ukrainian territory back—but by bleeding the Russian bear through a “thousand cuts” until it dies a slow and painful death.

Death by a thousand cuts is not a new military strategy or tactic. It has been used often throughout history in asymmetric wars, where the weaker side doesn’t bother trying to defeat its stronger enemy directly. Instead, it relies on asymmetric warfare tactics, such as ambushes, cyber warfare, probing assaults, and long-range drones, to constantly attack its stronger adversary and ultimately undermine its morale, resources, and will to fight until it gives up.

In recent history we can see this particular strategy play out in three different conflicts.

The first is the Vietnam War. In the 60s and 70s, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army were not superior to the American military and its allies. However, they kept pressure on the US military and the South Vietnamese military until the financial, political, human, and social costs were too much for the US to bear.

Eventually, this led to the US pulling out of Vietnam  as the communists prevailed.

In this case, the North Vietnamese didn’t completely defeat the American military. Hanoi didn’t invade the US homeland, capture Washington DC, New York, or Los Angeles, and establish the “Vietnam of America.” Rather, they bled the US physically and financially until the Americans had to give up. (That said, it’s important to note that North Vietnam had extensive financial and military support from both China and the USSR at this time.)

We saw something similar happen with both the Russians and the Americans in Afghanistan. In the 70s and 80s, the Mujahideen (Islamist resistance groups that fought against the Soviet Union) fought a war of resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. They didn’t “win” the war by our usual definition. But with the help of Uncle Sam, they did bled the Soviets enough that Moscow pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989.

To give a final example, we can look at the pullout of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban, with constant attacks on US forces, ambushes, IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), and other tactics over the course of 20 years, eventually made the war unsustainable for the Americans. Though the Taliban had little support from external allies, the financial, political, human, and social costs it caused the Americans outweighed the benefits of extending the American presence in the country. In other words, it was able to bleed the Americans through “a thousand cuts” almost single handedly.

I argue that Ukraine should do the same with Russia now. With financial and military support from the West, the Ukrainians should play a game of defense using probing attacks —but not necessarily large offensives—to bleed the Russians until the war becomes unaffordable for Putin both economically and politically.

I will explain the why and how below, along with the preconditions for this strategy to succeed.

NOTE: Please don’t get me wrong. I would very much prefer that the West would go all-in and support Ukraine in a way that would defeat Russia in a matter of months. However, I recognize that politically this is extremely difficult. So, I’m offering an alternative that is more politically palatable and that will hopefully lead to a Ukrainian victory by playing defense and a Russian defeat—and possibly the collapse of the Russian Federation at large.

Why should Ukraine go into defensive mode, drop most of its offensives, and let the Russians bleed themselves out?

To start, there are two primary reasons why Ukraine should go on the defensive and let the Russians destroy themselves until they have to give up.

From there, with long-range weapons, defensive forces can destroy any gathering force preparing for an offensive. For those vehicles and infantry that make it through the artillery and missile barrage, FPV (first-person view) drones will be waiting to pick them off. Finally, for the very fortunate—or unfortunate—survivors, well-placed anti-tank and anti-personnel mines will do the final trick.

The catastrophic failure of the Russian Vuhledar offensive (which eventually succeeded after huge Russian losses) illustrates this scenario. There, the Russians launched a traditional mechanized assault against well-organized Ukrainian defenses. The result was exactly as described above. The assault was halted by Ukrainian artillery, drones, and many, many mines. At the end of the day, it was a complete Russian failure, costing the size of a battalion in personnel and material.

Why should Ukraine avoid going on the offensive?

The overwhelming tactical superiority of defensive forces in the current Ukrainian conflict is already a great reason for playing defense against Russia. However, there are other specific reasons why Ukraine should focus on defense.

Preconditions for the success of Ukraine’s defenses and the “thousand cuts” tactic

For Ukraine’s defensive tactic to work effectively, several preconditions must be in place:

What could a Ukrainian “victory” look like brought about by playing defense?

Russia’s “death by a thousand cuts” could manifest in several ways:

Factors that could help further Ukraine’s goal of weakening Russia but which are not preconditions for success

North Vietnam and the Vietcong did it. The Afghanis did it twice. If the preconditions above are met—each of which is realistic and attainable—there is no reason why Ukraine can’t use these same “death by a thousand cuts” tactics to defeat Russia by slowly bleeding it to death.

This is why Ukraine needs the West’s commitment to long-term, continuous support. They are fighting and dying not only to defend their homeland but also to safeguard our way of life and the future of the Global Liberal Order that has brought unprecedented prosperity to the world. The least the West can do is help Ukraine—and itself throughout this process —defeat Imperial Russia.

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