Digging Into The Future: Or How I Learned To Love My Shovel

This paper critically examines the Western military's reliance on manoeuvrist warfare as defined by NATO, positing that this approach may prove myopic in the context of potentially unlimited warfare. It argues that expecting a single set of forces to achieve decisive results against a resilient adversary swiftly is a high-risk strategy. Furthermore, an excessive focus on the manoeuvrist approach may disconnect military efforts from their fundamental political objectives, leading to tactical and operational disorientation and forfeiture of the strategic initiative. In response, the paper advocates for a recalibration of strategy towards attriting the adversarial Centre of Gravity instead of expecting definitive successes from quick and clean land operations. This approach requires Western forces to accept the dire consequences of strategic attrition and embrace prolonged and symmetric warfare strategies to secure favourable outcomes.