Many observers overlook an important fact: Enemy reconnaissance-strike complexes and their ability to contest the air-ground littoral are neither monolithic nor arrayed uniformly throughout the battlespace. Unevenness of capability across the front line creates opportunities for offensive maneuver, as the success of Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kursk in 2022 and 2024 can attest. Thus, creating and exploiting positions of relative advantage—the core idea behind maneuver warfare—remains viable. US military leaders should not abandon maneuver and resign themselves to assuming a positional or attritional mindset simply because the conditions of the modern battlefield make it challenging. The conditions of modern warfare encourage positional warfare, but do not dictate it.

Armor’s historic battlefield role remains central to joint success. Armored formations penetrate prepared defenses, seize and hold ground, and dislocate enemy formations. Armor’s protected firepower and mobility enable ground commanders to threaten broad sections of the enemy’s defensive line and to rapidly deliver a powerful combined arms blow when and where opportunities arise. That same protection, mobility, and firepower in exploitation allows ground commanders to transform tactical success into an operational position of advantage. Exploitation into the enemy’s support area, where many of the capabilities of the reconnaissance-strike complex reside, allow ground commanders to knock down the pillars on which the enemy’s means for contesting the air-ground littoral rest.

I don’t think Ukrainian armored commanders need to heed these words, they already know this, but I do think the rest of us commenting from the side do…