The Enduring Role of Joint Forcible Entry Operations
With few exceptions since World War II, the U.S. military possessed global access to intermediate staging bases that enabled it to mass combat power in an uncontested manner prior to war. U.S. success in recent conflicts, however, enabled strategic competitors such as China and Russia to study the joint force and led them to conclude that to defeat the American military they must preclude its ability to mass prior to the initiation of hostilities.1 This realization led to the advancement of antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) networks designed to deny freedom of mobility to the joint force throughout its operational depth.2
Due to the capacity of A2/AD networks to preclude the joint force’s access to a theater, it is likely that the U.S. military will be required to seize and secure intermediates at the onset of future conflicts. Traditionally, the U.S. military has relied on joint forcible entry operations (JFEO) to seize such lodgments, but the complexities of the future operational environment (OE) increase the risk associated with these missions.3
These challenges require military practitioners to question whether forcible entry operations are still possible, and if not, what adaptations are necessary to make them viable? The Russian military’s JFEO at Hostomel Airport (also known as Antonov International Airport) on the opening day of the war provides insight regarding this question. Despite Russia’s failure at Hostomel, this article demonstrates that forcible entry operations are still necessary—even with the threat posed by A2/AD networks—but require adaptations to ensure they remain viable. To enable their future success, the joint force must mitigate risk by dispersing lift assets to enable their ability to mass, enhancing the mobility and precision fires capabilities of the assault echelon, and task-organizing flexible follow-on forces that can consolidate gains and facilitate transitions. To gain a better appreciation of the impact of the modern OE on these operations, it is helpful to understand the doctrinal framework of joint forcible entries as well as their conceptual origin.
Forcible Entry Doctrinal Framework and Conceptual Origin
A joint forcible entry operation is defined as an action that seizes and holds lodgments against armed opposition in a manner that affords continuous landing of troops and material while providing maneuver space for follow-on operations.4 JFEOs can be executed using an amphibious assault, airborne assault, air assault, or any combination of these methods.5 While the nomenclature may vary depending on the method of forcible entry, they all use a similar five-phase sequencing concept and organize using an assault, follow-on, and rear echelon.6 The assault echelon is the initial entry force used to seize and then to stabilize the lodgment to prepare it for the reception of follow-on forces. The follow-on echelon is composed of the reinforcements required to stabilize and expand the lodgment to enable the flow of requisite combat power necessary to transition to follow-on operations. Finally, the rear echelon is elements of the force not required on the objective area, such as personnel responsible for administrative and special staff functions.7 While this contemporary framework may be new, the intellectual foundation for forcible entry operations is rooted in antiquity.
Military practitioners have not always referred to these actions as JFEOs, but it is clear they recognized the value of these operations and used them in a manner that is discernable today. In Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War, for example, the historian describes numerous occasions where the Athenians exploited exterior lines at sea to execute amphibious raids and assaults on vulnerable Peloponnesian League positions. These operations threatened Spartan base areas and forced the Spartans to commit combat power to defend their coast in lieu of concentrating their forces for offensive action.8 Thucydides’ description of how the Athenians leveraged sea control to project power ashore is still at the core of why forcible entries are effective. Instead of slogging it out with enemy ground forces in attritional engagements, commanders since antiquity have sought to exploit the advantages of exterior lines by using surprise and tempo to outmaneuver an adversary to seize lodgments at a lower cost than otherwise possible. For most of history, the ability to leverage the sea to maneuver was the only way to execute such an action; however, technological advancements as well as the gridlock of World War I inspired theorists to conceptualize how aviation could be used to exploit exterior lines in the air domain in a similar manner to how they were traditionally leveraged at sea.
Such theorizing came to fruition during the interwar period when theorists such as Billy Mitchell and Mikhail Tukhachevsky developed the theory of vertical envelopment. This theory posits that airborne infantry can infiltrate an enemy’s support area, sever ground lines of communication, and seize critical base areas along an axis of advance, thereby enhancing an offensive’s operational endurance while degrading the enemy’s ability to resist.9 Airborne assaults were used by all major belligerents during World War II, and while the results of these operations were mixed,10 it was clear that airmobile forces were capable of outmaneuvering an adversary if they were properly integrated as part of a combined arms offensive.
After the war, the demand for airmobile forces led to experimentation with rotary-wing assets that led to the creation of air-assault doctrine. This doctrine aimed to resolve the issues associated with the erratic nature of airborne assaults by using rotary-wing lift assets to enable the precise insertion of ground forces during an attack.11 These tactics provided the joint force with additional flexibility when it came to the execution of forcible entry operations. As a result, there was no longer a one-size-fits-all solution to JFEOs; instead, the amount of combat power used during these operations could be altered based on the location, size, and enemy capabilities on and around the objective.
Over the past century, this flexibility proved vital during numerous conflicts, such as the amphibious assault at Incheon during the Korean War; the airborne assault at Torrijos International Airport (now Tocumen International Airport), in Panama, during Operation Just Cause; or the air assault to seize Tallil Air Base (now Nasiriyah Airport), in Iraq, during the first Gulf War. In all three conflicts, the use of joint forcible entry (regardless of type) achieved the desired effect of causing an existential dilemma for an adversary along a secondary axis. This dilemma forced the belligerent to divert or withhold combat power from its main effort, thereby enhancing the freedom of maneuver of U.S. forces along another axis. Despite the success of these operations, the capability mismatch between the U.S. military and its adversaries has led to skepticism regarding the future efficacy of JFEOs.12 These critiques warrant examination when we compare the capabilities of the Russian and Chinese armed forces to those of past militaries where these operations were used. Upon comparison, due to the threats posed by the modern OE, the joint force must examine if these operations are still viable. However, due to the U.S. military’s recent involvement in low-intensity conflicts where its adversaries were unable to contest its control of the sea or air, an informed assessment is challenging. To make such a determination, the joint force must assess modern examples of these operations—such as the Russian airfield seizure at Hostomel Airport—to glean insights.
JFEOs and the Air Assault at Hostomel Airport
On February 24, 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The invasion’s main effort was its Kyiv axis, which was task-organized into three groups. The first two groups were deployed to the Belarusian city of Gomel,13 and the final group was an airmobile element located in the Russian city of Pskov.14 The two Belarusian groups were tasked with isolating Kyiv by maneuvering south in a ground convoy along the Dnieper River to blocking positions on the east and west of the capital.15 While these groups maneuvered, an infantry battalion would execute an air assault to seize Hostomel Airport, located 35 kilometers north of Kyiv’s center.16 Once the airhead was established, a brigade tactical group from the air-mobile element in Pskov would be airlifted to the lodgment.17 Upon arrival, the brigade planned to establish an aerial port of debarkation, seize key terrain in Kyiv, and destroy any remaining Ukrainian resistance to enable Russian intelligence and special operations forces (SOF) to decapitate the Ukrainian government.18
The invasion began with a large air campaign that prioritized the suppression of enemy air defense artillery systems (SEAD). While the campaign’s results were mixed,19 it destroyed two S-300 air defense systems screening the Dnieper River, which enabled freedom of maneuver for Russian air assault forces to the north.20 Russian ground forces exploited local air superiority by synchronizing the initiation of a heliborne assault along its northern axis. As part of this assault, upward of 35 attack helicopters maneuvered to the airport to suppress enemy positions on the objective prior to the landing of the assault force.21 Soon after the arrival of the attack aircraft, two sequential lifts each composed of 10 MI-8 helicopters landed 300 paratroopers from the assault echelon on the lodgment.22 After 2 hours of fighting, the Ukrainian forces eventually withdrew and ceded the airhead to the Russians.23 However, due to the failure of Russian forces to isolate the objective, Russian tactical success was short-lived.
Unrecognized by the Russians, two days prior to the initiation of hostilities, the Ukrainian 72nd Mechanized Brigade (augmented with Ukrainian SOF and territorial defense forces) relocated only 6 kilometers from the airport on the east bank of the Irpin River.24 Upon confirmation of the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Hostomel Airport, the 72nd initiated an artillery bombardment on the lodgment. The cumulative effects of the strikes damaged the runway to an extent that prevented the landing of Russian follow-on forces.25 The failure to land these forces meant that the assault echelon would have to retain the airfield until it was able to link up with the ground convoys maneuvering from Belarus. However, the assault force’s limited combat power hindered its ability to secure the lodgment without the support of reinforcements. This time-space-force imbalance enabled the Ukrainians to counterattack and retake the airhead, which stifled the Russian momentum north of Kyiv.
Over the next month, Russian forces along the Kyiv axis were incapable of overcoming the friction caused by poor planning as well as the unexpectedly capable Ukrainian resistance. As a result, the Russian invasion culminated on the outskirts of the capital. The Kyiv axis is a clear example of an operation in which the tempo of maneuver forces outpaced the ability of their logistics units to distribute supplies. To enable effective distribution, ground forces must shorten their lines of communication by establishing intermediate base areas along their axis of advance.26 While the use of JFEO is not the only method of doing so, it is effective because it leverages the advantages of exterior lines by using operational surprise and maneuver to strike vulnerable positions throughout an adversary’s operational depth. These actions—as the Russian assault at Hostomel demonstrate—pose a risk-to-force to the assault echelon that depends on a follow-on-echelon to exploit their temporal success. If successful, however, forcible entries can present a serious dilemma for an adversary that will have to decide between neutralizing the threat in its support area or concentrating its combat power against other lines of operation. Despite these benefits, it is worth using Hostomel as a case study to determine if the utility of these actions outweighs their inherent risk.
Are Joint Forcible Entries Still Viable?
Critics of forcible entry operations claim that events such as the Russian failure at Hostomel are evidence that JFEOs are no longer viable due to the threat posed to joint lift assets by A2/AD networks.27 But the Russian operation at Hostomel Airport invalidates these claims; its failure was a byproduct of the Russian’s inability to isolate the lodgment rather than the Ukrainian’s ability to deny the assault echelon’s freedom of mobility. If the claims made by these critics were correct, the Ukrainians should have validated their assertions because they possessed one of the most capable air defense networks in the world28 as well as high confidence in the indications and warnings of an imminent Russian invasion.29 However, rather than confirming these critiques, the Russian SEAD campaign created a gap in Ukrainian air defense coverage that was exploited by air-assault forces. The initial success of the Russian JFEO proves what has always been true about these operations: the challenges associated with area-denial networks are not insurmountable if a forcible entry is properly sequenced. Unfortunately for the Russians, besides the synchronization of their initial assault, the remainder of the operation violated several forcible entry principles that led to failure.
Most apparent among these principles was Russia’s failure to isolate the objective, expand the lodgment, and maintain access for follow-on operations. There were numerous factors that contributed to the violation of these principles, but most pronounced among them was Russia’s ineffective use of maneuver at the operational level of war. One of the primary issues with the maneuver plan was that the assault echelon did not possess the requisite capabilities to affect Ukrainian forces outside of the airhead. This may not have been an issue if Russian attack aviation assets neutralized Ukrainian reinforcements in the security zone in lieu of concentrating their fire-power on the airhead.30 However, due to poor integration of these platforms, the Russian JFEO depended on the assault echelon to achieve effects outside of the airhead, despite these forces lacking the requisite capabilities to do so.
Although Russian and American assault echelons are task-organized differently,31 the Russian experience at Hostomel will be indicative of what U.S. ground forces will likely face during future JFEOs, where support from the joint force is contested. In the past, forcible entry operations relied on effects that were all but guaranteed based on the U.S. military’s dominance in the sea and air domains.32 Now, however, the proliferation of area-denial systems will make future domain superiority temporal and localized in nature, requiring the assault and follow-on echelons to compensate for the joint force’s diminished role. They can do so by leveraging dispersion during their staging and transit to the lodgment, enhancing the organic mobility and precision fires of the assault echelon, and properly task-organizing the follow-on echelon to enable rapid transitions.
The Future JFEO Assault and Follow-On Echelons
For the assault echelon to compensate for the diminished role of the joint force, it must arrive at the lodgment with sufficient mass to achieve effects. The importance of mass was demonstrated at Hostomel Airport by the Russian assault echelon that lacked the requisite combat power to seize and defend the airhead prior to the arrival of its follow-on forces. Massing on a lodgment will be particularly challenging during a future JFEO due to the ability of A2/AD networks to threaten joint lift assets throughout the depth of the operation.33 Although in the Hostomel scenario Ukraine had no intention of threatening Russian lift assets mobilizing for the invasion due to the escalatory risk posed by a Ukrainian preemptive strike,34 future conflicts with peer adversaries may involve attempts to preclude the joint force’s ability to mass by striking joint lift assets at regional bases.35
Both the Air Force and Navy are making adaptations to their operational concepts to account for the realities of this future OE. The Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations and the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment seek to diminish the effectiveness of A2/AD networks by using dispersion and decentralized command and control networks to preserve combat power.36 Forcible entry operations should leverage these concepts by dispersing their marshalling sites and pickup locations.
Once JFEO ground forces are loaded or embarked, lift assets should exploit the use of exterior lines by selecting approach routes that use terrain and dispersion to their advantage, and only concentrate when they are required to converge at the drop or landing zones. By dispersing in this manner, the joint force can enhance the survivability of its lift assets, which will enable them to mass the combat power necessary for the assault echelon to seize and begin to stabilize the objective. As Hostomel demonstrates, though, lift assets assume a high level of risk during their final approach to a lodgment. To mitigate the risk assumed by these lift assets, the assault echelon may be required to select landing/drop zones that are geographically separated from an objective (which is colloquially referred to as “offsetting” from an objective), which will require enhancing their mobility to maintain a high tempo.
While dispersing joint lift assets will improve survivability during transit, the proliferation of tactical area-denial capabilities means that they will be contested when they eventually converge on the lodgment.37 This vulnerability was demonstrated at Hostomel where 15 percent of the Russian MI-8 transport helicopters were destroyed at the airport prior to unloading their personnel by man-portable air-defense systems.38 To mitigate this risk, lift assets may be required to offset their landing or drop zones outside of the range of enemy areadenial capabilities.
While offsetting would reduce risk to the lift assets, it would also degrade the assault echelon’s tempo, which may provide the enemy time to reinforce the lodgment. To prevent this from occurring, future assault echelons should be augmented with lightweight tactical mobility platforms that can be sling loaded, air dropped, or air/sea landed.39 Motorizing the assault echelon will enable them to rapidly maneuver across offset areas so that they can neutralize the enemy on the lodgment prior to the arrival of reinforcements. On doing so, these forces can then leverage their mobility to maneuver to secondary assault and reconnaissance objectives with far greater tempo than they are accustomed to.
Despite the utility of motorization, this augmentation alone will not provide the assault echelon with the capabilities required to compensate for the joint force’s diminished capacity to support these operations. To overcome this shortcoming, the assault echelon must also be augmented with precision fires assets. While these assets could be delivered in many forms, loitering munitions would be the most effective means of doing so for a JFEO due to their portability and capacity to serve as both a scouting and a strike asset.
Loitering munitions can compensate for the joint force’s diminished role by extending the capacity of the assault echelon to neutralize enemy strike capabilities within the security zone. These assets would have been invaluable during the Hostomel scenario, where the assault echelon was unable to affect Ukrainian reinforcements outside of the airhead due to their lack of organic scouting or strike assets.40 Currently, U.S. loitering munitions come in two variants: the first is a man-portable anti-personnel system with a range of 10 kilometers, and the second is a truck-portable armor-penetrating system with a range of 40 kilometers. These munitions can out-range towed artillery and mortar systems, which are commonly used in the assault echelon during U.S. forcible entry operations. In addition, they also provide live video feeds that can be used as a queuing sensor for artillery and mortars to enhance their ability to deliver effects on enemy forces.41
The drawback to these systems is they cannot generate the volume of fire that traditional artillery and mortar platforms can produce. Due to this limitation, these assets should not replace the role of tactical fires platforms in the assault echelon but rather complement them by striking high payoff targets beyond their range. Furthermore, the provision of these assets will not abdicate the joint force from providing operational fires to shape the lodgment in support of a JFEO. Rather, loitering munitions can enable the assault echelon to neutralize high-payoff targets in the close area, so the joint force is free to interdict enemy forces in the deep area. Enabling joint fires assets to focus on interdiction in lieu of close air support will hasten the stabilization of the lodgment and facilitate the landing of the follow-on echelon. The units that are responsible for forcible entries, nevertheless, lack many of the organic combined arms capabilities within their follow-on echelon that are necessary to exploit the initiative of the assault and effectively transition to subsequent operations.
Forcible entries require rapidly deployable and expeditionary units that are not suited to support many of the platforms necessary for follow-on operations, such as mobile protective firepower, air defense artillery platforms, or bridging assets. But as the Russian example at Hostomel Airport demonstrates, the follow-on echelon must be task-organized with the requisite capabilities to facilitate a rapid transition. If Russian follow-on forces were able to land, actions taken by Ukrainian forces in the vicinity of the lodgment would have required them to rapidly employ a variety of combined arms capabilities. For example, bridging assets were necessary to provide freedom of maneuver over the Irpin River, air defense platforms were required to disrupt the Ukrainian counterattack, and finally, mechanized maneuver forces were needed to fix the 72nd Mechanized Brigade on the outskirts of Kyiv.
The Russian follow-on echelon was likely task-organized to accomplish these tasks, but many U.S. formations responsible for forcible entries do not possess these capabilities.42 While it may not be necessary to restructure these units based on niche capabilities that will not be required in every contingency, the limitations of these units must be accounted for so that follow-on echelons can task-organize correctly. For example, if the U.S. Marines are executing an amphibious assault on Taiwan, it would behoove them to coordinate with the U.S. Army to provide bridging support in the follow-on echelon to enable their maneuver across the dozens of inland waterways on the island. Likewise, if the 82nd Airborne Division is executing an airborne assault into a Baltic country, it would be wise to coordinate with the 18th Airborne Corps to provide air defense artillery assets to protect the lodgment from Russian strike assets once it is secure. Despite these potential adaptations, some critics would still argue that JFEOs pose a risk to force that outweigh their operational benefits due to the threat which A2/AD networks pose on noncontiguous operations.
Anything They Can Do Tanks Can Do Better: A JFEO Counterargument
Individuals who claim that JFEOs are not relevant in the modern operational environment believe these operations divest combat power and resources from other lines of operation that can accomplish the same mission at a lower risk. These skeptics argue that the forces used to accomplish JFEOs may have been effective in the past but no longer possess relevance due to the ability of U.S. adversaries to fix these forces with precision fires. These skeptics also believe that units that execute these operations remain relevant not based on their capabilities, but rather by leveraging their historical lineage and influence to extract resources that could be better allocated elsewhere.43
The Marine Corps, for example, has not executed an amphibious assault since Incheon, yet the Service received funding for 18 new light amphibious ships as part of the Navy’s fiscal year 2023 budget.44 In addition, the Army’s airborne brigades comprise 16 percent of the Service’s Active-duty brigade combat teams despite only executing one brigade-sized airborne assault since 2003.45 These skeptics go on to argue that when these “self-fixing” forces are compared to other formations, such as armored units or surface naval groups, it is obvious that the latter possess greater organic mobility and protection that are crucial in the modern OE. Therefore, instead of continuing to resource a capability with limited operational value, the joint force should prioritize the use of mobile and survivable formations to seize lodgments in lieu of those responsible for executing JFEOs. While these criticisms correctly diagnose that the joint force will require a suite of capabilities during conflict, critics are naïve to discount the effectiveness of forcible entry operations when used in coordination with other methods of attack.
By advocating for the divestment of joint forcible entry capabilities, critics are playing into the operational concepts of our adversaries, which are predicated on using low-cost means to attrite the joint force’s most valuable assets. Regardless of where the next conflict takes place, it will be against an adversary that seeks to exploit the cost differential between its means of denial and the U.S. joint force’s means of control. The adversary will do so by leveraging its proximity to the conflict and its access to large volumes of low-cost munitions to mass effects on exquisite U.S. assets.46 Due to this conceptual framework, the U.S. military will be required to fight into a theater where it will not possess access to regional sanctuaries, thereby forcing it to seize intermediate base areas to enable its operational endurance.
The question facing the joint force, thus, is not whether it will need to access lodgments, but rather what methods it will use to seize and secure these objectives. While pure naval actions or ground assaults can certainly seize and hold a lodgment, doing so will enable an adversary to concentrate its capabilities on the U.S. military’s most lethal assets. This contrasts with executing a forcible entry operation that enables the joint force to exploit its multidomain advantages by using several lines of operation simultaneously.47 Doing so presents numerous dilemmas for an adversary that will have to determine where to prioritize its collection and strike assets, thereby de-grading its ability to deny the joint force’s freedom of maneuver.
The Kyiv axis provides us with an example of what happens to an offensive when it fails to use multiple lines of operation. After the failure at Hostomel, despite a 12:1 Russian ground combat power advantage,48 the Ukrainians were able to attrite and ultimately defeat the Russian offensive because they were able to leverage their interior lines to mass combat power on a slow, predictable, and increasingly constrained enemy.49 To avoid a similar outcome, the U.S. military should not divest capabilities that limit its options by favoring one method of attack over the other. Rather, the joint force should make the necessary adaptations to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with JFEOs so that it can maintain its flexibility in future conflicts.
Short-Term Recommendations
While most of the adaptations discussed in this article require a long time horizon to implement, there are a few changes that can be made immediately to begin to set favorable conditions for these operations in the future. The first change would be to execute future JFEO training at geographically dispersed locations in a multidomain contested environment. The joint force is altering its operational concepts to account for the challenges linked to massing in an A2/AD environment, yet it continues to use sanctuary-like conditions that do not replicate the issues associated with operating in a distributed manner. Future forcible entry training should mandate the use of remote marshalling sites where elements of the task force are geographically dispersed. Doing so will present challenges and inefficiencies, but such friction should be welcomed because it will help the joint force adapt to the conditions that it might operate within during future JFEOs.
The second change is to experiment with tactical long-range precision fires such as loitering munitions during future exercises to determine the correct distribution of these systems within the assault echelon. While loitering munitions will increase the range and precision-strike capabilities of the assault echelon, they will do so at the cost of another capability. This may come in the form of a trade-off between traditional indirect fires systems or possibly a reduction in the size of the assault echelon’s maneuver or reconnaissance elements. By experimenting with different task organizations and load outs during future exercises, JFEO ground forces can make the correct determination and ultimately optimize its future task organization.
Finally, the units responsible for executing forcible entry operations should train with organizations that will likely be included in future follow-on echelons but do not possess familiarity with JFEOs. This requirement is most pressing in the Marine Corps due to its divestment of numerous combined arms platforms.50 These divestments will force it to rely on the Army for capabilities such as mobile protective firepower, tube artillery, and bridging assets. However, the Army has not executed large scale amphibious operations since Incheon, nor does it possess its own doctrine since it retired Field Manual 31-12, Army Forces in Amphibious Operations.51 Training with units that are not accustomed to forcible entry operations will enable the JFEO task force to gain a better understanding of its limitations and requirements so that more effective techniques and procedures can be developed. By making these adaptations, the joint force can ensure that JFEOs do not become a relic of the past but remain a viable option in the future.
Conclusion
The U.S. military’s last joint forcible entry was executed in Northern Iraq in 2003. This was not the preferred course of action of the task force commander (Major General Gary Harrell, USA) but was the one he adopted after Turkey closed its borders to U.S. forces 2 weeks prior to the invasion.52 After selecting the course of action, General Harrell exclaimed, “ladies and gentlemen, this is high-stakes poker, and all the chips are on the table.”53 His expression is more accurate today than it was in 2003.
While the threats posed by increasingly capable A2/AD networks make forcible entries more challenging than ever, as the JFEO in Northern Iraq demonstrated, these operations can also be invaluable. Ultimately, this forcible entry facilitated the landing of thousands of pieces of equipment and tons of supplies, which enabled the northern task force to neutralize several Iraqi divisions.54 Even at Hostomel where poor Russian planning led to the ultimate failure of the operation, it is evident that if it were not for a few tactical mistakes the trajectory of the war would have been altered. The modern OE certainly increases the risks associated with JFEOs, but these risks should not deter the joint force from considering their use in the future. Much like poker, if a player is not willing to take calculated risks, his actions will become predictable, and it is likely he will be defeated by a more audacious opponent. Therefore, instead of dwelling on the challenges associated with these operations, the joint force should recognize the utility of JFEOs and make the necessary adaptations to enable future success. JFQ
Major Jonathan Maxwell Cohen, USA, is a G5 Planner for the 82nd Airborne Division.
Notes
1 Rush Doshi, The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 79–80.
2 Russia and China do not explicitly use the term antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD). Rather, they describe the use of a suite of capabilities to create a concentric defense in depth to preclude access to their near-abroad. See Keir Giles and Mathieu Boulegue, “Russia’s A2AD Capabilities: Real and Imagined,” Parameters 40, nos. 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2019), 21–36, 10.55540/0031-1723.2860. While the terminology may diverge, the concepts described by both Chinese and Russian doctrine match the U.S. military’s definition of A2/AD networks: “actions, activities, and capabilities used to preclude the ability of U.S. forces to shape an environment and mass and sustain combat power.” See Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters Department
3 A lodgment is a designated area in a hostile operational environment that affords continuous landing of troops and materiel while providing maneuver space for subsequent operations. See Joint Publication (JP) 3-18, Joint Forcible Entry Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, July 9, 2021), vii.
4 JP 3-18, 1-1.
5 JP 3-18, vii.
6 Those phases are preparation and deployment, assault, stabilization of the lodgment, introduction of follow-on forces, and termination or transition operations. See JP-18, IV-2.
7 FM 3-99, Airborne and Air Assault Operations (Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Army, 2022), 2-3.
8 Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler (New York: Free Press, 1996), 253–254.
9 David M. Glantz, The Soviet Airborne Experience (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, November 1984), 4–17.
10 During World War II, there were 10 large and 23 small airborne assaults with a success rate of 50 and 61 percent, respectively (the distinction between the sizes of assaults is whether they involved 3,000 or more paratroopers). See Marc R. DeVore, When Failure Thrives: Institutions and the Evolution of Postwar Airborne Forces (Fort Leavenworth, KS: The Army Press, 2015), 25, 27.
11 Mark A. Olinger, Conceptual Underpinnings of the Air Assault Concept: The Hogaboom, Rogers, and Howze Boards, Land Warfare Paper 60 (Arlington, VA: Association of the United States Army [AUSA], December 2006), 1–2.
12 Whether it was General Omar Bradley who stated in 1949 to the House Armed Services Committee that “large-scale amphibious operations will never occur again” or modern historians, such as Marc DeVore, who claim, “the proliferation of surface-to-air missiles and armored vehicles has rendered airborne operations extremely hazardous,” these critiques are timeless and widespread. See DeVore, When Failure Thrives, 73.
13 These groups comprised seven and nine battalion tactical groups (BTGs), respectively. See Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi et al., Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022 (London: Royal United Service Institute, November 30, 2022), 10.
14 This group comprised six BTGs. Paul Sonne et al., “Battle for Kyiv: Ukrainian Valor, Russian Blunders Combined to Save the Capital,” Washington Post, August 24, 2022.
15 Zabrodskyi et al., Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, 10.
16 Andrew McGregor, “Russian Airborne Disaster at Hostomel Airport,” Aberfoyle International Security, March 8, 2022, https:// www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=4812.
17 Christo Grozev (@christogrozev), “!!! Ukrainian government sources tell me 18 Il-76 planes have left Pskov direction Kyiv, will arrive in about an hour,” Twitter [X], February 24, 2022, https://twitter.com/christogrozev/stat us/1496873022229073924?lang=en.
18 Zabrodskyi et al., Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, 10.
19 Poor collection capabilities limited Russia’s ability to execute dynamic targeting. As a result, Russia only destroyed 10 percent of Ukraine’s mobile air defense artillery systems. Zabrodskyi et al., 24.
20 Zabrodskyi et al., 25.
21 Ivan Valiushko, “Occupiers Fail to Secure Their Foothold in the Attack on Kyiv,” Virtual Museum of Russian Aggression, September 15, 2022, https://rusaggression.gov.ua/en/ russian-occupiers-fail-to-secure-their-foothold- in-the-attack-on-kyiv-eb11ccc699f8e6de- 615c66aafee4b5bb.html.
22 Zabrodskyi et al., Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, 26. JFQ 115, 4th Quarter 2024
23 Operator Starsky, “What Happened in Hostomel,” February 23, 2023, video, 43:00 mark, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=VPfh8sjBQaw.
24 Sonne et al., “The Battle for Kyiv.”
25 Starsky, “What Happened in Hostomel,” 1:08 mark.
26 Milan N. Vego, Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2009), IV-56.
27 James King, “Yes, Mass Airborne Operations Are a Thing of the Past,” Modern War Institute, October 12, 2016, https://mwi.usma. edu/yes-mass-airborne-operations-thing-past/.
28 Dmitri Alperovitch, “How Ukraine Can Survive the Exhaustion of Its Air Defense Stocks,” April 17, 2023, in Geopolitics Decanted, prod. Silverado Policy Accelerator, podcast, 5:45 mark,
https://geopolitics-decanted. simplecast.com/episodes/how-can-ukraine- survive-the-exhaustion-of-its-air-defense-stocks.
29 Sonne et al., “The Battle for Kyiv.
30 Starsky, “What Happened in Hostomel,” 23:45 mark.
31 U.S. forcible entry operations place a greater emphasis on inserting combined arms capabilities (such as artillery and engineers) in the assault echelon. This practice contrasts with the Russian one, which prioritizes these capabilities in their follow-on echelon. See HQ 82nd Airborne Division, Airfield Seizure Standing Operating Procedure (North Carolina: Fort Bragg [Fort Liberty], 2014), 37–42.
32 JP 3-18, Joint Forcible Entry Operations, I-3–I-5.
33 Giles and Boulegue, “Russia’s A2AD Capabilities,” 23.
34 Michael Schwirtz et al., “Putin’s War,” New York Times, December 16, 2022,
https:// www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html.
35 Giles and Boulegue, “Russia’s A2AD Capabilities,” 23.
36 See Defense Primer: Navy Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) Concept, IF12599 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Updated June 26, 2024), https:// sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF12599.pdf. Also see Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21, Agile Combat Employment (Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Air Force, August 23, 2022),
https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/AFDN_1-21/AFDN%20 1-21%20ACE.pdf.
37 Alperovitch, “How Ukraine Can Survive the Exhaustion of Its Air Defense Stocks,” 29:50.
38 Operator Starsky, “What Happened in Hostomel,” 25:25 mark.
39 The Army has made progress in this realm through the procurement and fielding of its Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), which is an unarmored all-terrain vehicle that can carry 9 personnel and 3,200 pounds of equipment. See U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center (US- AASC), U.S. Army Acquisition Program Portfolio: 2023–2024 (Washington, DC: USAASC, 2022), 110,
https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downl oads/2023/11/20/0f0da2ca/2023-u-s-army-acquisition-portfolio.pdf.
40 Operator Starsky, “What Happened in Hostomel,” 1:08:57 mark.
41 “Loitering Munition Systems: Unique Ability to Strike With Singular Precision,” AeroVironment, https://www.avinc.com/tms.
42 Russian forces that conduct forcible entry operations (such as the 76th Guards Air Assault Division that executed the air assault on Hostomel Airport) task-organize differently than their U.S. counterparts. As discussed, U.S. assault echelons prefer massing fires and mobility assets, whereas Russian forces prefer massing in their follow-on echelons. As a result, it is likely that if the follow-on echelon from the 76th Guards was able to land, it would have done so with the organic heavy equipment necessary to exploit the assault echelon’s success. See Konrad Muzyka, Russian Forces in the Western Military District (Arlington, VA: CNA, June, 2021), 28–33,
https://www. cna.org/archive/CNA_Files/pdf/russian-forces- in-the-western-military-district.pdf.
43 DeVore, When Failure Thrives, 2.
44 Mallory Shelbourne, “Marine Corps Requirements Call for 9 Light Amphibious Ships per Regiment,” USNI News, February 14, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/02/14/ marine-corps-requirements-call-for-9-light-amphibious-ships-per-regiment#.
45 “Army Announces Conversion of Two Brigade Combat Teams,” U.S. Army, September 21, 2018,
https://www.army.mil/ article/211368/army_announces_conver- sion_of_two_brigade_combat_teams.
46 Doshi, The Long Game, 82.
47 Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, January 17, 2012), iii,
https://dod.defense. gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/JOAC_ Jan%202012_Signed.pdf.
48 Zabrodskyi et al., Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, 1.
49 Zabrodskyi et al., 32.
50 The Marine Corps’ modernization plan includes the elimination of tank and bridging companies and a 66-percent reduction of cannon-fired artillery batteries. See Force Design 2030 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, March 2020), 7.
51 Matthew W. Graham, Tanks in the Surf: Maintaining the Joint Combined Arms Landing Team, Land Warfare Paper 147 (Arlington, VA: AUSA, July 29, 2022), https://www.ausa. org/publications/tanks-surf-maintaining-joint-combined-arms-landing-team.
52 Michael Marra, “High Risk, High Reward: Reflections on Joint Forcible Entry,” War Room, March 23, 2023,
https://warroom.armywarcol- lege.edu/articles/joint-forcible-entry/.
53 Marra.
54 Marra.