(Roger N. McDermott – RUSI) War is full of formations that exist more convincingly on organisational charts than on the battlefield. Ukraine’s struggle to regenerate brigades, Russia’s repeated rebuilding of depleted units and both armies’ dependence on replacement personnel have revived an old military problem: when does a unit cease to be a genuinely effective fighting organisation even though it continues to exist administratively?
The question has become particularly relevant for Ukraine. A recent RUSI assessment by Jack Watling described an audit of the country’s roughly 120 brigades in which around one-sixth were judged to be suffering disproportionately from poor leadership and sustained underperformance. One proposal was to consolidate weaker formations and transfer their personnel to better-performing brigades rather than continually replenishing organisations that remained ineffective. The same assessment highlighted another corrosive factor: units unable to rotate personnel adequately, leaving some soldiers in combat areas for periods of up to 200 days.
