Short Bursts: Reflections from Latvia
II: Resilience on the 21st Century Battlefield

by Rebecca Jensen, Ph.D

Editor’s Note:
The Canadian-led Multinational Battle Group in Latvia, Task Force Paladin (TF Paladin), includes forces from ten sending nations, as well as 438 members of the Canadian Army. Interoperability has seldom been pushed to this level, nor at this scale. In order to align TF Paladin’s approach to training and preparing to fight, the commanding officer (CO), LCol Jean-Francois Labonté, began the rotation with a weekend long meeting for leaders. After half a day of briefings on the current operating environment, small groups were tasked with developing maxims that fit under the CO’s motto, “We Fight.” This article is part of the new Short Bursts Series: “Reflections from Latvia,” which delves into some of these maxims, what they mean in practice, and why they are important.

Create Ambiguity

The ideal in battle is to be unseen and undetected but in practice, this is difficult to achieve. Omnipresent satellite surveillance and drones allow the detection of heat, radio, electromagnetic signatures, and the traces left by hundreds of soldiers and vehicles. One way to mitigate the risks of detection and create dilemmas for the enemy is to create ambiguity in as many dimensions as possible.

Camouflage has been a standard tool of armies for centuries, and many of the basic principles still apply. This poses some challenges in Latvia, where the typical greens and browns of uniforms and vehicles blend poorly with the winter and transitional seasons landscapes. However, it is still crucial to avoid straight lines and patterns that indicate human activity, and remains a staple of TF Paladin’s behaviour in the field. But there are other aspects to visual deception as well, many learned from the Russian war on Ukraine. For instance, the white satellite dishes that are central to communications in that theatre are hard to obscure, and work best when they are somewhat exposed, creating a vulnerability as their white oblong shapes are distinctive. The Ukrainian military has adapted by setting up false satellite dishes in plausible locations, complete with the same wires that would connect a real Starlink dish. At best, this makes it impossible for the enemy to distinguish real communication nodes from decoys; at worst, it distracts and costs the enemy time. In the same way, making the appearance of vehicles as ambiguous as possible provides some protection. A Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) possessing more antennae than usual, a vehicle with specialized weapons or engineering equipment, or a fuel truck are more juicy targets than a generic truck or Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV). Therefore, as much as possible, it is important to make it difficult for the enemy to gather useful information based on the appearance of a vehicle.

Similarly, if total emissions control is impossible unless the force is willing to go completely silent, it is useful to shape electromagnetic signatures in a way that deceives the enemy. If a command post can be made to appear in the electromagnetic spectrum to be the same as a small infantry detachment, it is less likely to be targeted. Equally, if many small groupings can produce a signature similar to that of a command post, the enemy targeting process is made more complicated and less productive. If a command post or sub-unit goes completely silent, this can be a sign that an action is pending, but if some activity persists to present a more consistent signature, less information is telegraphed to enemy sensors and analysts. Dispersion, which will be discussed at greater length in the next article of the current Short Bursts series, also has the benefit of creating ambiguity about TF Paladin’s posture and intent.

Furthermore, being aware that the enemy is able to see more than ever before can be leveraged to TF Paladin’s advantage. Creating obstacles or wet gap crossings—or plausible decoys—that are not intended to be used creates ambiguity about both defensive and offensive plans, which ideally persists until forces are committed. Likewise, frequently relocating command posts and dug in positions compels the enemy to go through their battle procedures of reacquiring potential targets, which likely increases the chances of impairing their situational awareness.

Cross-load Everything

The most efficient way to sustain forces is through large depots for fuel, ammunition, and other consumables, which are supplied by large vehicles in a convoy. When the primary threat to these depots and convoys was enemy ground forces, as was the case in Afghanistan, central supply points and large convoys were more easily defended and required less personnel. However, this efficiency decreases survivability in an era where long-range precision fires and armed uncrewed aerial systems can strike targets almost as soon as they are identified. While less efficient, the most effective and survivable approach to logistics in the modern operating environment is to move in the opposite direction. Supply points must be small, both to be less easily detected and to be less attractive targets. They should provide a range of classes of supply, creating redundancy and survivability. Similarly, smaller vehicles (moving in small groups or alone) are not only harder to detect but are less cost-effective targets for an enemy long-range missile. The loss of one small cross-loaded truck is also less of a setback for the force than the loss of a convoy carrying a single kind of stock.

In a multinational unit such as TF Paladin, another way to build in resilience is to develop mechanisms to pool resources. Fuel and water are the same for all nations, and most kinds of ammunition, food, and medical supplies could be interchangeable in extremis. NATO standards were developed for this purpose, but the capability is seldom exercised in peacetime. Notably, TF Paladin’s combat service support company evaluates the circumstances under which sharing national stocks would be feasible and beneficial, and considers the mechanisms needed to facilitate that.

‘Cognitive’ cross-loading is another aspect of the trade-off between efficiency and resilience. In Afghanistan, the ‘golden hour’ for managing casualties was an expectation, referring to the target of moving casualties to a treatment centre within one hour, which radically increased survival rates even for grievous wounds. That noted, in an operating environment where the air is contested, this will seldom be possible. Therefore, training as many personnel as possible with advanced-first aid and casualty care is crucial to keeping the injured alive until they can reach a doctor or an operating room. Similarly, since replacing personnel will be more difficult in a contested environment than it was during the counterinsurgencies of the early 21^st century, cross-training personnel to be able to take on additional roles, at least temporarily, increases the Task Force’s resilience and flexibility.

Embrace Tech but Learn to Live Without

A paradox of 21^st century technology is that while it can make a military force more effective, it can simultaneously render the force dependent upon the technology. In 2010s, the US Army suspended land navigation training using maps and compasses on the assumption that GPS did the job faster and more reliably. This decision was reversed, but reacquiring the relatively-fading skill is proving to be a challenge. Today, software exists that can make the planning process faster and more precise than the analog approach of marking up physical maps. Blue force tracker systems allow command posts to understand the location of forces in real time and reduce the risk of fratricide. Digitized plans and orders can be transmitted electronically, or stored on a memory key, which is faster and more reliable than more traditional ways of conveying such information. NATO’s approach to warfighting leverages such technologies, and in some cases has become dependent upon them. Compounding the problem is that not all troop sending nations in TF Paladin use compatible systems, eating up time not only converting analog plans, orders, and data into digital information, but also manually transferring them between digital systems. This also introduces more room for error.

Dependence, however, creates vulnerability. In a degraded information environment, such tools may become unreliable or even unusable. Electronic transmission of information can be detected, and jammed. The generators needed to power computers at command posts for extended periods create their own signature, and also increase the logistical burden of command posts. While it would be foolish to ignore the ways in which technology can increase efficiency and accuracy, it would be equally foolish to stop training and practicing the older, analog ways of managing and sharing this information. Just as soldiers must be able to navigate with a compass, command posts must retain the ability to develop and communicate plans drawn on physical maps. They should also be able to track and deconflict the position and movement of troops, as well as performing most, if not all, of their functions without relying on technology that is detectable by the enemy and occasionally subject to failure.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Rebecca Jensen is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and an Assistant Professor at the Canadian Forces College, Toronto. She is currently deployed to Latvia as advisor to the commanding officer of TF Paladin, the Multinational Battle Group, LCol Jean-Francois Labonté.

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This article first appeared online in the Short Bursts section of the Canadian Army Journal (January 2025).