Russia’s Generals Declare the Tank Dead: Inside Moscow’s Vision of the Digital Battlefield

by Jaffa Levy ·

From steel tracks to silicon chips the battlefield’s centre of gravity is shifting. In a doctrinal paper published in Russia in Global Affairs in October 2025 Army General Yury Baluevsky and Ruslan Pukhov argue that mechanised warfare is giving way to a networked drone centric form of combat. They call the war in Ukraine the first fully fledged digital war. Their claim is stark and direct. The nation that masters computing power satellite connectivity and resilient networks will dominate the kill chain. Those that do not will be forced to fight blind.

From Fog to Glass

Baluevsky and Pukhov begin with a proposition that should unsettle every general and every procurement official. The fog of war has been burnt away by sensors satellites and low cost unmanned systems. Miniaturised electronics cheap optics and ubiquitous communications have fused tactical operational and strategic levels into a single information battlespace. Concealment has become an anomaly. Concentration invites destruction.

In their language the armed struggle is already becoming a battle for drone superiority in the air and in space. What matters is not only the number of effectors but the density and resilience of the networks that connect sensors and shooters. A theatre once defined by local visibility is now glass across depth and breadth.

The End of Line of Sight Fire

For a century armies organised themselves around the logic of line of sight fire. The tank was the protected platform for that method of destruction. On the transparent battlefield line of sight is a liability. Sensors identify targets at depth and precision effectors strike from beyond the visual horizon. Tanks are slow visible and increasingly uneconomical. Artillery that depends on massed unguided rounds looks wasteful when a single guided loitering munition can attain the same effect with far less expenditure.

Baluevsky and Pukhov do not indulge nostalgia. They note that attempts to preserve the tank with new armour active protection systems and limited unmanned add ons are at best stop gap measures that blur the economic logic of force design. The question their paper poses is brutal and simple. Why deploy a platform built for the mechanics of a previous era when digital effectors can do the work at lower cost and with fewer exposed crews.

Starlink and the New Kill Chain

A key enabler of the new doctrine is the emergence of commercial satellite internet as a command and control backbone. For the first time a publicly accessible resilient network allowed real time linkage of reconnaissance target designation and strike execution down to small units and individual drones. Baluevsky and Pukhov explicitly single out the operational effect of that network class. It is the connectivity that converts individual sensors into a unified kill chain.

They predict that the next phase is integration of satellite and cellular networks so that global information exchange will be available through ordinary mobile devices. Ultra compact communications will make command and control persistent and global. In plain terms connectivity makes remote warfare the norm rather than the exception.

Force Design for Swarm War

If the battlefield is transparent survival will depend on dispersion automation and integrated counter measures. The authors envisage the routine use of micro units of two to four soldiers backed by robotics loitering munitions and fibre optic guided effects. The armoured core shifts away from main battle tanks to medium weight infantry fighting vehicles in the thirty to forty tonne class. Heavily armoured engineering platforms will clear obstacles and mines while carrying minimal offensive armament.

Every echelon will be expected to operate counter drone measures both electronic and kinetic. Resupply itself is reconceived as a combat function. With total annihilation zones extending tens of kilometres behind the front every convoy and every truck is a target. The logical answer is unmanned and automated sustainment systems that can move without fixed lines and without predictable signatures.

First person view drones operate in mass. The authors cite production and deployment at scale. They argue that intelligence reconnaissance and attack are collapsing into single packages that can be fielded rapidly and cheaply. The implication is an army organised for distributed lethality rather than concentrated mass.

The West Doubles Down on Steel

The Russian doctrinal statement arrives as Western governments answer the Ukraine conflict with large industrial programs. The European ammunition initiative aims at production in the millions of one hundred fifty five millimetre rounds annually. Orders for modern main battle tanks continue. Upgrades and conversions proceed in the United Kingdom the United States and several European states alongside a surge in shell and propellant capacity investments.

The contrast is clear. Moscow declares that dominance will accrue to those who control sensors satellites and compute. The West is rebuilding industrial mass to supply armour and artillery. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Western forces are attempting to integrate digital layers into armoured formations. Still the strategic emphasis differs. One side is betting on scale and protection within a combined arms construct. The other side is arguing that scale alone is not the decisive variable if the battlespace is transparent and effects operate at depth.

Risks if Moscow Is Wrong

The paper is rigorous but its conclusions have vulnerabilities. Electronic warfare jamming and layered short range air defence systems can blunt drone swarms. If those defensive layers mature and proliferate the attrition rate for unmanned swarms will grow and their tactical utility will decrease. Active protection systems on vehicles and robust integrated air defence can enable protected manoeuvre inside limited bubbles. Urban combat river crossings and other complex operations may still require protected mass.

Industrial reality also bites. Compute supremacy requires semiconductors fabrication capacity and secure supply chains. Russia currently relies on foreign components for advanced processors and networking gear. If its industrial base cannot deliver the necessary chips and space infrastructure the doctrine will be aspirational rather than operational. Claims of production at scale for certain classes of unmanned systems deserve independent verification. Propaganda and battlefield myth making can exaggerate output and effect.

Finally logistics remains a hard constraint. Automation will mitigate but not eliminate the need to move bulk fuel ammunition and heavy equipment in certain operations. The authors identify a logistics crisis but their solutions are underdeveloped and will be costly both economically and in lives if implemented hastily.

In summary the centre of gravity in warfare is moving from steel to silicon. The decisive variables are networks satellites and computing power. On a transparent battlefield distributed precision and resilient connectivity can outperform concentrated armour and unguided mass.

If this thesis holds then future arms control and crisis management must focus on space based sensing spectrum integrity rules for autonomous weapons and the governance of data flows. The logic of deterrence will increasingly reside in algorithms and orbits rather than only in warheads and armour.

Bottom Line for Peace and Stability

If Baluevsky and Pukhov are correct the next arms race will be about networks satellites and semiconductors rather than about steel and shells. Arms control and confidence building must adapt. Treaties that focus only on warheads and heavy platforms will miss the core of escalation in a digital era. Space norms spectrum governance rules for autonomous weapons and transparency around data flows will matter more than ever.

For diplomacy the new reality is uncomfortable. The weapons are often invisible the escalation thresholds are ambiguous and the distinction between military and civilian infrastructure collapses when commercial satellites and mobile networks become command and control assets. Stabilising this environment demands new protocols for space operations for spectrum use and for autonomous systems with rapid verification mechanisms that political actors can trust.

Glossary

Information battlespace the fused domain where land air sea space and cyber operations interact through shared data and persistent sensing.

Drone superiority control over unmanned systems at a scale and density sufficient to dominate an opponent’s sensors and fires.

Line of sight fire direct visual engagement. The authors argue this method is in decline.

Active protection system hard kill defences on vehicles designed to intercept incoming munitions or drones.

First person view drone a small unmanned aerial system controlled by a pilot via a camera feed often used in mass attack roles.

Total annihilation zone the operational depth behind the front in which assets are exposed to long range precision attack.

Compute supremacy dominance in computing infrastructure and networks that enable superior reconnaissance command and strike cycles.

Source Notes

Primary source Yuri N Baluevsky and Ruslan N Pukhov Digital War a New Reality Russia in Global Affairs Volume twenty three Number six two thousand twenty five pages sixty to sixty eight.

Corroboration includes open source analyses and think tank reporting on commercial satellite networks first person view drone employment and increased battlefield transparency together with Western defence procurement releases documenting ammunition and armoured vehicle programs.

Reference Books

Lawrence Freedman Command The Politics of Military Operations Since 1914.

Martin van Creveld Technology and War.

T X Hammes The Sling and the Stone.

David Kilcullen Out of the Mountains.

Stephen Biddle Military Power.

Related Posts:

Tags:

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *