A Challenge to Doctrine: Questioning the Inevitability of the Tank

The recent article from the Army University Press, The Tank is Dead … Long Live the Tank, presents a robust, doctrinally sound defense of the main battle tank’s enduring value. The authors argue that the tank, when properly employed within a combined arms team, remains the “Combat Arm of Decision.” They posit that recent losses in Ukraine are a result of Russian tactical incompetence rather than a fundamental flaw in the platform itself, and that the tank’s history as a symbol of power and a tool of deterrence validates its continued necessity.

While well-articulated, this perspective appears to be an exercise in institutional self-justification rather than a clear-eyed assessment of the 21st-century battlespace. It systematically downplays the revolutionary nature of modern threats and avoids the most difficult questions about the tank’s survivability and cost-effectiveness. A more critical analysis suggests that the era of the tank as the centerpiece of ground warfare may not be ending because of poor doctrine, but because the fundamental physics and economics of combat have shifted against it.

The Peril of Attributing Failure to Incompetence Alone

The article’s primary argument rests on a “No True Scotsman” fallacy. By attributing the catastrophic Russian tank losses in Ukraine solely to poor training, a lack of combined arms enablers, and flawed mission command, the authors create a comforting narrative: “That would not happen to us.” This explanation is convenient, as it insulates Western doctrine from uncomfortable scrutiny. It presumes that American or NATO competence would be a sufficient shield against the threats that have decimated Russian armor.

This reasoning fails to grapple with the terrifying alternative: that the threat environment itself, not just the user’s skill, is the decisive factor. The Ukrainian battlefield is saturated with thousands of advanced, Western-supplied anti-tank guided missiles, supported by a vast network of NATO intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets. Even a perfectly executed combined arms assault by a competent force would face an unprecedented level of lethality. To dismiss Russia’s experience as purely a “skill issue” is to ignore a preview of the hyper-lethal environment any force would face in a future peer conflict. The more pressing and honest question is not why the Russians failed, but what level of attrition even a highly proficient armored brigade combat team would suffer, and whether such losses would be politically and militarily sustainable.

The Misleading Comfort of History and Symbolism

The article leans heavily on historical examples and the tank’s symbolic power to argue for its continued relevance. Yet these examples often obscure more than they illuminate. Citing successes from World War II, the 1967 Six-Day War, or the 1991 Gulf War is to invoke conflicts defined by a level of air supremacy and technological asymmetry that cannot be guaranteed in a future contest against a peer adversary.

More pointedly, the use of Operation Joint Endeavor in Bosnia as evidence is particularly weak. Stating that tanks, not trucks, “get people’s attention” conflates public relations value with combat utility. The mission was peacekeeping, not surviving a contested battlespace. A tank’s ability to project symbolic power to a civilian populace is utterly irrelevant to its ability to survive a top-attack munition fired from a hidden position three kilometers away.

Likewise, examples of tanks in urban combat in Aachen, Seoul, or Fallujah demonstrate the platform’s utility as a mobile, direct-fire support weapon—a heavily armored assault gun. While this is a valuable function, it is a significant reduction from the tank’s doctrinal role as the engine of high-tempo, operational maneuver designed to collapse an enemy force. Acknowledging this reduced role is very different from claiming the tank’s primary purpose remains intact.

The Unanswered Questions of the “Combined arms” Solution

The article repeatedly offers the “combined arms team” as the solution to the tank’s vulnerabilities, yet it never explains the mechanics of how this team solves the fundamental problems posed by modern weapons. It is presented as a conclusion in itself, a piece of doctrinal faith that requires no further explanation. A closer look reveals critical, unanswered questions.

• How does the team solve the detection problem? The core challenge is finding and neutralizing dozens, if not hundreds, of small, camouflaged, and dispersed ATGM teams before they can fire. The “combined arms” answer presumes this is possible, but provides no method.
• How does the supporting element survive? The infantry meant to screen the tank are vulnerable to artillery and drone strikes. The artillery meant to suppress the enemy is vulnerable to immediate counter-battery fire, located by the enemy’s own sensors. The “combined arms team” is not a single entity; it is a collection of vulnerable nodes, each of which can be targeted and destroyed by a sophisticated adversary.
• How does the solution adapt to fire-and-forget weapons? The concept of suppression fire was most effective against older, wire-guided missiles like the Sagger, which required the operator to remain exposed to guide the missile to its target. Against a modern weapon like the Javelin, the operator can fire and immediately seek cover. Suppressing them before they fire is a guessing game, and suppressing them after is pointless. The “combined arms” solution offered is an answer to a previous generation of threats.

Attrition, Economics, and the True Meaning of Ukraine’s Request

The modern battlefield imposes a brutal economic logic that the article ignores. A main battle tank is a multi-million dollar asset crewed by highly trained soldiers. A modern ATGM is a comparatively cheap, disposable munition. This creates a deeply unfavorable cost-exchange ratio. In a protracted conflict, a nation simply cannot afford to lose its most expensive ground assets to an enemy’s most numerous and inexpensive smart weapons.

Finally, interpreting Ukraine’s request for Western tanks as an ultimate validation of the platform’s dominance is a misreading of a desperate situation. Ukraine is fighting a brutal war of attrition and needs a tool to break through heavily fortified trench lines. The tank is the historically prescribed tool for that specific task. Their request is a pragmatic choice born of immediate necessity, not a philosophical endorsement of the tank’s long-term future. It is the choice of a force that must use the tools of today to solve today’s problems. It does not answer the question of what force one would design for tomorrow.

Conclusion: A Call for Objective Assessment

The defense of the tank is a defense of an institution, its associated force structure, and decades of established doctrine. This is understandable, but it is not a substitute for objective analysis. The fundamental challenge is not that tanks are being used improperly, but that the technological environment has evolved to make their core attributes—a concentration of mass, firepower, and value in a single, visible platform—a liability.

Instead of asking, “How do we ensure the tank can still perform its mission?,” we must ask a more fundamental question: “What is the most effective and survivable way to deliver mobile, protected lethality on the modern battlefield?” The answer may not be a 70-ton behemoth. It may be a distributed network of smaller, cheaper, and potentially unmanned systems, connected by resilient data links and supported by long-range precision fires. To find that answer, we must be willing to move beyond the powerful inertia of tradition and challenge the very platforms that have defined land power for a century.