អំណាចនៃការបោកបញ្ឆោតយូរអង្វែងនៅក្នុងសង្គ្រាម

 

The timeless words of Sun Tzu, a renowned Chinese general and military theorist, assert that “all warfare is based on deception.” Dummies and decoys are effective tools of deception in warfare and have been in use since ancient times. Historically, decoy campfires, fake encampments, and dummy guards have been used to deceive the enemy. Despite the interconnectedness of the modern world, the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine has demonstrated the enduring effectiveness of deception in warfare. The widespread use of decoys, dummies, and fake replicas highlights that well-executed deception can still mislead adversaries even in the information age.

As technology evolved, the tactics and composition of decoys were refined accordingly. During World Wars, dummy troops, false trenches, and fake military hardware were used to confuse the enemy. The Phantom Divisions of Allies, equipped with fake replicas, were used extensively to confuse Nazi Germany’s intelligence network and played a crucial role in Operation Fortitude. Inflatable rubber tanks, trucks, aircraft, and fake radio transmissions successfully diverted German forces away from the actual D-Day landing sites. Even during the first wave of amphibious attacks, Germans continued to perceive Normandy as a diversion. During the Cold War, both the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact developed advanced dummy tanks, planes, and missile launchers. Decoy technology grew more sophisticated with radar-reflective materials, infrared signatures, and realistic sound effects to mimic real equipment.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict highlights the need for cost-effective countermeasures, such as expendable loitering munitions, which can perform secondary reconnaissance to verify targets, minimising the risk of wasting resources on decoys.

Traditionally, decoys were crude and made of low-quality materials. Despite their lack of resemblance to real equipment, they were effective due to limited intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) technology. However, advancements in optics and sensors have rendered these decoys obsolete. Inflatable decoys, for example, are easily distinguishable by modern sensors.

To trick modern ISR systems, modern decoys are produced with precision and high-quality materials, mimicking the physical dimensions, radar, electronic, and thermal signatures of real systems. Some even have moving components. While expensive to develop, these advanced decoys have made it challenging to differentiate between real and fake systems, even with the widespread use of ISR-equipped drones.

The Russia-Ukraine war is taking place in an age defined by an abundance of military as well as open-source intelligence (OSINT) sources, which have made it challenging to keep military formations and deployments secret. Yet, the extensive use of decoys, dummies, and fake replicas by Russia and Ukraine has showcased that, even in the contemporary globalised world connected through multiple mediums of information, the art of deception is still as effective as it was before in warfare. Ukraine in particular has been using a large number of decoys to draw away Russia’s firepower from real high-value military assets. Many Western companies are producing real-size decoys of sophisticated Western equipment like tanks, artillery, and air defence systems. The majority of such replicas are being delivered to Ukraine. For example, a Czech company, Inflatech Decoys, has been producing and allegedly supplying 30 types of inflatable decoys to Ukraine.

Perhaps the most eminent example of decoys’ effectiveness is the successful case of HIMARS decoys. In December 2022, Russia claimed that it had successfully destroyed 44 HIMARS rocket artillery systems. But by that time, Ukraine was operating only 16 HIMRS units donated by the United States (US). Russian forces actually fell victim to decoys’ deception, where they ended up destroying decoys instead of actual HIMARS launchers. The destruction of HIMARS decoys ensured the survivability of real HIMARS rocket launchers.

As far as the employment of decoys is concerned, the Russia-Ukraine war provides four key takeaways. First, decoys save troops’ lives as well as valuable equipment. According to the Chinese Battlefield Analysis published in PLA Daily, a 1:1 between the numbers of decoys and the actual system can increase the survivability rate of the original system by 40% in conflict. It is difficult to estimate the total number of lives potentially saved by decoys. However, the large-scale usage of decoys and their destruction indicates that decoys have been a significant life saviour for both Russia as well as Ukraine.

Second, decoys are relevant in modern warfare as they impose opportunity cost over the adversary by tricking the enemy to expand resources like time, manpower, and hardware, against strategically irrelevant targets thereby undermining their ability to target actual high-value assets. According to the Chinese Battlefield Analysis mentioned earlier, the enemy’s ammunition consumption can be increased by 70% if three decoys are used for every actual piece of equipment. The Russia-Ukraine war has showcased that cheap and expandable decoys can deplete a large volume of expensive and high-end offensive weapons, like long-range precise munitions, guided artillery shells, kamikaze drones, and missiles.

Third, decoys foist the confirmation bias upon the enemy which highlights a fundamental maxim of deception theory—that it is always easier to deceive an enemy by reinforcing what he already believes to be true. Decoys divert the enemy’s attention and firepower away from friendly forces, deplete its resources, degrade its morals, and complicate and delay its decision-making process which overall undermines its combat prowess.

Finally, decoys are effective tools to saturate the enemy’s defences and penetrate well-protected areas. Recently, Russia has started to use a combination of decoy and kamikaze drones to swarm and overwhelm Ukrainian air defences. Additionally, decoys can provoke an enemy to reveal hidden defences or prematurely activate countermeasures. For instance, decoy aircraft or vehicles can cause air-defence systems to expose their positions, allowing the real assault force to plan around or target these systems. Before the Russia-Ukraine war, Azerbaijan was the first to successfully use AN-02 bi-planes as aerial decoys to reveal and eventually target Armenian air-defence systems with artillery and long-range munitions.

The efficiency of decoys can be gauged by the number of decoys destroyed in combat. If a decoy does not attract the enemy’s fire, then it suggests that either it is made poorly or placed inappropriately in a combat zone, which has exposed its fakeness. In contrast, a large number of destroyed decoys prove that the enemy has been successfully tricked. Besides the physical characteristics of decoys, their deployment tactics also contribute equally to their combat effectiveness. For example, a decoys lightweight design can actually become one of their major vulnerabilities against an informed adversary. Being much lighter in weight, decoys do not leave a physical footprint in the surrounding environment. An inflatable tank for example will not leave track marks on the ground. Therefore, if decoys are randomly placed without sufficient groundwork, it becomes easier to identify their fakeness. To overcome this, decoys can be placed at locations where real equipment of a similar kind was previously stationed, leveraging the existential environmental footprint to appear more convincing targets.

The identification and countering of decoys mimicking actual military equipment is still a challenging task. Identifying decoys involves a combination of advanced technologies and analytical methods. Persistent ISR, multi-sensor data fusion, satellite imagery analysis with high-resolution optics, thermal sensors, and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), can detect discrepancies in heat signatures, material composition, and structural features. Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) driven data processing aids in recognising patterns inconsistent with operational military assets. The Russia-Ukraine conflict highlights the need for cost-effective countermeasures, such as expendable loitering munitions, which can perform secondary reconnaissance to verify targets, minimising the risk of wasting resources on decoys. The war has also highlighted the evolving sophistication of decoy technologies, from inflatable replicas to electromagnetic signature emitters, shaping future strategies in electronic and physical domains of deception. This conflict reaffirms deception as a timeless yet increasingly advanced tactic in the art of war.

CSCR