Quantifying Land Power Evaluating the ADE Model and Its Implications for Civilian Oversight
Year: 2025

This article revisits the Armored Division Equivalent (ADE) model to explain two inflection points in the Russo-Ukrainian wars. Re-calibrating ADE for training levels, readiness and high-impact weapons, it shows that Ukraine’s drastic post-2010 force reductions created a quantifiable “power vacuum” that enabled Russia’s 2014 Crimea operation. Conversely, the U.S. air-lift of roughly 3,000 Javelin ATGMs before February 2022 produced a “technological surprise”: when Javelins are folded into ADE, l