The author is too deep inside their domain. The article never defines C4ISR. So I had to google it.
C4ISR is Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
So ISR is not Infant Swimming Resource, which was my first Google result? I thought one side or the other was chucking babies into the Dnieper.
But against a large mass of guys in $30K trucks with guns and ammo who get up close and shoot people its less effective and certainly the cost calculus is a loser.
We have shown time and again we can take out communications and power and major supply depots. The resulting mass insurgency we have more trouble with.
And then you get to psychological warfare and information warfare of the 5GW and it turns out this stuff starts to backfire as you discover your own citizens don't even believe your lies and propoganda anymore, and won't get behind the war your Orwellian propoganda is pushing you into.
The underlying rule of war is that the other side will react to what you do, in a very fluid and usually unpredictable way.
While we belittle Russia for not establishing air dominance, Russian doctrine is that they won't be able to and therefore must be able to operate assuming they don't have air dominance.
Anyone who hasn't paid attention, the biggest single coner in wester defence planning isn't another intelligence satellite. It's that we never planned to stockpile the quantities of ordnance required for a real war and Ukraine has drained western armories.
C2
C3
C3I
C4I
C4I2
C4ISR
C5ISR <— Curent
C6ISR <— Soon