Russia-Ukraine war: New face of 21st century conflict – no victor and no vanquished | OPINION

Maj Gen (retd) BS Dhanoa

Russia’s ‘special military operation’ turned into a full-blown war as Ukrainians put up a stiffer-than-expected resistance. While many expected the so-called operation to conclude within a week, the war has been raging on for 100 days now. Is this the new face of conflict in the 21st Century? No victor and no vanquished?

It was supposed to be a ‘special military operation’ by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine that should’ve achieved what it set out to do, regime change in Kyiv, in a week or so at most. And yet, here we are approaching 100 days of a brutal war in Eastern Europe that shows no signs of letting up and even fewer of a decisive victory by one side or the other. Is this the new face of conflict in the 21st Century? No victor and no vanquished? Or was it just ill-considered assumptions and arrogant planning by the Russian leadership (mainly a coterie of one) and even worse execution by the Russian Armed Forces, who were poorly informed and led. The answers are not straightforward or easy to reach. War, as the saying goes, has a grammar and vocabulary of its own and very few, if any, have the genius to master its complexity and achieve victory as originally intended. Nations that have declared military victory when major combat ended have found themselves on the losing side strategically. The 21st Century is replete with such examples as the wars in Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan have shown.

War is a ‘wicked’ problem. No other endeavour demands so much human capital together with a nation’s physical, economic and moral resources as the planning and conduct of war. It is, in the final analysis, a social phenomenon in which one side attempts to impose its will on the other by sheer physical force and pain of death. As Clausewitz stated, in his very definition of war, it is “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”. Coupled with the fact that nation states and their militaries, even powerful ones, do not go to war very often, attaining predictable outcomes through the deployment of the military as an instrument of a decision in major disputes is never really in the hands of one side or the other.ADVERTISEMENT

A quick glance at the military balance of power of key nations would reveal that while force equations in terms of numbers and types of aircraft, missiles, ships and ground troops, (as also nuclear warheads of a select few) are easy to list and compare, what are never easily identifiable or evident are issues related to training, leadership at the strategic and operational levels, critical high tech manufacturing capabilities, civil-military interface in a crisis, and a host of inter-related national capacities (from critical infra to the human, natural, industrial and agricultural base, to name just a few). When a nation sets out on a course of war, how quickly and efficiently it can tap into all of these is a major determining factor in whether given war aims are likely to be attained. National will and the determination to resist is also an intangible yet vital ingredient in the mix when countries fight. If it is not factored in by all protagonists, the strategic outcome of the war may surprise leaders who took the risk to initiate a conflict.

IS DECISIVE VICTORY ACHIEVABLE?

All of this brings us back to the question “is decisive victory achievable anymore”. To qualify, when powerful states decide to wage war against a perceived weaker, though not a pushover, country, have they ensured the correct identification of a desired strategic end state? Is it achievable through the planned application of all strategic and military resources? What are the external manoeuvres through various other instruments of national power that are needed for shaping the external environment? Have major strategic risks of such an act been identified and a mitigation strategy/strategies drawn up? Is the general population aware and involved in the overall scheme of things? Are measures to guard the citizens from disinformation and propaganda active across all domains of information? The list of questions and activities is endless and ever-increasing. The whole point is that the act of waging war in the 21st Century is a complex and uncertain process which is no longer in the control of any one set of leaders or individuals.

Therefore, any decision to go to war today ought to be counterbalanced by the utter complexity of the nature and process of waging war itself. Rational leaders ought to think twice before taking such a step because of the uncertainty of outcomes and the horrendous costs of war. Seeking decisive victory of the kind witnessed at the end of the Second World War, or even Gulf War I, is no longer an achievable aim. This would be a rational conclusion through the conduct of simulations and war games. In an interconnected and interdependent world, the repercussions of trying to seek all-out victory in war over another state are far too many, and the risks immense for humanity as a whole. Even so, the war in Ukraine has established that despite all the challenges and complexities of using the military as the preferred instrument of coercion, countries with revisionist tendencies will still use it to try and attain political goals. The Chinese Taiwan obsession is one such case in point.

The ongoing Ukraine crisis has a lesson for us all. In sum, it teaches us the importance of having a capable and strong military that is self-reliant for its strategic needs. It also highlights the need to not underestimate an opponent, however weak and infirm they may seem from the outside. The era of setting out ambitious political and strategic aims that challenge the existing international order, tenuous and flawed as it may be, is over. The military will remain an instrument of statecraft for exerting national will, but it needs to be much more of a deterrent and punitive force than one for blunt use with an open-ended mandate for application. Setbacks and unexpected occurrences are in the very nature of waging conventional war. An ability to foresee these, to the extent possible, and maintain an overall direction and tempo through adversity should be the major focus of leadership training and key force integration exercises. Finally, nations and militaries need to be circumspect of their own prowess, yet capable and determined enough to protect national interests and achieve limited objectives at the strategic level. Thus, military victory needs to be redefined for the present times. It should be stated in terms that allow it to remain within a nation’s grasp and not become a chimaera.

(This article is authored by Major General BS Dhanoa, a retired armour officer with over 36 years of experience. He is interested in issues related to war and the conduct of warfare. All views are personal.)