Russia appoints new Defence Minister amid Ukraine war, a leadership lesson in the offing

Has Vladimir President Putin taken the right strategic step in appointing Andrei Belousov.

Many wars have been lost because of incompetent leadership, governance failures or civil-military differences over war strategy. The ongoing Russia – Ukraine War has seen cautious changes in military leadership on both sides. In February this year, Ukraine President Zelensky fired his Commander-in-Chief Gen Valeri Zaluzhnyi. The latest in the series is the sidelining of the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu from the commanding portfolio of Defence Ministry to low key posting in the State Security Council. However, whether this change of guard will fundamentally alter the Russian position in the ongoing war is a debatable proposition.

Russia’s Flawed War Dynamics

Most people watching the war progression would agree that Sergei Shoigu had to go due to stagnant and fossilised war dynamics against Ukraine.

First, Russia has larger defence budget, bigger army and a clear and established asymmetry against Ukraine in all aspects of military power comparison. Yet, it could not convert the same into an outright victory. Only a decade ago, Russia clinched a decisive victory against Ukraine in the Crimean War (2014). However, inapt military leadership and strategic inadequacy perhaps led to Russia’s fresh offensive against Ukraine metamorphose into a ‘protracted war’.

Second, there are enough research publications and books to establish that the Russian Army is not a ruthless professional army and comes very poor on combat indices. It is a highly politicised army due to communist legacy. Further, military modernisation programmes in past suffered due to resource allocation constraints and absence of political will. The short-lived rebellion by the Wagner Group last year exposed the chinks in the Russian Army.

Third, corruption has probably reached beyond controls, best evident in Russia’s poor ranking of 141 out of 180 countries in the Transparency International listing. The resignation by the Deputy Defence Minister and his subsequent arrest some time ago is a clear indication that all is not well in the Russian Army and the military elites are quite happy making money even during war times!

Russia’s Inept War Strategy

It is, however, debatable if Sergei Shoigu was singularly responsible for all the maladies in the Russian Army. A long innings at the helm of affairs in Defence Ministry may have brought in a sense of complacence and perhaps arrogance in his thought process. There were umpteen allegations against his personal conduct by the deceased chief of the Wagner Group. Having got the credit for victory against Ukraine in the Crimea War, he was not able to lead from the front this time. Probably, he was overconfident and had too many misconceptions about his military strategy in Ukraine. Yet, it would be harsh to put the entire onus on him for war failures. He was only leading a pack of generals madly pursuing aggressive strategic postures against Ukraine without realizing that Ukraine is fast turning into a Vietnam-like story from which the Russian leadership is not able to wriggle out!

Recent academic literature sufficiently hint that wars are often insiders’ game where internal group politics amongst competing elites influence war outcomes to a great extent. This is more so in dictatorships and autocracies than democracies where there is an acceptable space for public opinion. Elites like Sergei Shoigu had become more valuable and dominant by manipulating information and decision-making process. They were hawkish when it came to decisions about war and peace. While President Putin may have nurtured hawkish intentions from the very beginning, Sergei Shoigu happily facilitated this instead of identifying the constraints and outcome probabilities. In doing this, he was being aided and abetted by military generals and elites with vast military background. Their collective thought process, without any doubt, remained hawkish throughout the protracted war.

Lesson on Leadership

If there is one lesson that needs to be learnt from the leadership change in Russia, it is about limitations of coercive strategy and the power to hurt in international relations. While Ukraine is bleeding profusely without surrendering to Russia’s strategic instincts, the Russian armed forces have suffered heavily and as many as 50,000 of its soldiers are already confirmed dead. The Russian armed forces are demotivated due to supply-chain gaps, long absences from home and absence of definite strategic plans about Ukraine mission. Sergei Shoigu failed to uplift their morale.

In bringing in a rank outsider like Andrei Belousov to helm the Defence Ministry, President Putin may have taken a wise and calculated step in war-related decisions. Additionally, his economic background may enable him to better assess the political economy of war and design a grand strategy to maximize the huge defence budget that has gone way beyond $100 billion for the first time. Most importantly, he may not go the whole hog in supporting an outright hawkish and expensive military strategy and would perhaps be flexible towards a negotiated settlement. If that is the intention, then President Putin has crossed the right strategic bridge in appointing Andrei Belousov.