While wars between two countries are always determined by the relative asymmetry of military capabilities, the eventual outcomes are often clouded by false illusions and misconstrued public opinion. Yet, we lay individuals often fall prey to such artificial constructs masquerading as ‘gospel truth’, even if they eventually turn out to be untrue.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is one such example wherein despite the increasing difficulty faced by the Ukraine military, write ups and policy suggestions cropping up in Western journals are openly hinting towards a possible victory for Ukraine.
The current edition of the Foreign Affairs, published in the United States, for instance, has come out with some fascinating but one-sided write ups on the ongoing war. For instance, one write up makes us believe that ‘(Ukraine’s) victory in the war would not end the conflict with Russia’. Another one is quite emphatic, ‘Can Ukraine’s military keep winning?’ Yet another one sermonises as to ‘how not to invade a nation?’ This is based on the assumption that ‘Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a case study in bad strategy’. Or consider these: ‘Russians at war: Putin’s aggression has turned a nation against itself’; and ‘the Russian military’s people problem: it’s hard for Moscow to win while mistreating its soldiers’. But the funniest is captioned as ‘A Ukraine strategy for the long haul: the West needs a policy to manage a war that will go on’!
We’ve been watching the war for a few months now. While it does seem to be protracted, the losses in terms of men, material, and territories are, without any doubt, quite significant on the Ukraine’s side. Every day, Ukraine is losing 100 to 200 soldiers. More than 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory is now under Russian occupation. Ukraine’s military-industrial base is badly damaged. The hapless small country is waging a lone battle against a military Leviathan without any diplomatic solution in sight. The West has not moved beyond verbal gymnastics and piecemeal material support. Yet, such write ups would like us to perceive and imagine an altogether different war outcome.
There could be many reasons for the wide gap between the ground realities in the war zone and the intellectual research and policy illusions being churned out in Western think-tanks, journals, and op-ed articles. First, Ukraine is probably turning out to be a testing ground for Russia’s tactical mistakes, and internal fissures. Despite months of strategic planning, the Russian attack has not been as short and swift as initially expected in Kremlin. Russia’s military fate will probably decide its pecking order among the lead military powers. Failure to clinch Ukraine’s surrender on its own terms will probably cost Russia the capacity to take on the West either in Cold War-like politics, or direct conflicts.
Second, this is the first major conflict in the post-Cold War period involving Russia, a known power in military technology and weapons exports, tangentially involving NATO powers. The ongoing war is, therefore, a testing ground for Russian weapons’ performance and tactical advantage. For instance, the Russian Iskander-M short range ballistic missiles have proved to be quite effective by evading Ukraine’s air defence and hitting targets in far-off places. However, more than the test of Russia’s weapons’ system, it is Russia’s preparations for future war that is being scrutinised.
Third, both before the war and thereafter, there has been no serious effort in encouraging the two parties towards a diplomatic and negotiated solution. It was certainly possible to cater to Russia’s legitimate security apprehensions vis-à-vis Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership. Such negotiated outcome would have been a win-win solution for the two countries, and would have prevented the trappings of huge war costs and regressive economy.
When two countries clash, the powerful one may have some sense of over confidence and (rightful) illusions about its victory. However, even smaller powers sometimes develop a sense of overconfidence and false illusions about their military capabilities. Pakistani forces, for instance, had false illusions of victory in East Pakistan in 1971 due to external support expectations. It is debatable if Ukraine would have gone for the whole hog against a much powerful neighbour ‘on its own’ since it readily gave up the nuclear option when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1994 as a non-nuclear weapons state. Since then, it has only been at the receiving end of Russia’s ire and incremental territorial annexation. It, therefore, emerges that Ukraine was popped up as the sacrificial lamb at the altar of great power politics and military competition.
Russia considers Ukraine as its ‘strategic backyard’, and would not allow preponderant alignment of forces within its sphere of influence. However, rather than engaging the international community on the contours of an agreeable diplomatic solution, syndicated disinformation and false hopes about an impending victory for Ukraine are at best, playful warmongering. They will only prolong Ukraine’s ongoing military misfortune.
Bhartendu Kumar Singh is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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