Strategic lessons for military powers from Wagner Group’s march

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the head of the Wagner Group.

All international military conflicts and experiences carry some lessons for other militaries. While the Wagner Group aborted its Napoleonic march towards Moscow to overthrow the Russian military leadership (and perhaps political leadership as well), the speed and alacrity with which the rebels moved swiftly, well within striking range of Moscow, surprised military experts within and outside Russia. There would be significant military and political consequences within Russia, including its accelerated decline as a military power — largely due to failure in imposing a defeat on Ukraine so far). However, there are equally significant strategic lessons for other military powers.

The Wagner Group emerged to prominence in the last ten years. This was the time when the decline of the Russian military had metamorphosed into a strategic reality. Zoltan Barany, a prominent military expert who has studied militaries of different countries, cited a hypothesis in his book, Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of Russian Military, ‘Russia’s fall from military superpower number two, to a country whose army can be neutralised by bands of irregulars fighting with little more than the weapons on their backs’. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties, the Russian army was steadily on a declining trajectory without any meaningful defence reforms being injected at any stage. After the initial executive-legislature conflict, institutional decay, ‘politicisation of military’ and ‘militarisation of politics’ plunged the civil-military relations into chaos. Armed resistance by irregulars like the Wagner Group, therefore, was a foregone conclusion long back in academic writings.

Costly Mistake

Three mistakes were committed in the protection, preservation and promotion of the Wagner Group from a fledgling guerrilla group to a fighting behemoth. First, while many states promoted and even funded private militias in past, they were invariably used to bolster the latter’s armed resistance against a rival state. Within their own territories, however, all states retain the monopoly over the ‘business of war’ and war-like activities, preventing any conflict delegation. But the Russian leadership erred in privatising the business of fighting wars to a private militia within its own territory. The Wagner Group shouldered the front role in Russian wars against its near and far neighbours. This, in turn, also meant a back-end role for the Russian troops in war theatres and a consequential reduced combat experience. Whereas the Russian troops seized the war objectives against Ukraine in 2014, they are struggling against the Ukrainian resistance in the last one and half years.

Second, Russia failed to observe the changing military behaviour of the Wagner Group, despite the latter’s numerous military accomplishments in near and distant lands. On the contrary, it gave funds and heavy weaponry to the Wagner Group. This led to a defence policy that was blissfully ignorant of the Wagner Group’s increasing resilience. Russia may have wanted a Fabian militia doing delegated military duties but then the Wagner Group initiated a Napoleonic march towards Moscow!

Third, the Russian military leadership made a blunder in letting the Wagner Group operate a separate command and control mechanism under the façade of a unified command structure of Russian military leadership. Past accomplishments in Europe and Africa, supplemented by frontal experience in the ongoing Ukraine War, gave requisite experience and confidence to the Wagner Group. At the end of the day, it was also led by a warlord who wanted to discredit the Russian military leadership for his own power, pleasure and profit.

Lacking Strategic Instincts

What was surprising in the Wagner Group’s short-lived military rebellion against the Russian leadership was the ‘ease’ with which it captured the Russian military centre of Rostov-on-Don and then marched towards Moscow, reaching within 200 kilometres — all without any resistance. Various theories may be invented both within and outside Russia to explain the development. However, either out of over-confidence, benevolence or negligence, the Russian military leadership erred in not developing a defensive capability. The generals simply lacked the strategic instincts and cognitive capabilities to sense the mischief in time and adopt preventive measures.

Contemporary warfare has become a costly and protracted exercise. It does not lead to instant dividends irrespective of the asymmetry between the warring parties. Protracted and uncertain wars are bound to divide domestic public opinion. This hypothesis gains weight since there was no visible public opposition to the Wagner Group’s march to Moscow. Perhaps, it would also be safe to say that there was tacit public support for the rebel group’s march. A political solution, rather than a military solution, is what all military powers should look forward to resolve conflicts with rivals. Many military powers would also be wary now in promoting private militias, least of all, crowning them with asymmetrical military arsenals and methods. Last but not least, civil leadership in all military powers should realise that matters of war and peace are not left to generals alone but should be premised on civilian supremacy. Probably, there lies some space for avoiding Wagner syndrome in future conflicts.

Bhartendu Kumar Singh is in the Indian Defence Accounts Service. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.