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

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.

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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.

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.

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