Analysis / Why do leaders enter into a conflict, assuming victory is guaranteed?

In the face of a determined and passionate defense, which has significantly slowed down the Russians’ advance towards Kiev, and when war has been denounced almost all over the world, there has been much speculation over the motives that prompted Vladimir Putin: What he hopes to achieve with the war in Ukraine?

Some have argued that Putin was responding to NATO enlargement, or that he was driven by a strong sense of Russian nationalism. Others say he saw a good chance of reviving Soviet Cold War influence in Eastern Europe.

Other experts and analysts claim that he is merely a delusional leader, an oligarch who has lost touch with reality. But if Putin’s decision to invade the neighboring country was based in part on a widespread assumption that self-selected offensive wars would most likely yield a positive outcome?

Here it is worth analyzing whether this war is as much about local and regional issues, over who controls the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, as it is about the indisputable belief that the use of armed force, is the safest way to achieve political goals.

Some US foreign policy analysts, such as John Marshaimer of the University of Chicago, argue that US support for NATO expansion eastward is equally important in explaining the current crisis in Ukraine.

But as a military historian who has served 26 years in the U.S. military, I believe a more fundamental question is why policymakers, and not just in Russia, have so much faith in war, even when the most miscalculations small, can very easily lead to disaster.

The promises that a war brings have lured political and military leaders for millennia. The Athenian historian Thucydides spoke very often about Greek city-states motivated by war out of honor and profit, but also out of fear of their enemies.

Nearly 2200 years later, the Founding Fathers of America saw war as the surest way to break free from British imperial control, to establish a new identity, liberated from external influence, and to create a sovereign nation. .

The benefits of a war can be many: independence, increased power, new territories and resources. And yet, for every military success, historical records provide numerous instances when they have gone wrong.

Napoleon, for example, may have been on the brink of almost total European control in the early 1800s. of rival continental powers.

In two world wars a century later, German leaders envisioned a new world order guaranteed by great military victories. Yet those conflicts caused tens of millions of deaths worldwide, and a twice-defeated Germany seeking retribution and new importance during the Cold War.

In the decades after World War II, French military forces would face defeats in Indochina and Algeria. The Americans would have a similar fate in South Vietnam, while the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But what makes war seem worth it, despite the inevitable dangers? Perhaps it is the conviction that armed victory is the most decisive factor in any arena of international politics. During the Cold War era, Soviet leaders, from Joseph Stalin to Leonid Brezhnev, relied on the war and its threat to compete globally with the United States.

In practical terms, the brutal Soviet military incursions into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 seemed to be the most effective means of keeping Eastern European satellites within the orbit of the Warsaw Pact. And Putin seems to have seen his recent successes in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria as a vanguard of victory in Ukraine.

But bending the “military muscles” comes at a cost. The deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in the early 1960s brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The costs of maintaining a giant army and navy during the Cold War greatly weakened an already volatile Soviet economy.

And there is no question, that the long war in Afghanistan contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire, while the Cold War itself was coming to an end. So what positive perspective can this commitment to the promise of war offer?

First, the moral aspects of the wars that are chosen to take place are important here. As the philosopher Michael Walzer claims, there is often a very fine line between selected offensive wars and criminal acts of aggression.

Also the assumption that war is a transformative force, which brings about political and social change, has not always been proven. When the George W. Bush administration decided to invade Iraq in 2003, its top advisers saw a chance to transform Iraqi government and society.

However, local leaders were far more resilient to external change than these policymakers envisioned, as was the case in the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam. Even in Ukraine, Putin seems to have miscalculated the strength of the local opposition.

In fact, many modern conflicts have shown that victory is not achieved quickly and at a low cost.

At the end of his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower advised on the hidden costs of a military-industrial complex that nurtured a steady state of war. And it seems he was right. The Brown University Costs of War project estimates that the Pentagon has spent “over $ 14 trillion since the start of the war in Afghanistan, 30 percent to 50 percent of the total given to military contractors.” About 47,000 Afghan civilians and more than 6,000 members of US forces and contractors were killed in that war.

All of this raises a reasonable question as to whether the benefits of these wars have been worth it given the tremendous financial and human costs. As the world follows the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, I believe it is important to consider the constant but erroneous promise of war.

Maybe the history of Athens can be a very good starting point. As the Greek historian Thucydides warned, “It is a common mistake to go to war with the idea of ​​starting from the wrong end, jumping into action first, waiting for disasters to happen, and then sitting down for talks. ”.

Note: Gregory A. Daddis, professor of modern U.S. military history at San Diego State University. / “The Conversation” – Bota.al

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