People Forgot How War Actually Works
Although the consequences of Russia’s terrible war in Ukraine will unfold over decades, three lessons from the conflict are already clear—and, in retrospect, should have been apparent all along. When the invasion began, a year ago today, much of the outside commentary focused on Russia’s advantages. President Vladimir Putin’s military was widely said to have overwhelming airpower and firepower, a fast-moving ground force, and extensive cyberwarfare capacity—all of which supposedly meant that Russia would rapidly conquer its neighbor. Its purported strengths seemed so great that when Russian forces were only just crossing the border, some analysts were musing about which pro-Moscow Ukrainian politician might lead a puppet regime in Kyiv.
Yet the first lesson of the past 12 months is that war is rarely easy or straightforward—which is why starting one is almost always the wrong decision for any nation. The United States has made war look simple at times, most obviously in 1991, when Operation Desert Storm dislodged Iraqi forces from Kuwait in a month and a half. Yet that victory was possible only after a decade-long U.S.-military buildup and with the deployment of the world’s most advanced military technologies. Even then, a defining feature of the Gulf War was that the U.S. did not try to occupy another society. When the opportunity to march on Baghdad presented itself, President George H. W. Bush’s administration held back.
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