Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

Will Russia Win?

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Like almost all other Westerners, at the time the Russian-Ukrainian War broke out in February 2022 I was convinced that the Russians would fail to reach their objectives and lose the war. Putting the details aside, this prediction was based on the following main three pillars.

First, the numerous failures, after 1945, of modern, state-run armed forces to cope with uprisings, insurgencies, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, asymmetrical warfare, and any number of similar forms of armed conflict. Think of Malaysia—yes, Malaysia, so often falsely claimed by the British as a victory. Think of Algeria, think of Vietnam, think of Iraq, think of dozens of similar conflicts throughout Asia and Africa. Almost without exception, it was the occupiers who lost and the occupied who won.

Second, the size of Ukraine’s territory and population made me and others think that Russia had tried to bite off more than it could swallow. The outcome would be a prolonged, very bloody and very destructive, conflict that would be decided not so much on the battlefield but by demoralization both among Russia’s troops and among its civilian population. As, indeed, happened in 1981-1988 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, only to get involved in a lengthy counter-insurgency campaign that ended not just in military defeat on the ground but in the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This line of reasoning was supported by the extreme difficulty the Russians faced before they finally succeeded in bringing Chechnya, a much smaller country, to heel.

Third, plain wishful thinking—something I shared with most Western observers. Including heads of state, ministers, armed forces, intelligence services, and the media.

Since then four very eventful months have passed. As they went on, the following factors have forced me to take another look at the situation.

First, the Ukrainians are not fighting a guerrilla war. Instead, as the list of weapons they have asked the West to provide them with shows, they have been trying to wage a conventional one: tank against tank, artillery barrel against artillery barrel, and aircraft against aircraft. All, apparently, in the hope of not only halting the Russian forces but of expelling them. Given that the Russians can fire ten rounds for every Ukrainian one, such a strategy can only be a sure recipe for defeat.

Second, a change in Russian tactics. Greatly underestimating their enemies, the Russians started the war by attempting a coup de main against the center of Ukrainian power at Kiev. When this failed it took them some time to decide what to do next; they may even have replaced a few of their top ranking generals. But then they regrouped and switched to the systematic reduction of Ukrainians cities and towns. Much as, in 1939-40, Stalin and his generals did to Finland. As in both that war and World War II as a whole they resorted to what has traditionally been their most powerful weapons, i.e massed artillery. It now appears that the change enabled them to reduce their losses to levels that they can sustain for a long time. Perhaps longer than the Ukrainians who, by Zelensky’s own admission, are losing as many as 100-200 of their best fighters killed in action each day.

Third, Western military technology, especially anti-aircraft weapons, anti-tank weapons, and drones may be excellent. However, limited numbers, the result of years and years of parsimony and the belief that war in Europe had become impossible, plus the need to retrain the relevant Ukrainian personnel, means that it has been slow to arrive in the places where it is most needed. Not to mention the fact that, whereas the Russians are fighting close to home, NATOs lines of communication stretch over hundreds of miles all the way from Ukraine’s borders with Poland, Slovakia and Romania in the west to the Donbas in the east. Almost all the terrain in between is flat, devoid of shelter, and thinly populated.  Meaning that it is ideal for the employment of airpower, precisely the field in which Russian superiority over Ukraine is most pronounced.

Fourth, strict censorship is making the impact of Western economic sanctions on Russia’s population hard to asses. If there is any grumbling, it is being energetically suppressed. Meanwhile, a look at the macroeconomics seems to show that Russia is coping much better than many Westerners expected. Gold reserves have been inching up, enabling Putin to link his currency to gold—the first country to do so since Switzerland went in the opposite direction back in 1999. The Ruble, which early in the war came close to collapse, is back to a seven-year high against the dollar, trend upward. Given the fall in imports as well as the tremendous rise in energy prices, more money is flowing into Russia’s coffers than ever before. Most of that money comes from selling energy, foodstuffs and raw materials to countries such as China and India. China in turn is now the world’s number one industrial power; once its current troubles with COVID-19 are over, it should be well able to provide Russia with almost any kind of industrial product it needs, and do so for a long time to come.

Fifth, the economic impact of the war on the West has been much greater than anyone thought. Saving Ukraine form Russian’s clutches is not like doing the same with Afghanistan. On both sides of the Atlantic inflation is higher than it has been at any time since 1980. Especially in regard to energy, which Russia is refusing to provide Europe with, it is giving rise not just to confusion but to some real hardship. Should it continue, as it almost certainly will, it will give rise to growing popular discontent with the war and demands that their countries’ involvement in it be reduced or brought to an end.  Even if that end means abandoning Ukraine and allowing Putin to have his way with it.

Last not least, beginning with the Enlightenment the West has long preened itself on being a fortress where liberty, law and justice prevail. Now the repeated, highly publicized, requisitioning of the property of so-called oligarchs is beginning to make some people wonder. First, no one knows what an “oligarch” is. Second, the fact that some “oligarchs” have been in more or less close touch with Putin over the years does not automatically turn them into criminals. Third, supposing they are criminals, it is not at all clear why they were left alone for so long and only began to be targeted after the war broke out. Could it be that, in combating the oligarchs, the West is undermining the justice of its cause?

To be sure, we are not there yet. But as growing number of statements that the war is going to be a long one show, it is now primarily a question of who can draw the deepest breath and hold out the longest. And when it comes to that, Russia’s prospects of coming out on top and obtaining a favorable settlement are not at all bad.

The Other Side of the Coin

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As many readers of this blog know, NATO and the US have been pressing Switzerland to abandon its long-standing policy of neutrality and join them in supporting the good, blameless, democratic Ukrainians against the big bad Russians. Conversely many Swiss media, reluctant to see their country embark on that road, has been bristling with stories that, being less than complimentary to Ukraine, are not always easy to find in English-language sources. Based on an article in Weltwoche, a moderately right-wing Swiss weekly, the following are summaries of a few such stories.

  1. In the West, the terms “Russia” and “oligarchs” are regarded as almost synonymous. In fact, though, Ukraine’s Zelensky is quite as dependent on filthy rich, not always nice and kind, backers as his rival Putin is. In return, no sooner had he come to power in April 2019 than he started pushing through a comprehensive program aimed at privatizing state-owned land. 40 million hectares of it, no less. Continuing policies originally put in place when Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, this reform was accompanied by others: including cuts in social services, changes in labor law aimed at favoring employers at workers’ expense, and more. The result? In 1991 its per capita income was slightly than to that of Russia. Over the next thirty years it dropped to just one third of that figure. No wonder that, by the time the war broke out in February 2022, public support for Zelensky had dropped by two thirds.
  2. Again in the West, the terms “Russia“ and “corruption” are regarded as almost synonymous. In fact, however, there is little to choose between Russian corruption and that which prevails in Kiev. According to one source quoted by Weltwoche, back in 2015 Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe. Six years later Transparency International, a Berlin-based organization, ranked it 122nd in the world, just barely ahead of Russia. Corruption, so Weltwoche, is endemic: in ministries, in the bureaucracy, in the public services, in parliament, in the police, and—surprise surprise–even in the High Court specifically charged with combating it. Zelensky himself is said to have received millions from questionable backers in- and out of the country; some of the money was registered on his wife’s name, and some of it was deposited offshore. Among those implicated was Hunter, the son of U.S President Joe Biden. Presumably it was these contributions which, among other things, enabled Zelensky to spend some of his vacations not in the Carpathians or on the shores of the Black Sea—both of them prime vacation areas, by the way–but in the kind of Western resorts that charge tens of thousands of dollars per night.
  3. When Putin proclaimed that one of his objectives was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, Western media were quick to point out that Zelensky himself is Jewish or, at any rate, has Jewish roots. That is true, but two points seem worth making. First, those Jewish roots are rather remote and, inside Ukraine, are rarely mentioned. Second, as may be clearly seen from the tattoos they carry on their faces, trunks, shoulders and arms, many of Zelensky’s most determined supporters identify with the Nazis, Hitler and the SS specifically included. At least one, chief of the so-called National Corps (and one time member of parliament) Andryi Bilestsky, has gone so far as to declare a crusade against the Jew-directed efforts of “sub-human” peoples to do away with the white races.  Indeed Ukrainian right-wing organizations are not unlike America’s militias. Except that they are much better organized, armed, and trained; and except that, rather than being marginal to the country’s political life, they form the indispensable mainstay of Zelensky’s regime.
  4. Even before the beginning of the war, Zelensky’s own regime was showing signs of becoming increasingly authoritarian. Opposition politicians, accused of cooperating with the enemy, have been intimidated, kidnapped and, occasion, shot at. Opposition media have been closed, opposition parties prohibited.
  5. Arrests, kangaroo courts, and even torture have become widespread. It is true that Ukrainian troops did not abuse the civilian population quite as much as Russian ones did (not operating on Russian territory, they simply did not have the opportunity). The abuses that did take place, though, were bad enough; as, for example, when Ukrainian militiamen, acting in broad daylight, seized known left-wingers, stripped them, and beat them up. While the West has focused on the Russian maltreatment of Ukrainian (and a few foreign) prisoners of war, it has ignored cases when Ukrainian troops opened fire on Russian prisoners.

The Weltwoche article that served me as the basis for this post takes up four pages of dense German. I got them down to just eight hundred words, the normal length of an Op-Ed. By no means do I wish to imply that Russia is right and Ukraine, wrong. Only, perhaps, that both sides are not as different as they are usually made out to be—and that, as time goes on, they are steadily becoming less so.

Truth to Say, Qui lo Sa?

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Now that the initial momentum has been spent and replaced by attrition (on both sides), it is possible to speculate about the outcome of the war everyone has been talking about for the last few months.

So here we go.

Outcome No 1. The Ukrainians, supported by the West, succeed in pushing the Russians out and accomplishing their stated objective, which is to reassert their territorial integrity. Whereupon peace talks get under way and everyone goes home happily enough; this is the way eighteenth century “cabinet wars” used to end. Unfortunately, given the Russians’ shorter lines of communication as well as their superior firepower, this outcome is the most unlikely of all.

Outcome No 2. A variant of this outcome is the possibility that internal developments in Russia will lead to a change of policy. Some of Putin’s collaborators, disappointed with the lack of progress and worried about the long-range prospects of their country (and themselves, of course) mount a coup. Or else the combination of reluctant troops with popular discontent forces them to change course. Speculation about this scenario, particularly the one that sees Putin being forced out of office by illness, has ben rife for months.

Outcome No. 3. As both sides keep sending in reinforcements, stalemate ensues. This, in fact, is the situation at present  As time goes on, the populations of more than one NATO country begin to realize the full cost, economic and social and political, of supporting Ukraine. Dissenting voices begin to be heard and cannot be silenced. Making their way from the bottom upward, they cause part of the leadership to wonder how long this can go on. As discontent spreads Kiev’s own allies start putting it under pressure. By way or doing so they may even start reducing or delaying aid. Think of the American retreats from Vietnam (where they abandoned  their South Vietnamese allies), Iraq (where, back in 1991, they did the same to the Shiites), Afghanistan (where they simply left) and Iraq again. Deprived of Western support, the Ukrainians are forced to make the best peace they can.

Outcome No 4. Reorganizing and bringing their full resources to bear, the Russians renew their offensive. No more attempts to end the war with a singe mighty strike. Proceeding systematically and using artillery in order to reduce their own casualties, they attack one city after another to force it to surrender or, if that does not work, reduce it to rubble. Ukraine cracks under the pressure. The government is forced to flee. Terrorism and guerrilla warfare get under way and are suppressed, albeit at the cost of almost unimaginable death, suffering and destruction. As used to be said of the Romans, they made a desert and called it peace.

Outcome No. 5. Terrorism and guerrilla get under way. However, thanks largely to Ukraine’s large size and long borders with NATO countries, they cannot be suppressed any more than they could  in any number of post-1945 wars.  Long-term chaos ensues and may spread to neighboring countries.

Not only may any of these happen, but they may do so in an endless number of combinations and variations. Truth to say, qui lo sa?

And Still They Say…

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Facts:

Women want to pee standing up just like men (look at the Net: you’ll find several different products and techniques that will allegedly enable them to do just that).

Women want (or wanted) to smoke just like men.

Women want to wear pants just like men.

Women want to work just like men.

Women want to have careers just like men.

Women want to explore space just like men.

Women want to play football just like men.

Women want to ride motorcycles just like men.

Women want to exercise just like men.

Women want to engage in body-building just like men.

Women want to lift weights just like men.

Women want to wrestle just like men.

Women want to box just like men.

Women want to serve in the military just like men (minus some of the latter’s more onerous duties, to be sure).

Women want to enter combat just like men.

A woman wants to enter men’s “ballfield” (feminist author Betty Friedan).

A woman rejoices at seeing ads that show objects sticking out of women’s (emphasis in the original) groins (feminist author Naomi Wolf).

A woman says women “crave” men’s “obvious extra” (feminist author Nancy Friday).

A woman says “suck my dick” (Demi Moore in GI Jane).

A woman claims to have “the biggest dick in town” (Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot)

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And still people say there is no such thing as PE.

Tagged

Hadith

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Amidst the cannons’ roar, it is sometimes good to remember that there is more to the world than bloody slaughter. I am not an Islamic scholar. Even my knowledge of Arabic is limited to a few phrases most of us Jewish Israelis are familiar with: such as salam aleikum (peace be upon you), sabakh al khir (good day), tfadal (please), shukran (thank you), and others. That is why I, presumably like 99 percent of all non-Moslems, never spent any time reading the hadith. Not even in translation. For those of you who do not know, hadith, plural ahadith, means “report” or “account.” Considered the second most authoritative source of Islamic life and law, right after the Koran itself, it consists of the Prophet’s recorded sayings as well as exemplary stories from his and followers’ life.

Originating in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries CE, the total number of ahadith is in the thousands. Not surprisingly for a religion whose billion and a half adherents spread from the Philippines to West Africa, there are many different editions, each with its own collection of what the editor(s) considered authentic and fake, significant and less significant. Many are repetitive, and some contradict each other. The lists differ from Sunni to Shi’ite Islam, from one sect to another, and even from one scholar to the next.

Though I am not a Moslem, I have read the Koran in translation (my late father in law, a typical highly-educated German Jew, owned a copy, and I inherited it). However, while aware of the existence of the hadith and the role it plays in Islam I had never taken a closer look. Stumbling across it recently, I was immediately struck by the beauty and clarity of many of the sayings and examples I encountered. Given all the bad things Israelis and Westerners in general keep reading about Islam, some came as revelations. That is why I decided to share a few of them.

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Narrated Aisha: [Mohammad’s wife and the mother of the faithful believers]. Al-Harith bin Hisham asked Allah’s Apostle O Allah’s Apostle! How is the Divine Inspiration revealed to you? Allah’s Apostle replied, Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell, this form of Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state passes off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes the Angel comes in the form of a man and talks to me and I grasp whatever he says. ‘Aisha added: Verily I saw the Prophet being inspired divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over).

Prophet Mohammad said: Whoever takes a path in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to walk in one of the paths to Paradise. Indeed the angels will lower their wings in great pleasure with the one who seeks knowledge.

Once a man came to Prophet Mohammad and said, “Advise me!” He said, “Do not get angry.” The man asked the same question several times and the Prophet said in each case, “Do not get angry.”

Said Mohammad: “It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad, and it is better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent, but silence is better than idle words.”

Said Mohammad: The best jihad is to speak a word of justice to an oppressive ruler.

Said Mohammad: “Those people who show no mercy will receive no mercy from God.”

Said Mohammad: God enjoins you to treat women well, for they are your mothers, daughters, aunts.

Narrated ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr [an early follower of Mohammad]: A man asked the Prophet, What sort of deeds or (what qualities of) Islam are good? The Prophet replied, ‘To feed (the poor) and greet those whom you know and those whom you do not know.

Said Mohammad: “God did not send me to be harsh, or cause harm, but He has sent me to teach and make things easy.”

Said Mohammad: “Everybody errs. The best of those who have erred are those that repent.”

*

This is just a very small appetizer, made up of ingredients selected more or less at random and put in no particular order.

I hope you will like it as much as I did.

The Iron Dice Keep Rolling

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A question about the Ukrainian War that many Westerners have been asking—and that must have been haunting those hard-faced men in the Kremlin ever since they started their offensive on 24 February—is what they, the hard-faced men, have been doing wrong. Also, what the Ukrainians, waging war under the remarkable leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have been doing right. Focusing, as far as possible, on the military sphere as opposed to the political and economic ones, and recognizing that the time for a comprehensive analysis of the war has not yet arrived, the following represent some preliminary answers. Such as may also be useful to other militaries which are watching events and trying to draw lessons from them.

What the Russians have been doing wrong

First, the Russians have greatly underestimated the Ukrainians’ determination and willingness to fight. How this could have happened is anything but clear. Perhaps it was born out of previous Russian successes in Georgia (2008), the Crimea (2014) and Nagorno-Karabakh (2020). Or else they may have fallen victim to their own propaganda about Russians and Ukrainians having been one people for so long that the latter would not fight the former in earnest.

Second, and possibly because of the above, the Russians did not mobilize sufficient forces. The above apart, they may also have feared domestic problems in case they went too far in this respect. However that may be, contrary to the prevailing impression in terms of the number of available maneuver battalions the Ukrainians were not at all inferior to the Russians. Fighting on interior lines as they did, in places they may even have been superior.  Conversely, sheer lack of numbers seems to have played a major role in the Russian failure to capture, first Kiev and then Kharkov. To make things worse, most of the Russian ground forces consist of short service, insufficiently motivated and trained, conscripts.

Third, it would seem that the Russian General Staff was unable to decide what the most important objective (Schwerpunkt) of their offensive was going to be. As a result they tried to advance in no fewer than four different directions at once—from the north on Kiev, from the east on the Donbas, and from the Crimea both east and west. Later they even added another thrust, i.e the one on Kharkov. Had the Russians enjoyed a considerable numerical superiority, such a strategy might have been feasible; as I just said, however, of such a superiority there could be no question. As a result, out of the five offensives three, i.e the one against Kiev, the one against Kharkov, and the one reaching west towards Odessa had to be abandoned. Only the one against the Donbas really made progress—but only very slowly, and only at high cost. 

Fourth, the Russians chose the wrong season for launching their offensive: first snow, making movement difficult, then thaw, then mud. There is no question that, militarily speaking, it would have been better to wait another few weeks; why Putin did not do so is unknown.

Fifth, given the scale of preparations and the time it took to make them there was no question of the Russians enjoying the benefit of surprise. Conversely, the Ukrainians had all the time in the world to get ready.

Sixth, as the enormous traffic jam on the roads leading south from Russia to Kiev showed, logistic planning was totally inadequate. The outcome seems to have been on- and off shortages of fuel and ammunition (which, in any modern war, form the bulk of the troops’ requirements) and even food.

Seventh, contrary to expectations the Russians did not make extensive use of their superior air force. First, the attempt to end the war by means of a coup de main directed against a major Ukrainian airport on the outskirts of Kiev ended in failure. Subsequent air operations, all kinds of missiles included, appear to be scattered and ineffective. True, Ukraine’s armament industry has been destroyed. But Russian airpower does not seem to have availed them much against mobile Ukrainian forces in the field.

Finally, a “cyberwar Pearl Harbor,” as it has sometimes been called, did not materialize. To be sure, there has been a great many attacks some of which knocked out websites, disrupted communications, and the like. However, large scale anarchy, let alone paralysis, did not result. Whether that is because of insufficient preparation or because the other side was ready is not clear.

What the Ukrainians have been doing right

First, though both sides have relied on semi-regular militias (including, in the Russian case, mercenaries) to do part of their fighting, this form of military organization has played a greater part on the Ukrainian side than on the Russian one. Not only does this fact help explain the way the latter’s numerical superiority has been largely obviated, but it provided the Ukrainians with a certain kind of flexibility. Enjoying a large degree of autonomy as they do, the militias could not be neutralized simply by striking at central Ukrainian headquarters.

Second, whereas the invaders must generate their own intelligence, the Ukrainians can receive theirs from almost every man, woman and child in the country. The fact that, though the weapons used on both sides are often almost identical, the Russians have chosen to mark theirs with large letters Z helps.

Third, the Ukrainians have been making unexpectedly good use of modern weapons, especially the drones needed for in-depth reconnaissance behind the front. And including also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles generously provided by the West.

Fourth, on the whole they have not tried to stop the Russians by waging large sale warfare, army against army, in the open. Instead they defended the cities where winning requires the kind of numerical superiority the Russians do not have.

Finally, while the destruction inflicted on many of Ukraine’s cities has been terrible, wherever possible the Ukrainian military did not fight to the last man and the last bullet. Instead, it regularly left room for their forces’ more or less orderly retreat. Mariupol, where they allowed themselves to be put under siege, is the exception, not the rule. One which, in the future, they would be wise to repeat.

In summary

In summary the Russians, by underestimating the opponent and giving up on surprise, have committed the worst of all military sins. By contrast, the Ukrainians have exploited the Russian mistakes right up to the hilt.

However, two points are worth making. First, the available information is slanted, unreliable and, above all, extremely fragmentary. Nowhere is that more the case than in the number of dead and injured on both sides; as the saying goes, in any war the first casualty is always the truth. Second, this war is by no means over yet. The signs are that the iron dice will keep rolling for a long time, and how they will ultimately land is anyone’s guess.

Geopolitics

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With the war in Ukraine spewing havoc, demand for geopolitics is high. However, the most clear-eyed writer on geopolitics was not Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947). Nor was he Prof. Samuel Huntington (1927-2008). The former in his 1904 essay, “The Geographical Pivot of History” made the mistake of assuming that Eastern Europe—“The Heartland,” as he called it—would always remain the crucible of the world, thus entirely missing the gigantic, and still continuing, struggle waged by the US, Russia, Japan, and  China over the Pacific. The latter in his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations, focuses on cultural differences among the world’s most important seven civilizations but has surprisingly little to say about what the wars he fully expects would look like.

Yet there is a book that avoids both of these errors; one, moreover, that was authored not by a social scientist, as both Mackinder and Huntington were, but by a journalist and writer of fiction. His name was George Orwell and his book, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was published in 1949, shortly before his death.

Follow some excerpts.

“The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Oceania and Eurasia, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct being after another decade of confused fighting. The frontiers between the three super-states are in places completely arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines… In one combination of another these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been for the past twenty-five years.

War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was during the early decades of the twentieth century. It is warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference. This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary… such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one’s own side and not by the enemy, meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes…

To understand the nature of the present war… one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defenses are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces, Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants…

[Inside each super-state, the two aims of the ruling elite] are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the [elite] is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject… the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armor-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun’s rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometers away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth’s center. But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others.

What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover… atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties… The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own power. Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later. And meanwhile the art of war has remained almost stationary… Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but otherwise there has been little development. The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use. And in spite of the endless slaughters reported in the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have never been repeated. None of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuver which involves the risk of serious defeat. When any large operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise attack against an ally. The strategy that all three powers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, is the same. The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bargaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to lull suspicion to sleep. During this time rockets loaded with atomic bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will all be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation impossible. It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the remaining world-power, in preparation for another attack…”

Need I say more?

On Stalin (again)

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Readers, please note: The following is the text of an interview about the book I did on 8 May with Mr. Pierre Heumann of the German-Swiss weekly Weltwoche. The translation from German is my own.

Heumann: Martin van Creveld, are you a Stalin Versteher (understander/sympathizer)?

Van Creveld: Writing a good biography of someone one hates is practically impossible. That is one reason why there are so many bad books about people like Hitler. And Stalin, of course. What Stalin was aiming at was a Soviet Union which would be shaped according to his ideas and would rule, as its acknowledged master: he himself. Considering his humble origins, I find the way he achieved those aims very impressive.

Heumann: What, in your view, was the heritage he left?

Van Creveld: It depends on whom one asks. In the West he is perceived as a monster. His regime is portrayed as extremely brutal, authoritarian and corrupt. All of which is quite true. However, in Russia the situation is different. Many people respect Stalin as a ruler who played a critical role in establishing the state, then went on to industrialize it on a vast scale, and finally saved it from collapse during the so-called Great Patriotic War.

Studying the material as I did, one thing that struck me was how little charisma Stalin had. His speeches were boring—not because he did not have anything intelligent to say, but because he spoke in a monotone and, unlike Hitler, never raised his voice. Nor did he have to. As his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, once said, “when Stalin says ‘dance,’ a wise man dances.” Everyone understood that Stalin brooked no opposition.

Heumann: Wat similarities do you see between Stalin and Putin?

Van Creveld: Both used the secret services as their primary instrument of government. And both saw themselves as men who had been called upon, whether by fate or by history. Stalin wanted to prepare the world for Communism. Putin wants to prevent or at least delay the collapse of Russia. And there is something else they have in common. To both of them, Russian history is a long story in which the Russians were always the victims. Why? Because Russia has always been backward. One outcome was, and still is, the West’s tendency to look down on Russia as a backward country. Putin personally has repeatedly referred this kind of inferiority complex his countrymen labor under.

Heumann: How do you see the war in Ukraine?

Van Creveld: Stalin, having come under attack by the German Reich, Stalin had no option but to defend himself.  Unlike him, Putin had the choice: to attack or not to attack. He decided to attack. Now Clausewitz’s words have come to haunt him: any attack that does not quickly attain its ends fairly quickly will turn into a defense.

Jason Pack, Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2021, 529 pages

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Two basic ideas dominate this book. The first is that the post-Cold War era has definitely ended and that we have now entered the era of “the global enduring disorder;” a claim fully confirmed by recent events in Ukraine. The second is that Libya, which most people see as a failed state made up of oceans of high-quality oil, vast stretches of pitiless desert, and bands of fanatical Toyota-truck riding gangsters that keep on fighting each other both acts as a microcosm of that disorder and is playing an important role in extending it

Let’s discuss the first idea first. The way the author sees it, those who, during the early 1990s, predicted the emergence of a warless globe presided over by a world government have been proved wrong. Far from waning away, wherever we look states remain the most important players of all. Still they do not have the playing field all to themselves. Far from it! In many places their authority is being undermined, nay nullified by more or less well organized, more or less fanatical, groups of terrorists, insurgents, guerrillas, or whatever they may call themselves or be called by others. Nor is that all. Many multinational corporations have entered the fray, looking after their own interests which may or may not coincide with those of the states in which they are officially registered. The states themselves do not act like those proverbial billiard balls but are represented by any number of competing, not seldom conflicting interests and agencies. Some states, organizations and officials remain the same for more or less extended periods. Others are like some kind of super-chameleons that keep changing not just their spots but their very essence. Welcome, to use a title of an article I published in the summer 2000 issue of Foreign Policy, “The New Middle Ages.”

Second, the role of Libya in all this. Here it is first of all necessary to say that Mr. Pack is that rarest of animals: an American who is not just an accomplished Arabist but actually likes many things Arab. Not an aspect of Arab language, dialects included, that he does not know inside out. Including religion, art, culture, tradition, history, and what not. Having lived in several Arab countries (and got into trouble with the authorities of at least one of them), he has met and conversed with many of the principal actors; the 297-page list of sources alone is enough to kill an ox, if only an ox could read it. For about a decade and a half now he has focused his efforts on Libya. Visiting the country, writing, lecturing, and advising every kind of individual and organization with an interest in oil, of whom there are a great many indeed. To say nothing of the problems created by the country’s critically important geographical position on the shores of the Mediterranean opposite Europe; its tendency to spew out emigrants in all direction; and many other issues.

Briefly, if there is anyone who can even begin to make some kind of sense of the way Libya is going, both internally and in respect to its infinitely complex relations with the rest of the world, it is Mr. Pack. As the title of his book indicates, on the whole his vision of the future is not optimistic. Unless something dramatic (“global collective action”?) is done, Libya is likely to remain in as much of a mess as it has been at least since the beginning of the by now half forgotten “Arab Renaissance” in 2011. Unless something dramatic is done, too, that mess is more likely to spread to other countries—particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe–­than the other way around.

One final comment. Though part of the class known as academic literature, the book is well written. However, the vast panorama and superabundance of often obscure details means that it is by no means easy to read and, let alone assimilate. No more so than the works of Polybius, the Hellenistic historian whom Pack admires and quotes. Rather, doing so is a challenge; but for anyone interested in Libya and its relations with the rest of the world, it is also a must.

Where has Cyberwar Gone

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As others beside me have noted, one of the most astonishing things about the war in Ukraine is the fact that cyberwarfare does not seem to be playing a major role in it. To be sure, there has been what one source calls “a steady drumbeat of attacks, including disinformation campaigns, distributed denial-of-service attacks that temporarily knock websites offline, and ‘wiper’ attacks, which infect computer networks and render them inoperable by deleting all files. But no question of malware taking the place of bullets, shells, rockets missiles and bombs, small and large. No talk of countrywide water, gas, electricity, communication and transportation systems being knocked out by all kinds of oddly-named devices used by either side. Instead, old-fashioned kinetic warfare seems to be not only alive but kicking out ferociously in every direction at once. Just take a look at images filled with wrecked Russian tanks, or, on the other side, some photographs of what much of Mariupol now looks like.

Why the role of cyberwar seems to be so much smaller than expected I do not know. Judging by some articles on the topic that have surfaced on the Net, neither do others. Based on what decades of study have taught me about the relationship between technology and war, though, personally I think there are several possibilities. First, it may be that the difficulties an attacker faces in effectively penetrating an enemy’s computer network in such a way as to make a difference are greater than many experts had thought. Second, the defenders on both sides may have prepared much more effectively than anyone expected. Third, there is the question of secrecy. Meaning that, if there has ever been a field in which holding one’s cards, whether offensive or defensive, close to one’s chest is vital, this is the one.

Such being the situation, I want to provide a fourth explanation. Many of you will be familiar with the name of Giulio Douhet (1869-30). Douhet was a World-War I Italian general originally commissioned into the artillery. In 1922 he published Il dominio dell’aereo, almost certainly the most famous volume on the topic ever written and a cardinal point of reference for practically everything that has been written on it since. However, it is neither this book nor Douhet’s influence on airpower that I want to discuss here. It is, rather, his theories on the way technology, specifically including technological innovation, and war interact. In 1913 Douhet, while still only a major on the general staff, produced an article on that question. It is that article which I have used as my guide.

So here goes.

Stage A. A new technology is introduced. Normally this is done by the inventors and manufacturers who hope to make a profit and turn to the military as a potentially very large customer; also, perhaps, by all kinds of visionaries out to make their ideas known. The idea meets with skepticism on the part of defense officials and officers who, often not before being repeatedly harassed, are sent to examine it. Having conducted a more or less thorough investigation, they submit their report in which they claim that the new technology is simply a toy and will never amount to much. Good examples of the process are provided by the Zeppelin, heavier than air aircraft, the submarine, the torpedo and the tank, all of which were invented before 1914 and all of which initially met this fate. There is even a story about a British regimental commander who, upon receiving a couple of machine guns, told his men to take the “bloody things” to the wings and hide them.

Stage B. The manufacturers do not give up. Having perhaps enlisted (bribed?) a visionary or two, and directing at least some of their efforts at the public at large, they continue to push. Sometimes by offering their invention to an enemy of the country they first approached. Sir Basil Zaharoff, though not an inventor but a merchant, was the undisputed master in this game, selling warships to both Turkey and Greece. Slowly and gradually, the military undergo a limited shift. They are now ready to find out whether there is any way in which they can incorporate the new weapon or weapon system into the existing organizations without, however, acknowledging the need to change that organization in any fundamental way. At times they even start adopting a new invention in order to prevent change; as the German Luftwaffe did when it developed the V-1 as a counter to the early ballistic missiles favored by the land army and as the US Army did with the Redstone missile during the 1950s. Other good examples of the attempt to pour new weapons into old organizations are, once again, the heavier-than-air aircraft and the submarine. And the aircraft carrier, of course.   

Stage C. Quite suddenly, the wind changes. As older officers die or retire, younger ones—those in charge of the new technologies and in favor of them—start shouting their virtues from the rooftops. The more so if the technologies in question can be shown to have played a key role in some recent war. Military history is making a fresh start! They say. The new technologies are about to take over! Everything else is ripe for the dustbin! And so on and so on. Douhet himself set the example. By the time he wrote his book he had convinced himself that armies and navies were about to disappear and that airpower, like the Jewish God in one of the prayers addressed to him, “all alone would rule in awe.” Similar claims on behalf of aircraft were made in the US by General Billy Mitchel; whereas in Britain another officer, Brigadier general John Fuller, was doing the same on behalf of tanks. Nowadays they are being made on behalf of artificial intelligence and autonomous killing machines among other things,

Stage D. It becomes evident that, useful as the new technologies are, they do not provide answers to all problems. As invention is followed by counter-invention, pilots find that they cannot simply bomb the hell out of whomever they want at any time they want. Submariners discover that, without support from the air (later, satellites), their ability to find their targets is very limited. Tanks are threatened by anti-tank guns and missiles and are, moreover, only useful in certain, well-defined, kinds of terrain. Carriers, even such as rely on nuclear propulsion, have to be escorted by entire fleets of anti- aircraft and anti-missile destroyers, anti-submarine destroyers, and supply ships. And autonomous killing machines have a tendency to break lose and kill indiscriminately. Briefly, the new technologies must be integrated with everything else: strategy, tactics, command and control, logistics, intelligence, doctrine, organization, training and what not.

Stage E. Following the usual logistic curve, shown above, the process of reorganization has been driven as far as it will ever be and is now flattening out. Advanced, even revolutionary, weapons and weapon systems have become an integral part of the forces. Perhaps, as in the case of carriers from 1941 on, their lynchpin. By this time most of those who initially opposed the changes are gone. A new generation of officers has risen and takes things as they now are for granted.

Judging by what little is known of the role cyberwarfare is playing in Ukraine, we seem to be taking leave of stage C. Could it be that we are now entering stage D? And if so, what new gizmos will the future bring?