Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian theorist of warfare, recognized that wars usually take on their own momentum, proceeding along trajectories that surprise the experts as well as the participants. This seems especially true of irregular conflicts, where so often the seemingly weak defeat the strong. Look at the recent military history of the United States, the country with the most formidable military establishment in history. Since the great victory of World War II, America has lost three grueling insurgency wars, fought to a draw in Korea, and achieved a dramatic and rapid victory in the First Gulf War that did little more than set the stage for the disaster of the Iraq War of 2003-2014. The Persian Gulf War looks like a hollow victory these days.
Russia, America’s archrival in the Cold War, was forced into an ignominious retreat in its war in Afghanistan by Islamic tribal warriors supported by the United States and Pakistan, and proved unable to defeat the Chechens in a brutal insurgency war in the mid-1990s.
A month into Russia’s stalled war of conquest in Ukraine, no military expert can say with any degree of certainty what the conflict will look like in even a month, let alone a year from now. One scenario that has been very much on the minds of the experts as well as the adversaries has it that Russia will succeed in occupying most of the country’s south and east, and that Volodymyr Zelensky’s government will take up residence in Lviv, from where it will orchestrate a protracted insurgency against a Russian-appointed administration and its military forces.
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This prospect is not a pretty one. Scholars at the Rand Corporation think tank have estimated that such an insurgency would likely go on for a decade or more. Urban warfare campaigns sure to mark the beginning of the insurgency are sure to be hideously destructive, especially given the Russian military’s commitment to using armor, rockets, and artillery against civilian targets. Europe could well be on the road to seeing its most destructive battles since World War II, and much of Ukraine’s infrastructure would probably be destroyed.
The good news is that the Ukrainian government and its forces—particularly its rigorously trained special operations forces—have been preparing to wage just such a campaign for many years. Moreover, a Ukrainian insurgency would possess pretty much all the assets historians and military analysts say are essential for success. According to Douglas London, a 34-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service with extensive service in the region, the Ukrainians “have spent the last eight years planning, training and equipping themselves for resisting a Russian occupation.”
London confirms that CIA paramilitary officers have been working with Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers since 2015. It’s likely, he says, that the United States and NATO have already helped Ukraine develop communications infrastructure, intelligence collection, and operational plans for such a campaign. Russia’s military advantage over Ukraine, London observes, “will diminish as the enemy it fights changes from an organized army to a decentralized and mobile resistance.”
According to an anonymous Ukrainian special forces officer interviewed by Army Times correspondent David Winkie, Kyiv has been working with the Americans and NATO to implement a “Resistance Operating Concept,” centered around building up the capacity of Ukraine’s allies to provide weapons, ammunition, and logistical support to a nation-wide insurgency. As long ago as last July, plans and procedures were put in place to mobilize the entire nation—the army, the territorial defense units, and the civilian population—against the hated invader.
Another pillar of insurgency success regards the presence of sanctuaries. Fighting units in a protracted guerrilla war need a place to rest, recoup, and refit. Think of the Vietcong in Laos and Cambodia, and al Qaeda in the rugged mountains of the Pakistani tribal areas. Four NATO nations on western Ukraine’s border will be able to provide that sanctuary. Poland, with a powerful military and a deep sensitivity to Russian territorial expansion, is likely to play a prominent role in establishing sanctuary facilities.
A third crucial asset for successful insurgencies is an ample supply of fighters. Here, too, it seems Ukraine, with a population of 40 million aroused citizens, should be in good stead. Russia’s brutal tactics, its willingness to wreak havoc on the population, is perhaps the greatest recruiting tool for attracting young Ukrainian men, and even a steady flow of foreign sympathizers.
In the end, insurgency wars are invariably more about politics than battles. Coercive politics, subversion, assassinations, propaganda, the construction of shadow governments within occupied territories, always figure prominently in such conflicts, and cannot be countered by military means alone. While there are no hard-and-fast rules, military historians and contemporary analysts agree that successful strategies in insurgency wars must be grounded in an intimate knowledge of local politics, geography, and history. A Ukrainian insurgency against a hated outside power would indeed be grounded in such knowledge. As an anonymous Ukrainian special operations soldier told Vice News recently, “It’s our land. We know every single tree, every single bush, every single stone, every corner, every building.”
Thus far, President Zelensky and his forces have done a superb job of jabbing the Russian bear in the eye. The drive of conquest has been stalled, and Zelensky himself—a former comic, if one can believe it—has sparkled with resolve, charisma, and excellent judgment that have earned him the admiration of the world. But most important, he has captured the imagination of his own people. The greatest asset of a Ukrainian insurgency, sure to be strengthened in the trials of the coming weeks, is the Ukrainian administration’s deep and abiding support not only among the Ukrainians, but among the peoples of the West, and the world.
The Russians, on the other hand, have very little to offer the Ukrainian people besides death and destruction. Putin has no appealing political vision or economic incentive to lure Ukrainians into his orbit. Since Putin and his acolytes can only offer a bogus, delusion-fueled defense of his war of conquest, it will prove increasingly difficult for him to hide the ghoulish reality of the conflict from his own people. Even an authoritarian state cannot pursue a morally indefensible assault on another nation state indefinitely.
There remains a significant chance, of course, that Putin, who until the invasion of Ukraine had won many kudos from military strategists for his success in achieving political goals through the use of military force, might come to see the fatuousness of pursuing his dream of complete conquest and come to the negotiating table.
If he does not, he may succeed in transforming Russia into the most reviled nation state since Nazi Germany, and thus lay the groundwork for his own demise.
