The fog of war preventing Ukrainian victory is not on the battlefield - but in Western capitals.
Ukraine's struggle is compounded by Western indecision rather than battlefield failures.
The fog of war preventing Ukrainian victory is not on the battlefield - but in Western capitals. It is easy to spin how Putin’s is losing this war; Ukraine has liberated half the territory occupied by Russia since its invasion exactly two years ago. He’s lost 3000 main battle tanks and is now emptying his prisons to replace shocking casualty numbers on the front line.
Conversely, the sheer grit and tenacity exhibited by the Ukrainian people armed with limited firepower prevented a repeat of the Soviet’s lightning invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Their smart use of Western weapon systems has notched up impressive kills in the air, on land, and across the Black Sea.
And in a bonus for European security, NATO still bruised after its embarrassment in Afghanistan has clocked up two new members and a rekindled sense of purpose. Yet now two years after Putin sent in his forces and a year on from the optimism of a game-changing counter-offensive, prospects for Ukraine look increasingly bleak.
It's time to step up. There’s a once-in-a-generation need to reboot our international statecraft.
The ‘fog of war’ is the name given to the uncertainty and chaos that surrounds a conflict on the battlefield. It comes from the great military strategist Clausewitz who said ‘three quarters of the factors (on which action in war is based) are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty'.
Sadly for Ukraine, Western indecision is intensifying that fog. Putin’s bloody victory in Avdiivka, costing thousands of Russian lives, reflects the extent of human sacrifice he is willing to make (combined with his 5 to 1 artillery advantage) to see this war out. The loss of this town, which had held out since the invasion began, is yet another reminder that Ukraine simply lacks the equipment to win. Promised F16s yet to be delivered, the dithering in US Congress over a $60bn package of military aid, a shortage of drones, long-range missiles, and air defense systems are all leading to increased frustration in Ukraine that this conflict is not understood.
Britain’s support for Ukraine is arguably unique: firstly in how we ignored Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling and secondly for setting the benchmark on the quantity and quality of lethality we’ve slid across the table. To be fair, other NATO allies have followed suit. But as this war moves into its third year – we are not doing enough. Russia is now on a war footing, Putin is spending 30% of his budget on the war. His removal of Navalny reflects a growing grip of fear on any dissenting voices in Russia. He is now more powerful and more dangerous than Stalin as he’s not tied to any ideology or Kremlin core that can tether or indeed replace him.
As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has shown in spades recently, the West’s hesitancy in gifting Ukraine the assets required to win stems from a combination of losing control of the escalatory ladder and a failure to appreciate Putin’s wider long-term intentions. If the latter was correctly assessed we would not be spooked by the former. This is still seen particularly in America as just a state-on-state battle and not a geo-political threat. We need to get real and see the bigger picture. Putin is on a single mission to restore post-Soviet Russian greatness. And it’s no secret that Ukraine is just one part of the jigsaw. He publicly articulated this to a large audience of Western leaders - promising to challenge their collective hold over our global order. That was back in 2007 and his words were dismissed as ‘spy talk’.
Once we appreciate Putin’s wider hostile intentions in Eastern Europe and more widely against the West, the penny will drop that Europe is now at war and Ukraine is doing the fighting for us. And if Ukraine does not win, the cost to Europe will be significantly larger than what’s required to secure victory now. State aggression has returned. The tide will soon turn against Ukraine unless the West acts. The era of relative peace we have enjoyed after the end of the Cold War is over. Britain has done well in stepping forward. But now all NATO members must wake up and increase their defense spending to a war footing. And they must smell the coffee: we live in a new world of disorder where the West is facing a greater challenge since the 1930s. It's time to step up. There’s a once-in-a-generation need to reboot our international statecraft.