On Feb. 24, 2022, the world woke up to what would prove to be Europe’s worst conflict in nearly 80 years. After a monthslong Russian troop buildup along Ukraine’s northern, eastern and southern borders, Russian President Vladimir Putin greenlit a campaign to overthrow the Ukrainian government in Kyiv and replace it with a proxy administration that would do Moscow’s bidding.
Putin is learning the hard way: Before taking your country to war, you better do your homework.
Needless to say, Putin’s plans have fallen flat. While the fighting has been devastating to Ukraine — tens of thousands of Ukrainians have likely lost their lives, more than 14 million have been forced from their homes, and the country is staring at reconstruction costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration stands and is still welcoming high-profile guests, including President Joe Biden. The Ukrainian army is sustaining a high casualty rate (at least 100,000 troops have been killed or injured) but the army itself is as committed today to expelling Russian forces from the country as it was when the war began a year ago. Russia, meanwhile, has dug itself into a deep hole; its economy is increasingly cut off from Western technology and young, talented, highly educated workers have either left in protest of the war or fled to escape the draft.
There is a core lesson in all of this, one Putin is learning the hard way: Before taking your country to war, you better do your homework.
In reality, the right questions are rarely asked in the lead-up to a conflict — if they are asked at all. What objectives are we trying to accomplish? Are those objectives realistic and integral to keeping the country safe, or are they unnecessary distractions that could swallow up resources and attention over time? If the objectives are realistic, is military force the most efficient, least costly way of achieving them — or are other nonmilitary options, such as diplomacy, economic statecraft, espionage or a combination of the three, more appropriate? If war is unavoidable, how is the enemy likely to react? Will victory require a drawn-out campaign that will require a socioeconomic mobilization?
Just as important as asking the right questions is exhibiting discipline and honesty when answering them. Policymakers making the tough decisions are often prone to miscalculation; they are firmly convinced of their personal interpretations. Others refuse to challenge their own assumptions or exaggerate their power and resources.
The U.S. isn’t immune to committing these mistakes. In Afghanistan, the U.S. devoted two decades, hundreds of thousands of troops and more than an estimated $2.3 trillion trying to refashion a country with conflicting loyalties, complicated tribal dynamics and copious amounts of corruption into a Western-friendly nation-state with durable, corrupt-free institutions. As John Sopko, the longtime U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction observed shortly before the Taliban retook Kabul, Washington exhibited a ”hubris that we can somehow take a country that was desolate in 2001 and turn it into little Norway.” Ditto Iraq, where the attempt to transform a dictatorship into a functioning, self-sufficient democracy cost so much blood, treasure and reputation that a majority of veterans now don’t believe the fight was worth the effort.
In terms of open, in-depth deliberation, Putin failed across the board. He assumed the Ukrainian state was a brittle, artificial organism whose army and state structures could be crushed and co-opted. He confidently bought into the advice of his generals, like Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who assumed 140,000 Russian troops could swallow up the largest country in Europe (outside Russia itself) and the sixth largest in population. Putin thought threats of escalation would deter the U.S. and its NATO partners from providing Kyiv with the weapons, like HIMARS rocket launchers, air defense systems and heavy battle tanks, that could disrupt the Russian army’s logistics and ammunition dumps.
Each and every one of those assumptions were upended. The result: Approximately 180,000 Russian troops have been killed in action, according to Norway’s army chief, a number more than 12 times what the Soviet Red Army sustained during its decadelong adventure in Afghanistan.
Putin has not only been an ineffective commander in chief over the last 12 months, but also an incompetent strategist.
Putin has not only been an ineffective commander in chief over the last 12 months, but also an incompetent strategist. Self-possessed with his own assessments, more interested in his own counsel and surrounded by yes-men petrified of giving him bad news, Putin seems to have persuaded himself that Kyiv’s backers in the West would eventually tire of the war if they felt strain in their pockets. This appears to have motived a number of Russian decisions over the last year, the most dramatic being last September’s shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline.
Europe, however, showed itself to be more resistant to pressure than the Kremlin anticipated. The continent, which was lining up alternative gas suppliers even before Moscow shut the taps, will finish the winter with more than half of its storage capacity still full. The E.U. escaped recession last year, a relief to many economists who predicted a contraction. Ironically, it’s Russia that is suffering the most: Moscow squandered its largest energy market and has been forced to sell more fossil fuels to China on less profitable terms.
Of course, the war isn’t over. Putin is fully committed to achieving some kind of victory, even if it’s a pyrrhic one. The Russian army has stabilized its defensive lines in the east and inching forward in some areas of the Donbas. Armories in the West are strained as the U.S. and Europe try to keep pace with Kyiv’s needs on the battlefield.
But let there be no doubt: the war thus far has been a disaster for Russia strategically, militarily and economically. If Vladimir Putin knew in February 2022 what he knows today, would an invasion still have taken place? We don’t know. What we can conclude with reasonable certainty, however, is that transitioning from peacetime to wartime is the most consequential decision a leader can make. There is no place for stubbornness, confusion, or naivete.