Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 27, 2022 - July 3, 2022

We are already into the fourth month of the Ukraine war. After a period of euphoria in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) that the Russians bungled the invasion, there is awakening realisation that without further armaments for Ukraine, the country may be on the point of losing. What is the endgame in this war? Do the Europeans even have an exit strategy?

We may not be interested in war, but war affects us all, through high inflation in energy and food prices, interest rates, supply disruptions and stock market volatility, if not crashes. Thus, we have to examine the prospect of war using a history/complexity lens, rather than just a narrower international relations or military perspective. Money, war and power are inseparable. 

First, I shall dissect how different parties or theoreticians are looking at the problem. The Biden administration calls it “democracy versus autocracy”. Russian president Vladimir Putin calls Nato’s expansion eastward an existential threat to Russian security. University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer has posed the issue as “liberal hegemony versus realist views”. One of the architects of the Marshall Plan, MIT Professor Charles Kindleberger, proposed what is today known as the Kindleberger Trap — how the US may have failed to produce enough global public goods, a lapse that gave rise to monetary instability and financial crises today.

Second, after this conceptual review, we will look at the historical perspective, because that is the only guide to our current views (based on our experience so far) and our projections into the future. To understand the Russians, we have to examine separately the rise of Russia, the collapse of the Russian monarchy in 1917, the 1941 German invasion of Russia and then the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. All these shaped the current Russian psyche very differently from the lens of Pax Americana. 

Third, we will try to analyse the situation from a planetary holistic position, rather than from partial perspectives. This does not mean that what is good for the planet and humanity will be possible, because there is no global government and we are unlikely to have one. Thus, the outcome will be a multi-polar interaction on a complex system with complex feedbacks. In former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s quantum view, “everything is possible and take nothing for granted”. While going totally off-track is possible, the trajectory that the world is taking is much narrower, noting that it is not impossible for random events (such as the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian that sparked off World War I) to change the course of history. 

The business of war

Despite many theories, war is a deadly practical business about the use of force to achieve strategic aims. Animals fight, including in packs, but they generally do not eliminate completely the other side once they submit. Human beings have learnt not only to fight in huge numbers using weapons of mass destruction, but have also eliminated the other side through genocide, treachery, trickery and all means fair or foul. 

War is therefore a complex business, and it can be both profitable for the winner and ruinous for the loser. US president Dwight D Eisenhower, one of the ablest and wisest of American generals who helped win World War II, complained in 1961 in his farewell address about the dangers of the “military industrial complex”: “A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction … American makers of ploughshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defence; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions … This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience … Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications … In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

In the US, the armaments industry is largely privately owned, but in Russia, China and India, these are usually state-owned enterprises. The Roman Empire fought for profit, because maintaining standing armies like Legions was costly business. Because defence is very expensive, secretive and powerful, it is in the interest of the military establishment (including defence and national security contractors) to push in the direction of war, otherwise they would lose their jobs and income. Thus, it takes a very strong civilian leader to hold back the military industrial complex, in democracies as well as in autocracies. Indeed, civilian politicians know all too well how generals often execute coups d’état if the military or their personal interests are not looked after. 

But wars are also fought for religious, ideological or simply power status reasons, including the personal whims of leaders. Power used to be linked to land and labour, but with the invention of technology and new energy sources (coal, oil, nuclear), competition has amplified to nuclear, biological, information and financial warfare. 

The difficulty of all theories on war is that no two wars are alike, because time, space, culture, people and technology change the calculations of war. Although the more powerful often wins, there are many cases where the smaller power prevails through extraordinary leadership, such as Alexander the Great, or through new weapons or tactics. 

There are three great theoreticians on warfare — the Chinese Sunzi (c.544-496 BC) The Art of War; Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831 AD) On War, and the Indian philosopher Kautilya, also known as Chanakya (375-283 BC), Arthashastra, more a handbook on statecraft covering monetary and fiscal politics, international relations and war strategies. Western military strategists use Clausewitz as a benchmark study, but Sunzi has found favour not just with the military, but also in business strategy thinking. 

All three books are somewhat dated because war has changed profoundly with the times and technology. None of them looked at the arrival of naval, air and nuclear power, since their wars were essentially campaigns on land. Furthermore, as contemporary military strategist Martin von Creveld argued, they also did not look at asymmetric war, in which guerrilla warfare, cyberattacks and mass misinformation campaigns influence the outcome of war. 

Why war? 

War is determined by power, which itself is determined by sex, money and status. In the fight between primitive hunter-gatherers and settlers, the raids were often about the capture of women, slaves and booty. The winner enjoys the power of domination, proving either that their god is superior or that their tribe was “destined” for glory or hegemony. 

Because war is a collective activity, the general on the field must be able to enforce discipline to fight as a single coherent force, because he will likely lose to another more disciplined enemy. Secondly, he must understand that the political considerations of his civilian masters may be very different from his calculations on the field. Successful warrior-politicians like Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte were effective because one person made both the political and military decisions. Many battles and campaigns were lost because the generals on the field were held back by wavering and indecision of weak political leaders. 

Thus, with so many moving parts, warfare is often more a test of power, psychology and will than anything else. As poets, historians and politicians understand, war exposes all weaknesses and is a supreme test on both individuals and the nation as a whole in terms of character, will and values. War is about hard power (military preparedness, armaments, economy) as well as soft power (diplomacy, culture, religion, information and disinformation). 

Furthermore, because war involves at a minimum two parties, its outcome is reflexive, in the sense that whatever you do will have to take into consideration what your opponent does and vice versa. Sunzi puts it very well: “Whether you win depends on your enemy, and whether you lose depends on yourself.” In other words, you can win if your enemy makes a mistake, whereas if you defend properly, you might not lose. This explains Sunzi’s dictum: “Know yourself, know your enemy, win a thousand battles.” The real trouble is that there is no perfect information, and the “fog of war” implies that there will always be an element of doubt over all kinds of events or mistakes that cause the best prepared war or battle to go wrong. 

Because war is a practical business, the more experienced general and troops generally outperform inexperienced, raw troops. The best-read military strategist could be a total disaster if he has no clue of how at the human level, the troops may not be ready to fight the best planned strategy. The human factor plays a large part in the game of war.

For example, a TV comedian turned politician like Ukraine President Zelensky surprisingly became an effective war leader because he understood the power of media and images; talking directly to the people in simple terms on the defence of their homeland. Soldiers fighting for their lives will follow someone they can identify with, rather than a faceless general hiding in his bunker. 

We should be clear about who the key players in this Game of Thrones are. The US is the de facto leader of Nato with actual troops in Europe but not directly involved in the Ukraine War. The UK, situated far away from the front lines, is among the most visible cheerleaders for the war. Boris Johnson would have lost his prime ministership due to domestic politics but for the outbreak of the Ukraine War. France and Germany, being closer to the front line, are more interested in some form of negotiated peace because, as the two leading political powers in the European Union, they worry about the damage to the European economy the longer the conflict drags on. The east European countries that are already in Nato would like to see Russia weakened (as would the US) and therefore urge for continued arming of the Ukrainians to fight. 

The Russians have too much prestige to lose. They know that in the long run, if they do not win against a smaller foe, their status as a Big Nuclear Power would decline. Unfortunately, the only country which can make a real deal with them on the European Security Architecture is the US, not Germany or France. Furthermore, the US has made it clear that their real existential rival is China, so the Biden Administration is not that committed to making any deal for fear of being called an “appeaser” by his political enemies. China is staying non-committal because the situation is too fluid to read at this stage. 

Thus, the stage is set for what appears to be a long-haul, tit-for-tat bogged down war like the Western Front trenches in World War I. It is hard to see how all sides could come to a peaceful settlement without loss of face on many fronts.

In the next article, I shall go into the Mearsheimer’s assessment of how the US’ liberal hegemony is pitted against the Russian realist Grandmaster power chess. 


Tan Sri Andrew Sheng writes on global issues that affect investors 

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