“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”, said Napoleon Bonaparte, the French political and military leader. The Russo-Ukraine war is in its eighth month. When the invasion of Ukraine was launched by Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “special military operation” with the aim of de-nazifying Ukraine most strategists and governments around the world had thought that it would be a short campaign as a militarily and economically weak Ukraine would stand no chance of resisting a military superpower like Russia.
However, as the war enters its eighth month, Putin’s aims have been not just belied but Russia has faced global opprobrium over its actions. Russian military was quite similar to Hitler’s blitzkrieg tactics. It involved a three pronged approach with Kherson in the east, Kiev in the centre besides other important cities in the north to be conquered using a rapid advance of tanks, armoured vehicles etc.
The Russian air force would put the Ukrainian railway, military and strategic targets like airports, communication towers etc out of action to cut off Ukraine’s ability to coordinate its campaign. With the achievement of all these aims, Russian forces will carry out Douhet style terror bombing to terrorise large parts of the Ukrainian people into surrender.
However, thanks to large-scale western help which includes surface to air missiles, missile defence shields, artillery platforms and even armoured vehicles, Ukraine has managed to repulse the Russian onslaughts. The Russian withdrawal from large swathes of Ukrainian territory points to faltering Russian aims.
A heavy cost
Sun Tzu in his work Art of War wrote that “know your enemy and yourself, in a hundred battles you will never be defeated”. This advice still holds significance today, but perhaps the Russian military planners and most important of all Putin never realised that. Putin thought that this battle will be over in a matter of days, a stern lesson will be taught to the West and international law can be violated wantonly.
However, the valiant resistance of the Ukrainian people marked by punishing Western sanctions which includes banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas, expelling Russia from SWIFT has come to impose a heavy cost to the Russian exchequer and has brought a lot of hardships for ordinary Russians, so much so that when the Russian state announced the mobilisation of reserve force worth 300,000 people, large numbers of them fled Russia.
The ostensible lowering of Russian morale was evident when a Neptune missile sunk the pride of Russia’s black sea fleet- Moskva. This was the first time since 1906 when a Russian ship had been downed.
Lessons for India
This war holds some important lessons for India. Firstly, the Russian retreat has proven that it is imperative that India diversifies its military portfolio. At present over 70% of India’s military assets and equipments are of Russian origin. Keeping that in mind, India has been expanding its network. Over the years USA, France and Israel have emerged as top defence partners of India. Particularly, the United States which has expanded phenomenally since the 2000s.
Secondly, being autarkic in defence is of paramount importance. The Modi government has done well to realise this and has embarked since 2020 a massive indigenisation drive in the defence sector. This includes the corporatisation of the ordnance factories and bolstering the sales of its weapons platforms. This has started bearing fruits; INS Vikrant – India’s second aircraft carrier – has 76% indigenous content.
Thirdly, Technology is going to play a crucial role, this is particularly relevant in the context of cyberspace and next generation technologies like artificial intelligence, drones etc. India is fortifying its digital defences and is upgrading the technological domains of its armed forces – the acquisition of 30 MQ-9B predator drones from the United States is a testimony to India’s aggressive push for developing technological resilience.
Conclusion
History repeats itself. Keeping that theory in mind, India must craft a national security strategy which will tackle emerging next generation threats and develop it as a strong military and economic power.
– The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
