Of victory and defeat in the Russia-Ukraine war

The arranged surrender in Mariupol on Tuesday could be the beginning of a war termination process. It fits with the ambiguity about winners and losers in today's wars

How do wars end? In victory or defeat, you would say. In the olden days, we knew what that meant: Capture or the death of the rival king or emperor either on the field or his citadel.

The “special military operation” was carried out without regard for the civilian population. Cities have been devastated and millions made refugees. But, by the measure of its initial claim, the Russian operation has failed. (AP)

But what does victory or defeat mean today? With nations developing strong ethnic, cultural, and political identities, an individual’s elimination, even that of the head of government, is not enough. For a victory, the defeat of a State’s armies on the battlefield may be a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient one, as the Americans learned with the Taliban. The outcome of some wars is such that you may be left wondering who won and who lost. The ambiguity of victory and defeat makes it difficult to forecast when the Ukraine war will end.

War, to follow Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, is a means to a political end. And in line with this, victory in war is presumably the attainment of an objective that is usually political. Just how realistic this objective is, to start with, is often the difference between success and failure. Bringing democracy to Iraq in 2002 was a will-o’-the-wisp, as was the notion of transforming Afghanistan. Both led to signal defeats of a country deemed the world’s only superpower.

History tells us that it is easy to start a war, but extremely difficult to figure out the course it will take. Initiators of wars, from Napoleon to Hitler, George W Bush (Iraq 2003), or nearer home, Field Marshal Ayub Khan (Kashmir 1965), and Pervez Musharraf (Kargil 1999), have learnt this the hard way.

An entirely different lesson had to be learnt by the Chinese, who initiated a war against India in 1962, carefully limiting it in time and space, and avoiding targeting non-combatants. They were even quick to pull out of territories captured. But they never anticipated that the trauma they inflicted on India made them a forever adversary.

War termination is a well-known academic specialty, given the prevalence of all kinds of war in the world today. From focusing on the causes, course, and conduct of war, this now looks at issues of halting conflict, instituting ceasefires, and promoting stability in conflict-prone areas. But even academics find it difficult to come up with a general set of principles that could be applied to end wars because “victory” and “defeat” are deeply embedded in our psyche, even if they are increasingly ambiguous.

In 1962, India accepted the Chinese ceasefire because it had no option, and was in no position to continue. As for the Chinese, they had achieved their politico-military objective of humiliating India. In 1965, Pakistan accepted a United Nations-ordered ceasefire when its plan to capture Kashmir failed and the continuance of war would have resulted in defeat.

As for India, its aims were not too clear and it was satisfied with preventing Pakistani gains. In 1971, after Indian forces entered Dhaka, Pakistan called for a unilateral ceasefire and surrendered its army in Bangladesh. It could have kept fighting in the West, but that would have played into India’s hands. New Delhi had plans, but they were foiled by Washington.

So, what is involved in terminating this war in Ukraine? The Russians had laid out some objectives at the outset — demilitarise and “de-Nazify” the country. The first objective meant that they wanted or expected a Ukrainian surrender. The Nazi part was for domestic consumption. Both were as unrealistic as the Americans bringing democracy to Iraq.

The “special military operation” was carried out without regard for the civilian population and non-combatants. Entire cities have been devastated and millions made refugees. But, by the measure of its initial claim, the Russian operation has failed.

Victory and defeat are vested with enormous emotional significance in our minds. Many would say that a defeat would be condign punishment for the Russians. But this has its own hazards. Russian commentators are already threatening to use nuclear weapons to wipe out the world. This may be a bit of psychodrama, but it is scary nevertheless.

For the Ukrainians, defeat would have meant a military occupation of the country, followed by an effort to “Russianise” it. For the Russians the tough Ukrainian fightback itself was the defeat, definitively underscored now by the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO.

Hostilities will cease when both sides realise that there is little more to be gained by continuing a military struggle. That stage may not have come yet, but it is not too far away.

The challenge would be to end the war without either side accepting it is defeated. Though the Ukrainians are talking of liberating Crimea, an immediate ceasefire would be a victory since it would prevent further death and destruction being visited on its people. The bigger challenge is to dress up the Russian defeat as a victory. Holding on to some of the slivers of the territory it has grabbed could be sold as one, though the setback it faces by the doubling of its land border with NATO cannot be avoided.

A ceasefire alone would not end the conflict as it would leave both sides dissatisfied. It would leave sufficient room for recurring skirmishes in the heart of Europe in the decades to come, somewhat akin to our problem in Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan.

Manoj Joshi is a distinguished fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi 

The views expressed are personal