Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War, edited by Tim Sweijs and Jeffrey H. Michaels. Hurst and Company, 2024, 449 pp.
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it upended several assumptions about the current world geopolitical situation, military forces, and the nature of warfare. As the conflict evolved, the actions and counteractions from the Russians and Ukrainians drove more debate and thought about the evolution of modern warfare. In an attempt to capture the varied considerations that the invasion spurred, editors Tim Sweijs, research director at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and senior research fellow at the Netherlands Defense Academy’s War Studies Research Centre, and Jeffrey Michaels, senior fellow at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudies, compiled this group of academic papers presented at The Future Of War Conference in Amsterdam in early October 2022. The editors, along with the 16 contributors, comprise a wide swath of international experts in the field of war studies and international security.
This compilation is broken down into four separate sections: Bounding the Impact of the War in Ukraine, Landscapes of Future War, Military Innovation and the Future of War, and Anticipating the Future of War. Within each section, four separate articles offer their unique perspectives on the conflict as related to the section themes, noting where aspects of the war will likely impact the future of warfare writ large. The topics in each article vary, with some focusing on the shorter-scope tactical implications of Russia’s war in Ukraine and what that means for military operations in the near-term future. Others ponder deeper strategic thinking, looking to the definitions of warfare and what the actions in Ukraine and Russia auger for how military and political officials will define warfare going forward.
While some of the essays directly reference the current conflict, others tend to discuss more abstract concepts that loosely tie into it. For example, Antulio Echevarria’s “Revisiting Putin’s 2022 Invasion of Ukraine: Implications for Strategic and Security Studies” directly analyzes Russia’s war in Ukraine, whereas Franz Osinga’s “The Futures of War: A Recent Western History” takes a broader view of the conflict, which opens the aperture to analyze conflicts outside of Ukraine such as the 1990s Balkan Wars and US-led counterterrorism wars in the early 2000s. Overall, this eclectic mix of works considers how people see the actions from the war in Ukraine playing out in the larger scheme of conflict and security. While the writing style and subjects vary, they work well as a cohesive whole.
Russia’s surprise launch of a large-scale fielded force invasion of Ukraine serves as a significant genesis for this compilation. Since the turn of the century, while conflicts between fielded forces have never completely disappeared, most have been characterized as counterinsurgency operations or involved what many refer to as hybrid warfare, where different elements of engagement have dominated, from limited armed forces to the increased use of information and propaganda. With Russia’s classic invasion, many analysts had to reconsider previously held assumptions about twenty-first century warfare and what those changed assumptions might entail. For example, Azar Gat’s “After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” calls into question the assumption that the modern economic environment would preclude the emergence of fielded forces engaging in a major conflict, as the war threatens Russia’s long-term economic stability and international markets. Yet Russia still sends thousands of troops and millions of rubles in equipment to fight this traditional fielded-forces engagement.
As the conflict has evolved, aspects of traditional warfare and integration of new tactics/technologies also sparked a new series of questions. For example, how has the use of commercial technologies for military operations, such as Starlink for vital internet for targeting and communications, shaped the nature of the conflict? With the increase in artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), the dependency on technology will only grow in the future conflicts beyond Russian-Ukrainian borders. While the implementation of AI/ML has yet to make any noticeable impacts on this conflict, it may yet happen in the protracted conflict, which will generate more questions and considerations about modern warfare. As Kenneth Payne suggests in his “Artificial Intelligence and the Nature of War,” the introduction of AI/ML could have impacts at the tactical level for decision-making of engagements, but in the grander picture of warfare, AI/ML may not alter the issues that always seem to impact warfare—mainly the human element and the constant of uncertainty, or the fog of war.
Russia’s war in Ukraine also challenges accepted beliefs about how combatants could use technology. Russian cyber operations and Ukrainian counters have gone against expected actions, leading many experts and analysts to question previously held assumptions about the use of cyber now and in the future, which drive the arguments in “The Next War Would be a Cyberwar, Right?” Here, the authors describe how cyber impacted events before the 2022 invasion, mainly in the form of Russian-led sabotage against Ukrainian cyber networks. Once the main conflict started, however, some of the expected cyber action of more direct cyberattacks and impacts to Ukraine from Russia did not materialize.
Still, a key consideration for this compilation centers on the conference date in October 2022, less than a year following the invasion. After a rapid Russian advance that became bogged down due to poor planning, stronger-than-expected resistance from Ukraine, and harsh environmental conditions, the war entered an extended period of stalemate with relatively small gains. None of the essays could have anticipated the potential for Ukraine to launch its high-risk invasion into Kursk in the second half of 2024, an event which upended some of those recent assumptions about the use of technology, even if it has not completely altered the course of the conflict. No doubt, a future conference/compilation will explore more aspects of how the conflict challenges established doctrine and perceptions about future war.
Despite the comprehensive intent of this work, the editors note that they could not account for all the potential ways—militarily and otherwise—that the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacts how war is viewed now and in the future. One notable omission is mentioned in the introduction and conclusion, where the editors indicate that they did not incorporate how science fiction can help explain the present and define the future or how Russia’s war in Ukraine impacts such ideas. Since the conference featured discussions of end-of-the-world type scenarios with the war—which is not completely far-fetched given the nuclear arsenals of Russia and NATO and how their use could play out—an article on science fiction would have been welcome. Military strategists and leaders turn to science fiction not only as a recreational escape but also as a way to look at the world differently. This includes approaches to warfare, and conflicts in science fiction can offer scenarios/ideas for what can apply in the future or what strategists might consider in future conflicts.
Still, this is a solid compilation of essays discussing Russia’s war in Ukraine and its impact on the future of war. But the value of Beyond Ukraine as anything more than an academic reference is dubious. As essentially the proceedings from a conference, the collection might be enlightening to non-academics but arguably its greatest relevance is for those studying war or geopolitics.
Lieutenant Colonel Scott C. Martin, USAF, Retired