Fighting talk: Tony D’Souza has a personal take on the war in Ukraine

‘War acts as a stress test for a society, and reveals its weaknesses.’

Wars, like football matches, are often lost rather than won. But how do you lose a war? As it turns out, there are a number of ways.

To begin with, the nature of the society that starts a war has an important bearing. War acts as a stress test for a society, and reveals its weaknesses. If a society is fundamentally corrupt, that corruption comes out in the war effort. Russia has for some time seemed a place – like many others, sadly – where personal gain thrives over societal good. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, vast fortunes were made by appropriating the energy resources of its immense land mass. These huge reserves of oil and gas should belong, at least in part, to the Russian people. The unimaginable wealth generated by the sale of these resources went into the hands of a small number of men, who we often call oligarchs. Even this vast wealth, however, paled into insignificance compared to the wealth of those who ruled the country – the ex-KGB elite, headed by Vladimir Putin, who filled the power vacuum after the fall of communism.

Putin and those around him asserted a control of the oligarchs. In fact, Putin made it plain to them that they operated solely under his patronage. Any rebellion, in word or deed, was swiftly punished by imprisonment or death.

Thus, some might say that the Russian Federation became a gangster state, and in a gangster state, everyone takes a cut. That is, everyone creams a little off for themselves. That is why, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, pictures circulated on the internet of military rations stamped with an expiry date of 2015. Someone had presumably received a budget to update old tins of food for the soldiers, but decided not to bother and pocketed the money instead. Servants follow the lead of their masters, and if the people at the top are thieves, the people at the bottom often become thieves too. That is why the ancient Romans said ‘A fish rots from the head down’.

Another important factor in losing a war is industrial might. Battles are won on the battlefield, but the outcome of any war is dependent on supply, which is dependent on industry. Russia’s industry is not fully on a war footing, but it is difficult to see how it can compete with the industry of the free world. The many trade sanctions in place against Russia make war production exceedingly difficult, especially when it comes to computer chips. It is forced to rely on illegal, smuggled imports and on the support of pariah states like Iran and North Korea. Putin’s trump card, however, is his revenue from energy – the sale of oil and gas. This revenue (nearly $500 billion a year in 2021) will give him enough money to buy himself out of trouble for some time.

The next important factor in losing a war is leadership, and on this point Putin is failing miserably. Volodymyr Zelensky has proved to be a master of modern media, and uses the information space brilliantly in the defence of Ukraine. Dressed in military fatigues, he visits frontline troops and delivers rousing addresses to his people. Putin on the other hand, dressed in a suit and tie, and seated at the head of a ridiculously-long table, looks like what he is: an autocrat, out of touch with his people. It is highly unlikely he will ever visit his own frontline troops because with all the weaponry lying around at the front, his personal security cannot be guaranteed.

Leadership really matters. There is a story about Alexander of Macedon leading his parched army across a desert. A soldier approached him with a scoop of precious water in a helmet. Alexander thanked him and then, in full view of his troops, poured the water on the ground. He announced he would not drink any water unless all his men could do the same. His troops cheered. Zelensky achieved the same effect when, in the opening days of the war, he turned down an offer from the United States to be evacuated from the capital city Kyiv. ‘The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,’ Zelensky told the US, according to the embassy. This reply endeared him to his troops and his nation, and immortalised him as a war leader in the eyes of the world.

This brings us to perhaps the most important factor of all: motivation. The Ukrainians are highly motivated because they know what they are fighting for. They are fighting for their freedom, their land, their mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children. This deep sense of motivation, this deep sense of doing what is right, extends not just to those in uniform but informs the actions of every individual in the nation, even those forced to flee abroad. They are all totally committed to victory and will never surrender.

In comparison, the Russians are poorly motivated. Their soldiers are badly supplied, and badly led. Their officers insult them and hit them, and they are often thrust into battle without either intelligence or even clear tactical plans. Unbelievably, their government looks as though it can’t even be bothered to retrieve their bodies from the battlefield. To add to all this, they don’t really know what they are fighting for. At the beginning of the war, they were told that they were liberating Ukraine from Nazis. This helped them feel they were emulating their grandfathers who fought Hitler in ‘the great patriotic war’. But this narrative did not stick, and they (along with the Russian people) are now being told the west is the aggressor, making the war just and necessary. Moreover, their soldiers are now the representatives of Holy Mother Russia, the last bastion of civilisation against the corrupt western democracies that would force on them degenerate moral values.

This last narrative is very worrying because it is so widely believed in Russia. The Kremlin has retained an iron grip on the media; all dissenting voices have been stamped out. As nearly everyone over forty gets their news from the TV, the Kremlin’s propaganda is extremely effective. This is concerning because lies, when repeated often enough, do stick. The truth is quite different. An ageing Putin sees his ‘special military operation’ as his last opportunity to be like his hero Peter the Great, whom he read about during lockdown.

We can only hope the lie being told to the Russian people is soon seen for what it is. Back in 1971, the US senator John Kerry made an observation about his own participation in the Vietnam war. When he came home, he regarded the war as fundamentally immoral because at the heart of all the horror was a lie similar to Putin’s. The US had made a mistake in fighting in Vietnam, but they could not admit it – not even to themselves. Kerry then asked the arch question ‘How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’ I wonder when the Russian military will get to ask that same question.

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