It is, perhaps, more interesting to study the unintended consequences of this tragic saga. One such consequence is to bring war back into international conversation as a here-and-now reality.
The idea that war could somehow be scripted out of the human story as were incest or slavery is exposed for what it is: a dangerous fantasy. This has led to musings about flashbacks to military doctrines that many believed or hoped had faded away.
Today, however, some form of return to the draft system is publicly debated in several capitals. Defense spending that had been considered as a luxurious conceit is now regarded as vital for national security and independence.
In 2022, however, more than 40 nations increased their defence budgets while embarking on massive programs to renew their arsenals and develop more advanced weapons systems.
The most significant unintended consequence of the Ukraine tragedy may be the derailing of the so-called globalization process. Two decades ago, all the talk was about comparative advantage and delocalization. Today people talk of re-localization and rebuilding "our own industry".
Well, spring isn't far away and Putin may have his offensive. But the question remains: then what?
What do you do when you are stuck in a war that you can neither win nor lose? This is the question that Russian President Vladimir Putin faces as his "Special Operations" against Ukraine enters its second year. The answer is: you stage trompe l'œil shows to hide the fact that you are stuck and going nowhere fast.
Last December, Putin and his propaganda machine harped on the theme of victory thanks to General winter which was supposed to clinch victory with its frozen claws.
When that didn't happen they bought a few favorable headlines by sacking their commander in Ukraine and throwing their top military chief, General Valery Gerasimov, into the lion's den. However, it is now clear that Gerasimov, a bureaucrat in uniform with as many medals as a general in an operetta, is no miracle worker.
This is why we now hear a new tune from the Kremlin: the spring offensive, which is supposed to present Russia with full victory on a platter. The fantasy that, just as it revives nature, spring would also offer victory to any side that it favors is as old as the history of war itself.
Over 2,000 years ago, the Roman consul Marcus Licinius Crassus, the richest man in the world in his time, gambled on a spring offensive in Carrhae and ended up having his head cut off and sent to the Parthian king on a golden platter.
In the 14th century war between England and France, the English King Edward III thought that his spring offensive would close the bloody saga. He defeated the French in Poitiers and captured their king. But the fat lady refused to sing the end of the longest war in history.
In the American Civil War, General Philip Henry Sheridan's cavalry went deep into "enemy territory" as part of General Ulysses S. Grant's spring offensive. Doing a Sheridan became a military proverb but the fratricidal war didn't end there.
In 1918, we had the German version of the spring offensive, which morphed into Thanatos on a national scale.
The tragedy in Ukraine, call it special operation if you wish to please Putin, has evolved into a positional war of small incremental advances and retreats reminiscent of World War I rather than a 21st century war. In fact, the war front that was established in 2014, with the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and establishment of secessionist enclaves in Donbass, has largely remained unchanged.
The spring offensive that Russian propaganda is beating the drums for is unlikely to change that. It is, perhaps, more interesting to study the unintended consequences of this tragic saga. One such consequence is to bring war back into international conversation as a here-and-now reality.
The idea that war could somehow be scripted out of the human story as were incest or slavery is exposed for what it is: a dangerous fantasy. This has led to musings about flashbacks to military doctrines that many believed or hoped had faded away.
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Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.
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Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (R) and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov (L) at the National Defence Control Centre in Moscow, on December 21, 2022. (Photo by Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
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