From a historical and political point of view, nothing new. The People’s Liberation War in Vietnam also had all the characteristics of a proxy war between the USA on the one hand and the USSR and the People’s Republic of China on the other. This also includes the Israeli-Arab wars, which were mainly carried out under the umbrella of the West and the USSR.
The war in Ukraine is based on the negative historical experiences of Ukrainians from the time of the USSR, and their distrust and hostility towards Russia should be viewed in this way.[1] However, they would never have engaged in a military showdown with the Russians if they had not previously had the firm support of the USA and Western Europe. The Ukrainian leadership made a strategic mistake when they expected that support from the West would be unchanging. However, the strategic constellation changed when the Trump administration came to power in America, which no longer suits a simultaneous confrontation against the Russian Federation and China. Simple American logic, but a bad result for Ukraine. From this example, we can see how unexpected changes can occur, not only at the tactical, but also at the strategic level.
And it was not only the Ukrainians who miscalculated in high-level planning, the same thing happened to the Russians. Their assessments at the beginning of 2022 were completely wrong. From this we can conclude that uncertainty in military planning and politics is the only constant, regardless of modern technical means. Retired Russian General Vladimir Chirkin[2] spoke openly about this. He said that Russian intelligence completely failed to assess the political mood in Ukraine. It is also possible that Ukrainian secret services did a good job in creating such an illusion. This is evidenced by the first statements from the Russian side calling on the Ukrainian commanders “to make a deal”, that is, to change the government in Kiev, and everything will be fine. It must be admitted that the Russians, when they realized their mistakes, reacted quickly. They did not defend every inch of the occupied territory, but rather withdrew in an organized manner to militarily defensible positions. In addition, they showed extraordinary flexibility, quickly adapting tactics to new circumstances and seizing the initiative.
Since World War II, the US has imposed itself as the hegemon of the Western capitalist world. With the arrival of the Trump administration, an American political turn took place. It was to be expected that European countries would follow a new political direction, but this did not happen. This is completely incomprehensible behavior for observers who do not understand the functioning of political power in the West. In a plutocracy, the real power is held by large capitalists who operate from behind the scenes, and elected representatives of the people more or less implement policies that correspond to the supreme power. This is the only way to explain the fact that Stalin’s Russia was accepted as an ally in World War II and was never subjected to collective sanctions, and Bolshevism always had a strong political foothold and sympathy in the West. It was only when the powerful Bolshevik state and the Warsaw Pact collapsed that the Russians became a political problem and enemy. It is a political irony that after the Russian invasion, the Westerners stood resolutely in defense of the borders of Ukraine. The same politicians keep their own borders completely open for another type of invasion, and this does not bother them.
All these illogicalities can be easily explained if we properly understand the tectonics of total social power in capitalist liberal states. Putin has deeply resented Western powers for messing up their accounts, saying before Orban that Russia is not for sale. He has also intervened militarily in Syria, thus prolonging the political life of Bashar al-Assad.
Finally, if this argument does not seem convincing enough to anyone, let everyone ask themselves a few questions:
Who should the most developed countries of Europe (in 2026) borrow 90 billion euros, plus interest, from in order to finance the war in Ukraine?
The US government owes private banks an amount that escapes our ability to comprehend. How can the most powerful economies of the Western world owe someone who produces nothing?
Would it be possible to finance the war in Ukraine if the bankers did not like it politically?
***
Since World War II, there has been a principle of concentrating armored and mechanized forces with air support. The Germans perfected this tactic in the first phase of World War II (Schwerpunkt).[3] After that war, the situation slowly began to change. This can be seen clearly in the example of the Israeli-Arab wars.[4] Land armored vehicles began to share the fate of medieval knights, who were faced with firearms. In eastern Ukraine, in addition to infantry with portable anti-tank weapons, drones were used against armor for the first time. Now there could be no question of concentrating large armored and mechanized units in order to achieve deep, rapid penetrations into the enemy’s rear. Such attempts would be useful to the defenders because expensive armored vehicles became easily destroyed targets. Therefore, both sides began to use armor very limitedly. For example, one tank leads a transporter that can individually carry one infantry squad. This arrangement also entailed heavy losses, as the attackers had to move in column to avoid anti-tank mines from the sides. Thus, commanders were forced to use only a small part of the mobility and firepower of tanks. The armored vehicles had to be content with a modest maneuver, reaching any shelter in a grove or settlement, disembarking the infantry, and then quickly returning to their starting position. Here it is useful to make a comparison with the German stalemate before Moscow in the fall of 1941. Their armored and mechanized forces were first slowed down by muddy roads (rasputica)), and then completely stopped due to low temperatures. Today, drones do this job. It is sad to see how the movement of expensive armored vehicles and self-propelled howitzers is greatly limited. They are forced to dig in and camouflage themselves so that surveillance drones can find and destroy them as if on some kind of exercise.
In such conditions, even a squad has become too visible a target for early detection by enemy reconnaissance drones. The squad disperse into smaller groups that infiltrate the enemy’s deployment, and when both sides use the same tactics, then it is a real chaos of war. In such combat operations, the lessons learned do not help much; everything depends on the courage and ability of non-commissioned officers and soldiers to improvise. Thus, combat operations have turned into a series of small tactical successes. In fact, they have always been that way, but now it has become emphasized and noticeable to everyone. The Ukrainian war has turned into a war of attrition, especially on the Russian side. This does not mean that Russian commanders do not have operational ideas; they do, but they are being implemented very slowly. The Ukrainians managed to surprise the enemy in the direction of Kursk, and the Russians managed to drive the Ukrainians out of the occupied area thanks to “underground” infiltration into the Ukrainian rear, which shook their combat cohesion. It seems that the Ukrainians have also carried out some underground gathering of forces using the Kharkov metro infrastructure.[5] A good operational idea, from the Russian perspective, is to greatly expand the battlefield.
Among the lessons learned from military history is the principle of avoiding fighting in populated areas, especially the use of armor. Instead, experience dictated the use of armored and mechanized units for deep penetrations and the encirclement of larger settlements. On the Ukrainian battlefield, such tactics completely degenerated because it turned out that armored vehicles were large, expensive targets that could no longer be used at the operational level, like German armored divisions in the same area in 1941. As a result of this stagnation, the Russians began to use motorcycles and quadrocycles to transport small groups of soldiers over short distances, something like the light cavalry charge of the 19th century. We can safely conclude that a new war can always bring a new way of fighting, there is no fixed pattern.
Expensive aircrafts for direct support of land operations have become easy and expensive targets, and a similar thing happened with warships in the Black Sea. After this war, it will become clear to everyone that surface warships are ideal targets for anti-ship missiles and projectiles.[6] All this is clear to large states today, but they still continue to build aircraft carriers and other surface units. It seems that this will continue to be the case in the future until a concrete example shows that large surface units cannot withstand a combined simultaneous missile attack. If we start from the assumption that war is fundamentally irrational and that it is a manifestation of the will to power, then the above can be explained. The presence of surface ships is a visible manifestation of strength for everyone, although real naval power has long been located deep below the surface of the sea.
The war experiences in Ukraine are a practical lesson for those in the armed forces who like to talk a lot about strategy, geopolitics, hybrid warfare, management and national security. All this should be left to the state leadership. The combat formation must master the tactics of using small units. These tactics are constantly changing, and therefore it is necessary to adapt military training and education. The best framework for achieving this goal is the doctrine of Mission command.[7] In addition, Lind gives good advice: as few officers as possible with ranks above the company level. In principle, regardless of the prevailing doctrine, there must be a selection of the best personnel in the armed forces, something similar to the selection of the national football team. Not all non-commissioned officers have to end up as officers, nor do junior officers have to be promoted. Many of them can give their best at the current level.[8]
***
During the combat operations in Ukraine, women were not noticed. From the point of view of Western ideologists, this should be blatant discrimination. It so happened that this goes unnoticed by the so-called non-governmental organizations and civil society. It turns out that the imposition of women in combat units is relevant only in peacetime. To this end, Croatian TV takes care to record the presence of women in the armed forces at every opportunity.
In the USA, this news was taken quite seriously as a great progress for the army. It did not occur to the promoters of this novelty to ask themselves how no one in history had thought of starting such a practice? This lasted until the Trump administration stopped this peacetime ideological performance, the goal of which was to show that women can act equally with men in combat units. Now they are introducing a test of physical abilities based on a single criterion for both sexes. According to a respected American military historian, this political performance has already caused a lot of damage to the cohesion of combat units. That is why he suggests to the new administration that removing women from all combat units that may be deployed in the field should be the first measure to normalize the situation.[9]
***
Modern warfare is largely determined by the economic capabilities of belligerent and allied states. It turns out that many peacetime advantages, such as the free movement of people and capital, become very risky in war. Suddenly, the economies of individual states find themselves dependent on the political will of someone else. Usually, these are energy sources, but it can also be the banking system. If banks are privately owned and can only issue money in the form of interest-bearing loans, then their owners may or may not support the policies of the home state. Add to this the foreign ownership of TV stations and telecommunications, the liquidation of the national currency, and massive illegal border crossings. When we take all this into account, the question arises: what are the armed forces for and what are the main components of national security that need to be protected?
The course of the war in Ukraine so far has shown that the Russian state cannot be shaken by any sanctions. Paradoxically, it seems that the Western European states that impose sanctions have more economic problems than Russia, which is supposed to be isolated. Sergei Glazyev[10] had predicted well before the war that it was necessary to control the movement of capital in and out of the country. He argued that this could be done very quickly, and he was right. Of course, a strong government was a prerequisite. If we add to this the practically unlimited natural resources, then it becomes clear why the Russian economic organism has acquired immunity from Western sanctions. The Russian economy is certainly suffering from the aforementioned sanctions, but it will be possible to speak more precisely about this only after the war.
For now, it can be said with confidence that the Russian military intervention had limited goals and that they do not have the military capacity to occupy all of Ukraine. It is also clear that Western European countries cannot militarily and economically defeat the Russian Federation. After all, mobilization has not been declared in Russia, but the combat sector is filled with paid soldiers who have signed a contract with their ministry, and the economy has not switched to war mode.
We can also say with certainty that, after this war, NATO and the EU will no longer be what they were before.
[1] Ukrainians do not have many good political memories of the Bolshevism era. Russian historians claim that Kiev was the epicenter of the creation of the Russian state, while others claim that Ukrainian is just a dialect of the Russian language. None of this can change the fact that over the course of history, Ukrainians have evolved into a distinct national entity. This is the only way to explain their persistent struggle and willingness to make sacrifices. Foreign military aid is important here, but fighting morale on the front lines cannot be achieved by remote control from outside or from headquarters.
[2] Chirkin Russian general stood in front of the cameras and shocked everyone: He revealed the truth in a live broadcast: https://share.google/utf7v0LJ8lyACOdhB
[3] For more information on this topic, see the text: Mobile War (https://miroslavgoluza.com.hr/pokretni-rat/)
[4] Fourth Arab-Israeli War, October 6–25, 1973. In that war, Egyptian infantry, who crossed to the eastern side of the Suez Canal, armed with light anti-tank weapons (Malyutka), defeated an Israeli armored counterattack.
[5] For this occasion, Russian soldiers used empty gas pipeline pipes. The maneuver was successful and the Ukrainians were forced to withdraw from the occupied area around the Russian city of Sudzha.
[6] The command ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the missile cruiser Moskva, was sunk in 2022.
[7] Originally in German Auftragstaktik. Americans call it Mission Command. It is also the doctrine of the Croatian Armed Forces. This doctrine is much easier to describe than to apply in practice. According to it, a subordinate commander receives a task, forces to execute it, and information about the enemy. The subordinate commander must be clear about the intention of the commander two levels above him, and it is left to him to quickly decide on the ground how to carry out the task. For more information, see: (https://miroslavgoluza.com.hr/njemacko-tajno-oruzje/)
[8] Up or Out – move up or become unpromising personnel scheduled to leave the armed forces. This is a principle taken from the US military.
[9] William S. Lind (1947) – According to the author, men, by the nature of relations between the sexes, immediately begin to fight for the affection of women.In this way, informal, emotionally conditioned groups are created in the unit. In American jargon, he calls it fraternization. In addition, each unit must have a unique criterion for awarding ranks and decorations. The principles of „positive discrimination“ do not apply here. In fact, this principle cannot be applied even in civilian life. Today, this is done systematically, but no mention is made of the harmful consequences. Similar views are held by military historian Martin van Creveld. See: (https://www.realcleardefense.com/2025/09/26/is_the_salvation_of_the_marine_corps_at_hand_1137228.html)
[10] Sergey Glaziev (1961), Russian economist and politician, member of the Academy of Sciences and the Financial Council of the Bank of Russia.
No Comment! Be the first one.