Russia: An aspiring – but ‘little’ – conqueror

By Katharina Buchholz

Russian military forces advanced at a slower pace than international observers expected after the invasion of Ukraine. The international community has condemned the Moscow military operation and especially the violence of the Russians and the attacks they allegedly launched on civilian targets, such as hospitals.

Even if Russia dominates neighboring Ukraine, which is being reinforced with military equipment by its European allies and the United States, the history of the country as an occupier does not presuppose that it can keep Ukraine occupied if it occupies it.

In such a case, analysts estimate that the Ukrainian army will go “into resistance”, starting a guerrilla war against the occupiers. Rebel forces are bound by fewer rules than the regular army, are more flexible and more difficult to locate than traditional armed forces.

Russian or Soviet forces have a “bad” past for guerrillas, as the Rand Corporation points out. Russia’s failure in Afghanistan in 1992 is “the subject of a study of how a great power can be defeated in guerrilla warfare” by such war tactic expert Anthony James Joes. Brutal violence – also known as “iron fist” – is, according to Rand, one of the main reasons for the failure of the Russian military. In 1994, during an operation to quell an uprising in the then breakaway Chechen Republic, Russian forces not only failed strategically, not only encountered problems with military equipment and their morale plummeted, but found no support among its people. Chechnya and – even worse – were not interested in satisfying his demands in order to weaken the uprising.

The “iron fist” rarely succeeds

According to Rand’s study, few Russian operations – which relied solely on violence – against rebel groups had a positive outcome for Moscow. Those who also used non-military means proved to be more effective. In addition, tactics such as intimidation, mass punishment, corruption and looting are factors that effectively undermine the dominance of a regular army over rebel forces, which may be supported by other countries, making hostilities more complex. uprising.

The U.S. military, which allied itself with the governments of South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos against communist insurgents in those areas in the 1960s and ’70s, has paid a heavy price. The most advanced army in the world failed to defeat the guerrillas of Southeast Asia and as it is known left defeated in 1975.

Historically, the British have dealt more effectively with guerrilla warfare against them – in former colonies of the British Empire, but also in Northern Ireland. Although the British usually choose to impose themselves through the “iron fist”, at least in the cases of the Maoist uprising in Malaysia in 1948 and the IRA in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1999, the means of war were combined with civilian tactics, leading London in better results for its interests.

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