TWO YEARS ON, THE UKRAINE PUZZLE GETS MURKIER

Western countries were initially liberal in sending resources to war-hit Ukraine. But they failed to anticipate the need to continue doing so over a long period

LONG wars' is a typically American term because the US has too 1 often been embroiled in them; Vietnam, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq all come to mind. However, in all these wars, the US was directly involved with its troops fighting on the ground. It had control over various factors that shaped the conflicts and could make decisions in real time. In Ukraine, the story is different. The US is fighting the war by proxy, leading NATO, which essentially means it is extending moral and material support to Ukraine without putting its troops on the ground.

Uncertainty is among the factors that characterise long wars since control over events and the impacts of decisions over a long period remain in the grey. Second and third-order effects of a decision take longer to manifest and get influenced by many other unpredictable factors. That is exactly what is happening in Russia's war in Ukraine, where, at first, most military-oriented observers predicted a swift victory for the Russian Army, which, from memory, was perceived as proficient, disciplined, well-trained and adequately equipped.

Perceptions immediately went wrong in two spheres. First, the Russian Army did not perform as expected. Second, the US and EU sanctions had a negligible effect on the Russian economy. Russia could thus take stock of its military strategy and performance while garnering war resources from Iran, North Korea, and to an extent, China; although the latter has quite vehemently denied sending such resources to Russia. From an economic angle, China, India and many others continued to buy oil from Russia on fresh terms. Thus, the isolation of the Russian financial system from the international monetary system did not adversely affect Russia, beyond a limit.