External Expert Perspective: What Wins a War?- The role of mass and morale in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Tessa Winchester is a Financial Crime Researcher for Themis, focusing on countering human trafficking and modern slavery. She is a current RUSI Military Science Mentee, and has experience at the United Nations in Policy Development and Communications.
Tessa holds a BSc (Hons) in Politics and International Relations from the University of Bath, where she specialised in defence.
Her research interests include counter-terrorism, military effectiveness, and global diplomacy.
INTRODUCTION
Despite Vladimir Putin beginning to mobilise Russian soldiers to Ukraine’s border in November 2021, Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine on Thursday 24th February 2022 came as a shock to Ukraine and the rest of the world. The world witnessed the terrifying scenes of 190,000 heavily armed Russian soldiers invade Ukraine. Yet, twelve days since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s forces “have defied the odds” and remain in control of cities under fire, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Mariupol. It begs the question what wins a war - a military’s resources or their morale?
DEFENCE SPENDING
A simple comparison of the two nation’s investment into their defence industry indicates the significant gap between the two militaries and their equipment. In 2021, Ukraine’s defence spending, amounting to $4.7 billion, came to just over a tenth of Russia’s defence spending, amounting to $45.8 billion.
The stark difference in defence spending between the two countries is evident when observing the weaponry used by their militaries. Following Russia’s poor military performance in the short war with Georgia in 2008, Russia launched its “New Look” reform programme. The objective of the programme was to improve Russian military capabilities. Since then, Russia has modernised its tank fleet with established tanks, such as the T-72 reforming into the T-72B3/B3M, which can fire a variety of ammunition and offers superior protection. Russia has also significantly developed its missile and rocket artillery units, with the 120 kilometre-range Tochka-U being replaced with the 500km-range Tochka-U. Additionally, Russia’s naval forces have been revolutionised in terms of presence and capability.
Currently, Ukraine is still holding onto Soviet-era weaponry, including short-range ballistic missiles and howitzers. However, Ukraine aspires to modernise its military, evidenced in its pledge to reform its air force with Western combat aircraft by the mid-2030s. Additionally, Ukraine continues to strengthen its military alliances throughout Europe. Ukraine became an enhanced opportunity partner of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 2020, which allowed for more access to exercises with the organisation and information sharing, yet the nation continues to aspire to full membership in NATO.
NUMBER OF MILITARY PERSONNEL
Similarly, there is a significant gap between the numbers of each nation’s military personnel. Russia currently has 900,000 active military personnel, including 150,000 in their navy and 165,000 in their air force. Whereas, Ukraine has 196,000 active military personnel, including 15,000 in their navy and 35,000 in their air force, meaning the size of Ukraine’s active military personnel is a mere 20% of Russia’s.
Furthermore, Russia’s reserve personnel amounts to two million, in comparison to Ukraine’s reserve personnel of 900,000, representing a 1.1 million difference.
INVENTORY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Finally, perhaps the most obvious difference between Russia and Ukraine’s military capabilities is in each nation’s nuclear weapons inventory. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia was the inheritor of the vast majority of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. As outlined by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, although Russia has substantially reduced its stockpiles since the Cold War, it still harbours “one of the world’s largest and deadliest nuclear forces”. According to the Federation of American scientists, Russia has a total nuclear warhead inventory of 5,977, including conventional warheads, modern cruise and short-range missiles, and hypersonic weapons, making it the biggest in the world.
In response to international tensions spiralling over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin placed his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert on Wednesday 2nd March 2022, sending a message to the world that Russia’s nuclear weapons are prepared for increased readiness to launch. Whilst being described as an “incredibly dramatic, escalatory move” by some, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace denounced Putin’s actions as a “big attempt to distract from his troubles in Ukraine”.
Likewise, Ukraine also inherited thousands of nuclear weapons following the collapse of the Soviet Union, making the nation the third largest nuclear power on earth. However, in 1994, Ukraine gave them up by signing the Budapest Memorandum and joining the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This treaty reaffirmed the obligation of Russia, the UK, and the US “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”. And whilst one ultimately cannot determine whether Russia would have invaded Ukraine had they maintained an inventory of nuclear weapons, Svitlana Zalischchuk, a foreign policy advisor to the Ukrainian deputy Prime Minister, argues “this war wouldn’t have started” had Ukraine maintained its own inventory.
MILITARY MORALE
As defined by John Baynes, morale is a “quality of mind and spirit which combines courage, self-discipline and endurance”. He adds, “in times of war, it manifests itself in the soldier’s absolute determination to do his duty to the best of his ability in any circumstances”, even when death is eminent. Defined as “the greatest single factor in successful war”, strong military morale has enabled smaller, weaker states with limited military capabilities to win wars against strong, powerful states with greater military capabilities. In fact, Patricia Sullivan discovered that in almost 40% of their military operations, major power states have failed to attain their primary political objective against weak states and non-state targets since 1945. To understand the strength of a soldier’s morale, it is important to analyse two factors; how the soldier was recruited and the extent to which they believe in what they are fighting for.
In Russia, military service is compulsory for males aged 18 to 27 for a period of 12 months. However, whilst the popularity of military conscription has significantly increased over the last couple decades, 42% of Russians did not support the preservation of conscription in 2017. In fact, a European Parliamentary Research Service report found that each year, half of all would-be conscripts are thought to be dodging their military service, totalling to 75,000 out of an annual intake of 150,000 young men.
In conjunction, the majority of young Russian men did and continue to not want a war with Ukraine, evidenced in the 66% of Russians aged between 18 and 24 who had a positive or very positive attitudes towards Ukraine in 2021. This is in despite of the increasingly anti-Ukrainian propaganda.
Evidently, not only can one assume that a significant proportion of Russia’s conscripted soldiers do not wish to be involved in their nation’s military but that an even greater percentage of these men do not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, exhibiting the likelihood of low military morale of Russia’s soldiers. This is supported by reports of Russian soldiers expressing they had been “tricked” by their own government and that “90% of us would agree to go home” and, in turn, retreat from Ukraine.
Comparably, Ukraine only re-enforced a compulsory military service for young men between 18 and 24 in 2021 because of its rising tensions with Russia. In 2021, 13,575 males were conscripted into the Ukrainian military, signifying that 94% of their military continues to be professional personnel. Subsequently, it becomes clear that the majority of Ukraine’s military are soldiers simply because they wish to be, rather than because they have to be.
Moreover, in 2017, the majority of Ukrainians felt hostility towards Russia, with 57% of Ukrainians expressed a very cold or cold attitude towards its eastern neighbour. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only strengthened these attitudes, evidenced in the 66,224 Ukrainians who have returned from abroad to Ukraine to defend their country and its democratic principles. This unwavering belief of what Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for exhibits a stark difference in comparison to the lack of belief in what Russian soldiers are fighting for.
CONCLUSION
The question of what wins a war is not a simple one. What Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown is that masses of military personnel and advanced weapons instils fear, but these alone do not guarantee the winning of war, especially against an opponent with strong military morale. Although Russia undeniably has the superior military capabilities as evident in their defence spending, the number of military personnel, and their inventory of nuclear weapons, Ukraine’s strong military morale has enabled the nation’s soldiers to fight against Russia with “extraordinary skill and courage”.
What Putin expected to be a swift, successful invasion and takeover of Ukraine has turned into a twelve-day long war between the two nations. And whilst Ukraine’s resistance has not been able to stop Russia’s invasion or been strong enough to shift Putin’s aims away from Ukraine, the nation’s perseverance and adaptability has surprised the world and most importantly, Russia.