Ukraine celebrates great military success. This surprised many people. However, the following still applies: Russia can and will escalate the war in Ukraine if necessary.

War, according to Prussian major general and war theorist Carl von Clausewitz, was an area of ​​uncertainty. “Three-quarters of the things on which action in war is built lies in a fog of more or less uncertainty.” Some of the fog may have dissipated with increased reconnaissance capabilities in the technical area. However, the basic findings have not changed.

At the start of the war, most analysts – myself included – saw little chance for defenders to survive the alleged superiority of the aggressor. Russia’s war shortage is staggering. Pathetic operational management, inadequate logistics and low morale among the soldiers – this was in contrast to the Ukrainian resistance, the intensity of which was equally shocking.

Given the current military success of the Ukrainian side – recapturing Russian-occupied territories in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions – some observers are already expecting a “victory” for Ukraine, which could end in the complete withdrawal of the Russian occupier from Ukrainian territory. If this happens, it will undoubtedly be good news for Ukraine and international security: Russia’s war of aggression will fail and Ukraine’s territorial integrity will be preserved. That would be a real (further) surprise.

The domination of the escalation is on the side of Russia

Apart from the “fog of war”, what can be determined quite clearly is the balance of military and political power. Ukraine succeeded in achieving selective local advantage and thereby achieving local breakthroughs by combining forces and supplying billions of dollars of Western weapons and support for training, reconnaissance and target acquisition. However, the domination of the escalation is on the side of Russia. Anyone who says it publicly is considered cold-hearted or even pro-Russian in this country. None of this is true. Rather, this knowledge is the key to calming conflicts that stem from “stocks and not slogans” (according to Gottfried Benn). But what is meant by escalating dominance?

In strategic studies, the term means the ability to respond to every opponent’s movement by escalating to a higher level. This requires having the resources, skills and intention to do so. Russia can, and will, if necessary, escalate the war on Ukraine – hybrid, conventional, and nuclear (though unlikely). In its own attribution, it has so far been only a “military special operation” and Russia has so far not depleted its personnel reserves by general mobilization or destroying Ukrainian infrastructure such as power plants, communications and transport lines to the extent one can imagine. Why Russia is waging this war, one might say, under its potential for escalation cannot be seen from the outside.

War will take many lives

One thing is for sure: Russia’s possibilities are by no means exhausted. On the other hand, Russia is willing and able to achieve its own military objectives in Ukraine with patience and patience. However, it is not clear what this purpose is. It is conceivable that Russia would be content with occupying the Donbass, building a land bridge to Crimea and controlling the Black Sea coast. It is conceivable, however, that the goal is still the destruction of the Ukrainian state, either by occupying Odessa – i.e. cutting off Ukraine’s access to the sea – or by overthrowing the Ukrainian government and installing a pro-Russian government. Despite its precise political goals, Russia has a wider logistical base behind it, as well as the means to scale it up even further.

In addition, for now Russia also has considerable resilience in the political and economic fields. Harsh economic sanctions from the West took effect and caused great damage to Russia. At the same time, Russia is not as isolated internationally as Western politicians would like to believe. After all, China, India, South Africa and other key key countries did not participate in economic sanctions, nor did they participate in political pressure against Russia.

Due to the considerable energy dependence, the economic base is also under great pressure in the country. No one could have predicted today what this would mean for the political support of the hard road against Russia, when power outages, energy shortages and severe economic upheaval rocked Western society in the winter. Therefore, a long war of attrition is likely in Ukraine, in which neither side wins, with persistently high casualty figures and consequent heavy costs for international stability.

There is no alternative to political reconciliation of interests

So do negotiations first require military exhaustion on both sides, i.e. what Clausewitz calls “the breaking point of the attacker”? According to Clausewitz, a mandatory reading in Russian general staff training, this is achieved when the attack power is reduced to such an extent that it cannot be continued successfully and the military power is only sufficient to defend what has been won. However, we are further from this point than the current public discussion suggests.

The success reports on Ukraine’s military successes do not change the overall picture: Russia (unfortunately) has a predominance of escalation and in the medium term higher sustainability. There is no alternative to reconciliation of political interests. So the time for negotiations will come one day and the question is: How do we envision the end of the war and when do we start diplomatic initiatives to achieve the stated goals?

Prof.Dr. Johannes Varwick teaches international politics at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.

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