War Comes Through Weakness

The Winter War that started in 2022 between Russia and Ukraine had some very surprising outcomes, one of which being that it is still going on in 2025. The defence Ukraine provided for itself with limited initial assistance from the West showed how effective the Soviet defences would have been during the Cold War. Ukraine’s armed forces and its defences was the barrier between East and West, with much of the Soviet weapons, plans, and systems for protecting the Greater Soviet Union being based in Ukraine. Attacking one of the greatest defensive structures in modern history with capabilities from the late 80s, proved to be as difficult to collapse as designed, even with modern 2022 weapons. Three years later, most of the modern 2022 weapons systems are burnt hulks on the Ukrainian plains, and the great Soviet weapons stockpiles have been stripped and torn apart in war, used by both sides of the conflict.

With Russia depleted and weakened, and its allies in the southern regions on the edge of failing, it remains a question to whether or not a failed Russia would be a better strategic outcome for the West. At the end of the Cold War, the menace that faced the world came about in the form of insurgency movements, supplied by smaller players at the will of larger adversaries. Sufficient attention to terror threats like those currently in Nigeria were effectively ignored, or given little attention that lead to any effective solutions. Today, the largest threats come from internal strife, likely designed to weaken and perplex any solutions, funded from abroad. Even with strategic victories in Europe and the Mid East, the main threat of large military action will come from Asia, and a feebled West will enable a large assault when weakness in leadership is demonstrated in North America and Europe. That claim can easily be made, linking the escape from Afghanistan towards enabling the war in 2022, a pure example of War Through Weakness.

China’s latest demonstration of its military prowess came with the introduction of several long range missile types, married to laser based defensive weapons systems. With the success of the China made J-10 against Indian Rafale jets, the move from Russia being the world’s largest weapons exporter towards China is likely to take shape rapidly. India itself uses licensed produced T-90 tanks and Sukhoi jets, technology that always surpassed China’s military technology in the past, but was unable to give significant advantage in the recent bout with Pakistan. Russia in its weakened state would secede a lot of regional power dynamics towards insurgencies in the South and China in the East, a security problem that could become more dynamic and difficult to address for the West in the future. With so little attention given to smaller regional conflicts, the likelihood of a small regional issue being felt in the West is almost a certainty, with Europe and the United States being target number one by all of these groups. Asymmetric warfare can never be ignored, even when a conventional war is the focus of defense policy.

Russia’s losses in Ukraine has lead to such a massive depletion of equipment, that the most substantial T-72 stockpiles are now likely in the old Soviet periphery of the Caucasus region and by allies like Venezuela. China, who has already taken to replacing much of its modern 2008 equipment with newer systems, has the largest and most modern standard military force in the world. While quantity has its own quality, massive quantities of common tanks like the ZTZ96 are at least equal to a T-72B, and the ZTZ99 variants can match the capabilities of a T-90, with more modern variants recently demonstrated in China amongst missiles and lasers. While the PLA ground forces would most likely be used against Indian forces on the border regions, China’s strategic missile forces are meant for the US Navy and for an assault on Taiwan. Western allies must decide what they wish for in their relations with Russia and end any adversarial support coming from other regions as soon as possible, as the main field of battle is now internal. Without addressing internal divisions, a motivation will come about for the massive army being built by China to advance an assault. A signal of weakness is being sought to continue the 2022 war beyond Europe to go worldwide. You can see it in every town and city in the West, and in every cannon forged for the PLA daily.