THE THREAT OF A LARGE-SCALE LONG WAR OF AGGRESSION
THE THREAT OF A LARGE-SCALE LONG WAR OF AGGRESSION

Author(s): Iulian CHIFU
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Economy
Published by: Carol I National Defence University Publishing House
Keywords: large-scale war; long war; defense by denial; disposable infantry; intangibles of the war.
Summary/Abstract: The large-scale, high intensity long Russian war of aggression in Ukraine (Chifu 2023b forthcoming) has brought back to Europe the perspective of a full-scale war as a direct threat to EU and NATO countries, especially in the Eastern Flank, as it never has been considered in any recent NATO document1. This perspective, even though disputable in the conditions of Russia’s heavy losses and its poor acting in war in front of the Ukrainian army, brought assessments of the needed changes for coping with such a threat in the foreseeable future2. Moreover, the indications of a Russian disposable infantry (Watling and Reynolds 2023) brought up as a new tactic by the evolutions in Bakhmut showed that the West is poorly prepared to face these new instruments in war (Kolesnikov 2022) unacceptable to any country respecting human rights. On this occasion, the assessments revalued the intangibles of war (Chifu and Simons 2023) that make differences on the ground – will to fight, resolution, prestige, sacrifice, solidarity – that weight in more than the number of missiles or soldiers.

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