The war in Ukraine is not going to end any time soon. That, anyway, is what the available evidence suggests. The two competing sides have for the most part been clear; Russia is the invading force and aggressor, and the Ukrainians are defending their homeland. I have made my own position on the war clear.
One of many related, and highly contingent, matters that has not been raised has been the actual role of Nato and broadly speaking, of countries in the Atlantic alliance.
Conventional reports would have us believe that the states of the alliance are not actual participants in the war. From what we know it is probably true that countries like the United States, Britain, Canada or France do not have “boots on the ground”.
What is less clear in the fog of war, but not beyond the realms of possibility or thought, is the likelihood that Western Europe and North America have effectively privatised their role in the war through the provision of material support for the Ukrainians.
This is somewhat similar to the way that some countries did not supply “boots on the ground” during the First Gulf War, but sent Washington money instead. It can also be likened to the way that the US roped in private sector “specialists” and “experts” from third-party countries in its war against the Afghan people. Among these are people who feel no compunction about inflicting great harm on dark-skinned others.
Fighting wars remotely
All of this points to a “new” phase of warfare without soldiers on the ground. In this scenario advances in science and technology, especially artificial intelligence, but also genetics and neuroscience, “remove” soldiers from actual active combat. War is fought from the air and directed from control panels thousands of kilometres away.
A stand-out example of what is probably the start of this war without soldiers on the ground was Nato’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia — without backing from the UN security council. On the evening of 24 March 1999 air raid sirens rang across a fractured Yugoslavian society, and ordinary people fled into their basements when Nato, led by Washington as usual, began bombing cities across the region. Death rained on cities like Pristina, Belgrade and Podgorica across what remained of Yugoslavia — especially Kosovo.
One should not traduce the suffering of the people of the former Yugoslavia. The point that is made here is that, on the precept that Western Europe and North America are playing a concealed or “backround” role in the Russian war on Ukraine, it is consistent with the way that liberal democracies in the Atlantic alliance have, at least since the bombing of Yugoslavia, resorted to remote warfare.
This was as true in Yugoslavia in 1999 as it was when Nato bombed Libya, when the US-led coalition acted against the Islamic State in Syria, and the way the US Africa Command is training Ugandan soldiers.
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In all these cases violence is meted out from distant locations, or “outsourced” with a marked shift away from “boots on the ground” towards “light footprint” military interventions.
Sanitising war and letting others do the killing and dying
It is, therefore, conceivable that the US and its European allies are supplying Ukraine with drones, intelligence, private or training teams operating below the radar, so to speak. This light touch or outsourcing of war is usually driven by a belief that war can be sanitised, made more humane and under optimal conditions; people don’t want their daughters and sons to do the fighting, killing, and dying in distant locations.
Some questions and issues remain befuddling. Among these are whether “conventional war” is dead, and you don’t need boots on the ground to kill the enemy. Are we seeing a revolution in warfare and military affairs? And, if war was not hell, I would say it was amusing that Europeans have imagined they would never see war again.
Evidence shows that the Europeans, who have over centuries provided the theatres of war, are still at war — never mind the interlude that followed the end of the Second World War and the bombing of Yugoslavia, and now Russia’s war on the Ukrainian people.
While it is clear that the Russians and the Ukrainians are involved in a “dirty” war, and their people are doing the killing and dying on battlefields, the West remains intent on “humanising” warfare. By fighting remotely on the side of the Ukrainians, the Atlantic alliance is attempting to avoid human damage (to their own soldiers and civilians), and is supplying Ukraine with military hardware — and who knows what else.
It was reported last month that Britain would supply “scores of artillery guns and more than 1,600 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine in the latest supply of Western arms to help bolster the country’s defence against Russia”. In June this year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised $1.2-billion in military support, bringing total UK support to Ukraine since the start of the war to almost $3-billion.
Here they may be telling the Ukrainian people, go and fight those monsters and enemies of Western civilisation. Use our weapons and do all the killing and dying, while our people stay safe in the comforts of their homes.
Enter technology and artificial intelligence
Deep in the background of developing new military technologies to fight remote wars — with extensive use of artificial intelligence and big data — are private corporations in Silicon Valley and “niche entrepreneurs backed by venture capital or recently floated businesses [seeking] to fill the gap and work through the challenge of applying AI to defence data”, as Matthew Ford and Alexander Gould, a couple of scholars from the UK have explained.
The US Defense Department in particular is aware of its own shortcomings and is turning to private sector companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft — almost all of whom have been hesitant to work on defence contracts.
Nonetheless, as Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and a member of former US President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology told the Armed Services Committee of that county’s House of Representatives in April 2018: “Any military that fails to pursue enterprise‐wide cloud computing [in complex information stacks] isn’t serious about winning future conflicts. AI is not achievable without modern commercial cloud computing that can store and secure the data DoD regularly collects.”
What we have in the open, and on the battlefields of Ukraine are soldiers killing each other — boots on the ground — fighting the “dirty war” while evidence suggests that the Atlantic alliance are sending funds and military hardware, and keeping their populations safe and sound.
All these efforts to humanise war, in the face of the brutality of the conflict in Ukraine, the application of information and communications technology, supplying funds and military hardware — effectively joining the war remotely, without its own boots on the ground – suggest that Europe has not seen the end of war and that Ukrainian soldiers are not “alone” on the battlefields — they are just doing all the killing and dying. DM
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I like your article Ismail. What you say makes sense but you leave out a few important aspects.
1. Someone needs to be supporting Ukraine ( or whoever is chosen by a big thug) needs to be protected. Their legal sovereignty is being stomped all over. Because the thug wants their stuff.
2. The thug has a lot of power, on a world scale, and is not going to listen to any reason. If NATO openly declares war, as was the way of the past, the thug has threatened all sorts of violent international retribution.
3. What is happening now is the middle way, and it is working….. my only doubt is that NATO is trying to do this by tying the hands of the Ukrainians ….. by restricting the targeting of across border attacks …. This will never work and will prolong the war hugely.
Personally I support firmer action and calling of Putins bluff.
We, (the West) as a self righteous ‘freedom’ oriented grouping (with lots of faults of our own) need to stand by our principles of fairness, moderation and firm action.
The thugs of the world will only stop this sort of thing out of fear, not morality.
Nicely put Stuart.
Yugoslavia was not NATO’s finest hour with many mistakes, including not acting when it should have. It appears that lessons were learnt.
So basically a big thug, “USA”, befriends a seemingly nice young little guy “Ukraine”, and invites them to join the gang ,”NATO”, who dislikes another big thug, “Russia”, who take offense to the Gang giving the little guy fireworks to play with in his immediate vicinity, which could potentially pose a safety risk to The big thug “Russia”. Russia takes offense to this and takes it out on the little guy, whilst the other big Thug and Bully “USA” Watches and claps from the sidelines and every so often, throws more fireworks into the fray, as do the rest of the gang.
Now most of us have probably had altercations in the playground at school, so can see how this can get rather out of control. The problem is the powers that be, are no longer in the playground. The thugs all need to grow up and start keeping their own back yards tidy and be less critical of the other thugs back yards. The Gang should also perhaps refrain from recruiting new gang members. It can only result in the big thug Russia forming a big gang of their own and just now we have gang warfare in the last remaining playground in the big city. Nobody wins. Everybody gets hurt. Hopefully the bell will ring soon, and everybody can return to the debating classroom.
This is largely true but nevertheless a one-sided view of the picture. What if NATO did put ‘boots on the ground’? Within days WW3 would be upon us and this, I believe, is why there aren’t any (visible) boots in the mud and why I believe NATO is acting responsibility.
Furthermore I do not see the need to include a comment such as “ …people who feel no compunction about inflicting great harm on dark skinned others”
In addtion to the other comments, this article ignores that “developed” and “stronger” countries have always outsourced some level of war to others. This was true of the Roman’s in their expansion of their empire, the Soviet Union and, even, Pakistan today in Afghanistan. It seems the point here is just to be provocative by tying this to the west and making it racial; not to deny those aspects, but those are not the key aspects here. Ukraine IS being invaded by a thug and needs help. Whomever intervenes directly, especially “the west”, will have to deal directly with Russia and possible nuclear terrorism.
In 1938 Hitler invaded the Sudetenland in Chekoslovakia with the same reasoning displayed by Putin. For Hitler it was the presence of Germans and for Putin it was the presence of Russians which led to the invasion. That was the origin of the second world war. We are now in the third world war. The lesson of 1938 was to not appease the invader. Every country in the world with a significant GDP is part of the struggle. Russia will be weakened and not to be able to invade any more countries.
Thank you Ismail and I for one think you have described the Ukrainian catastrophe very well. Of course US/NATO are the instigators – they have been goading Putin since Maiden 2014/5 and before; their motivation is clear: America is facing the loss of their ‘weaponised dollar’ and by it, their ‘exceptionalism’ claiming a continuation of their hegemony challenged now by the rise of Eurasia. US actions are transparent because they have published the US military doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance”. The USA is indeed ‘The Great Satan’ – you only have to read John Perkin’s book, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” to understand what America is all about.
If US/NATO wanted to really help the suffering Ukrainians they would be agitating for a negotiated peace – but of course – this won’t suit the Neocons because they will lose so much in the process. They have been warmongering ever since the end of WW2 to maintain control over the world and now at last Russia has said enough.
Your views on American hegemonism might have some validity, but you destroy your own argument by presenting Vladimir Putin’s vicious, insane imperialism as simply a response to this. Do you really believe that twenty-first century Russia presents a viable alternative to the current world order? If so, you are profoundly confused. It is a just another ugly facet of this same greed-driven, blind, brutal, self-destructive world order that is eviscerating humanity and the natural environment upon which we depend so absolutely.
I think the continued existence and subsequent expansion of NATO following the collapse of the Soviet Union is the greatest existential threat to World peace. NATO is an alliance of just one race and when they decide to invade any country (Iraq, Afghanistan) or malign others (Iran) they do it with conceited righteous appeal and listen to no other moderating voices. I think Russia, China and India should form a military alliance to counter this Western menace. Africa, having been the perennial victim of Western bigotry, must seek protection from this alliance. I wish Africa could become a country and join this alliance.
Unfortunately this article falls well below what I would expect as journalistic competence from DM. The views are poorly framed, the writing cannot conceal the author’s obvious disdain for NATO and its member states, it loosely refers to the “West” but blurs the concept with the USA with which he clearly has a problem, it is laced with racist generalisations, it lacks any factual or empirical support for the contentions raised, and , finally, fails spectacularly to condemn Russian aggression, choosing instead to drag up Kosovo. There is a most unfortunate undertone of islamic grievance pulsing through this emotional nonsense.
Ismail, is it not clear to you that given the open and public ‘announcements’ in media, of the kind of ‘hardware’ support the ‘western’ states are providing Ukraine, that there is no need to ‘speculate’ … as your article suggests ? Surely … that ‘level’ of transparency makes it unnecessary to speculate ? What other levels or kinds of ‘support’ may be there, is open to speculation or conjecture.
Macron declares, “we are at war’ as reported in Financial Times of 10 September.