One Year of Russia Ukraine War: How the global scenario changed

It will be a year since Russia entered into a war with Ukraine. Apparently, there were multiple issues between both countries and a historical rivalry of over a decade prior to this war. Russia first occupied Crimea and then Donetsk in 2013-14 and after nearly 8 years, started a full-fledged war in Ukraine, which now has completed a year. The impact of this war on the lives of people across the globe was significant and the effect continues to haunt the world. People are so fed up with this war that the news coming from the warzones do not make a headline anymore. It is widely assumed that it will not last so soon. When we see this war from a geo-political and geo-strategic perspective, we can say that there are several key takeaways of this war.

Russian objectives are absolutely clear

While in the initial stages of war, it was perceived that Russia had gone for an all-out invasion of Ukraine, the mist has now been cleared. Russian objectives are absolutely clear, and it is fighting for its objectives only now. First and foremost, the objective is to occupy Russian Dominated oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Second is to establish a land bridge with Crimea which has been under Russian occupation for long. Third is to have absolute control over the Black Sea and fourth is to devoid Ukraine from its majority of revenue sources, agricultural fields and industrial strength. The warzone has limited itself to these objectives and Russia is in the mood of a long haul.

It is not Russia-Ukraine War, it is Cold War II 

The way the United States is getting involved in the war, the whole world is clear that this war is actually a tussle between Russia and the US, and Ukraine was just a medium. The US wanted to end European dependence on Russia and establish its 100% control over the region and it used Ukraine as a scapegoat for this. However, under no circumstance, we can say that Uncle Sam has even partially achieved his objective. One of the factors which can prove this is that whenever any country tried to mediate and initiate a ceasefire, the efforts were stonewalled by America who did not want the war to stop. This indicates that the war is another extension of the Cold War.

Testing ground for new technology

Any new warzone becomes an opportunity for the world to test their war machines and the Ukraine-Russia war is not an exception. The whole world including America, Europe, Russia, Israel, Iran, Korea and other countries are testing their UAVs, smart bombs, missiles, artillery, armored vehicles, communication technology and other tools here. This war is probably the first war where we see a high level of digitalization of the battlefield. Not only this, but we have also seen how to use civilian satellites (for example, satellites from SpaceX) effectively on the battlefield. This war taught us how to minimize human interference in the battlefield and showed us a perspective of future wars.

Showed the multipolarity of the world and emergence of new world order against America 

The war has shown us as to how multipolar the world is. There are several groups of countries. Some are with Ukraine like the United States, and some are with Russia like China. Some are neutral while some are keeping the interests of their own country first like India. Interestingly there is a group of countries in Europe too who are criticizing Russia during the day and buying their oil/gas at night paying them in Rubles. The dynamics are getting complex with each passing day. At the same time, this war facilitated the emergence of a new world order devoid of America. Uncle Sam thought that they would be able to bring Russia to its knees in no time, but things turned ugly and in contrast, they have created a strong coalition of Russia, Turkey, China and Iran against them. China tried to replace Europe as a key exporter of machinery and other items to Russia while Iran was providing war machines, especially drones to Russia. The world is slowly moving to the Cold War Scenario of the sixties.

Big opportunity for illegal arms dealers 

A factor which often gets ignored is that this war brought huge opportunities to illegal arms dealers who are looking for advanced technology weapons in the world. In any war zone, tens of thousands of weapons and other war machines get unaccounted for and that’s the opportunity for these illegal arms dealers. They collect these items from the warzone and siphon them out of the country using their resources. These weapons then make their way to the international market and are used by terrorists. The inflow of weapons is so high in Ukraine that there is no accountability at all and there have been cases where the field commanders themselves have sold the consignments to these arms dealers for their provisions. It is very alarming.

The world saw two major conflicts in recent times. 

First was the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and second was the most recent Russia-Ukraine war. If we see them from the lens of military tactics and geo-strategy, it shows us that the future wars will have more and more involvement of machines. It will be something like a science fantasy which will be fought on the principles of network centric warfare. The key takeaways were an eyeopener.