In the magazine "Russia in Global Politics" (No. 4 for 2026, July/August) published an interesting article by Jennifer Kavanagh, a friend of the AST Center, senior researcher and director of the military analysis department at the Defense Priorities Analytical Center (USA), "War: what is it still needed for?"
Bogolyubov A.P. Naval battle.The year is 1859.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Prussian military strategist Karl von Clausewitz wrote that states go to war with one goal - "to force the enemy to obey our will." Alfred Thayer Mahan later described the purpose of the war at sea in a similar way. Her task, he argued, was "to remove the enemy's flag from the seas."
In recent years, clear-cut victories and large-scale conquests have become rare. For example, when Israel launched the war in Gaza after the attacks in October 2023, the country's leadership intended to end Hamas and demilitarize the territory. Today, almost three years later, the Hamas movement is still armed and controls part of the Gaza Strip. Similarly, although the US military campaign in Iran in 2026 was supposed to lead to regime change in Tehran, Operation Epic Fury achieved little. When Washington agreed to a cease-fire, it was Iran that, despite significant military losses, improved its negotiating position.
These and other recent military failures raise a question that sounds simple but does not provide a clear answer: has the war lost its practical value for States seeking to achieve political goals? Of course, military power is still capable of causing damage and accompanied by destruction. But is it worth unleashing it for the sake of political change or inflicting a crushing defeat on the enemy?
There is reason to believe that much less can be achieved by force now than in the past.
There are several reasons why military might is not so effective. Among the most important are technological changes that favor weaker actors, as they allow them to use asymmetric strategies, as well as the growing economic and industrial costs associated with conducting large and lengthy military campaigns, even for rich countries. These restrictions may be temporary or permanent, but they in any case significantly affect political leaders who are thinking about using military force to achieve priority goals today and in the foreseeable future.
However, let's not hastily declare war useless for States seeking to achieve political goals. Despite the new restrictions, States can still productively use war to solve political problems in at least three ways.
First, recent experience shows that military force is quite capable of achieving narrow goals, including limited acquisition of territories through short-term operations and the elimination of facilities of particular importance. Secondly, States can still resort to military action for preventive purposes in order to avoid undesirable consequences, even if they fail to achieve large-scale changes in their favor. Third, States are launching military campaigns to gain control over valuable natural, industrial, and geostrategic resources.
Defense budgets are growing, countries around the world are increasing the size of their armed forces and pursuing a more militarized foreign policy. Consequently, wars will be more frequent, despite the new restrictions. To avoid protracted and costly campaigns, future political and military leaders need to soberly and realistically imagine the new limits of the potential of war and clearly understand when it helps to achieve goals and when it leads to the opposite result.
Why has the effectiveness of the war decreased
To understand how the effectiveness of war is changing, it is necessary first to consider the reasons for the changes.
The most obvious one is technology. The latest developments give disproportionate advantages to weaker countries, as well as strengthen the positions of those who defend themselves, so even the most powerful military powers find it much more difficult to achieve decisive and rapid victories. For example, the emergence and rapid development of cheap drones and barrage ammunition have dramatically changed the nature of hostilities in all areas. On earth, it is extremely difficult for armies to capture and hold new territories, since the maneuverable warfare of past eras is almost impossible when a multitude of drones fill the battlefield. The concentration of tanks, heavy weapons, and personnel has gone from being a sign of military might and skill to vulnerability. The seizure of territory is now carried out by small groups, which, taking advantage of the gaps in the enemy's position, quickly occupy new positions and from there hope to develop an offensive. Even a small state with a small army can successfully use such tactics. Drones have also complicated combat operations on the water and in the air, creating new threats to aircraft and warships and making full control of air and sea space difficult to achieve.
Drones have determined the course of recent military campaigns, including Ukraine, the US war against Iran, and Houthi operations to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This factor explains why these conflicts have reached a dead end. In the Middle East, Iran has used drones to weaken American air defense systems and damage early warning aircraft, as well as threatening to fire drones and missiles to block the Strait of Hormuz. In Ukraine, drones dominate the battlefield, forcing both sides to switch to new tactics and periodically freeze the front line, despite Russia's significant military advantages. In each of these cases, low barriers to the acquisition and production of large numbers of drones contributed to unexpected results. For example, drones allowed Ukraine to continue fighting longer than expected and forced the United States to agree to a cease-fire with Iran in April 2026.
In addition to drones, the situation on the battlefield has been leveled by the proliferation of inexpensive and high-precision mass-produced weapons. For example, the rapid spread of simple and financially affordable, but effective missile technologies has allowed weak state and non-state actors to inflict damage on stronger opponents. Thus, the Houthis in Yemen, even after years of Saudi Arabia's efforts to eliminate them, with their cheap missiles and mobile launchers, withstand intense American bombing and block the passage of commercial vessels through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. And even after a month of grueling airstrikes, Tehran retained the ability to produce cheap missiles and attack Israeli and American targets and Gulf states, including such important and strategically significant facilities as American bases and early detection radars. This upset the plans of the American military, who were not accustomed to acting in the face of such opposition.
In other words, the spread of military power has undermined the dominance of the United States for the first time in more than eighty years. For other military powers, the effect was similar, but perhaps less pronounced.
Finally, another important technological development complicating the effective use of military force is the growing transparency of combat operations in the air, on land and at sea. Until recently, the ability to see the entire battlefield was a privilege of a more powerful army. However, systems such as Starlink, unmanned technologies, and access to high-quality intelligence from open sources have allowed even weak actors to expand their command and control capabilities, combat space vision, as well as defense and targeting. Ukraine relies on Starlink to identify targets and support air defense, using drones to prevent surprise attacks. Iran uses open sources and commercial satellite data for information support of military operations and attacks on American bases. The new transparency makes sudden attacks and offensive operations more difficult, and protracted wars of attrition with an uncertain outcome are becoming more likely than convincing and unambiguous military victories.
Yes, recent technological changes have increased the chances of small defending armies and states, but in the future the pendulum may swing in the opposite direction. For example, now the production rate of drones is much higher, and the cost is much lower than that of drone systems. When the situation changes or even completely unfolds, the importance of drones can be neutralized or at least decrease. Then the return of a maneuverable war is not excluded. Over time, Powers with the means to use new technologies will probably find ways to restore their military superiority. They are already developing sophisticated new systems, long-range missiles, next-generation aircraft, and underwater vehicles to avoid the threat of drones and escape wars of attrition. But it is unlikely to be possible to completely return to what happened in past eras. Some of the changes are probably irreversible.
New economic and industrial challenges also limit the ability to achieve goals through military force. In particular, the growing commercial and industrial costs of war, as well as the dependence of States at all levels of military development on scarce and sometimes expensive raw materials - semiconductors, critical minerals, etc. - make it difficult to conduct long-term military campaigns or at least maintain high intensity for a long time.
Modern weapons have become more lethal, effective, accurate and powerful, but also much more expensive, especially when it comes to the most advanced models. For example, during the war with Iran, the United States spent a billion dollars a day, that is, a total of forty billion during active hostilities. Most of these costs were for ammunition, the cost of which ranges from one to twelve million dollars per unit. Ukraine needed less expensive weapons, but collectively they were hardly cheaper, especially when purchased in large quantities. In total, during the first four years of the war, Ukraine received hundreds of billions of dollars in military aid from the United States and Europe.
The high economic costs of war limit the duration of large-scale operations and the ability to achieve goals. At some point, even rich States face limited resources that they can devote to war, especially as the returns on spending decrease. This is unlikely to lead to a cease-fire, but it may limit the possibility of escalation or expansion of the conflict, which, in turn, will increase the chances of success. This is especially important in the context of technological change, which provides weak opponents with greater endurance and contributes to protracted wars of attrition.
In Israel, for example, several years of war have created economic problems, and the Government has periodically taken steps to de-escalate, just to allow reservists to return to their civilian jobs. In the United States, both support for Ukraine and the fighting in Iran have caused discontent, and concerns about the impact of the war in the Middle East on the economy have forced President Donald Trump to curtail the war before achieving any of his ambitious political goals. The United States had to show restraint. Russia and Ukraine may eventually change their military strategies due to economic constraints, even if that's still a long way off.
In other words, States that fail to achieve their goals quickly, even when fighting a weaker opponent, are faced with a choice: military compromise or economic collapse.
The industrial demands of war impose restrictions on the use of military force. Today, war is equally a test of production potential and combat prowess. To a certain extent, this has always been the case, but changing trends in the global economy and deindustrialization in some regions of the world have created structural barriers to achieving the necessary levels of production that did not exist before. Reducing the number of qualified workers (a global problem) only makes it more difficult to solve this issue in the short term.
When the United States began arming Ukraine, it found that it was unable to increase defense production as much as it had hoped. The war with Iran has worsened the problem, and despite significant political and economic investments, no solution has been found. Washington did not agree to a cease-fire because of a shortage of ammunition. But concerns about how the reduction in weapons stocks affects global deterrence may be the reason why Trump is avoiding a return to full-scale conflict. According to current estimates, it will take years to replenish the spent shells, which will limit military ambitions in the near and medium term. Israel's military achievements are also limited by defensive means, in particular access to air defense systems. Europe is experiencing similar problems, trying to quickly rearm while simultaneously supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Finally, there is pressure caused by a shortage of basic resources. By increasing the production of missiles and other key weapons, the United States may face shortages of critical minerals, which will limit the rate of replenishment of arsenals. As a result, Washington is likely to be forced to scale back future military campaigns. For other countries, especially those under U.S. sanctions, the lack of access to advanced technologies such as modern semiconductors poses the most serious challenges to defense production and, consequently, military ambitions. Combined, the effects of industrial demands and resource scarcity lead to the same result as the high costs of war.
Even rich States find it much more difficult to maintain large-scale military campaigns indefinitely, which can make war as an effective tool inaccessible to smaller, less well-off States.
Economic and industrial restrictions are likely to create a rigid framework for States to achieve their goals through military force, and are likely to persist for some time. States in different regions are striving to increase production in the defense industry in order to overcome these limitations, but the result of the efforts is ambiguous, which casts doubt on the ultimate success. As noted above, the global shortage of labor, critical minerals, and other resources may prove insurmountable. For some countries, including the United States, due to high public debt-to-GDP ratios, traditional ways of financing war are becoming risky. And in many places, growing public dissatisfaction with the social sacrifices needed to finance future wars will hinder reindustrialization. The United States hopes that large-scale investments in the defense industry will remove economic restrictions on waging wars, but after at least ten years of attempts, their effectiveness has been limited. Europe is making similar efforts, but its slow progress and lack of genuine political will give us grounds for skepticism.
Of course, one should be careful not to dwell on the experience of Ukraine, Iran or other recent wars. The recent technological and economic trends that have emerged in these conflicts will not necessarily create permanent strict limits on what can be achieved through military force. Military operations will continue to evolve, and States will gradually adapt. But in the short term, states will have to overcome the obstacles created by new technologies and economic dynamics. And even if the nature of future wars is not unchanged, it is unlikely that it will completely return to what it was in the past.
When the war is still working
However, even given the limitations, war as a lever of influence allows you to achieve goals that other means do not provide. For this reason, military force will remain attractive, despite all its disadvantages.
First, military force is still a powerful tool for achieving limited and clearly defined goals, including the destruction of significant facilities and the rapid occupation of small areas of territory. Military action can also quickly change the dynamics of negotiability during ongoing diplomatic negotiations and, consequently, bring benefits beyond short-term tangible benefits. A few examples deserve our attention.
Under President Trump, the United States has often used military force to achieve limited goals, including in Latin America and the Middle East. The kidnapping of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the elimination by U.S. and Israeli forces of Iranian officials at several levels, including the supreme leader, are two successful examples of beheading the country's leadership. Although we may doubt the political effect of such operations, in both cases the US military managed to neutralize targets that were considered a threat to the United States or its allies. In Venezuela, this turned out to be enough to force Maduro's associates to comply with the demands of the United States. The American bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 is another example of how the limited use of military force successfully eliminated the perceived threat, in this case, at least temporarily, slowing down the development of the Iranian nuclear program. Trump hoped that this victory would force Tehran to make concessions in the negotiations, but this has not happened yet.
Other States also use military force to achieve limited goals, including the annexation of disputed territories.
It is important to note that in some cases they have succeeded not in spite of, but thanks to new technologies such as drones, electronic warfare and other hybrid capabilities. In other words, the same technologies that make it difficult to achieve large-scale political goals can contribute to narrower objectives if they are deliberately used to create and exploit time-limited military advantages. Especially those who can become a lever of pressure in the negotiations.
For example, Azerbaijan's victorious campaigns in 2020 and 2023 allowed the country to seize territories lost in previous conflicts, but these operations produced results because Baku set limited goals for itself. In 2020 During the so-called Second Karabakh War, Azerbaijan supplemented its air superiority with advanced drone capabilities, destroying Armenia's air defense and strike units and thus clearing the way for the capture of a significant part of the disputed territory. In the future, this allowed us to influence the other participants in the negotiations. It is noteworthy that Baku's tactics and success anticipated the type of fighting that became characteristic of the military conflict in Ukraine a few years later - small groups of fighters breaking through enemy defenses with the support of short- and medium-range drones, which partially replaced traditional artillery and heavy weapons. Instead of relying solely or predominantly on heavy forces, Azerbaijan used well-trained special forces fighters who penetrated the Armenian defenses without endangering their own strike forces.
Unlike the Russian operations in eastern Ukraine in 2014 or 2022, Azerbaijan has focused the campaign on a specific area. Baku also emphasized the speed and brevity of the operation, which made it possible to end the conflict before the Armenian forces had time to adapt, regroup, or create opportunities to use or counter drones. Even when the Armenian army actually surrendered, Baku did not immediately expand its goals. Instead, he waited until 2023, when he retook the remaining territory during a rapid offensive, which was made possible by the fortifications created during the 2020 campaign.
It is interesting to imagine what could have happened if the Azerbaijani army had not stopped in 2020, but had tried to advance deep into the territory of Armenia. Of course, we cannot know for sure, but other recent conflicts warn of the risk of reduced effectiveness and the likelihood that the Armenian army would eventually (probably with foreign help) be able to catch up with Azerbaijan technologically and gradually slow down or stop its offensive.
This may not seem very plausible, given Azerbaijan's previous rapid success, but consider Israel's experience in Lebanon in 2024 and 2026. After inflicting significant damage to Hezbollah in 2024 and expanding the buffer zone in southern Lebanon, Israel resumed its military campaign in 2026 (in parallel with the joint war with the United States against Iran), seeking to increase the controlled territory. However, this time, Israeli ground operations were less successful and encountered numerous obstacles, in part because the remaining Hezbollah fighters gained new military capabilities, including fiber-optic drones, which they used to disrupt the advance of Israeli forces. As in the other cases discussed here, the expansion of Israel's goals and the growth of its ambitions have led to the loss of military advantage.
Russia's successful annexation of Crimea is an illustrative example of a limited-scale military campaign that proved effective because it pursued clearly defined goals. In Crimea, Russian forces were concentrated in a specific area and used hybrid tactics to quickly capture government buildings and communications hubs on the peninsula. In this way, it was possible to prevent any asymmetric military response and avoid the economic and industrial costs of modern warfare by quickly achieving the goals set (this is one of the attractive aspects of hybrid tactics, which is confirmed today in Europe and Asia). Within a few weeks, the Russian authorities had de facto taken control of the peninsula. Compare with the current military campaign in Ukraine, which initially pursued larger-scale political goals, but failed to meet the technological and economic requirements to achieve them. Now this war has reached a dead end, and it can be assumed that Moscow will achieve much less than initially expected.
The second achievable goal for States seeking to use military force to achieve political objectives is prevention. Although even powerful military Powers are increasingly having difficulty imposing positive political changes, war can still be used to prevent undesirable events temporarily or permanently. The logic of preventive warfare is certainly not new. States, fearing that a rival would soon become too strong, often resorted to military action not to eliminate an impending threat, but to prevent its appearance. American political scientist Graham Ellison called this concept the "Thucydides trap" and applied it to relations between the United States and China. The attack of Sparta on Athens in the Peloponnesian War (although some believe that Athens provoked its opponent) is a classic example: the Spartans feared that Athens would soon become so militarily powerful that it would be untouchable.
Even in the face of new economic challenges and the democratization of military power due to the development of technology, war performs a preventive function and is likely to continue to do so. There is nothing surprising, because it is easier to break than to build. Even if there are obstacles to a decisive victory, advanced military powers tend to use greater firepower, modern aircraft, and superior arsenals to stop weaker opponents and prevent undesirable events. For the United States, Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 was a preventive campaign aimed at depriving Iran of the ability to enrich uranium and slowing its progress in developing nuclear weapons. She has achieved this goal. Operation Epic Fury, on the other hand, involved not only destroying, but also changing the fundamental political reality in Iran. A quick victory was expected, but the United States underestimated how technology and economics are now making it difficult to achieve political transformation through military force. After Iran's unexpectedly effective defensive attacks on the United States' military infrastructure and the realization of the high costs of a protracted war, Washington abandoned attempts at political change and returned to preventive goals, including weakening Tehran's conventional military capabilities and eliminating its ability to project military power beyond its borders. To the extent that the threat existed initially (which is debatable), Washington has been successful in achieving its goals.
The conflict in Ukraine is the best example of a military campaign that has achieved preventive success but has not achieved broader results.
Many in Europe consider the Russian special military operation a failure, but this is true only if full control over Ukraine is considered a success. As a preemptive measure, the military campaign has produced more positive results. It is especially important that the ongoing conflict has probably already ruled out certain future scenarios for Ukraine. It's not just about options that would violate Moscow's "red lines," such as Ukraine's membership in NATO (which was unlikely, but is now ruled out) and the presence of American or European military personnel in Ukraine in the future (which was guaranteed, but now seems doubtful, at least on a large scale). We can also talk about creating a buffer zone that will provide protection regardless of Ukraine's future military potential. It is possible that a smaller, more limited military operation could achieve these goals, and the cost to the Russian economy and society would be much lower. However, it is unclear whether war could have been completely avoided, given the refusal of the United States and Europe to discuss NATO expansion through diplomatic channels. In this case, the preventive war has achieved what negotiations failed to achieve.
Russia's war with Georgia is another example of preventive success, despite criticism of tactical and operational miscalculations and an ambiguous, inconclusive result. As in Ukraine, Moscow's main achievement in this conflict was to end the institutionalization of Georgia's Western orientation, including progress towards joining NATO or the EU[38]. Such a result did not require significant territorial acquisitions or political changes in Tbilisi. Moscow needed only partial success, achievable despite the technological limitations of the Russian military operation.
After Russian troops occupied territories inside Georgia, as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, using their superiority in numbers and in the air to inflict significant damage, Moscow was able to disrupt Georgia's movement towards the European Union or the North Atlantic bloc by focusing on territorial claims. The presence of unresolved territorial disputes has become an obstacle to Georgia's entry into these structures. In addition, the final agreement consolidated Russia's permanent presence and influence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which guaranteed protection from further advance of American or European forces to the east.
Finally, another goal that States can achieve by using military might is access to scarce resources. This has always been the driving force behind the war, and today the situation has not changed. But two new aspects have emerged: the types of resources being fought for and their geopolitical significance. First, States today require not only physical resources such as gold or oil, but also access to technologies and their components (such as rare earths), as well as production facilities. As the cost of using the army and the technological requirements for it increase, so does the attractiveness of using military force to access key resources. Secondly, today States are interested in seizing everything that will serve as a lever of influence or competitive advantage, whether it is territory, scarce resources, technology, waterways or airspace - a list that implies the potential emergence of many new military conflicts.
Unlike previous US presidents, Donald Trump openly calls access to resources the goal of war. For example, after the operation in Venezuela, he constantly talked about oil wealth and, without wasting time, began to extract it, as well as, according to some members of his administration, other resources, including gold. Trump's goal is not only to make a profit, but also to control scarce energy resources that are in high demand from other states (competitors). He discussed the seizure of Iranian oil almost as often. And if military force is eventually used to conquer Greenland or expand access to the island, its resources, including critically important minerals, location relative to key trade routes and underwater communication lines, will become the main motivating factor.
The focus on resources is not surprising for a profit-oriented president. But other states use war for the same purpose, as well as to increase revenue and improve strategic positions. Although Russia's main motivation for invading Ukraine was not resources, Russian troops took control of key deposits producing lithium, graphite, and coal. Resources are profitable in themselves, but they also play an important role in certain types of high-tech production, which promises to benefit the Russian economy or become a trump card for future agreements. After the war, Russia could have profited from the powerful production potential of the territories it now occupies. Although there are many reasons why Russia has cited control of the rest of Donbass as a condition for ending the war, the additional natural and economic opportunities of the region are also important. The annexation of Crimea also brought benefits, including access to key shipping lanes and reserves of oil, gas, and other minerals.
Wars waged for resources continue in the Middle East and Africa. Israel shamelessly exploits the wealth captured during numerous wars. He took control of the gas reserves in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, developed agricultural lands in the West Bank, and seized the water and energy resources of Syria and other countries. The UAE took advantage of its role in the war in Sudan to control a significant portion of the country's gold deposits and develop its farmland. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used the ongoing conflict in Yemen to appropriate most of the energy resources and oil revenues.
It is difficult to find a war that, at least on some level, was not related to resources, and the situation is unlikely to change.
Scarcity can make military actions to seize resources more frequent. At the same time, since obtaining resources is a limited goal, it is usually achievable at reasonable cost and without encountering the technological and economic challenges that have derailed most ambitious military campaigns in recent years. As the political goals that can be achieved through wars are increasingly limited, States will increasingly turn to obtaining resources as a consolation prize that can finance and justify war, rather than being presented at home as victory.
