【英文】海牙战略研究中心报告：战争如何结束：对俄乌战争的洞察（19页）

英文研究报告 2022年05月16日 07:54 管理员

Russian military equipment is both quantitatively and – at least on paper – qualitatively superior to that of Ukraine, which makes Ukraine a comparatively weaker actor in the confict.7 What are Ukraine’s chances in its fght against the Russian armed forces? Between 1800 and 1998, in over 70% of the wars involving a strong and a weak actor, the strong actor won. In the other nearly 30% of cases the weak actor won or the war ended in a stalemate. Interestingly, over time a trend has emerged where asymmetric wars are less likely to be won by the stronger actor and have mixed outcomes (see charts below).8 Recent asymmetric conficts, such as the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States and the frozen confict in Georgia, confrm this trend. The outcome to the Russia-Ukraine war is still uncertain, but Ukrainian persistent resistance to Russia’s ofensive campaign, bolstered by a group of more than 40 nations coordinating military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine,9 does increase Ukraine’s chances against the Russian armed forces, if not to defeat them than at least to create some sort of stalemate.

There are two necessary conditions for the termination of war. First, the culminating point (Kulminationspunkt), formulated by Carl Von Clausewitz, stipulates the necessary precondition for a war to be brought to an end.10 The point is reached when the attacking force in a military confict can no longer sustain its advance, due to supply problems, the need for rest, or the opposing force. Whereas the goal of the attacker is to complete its objectives before this point is reached, the task of the defender is to lead the attacker to its culminating point before its objectives are achieved. Second, ripeness, set forth by I. William Zartman, lays out the conditions necessary for the initiation of negotiations between belligerents.11 Two elements constitute a ‘ripe’ moment in a war, namely a mutually hurting stalemate (MHS) and a way out. A MHS occurs when the belligerents fnd themselves locked in a stalemate where absolute victory becomes unattainable, and the stalemate is painful to both parties. This, in turn, leads to both sides seeking a way out. No specifc solution has to be identifed, only an understanding that both parties share a sense and willingness to search for a negotiated solution.