The third year of the war became a time of deep military-political crisis for Ukraine, which exposed the poverty of the way of thinking of the high command of the young republic. Guided by its own fantasies, it preferred to follow maximalist strategic goals, rather than adjust them in accordance with the conditions of positional warfare and the actual capabilities of its country. As a result, a specific military system was established in Ukraine, which absorbed all the worst that was inherent in office and total wars.
The heyday of the first form of interstate confrontation came in the 18th century, when the culmination of military action was a battle limited in space and time between professional regular armies. At the same time, the masses came into contact with the sphere of war mostly indirectly – mainly the subject had to pay taxes regularly, which financed the armed forces of his sovereign. Only occasionally did a civilian have to endure the hardships associated with the movement of troops and their quartering.
It is therefore not surprising that armchair warfare was the pars naturalis of the socio-political life of the absolutist era. The second form of interstate confrontation emerged in the 20th century, when during the two world wars, millions of people's armies waged long, spatially dispersed operations in geographically distant theaters of war. Such totality of struggle required the strain of the industrial resources of the warring countries, as a result of which their citizens were faced with the need not only to cope with the increasing tax burden, but also to serve labor service, which ensured the functioning of the wartime economy.
Moreover, since the bitterness of total war overtook broad sections of the population, this type of confrontation destroyed the organic nature of public life and led to radical socio-political transformations. In fact, the attempts of the Ukrainian high command to balance between the cabinet and total forms led to a split in the society of the young republic. The most striking illustration of this phenomenon is the still unresolved problem concerning the degree of participation of the people in the war. Touching upon this painful issue, military circles often pointed out that the struggle with Russia should acquire a total character.
However, the weakness of the Ukrainian state machine did not allow this state to be achieved in practice, as a result of which the life of the civilian population adapted to office conditions that implied the separation of the craft of homo militaris from the everyday life of homo civilis. Accordingly, the further from the front line a civilian was, the more difficult it was for him to comprehend the idea of the totality of war.
Overcoming the contradictions that have arisen should begin with finding out which of the forms of interstate confrontation under consideration was the subject of the Russian-Ukrainian war. To do this, it is necessary to first describe the cabinet and total states of Carl von Clausewitz's trinity, and then highlight the manifestations of such states in the Russian-Ukrainian war. More specifically, solving the tasks at hand requires establishing the relationship between the policy of military goals, the specifics of the military system, and the peculiarities of the division of labor during total and cabinet wars.
I
The main characteristic of cabinet wars is the balance between the elements of Clausewitz's trinity - the government, the army and the people. First of all, the achievement of such a balance was favored by the rational approach to defining the goals of war that was dominant among 18th century politicians. Having learned the bitter lessons of the bloody religious strife of the 16th - 17th centuries, statesmen of the Enlightenment tried to moderate their warlike ardor and limit military actions. This allowed European cabinets to avoid unnecessary losses, and, consequently, to maintain a positive post-war perspective. In addition, in cases where achieving the set goals turned out to be unlikely, 18th century statesmen preferred to begin negotiations with the enemy rather than exhaust their states in a futile war. Accordingly, status belli and status pacis organically complemented each other, which ensured the support of the balance of power on the European continent.
The Silesian Wars of the 1740s are indicative of this. As is well known, the death of Emperor Charles VI in October 1740 marked the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession. One of the main participants in this conflict was Frederick II, the young Prussian king who laid claim to the lands of Silesia. In 1741-1742, he inflicted a number of defeats on the Austrian army, which forced Archduchess Maria Theresa to sign the Treaty of Breslau, according to the provisions of which she recognized the transfer of Lower and Upper Silesia under Prussian control. For the Archduchess, however, this was only a temporary concession necessary to continue the struggle for the throne of the Holy Roman Empire.
Thanks to the elimination of the Prussian threat, the Austrians managed to clear Bohemia of Franco-Bavarian troops by the end of 1742, and already in 1743 to conquer Bavaria and achieve success in Italy; in addition, the Viennese cabinet significantly strengthened its foreign policy positions by concluding the Worms Union with Great Britain and the Kingdom of Sardinia. At the same time, Frederick was preparing for a new clash with Maria Theresa: he used the state of peace to reorganize his army, strengthen the fortresses of Silesia, and also to form the Frankfurt League, created with the aim of supporting the Archduchess's competitor, Emperor Charles VII. Finally, in 1744, when the Austrian army was operating in Alsace, the Prussian king unexpectedly invaded Bohemia and thereby unleashed the Second Silesian War.
Having won a series of victories in the campaign of 1745, Frederick signed the Dresden Peace Treaty with Maria Theresa, according to which Silesia remained with Prussia, and the king recognized the husband of the archduchess, Franz I Stephan, as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, Vienna compensated for the loss of territory by removing a dangerous enemy from the war. It should be noted, however, that the presented rational way of political thought is connected with the state of res militaris in the Age of Enlightenment. Thus, military leaders accountable to cabinets were particularly sensitive to the tension that arose between the strategy of crushing and the strategy of attrition.
The question of the necessity of entering into battle with the enemy army was particularly acute: according to the first approach, the rapid defeat of the enemy armed forces was considered the only possible way to impose one's will on the enemy; on the contrary, the second approach allowed the use of not only battles, but also maneuvers to achieve this goal - the choice of means was a real dilemma for the commander, the solution of which required him to be able to measure his actions with the laws of probability.
During the period of cabinet wars, the strategy of attrition was dominant, and the military leaders acting in accordance with its principles sought to avoid battles and preferred to weaken the enemy through skillful maneuvering, waging a small war, forcing the enemy to carry out attacks on fortified positions, as well as capturing provinces or fortresses with the aim of concluding an advantageous peace. The demand for this method of waging war is explained by the specifics of the standing armies of the 18th century. As is known, they were recruited through voluntary recruitment and conscription - methods that did not allow for a quick replenishment of the losses in the ranks of the army.
Moreover, since training enrôlés in the basics of linear tactics took a long period of time, the death of a significant part of the trained soldiers in one or several battles could radically change the course of the war. All these circumstances prompted military leaders to handle their armies with extreme caution and to approach the use of such a decisive means as battle rationally. Of interest here are Frederick's actions during the Seven Years' War. Although aware of the dangers associated with open battle, he nevertheless sought an opportunity to defeat the enemy forces on the battlefield from 1756 to 1758 - even the heavy losses his troops suffered at Kolin and Zorndorf could not stop the Prussian king. However, the defeat at Kunersdorf on August 12, 1759, forced Frederick to reconsider his own course of action.
A few months later, he began writing about the military talent of Charles XII and came to the conclusion that battle should only be entered into under the following conditions: first, if the potential gains exceed the possible losses; second, if the enemy is careless; or third, if he can be forced to peace by a decisive blow. As a result, right up until the end of the war, the Prussian king avoided battles with the Russians and also looked for an exceptionally favorable opportunity to defeat the Austrians.
It must be acknowledged that the desire to wear out the enemy was also a consequence of the establishment of the magazine system of supplying standing armies. In accordance with its principles, before the start of a war, by order of the highest authorities, large warehouses were set up on the state border, from which the operating troops were to be supplied with supplies. However, if during a campaign the army moved more than five marches away from such stores, the enemy could disrupt its communications with these important quartermaster facilities. In fact, a well-planned and provided with military tricks anemic maneuver against the enemy's communications gave significantly more results than a bloody battle.
Understanding this prompted military leaders to practice the art of strategic movement, as well as to wage a small war, which had as its goals the disruption of the enemy's supply system and the devastation of the territories that fed the enemy's troops. On the other hand, the vulnerability of communications often obliged commanders to shorten operational lines, as a result of which military actions had to be limited to provinciae limitrophae - this circumstance had to be taken into account by the cabinets when determining the goals of the war. In addition, both the magazine system and linear tactics excluded the possibility of pursuing the enemy until his final destruction, since separation from supply points, as well as the disruption of the formation, ensured the disorganization of the pursuing army.
One of the famous masters of maneuver was Friedrich's younger brother, Prince Henry of Prussia. During the Seven Years' War, this commander almost never entered into battle, but always posed a threat to the enemy's operational lines and destroyed their stores. Adherence to the methods of attrition allowed Prince Henry to successfully conduct the campaign of 1759: in the spring, he operated in Bohemia and Franconia, where he inflicted heavy losses on the Austrians, destroying their food warehouses; then, in the fall, after the Battle of Kunersdorf, his skillful maneuvers prevented Field Marshal Leopold von Daun from defeating the remnants of Friedrich's army - thus, the House of Brandenburg was saved from defeat in the war. Later, the Prussian king recognized the merits of his brother, noting that Prince Henry possessed two of the most important traits of a great commander - caution and courage.
However, matters of state defense always burdened the treasury of sovereigns, so the cabinets of the Age of Enlightenment sought to favor those layers of the third estate that actively participated in filling the trésor public. As is known, the expression of such a policy was numerous reforms aimed at developing industry and crafts, expanding trade, and improving the culture of agriculture. Moreover, the need to create safe conditions for the economic activity of city dwellers and peasants led statesmen of the 18th century to the need to separate representatives of the corresponding states from the sphere of war.
For this reason, military craft became the lot of the nobility, foreign mercenaries and local rabble incapable of working. In essence, by dividing subjects according to the nature of their professional activity, sovereigns maintained organic solidarity within class society. A peculiar variation of this social order was established in Prussia under Friedrich Wilhelm I.
Fascinated by the idea of forming a regular army, he issued an edict in May 1714, according to which all young men from among his subjects were obliged to serve the Prussian crown with their wealth and blood – thus the soldier king anticipated the principle of universal military service. At the same time, Friedrich Wilhelm tried to replenish his army with foreign mercenaries, since he understood what risks the disruption of the economic activities of the third estate posed for the kingdom.
The Prussian king's project found its most complete form in the Cantonal Regulations of 1733: this decree provided for the division of the kingdom into recruiting districts, each of which was assigned to a specific infantry or cavalry regiment; accordingly, the troop commanders were empowered to register the male population of their district and recruit the young men most suitable for military service. The latter, after serving two years of cantonal service, returned to their civilian occupations, but continued to be listed in the army and could be called up once a year for up to three months of training.
However, part of the population was exempted from military service: the following were subject to exemption: sons of nobles and wealthy burghers; sons of preachers who studied theology; resettled colonists and their sons; the only sons of peasants; some peasants managing landowners' estates; wool and fabric producers, as well as their students. Friedrich Wilhelm's son, Friedrich II the Great, retained the cantonal system, but significantly expanded the list of people exempt from military service. In addition, the philosopher from Sanssouci exempted the western provinces of Prussia from the regulations, as well as large cities in the east of the country - Berlin, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Breslau, Magdeburg and Stettin. Accordingly, the king sought to replenish the Prussian army with mercenaries or prisoners of war, while he tried to limit the recruitment of cantonists in every possible way, especially at the initial stage of his reign, for economic reasons.
In general, Friedrich was a supporter of the class division of labor, considering the state of affairs in which a nobleman neglected military service, a city dweller disdained crafts and trade, and a peasant avoided agricultural labor to be extremely undesirable. Thus, in the era of cabinet wars, the elements of Clausewitz's trinity mutually limited each other. This was expressed in the fact that governments were obliged to find a balance between the foreign policy interests of the state, its financial resources and the production capabilities of class society.
Moreover, the military system of the 18th century required cabinets to formulate moderate proposita belli, and commanders to exercise extreme caution in conducting campaigns, the constant companion of which was the game of probabilities and chance. As a result, the goal-rational type of action prevailed among statesmen, ensuring the equilibrium of Clausewitz's trinity: under this order, war, along with diplomacy, was an instrument of politics, the use of which took place outside the ideological framework and passions of the broad masses of the people, but required a constant measurement of goals and available means; equally, the specificity of the military system of the 18th century excluded the possibility of the complete destruction of the enemy, so armed confrontation never developed to forms that threatened the existence of states and nations. In the cabinet era, war was a chess game, which Mars watched with interest.
II
As the antithesis of armchair warfare, total war upsets the balance between the elements of Clausewitz's trinity: politics here becomes an instrument of war, while the government and the people become the executors of the will of the supreme command. The movement toward such a negative state was initiated by impulsive militarists who wanted to direct the forces of their ideologically subordinate nation to achieve world domination. The implementation of such a maximalist grand strategic plan a priori entailed a large-scale people's war, the parties to which, defending their vital interests, sought to bring each other to complete defeat.
And when, during the war itself, a natural crisis of expansionist military goals arose, dictators sought to continue the futile struggle, condemning their states to complete exhaustion. Wilhelm II, known for his political immaturity and instability, followed this line. From the first years of his rule, the Kaiser was completely seized by the idea of Weltpolitik, the implementation of which, in his opinion, would allow the German people to find their rightful place in the sun. Such a thirst for world recognition was closely interconnected with the cultural, demographic, and economic upsurge that German society experienced at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Accordingly, the gap between these achievements and the geopolitical position of the Second Reich favored the spread of expansionist aspirations among German society.
The transition to an active foreign policy was declared by the Kaiser in the July days of 1892. Thus, in one of his private conversations, he expressed the desire to achieve Napoleonic supremacy in Europe by peaceful means. The first steps towards achieving this goal were taken in 1897, when the Kaiser announced the transfer of Poseidon's trident into the German fist: following this statement, the implementation of a large-scale naval program began, which gave concrete content to German ambitions for world domination, plunging, however, the Second Reich into rivalry with the British Empire.
A year later, during a speech in Damascus, Wilhelm declared himself the protector of 300 million Muslims, challenging not only Britain but also Russia, countries with large Islamic populations. Moreover, the German project to build the Baghdad railway and Germany’s active participation in the reorganization of the Turkish army also contributed to the cooling of Berlin’s relations with London and St. Petersburg. Further marginalia of Wilhelm followed, exacerbating relations with France – the Tangier escapade of 1905-1906 and the Agadir escapade of 1911. In addition, the Kaiser threateningly spoke of an inevitable fight with the Russo-Gauls for the very existence of the German race.
Against this background, the German elites developed the Mitteleuropa and Mittelafrika projects – the concepts presented formed the basis of the famous “September Program” of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, which defined the military goals of the German Empire until the end of the First World War. According to the provisions of the document, Berlin was to achieve economic dominance by creating a Central European economic union; it was also planned to expand the colonial empire in Central Africa and achieve territorial acquisitions at the expense of Russia.
It should be added that before the war, the German elites actively promoted this kind of pan-German ideas, as well as all sorts of projects aimed at strengthening their country militarily. It is enough to recall that after the Agadir crisis, the progressive part of German society, seized by the spirit of militarism, began to demand a tightening of the Reich's military policy. As a result, in 1912 and 1913, there were two major increases in the size of the standing army of Germany. It is not surprising, therefore, that the society of the Second Reich, thirsting for world recognition, met the beginning of the war in a state of military psychosis, later called the "euphoria of 1914".
However, as the course of military events showed, each year of positional confrontation exhausted the strength of the German people and the entire Quadruple Alliance, and consequently cast doubt on Germany's claims to world domination. Meanwhile, German military-political circles, observing the withering of their country, continued to be skeptical about the idea of concluding peace, believing that the only acceptable position was one in which a decisive continuation of the war was considered the only possible condition for achieving moral superiority over the enemy, forcing him to open negotiations.
The events of the first half of 1917 were indicative in this regard, when Wilhelm stopped the peace initiatives of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary Charles I and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Count Otokar Czernin. The head of Viennese diplomacy showed due insight in assessing the prospects of war: in his opinion, for the monarchies of the Central Powers, concluding peace at a time when the decline of their military power had not yet become obvious was much preferable to continuing the war with the subsequent development of revolutionary upheavals.
It is important to note that the Entente politicians were prepared to consider reasonable peace proposals. However, the Kaiser and the German High Command decisively rejected Czernin's arguments and the Allied initiatives, seeing in billigen Frieden a real threat to the interests of their country. The consequences of such intransigence are well known: the following year of the war brought the Central Powers defeat at the front, revolutions and the establishment of the Entente dictate. It must be added that Adolf Hitler led Germany down the same path. Even at the early stages of his political career, he began to develop the concept of winning Lebensraum , thereby continuing the line of Wilhelmine militarism.
In Hitler's opinion, only through military expansion could resource-poor Germany move to autarky and gain complete independence. The main target of such aggression was the Soviet Union, since control over the raw material base of Ukraine and the European part of Russia made it possible to achieve such a state. In fact, it was a model in which Europe captured by the Nazis would turn into a self-sufficient metropolis, fed by the resources of peripheral territories. Hitler began implementing his grand strategic plans by winning the hearts and minds of the Germans.
Against the backdrop of the economic crisis of 1929, the propaganda of National Socialist ideas found broad support among various strata of the population. Thus, the impoverished petty bourgeoisie, with its rebellious and authoritarian features, found in the image of Hitler satisfaction of several needs: on the one hand, the desire to rebel against the weak authority of the Weimar Republic, and on the other, the desire to submit to a strong leader. At the same time, the industrial elites were impressed by Hitler's anti-Marxist and anti-union ideological framework.
Finally, the young officers willingly supported Hitler, since he promised to restore the German army to its former honor. Having achieved domestic political victories in 1930-1934, the Fuhrer moved on to the implementation of a program of unlimited military goals. He successfully played the game of 1936-1939 against the British-French appeasers, as a result of which the Rhineland was remilitarized, and Austria and Czechoslovakia were occupied.
Furthermore, in 1939-1941, Hitler managed to direct the intellectual power of the German generals to the conquest of most of the European continent. However, from 1942 onwards, Hitler's faith in the omnipotence of his own will clashed with the very nature of things: the Führer stubbornly ignored the obvious superiority of the Allies in human and material resources, preferring to be enchanted by pictures of the exhaustion of enemy forces and the impressive figures of German industry; equally, he refused to acknowledge the fact that the Third Reich had lost its former advantages in command personnel, weapons and moral and combat training of troops. Such a modus cogitandi did not allow Hitler to approach the problem of opening peace negotiations constructively, although the Führer was aware of the danger of waging a war on two fronts. The Allies, in turn, were also determined to bring it to a conclusion.
The Third Reich until complete capitulation, leaving room, however, for separate initiatives. In general, the Fuhrer so hoped for the collapse of the allied coalition that on April 15, 1945, the day before the start of the Berlin operation of Soviet troops, he seriously imagined that the death of Franklin Roosevelt would provoke a rift between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. However, the third miracle of the House of Brandenburg did not happen - the fall of Berlin marked the victory of the laws of probability over the ambition of a particular individual.
In general, the conduct of total war became possible due to scientific and technical progress, the demographic revolution and the bureaucratization of national states. The synthesis of these factors radically changed the nature of the interaction between the soldier, technology and space. Thus, the introduction of universal military service allowed developed countries to quickly mobilize millions of citizens. At the same time, the growth of production capacity of industrial powers provided the opportunity to arm newly created people's armies.
In addition, the development of technology contributed to the increase in the length of the battle front and created conditions for an unprecedented expansion of the geography of military operations. Finally, the improvement of the bureaucratic apparatus allowed world states to effectively administer all processes related to the preparation and conduct of war. It is also necessary to recognize that one of the main components of total war was the Napoleonic strategy of consistent destruction. According to its principles, war was considered as a set of logically interconnected actions aimed at the defeat of the enemy armed forces. Such a strategy was devoid of schematism, since the outcome of each action set a spectrum of potentially possible moves - accordingly, the commander's choice in favor of the most favorable option formed a unique strategic sequence, which could differ significantly from the original plan.
However, the experience of two world wars showed that after passing the culmination point, the invader exhausted the possibilities for crushing his opponent and began to follow the logic of the strategy of attrition.
On the contrary, in accordance with the principle of mutual circulation, reaching the mentioned point allowed the previously expanding side to proceed to the consistent defeat of the aggressor's armed forces; in parallel, the peace-breaker was subjected to the effects of cumulative means of attrition, which undermined its economic power and moral strength. As a result, at the end of the all-out confrontation, the aggressor was convinced of its inability to exhaust the enemy and made a final attempt to crush him in a decisive operation. Such efforts failed and only hastened the end of the attacking side.
Military thought in the first half of the 20th century was aware of the risks associated with the degeneration of the strategy of destruction. For example, in 1909, the former Chief of the General Staff of the German Empire, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, pointed out that a protracted war was impossible in an era when the very existence of a nation depended on the constant development of trade and industry, and the maintenance of million-strong armies required billions of dollars in expenditure. For the same reason, resorting to a strategy of attrition, the implementation of which took an unacceptably long period of time, was also unthinkable.
In an effort to avoid such a debilitating war on two fronts, Schlieffen developed his famous plan for the rapid destruction of France, the successful implementation of which would then allow concentration on the defeat of Russia. However, the new Chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, significantly changed his predecessor's plan, which had fatal consequences for the Germans in August-September 1914. Following the collapse of the plan to destroy France and the establishment of a positional system first on the Western and then on the Eastern Front, the military efforts of the opposing sides began to be subordinated to the logic of the strategy of attrition: the Entente lente sed certe exhausted the Central Bloc through a naval blockade, while Germany took symmetrical, albeit adventurous actions, starting an unrestricted submarine war.
As a result, in the first half of 1917, the population of the Second Reich and Austria-Hungary was gripped by hunger, and German strategists were faced with a new powerful enemy - the United States of America. At the same time, neither Russia's withdrawal from the war nor the exploitation of the resources of the occupied territories of Romania and Ukraine allowed Germany to change the balance of power in its favor. Realizing the futility of further attritional struggle, the brain of the German army - Quartermaster General Erich von Ludendorff - launched a decisive spring offensive on the Western Front in 1918. To do this, he had to withdraw troops from the Macedonian Front, where the Allies were thus able to break through the front with concentrated actions.
This is what happened on September 15, 1918 at Dobro Pole – the success of the Allies at this decisive point convinced the German High Command of the need to open peace negotiations. The bitter lessons of defeat made the military circles of Nazi Germany consider the prospects of a new war of attrition with even greater concern. For example, during the May crisis of 1938, the Chief of the German General Staff, General Ludwig Beck, made a number of conclusions concerning the nature of a possible confrontation in Europe. In his opinion, with the support of the United States, the Franco-British coalition could refuse to conduct land operations against Germany, limiting itself to naval and air actions.
The military and political leadership of the Third Reich was aware of such risks, and therefore, starting in September 1939, it sought to develop a strategy of consistent destruction through the use of lightning-fast offensive actions, in which the strength of the first blow determined the outcome of the entire campaign. This ensured the impressive success of the Polish, French, Norwegian and Balkan campaigns. However, in 1940-1941, Germany's air blitzkrieg against Britain failed, so the military and political leadership of the Third Reich was forced to rely on submarine warfare, which exhausted the metropolis. Furthermore, during the Russian campaign of 1941, the Germans also failed to repeat their previous successes - the space factor excluded the possibility of a quick defeat of the Soviet armed forces in a general battle.
Thus, on the Eastern Front, the Germans were forced to resort to attrition against a numerically superior enemy. On the other hand, after passing the culmination point at the end of 1942, the Allies' military efforts began to be subordinated to the logic of a strategy of consistent destruction. In particular, taking advantage of the dispersion of German forces across the European continent, the Anglo-American command chose a decisive point, guaranteed success there by means of deceptions, and then struck with superior forces; the Soviet command acted somewhat differently, relying more on the method of alternating strikes, known from the Entente operations of 1918. In parallel, the Anglo-Americans launched an air war aimed at the gradual destruction of German industry and the moral suppression of the population of the Third Reich.
At the end of 1944, the success of the coalition's actions forced Hitler to undertake the Ardennes offensive, which was supposed to ensure a decisive victory for Germany on the Western Front. The failure of this adventure by the Fuhrer finally undermined the Third Reich's ability to resist further. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that the total conflict was characterized by the broad involvement of the civilian population in the process of ensuring armed confrontation. Since the scale of such a war required the utmost exertion of the state's forces, its military-political circles tried to strengthen the connection of a specific individual with a militarized collective subordinated to expansionist goals by using propaganda and creating an apparatus of suppression.
Accordingly, the civilian acted as an executor of the will of the supreme command, and his value was determined not by individual professional activity, but by the ability to support the functioning of the military economy. Thus, there was a return to the mechanical social solidarity so typical of primitive societies, where the individual merged with the collective and was related to the leader in the same way as a thing is related to its owner. In the conditions of the first half of the 20th century, it was a question of the transition to a garrison state, the ultimate expression of which was the SS-Staat.
Attempts to establish this type of social relations were undertaken by the German command in the second half of 1916, when Ludendorff stopped the Verdun meat grinder and began implementing the "Hindenburg program." Its main goal was the total militarization of all German industry, which was to compensate for the military-economic potential of the Entente. Achieving such parity required effective management of Germany's labor resources, so German military circles initiated the adoption of a law on auxiliary service. The draft of this document, among other things, provided for the concentration of the country's entire labor force in the defense sector of the economy, the use of women and disabled military personnel, and the closure of educational institutions with the subsequent transfer of their students to factory production.
The version of the law adopted by the Reichstag did indeed stipulate that all men between the ages of 17 and 60 who were not called up for military service were obliged to perform labor service in those sectors of the economy that provided for the needs of national defense. However, the remaining provisions of the law significantly limited the authorities' ability to violate the economic independence of citizens. Thus, to the dissatisfaction of the high command, the system of "absolutist militarism" was not fully implemented, just as the goals of the "Hindenburg program" were not achieved.
The Nazi German leadership acted more successfully. In January 1943, against the backdrop of the Stalingrad catastrophe, Hitler issued a decree on the full employment of men and women for the tasks of defending the Reich. By analogy with 1916, it was planned to transfer the workforce from sectors of the economy less important for waging war to the military industry and the army; civilian enterprises were subject to inspection and closure if their existence did not meet the needs of defense. All men between the ages of 16 and 60 and women between the ages of 17 and 50 had to register with labor exchanges, whose employees were to assess the contribution that a particular citizen could make to the war economy. Such measures had only a short-term effect, and by the end of 1943 it became clear that the full mobilization of the German economy had not been achieved.
This problem remained unresolved until the end of the war, as a result of which the Germans fell seriously behind the Allies in terms of labor productivity. Nevertheless, the total mobilization of the Reich population did eliminate the dividing line between the front and the rear: women and children, drawn into civil and air defense, became defenders of Germany on an equal basis with soldiers.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that in a total war, the elements of Clausewitz's trinity were out of balance, since the army and the people were under the dictate of narrow military-political circles, which sought to direct all possible resources of their country to achieving Ideologem-Kriegsziel. The latter acted as a stable irrational grand-strategic idea of elites or specific leaders of nations, according to which they developed large-scale military expansion, without taking into account, however, possible consequences - thus, the value-rational type of action was put at the basis of the strategic planning process.
It was precisely the blind subordination of military efforts to the ideological goal that violated the laws of probability: the rapid overexpansion of the états-infracteurs inevitably brought them into conflict with the superior forces of the enemy coalition; the development of this confrontation to absolute proportions – a war of nations – ensured first the systemic overstrain of the aggressor, and then its disintegration. Such was the punishment of Mars, whose large battalions overtook ambitious gamblers.
III
During the Russian-Ukrainian war, the state of Clausewitz's trinity is characterized by a moderate imbalance. Until recently, the governments of the two conflicting states followed a policy of maximalist military goals, which gave the confrontation quasi-total features; on the contrary, the establishment of a positional system of war and the preservation of a division of labor typical of peacetime gave the current war a truly armchair character. Thus, a paradoxical situation arose in which the governments, on the one hand, refused to limit their military goals, and on the other, consciously did not try to move to a socio-economic regime that would allow them to achieve these goals.
As a result, the two states found themselves embroiled in a protracted war with a dubious strategic outlook. Initially, the Moscow cabinet adhered to the presented line. Thus, declaring war on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained his country's expansionist efforts by a crisis in the international relations system, during which Russia's vital interests were being violated. More specifically, the issue was the eastern expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance and its intentions to "master" Ukraine - thus, the grand strategic problem of Russia's prestige as a former imperial state that historically claimed dominance in Eastern Europe was touched upon.
This reminiscence of Wilhelm's Prestigepolitik, based on the value-rational type of action, set the Russian military machine in motion. The campaign against Kyiv deserves special attention here: having as its goal the overthrow of the Ukrainian authorities and the establishment of a pro-Russian government, this operation of the Russian troops, however, was to become only a continuation of the cabinet policy of the 18th century, which the Russian Empire conducted in relation to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Striving to strengthen its influence in this country, St. Petersburg elevated its proteges to the Polish throne, supported the pernicious liberties of the gentry and suppressed any attempts at systemic reforms.
In this regard, it is enough to recall that the elections of Augustus III and Stanislaw II Poniatowski took place under armed mediation by Russia; in addition, in 1792, St. Petersburg, wishing to destroy the achievements of the Four-Year Sejm, unleashed a war with Poland, and this conflict ended with yet another division of its territories. Nevertheless, in contrast to the events of the late 18th century, three years ago Russia unexpectedly encountered a much more organized enemy, whose determination quickly transformed armed intervention into a full-fledged war.
The first month of this confrontation provided the Russian side with a series of defeats, which forced it to reduce its military goals. Thus, already on March 29, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that his country's main efforts would be aimed at capturing the Donbass region. Then, in May 2023, when the results of the first year of the war showed that this goal was also unattainable, the Russian side put forward the now relevant principle of Ukraine's recognition of new territorial realities - adherence to this propositio prima was declared a mandatory condition for opening peace negotiations; in addition, the Kremlin's irreconcilable position regarding the North Atlantic line of the Kyiv cabinet has remained up to now.
As can be seen, Russia's military goals policy was gradually brought into line with the situation on the battlefield and thus acquired a goal-rational character; on the other hand, the successes of the Russian army in 2023-2024 allowed Moscow to preserve the value-rational rudiments of prestige policy. Ukraine followed a somewhat different path. Against the backdrop of victories achieved in the first month of the war, its political leadership began to act in a value-rational manner. Thus, in May 2022, during a speech at the Davos World Economic Forum, the head of the office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak said that aid to his country was supposed to resolve the contradictions between Werte- and Realpolitik. In particular, support for the fighting republic could send a signal to potential aggressors that their expansionist actions would not go unpunished.
Thus, the grand strategic imperative of preserving the existing world order was closely linked to Ukraine’s victory. At the same time, the conditions of this victory required the achievement of pax iusta, based on the restoration of the republic’s territorial integrity and the implementation of three-part security guarantees to prevent a repeat of Russian aggression. These provisions later became the basis of the “Ukrainian Peace Formula”: this document was first presented to the G20 leaders in November 2022 and until recently formally defined Ukraine’s goals in the war – even despite the fact that by the fall of 2023 the country had finally lost the strategic initiative on the battlefield.
Thus, the Kyiv cabinet's value policy has become a positive pole of world politics: if at the beginning of the 20th century it was about negative expansionist aspirations, now it is about peacekeeping efforts aimed at maintaining the world order that has become a thing of the past and achieving a just peace. The failure of such a policy of military goals was finally revealed by the beginning of 2025, when Ukraine's Western allies began to lean towards the Russian principle. In particular, French President Emmanuel Macron called on the Ukrainian government to conduct discussions réalistes regarding territorial issues; on the other hand, the entourage of US President Donald Trump actively discussed the possibility of Russia retaining the captured territories.
Such tendencies mark a return to the cabinet order of the 18th century, in which the conquest of the provinces of other states was considered the norm of political life. The relationship between the policy of military goals and the state of the military system of the Russian-Ukrainian war is interesting in this sense. Thus, Moscow's grand strategic desire to restore its prestige by quickly resolving the Ukrainian question determined the nature of its initial military efforts: the lightning-fast occupation of the enemy's capital was supposed to paralyze his will to further resistance and, thus, create the preconditions for the subjugation of the greater part of Ukraine.
This broad project of destruction, however, failed, which for a time introduced an element of uncertainty into Russian strategy. On the other hand, Russia's expansionist actions set the framework for Ukraine's grand strategic plan, based on the principle of completely eliminating the threat from an aggressive neighbor. In accordance with this goal, the Ukrainian high command implemented a combined strategy: the consistent destruction of the Russian armed forces was achieved through their preliminary cumulative exhaustion. In a similar way, the success of the Kyiv, Kharkov and Kherson operations was ensured, and in the second case, measures to disinformation the enemy played a special role - they guaranteed a strike with concentrated forces at a decisive point. However, the crisis of this strategy occurred in the summer of 2023, when the Ukrainian offensive in Northern Tavria was broken by prepared Russian defenses; likewise, the landing operations of Ukraine on the left bank of the Dnieper carried out in the fall did not achieve their goals.
Indeed, the Ukrainian high command was faced with a positional system of warfare, the establishment of which began in the first months of the confrontation. It was this system that determined the course of action of the commanders of the cabinet era: when attacking, they sought out a suitable opportunity to seize an enemy province, and then firmly established themselves within its borders and used the controlled area as a base for active operations against the enemy forces; on the contrary, when defending, the commanders tried to prevent the enemy from penetrating into the territory of their country - for this purpose, the most important tactical points were occupied and strengthened in the theater of war, the sum of which constituted a defensive line, better known as a cordon.
Even during the Seven Years' War, Friedrich and Heinrich successfully combined the two approaches presented; however, already in the Bavarian War, the Austrian Field Marshal Franz von Lassie, following the cautious style of Daun, developed the cordon system to the extreme, which made it possible to disrupt the maneuver combinations of the Prussians. This Kordonkrieg of the second half of the 18th century was the predecessor of the Stellungskrieg of the 20th - 21st centuries: during three positional wars - the Russo-Japanese, the First World War and the Russian-Ukrainian - there was a degeneration of the crushing strategic maneuver to a limited positional operation, gravitating towards a fortress battle. It should be added that such operations were characterized by strategic ineffectiveness, since the ability to strengthen their own positions to the maximum with material, technical and human resources allowed the opposing parties to create a strong defense system capable of stopping the maneuver at the initial stage of its development.
Under such conditions, the strategy of crushing gave way to the strategy of attrition. In fact, Ukraine's defensive efforts in the first half of 2022 ensured the establishment of a positional system: by mid-April, the stabilized front line - from Kharkov to Nikolaev - was a cordon consisting of large operational-strategic centers of resistance and associated tactical-level strongholds. This defense system managed to contain the Russians' Izyum maneuver, as a result of which they were forced to reconsider their own course of action.
Thus, the objects of Russian offensive operations changed – they became elements of the Ukrainian cordon, mainly points of the Donbass fortified region.
All this gave the armed confrontation the character of a bloody and protracted fortress war, which is the most important part of the attrition strategy. The ensuing battles gradually exhausted the professional army of Russia, which allowed Ukraine to conduct a counteroffensive near Kharkov - an operation that confirmed the importance of using fortified points to ensure the maneuvers of field armies. However, in the first half of May 2022, the Russians began to form their cordon in the captured territories of the South of Ukraine. As a result, three months later, the Kherson offensive undertaken by the Ukrainian command acquired the features of a typical positional operation. It is significant that its final success was achieved thanks to the blockade of the Russian defensive system - it was the disruption of communications that forced Moscow to decide to evacuate its troops from the right bank of the Dnieper.
Nevertheless, by creating a powerful fortress zone in Northern Taurida, the Russians managed to contain the Ukrainian summer offensive of 2023. At that time, the Ukrainian high command also faced the characteristic degeneration of maneuver and the need to revise the objects of its military efforts. In fact, the Kiev cabinet found itself in a dilemma: maintaining the previous war goals required fundamental transformations capable of meeting the needs of the main operational forms of the positional system; on the contrary, recognizing the impossibility of implementing these transformations implied a fundamental change in the policy of military goals.
The choice in favor of the first option meant a transition to such resource-intensive types of operations as a limited-purpose battle and bataille conduite. The hypertrophied engineering component of the two presented operational forms obliged the Ukrainian high command to rapidly increase the material and technical base of its army, expand mobilization and change approaches to troop training - in other words, to move to a system of total war. On the other hand, the choice in favor of the second option required strengthening the existing defense system in the East and a public renunciation of the restoration of territorial integrity by military means.
This much more realistic program ensured the suppression of Russia's will to continue the war through a synthesis of force and compromise - thus, the Kiev cabinet could avoid systemic overstraining of the country, and also satisfy the interests of cautious allies.
However, as the subsequent course of events showed, the Kiev cabinet continued to follow the policy of maximalist military goals, without taking any steps to give it any real basis - on the contrary, mobilization and the transition to a wartime economy were clearly a failure. However, the cordon system does not exhaust the cabinet features of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Thus, the recruitment of armies of the conflicting states took place in ways typical of the 18th century. For example, Russia actively replenished its troops by recruiting adventurers and criminals.
It is significant that during the entire war the Moscow cabinet carried out only one private mobilization – by the way, this method was actively used during the period of the late cabinet wars of the second half of the 19th century. In general, the absence of a shortage of people allowed the Russian command to carry out bloody positional operations for a long time.
In this order, by analogy with the rules of 18th century tactics, soldiers were forced to move continuously towards the enemy's fortifications and gradually win the space of a certain fortress zone. Accordingly, new enfants perdus were sent to destructive assaults: initially these people were tempted with a large salary or pardon, and then, directly on the battlefield, they were forced to move towards the Ukrainian positions under the threat of blocking formations. In the era of cabinet wars, the function of the latter was performed by the wingmen: deployed on the flanks of their units, they set the pace and direction of movement, and also maintained discipline among the soldiers. As for Ukraine, the replenishment of its troops was also ensured by voluntary recruitment and "general mobilization".
In reality, the “universality” remained nominal: by the end of 2024, according to the admission of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, the overwhelming majority of conscription forms were sent to officially unemployed men and tax evaders – thus, the principle of replenishing the army with formally unemployed parts of the population, which was typical of the 18th century, triumphed. In addition, a well-known phenomenon accompanying the conscription in Ukraine was the enrôle de force, carried out by the military from the army recruitment centers. Like the Prussian recruiters of the early 18th century, they took men straight from the street to their institutions, where they forcibly enrolled them as recruits. Corruption also flourished in the Prussian manner: there are well-known cases of recruiters earning fabulous sums by creating mechanisms for those liable for military service to evade mobilization.
It is significant that such phenomena had a negative impact on the internal situation of both Prussia and Ukraine: the economic life of both states was disrupted, as the workforce began to flee recruitment to other countries; in addition, forced recruitment caused public discontent and often led to bloodshed. The epidemic of desertion that engulfed the Ukrainian army is also noteworthy. This phenomenon, uncharacteristic of the two world wars, was, however, widespread in the era of cabinet wars.
The reason for this was the life of soldiers in the standing armies of the 18th century: for example, by Friedrich's own admission, his men received more beatings than pieces of bread in one day of service. It is therefore not surprising that during the entire Seven Years' War, up to 80,000 people deserted from the Prussian army. The French also faced this problem and, according to progressive circles, the root of the evil here was the military system, which could not provide either a sufficient level of motivation or competent military leadership for soldiers - a conclusion that is also relevant for the Ukrainian army. Moreover, when the Ukrainian government adopted a law on the voluntary return of deserters, it followed the same path as the authorities of old Prussia: the latter, faced with a systematic shortage of soldiers, were forced to declare General-Pardons, which guaranteed fugitives a pardon and a bonus in the event of a voluntary return to the regiment.
Finally, the division of labor during the Russian-Ukrainian war also gravitated toward cabinet forms. This is mainly due to the fact that neither Ukraine nor Russia witnessed a full-fledged transition to a garrison state. The Moscow cabinet limited itself to strengthening state regulation of the economy, while the Kiev cabinet remained critically dependent on the supply of allied aid. Moreover, in both states there was a return to the state of the 18th century, in which a peaceful citizen had to fulfill his professional duties and pay taxes regularly, without asking questions about the military policy of their sovereigns - such was the true essence of the principle of "fight or work" put forward by the Ukrainian government.
IV
Thus, a comparative historical analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian war allows us to classify it as a cabinet war. This order of things was not violated even by total rudiments, the presence of which, however, influenced the behavior of politicians of the clashing states. We are talking primarily about the Kiev cabinet, whose actions introduced a moderate imbalance into the trinitarian system of the current conflict. This was due to the fact that after the failure of the Tauride offensive, the political leadership of Ukraine systematically ignored the nature of positional warfare and continued to persist in achieving an obviously unrealistic goal - a just peace. The latter became a despotic imperative, the implementation of which, in an absurd way, had to take place without taking into account both its own resources and the enemy's resources. Interestingly, while declaring such an ideological goal, the Kiev cabinet never took radical measures to achieve it.
This was the duplicity of the Kyiv cabinet’s military policy – outwardly decorous, it possessed a perverted nature, alien to the spirit of military science and the principles of the art of state administration. The immediate result of such goal-setting was the emergence of perpetuum mobile belli: the lack of progress in achieving the ideological goal was used by the Kyiv cabinet to continue the war and obtain military assistance from the allies; the state of prolonged war allowed the corrupt bureaucratic apparatus to profit from the war; the poorly replenished army held the eastern cordon and, with its sacrifices, guaranteed the stability of life in the rear; limited mobilization allowed the government to distance a significant part of the civilian population from the hardships of war and, thanks to this, prevent the risks associated with the totalization of the conflict; finally, the propaganda carried out by the corrupt fourth estate ensured the creation of an attractive picture of the enemy’s exhaustion for the population, and also marginalized any discussions about the need to revise the Ukrainian strategy.
The operation of this mechanism deprived the war of its national character - the desolidarization of the Ukrainian people split the army and the people. In essence, the Friedrichian principle, which contradicts the people's war, was affirmed, according to which a peaceful citizen should not notice how the nation fights. It is not surprising that tens of thousands of people deserted from the Ukrainian army: like the Prussian soldier Ulrich Breker, they asked themselves the question "was gehen mich eure Kriege an?" and, not finding any satisfactory answer to it, they fled from the soldiery.
Moreover, after the Tauride Offensive, Ukraine found itself in the same position as the German Empire after the Verdun Offensive was stopped: the military efforts of the Kyiv cabinet no longer corresponded to either the strategy of attrition or the strategy of crushing, but represented a set of temporary and incoherent decisions. This was a classic example of stratégie de casse-cou, in which, instead of submitting to the laws of probability, the Ukrainian high command gave free rein to its imagination and passion. Here, the features of Hitler's style of military leadership are easily discernible - faith in the omnipotence of his own will, lack of a sense of proportion, as well as a refusal to soberly assess the situation; the desire to hold onto territory at any cost; a craving for numerical superiority, expressed in the creation of new formations by replenishing existing ones; a passion for new types of weapons and a belief in their ability to change the course of the war; finally, a refusal to make expedient but unpopular decisions that could undermine the prestige of power.
A well-known example of such a strategy was the landing in Krynki in October 2023. Even despite a number of publications devoted to the problems of establishing a positional war, the Kiev cabinet decided to conduct a landing operation, which naturally repeated the sad experience of Gallipoli in 1915. Another thing is also indicative: a few weeks after the landing, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, published his own article about the recurrence of guerre de tranchées, which was perceived by the political leadership of the republic as an open violation of the service hierarchy. In fact, the general made a public definition of the nature of the war and, emphasizing the inadmissibility of prolonging the confrontation, delicately raised the issue of revising the military goals. However, the Kiev cabinet could not overcome its thirst for victory, so it preferred to get rid of the general and continue the same game.
The result was the Kursk adventure of August 2024: a typical cabinet operation aimed at capturing enemy territory for subsequent exchange; however, by analogy with Hitler's plans of July 1943, the psychological effect of such limited actions was to demonstrate Ukraine's strength and raise the morale of its population. However, such a tactical decision did not change the course of the war, but only deepened the differences with cautious allies who were clearly looking for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. In fact, the ambitions of the Ukrainian high command were drawing Ukraine into a protracted war of attrition, during which systematic direct Russian actions not only exhausted the Ukrainian army, but also had an indirect destructive effect on the internal state of Ukraine.
And indeed, as the conflict developed, the Kyiv cabinet faced ever new challenges, which it was unable to respond to – mainly because of its intellectual poverty and lack of will to take a goal-oriented, rational type of action. As a result, the Kremlin’s strategy of cumulative exhaustion organically combined with the adventurist strategy of the Kyiv cabinet.
What is important is that the effect of such a synthesis was reinforced by the indirect actions of the corrupt Ukrainian bureaucracy, which undermined the combat capability of its country. All this was a gross violation of the principles of attrition of the enemy, adherence to which the Kiev cabinet diligently declared: the strategy of attrition requires a careful calculation of possible losses and damages in both the short and long term, but such a calculative approach was not destined to take hold in Ukraine. It is obvious that the new US Administration is destined to stop this positional war devoid of strategic meaning.
The Washington cabinet's approach is based on the pragmatism of 18th-century cabinet diplomacy and the decisiveness of Roosevelt's "big stick" in the early 20th century - accordingly, American efforts are aimed at restoring the equilibrium of the Trinitarian system. This is achieved by removing the vestiges of prestige politics that are carried out by the cabinets of the confronting states. More specifically, it requires that each side in the conflict recognize the strength of the other and submit to the order of that war.
The statesmen of the cabinet era, in particular Frederick, possessed a similar ability: having tasted victories and the bitterness of defeats, he understood perfectly well that the observance of raison d'etat requires the pacification of hidden instincts and submission to the laws of probability.
During the War of the Bavarian Succession, the Prussian king remained true to this principle: having assessed the foreign policy risks and the prospects of a positional confrontation, he initiated the opening of peace negotiations, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Teschen. The opposite example is provided by the immoderate militarists of the first half of the 20th century: when the situation began to develop against Germany during the First World War, Ludendorff did not find the moral strength to recognize the impending defeat and the need to conclude Verständigungsfrieden – thus the ambition of the Quartermaster General led the German people to the Versailles Diktat.
In this sense, it must be recognized that the nature of the political goal has a decisive influence on the conduct of the war and the post-war prospects. Accordingly, the formulation of the propositum belli obliges the statesman to follow a goal-rational course of action. This mainly concerns the ability to determine the essence of the war that has begun in order to clarify the boundaries of what is possible and necessary at a specific military-historical moment; the ability to measure campaign plans with the available means; and finally, the readiness to adjust goals and lead one's country out of a hopeless conflict.
All these are the most important competencies of a professional politician who suppresses the desire for prestige and concentrates the power of his mind on the composition of strategic combinations. The degree of elaboration of the latter determines the significance of the victories achieved and the defeats suffered. In general, the experience of the cabinet conflicts of the 18th – 19th centuries can become the key to understanding modern military policy. The results of two total wars of the 20th century led statesmen of the world powers to the realization of how dangerous a direct clash can be for the foundations of civilized life.
As a result, a tendency emerged to transfer military actions to the territories of peripheral states, which marked the birth of a new cabinet era. In fact, the periphery acted as the heir to those border provinces within which the armies of the 18th century operated; guerrilla warfare became the logical development of small wars; finally, armed interventions continued the line of limited European and colonial conflicts of the 18th – 19th centuries.
From this perspective, the Russian-Ukrainian standoff of the early 21st century has undergone a truly indicative evolution: first, the Kremlin waged trade wars against the young republic and worked to create a strong pro-Russian party there; when Russian influence faltered during the last revolution, Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula, moved on to a small war in the Donbass, and then carried out a limited intervention; finally, three years ago, the Kremlin’s open force against the hated Kyiv cabinet quickly transformed into a large-scale war, which, however, retained its limited character.
Now, however, a period of intense diplomatic play has begun, which is an integral part of the military process. In concluding the analogy between Ukraine and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one can only paraphrase the words of General Charles Dumouriez, who was once sent to help the Bar Confederation: only the diplomacy of the intercessor powers can initiate the process of liberating Ukrainians from the slavery of an ideological goal generated by the unworthy morals, venality and debauchery of all those who ruled the people of the young republic. Only education will save Ukraine from the Polish syndrome of the 18th century and help it cope with the challenges of the new cabinet era.
