Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theorist, described war as “the realm of uncertainty.”
So, is Russia militarily invincible?
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev´s emphatic statement earlier this week that Russia can’t be defeated on the battlefield had analysts, observers and history buffs musing about whether the proposition is actually true, and what if any politics were behind the widely reported remark.
Tokayev made the point in a conversation with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as part of a general argument for peace more than two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Western-backed Ukraine. The official English-language translation of Tokayev’s comment didn’t include “invincible,” but basically said the same thing: “It is a fact that Russia cannot be defeated militarily.”
For some people, the remark was a blunt assessment of a grinding conflict that, according to a report this week in The Wall Street Journal, has killed and injured about one million Russians and Ukrainians. For others, it amounted to a kind of pro-Russian defeatism, even though Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries have angled for neutrality, not endorsing the invasion but maintaining traditional ties with Moscow.
Roland Kater, an analyst and former commander in the Germany military, said he agreed – with caveats – with Tokayev’s assessment that Russia was militarily invincible.
“With regard to the war in Ukraine, I would say yes at the moment, under the given conditions,” Kater said on Germany’s Welt news channel. He noted that NATO, which supports Ukraine won’t enter the war “as an institution.”
“The result is that Ukraine cannot actually win this war at the moment and that the Russians there are, I don’t want to say unbeatable, but they are in the lead,” Kater said.
Russia earned a reputation for resilience in past wars, after initial setbacks on its own territory and at great cost.
It prevailed over Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 after the Swedish king’s invasion of Russia; prevailed over Napoleon during the disastrous 1812 invasion in which the French emperor seized Moscow but was forced to retreat as disease, harsh weather and other problems took a toll; and prevailed over Adolf Hitler when the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 eventually faltered with massive casualties on both sides.
Still, the Washington-based Central Asia Consulting group, a critic of Russia, said there was no basis for Tokayev’s comment about Russia’s military invincibility and made some unflattering historical references.
“Russia has faced defeats in the past wars (Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, WWI, Winter War, Afghanistan, First Chechen War, Tajikistan War),” the group said on X.
In his remarks, Tokayev also said “further escalation of the war will lead to irreversible consequences” for humanity, in what appeared to be a message for the West since he was in the company of Scholz when he said it. Scholz agreed that peace was the best option but that Russia could end the war anytime by stopping its aggression.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, is expected to present what he calls a “victory plan” to U.S. President Joe Biden during meetings in New York next week, when the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly meet. Zelenskyy has said the plan intends to create conditions for a peace acceptable to Ukraine.
While the term “invincible” is sometimes associated with superheroes and fantasy, it has a long history of use in Russian and other military contexts. Visiting Chechnya last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said army volunteers had made Russia invincible. Comparing the Soviet fight against the Nazis to Russia’s military today, he told students last year, “We were absolutely invincible. And we are the same now.”
Often, the term appears as part of a cautionary tale, as in the “myth of invincibility” of powerful armies humbled by a smaller foe.
The Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu had a nuanced view.
“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself,” he said in The Art of War. “Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.”
