When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, all major parties got it wrong. Ukraine considered a full-scale invasion unlikely and was preparing for an escalation in the eastern Donbas region. Russia had greatly overestimated its capabilities and was poorly prepared for what it expected to be an easy win. The United States and Britain had the intelligence necessary to predict the invasion but did not convey it convincingly to Ukraine’s leaders.
And when the US attacked Iran in February 2026, it was unprepared for Iran’s response, which included localised retaliation against US allies in the Gulf area and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Instead of the quick win that it expected, the US has mired itself in a lengthy conflict, triggered a global energy crisis and severely limited its negotiating options.
With the massive data and advanced analytical technologies currently available to decision-makers, how were these colossal strategic failures possible?
In Statecraft, Jack Watling provides a step-by-step analysis of how the global rules of power have changed. Watling is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and has published widely on modern warfare, including a book on the weaponry of the future and articles in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and The Guardian. He works closely with the British, Ukrainian and US militaries and advises governments on security and strategy.
Citing examples from recent conflict zones including Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, Watling dissects key aspects of modern strategy. Weapons systems and arms technology have changed dramatically, and so have practical questions such as timing, setting priorities and managing chokepoints. The conflict in Ukraine in particular has fuelled a surge in the development of weapons technology, raising a host of new strategic and tactical concerns.
In fast-paced modern warfare, timing is not linear and decision-makers need to base actions around inflection points. The opposition in Syria and the Taliban in Afghanistan both succeeded against overwhelming odds because they waited for the other side to weaken and carefully selected the appropriate time to act.
And when the Syrian government in 2013 used chemical weapons against the opposition, which had been highlighted by US president Barack Obama as a red line that would lead the US to retaliate, the US wasted time mustering up support from its allies. This allowed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to come back with a counter-proposal, ultimately deflating the US threat of retaliation.
Watling also takes a close look at questions of scale and provides examples of Russia’s failure to make full use of its superior numbers. Disabling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was a key Russian objective and, due to Ukraine’s harsh winters, would have forced residents to abandon strategically located cities. However, instead of focusing on this objective, Russia’s use of missiles was haphazard and dispersed and never achieved the scale needed to completely destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Statecraft includes an important chapter on prioritisation, the need to distinguish between the genuinely important and the urgent but less important. In 2014, the collapse of Iraqi forces defending the city of Mosul drew international attention away from what was happening in Ukraine, although from a Western perspective the latter was by far the bigger security issue. And this year, US aggression towards Iran has sucked the oxygen from support for Ukraine.
Perceptions are often key, and understanding an adversary’s perspective in a multicultural setting is seldom easy. Politics frequently override technical issues. Ukraine pushed long and hard to be provided with F-16 fighters, mainly because they would have signalled to Russia that it had strong US support. However, F-16s are technically complex and logistically demanding, and their flight and maintenance crews require lengthy training. From a purely technical point of view, Watling points out, lower-maintenance fighters would have been a more practical choice.
Watling also provides a valuable discussion on new technologies. The blending of commercial and military uses poses a host of legal and strategic challenges. Watling cites the example of satellites simultaneously underpinning financial transactions, internet stability and emergency services to one country while transmitting military information to another.
Drones and AI have upended the nature of field combat, rendering many established technologies vulnerable or obsolete and shifting weapons development and manufacturing from factories to basement workshops in bombed-out buildings. In one example, a lone Ukrainian hacker developed a tracking system based on sound detection from a network of microphones placed strategically on infrastructure. On his laptop, he was able to identify and track objects on the ground and in the air anywhere in the country.
Despite rapid advances in technology, however, Watling reminds us that strategic decisions – and mistakes – are still the prerogative of human beings.
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