WE ENTER 2024 with a lot of geopolitical hotspots, and the question is how these hotspots will turn out.
Will they fizzle out or will they turn into shooting wars?
Presently, it’s hard to say, with many moving parts to consider. For now, though, the war in Ukraine can teach us a few lessons.
One such lesson is that ammunition supplies matter, given how fast both sides have used their supplies.
Second, mass blitz attacks don’t work so well anymore because mass armor formations are more easily identified and countered. If you can’t mass, you can’t carry out mass attacks.
Third, tech does matter, but it’s uses may be more difficult to quantify than originally thought.
These are important lessons because before the war, a lot of people assumed that conventional wars will now be fast, vicious and high tech. How’d that turn out?
I’m not a military expert, and I’m only repeating what I’ve heard other analysts say, but I do know one thing: The war between Russia and Ukraine is not a lightning war. It’s an industrial grind. Will other wars – if they do happen – look the same?
I don’t know. There are threats of wars in other areas of the world. We can only wait and see. The question is how far players are willing to escalate.
If it’s limited to conventional warfare, and assuming the defenders get the supplies and support they need, I see most land wars looking like the one in Ukraine and Gaza, as hard grinds that last for months if not years.
If the war is a sea war or if the players escalate, all bets are off, not only because it will change the weapons used but more importantly, because it will disrupt international logistics.
Destroy international logistics and the situation becomes more complicated for everybody, and there’s the danger that it will drag other players with it. See the current situation in the Red Sea and the Houthis.
In this situation, I don’t see World War 3 happening necessarily, but it will be ugly as more and more players participate in the conflict./PN
