United Service Institution of India

Lieutenant General DP Pandey,   PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd)

The ongoing Russia–Ukraine War offers important lessons not only for military practitioners but also for students of statecraft. This paper argues that in prolonged wars, the ‘Means’ component of the classical Ends–Ways–Means framework assumes overriding importance. While political objectives and military methods remain essential, the preservation of national power must become a continuous consideration throughout a conflict. Leaderships are often confronted with difficult choices between pursuing uncertain military victory, accepting a politically painful compromise, or preserving sufficient national strength to enable future recovery and resurgence. The Ukraine conflict illustrates how early battlefield success, substantial external assistance and optimism can gradually give way to the harsher realities of attrition, manpower shortages, economic strain and declining international support. As wars lengthen, industrial capacity, demographic resilience and national endurance frequently become more decisive than battlefield achievements. The paper examines how the pursuit of maximalist objectives can risk exhausting the very foundations of national power that strategy is intended to protect. Using the ongoing Ukraine War as a contemporary case study, it argues that strategic success should ultimately be measured not merely by territorial outcomes or military gains, but by the condition of national power that remains after the conflict. The preservation of human capital, economic viability, social cohesion and state capacity is often the decisive determinant of long-term national survival and future strategic relevance.