A civil-military relations crisis in the U.S. is actually the latest in a recent series of similar crises affecting the world’s major powers, including Russia and China. That raises the question: Is this simply a random series of unconnected events that all just happen to center around defense ministers? Or is there a deeper cause?
Kyiv’s reaction to a recent report showing that an errant Ukrainian missile was likely responsible for a deadly strike on a Ukrainian town highlighted its defensiveness in response to human rights critiques of its war effort. While this is unsurprising and even understandable, it is not actually needed and may hurt more than it helps.
Many observers have turned a critical eye to pre-invasion predictions about Russia’s war on Ukraine, given how wrong they turned out to be. But the reason they were wrong is inherent to the nature of warfare itself. Our ability to accurately predict the course of a war is compromised by the inherent uncertainty of war.
