The war in Ukraine does not cease to surprise us. Those who expected Ukrainian forces to crumble in the face of the Russian attack were surprised to see strong opposition, which has so far kept the Russians at bay and has prevented them from overrunning the capital Kyiv, the northeastern Kharkiv and the important port city of Odessa.
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The Ukrainian resistance is multidimensional on all fronts, be it by the Ukrainian army, armed civilians, President Volodymyr Zlansky – who has been courageously commanding his forces from the besieged capital – and by the country's air force that, against all expectations, has not been completely crushed by the Russians.
It is also interesting to see that Western countries, which at first made little attempt to hide the fact they were not about to lift a finger for Ukraine, have changed their tune.
Realizing not all is lost, Germany, France and Poland are sending Ukraine weapons, including essential anti-tank missiles, the US is sending anti-aircraft missiles, Russia's former allies in Europe are willing to slap it with serious sanctions, and the EU and US have blocked the Kremlin's access to the SWIFT global financial system.
It is difficult to predict how the Ukraine campaign will end but two insights that are relevant to Israel have already emerged.
First, many draw a populist but incorrect conclusion from the Ukrainian story, as if Ukraine's fate proves that "no one will help us," or "that we should trust only the IDF and God," as one popular pundit put it.
The fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin dared target Ukraine and not, for example, Poland or Lithuania, has to do with the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member and the latter are, meaning that if you a part of a massive alliance, chances of an attack against you diminish.
Allies help those who are strong enough to help themselves, thus, alliances are forged based on strength. In other words, we must first rely on our own abilities to build such strength, and then use it to acquire strong partners who can help us in time of need.
Case in point: it is only when the Ukrainians showed a determination to resist Russia themselves, that the West began to mobilize to help them. For the sake of comparison, the Afghan army, which didn't even try to resist the Taliban, did not receive any help.
Many, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, have rightly argued that the Ukraine crisis proves that the era of conventional wars between countries is not over and that we must be prepared for such conflicts. This means investing in "traditional" military components like armor, ground forces, logistics, and maneuverability.
I would also like to highlight a less obvious side of the war era returning to us: the harms of the deterrence discourse.
While Western countries were debating imposing sanctions on Russia, experts were found to oppose almost every one of them. One says blocking Russia from the SWIFT system is ineffective, another argues that revoking visas would hurt innocent Russians, and a third stresses that Russia has enough foreign currency reserves, so sanctions will not hurt its economy or prompt Putin to relent.
Anyone who listens to all these experts can only be led to believe that nothing should be done, because nothing could deter Putin.
In Israel, too, there are endless discussions about what measures could "deter" enemies like Hezbollah. Perhaps here, too, we need to stop discussing sophisticated deterrence theories and return to past conventions: we cannot know what is going through the enemy's mind or what will "deter" him, but we can harm him, his country and his economy as much as possible.
Those who deal the enemy military, political and economic blows until it collapses will win. Those who stop at any given moment to think about what will make their opponents change direction will be crippled and eventually, they will lose.
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