The Short War Fallacy
A Two-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri – July 2025
“It is when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you look for ways to solve problems without using violence” – attributed to Confucius.
Despite being designated a dinosaur, i.e., someone who grew up in the days before mobile telephony and the Internet and therefore doesn’t know one’s pronouns, I am sometimes asked for an opinion. One such occasion was in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, when there was a clamour to ‘finish them off once and for all’, blah, blah, blah, when I was asked whether we did the right thing by agreeing to a ceasefire.
I sidestepped the question with a “How does it matter what I think?”
But I do have a view – that we were fortunate to extricate ourselves from a situation that we did not want (and were not prepared for) with our dignity (somewhat) intact.
Why?
The primary reason, in my opinion, is that the key assumption underlying the ‘finish them off’ school of thought – that such a war would be short, decisive, and victorious, and that our overwhelming military superiority combined with the speed, direction, and ruthlessness of our initial attack would quickly overwhelm them – is fundamentally flawed. This is because, one, it is known in military circles that audacious surprise attacks usually deliver far less than promised. Two, it is easier to start wars than to end them. Three, our western neighbour may be an economic basket case, but its armed forces are not – it has the same British Indian Army military traditions as ours without the constraints of civilian oversight; it has cheap, high-quality weapons with assured supply lines; and, unlike us, it has powerful all-weather allies. Four, what would victory mean anyway? The very thought of us administrating the frontier agency areas bordering Afghanistan has me not knowing whether to shudder or to laugh, these are, after all, places that the best administrators in history, the British, chose to leave alone.
The chances therefore are that, assuming nukes are not used (and a credible theory of victory in a nuclear war over an adversary who is able to retaliate in kind is yet to be formulated), continued hostilities would have resulted in yet another ‘forever war’.
The article “The Age of Forever Wars: Why Military Strategy No Longer Delivers Victory” by Lawrence D. Freedman in the Foreign Affairs issue of May/June 2025 throws some light upon this term. It says that there was a view in the late 19th century that surprise offensives could produce decisive victories, leading to – European leaders in the summer of 1914 assuring their respective publics that the coming war would be over by Christmas (it went on till 1918); the German blitzkrieg of the early 1940s overrunning western Europe in weeks and rapidly advancing into the USSR; and Japan attacking Pearl Harbour in December 1941 (we know what happened to both countries).
More recently, towards the turn of the century, the contrast between Operation Desert Storm (or the first Iraq war of 1991) and the US’s campaign in Vietnam and the USSR’s in Afghanistan resulted in a theory that an enemy could be defeated with speed, manoeuvrability, and real time intelligence, along with overwhelming force and smart weapons. This too proved short-lived, with the US’s counterinsurgency campaigns of the early decades of this century coming to be labelled as the ‘forever’ wars. In fact, the early successes of most wars since the end of the Cold War have faltered, lost momentum, and transformed into far more intractable conflicts.
Despite this, short wars (i.e., immediate success at a tolerable cost) retain an allure, resulting in – failure to appreciate the limits of military powers; setting of objectives that can be achieved, if at all, only through prolonged struggle; and an emphasis on immediate battlefield results that neglect broader elements necessary for success such as achieving conditions for a durable peace and effectively managing an occupied country where a hostile regime has been toppled – to the extent that, for a politician on the warpath, even admitting to the possibility of protracted conflict is seen as having doubts on one’s armed forces. And when a short war transforms into a ‘forever’ one, it imposes different demands on the military, the economy, and society (see below).
Short Wars
• Are fought with existing resources.
• Present only temporary disruptions to the economy and society.
• Do not require extensive supply lines.
Long Wars
• Require development of capabilities that can adjust to changing operational imperatives.
• Demand strategies for –
o Maintaining popular support
o Re-arming and replenishing troops
o Keeping the economy functional
Some examples of successful short wars –
• Israel v Arabs, the Six-Day War, 1967
• Indo-Pak War, 1971
• Falklands War, 1982
• Operation Desert Storm, 1991
Some examples of short wars that transformed into long wars –
• The US in Afghanistan – the longest military campaign in US history – unsuccessful.
• Russia v Ukraine, 2022 onwards – was meant to overrun Ukraine in days – still on.
Proposals to end a ‘forever’ war in which neither side can impose a victory on the other even if both or one are occasionally able to improve their positions usually take the form of a ceasefire. The problem with them is that the parties to the conflict usually regard them as mere pauses in the fighting, offering both sides the opportunity to recover and reconstitute for the next round – they have little effect on the underlying dispute. Yet, some last – the Korean War ceasefire of 1953 continues to hold despite the conflict remaining unresolved and both sides preparing for a future war.
To conclude, dear fellow Indians, please remember – wars start and end through political decisions. The ones to initiate armed conflict usually assume a short war. The ones that bring fighting to an end usually reflect the cost and consequences of a ‘forever’ war. Do not let politicians and their puppet media houses sell you the allure of a military’s ability to bring conflicts to quick and decisive conclusions – in practise, this is rarely the case. Cut their water supply, shame them in international forums, whatever, but, if you are not prepared for a ‘forever’ war, it is best not to go in for war at all.
