The Russian Art of War, How the West led Ukraine to Defeat by Jacques Baud 

Published by Max Milo, 2024

John Clayden


This book is both a useful synopsis of Russia’s Ukrainian SMO (Special Military Operation) as well as a more general description of the shortcomings of western military thinking compared to present day Russian Military thinking. It is also has an analysis which could be applied more generally .

There is a valuable introduction to the book with Jacques Baud on the Duran at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzKxXR5pvA

Or Google the Duran Jacques  Baud.

Present day Russian military  doctrine, Baud points out, is  based on the philosophy of their Soviet predecessors except in their day  it was seen in the  wider context of a world wide life and death class struggle against capitalism, that is until Khrushchev introduced the concept of Peaceful Coexistence  in response to his perception of the threat presented by  nuclear weapons.

The Russian Military Philosophy today, says Baud, is exclusively preoccupied with the defense of the Russian people and  the Russian state. Baud explains this in the early part of the book and goes on to illustrate this by examining subsequent events.
Russian military thinking breaks down into three categories within a framework of the ideas of Clausewitz and others – namely that war is the continuation of politics by other means. It attempts to adopt a holistic approach combining  Strategy, Combined Operations and Tactics and it emphasizes different aspects at different times to achieve its desired end.

The strategy of the SMO was stated by Putin at the beginning as the demilitarisation  and denazification of Ukraine.

Combined operations includes not only relationships within the military and with the government but also takes into account an assessment of the situation which exists worldwide.

Combined operations includes free exchange of ideas between all officer ranks to facilitate coordination. A tradition going back to the battle of Stalingrad perhaps before.

It should be noted that Russia’s military education draws a lot on the events of the Great Patriotic War.
Russia has inherited a nationalised military industrial capability from the Soviets which can keep factories and their skilled workers and engineers in reserve until they are called upon. This is in contrast with the West whose industry is subservient to the neoliberal profit motive and “just in time. ” And would require government intervention, heaven forbid, to reactivate it to Russian levels.


The Minsk agreements demonstrated that Russia’s ambitions were not territorial as they were content for the Donbass to remain in Ukraine so long as the wellbeing of its Russian population was assured and the genocidal attacks would never happen again.
After the events of 2014 in Kiev, 20,000 of the 22,000 Ukrainian troops in the Crimea defected to Russia and removed their insignia. The little green men.
The Russian SMO was intended to bring about a negotiated settlement. The attack towards Kiev was a distraction to pin down the enemy and was never adequate to conquer the capital; the main thrust was to counter an imminent attack on the Donbass Russians.  We know a negotiated settlement nearly happened and, as Baud points out, around that time polls indicated 50% of the population was opposed to war with Russia.

NATO, to remain a coherent force, has the need to have an enemy , as has been pointed out for many years in this journal, and a policy of cooperation would jeopardize it.

Current western propaganda that Russia is an imminent threat and wants to invade Europe is refuted (see pp 160-3) by the fact that the West has felt able to deplete its stocks of weapons by giving them to Ukraine and in the words of one MP the British army could only fight for five days.
The aim in Ukraine was to fatally weaken Russia on the cheap at the expense of Ukrainian blood.  I recommend Baud’s ‘The Russian Art of War.’