MODERN CONFLICTS: HISTORICAL ANALOGIES

Abstract

The special military operation was one of the first modern conflicts where forces comparable in size and technical equipment clashed: Ukraine, actively supported by NATO countries, ‒ on one side, and the Russian Federation ‒ on the other. This situation is strikingly different from the NATO invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the actions of Western armies in Libya and Syria, where superior equipment allowed the United States and its satellites to wage a war of maneuver with active breakthroughs, using tanks and aircraft. Wars involving Americans at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. They were, de facto, a continuation of the ideas of the German Blitzkrieg. The special military operation demonstrated a new type of warfare, in which the dominance of UAVs in the air limits the capabilities of mechanized units to the extreme, a phenomenon that bears much resemblance to the realities of World War I. Long-range artillery was replaced by strike drones, and the biplanes of the early 20th century were replaced by UAVs with comparable flight speeds. The primary force on the line of contact was once again the soldier, not the tank. The mass movement of troops by motor transport in the frontline zone once again became a complex task. In 1915, this was dictated by the underdevelopment of the automobile industry, and today by its vulnerability, but the effect we see is roughly the same. Most importantly, changes on the front line in a month, just as 110 years ago, are measured in kilometers. This phenomenon is the subject of this paper. In a number of areas, the Spanish Civil War will be compared (given that the special military operation is a conflict in the post-Soviet space that began with the coup d'état in Ukraine), as well as the wars of the Modern Era with their mercenary phenomenon