Aperture Book of the Month - July 2025

‘Blitzkrieg and the Russia Art of War’ by Andrew Monaghan, Manchester University Press, 1 July 2025

Russia held centre stage in UK’s recent Security Defence Review, and for many beyond the Defence community, Moscow’s government is viewed with distrust, given a perceived history of ‘invading’ others, and as a government that thinks it been hard done by.

But,the reality is, as always, much more complicated.

Monaghan is recognised as one of the foremost Western thinkers on Russian strategic thinking; he brings to the fore Moscow’s perspective, which is increasingly important given the potential catastrophic consequences of a misinterpretation of actions between States.

In this book, Monaghan offers a rich seam of information that traces the developments, twists and turns the Soviet and Russian elites’ approaches to War Science, Doctrine and Strategy, as shaped by the country’s history, its perception of others, and the changing nature of warfare.

“The global struggle for dominance is underway, and the United States and its Allies are seeking to impose a strategic defeat on Russia”

He takes us through an exhausting journey of internal debates about Soviet and Russian war science, doctrine, and Strategy with the waxing and waning of the relevance of War theorists such as Clausewitz, Svechin, Moltke and Liddell Hart, but set it the context of a perception of an ever-present threat from the ‘West’, which, in Moscow’s eyes, has to be managed. Another enduring conviction amongst the military and political leaders over time (Gorbachev aside) is that any conflict is much more than the fight between military forces – just as important is tackling the economic, political and social hinterland of a potential adversary ahead of, and during, any combat.

He suggests that throughout the period, Soviet and Russian war theory has remained sophisticated but putting this into practice (Afghanistan (’79); Chechnya (’94), Georgia (’08)) has been beset with systemic issues. A hollowed out, officer corps (mentally and physically), very poorly treated personnel, unrealistic political objectives and poor Command and logistics.

“For Moscow ‘war’ is a sociopolitical phenomenon … use of armed forces is a policy tool.”

But, as we entered the most recent decade or so, Monaghan suggests Alexander Svechin comes out top, in terms of strategic approaches; mass, speed, surprise, longevity still matter – Svechin’s theories of ‘lightening’ response (to achieve a quick victory through rapid, overwhelming strike) and/or progressive ‘attrition’ (to grind down the adversary over time) remain core to current Russian thinking. Clausewitz’ ‘war as an extension of politics by another means’ is also germane, but with a slight twist to ‘armed forces are a tool to achieve political objectives alongside other means’ along the Sociopolitical spectrum ahead of any combat. This, of course, also points to sub-threshold activity, which, in reality, is nothing new to Moscow.

As Monaghan points out, we saw much of this in Ukraine, but, as is so often the case, the Russians struggled to convert its sophisticated war science, doctrine and strategy into implementation. Monoghan puts this down to the perpetuation of age-old systemic issues; but, as he suggests, experience from Ukraine is bringing about change, as a new generation of military officers and civil servants emerge, with developments in ‘mission command’ and cross government coordination.

“We need to adopt a more sophisticated assessment of the changes underway in the [Russian] armed forces.”

He suggests, therefore, we would do well to take a harder look at Russia, dig deeper to understand their rationale, doctrine and capability – to better understand how to shape their approach towards the ‘West’, thereby preventing a potential decent into conflict – both above and below the ‘threshold’. At his recent book launch in London, Monaghan went further to add that dialogue is critical here; he said we may disagree with all that Russia says and does, but not discussing these differences risks widening them to breaking point.

From an Aperture Strategy perspective – this book highlights that even with sophisticated strategy theory, broadly centred around a Systems approach, the gearing that translates strategic objectives to tactical activity is critical, alongside an approach which avoids predicted outcomes. It’s ironic that this is also central to Svechin’s teachings, but yet Russian, and arguably, Western, military approaches to Campaign Planning fail at this, instead pursuing a linear translation with an expectation of success without understanding the full array of actants at play.