Russia's invasion of Ukraine and historical trends on the use of force

Reflecting on major changes in the use of force in international relations, Holsti (2016) records the common understanding that inter-state wars have become less frequent in recent decades.

“Aggression, a secretly planned, unprovoked war of choice, usually with a staged ‘incident’ or some ‘intolerable’ condition as a pretext, remains a relatively rare event in international life.”

He also highlights how, in stark contrast to previous centuries, territorial conquest resulting from the use of force has effectively become obsolete and almost unseen after 1945.

Russia’s large scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 seems to contradict both of these long-term trends. There is, however, good reason to believe that regime change in Kyiv, rather that long-term inter-state war and territorial conquest was the main objectives of Vladimir Putin when he decided to use force.

If we accept this view, then it appears that Putin did not plan to engage in inter-state war, but rather, to use force to unilaterally depose a regime, which would have been fully in line with contemporary trends. Indeed, Holsti observes

“two remarkable shifts from historical trends: the significant decline in the incidence of conquest/aggression and classic inter-state wars, offset by the increase in the great powers’ propensity to use force unilaterally to prop up or depose regimes in the post-colonial world.”

Some territorial conquest was surely part of the plan, but still, there is scope for considering that “the plan” was supposed to reflect more the latter rather than the former trend observed by Holsti in this quote.