Resilience, Societal Security and the Intangible Aspects of War. Ukraine’s Lessons Learned

Abstract

Explaining the achievements on the ground during war times, in the full-scale, high-intensity and long-term war of aggression launched by Russia in Ukraine has led us to studying the conundrum formed by resilience, societal security and the intangibles of war. The layered resilience that NATO has embraced as concept is not enough. The difference between success and failure in the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has come from the intangibles of the war, difficult to put under nominal indicators, but more suitable to be evaluated under qualitative criteria. That has made the difference between the effectiveness of both parties in war, together with Ukraine’s societal resilience that includes both the basic indicators of societal security and an important part of the intangibles of war. We are very much aware, at the same time, that numbers do matter, and that weapons, manpower and will to fight have no alternative to grant support for any long- term war.