Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 16

to insurgencies and revolutions. The Russian operations
that led to the annexation of the Crimea prove their
applicability in state-on-state conflict.
The Crimean campaign was above all an effort in
strategic communication followed up by a minimal
but decisive military operation.24 The ousting of the
Ukrainian President Yanukovych on 22 February 2014
sparked violent mass demonstrations in the Crimean
capital Sebastopol. The Russian media capitalized on
popular unrest and depicted the new government in
Kiev as a fascist regime. Promises of economic development and social benefits supplemented propaganda
promoting adhesion to the Russian Federation. One
week later, the Russian parliament discussed a bill granting Russian citizenship to “Russian-speaking citizens of
the former USSR [Union of Soviet Socialist Republic],
irrespective of their nationality, faced with the real threat
of discrimination based on ethnic and cultural, political
or professional affiliation.”25 By offering passports to the
Crimean people, the Kremlin not only gave them the
opportunity to express their affiliation to Moscow in the
clearest of ways but also it created a Russian minority
on Ukrainian soil—a minority the Kremlin could claim
to have the right and duty to protect. Increasing numbers of “little green men”—believed, but not proven, to
be Russian soldiers who had removed all insignia from
their uniforms and light-armored vehicles—appeared in
Sebastopol’s streets. They mingled with civilian protesters and armed “self-defense” militias surrounding key
infrastructures and Ukrainian military bases.
These militias were not of great military value but
provided the Kremlin with the deniability it needed to
claim that the little green men were not Russian troops.
Unable to enter or leave their barracks, Ukrainian units

surrendered one after the other. In less than one month
and almost without firing a shot, an estimated ten thousand Russian soldiers forced sixteen thousand Ukrainian
troops to leave the Crimea, abandoning 189 military
bases, all weapons, and the entire Ukrainian fleet. The
annexation of the Crimea proves how initiatives to
mobilize the protest potential of the urban population
can greatly enhance the ability of land forces to create
favorable and lasting outcomes to armed conflicts.

Conclusion
As a result of urbanization, belligerents now have the
option to tap into an unassailable source of power: the
protest potential of the population. In the ever more
numerous megacities of the twenty-first century, this
potential allows urban-based belligerents to raise force
requirements for population control measures to prohibitive levels. The defeat mechanism in this type of warfare is
not decisive battle, but conflictual coexistence. It is
applicable in revolutions and insurgencies as well as to
state-on-state conflict. As urbanization continues, its
occurrence will only increase. To cope with this evolution,
land forces need to adjust their understanding of initiative.
Because popular support—as a source of power—is not
exposed to destruction or capture, the only way to deny it
to the enemy is to acquire it for oneself. Therefore,
initiatives in land operations have to focus on the comfort,
hope, and anger of the megaurban population. This calls
for capability development in the fields of understanding,
inform and influence activities, humanitarian assistance,
and the provision of urban essential services. In an
urbanized world, gaining popular support is not a mechanism to consolidate the outcome of decisive military
operations but a prerequisite to start them.

Lt. Col. Erik A. Claessen, Belgian Army, is the commanding officer of the Belgian Defense Distribution
and Transit Center for Material Resources. Between July 2010 and October 2014 he served in the Strategy
Department of the Belgian Joint Staff as the officer in charge of the land capabilities desk. He earned an
MMAS from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Notes
1. Albert Sidney Britt, The Wars of Napoleon (Garden City Park,
NY: Square One Publishers, 2003), 117.
14

2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard
and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75.
November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW