Russia in the wars of the 20th century. Major local wars and armed conflicts of the second half of the 20th century Wars of the 19th and 20th centuries

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20th century

1. War with the Japanese Empire of 1904-1905.

2. First World War 1914-1918.

Defeat, change in the political system, the beginning of the civil war, territorial losses, about 2 million 200 thousand people died or went missing. The population loss was approximately 5 million people. Russia's material losses amounted to approximately 100 billion US dollars in 1918 prices.

3. Civil war 1918-1922.

The establishment of the Soviet system, the return of part of the lost territories, the Red Army died and went missing, according to approximate data from 240 to 500 thousand people, in the White Army at least 175 thousand people died and went missing, total losses with the civilian population for the years of the civil war amounted to about 2.5 million people. The population loss was approximately 4 million people. Material losses are estimated at approximately 25-30 billion US dollars in 1920 prices.

4. Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921.

According to Russian researchers, about 100 thousand people died or went missing.

5. Military conflict between the USSR and the Japanese Empire in the Far East and participation in the Japanese-Mongolian War of 1938-1939.

About 15 thousand people died or went missing.

6. Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940.

Territorial acquisitions, about 85 thousand people died or went missing.

7. In 1923-1941, the USSR participated in the Chinese Civil War and in the war between China and the Japanese Empire. And in 1936-1939 in the Spanish Civil War.

About 500 people died or went missing.

8. Occupation by the USSR of the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in 1939 under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty (Pact) with Nazi Germany on non-aggression and division of Eastern Europe of August 23, 1939.

The irretrievable losses of the Red Army in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus amounted to about 1,500 people. There are no data on losses in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Territorial gains in East Prussia (Kaliningrad region) and the Far East as a result of the war with the Japanese Empire (part of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands), total irretrievable losses in the army and among the civilian population from 20 million to 26 million people. Material losses of the USSR amounted, according to various estimates, from 2 to 3 trillion US dollars in 1945 prices.

10. Civil war in China 1946-1945.

About 1,000 people from among military and civilian specialists, officers, sergeants and privates died from wounds and illnesses.

11. Korean Civil War 1950-1953.

About 300 military personnel, mostly officer-pilots, were killed or died from wounds and illnesses.

12. During the participation of the USSR in the Vietnam War of 1962-1974, in military conflicts of the second half of the 20th century in Africa and the countries of Central and South America, in the Arab-Israeli wars from 1967 to 1974, in the suppression of the 1956 uprising in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia, as well as in border conflicts with the PRC, about 3,000 people died. from among military and civilian specialists, officers, sergeants and privates.

13. War in Afghanistan 1979-1989.

About 15,000 people died, died from wounds and illnesses, or went missing. from among military and civilian specialists, officers, sergeants and privates. The total costs of the USSR for the war in Afghanistan are estimated at approximately 70-100 billion US dollars in 1990 prices. Main result: Change of political system and collapse of the USSR with the secession of 14 union republics.

Results:

During the 20th century, the Russian Empire and the USSR took part in 5 major wars on their territory, of which the First World War, the Civil War and the Second World War can easily be classified as mega-large.

The total number of losses of the Russian Empire and the USSR in wars and armed conflicts over the 20th century is estimated at approximately 30 to 35 million people, taking into account losses among the civilian population from hunger and epidemics caused by the war.

The total cost of material losses of the Russian Empire and the USSR is estimated at approximately 8 to 10 trillion US dollars in 2000 prices.

14. War in Chechnya 1994-2000.

There are no official exact figures for combat and civilian casualties, deaths from wounds and illnesses, and missing persons on both sides. The total combat losses on the Russian side are estimated at approximate figures of 10 thousand people. According to experts, up to 20-25 thousand. According to estimates of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers. The total combat irretrievable losses of the Chechen rebels are estimated at figures ranging from 10 to 15 thousand people. Irreversible losses of the civilian population of the Chechen and Russian-speaking population, including ethnic cleansing among the Russian-speaking population, are estimated at approximate figures from 1000 according to official Russian data to 50 thousand people according to unofficial data from human rights organizations. The exact material losses are unknown, but rough estimates suggest total losses of at least $20 billion in 2000 prices.

The small victorious war, which was supposed to calm down revolutionary sentiments in society, is still regarded by many as aggression on the part of Russia, but few people look into history textbooks and know that it was Japan that unexpectedly began military action.

The results of the war were very, very sad - the loss of the Pacific fleet, the lives of 100 thousand soldiers and the phenomenon of complete mediocrity, both of the tsarist generals and the royal dynasty itself in Russia.

2. First World War (1914-1918)

A long-brewing conflict between the leading world powers, the first large-scale war, which revealed all the shortcomings and backwardness of Tsarist Russia, which entered the war without even completing rearmament. The Entente allies were frankly weak, and only heroic efforts and talented commanders at the end of the war made it possible to begin to tip the scales towards Russia.

However, society did not need the “Brusilovsky breakthrough”; it needed change and bread. Not without the help of German intelligence, the revolution was accomplished and peace was achieved, under very difficult conditions for Russia.

3. Civil War (1918-1922)

The troubled times of the twentieth century for Russia continued. The Russians defended themselves against the occupying countries, brother went against brother, and in general these four years were one of the most difficult, on par with the Second World War. It makes no sense to describe these events in such material, and military operations took place only on the territory of the former Russian Empire.

4. The fight against Basmachism (1922-1931)

Not everyone accepted the new government and collectivization. The remnants of the White Guard found refuge in Fergana, Samarkand and Khorezm, easily incited the dissatisfied Basmachi to resist the young Soviet army and could not calm them down until 1931.

In principle, this conflict, again, cannot be regarded as external, because it was an echo of the Civil War, “White Sun of the Desert” will help you.

Under Tsarist Russia, the CER was an important strategic object of the Far East, simplified the development of wild areas and was jointly managed by China and Russia. In 1929, the Chinese decided that it was time to take away the railway and adjacent territories from the weakened USSR.

However, the Chinese group, which was 5 times larger in number, was defeated near Harbin and in Manchuria.

6. Providing international military assistance to Spain (1936-1939)

500 Russian volunteers went to fight the nascent fascist and General Franco. The USSR also supplied about a thousand units of ground and air combat equipment and about 2 thousand guns to Spain.

Reflecting Japanese aggression near Lake Khasan (1938) and fighting near the Khalkin-Gol River (1939)

The defeat of the Japanese by small forces of Soviet border guards and subsequent major military operations were again aimed at protecting the state border of the USSR. By the way, after the Second World War, 13 military commanders were executed in Japan for starting the conflict at Lake Khasan.

7. Campaign in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus (1939)

The campaign was aimed at protecting the borders and preventing military action from Germany, which had already openly attacked Poland. The Soviet Army, oddly enough, during the fighting, repeatedly encountered resistance from both Polish and German forces.

Unconditional aggression on the part of the USSR, which hoped to expand the northern territories and cover Leningrad, cost the Soviet army very heavy losses. Having spent 1.5 years instead of three weeks on combat operations, and received 65 thousand killed and 250 thousand wounded, the USSR moved the border and provided Germany with a new ally in the coming war.

9. Great Patriotic War (1941-1945)

The current rewrites of history textbooks shout about the insignificant role of the USSR in the victory over fascism and the atrocities of Soviet troops in the liberated territories. However, reasonable people still consider this great feat to be a war of liberation, and advise at least looking at the monument to the Soviet soldier-liberator, erected by the people of Germany.

10. Fighting in Hungary: 1956

The entry of Soviet troops to maintain the communist regime in Hungary was undoubtedly a show of force in the Cold War. The USSR showed the whole world that it would use extremely cruel measures to protect its geopolitical interests.

11. Events on Damansky Island: March 1969

The Chinese again took up the old ways, but 58 border guards and the Grad UZO defeated three companies of Chinese infantry and discouraged the Chinese from contesting the border territories.

12. Fighting in Algeria: 1962-1964.

Assistance with volunteers and weapons to the Algerians who fought for independence from France again confirmed the growing sphere of interests of the USSR.

This will be followed by a list of combat operations involving Soviet military instructors, pilots, volunteers, and other reconnaissance groups. Undoubtedly, all these facts are interference in the affairs of another state, but in essence they are a response to exactly the same interference from the United States, England, France, Great Britain, Japan, etc. Here is a list of the largest arenas of confrontation in the Cold War.

• 13. Fighting in the Yemen Arab Republic: from October 1962 to March 1963; from November 1967 to December 1969
• 14. Combat in Vietnam: from January 1961 to December 1974
• 15. Fighting in Syria: June 1967: March - July 1970; September - November 1972; March - July 1970; September - November 1972; October 1973
• 16. Fighting in Angola: from November 1975 to November 1979
• 17. Fighting in Mozambique: 1967-1969; from November 1975 to November 1979
• 18. Fighting in Ethiopia: from December 1977 to November 1979
• 19. War in Afghanistan: from December 1979 to February 1989
• 20. Fighting in Cambodia: from April to December 1970
• 22. Fighting in Bangladesh: 1972-1973. (for personnel of ships and auxiliary vessels of the USSR Navy).
• 23. Fighting in Laos: from January 1960 to December 1963; from August 1964 to November 1968; from November 1969 to December 1970
• 24. Fighting in Syria and Lebanon: July 1982

25. Deployment of troops into Czechoslovakia 1968

The “Prague Spring” was the last direct military intervention in the affairs of another state in the history of the USSR, which received loud condemnation, including in Russia. The “swan song” of the powerful totalitarian government and the Soviet Army turned out to be cruel and short-sighted and only accelerated the collapse of the Department of Internal Affairs and the USSR.

26. Chechen wars (1994-1996, 1999-2009)

A brutal and bloody civil war in the North Caucasus happened again at a time when the new government was weak and was just gaining strength and rebuilding the army. Despite the coverage of these wars in the Western media as aggression on the part of Russia, most historians view these events as the Russian Federation’s struggle for the integrity of its territory.

The twentieth century is “rich” in events such as bloody wars, destructive man-made disasters, and severe natural disasters. These events are terrible both in the number of casualties and the extent of damage.

The most terrible wars of the 20th century

Blood, pain, mountains of corpses, suffering - this is what the wars of the 20th century brought. In the last century there were wars, many of which can be called the most terrible and bloodiest in the entire history of mankind. Large-scale military conflicts continued throughout the twentieth century. Some of them were internal, and some involved several states at the same time.

World War I

The beginning of the First World War practically coincided with the beginning of the century. Its causes, as is known, were laid at the end of the nineteenth century. The interests of the opposing allied blocs collided, which led to the start of this long and bloody war.

Thirty-eight of the fifty-nine states that existed in the world at that time were participants in the First World War. We can say that almost the whole world was involved in it. Having begun in 1914, it ended only in 1918.

Russian Civil War

After the revolution took place in Russia, the Civil War began in 1917. It continued until 1923. In Central Asia, pockets of resistance were extinguished only in the early forties.

In this fratricidal war, where the Reds and the Whites fought among themselves, according to conservative estimates, about five and a half million people died. It turns out that the Civil War in Russia claimed more lives than all the Napoleonic wars.

The Second World War

The war that began in 1939 and ended in September 1945 was called World War II. It is considered the worst and most destructive war of the twentieth century. Even according to conservative estimates, at least forty million people died in it. It is estimated that the number of victims could reach seventy-two million.

Of the seventy-three states that existed in the world at that time, sixty-two states took part in it, that is, about eighty percent of the planet’s population. We can say that this world war is the most global, so to speak. The Second World War was fought on three continents and four oceans.

Korean War

The Korean War began at the end of June 1950 and continued until the end of July 1953. It was a confrontation between South and North Korea. In essence, this conflict was a proxy war between two forces: the PRC and the USSR on the one hand, and the USA and their allies on the other.

The Korean War was the first military conflict where two superpowers clashed in a limited area without using nuclear weapons. The war ended after the signing of a truce. There are still no official statements about the end of this war.

The worst man-made disasters of the 20th century

Man-made disasters occur from time to time in different parts of the planet, claiming human lives, destroying everything around, and often causing irreparable harm to the surrounding nature. There are known disasters that resulted in the complete destruction of entire cities. Similar disasters occurred in the oil, chemical, nuclear and other industries.

Chernobyl accident

The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is considered one of the worst man-made disasters of the last century. As a result of that terrible tragedy that happened in April 1986, a huge amount of radioactive substance was released into the atmosphere, and the fourth power unit of the nuclear plant was completely destroyed.

In the history of nuclear energy, this disaster is regarded as the largest of its kind both in terms of economic damage and the number of injured and killed.

Bhopal disaster

In early December 1984, a disaster occurred at a chemical plant in the city of Bhopal (India), which was later called the Hiroshima of the chemical industry. The plant produced products that destroyed insect pests.

Four thousand people died on the day of the accident, another eight thousand within two weeks. Almost five hundred thousand people were poisoned an hour after the explosion. The causes of this terrible disaster have never been established.

Piper Alpha oil rig disaster

In early July 1988, a powerful explosion occurred on the Piper Alpha oil platform, causing it to completely burn down. This disaster is considered the largest in the oil industry. After a gas leak and subsequent explosion, out of two hundred and twenty-six people, only fifty-nine survived.

The worst natural disasters of the century

Natural disasters can cause no less harm to humanity than major man-made disasters. Nature is stronger than man, and periodically it reminds us of this.

We know from history about major natural disasters that occurred before the beginning of the twentieth century. Today's generation has witnessed many natural disasters that occurred already in the twentieth century.

Cyclone Bola

In November 1970, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded struck. It covered the territory of Indian West Bengal and eastern Pakistan (today it is the territory of Bangladesh).

The exact number of victims of the cyclone is unclear. This figure ranges from three to five million people. The destructive power of the storm was not in power. The reason for the huge death toll is that the wave swamped low-lying islands in the Ganges delta, wiping out villages.

Earthquake in Chile

The largest earthquake in history is recognized as occurring in 1960 in Chile. Its strength on the Richter scale is nine and a half points. The epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean just a hundred miles from Chile. This in turn caused a tsunami.

Several thousand people died. The cost of the destruction that occurred is estimated at more than half a billion dollars. Severe landslides occurred. Many of them changed the direction of the rivers.

Tsunami on the coast of Alaska

The strongest tsunami of the mid-twentieth century occurred off the coast of Alaska at Lituya Bay. Hundreds of millions of cubic meters of earth and ice fell from the mountain into the bay, causing a response surge on the opposite shore of the bay.

The resulting half-kilometer wave, soaring into the air, plunged back into the sea. This tsunami is the highest in the world. Only two people became its victims only due to the fact that there were no human settlements in the Lituya area.

The most terrible event of the 20th century

The most terrible event of the last century can be called the bombing of Japanese cities - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This tragedy occurred on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. After the explosions of atomic bombs, these cities were almost completely turned into ruins.

The use of nuclear weapons showed the whole world how colossal their consequences could be. The bombing of Japanese cities was the first use of nuclear weapons against humans.

The most terrible explosion in the history of mankind, according to the site, was also the work of Americans. "The Big One" was blown up during the Cold War.
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In the study of human history, much attention is paid to military losses. This topic is stained with blood and smells of gunpowder. For us, those terrible days of harsh battles are a simple date; for warriors, they are a day that completely turned their lives upside down. The wars in Russia in the 20th century have long turned into entries on the pages of textbooks, but this does not mean that they can be forgotten.

General characteristics

Today it has become fashionable to accuse Russia of all mortal sins and call it an aggressor, while other states “simply defend their interests” by invading other powers and conducting massive bombings of residential areas in order to “protect citizens.” In the 20th century, there were indeed many military conflicts in Russia, but whether the country was an aggressor still needs to be sorted out.

What can be said about the wars in Russia in the 20th century? The First World War ended in an atmosphere of mass desertion and transformation of the old army. During the Civil War, there were many bandit groups, and the fragmentation of the fronts was something self-evident. The Great Patriotic War was characterized by large-scale combat operations; perhaps for the first time, the military was faced with the problem of captivity in such a broad sense. It would be best to consider in detail all the wars in Russia in the 20th century in chronological order.

War with Japan

At the beginning of the century, a conflict broke out between the Russian and Japanese empires over Manchuria and Korea. After a break of several decades, the Russo-Japanese War (period 1904-1905) became the first confrontation using the latest weapons.

On the one hand, Russia wanted to secure its territory for trade all year round. On the other hand, Japan needed new industrial and human resources for further growth. But most of all, European states and the United States contributed to the outbreak of the war. They wanted to weaken their competitors in the Far East and rule the territory of Southeast Asia on their own, so they clearly had no need for the strengthening of Russia and Japan.

Japan was the first to begin hostilities. The results of the battle were sad - the Pacific Fleet and the lives of 100 thousand soldiers were lost. The war ended with the signing of a peace treaty, according to which Japan ceded Southern Sakhalin and part of the Chinese Eastern Railway from Port Arthur to the city of Changchun.

World War I

The First World War was the conflict that revealed all the shortcomings and backwardness of the troops of Tsarist Russia, which entered the battle without even completing rearmament. The Entente allies were weak, only thanks to the talent of military commanders and the heroic efforts of soldiers, the scales began to tip towards Russia. The battles were fought between the Triple Alliance, which included Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, and the Entente, which included Russia, France and England.

The reason for the military action was the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo, which was committed by a Serbian nationalist. Thus began the conflict between Austria and Serbia. Russia joined Serbia, Germany joined Austria-Hungary.

Progress of the battle

In 1915, Germany carried out a spring-summer offensive, recapturing from Russia the territories it had conquered in 1914, the honor of the lands of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

The battles of the First World War (1914-1918) were fought on two fronts: Western in Belgium and France, Eastern in Russia. In the fall of 1915, Türkiye joined the Triple Alliance, which greatly complicated the situation for Russia.

In response to the approaching defeat, the military generals of the Russian Empire developed a plan for a summer offensive. On the Southwestern Front, General Brusilov managed to break through the defenses and inflict serious damage on Austria-Hungary. This helped Russian troops significantly advance to the West and at the same time save France from defeat.

Truce

On October 26, 1917, at the Second All-Russian Congress, a Decree on Peace was adopted, and all warring parties were invited to begin negotiations. On October 14, Germany agreed to negotiate. A temporary truce was concluded, but Germany's demands were rejected, and its troops launched a full-scale offensive along the entire front. The signing of the second peace treaty took place on March 3, 1918, Germany’s conditions became more stringent, but in order to preserve peace, they had to agree.

Russia had to demobilize the army, pay Germany a financial indemnity and transfer the ships of the Black Sea Fleet to it.

Civil War

While the fighting of the First World War was still going on, the Russian Civil War (1917-1922) began. The beginning of the October Revolution was marked by battles in Petrograd. The reasons for the rebellion were acute political, social and ethnic contradictions that worsened after the February Revolution.

The nationalization of production, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which was ruinous for the country, tense relations between the peasantry and food detachments, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly - these actions of the government, together with a strong desire to retain power, caused burning discontent.

Stages of the revolution

Mass discontent resulted in revolution in 1917-1922. The Civil War in Russia took place in 3 stages:

1. October 1917 - November 1918. Main fronts were established and formed. The Whites fought the Bolsheviks. But since this was happening in the middle of World War I, neither side had an advantage.
2. November 1918 - March 1920. The turning point in the war - the Red Army gained control over the main part of Russian territory.
3. March 1920 - October 1922. The fighting moved to the border areas, and nothing threatened the Bolshevik government.

The result of the Russian Civil War in the 20th century was the establishment of Bolshevik power throughout the country.

Opponents of Bolshevism

The new government that emerged as a result of the Civil War was not supported by everyone. The White Guard warriors found refuge in Fergana, Khorezm and Samarkand. At that time, Basmachism was a military-political and/or religious movement in Central Asia. The White Guards were looking for disgruntled Basmachi and inciting them to resist the Soviet Army. The fight against Basmachism (1922-1931) lasted almost 10 years.

Here and there pockets of resistance appeared, and it was difficult for the young Soviet Army to suppress the uprisings once and for all.

USSR and China

During the time of Tsarist Russia, the Chinese Eastern Railway was an important strategic object. Thanks to the CER, wild territories could develop, and besides, Russia and the Celestial Empire divided the income from the railway in half, since they managed it jointly.

In 1929, the Chinese government noticed that the USSR had lost its former military power, and in general the country was weakened due to constant conflicts. Therefore, it was decided to take away from the Soviet Union its part of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the adjacent territories. This is how the Soviet-Chinese military conflict of 1929 began.

True, this idea was not successful. Despite the numerical superiority of troops (5 times), the Chinese were defeated in Manchuria and near Harbin.

The Little Known War of 1939

These events, not covered in history textbooks, are also called the Soviet-Japanese War. The fighting near the Khalkin-Gol River in 1939 lasted from spring to autumn.

In the spring, numerous Japanese troops entered Mongolia to mark a new border between Mongolia and Manchukuo, which would run along the Khalkhin Gol River. At this time, Soviet troops come to the aid of friendly Mongolia.

Useless attempts

The combined army of Russia and Mongolia gave a powerful rebuff to Japan, and already in May, Japanese troops were forced to retreat to Chinese territory, but did not surrender. The next blow from the Land of the Rising Sun was more thoughtful: the number of soldiers increased to 40 thousand, heavy equipment, planes and guns were brought to the borders. The new military formation was three times larger than the Soviet-Mongolian troops, but after three days of bloodshed, the Japanese troops were again forced to retreat.

Another offensive occurred in August. By that time, the Soviet Army had also strengthened and brought down all its military might on the Japanese. Half of September, the Japanese invaders tried to take revenge, but the outcome of the battle was obvious - the USSR won this conflict.

Winter War

On November 30, 1939, war broke out between the USSR and Finland, the purpose of which was to secure Leningrad by moving the northwestern border. After the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, the latter started a war with Poland, and relations in Finland began to heat up. The pact envisaged the spread of USSR influence over Finland. The government of the Soviet Union understood that Leningrad, which was located 30 kilometers from the border with Finland, could come under artillery fire, so the decision was made to move the border further north.

The Soviet side first tried to negotiate peacefully by offering Finland the lands of Karelia, but the country's government did not want to negotiate.

As the first stage of the battle showed, the Soviet Army is weak, the leadership saw its real combat power. Starting the war, the USSR government naively believed that it had a strong army at its disposal, but this was not the case. During the war, many personnel and organizational changes were made, thanks to which the course of the war changed. This also made it possible to prepare a combat-ready army for the Second World War.

Echoes of World War II

1941-1945 is a battle between Germany and the USSR within the borders of World War II. The battle ended with the victory of the Soviet Union over fascism and put an end to World War II.

After Germany lost the First World War, its economic and political situation was very unstable. When Hitler came to power, the country managed to increase its military power. The Fuhrer did not want to admit it and wanted to take revenge.

But the unexpected attack on the USSR did not give the desired result - the Soviet Army turned out to be better equipped than Hitler expected. The campaign, which was designed to last several months, stretched over several years and lasted from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR did not conduct active military operations for 11 years. Later there was (1969), battles in Algeria (1962-1964), Afghanistan (1979-1989) and the Chechen wars (already in Russia, 1994-1996, 1999-2009). And only one question remains unresolved: were these ridiculous battles worth the loss of life? It’s hard to believe that in the civilized world people have never learned to negotiate and compromise.

For almost three hundred years, the search has been ongoing for a universal way to resolve contradictions that arise between states, nations, nationalities, etc., without the use of armed violence.

But political declarations, treaties, conventions, negotiations on disarmament and the limitation of certain types of weapons only temporarily removed the immediate threat of destructive wars, but did not eliminate it completely.

Only after the end of World War II, more than 400 various clashes of so-called “local” significance, and more than 50 “major” local wars were recorded on the planet. More than 30 military conflicts annually - these are the real statistics of the last years of the 20th century. Since 1945, local wars and armed conflicts have claimed more than 30 million lives. Financially, the losses amounted to 10 trillion dollars - this is the price of human belligerence.

Local wars have always been an instrument of policy in many countries of the world and the global strategy of opposing world systems - capitalism and socialism, as well as their military organizations - NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

In the post-war period, more than ever before, an organic connection began to be felt between politics and diplomacy, on the one hand, and the military power of states, on the other, since peaceful means turned out to be good and effective only when they were based on a sufficient basis for the protection of the state and their interests military power.

During this period, the main thing for the USSR was the desire to participate in local wars and armed conflicts in the Middle East, Indochina, Central America, Central and South Africa, Asia and the Persian Gulf region, into which the United States and its allies were drawn in to strengthen own political, ideological and military influence in vast regions of the world.

It was during the Cold War that a series of military-political crises and local wars took place with the participation of domestic armed forces, which, under certain circumstances, could develop into a large-scale war.

Until recently, all responsibility for the emergence of local wars and armed conflicts (in the ideological coordinate system) was placed entirely on the aggressive nature of imperialism, and our interest in their course and outcome was carefully masked by declarations of selfless assistance to peoples fighting for their independence and self-determination.

So, the origin of the most common military conflicts unleashed after the Second World War is based on the economic rivalry of states in the international arena. Most other contradictions (political, geostrategic, etc.) turned out to be only derivatives of the primary feature, i.e., control over certain regions, their resources and labor. However, sometimes crises were caused by the claims of individual states to the role of “regional centers of power.”

A special type of military-political crisis includes regional, local wars and armed conflicts between state-formed parts of one nation, divided along political-ideological, socio-economic or religious lines (Korea, Vietnam, Yemen, modern Afghanistan, etc.) . However, their root cause is precisely the economic factor, and ethnic or religious factors are just a pretext.

A large number of military-political crises arose due to attempts by the leading countries of the world to retain in their sphere of influence states with which, before the crisis, they maintained colonial, dependent or allied relations.

One of the most common reasons that caused regional, local wars and armed conflicts after 1945 was the desire of national-ethnic communities for self-determination in various forms (from anti-colonial to separatist). The powerful growth of the national liberation movement in the colonies became possible after the sharp weakening of the colonial powers during and after the end of the Second World War. In turn, the crisis caused by the collapse of the world socialist system and the weakening influence of the USSR and then the Russian Federation led to the emergence of numerous nationalist (ethno-confessional) movements in the post-socialist and post-Soviet space.

A huge number of local conflicts that arose in the 90s of the 20th century pose a real danger of the possibility of a third world war. And it will be local-focal, permanent, asymmetrical, networked and, as the military says, non-contact.

As for the first sign of the third world war as a local focal point, we mean a long chain of local armed conflicts and local wars that will continue throughout the solution of the main task - mastery of the world. The commonality of these local wars, spaced from each other over a certain time interval, will be that they will all be subordinated to one single goal - mastery of the world.

Speaking about the specifics of the armed conflicts of the 1990s. -beginning of the 21st century, we can talk, among others, about their next fundamental point.

All conflicts developed in a relatively limited area within one theater of military operations, but with the use of forces and assets located outside it. However, conflicts that were essentially local were accompanied by great bitterness and resulted in a number of cases in the complete destruction of the state system (if there was one) of one of the parties to the conflict. The following table presents the main local conflicts of recent decades.

Table No. 1

	Country, year.	Features of armed struggle, number of dead, people	results armed struggle
		The armed struggle was air, land and sea in nature. Conducting an air operation, widespread use of cruise missiles. Naval missile battle. Military operations using the latest weapons. Coalitional nature.	The Israeli Armed Forces completely defeated the Egyptian-Syrian troops and seized territory.
	Argentina;	The armed struggle was mainly of a naval and land nature. The use of amphibious assaults. widespread use of indirect, non-contact and other (including non-traditional) forms and methods of action, long-range fire and electronic destruction. Active information warfare, disorientation of public opinion in individual states and the world community as a whole. 800	With the political support of the United States, Great Britain carried out a naval blockade of the territory
		The armed struggle was mainly aerial in nature, and command and control of troops was carried out mainly through space. High influence of information warfare in military operations. Coalition character, disorientation of public opinion in individual states and the world community as a whole.	Complete defeat of Iraqi forces in Kuwait.
	India - Pakistan;	The armed struggle was mainly on the ground. Maneuverable actions of troops (forces) in isolated areas with the widespread use of airmobile forces, landing forces and special forces.	Defeat of the main forces of the opposing sides. Military goals have not been achieved.
	Yugoslavia;	The armed struggle was mainly aerial in nature; troops were controlled through space. High influence of information warfare in military operations. Widespread use of indirect, non-contact and other (including non-traditional) forms and methods of action, long-range fire and electronic destruction; active information warfare, disorientation of public opinion in individual states and the world community as a whole. The desire to disorganize the system of state and military administration; the use of the latest highly effective (including those based on new physical principles) weapons systems and military equipment. The growing role of space reconnaissance.	The defeat of the troops of Yugoslavia, the complete disorganization of military and government administration.
	Afghanistan;	The armed struggle was ground and air in nature with the widespread use of special operations forces. High influence of information warfare in military operations. Coalitional nature. Troop control was carried out mainly through space. The growing role of space reconnaissance.	The main Taliban forces have been destroyed.
		The armed struggle was mainly air-ground in nature, with troops controlled through space. High influence of information warfare in military operations. Coalitional nature. The growing role of space reconnaissance. Widespread use of indirect, non-contact and other (including non-traditional) forms and methods of action, long-range fire and electronic destruction; active information warfare, disorientation of public opinion in individual states and the world community as a whole; maneuverable actions of troops (forces) in isolated directions with the widespread use of airborne forces, landing forces and special forces.	Complete defeat of the Iraqi Armed Forces. Change of political power.

After World War II, for a number of reasons, one of which was the emergence of nuclear missile weapons with their deterrent potential, humanity has so far managed to avoid new global wars. They were replaced by numerous local, or “small” wars and armed conflicts. Individual states, their coalitions, as well as various socio-political and religious groups within countries have repeatedly used force of arms to resolve territorial, political, economic, ethno-confessional and other problems and disputes.

It is important to emphasize that until the beginning of the 1990s, all post-war armed conflicts took place against the backdrop of intense confrontation between two opposing socio-political systems and military-political blocs unprecedented in their power - NATO and the Warsaw Division. Therefore, local armed clashes of that time were considered primarily as an integral part of the global struggle for the spheres of influence of two protagonists - the USA and the USSR.

With the collapse of the bipolar model of the world structure, the ideological confrontation between the two superpowers and socio-political systems has become a thing of the past, and the likelihood of a world war has significantly decreased. The confrontation between the two systems “ceased to be the axis around which the main events of world history and politics unfolded for more than four decades,” which, although it opened up wide opportunities for peaceful cooperation, also entailed the emergence of new challenges and threats.

Initial optimistic hopes for peace and prosperity, unfortunately, did not materialize. The fragile balance on the geopolitical scales was replaced by a sharp destabilization of the international situation and an exacerbation of hitherto hidden tensions within individual states. In particular, interethnic and ethno-confessional relations did not become complicated in the region, which provoked numerous local wars and armed conflicts. In the new conditions, the peoples and nationalities of individual states remembered old grievances and began to make claims to disputed territories, gaining autonomy, or even complete separation and independence. Moreover, in almost all modern conflicts there is not only a geopolitical, as before, but also a geocivilizational component, most often with an ethnonational or ethnoconfessional overtone.

Therefore, while the number of interstate and interregional wars and military conflicts (especially those provoked by “ideological opponents”) has declined, the number of intrastate confrontations, caused primarily by ethno-confessional, ethnoterritorial and ethnopolitical reasons, has sharply increased. Conflicts between numerous armed groups within states and crumbling power structures have become much more frequent. Thus, at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century, the most common form of military confrontation became an internal (intrastate), local in scope, limited armed conflict.

These problems manifested themselves with particular severity in the former socialist states with a federal structure, as well as in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Thus, the collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia led only in 1989-1992 to the emergence of more than 10 ethnopolitical conflicts, and in the global “South” around the same time more than 25 “small wars” and armed clashes broke out. Moreover, most of them were characterized by unprecedented intensity and were accompanied by mass migration of the civilian population, which created a threat of destabilization of entire regions and necessitated the need for large-scale international humanitarian assistance.

If in the first few years after the end of the Cold War the number of armed conflicts in the world decreased by more than a third, then by the mid-1990s it increased significantly again. Suffice it to say that in 1995 alone, 30 major armed conflicts took place in 25 different regions of the world, and in 1994, in at least 5 of the 31 armed conflicts, participating states resorted to the use of regular armed forces. According to estimates by the Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Deadly Conflicts, in the 1990s, the seven largest wars and armed confrontations alone cost the international community $199 billion (excluding the costs of the countries directly involved).

Moreover, a radical shift in the development of international relations, significant changes in the field of geopolitics and geostrategy, and the emerging asymmetry along the North-South line have largely aggravated old problems and provoked new ones (international terrorism and organized crime, drug trafficking, smuggling of weapons and military equipment, danger environmental disasters) that require adequate responses from the international community. Moreover, the zone of instability is expanding: if earlier, during the Cold War, this zone passed mainly through the countries of the Near and Middle East, now it begins in the Western Sahara region and spreads to Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia, South-Eastern and Central Asia. At the same time, we can assume with a reasonable degree of confidence that such a situation is not short-term and transitory.

The main feature of the conflicts of the new historical period was that there was a redistribution of the role of various spheres in armed confrontation: the course and outcome of the armed struggle as a whole is determined mainly by confrontation in the aerospace sphere and at sea, and land groups will consolidate the achieved military success and directly ensure the achievement political goals.

Against this background, increased interdependence and mutual influence of actions at the strategic, operational and tactical levels in the armed struggle has emerged. In fact, this suggests that the old concept of conventional wars, both limited and large-scale, is undergoing significant changes. Even local conflicts can be fought over relatively large areas with the most decisive goals. At the same time, the main tasks are solved not during a collision of advanced units, but through fire engagement from extreme ranges.

Based on an analysis of the most general features of conflicts at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, the following fundamental conclusions can be drawn regarding the military-political features of armed struggle at the present stage and in the foreseeable future.

The armed forces reaffirm their central role in carrying out security operations. The actual combat role of paramilitary forces, paramilitary forces, militias, and internal security forces units turns out to be significantly less than expected before the outbreak of armed conflicts. They turned out to be unable to conduct active combat operations against the regular army (Iraq).

The decisive moment for achieving military-political success is to seize the strategic initiative during an armed conflict. Passive conduct of hostilities in the hope of “exhaling” the enemy’s offensive impulse will lead to the loss of controllability of one’s own group and subsequently to the loss of the conflict.

The peculiarity of the armed struggle of the future will be that during the war, not only military facilities and troops will come under enemy attacks, but at the same time the country’s economy with all its infrastructure, civilian population and territory. Despite the development of the accuracy of weapons of destruction, all the studied armed conflicts of recent times were, to one degree or another, humanitarian “dirty” and entailed significant casualties among the civilian population. In this regard, there is a need for a highly organized and effective system of civil defense of the country.

The criteria for military victory in local conflicts will be different, however, in general, it is obvious that the main importance is the solution of political problems in an armed conflict, while military-political and operational-tactical tasks are primarily of an auxiliary nature. In none of the conflicts examined was the victorious side able to inflict the planned damage on the enemy. But, nevertheless, she was able to achieve the political goals of the conflict.

Today there is a possibility of escalation of modern armed conflicts both horizontally (drawing new countries and regions into them) and vertically (increasing the scale and intensity of violence within fragile states). Analysis of trends in the development of the geopolitical and geostrategic situation in the world at the current stage makes it possible to assess it as crisis-unstable. Therefore, it is absolutely obvious that all armed conflicts, regardless of the degree of their intensity and localization, require an early settlement, and ideally, complete resolution. One of the time-tested ways to prevent, control and resolve such “small” wars are various forms of peacekeeping.

Due to the increase in local conflicts, the world community, under the auspices of the UN, developed in the 90s such a means for maintaining or establishing peace as peacekeeping, peace enforcement operations.

But, despite the opportunity that emerged with the end of the Cold War to initiate peace enforcement operations, the UN, as time has shown, does not have the necessary potential (military, logistical, financial, organizational and technical) to carry them out. Evidence of this is the failure of the UN operations in Somalia and Rwanda, when the situation there urgently demanded an early transition from traditional peacekeeping operations to forced ones, and the UN was unable to do this on its own.

That is why, in the 1990s, a tendency emerged and subsequently developed for the UN to delegate its powers in the field of military peacekeeping to regional organizations, individual states and coalitions of states ready to take on crisis response tasks, such as NATO, for example.

Peacekeeping approaches create the opportunity to flexibly and comprehensively influence the conflict with the aim of resolving it and further final resolution. Moreover, in parallel, at the level of the military-political leadership and among the broadest sections of the population of the warring parties, work must necessarily be carried out aimed at changing psychological attitudes towards the conflict. This means that peacekeepers and representatives of the international community must, whenever possible, “break” and change the stereotypes of relations between the parties to the conflict that have developed in relation to each other, which are expressed in extreme hostility, intolerance, vindictiveness and intransigence.

But it is important that peacekeeping operations comply with fundamental international legal norms and do not violate human rights and sovereign states - no matter how difficult it may be to combine this. This combination, or at least an attempt at it, is especially relevant in the light of new operations in recent years, called “humanitarian intervention”, or “humanitarian intervention”, which are carried out in the interests of certain groups of the population. But, while protecting human rights, they violate the sovereignty of the state, its right to non-interference from outside - international legal foundations that have evolved over centuries and were considered unshakable until recently. At the same time, in our opinion, it is impossible to allow outside intervention in the conflict under the slogan of the struggle for peace and security or the protection of human rights to turn into overt armed intervention and aggression, as happened in 1999 in Yugoslavia.