Emerging and Disruptive Technologies Transform, but Do Not Lift, the Fog of War – Evidence from Russia's War on Ukraine

How have new technologies affected the Clausewitzian fog of war? We leverage examples from Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine to address this research question. The evidence includes both “high-tech” systems like nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons and “low-tech” systems like cheap commercially available drones and affordable open-source intelligence (OSINT) technology. In the case of the former, we find that Russian threats and propaganda created myths surrounding weapons with unclear military applications. Regarding the latter, media and pundit claims were sensational as these systems changed combat dynamics without delivering revolutionary effects. Both cases point to pronounced gaps between expectations about performance and battlefield realities. Emerging weapon technologies have therefore failed to provide clarity about the balance of forces and conditions on the ground––two pathways to reducing the fog of war. In land warfare, history has long shown that new technologies are rarely determinative of victory or defeat. Making claims to the contrary only contributes to the fog of war and necessitates new strategies to counter the hype surrounding exaggerated expectations about weapons.

This chapter appears in Russia's War Against Ukraine: Complexity of Contemporary Clausewitzian War.