Total War

Bombs rain down on hospitals; special forces, spies and organised crime gangs work together to stage coups; children are stolen from occupied Ukrainian territories; Russian soldiers explode dams to create natural disasters. In the west, the Kremlins enemies are poisoned, Russian oligarchs use the English legal system to intimidate authors and journalists, and Russian intelligence breaks into the servers of US political parties. The Russian way of war, with its many faces, has become a key global discussion point in recent years, sparked by the devastating invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlins threat of aggression, including nuclear conflict, towards the west. This unique and profoundly researched book tells the story of how, under President Putin, Russia with its deep history of creative thinking about warfare has combined apparently disparate forms of conflict into a single, unified concept of total war. Total War provides a template for how Russia will continue to wage war combining traditional, unconventional and potentially nuclear forms of conflict against its enemies not just in Ukraine but in the global west. It reveals how, although Ukraine is for now the main battleground in the coming global struggle, Russia and other observing authoritarian states are seeking to destroy the beliefs, subvert the power and thwart the influence of western democratic nations.