Starting a War is Easier Than Ending It – Here's Why

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Modern battlefields present deeply concerning operational and psychological challenges for infantry units. In conflict zones such as eastern Ukraine, drone usage by both sides has created lethal kill zones that constantly evoke the sensation of being in a digital simulation.

This threat is omnipresent and severely restricts mobility. For instance, Ukrainian troops attempting to join comrades in Myrnohrad have found military vehicle movement impossible.

Vehicles are easily detected and destroyed by hidden Russian drone pilots. Troops must infiltrate through forested areas stealthily – a slow process taking weeks with no clear timeline for withdrawal.

The traumatic impact persists mentally among soldiers. Even after being withdrawn from the front line, military personnel often suffer from hypervigilance.

The hum of drones can trigger intense fear and helplessness, even hundreds of kilometres from active conflict zones, leaving soldiers constantly vigilant and keeping barracks windows tightly shut.

Conversely, major power conflicts such as those involving the US and Israel against Iran exhibit starkly different operational dynamics. Military operations are dominated by advanced fighter jets supported by cutting-edge sensors.

Pilots have all necessary tools to attack, assess, and counter-attack, supported by integrated infrared systems, long-range radar, satellite surveillance, and civilian system hacking to track targets.

Despite differing from conventional trench warfare, both forms of conflict are unified by a key technological trend: tactical transparency. Modern technology has created unprecedented battlefield visibility, making troop and asset movements far harder to conceal.

Both conflicts also share a crucial similarity: initiated by leaders expecting easy victories, they have evolved into stalemates where the absence of clear victory feels akin to a crushing defeat.

Surge in Global State-Based Armed Conflicts

The technological stalemate dynamics in warfare are critical to analyse given the global arms industry’s massive surge. Empirical data shows global stability is now in one of its most precarious periods.

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program records 65 active state-based conflicts in 2025. Academically defined as wars where at least one party is a state entity and results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a calendar year.

This is the highest figure since statistics began in 1946. Of these, eight are direct interstate conflicts, two of which have annual death tolls exceeding 1,000.

The Oslo Peace Research Institute confirms this grim trend, noting that despite annual fluctuations in battle deaths, the past four years remain the most violent period since the Cold War ended.

Sensor Revolution, Drone Supply Chain Evolution, and Attrition Scale

Tactical transparency defining modern warfare stems from three key components: high-quality sensors, highly precise firepower, and communication networks that distribute data instantly via sensor-to-shooter processes.

Drones act as the primary avatar of this transformative shift, integrating surveillance and attack functions in one package. What makes drone technology revolutionary is its supply chain resembling consumer electronics production lines rather than heavy military hardware like armoured vehicles.

This flexibility allows rapid evolution through continuous innovation. Software updates can be deployed in days, while hardware modifications and improvements are implemented within about six months.

Military drone usage has evolved since the early 2000s, but the Bayraktar TB2 truly reshaped global military doctrine.

The drone effectively destroyed enemy formations across operations, halting the Russian armada advancing on Kyiv. Today, low-cost first-person view (FPV) combat drones, mass-produced daily for individual targeting, dominate battlefields.

Precision technology significantly contributes to high casualty and attrition rates. An estimated 1.1 to 1.4 million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded – one in every 25 men in the country.

The Ukrainian military has also suffered massive losses equivalent to one in 16 able-bodied men, despite substituting human roles with unmanned ground vehicles for tens of thousands of logistics and medical evacuation missions at the front line.

Debate over manoeuvre doctrine, electronic warfare, and pockets of superiority

In response to warfare phenomena