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Will, Cohesion, Resilience, and the Wars of the Future
Photo: Les Kasyanov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
This commentary is part of a report from the CSIS Defense and Security Department entitled War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights from Ukraine and the Middle East.
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War and the Modern Battlefield: Insights from Ukraine and the Middle East
Digital Report by The CSIS Defense and Security Department — September 16, 2025
Wars involve not only a clash of forces but also a clash of national wills. The great theorist of war Carl von Clausewitz stressed the importance of “moral” factors in war, such as the people’s will to fight, levels of support for the cause, and national unity.1 Adversaries seek to shatter the cohesion and resilience of the United States and its allies through varied means. Russia uses disinformation to polarize U.S. and European societies and has supported extreme-right opposition parties and even motorcycle gangs to increase violence and polarization.2 The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and various Russian attacks on Ukraine, including the 2022 all-out invasion, also sought to shatter resilience by killing and threatening civilians and imposing widespread suffering.
Societal resilience is vital for countries to stand up to aggression; when it is strong, it enhances deterrence. In future conflicts, aggressors such as China and Russia are likely to try to undermine resilience as an alternative or prelude to war.
This chapter argues that societal resilience is vital for countries to stand up to aggression; when it is strong, it enhances deterrence. In future conflicts, aggressors such as China and Russia are likely to try to undermine resilience as an alternative or prelude to war. Both Ukraine and Israel have proved resilient, drawing on their populations and civilian sectors to sustain long, grueling fights. Russia and Hamas have also proved resilient. Information campaigns have been vital for all these actors; some, notably Ukraine but also Hamas, have sold their narrative effectively. Hamas’s hostage taking, while not destroying Israeli resilience, has created significant fissures in Israeli society.
This chapter first defines resilience and explains why it matters in both the Ukraine and Middle East wars. It then draws lessons from these two conflicts and details the implications for the future of war.
What Is Resilience and Why Does It Matter?
From a national security perspective, a country is resilient if it has both the will and ability to resist and recover from external pressure, ranging from influence campaigns to an invasion. In practice, resilient societies can protect their civilians, ensure basic services like electricity and medical care continue, stand up to coercion, and build a will to resist and fight a foreign invader.
Ukraine demonstrated resilience in February 2022 when it rallied against a full-on invasion while facing Russian cyberattacks, a barrage of propaganda, leadership assassination attempts, the promotion of puppet governments, and other threats. Ukrainians signed up to fight Russia in droves, kept electricity and power plants going, and conducted assassinations and sabotage in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine that made it hard for Russia to administer and stage from these areas. All of this bought valuable time for Ukraine’s allies, especially the United States, to pour billions of dollars of military aid into the country, helping it survive multiple years of a grinding war against a much larger aggressor.
Resilience is also vital to sustain forces in a conflict. The Ukraine conflict has been relentless, with Ukrainian leaders claiming they have lost over 45,000 soldiers since 2022, with hundreds of thousands wounded. The former is almost certainly a gross understatement, with the real figure probably more than double.3 In addition, Ukraine has suffered over 10,000 civilian deaths and over 30,000 civilian injuries.4 Israel, for its part, lost more people on one day—almost 1,200—than any day in its history. In the months after October 7, it sustained a war on multiple fronts, drawing heavily on reservists despite the social strain and cost to the country’s economy.
Resilience’s greatest benefit, however, often comes before a crisis occurs. Resilience is vital to deterrence. Countries that lack resilience may seem easy to invade, whereas those with resilience require more resources and are more difficult to occupy. As Finnish scholars argue, “Even the biggest bear will not eat a porcupine.”5
Lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East
Israel’s enemies—Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—and Russia have tried to undermine the resilience of Israeli and Ukrainian societies, respectively. Much of Russia’s conventional and irregular war effort, including cyber and missile attacks on power infrastructure and hospitals, assassination attempts, and propaganda, has sought to break the population’s will to resist and decrease support for Kyiv’s war effort. In addition, Moscow has created puppet governments in parts of Ukraine it has occupied and otherwise tried to undermine the legitimate government there. Meanwhile, Hamas sought to shatter Israeli morale at a time when the country was highly divided politically and believed that large-scale hostage taking would force the country to its knees. Hezbollah and Houthi leaders hoped their attacks in solidarity with Hamas would force Israel to stop operations in Gaza, believing it could not sustain a long, draining war.
Russia has also tried to use sabotage and economic pressure to coerce Ukraine’s European allies into withdrawing their support by targeting the resilience of their civilian populations. Russian sabotage attacks have primarily targeted critical infrastructure such as pipelines, fiber-optic cables, and power cables, as well as rail lines and aviation, especially arms manufacturers and suppliers (a breakdown of categories is provided in Figure 3.1). Although such incidents are not new, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 accelerated the number of attacks: There were 3 in 2022, 12 in 2023, and 34 in 2024. These forms of attack, occurring in tandem with political interference and disinformation campaigns, amount to a hybrid warfare campaign.6
To resist attacks intended to undermine domestic morale, both Israel and Ukraine have drawn on deep wells of resilience. Ukraine’s army had 196,000 soldiers before the attacks; by early 2025, it maintained almost 900,000 soldiers, including reservists.7 In Israel, national security is normalized through compulsory military service at the age of 18; after this, individuals stay in the reserves until age 40 with continued training.8 The October 7 attacks brought the largest mobilization in Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and Israelis outside of the age range for reservists have still volunteered for military service.9 Many reservists have reported for duty before any official call-up, eager to volunteer when their country is under attack. Immediately after October 7, Israel called up 360,000 reservists. As of January 2024, between 200,000 and 250,000 reservists were still mobilized.10 As of November 2024, 34 percent of reservists had served more than 150 days, and 54 percent had served more than 100 days.11
Israel and Ukraine have also drawn heavily on their civilian sectors, which is vital for resilience. In 2022, Ukraine produced seven drone models. By 2024, it was producing 67 models, with about 200 domestic companies involved in the production.12 In an October 2024 speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukraine could produce 4 million drones annually.13 With these drones, Ukraine has struck Russian energy facilities and other infrastructure deep inside Russia and has used drones to fight Russian military forces.14 After October 7, the Israeli Ministry of Defense worked with technology startups to deploy new capabilities.15 For example, 50 percent of the anti-drone technology the Israeli military has used comes from startups.16 Between the start of the war and the end of 2024, Israel awarded orders to 101 startups or small companies to assist the war effort.17
Civilian sectors, however, can easily become overtaxed, especially in longer wars. In Israel, 10 to 15 percent of the technology workforce has been called to the reserves.18 The tech sector is critical for Israel’s economy, accounting for 16 percent of employment, half of the country’s exports, and 20 percent of economic output.19 Much of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s cyberattacks has similarly been due to support from the private sector. Following the invasion, Microsoft alerted Ukrainian authorities of malware designed to target government ministries and financial institutions and worked with Ukrainian officials to combat it.20 Microsoft has also allowed the Ukrainian government to utilize its cloud services for free.21
Israel’s prewar preparedness has also served it well. Israeli residential and industrial buildings are required to have air defense shelters. Government funding is often allocated to building shelters in older buildings, addressing the 28 percent of Israelis who do not have close access.22 In addition, early warning systems provide civilians with notice to seek shelter.23 As a result, the Israeli population has been well protected and has not panicked in the face of Iranian and Houthi missile, rocket, and drone attacks.
Information campaigns have been important parts of both conflicts, and Ukraine has fared better than Israel in this regard. Although Israel stressed Hamas’s aggression and hostage taking and has sought to justify its war as self-defense, much of the world has rejected the legitimacy of Israel’s ongoing operations in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders for war crimes.24 Global opinion of Israel dropped by 18.5 percent from September to December 2023.25 In the United States, disapproval of Israeli military action increased from 45 percent in November 2023 to 55 percent in March 2024, with 33 percent of young Americans reporting they sympathized entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people.26 Around one-third of young Americans believe that Hamas’s reasons for fighting Israel are valid, indicating the challenges facing Israeli information campaigns.27
Ukraine has not face similar informational challenges, as it has the support of NATO countries and Russia is widely seen as the aggressor, particularly after U.S. intelligence detected the invasion in advance and “prebunked” Russian propaganda. The Ukrainian government has advanced its cause effectively, largely via social media, focusing on the resilience of Ukrainian citizens and giving thanks to international supporters.28 Ukraine also appealed to the United Nations following the outbreak of war, with the UN General Assembly holding an emergency special session in February 2022 and overwhelmingly supporting a resolution demanding that Russia stop its invasion.29
However, Russia has scored many propaganda victories, which are especially impressive given the overt nature of its aggression and the brutal behavior of its forces. Russian narratives in Africa capitalize on European colonial history, with over 178,000 Russia-linked tweets in the first two weeks of Russia’s invasion accusing Ukrainians and Europeans of racism.30 According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, Russia has also sought to increase its general support of the continent, sponsoring 80 documented campaigns in over 22 countries.31 Russian propaganda has often been successful, with 84 percent of the population in Mali reporting positive opinions of Russia.32 Russia has also used propaganda within Europe. Germany, Ukraine’s second-largest weapons supplier, has reported an increase in Russian disinformation in an attempt to decrease support for Ukraine.33
Hamas’s taking of hostages has proved a challenge for Israeli resilience. The question of whether to continue the fight against Hamas or to seek a ceasefire as part of a hostage release divided Israel for many months. In January 2024, the war cabinet largely supported a ceasefire, but lawmakers in the governing Likud party supported continued military operations.34 On June 2, 2024, two far-right ministers threatened to quit if Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to the ceasefire proposal, a move that would have collapsed the governing coalition.35 Israel has at times pursued negotiations but in other cases pursued aggressive military operations that have made a ceasefire and negotiated end to the conflict less likely.
Measuring resilience within authoritarian states is difficult. Opinion polls, media criticism, political disagreements, and other standard ways to measure popular will and support for fighting all are inaccurate or muted in authoritarian states, and accuracy is usually even more skewed regarding support for substate groups. A month after the Ukraine war began in 2022, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby claimed, “We certainly have indications that morale is a growing problem inside the Russian forces that are fighting in Ukraine.”38 A 2023 Cambridge study reported that “levels of Russian financial and life satisfaction may be near their lowest levels in a decade, while levels of online dissent have spiked in response to failures in the prosecution of the war.”39 Russia still faces shortages of soldiers and, despite having a much larger population than Ukraine, has been forced to draft large numbers of convicts, offer large bonuses to recruits, and bring in North Korean forces to bolster its ranks. Nevertheless, despite sustaining staggering losses on the battlefield as well as Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy and military infrastructure, Russia has stayed in the fight.
Measuring Hamas’s morale is even more difficult. It is reasonable to conclude that the devastation of Gaza, the loss of many fighters, and the decimation of Hamas’s leadership hindered morale, but the organization has not collapsed. Even after the ceasefire, Hamas remains the strongest Palestinian power and does not seem to face significant popular unrest.40
Conclusion
In both Ukraine and Israel, the story of resilience is not only about battlefield endurance but also the mobilization of society—military, civilian, technological, and psychological—to resist aggression and maintain national cohesion. Their experiences underscore the critical importance of preparing societies for long-term conflict, including safeguarding infrastructure, cultivating civilian readiness, and maintaining the credibility of national narratives in the global information space. Resilience in this broader sense serves both defensive and deterrent functions: It helps nations absorb shocks without collapse and signals to adversaries that occupation or coercion will not yield easy gains.
Resilience . . . serves both defensive and deterrent functions: It helps nations absorb shocks without collapse and signals to adversaries that occupation or coercion will not yield easy gains.
Mobilizing the population is necessary to resist foreign efforts to undermine resilience. Both the Ukraine and Gaza wars have been long and have required Ukraine and Israel to mobilize reservists and parts of their population outside the military. It is difficult to know how long a conflict between the United States and China or another major war would last, but it is plausible that such a conflict would require a sustained effort in which success would depend, in part, on which side could best mobilize its population for the long term.
Authoritarian states can use coercion and propaganda to suppress dissent. Like other regimes, they can also draw on nationalism and antiforeign sentiment to stay in power. Nevertheless, their resilience can be undermined, and it is often more brittle than it appears. Indeed, as the December 2024 fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime suggests, seemingly solid authoritarian regimes can collapse quickly. Offensive information operations against authoritarian states could focus on unpopular regime policies, human rights abuses, economic problems, corruption, or domestic political and societal divisions.
Future conflicts could see large-scale hostage taking, forced assimilation of captured populations, and other illegal, but nonetheless quite real, anti-civilian actions that might divide popular opinion. Countering this requires developing an information strategy for domestic and foreign audiences, developing communications with occupied parts of a country, and ensuring special operations forces are well prepared for hostage rescue missions.
Ensuring cohesion and resilience depends, in part, on defending civilian infrastructure and national security assets controlled by private sector companies, many of which do not focus on national security or regularly interact with the government in peacetime. Much of this activity will occur in the cyber realm, requiring close cooperation with a range of private technology companies.
Societal divisions undermine resilience, and adversary propaganda tries to play on these. Such divisions are difficult to overcome, often stemming from broader societal problems due to discrimination and social change. Political leaders can worsen or ameliorate these divisions through their rhetoric and policies, and they must recognize that playing up divisions provides openings for adversaries.
Strategic planners must view societal resilience as an integrated element of national security, not a secondary consideration. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East illustrate that the contest over will and cohesion is not merely an adjunct to military conflict—it is central to victory or defeat.
Please consult the PDF for references.
Daniel Byman is the director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.