New Total War

From the revolutionary use of drones to staged coups, child abduction and psychological warfare, the war in Ukraine is like no other. It is a new form of total war, combining traditional military force with all the non-military tools of the Russian state. The 2022 invasion was just the next stage of a conflict that Russia has been fighting since 2005, using all the tactics at its disposal to control Ukraine's politics and wreak havoc.

Combining over a decade of research, astute analysis and powerful stories from the front line, and including striking photographs of the people and scenes he encountered along the way, Bob Seely has written the authoritative guide to this new form of conflict. Travelling extensively throughout Ukraine, Seely meets figures such as Panoushka, the sniper who continues to fight despite the loss of her fiance, and Ksenia, the seventeen-year-old who journeyed through Russia searching for her abducted younger brother. Above all, Seely argues that understanding Moscow's new total war is critical because Russia considers itself at war with the West as well as Ukraine, directing some of the tactics used there against us.

Insightful, gripping and at times moving, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the unconventional methods Russia and other authoritarian states will use to challenge the West for global supremacy and undermine our beliefs, power and influence.

Dr Robert (Bob) Seely is a former soldier, journalist and Member of Parliament. As a young foreign correspondent, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He first warned of a revanchist Russia in the mid-1990s and has researched and written about the topic extensively since then. As a British soldier, he served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the campaign against ISIS, where he witnessed the changing nature of war at first hand. As an MP from 2017 to 2024, he continued to warn of the growing threat to peace from Russia.

Dr Seely has long been fascinated by the fusion of different forms of conflict. He devoted a decade of academic study to his PhD from King's College London. The New Total War is the result of over thirty years of expertise in Russia, Ukraine and modern warfare.