“This is exactly what wars of the future will look like”
The story reads like a Tom Clancy novel: Ukrainian intelligence agents launched 117 attack drones last Sunday from trucks covertly placed near Russian air bases. Their so-called “Spider’s Web” operation struck 34 percent of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers, destroying what Ukraine claimed to be $7 billion worth of Russian equipment.
According to reports, the drones were smuggled deep inside Russia and hidden inside trucks in mobile log cabins. The cabins’ roofs were opened remotely, allowing the drones to launch their attacks on Russian military bombers.
“It’s also good news to the United States”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s agents managed to work for months inside Russia under the nose of the Russian FSB domestic security service. One of their offices was located next to FSB headquarters in one region, for example. The agents who set up the attacks were withdrawn before the operation and are safe.
A Ukrainian official said the planes that were attacked were used by the Russian military for air strikes on Ukrainian cities. One attack deep inside Russia was staged more than 2,670 miles from Ukraine. The operation was carried out exactly twenty-nine years to the day after Ukraine delivered dozens of the same strategic bombers to Russia, along with up to two thousand strategic nuclear warheads and 176 ICBMs, in exchange for a promise not to be attacked.
John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine, said that “Russia’s ability to strike into Ukraine will be severely limited” because of the attack, adding, “It’s also good news to the United States, because those long-range bombers are nuclear weapons-capable.”
However, the attacks could be bad news for the US if our enemies utilize a similar strategy against us. The Defense Department warns, for example, that China could be developing a launcher that can fit inside a shipping container and be used against our vessels. With as many as seventy-two million shipping containers around the world, it would be impossible to identify and neutralize all such threats.
Chinese interests have been buying large amounts of farmland next to important US military bases; they could be staging grounds for drone swarms that would make the Ukrainian attacks pale by comparison. According to one defense expert, it’s “only a matter of time” before Ukraine’s tactic is taken up by Russia and other hostile state actors.
Ukraine claims that the operation was personally overseen by President Zelensky and Vasyl Maliuk, head of the SBU domestic intelligence agency. A top official in Zelensky’s government stated, “This is exactly what wars of the future will look like.”
Beware the “unwarranted extrapolation” fallacy
According to President Zelensky, the “Spider’s Web” attack took “one year, six months, and nine days from the start of planning to effective execution.” Last Saturday, no one in Russia knew what would happen to their military the next day.
This fact illustrates the “unwarranted extrapolation” fallacy that assumes the future will be like the present. The reality is that unseen factors are always at work today that will change the world tomorrow. This can be a negative or a positive reality, sometimes at the same time.
For example, I could have pancreatic cancer right now and not know it. If this is the case and I die from this disease at some point in the near future, this would presumably be considered a negative outcome. For me, however, it would be the door from this fallen world into God’s perfect paradise.
In the same way, Ukraine’s surprise operation last Sunday is either a “brilliant” success (from the Ukrainian point of view) or a “terrorist attack” (from the Russian side). However it is seen, it reminds us that tomorrow is largely dependent on factors we can neither know nor control today.
This is why Scripture warns, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1).
Your prayers today can change the world tomorrow
The only way to prepare ourselves for such an unpredictable future is to align our present lives with the will and purpose of God. Here’s why.
The God who created time and transcends it can see tomorrow better than we can see today (Psalm 90:2; Exodus 3:14). In his “perfect” will for us (Romans 12:2), he incorporates factors unseen to us and prepares us for the day they affect us. He redeems the bad for good (Romans 8:28) and uses all things to advance his kingdom in the world (cf. Daniel 2:44).
When we are aligned with his will today, we position ourselves to participate in his providential and sovereign rule of the universe. As Jesus warned us, this does not mean that bad things will not happen to us in this broken world (John 16:33). But it does mean that even the bad that comes to us is used by our omniscient and omnipotent Father for his glory and our good.
Our problem is that we want to be our own kings ruling our own kingdoms. Our “will to power” is at the heart of our fallen human nature (Genesis 3:5). We deceive ourselves—and we are deceived by Satan—to believe that we have agency and control over our lives that we do not.
But when we dethrone ourselves and enthrone Christ as our king (Matthew 6:33) by submitting our lives to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he uses our present faithfulness, though perhaps unseen by others, to change eternity.
For example, because God is not bound by time, he knows tomorrow the prayers you are praying today and is responding to them in ways you will not see until Thursday. He even knew yesterday what you would pray and do today and responded on Tuesday to your obedience (or lack thereof) today.
“There is no failure in God’s will”
Corrie ten Boom encouraged us, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” When she was trusting and serving Jesus faithfully while imprisoned in her Nazi concentration camp, she could not know that her obedience would lead one day to a global ministry that has influenced millions.
But God did.
The famed pastor George W. Truett observed,
“There is no failure in God’s will, and no success outside of God’s will.”
Will your life be a “success” today?
Quote for the day:
“God doesn’t work on our timetable. He has a plan that he will execute perfectly for the highest, greatest good of all, and for his ultimate glory.” —Charles R. Swindoll
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