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Russia's war in ukraine: identity, history, and conflict.

By Jeffrey Mankoff CSIS

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes the biggest threat to peace and security in Europe since the end of the Cold War. On February 21, 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin gave a bizarre and at times unhinged  speech  laying out a long list of grievances as justification for the “special military operation” announced the following day. While these grievances included the long-simmering dispute over the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the shape of the post–Cold War security architecture in Europe, the speech centered on a much more fundamental issue: the legitimacy of Ukrainian identity and statehood themselves. It reflected a worldview Putin had long expressed, emphasizing the deep-seated unity among the Eastern Slavs—Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, who all trace their origins to the medieval Kyivan Rus commonwealth—and suggesting that the modern states of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus should share a political destiny both today and in the future. The corollary to that view is the claim that distinct Ukrainian and Belarusian identities are the product of foreign manipulation and that, today, the West is following in the footsteps of Russia’s imperial rivals in using Ukraine (and Belarus) as part of an “ anti-Russia project .”

Throughout Putin’s time in office, Moscow has pursued a policy toward Ukraine and Belarus predicated on the assumption that their respective national identities are artificial—and therefore fragile. Putin’s arguments about foreign enemies promoting Ukrainian (and, in a more diffuse way, Belarusian) identity as part of a geopolitical struggle against Russia echo the way many of his predecessors refused to accept the agency of ordinary people seeking autonomy from tsarist or Soviet domination. The  historically minded Putin  often invokes the ideas of thinkers emphasizing the organic unity of the Russian Empire and its people—especially its Slavic, Orthodox core—in a form of what the historian  Timothy Snyder  calls the “politics of eternity,” the belief in an unchanging historical essence.

The salience that Putin and other Russian elites assign to the idea of Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian unity helps explain the origins of the current conflict, notably why Moscow was willing to risk a large-scale war on its borders when neither Ukraine nor NATO posed any military threat. It also suggests that Moscow’s ambitions extend beyond preventing Ukrainian NATO membership and encompass a more thorough aspiration to dominate Ukraine politically, militarily, and economically.

Read the rest of the report at CSIS - 

Jeffrey Mankoff  is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, Center for Strategic Research at National Defense University. 

The views expressed are the authors own and do not reflect those of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. 

Moscow's Mercenary Wars: The Expansion of Russian Private Military Companies

As the United States withdraws its military forces from parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, Russia is expanding its influence in these and other areas. But instead of deploying conventional Russian soldiers, Moscow has turned to special operations forces, intelligence units, and private military companies (PMCs) like the Wagner Group to do its bidding. Russia’s strategy is straightforward: to undermine U.S. power and increase Moscow’s influence using low-profile, deniable forces like PMCs that can do everything from providing foreign leaders with security to training, advising, and assisting partner security forces.

Moscow’s use of PMCs has exploded in recent years, reflecting lessons learned from earlier deployments, a growing expansionist mindset, and a desire for economic, geopolitical, and military gains. Ukraine served as one of the first proving grounds for PMCs, beginning in 2014. The Russians then refined the model as these private mercenaries worked with local forces in countries such as Syria and Libya. Over time, Moscow expanded the use of PMCs to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and other regions—including countries such as Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Venezuela. PMCs now fill various roles to undermine U.S. influence and support Russia’s expanding geopolitical, military, and economic interests.

With operations suspected or proven in as many as 30 countries across 4 continents and an increasingly refined and adaptable operational model, PMCs are likely to play a significant role in Russian strategic competition for the foreseeable future.

Spread of Russian PMC Activity since 2014

Dates represent the earliest credibly documented PMC presence in each country. Not all PMC deployments are ongoing.

Roles & Missions

Russian Special Forces soldiers from the army's intelligence unit take part in a military drill at a training ground near the village of Mol'kino, Krasnodar region, on July 10, 2015. Photo by SERGEI VENYAVSKY/AFP via Getty Images.

Russian Objectives

PMCs play key roles executing Moscow’s policy objectives and advancing Russian national security interests across the globe. Even though PMCs are technically illegal under Article 13.5 of the Russian Constitution, some of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies—such as Yevgeny Prigozhin—head Russian PMCs. A core component of Russia’s "hybrid warfare" strategy, PMCs provide the Kremlin a quasi-deniable means through which to pursue Russian objectives, complementing or substituting for more traditional, overt forms of statecraft.

PMCs conduct training before deploying abroad, including at bases inside Russia and likely with the support of Russian military and intelligence agencies. Russia’s largest and most capable PMC, Wagner Group, conducts training at two camps attached to the location of 10th Special Mission Brigade of GRU Spetsnaz in Mol’kino, Krasnodar region, Russia.

The main base features a headquarters, an airborne training and obstacle course, weapons and munitions storage, and other military facilities.

North of the main military base, Wagner has a separate facility. The Wagner base was likely built between 2015 and 2016, encompasses approximately six acres, and consists of approximately nine permanent structures of varying sizes. Images show numerous and varying numbers of cargo trucks, small trucks, and civilian vehicles.

Features south of the main base include a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) unit—shown here—as well as an unidentified internal base and other training areas.

Date of Arrival: 2014

PMCs first began operating in Ukraine during Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 before taking on a central role in Moscow's ongoing covert war in Eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. Operating independently or augmenting regular Russian forces, PMC personnel in Ukraine including from Wagner Group reached between 2,500-5,000 during peak of fighting in 2015.

PMCs provided Moscow an ideal tool through which to pursue its geopolitical, military, and ideological objectives in Ukraine: destabilizing then consolidating control over Crimea and Donbas, undermining and pressuring Kyiv and its Western backers for diplomatic concessions, and doing it all while denying any official Russian involvement. However, while PMCs enabled Moscow and its Donbas proxies to seize and secure control over new "independent" republics in Donetsk and Luhansk, their battlefield achievements largely stalled since 2015, rendering the frontlines of Eastern Ukraine another Russian-backed frozen conflict. Moreover, Russian attempts to maintain "plausible deniability" for their actions fooled few Western governments, resulting in sanctions on Kremlin and PMC officials and organizations.

Nonetheless, Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was one of the first battlefield applications of its new "hybrid warfare" doctrine, and Moscow integrated PMCs into its military operations. Russia applied several lessons, such as exploiting the military-like capabilities of PMCs and their official " deniability ," to its next major foreign operation: Syria.

PMC combat support to Donbas separatists, particularly from Wagner Group, was decisive in pivotal early battles of the war in Eastern Ukraine from 2014 to 2015.

Click on the map for more information about an event.

• Annexation of Crimea March 2014
• Battle of Luhansk Airport Spring 2014
• Shootdown of Ukrainian Il-76 June 2014
• Battle of Debaltseve Early 2015

Date of Arrival: 2015

Building off its experience in Ukraine, Russia again turned to PMCs in Syria to help achieve important goals —including stabilizing the Assad regime and countering efforts by the United States and its partners. In addition, PMCs played a crucial role capturing oil fields , refineries, gas plants, and other energy infrastructure from rebels. Russian PMCs played an increasingly direct role in pro-regime combat operations over the course of the Syrian civil war and were often synchronized with Russian economic priorities, including securing key energy infrastructure. PMC personnel in Syria reached up to 1,000-3,000 personnel, including contingents from Wagner Group, Vegacy, E.N.O.T., Vostok Battalion, and other PMCs.

Syria was an important testing ground for the application of a hybrid-PMC deployment model, which is now being exported to other battlegrounds. PMCs acted as a ground force with skill sets similar to Russian Spetsnaz through which Moscow could limit regular Russian military casualties and provide deniability for high-risk Russian actions. PMCs synchronized military advances with economic priorities: capitalizing on ground advances in oil- and gas-rich areas, securing key pipelines, oil fields, refineries, and gas plants to stage future ground advances and draw profits. The Wagner Group’s advance on the Conoco Plant in Dayr az Zawr in February 2018 demonstrates how Moscow used PMCs to take risks in a deniable manner. In this case, Wagner attempted to seize the U.S.- and partner-controlled Conoco gas plant both to secure an economically valuable site and test U.S. resolve.

T-4 airbase in central Syria served as a key airbase for Russia in January 2017 as part of its strategy and planning to retake eastern Syria. Battlefield needs in 2017 precipitated a steady increase in specialized ground forces, including Russian PMCs, which led the ground component of this stage of the war. By 2019, Russia had expanded its presence at T-4 to become an all-purpose, air, ground, and intelligence base for its missions in Syria. The following imagery of T-4 identifies possible PMC positions at the airbase in 2017 and 2019.

Full airbase shot of T-4, January 23, 2017.

Left: An infantry battalion position observed at T-4 was likely Russian since the Syrian Arab Army no longer displayed this type of formation six years into the war.

Right: A likely Russian logistics facility at T-4.

A tank company and support element position at T-4. Russia expanded its presence at the airbase since battlefield needs required increased ground forces.

Russian ground attack aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles in May 2019 indicate Russia’s expanded presence at T-4.

This multi-mission role of PMCs—military, political, economic—and integration into host-nation proxy forces would next be employed in Libya.

With lessons learned from supporting the Assad regime in Syria, Russia deployed PMCs to Libya's civil war to bolster General Khalifa Haftar, his Libyan National Army (LNA), and the eastern-based government in Tobruk. Since 2017, PMCs such as Wagner Group have been at the vanguard of Russian efforts, advising and enabling Haftar's LNA offensive into western Syria and assault on the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli in 2019. Moscow deployed up to 800-1,200 PMC personnel, primarily from Wagner Group, to multiple training sites, forward bases, and key energy and infrastructure facilities as of early 2020, conducting a variety of missions vital to Haftar's offensive and to Russian interests.

1,600 Russian "Wagner" PMC militants left the west of Libya after the defeat and flight of the Russian-Haftar troops. View original tweet.

One of Russia’s primary deployment sites has been Al Jufra Air Base in central Libya, which has served as the launching pad for Wagner Group forces and Russian air support to the Tripoli campaign. A close examination of Russia’s deployment at Al Jufra Airbase reveals an expansion of Russian air and ground forces. In particular, satellite imagery shows a growth in the presence of the Russian PMC Wagner Group, a core component of Russia’s intervention in Libya.

Full airbase shot, June 6, 2020.

The arrival of a large contingent of Russian artillery and PMC Wagner Group forces, May 28, 2020.

A Russian Su-24 attack aircraft taxiing on an Al Jufra runway, demonstrating continued Russian military activity, June 8, 2020.

PMCs have been Moscow's spearhead for advancing its foreign policy, military, and economic interests in Libya. With the Libyan civil war, Russia saw a power vacuum and chance to exploit the instability to expand Russian influence, using PMCs to bolster Haftar , tip the conflict in their favor, and reap the rewards. In exchange, Moscow sought economic and military concessions , deploying PMCs to key oil and gas facilities and Mediterranean ports as those areas fell to the LNA. Russia also used Libya to strengthen ties to traditionally U.S. partners, namely UAE and Egypt. Since 2017, Russian PMCs have deployed to Egypt’s Sidi Barrani airfield to direct joint Russian-Egyptian military support to Haftar. Newly acquired CSIS imagery shows the deployment of Russian equipment at Sidi Barrani in March 2017.

Left: A recently arrived Il-76 transport aircraft in March 2017 at Sidi Barrani. Russian special operations forces and private military contractors deployed to Sidi Barrani as part of a bid to support Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar.

Right: Vehicles on the aircraft apron at Sidi Barrani in March 2017.

Russia's deployment of PMCs to Libya has strengthened its geostrategic position and diplomatic influence in the country, ensuring Moscow's role in any resolution of the conflict and an end-state amenable to Russian interests . However, there were also limits to Moscow’s use of PMCs. Despite assistance from PMCs, the LNA was unable to seize Tripoli and even triggered an expanding intervention from Turkey to bolster the GNA. Wagner Group alone has lost hundreds of fighters and key weapons systems in Tripoli's heavy ground fighting and from Turkish drone strikes. Nonetheless, through its PMC-led intervention, Moscow has gained a new strategic foothold and geostrategic position on the Mediterranean, as well as a bridgehead into the rest of the African continent.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Though Russian PMCs first appeared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as early as 2014, Russia significantly expanded the geographic scope and missions of PMCs in Sub-Saharan Africa following its interventions in Ukraine, Syria, and Libya. Russia has primarily used PMCs to target resource-rich countries with weak governance, such as Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and Madagascar. Though PMC tasks have varied from case to case to meet local needs, in each of these countries Russia exchanged military and security support for economic gains and political influence.

In Sudan, Russia used Wagner Group to provide military and political support to President Omar al-Bashir in exchange for gold mining concessions. Russia also had a strategic motive to seek basing rights in the Red Sea. In November 2017, Moscow facilitated a mining operations agreement for M Invest, a Russian company tied to Yevgeny Prigozhin. PMC troops, who arrived the following month, provided training and military assistance to local forces. In addition, PMCs orchestrated a disinformation campaign to discredit protesters through many of the same techniques the Internet Research Agency, linked to Prigozhin, used in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Central African  Republic

Russia has followed a similar model in the Central African Republic, where the Wagner Group and Patriot—another Russian PMC—have reportedly been active. Beginning in January 2018, Russia exchanged military training and security—primarily for President Faustin-Archange Touadéra and mining operations—for access to gold, uranium, and diamonds . New CSIS imagery sheds light on the training camp these troops established southwest of Bangui in the ruins of the Palace of Berengo.

Wagner PMC Base in Berengo Progress

Following their arrival in 2018, PMC troops established a training camp in the ruins of former-emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa’s palace at Berengo, southwest of Bangui. Troops repaired existing facilities and constructed new housing, storage structures, and training areas—including firing ranges and revetments. The imagery below shows the year-by-year development of the main base on the palace grounds and the two adjacent training areas, beginning with the conditions in 2017 before PMCs arrived.

In early spring 2018, Wagner Group sent a small group of political analysts to Madagascar to support incumbent President Hery Rajaonarimampianina's reelection bid in exchange for economic agreements on mining (chromite and gold), oil, agriculture, and the port of Toamasina . In April, additional troops arrived to provide security and military training, allegedly with the assistance of Federal Security Service and GRU officers . Though Rajaonarimampianina lost the election, he facilitated the promised agreements prior to leaving office. Ferrum Mining , a Russian company involved in one such deal, began operations on the island in October 2018 but soon paused due to strikes.

In Mozambique, Russia traded Wagner's military support against Islamist insurgents in Cabo Delgado province for access to natural gas. Wagner troops arrived in early September 2019 but were unprepared for the mission. They had little experience conducting operations in the brush and difficulty coordinating with local forces. After significant losses, Wagner troops retreated south to Nacala in November 2019 to regroup. Despite sending additional equipment and troops in February and March 2020, Wagner was replaced in April by the Dyck Advisory Group , a South African PMC. It is unclear whether any Wagner troops remain in the country.

Latin America

Date of Arrival: 2017

Russia’s global use of PMCs has also extended to Latin America, though they are not as widespread as in Africa. PMCs have most notably played a role in Venezuela, though their presence has also been rumored in countries such as Nicaragua.

PMCs have been present in Venezuela since at least 2017 to guard Russian business interests and companies, such as Rosneft . Despite investments in the Venezuelan economy, Moscow's relationship with Caracas is primarily driven by a geostrategic desire to reassert its influence in the region at the expense of the United States. In response to the Trump administration's calling for the ouster for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president in January 2019, Russia deployed approximately 100 security contractors, likely from Wagner, the same month to provide security to president Maduro amid political upheaval. These contractors conducted surveillance and cybersecurity protection in addition to physical security.

Outlook & Implications

August 4, 2018: Victor Tokmakov, first secretary of the Russian Embassy, presents diplomas to graduating recruits in Berengo. Russian military consultants have set up training for the Central African Armed Forces and the Internal Security Forces after delivering weapons to the country. Photo by FLORENT VERGNES/AFP via Getty Images

These examples demonstrate Russia’s expanding global use of the PMC model to advance its geopolitical and economic goals and undermine U.S. interests. PMCs provide the Kremlin a deniable means to project power and influence into its "near-abroad," as recent PMC activity in Belarus has demonstrated. They offer a glimpse of how Russia plans to compete with the United States in the future, particularly in weak, strategically located, and resource-rich states.

PMCs are an important instrument in a broad Russian toolkit that includes covert action, cyber operations, and other irregular activity across the globe. Yet PMC activities have not always been successful. In Libya, for example, Russia and its PMCs suffered a serious setback following the battlefield losses of Khalifa Haftar. Despite such problems, U.S. efforts to counter Russian PMCs have been weak and ad hoc. A more effective response should include several steps.

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Center for Strategic Research Offices – Moscow

• Client Center for Strategic Research ,
• size 20,000 sqft
• Location Moscow , Russia ,
• Industry Consulting / Business Services ,

bobo space delivered a safe office design for employees returning to work following the COVID-19 pandemic at the Center for Strategic Research located in Moscow, Russia.

We have started to work on a design project of office situated on Butyrsky Val in Moscow at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And therefore, the main task set for us by the customer was to create a safe space for people who return to work in the office during and after a pandemic. We strive to create positive changes through design. In response to the global pandemic, our studio “Bobo space” from Saint-Petersburg (Russia) is working to create a safe office space for people. We have been thinking about architectural solutions and ideas for redesigning workplaces that can provide not only physical distance (seating back to back or side to side; help people keep to a 2m distance), but also fit into approach to design that encourage care for employees. Once people return to the office, they’ll need to transpose our newly discovered sense of community accountability back into the workplace. Once personal connections are established, design components will play an important role in bolstering and reinforcing this newfound communal spirit. Shared neighborhood resources like collaboration tables, and lounge areas provide opportunities for group connections. To achieve this goals, we incorporated a number of solutions into the project: UV LAMPS. In addition to the main lighting used during working hours, ultraviolet lamps are switched on by a timer at night, disinfecting all rooms. NON-CONTACT OPENING OF DOORS. The doors to the main areas are opened using a proximity key. The person entering just needs to bring his hand to it, and the door will open on its own. INSULATED WORKPLACES. Open space workstations are isolated from each other with high partitions. OPEN MEETING AREA. There is a high table in the meeting room area for holding Scrum, Daily, Stand-up meetings. While standing, employees are freer to express their thoughts, behave more actively than during hours of meetings in meeting rooms, and meetings are more emotional and productive. COMPLIANCE WITH THE DISTANCE. A distance of 1.5-2 meters is maintained between all workplaces and armchairs in the living room-meeting room. White and dark gray were chosen as the color base for this project, with yellow accents. By amazing coincidence, Pantone, the global color authority and provider of professional color standards, has announced PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray and PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating as Pantone® Colors for 2021. These are two independent colors, the union of which creates an inspiring color pair that combines a sense of depth and thoughtfulness with the optimistic promise of a sunny day. We designed the art objects on the walls ourselves. We did not want to overload the walls with additional color spots, and we created monochromatic white panels, the drawing on which appears only due to the volume and light and shade.

Design : bobo space Photography : Grigory Sokolinsky

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Research Associate - Energy Security and Climate Change Program

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At CSIS we actively seek to employ a diverse group of people who embody our organizational values. We welcome and encourage individuals of all backgrounds to apply, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups.

The Energy Security and Climate Change Program is hiring a research associate or associate fellow (depending on appropriate experience) to support its work on issues related to energy security, the energy transition, and climate change. This position assists in the development, research, and writing for projects undertaken by the program, with cross-cutting responsibilities, including analysis, research, project management, and outreach. The candidate should be a creative, dedicated, and energetic individual ready to contribute significantly to the energy and climate related research agendas of the team. Demonstrated experience with energy and climate issues preferred. 

The minimum salary for a Research Associate is $58,000 and the minimum salary for an Associate Fellow is $65,000.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Research, Writing, and Project Management (75-80%), including but not limited to

• Identifies and researches key issues in global energy and climate policy, clean energy development, geopolitical developments, and related program areas of interest

• Researches and contributes writing to reports, analysis, thought pieces, and multimedia products

• Contributes to multiple collaborative research projects

• Represents the Program and the Director at meetings, workshops, and public or private events 

• Other tasks as assigned by the Director

Additional duties for the Associate Fellow include

o Writing publications as sole author on a frequency schedule 

o Hosting podcast discussions

o Responding to media and key stakeholder requests 

o Contribute to grants, concept papers, and project proposals

Administrative Duties (20-25%), including but not limited to

• Provides task management, including coordination of publications, events, and related project deliverables

• Ensures timely execution of regular internal and external communications regarding project assignments

• Works with the Program to organize and execute meetings, conferences, workshops, and other logistics as needed

KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION, AND EXPERIENCE

• 2-3 years of direct experience in the energy and climate sector

• Demonstrated knowledge of energy and climate policy, particularly with the relevant U.S. executive agencies and U.S. Congress

• Master’s degree or equivalent related work experience in the field

• Demonstrated verbal and written communication skills including the ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from constituency groups and the general public

• Possess an entrepreneurial mindset and be able to work well independently and in teams

• Sound judgment and creative outlook

Additional skills and education for the Associate Fellow include

o Minimum of 4 or more years of relevant experience and must exhibit substantive familiarity with energy and climate policy.

o Demonstrated ability to effectively present information in a public setting

o Track record of success working in highly collaborative, team-based environments, with a commitment to professional development and mentoring

To submit an application for this position, click the “Apply” button below, and you will be redirected to our secure recruitment portal.

Report: 92% of CISOs Question Their Role Amid Growing AI Pressures

New research from Trellix, in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), reveals that 92 percent of chief information security officers (CISOs) question the future of their role amidst growing AI and generative AI (GenAI) pressures.

CSIS hosted a conversation today to discuss the research report, which features survey responses from 500 security executives in North America on how AI and GenAI are affecting the role of the CISO.

“One of the biggest challenges we face is that the role of the CISO can be redefined over a 24-hour period,” said Harold Rivas, the CISO at Trellix.

For example, he said a completely new threat actor or novel technique can emerge that can “change fundamentally” an organization’s cybersecurity posture, investments, and strategy.

“Those things are creating stressors,” Rivas said. “That was true before GenAI, now we’ve added a massive accelerator – something that’s giving this disproportionate capability to the attacker that allows them to innovate very rapidly to try new techniques. Ultimately, we’re in a game where we lose if they score one time. That’s a very challenging proposition for CISOs everywhere.”

Grant Schneider, the former Federal CISO and current senior director of cybersecurity services at Venable, added that AI makes it difficult for a CISO to stick to a plan.

He explained that most CISOs are “probably aware of the vast majority of the vulnerabilities and the risks in their environment,” and they develop a project plan to address those vulnerabilities. Typically, he said CISOs would prioritize them based on the “likelihood of being exploited and impact if they are exploited.”

For instance, if something is more difficult for an adversary to exploit, the CISO would place that vulnerability “lower on the list” and not worry about it as much.

“AI brings the adversaries an ability to find all of the vulnerabilities really, really quickly,” Schneider said. “So, now if I’m a CISO, I’m really stressed over my 12 or 18-month project plan to work off these 20 items, or whatever it is, because I know any one of them could bite me at any moment. Whereas maybe a couple of years ago, I felt like the odds of someone finding that really unique vulnerability and being able to exploit it were pretty low.”

“I think anyone that has vulnerabilities that they haven’t gotten to, the more of them that you have, the more risk you’re going to be facing and at a higher level than you were before,” he said.

According to the report, 90 percent of CISOs feel they are exposed to increased liability as a result of AI and GenAI. Additionally, 87 percent of CISOs regularly work outside of their contracted hours.

As a result, CISOs are looking to policymakers for guidance. Ninety-two percent of CISOs say using GenAI without clear regulations would put their organization at risk, with nearly all (99.8 percent) agreeing greater levels of regulation are required in the next 6 months; particularly surrounding data privacy and protection (55 percent).

• TMF Funding Drops From House Budget Radar; IRS Direct File Blocked
• Sen. Peters Drafting Bill for ONCD-Led Cyber Harmonization Panel
• DoD CIO Unveils ‘Zero Trust Overlays’ Guide

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The state of customer care in 2022

Customer care leaders are facing a perfect storm of challenges: call volumes are up, employees are leaving and harder to replace, and digital solutions aren’t yet delivering on their full promise. Add rising customer expectations and decades-high inflation  to the mix, and it’s easy to understand why customer care leaders are feeling the pressure.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Jeff Berg , Eric Buesing , Paul Hurst, Vivian Lai, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay, representing views of McKinsey’s Customer Care service line.

The stakes couldn’t be higher as teams try to adapt to a postpandemic era of customer care. Over the past two years, leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home—up to 85 percent of their workforces, in some cases. Contact center employees are harder to hold onto, and nearly half of customer care managers experienced increased attrition in 2021, leading to performance variability.

Over the past two years, customer care leaders have had to quickly adapt systems and ways of working to accommodate the shift to working from home.

While digital solutions and the shift to self-service channels will solve many of these challenges, they aren’t quite reaching the goal. For most organizations, the vast majority of digital customer contacts require assistance, and only 10 percent of newly built digital platforms are fully scaled or adopted by customers.

Not surprisingly, McKinsey’s 2022 State of Customer Care Survey has found that customer care is now a strategic focus for companies. Respondents say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months will be retaining and developing the best people, driving a simplified customer experience (CX)  while reducing call volumes and costs, and building their digital care and advanced analytics ecosystems.

With challenges on all fronts, the question now confronting leaders is how best to prioritize investment across the people, operations, and technology aspects of their customer care strategies. Knowing where to focus or what to do first isn’t easy, and businesses need to move quickly. Companies that don’t invest in this area face the possibility of further talent attrition, customer dissatisfaction, and even loss of market share.

But customer care is also now a major opportunity for businesses. Done well—through a combination of tech and human touch—it is an area where companies can drive loyalty through a more personalized customer journey while unlocking greater productivity, increased revenue, improved job satisfaction, and real-time customer insights.

This article presents the key findings of the 2022 State of Customer Care Survey and how businesses are shifting priorities at this critical time.

Challenges on all fronts

To uncover the latest trends in customer care, McKinsey surveyed more than 160 industry leaders and experts at the director, senior director, vice president, and C-suite levels to find out how their operations have been affected over the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Care is at an inflection point

The survey findings indicate that customer care is at an inflection point. Call volumes are higher and more complex than before, while companies find themselves struggling to find talent and train them to proficiency at pace.

As customer care increasingly moves online, the distinction between digital and live interactions has also begun to blur. Organizations are looking for new capabilities that will enhance both the customer and employee experience in “moments that matter”—those interactions that may have previously happened face to face or have significant influence on overall CX.

Compared with results of the 2019 State of Customer Care Survey, customer care leaders are now more focused on improving CX, reducing contact volumes, deploying AI assistance, and increasing revenue generation on service calls (Exhibit 1).

Customer care talent is increasingly scarce

Higher call volumes and more complex calls are challenging existing capacity—61 percent of surveyed care leaders report a growth in total calls, with increased contacts per customer and a growing customer base as the key drivers. And 58 percent of care leaders expect call volumes to increase even further over the next 18 months.

While a growing customer base is a positive sign for business, it puts greater pressure on contact centers that are already under strain. More customers mean increased call numbers, and with more complex calls, customers tend to have to phone contact centers over and over again—further affecting capacity and resulting in a more negative CX overall.

To make matters worse, talent attrition is affecting customer care capacity. Employees are leaving faster than they did before the pandemic—a result of the Great Attrition—and are more difficult to replace. Nearly half of surveyed managers report increased employee attrition over the past 12 months.

The top-cited reason for employees leaving is poaching by competitors—58 percent—alongside employee burnout, employee dissatisfaction, lack of advancement opportunities, and poor work–life balance (Exhibit 2).

Retaining talent could prove vital in the race to maintain capacity. New hires require significant staff training, with 41 percent of surveyed leaders reporting that it takes between three and six months to train a new employee for optimal performance and a further 20 percent saying it takes more than six months.

Uniting self-service and live channels

Many companies have made significant investments in digital care capacity in recent years, though cross-channel integration and migration issues continue to hamper progress. For example, 77 percent of survey respondents report that their organizations have built digital platforms, but only 10 percent report that those platforms are fully scaled and adopted by customers. Only 12 percent of digital platforms are highly integrated, and, for most organizations, only 20 percent of digital contacts are unassisted.

In an increasingly digital first environment, however, customer care is fundamental to how organizations interact with their customers. Leaders in this field are asking, “How do we create a better, more personalized experience through digitally enabled services?”

Businesses are investing in three critical areas

Faced with the challenges of a fast-changing and demanding environment, companies can’t afford to refrain from acting on the customer care storm. Over the past two years, customers have flocked to digital channels because of the pandemic, and organizations have had to race to meet their needs with new channels that support remote and digital transactions.

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In a postpandemic future, this pivot to digital is likely to keep growing. And while many companies believe that they have made significant strides in their customer care transformation journey, a significant number remain at a foundational level—they are improving self-service options and automating common requests but haven’t yet moved far enough along the journey to distinguish from their competitors. Meanwhile, those that have the leading edge are leveraging real-time customer behavior insights and conversational AI to deliver proactive customer outreach.

Customer care leaders say their top three priorities over the next 12 to 24 months are to retain and develop the best people, drive a simplified CX while reducing call volumes and costs, and build out their digital care ecosystems.

Retain and develop the best people

Traditionally, customer care talent has been regarded as cheap, easy to replace, and relatively low skilled. But with call volumes growing and calls becoming more complex to resolve, these employees now require more strategic consideration.

With three out of five surveyed leaders citing attracting, training, and retaining talent as a top priority, businesses are looking at ways to build a better organizational culture. Two of the most effective ways to do this—according to customer care leaders—are to find ways to motivate and build trust with employees and to encourage leaders to listen and act on employee feedback (Exhibit 3).

Shift the interactions

Shifting the workload away from transactional, repetitive calls can address a number of the headaches facing customer care leaders. The move can free up capacity to improve CX while offering more rewarding work to employees.

Companies are looking to shift from a transactional to a solution-oriented interaction during the live, complex calls that matter most to customers. Organizations are also turning to self-service channels and tech to resolve high volumes. And the strategy is working. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed that decreased their call volumes identified improved self-service as a key driver (Exhibit 4).

Organizations are planning to increase digital interactions one and a half times by 2024. The top three areas identified for investment include tech that improves omnichannel and digital capabilities—for example, chatbots and AI tools—automated manual activities in contact centers, and advanced analytics capabilities.

Despite digital tech taking on more of the burden for customer service interactions, human assistance will likely remain an important driver of overall CX, especially in the moments that matter. Customers want fast, efficient service, but they also want personalized customer care, whatever the channel of engagement.

Develop AI-powered customer care ecosystems

The growing challenges around increasing volumes, rising complexity, and limited talent availability are unlikely to be solved at scale without AI and data analytics. Companies can optimize the entire customer operations footprint by using tech to measure performance, identify opportunities, and deploy value-capturing change management, thus delivering critical operations insights and impact at scale.

For customers, AI-driven tools like predictive analytics can deliver a personalized and proactive experience that resolves issues before customers are even aware that they exist—enhancing CX at every point along the customer journey. Tech can also assist in developing a high-performing workforce by identifying optimal work processes and practices using analytics. Automated coaching can potentially be deployed to every individual, supporting efforts to attract, develop, and retain scarce talent.

How CEOs can win the new service game

In the AI-powered care ecosystem, around 65 percent of tasks and 50 to 70 percent of contacts are automated, creating a true omnichannel experience that provides a consistent and seamless experience across interactions. In this way, the potential of contact centers could be unlocked to become loyalty-building revenue generators through greater solutioning and sales excellence.

Putting priorities into practice

CX is fast becoming a key competitive area. Companies that don’t prioritize their strategy and digital transformation journeys are likely to face continued customer dissatisfaction, as well as talent attrition—thus threatening their brand and market competitiveness.

Getting customer care right depends on prioritizing and investing across the people, operations, and tech aspects of the customer care strategy. Companies can consider the following key steps as they look to build out their capabilities and invest in their digital care ecosystems:

• Start by setting out the vision for the customer care organization, capturing what excellence looks like.
• Conduct a rapid but thorough due-diligence-style assessment of people, processes, and capabilities, looking at the customer care operation in a new light to identify not just incremental changes but a reimagined, large-scale transformation.
• Path one follows a traditional design approach, which may take longer but prove less risky, as the entire transformation is considered at the outset.
• Path two involves an interactive and agile design, test, and iterate methodology, which may lead to new solutions quickly.
• Leverage the full suite of available technologies and analytical approaches that are driving successful outcomes in customer care, including natural language processing (NLP) and AI in frontline operations to match work to workers, together with cognitive AI assistance for resolving simpler customer queries.

Personalized digital interaction nowadays is an expectation rather than a luxury or an added perk, and customer care is the issue at the heart of this digital first environment—companies can’t afford to stumble at this juncture. If done well, however, customer care presents a great opportunity to build loyalty and long-term relationships with customers, creating organizational resilience for the future.

Jeff Berg is a partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office; Eric Buesing is a partner in the Stamford, Connecticut, office; Paul Hurst is a consultant in the Charlotte, North Carolina, office, Vivian Lai is a consultant in the New York office, and Subhrajyoti Mukhopadhyay is an expert in the Chicago office.

The authors wish to thank Karunesh Ahuja and Charles-Michael Berg for their contributions to this article.

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Moscow’s War in Syria

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Report by Seth G. Jones , Danika Newlee, Edmund Xavier Loughran, Jason Gresh, Brian Katz, and Nicholas Harrington

Published May 12, 2020

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