I think that Gustav Gressel of he European Center for Foreign Relations is ignoring some basic things in his three scenarios (positive, intermediate, and negative) for the war in Ukraine. If you’re interested in his scenarios go to the post.
The first thing he’s ignoring is that the reason “the West” isn’t supplying the Ukrainians as fast as he and the Ukrainians want is not because they’re being stingy but because they can’t. Both the United States and Europe have been deindustrializing so must for the last 30 years that we don’t have the ability to maintain the stocks required for our own defense and produce as many more weapons as the Ukrainians want.
The second thing is that there is a drastic mismatch among U. S. military doctrine, the Ukraine’s flag officer corps, and its troops which cannot be remedied in the near term. Ukrainian military doctrine remains influenced by Russian military doctrine which could hardly be more different from ours (think: human wave tactics). Ukraine has a dwindling supply of young men to conscript so it’s conscripting older men and, because of its military doctrine, sending them into a meat grinder. This does not look like the path to victory for Ukraine.
Given enough time we could cultivate a new Ukrainian flag officer corps with different military doctrines and more young Ukrainian men could be produced. As Lord Keynes put it, in the long run we’re all dead.
“is not because they’re being stingy but because they can’t.”
The West could. Its just it requires wartime mobilization of society.
For example, imagine if Congress imposed rationing, the President commandeered all factory plants for munitions production. Congress waived all planning restrictions to building new plants, etc.
The thing is, the administration’s strategy is to hide the costs of supporting Ukraine. From financing Ukraine’s government / military using debt; sending weapons from stockpiles; getting allies to supply their weapons in exchange for future weapons from us; dumping half the strategic petroleum reserve; it has the benefit they can argue to the public it is a cost-free war, but it has its limits if Ukraine needs more then that.
The situation is not what it was in 1941, the political situation is not what it was in 1941, and we aren’t the people we were in 1941. I can’t even imagine Congress imposing rationing but even if it did, there would be massive non-compliance and even, possibly, an actual insurrection.
Furthermore, imagine that such a diktat went out tomorrow. You think the supply chain problems were tough in 2020-2021? The supply chain problems in greatly increasing munitions production would dwarf those and President Biden would face a revolt within his own party from far left environmentalists about the emissions that would be produced and from the far right thinking he was “wagging the dog”.
That’s basically what LBJ did during the Vietnam War. I have a vague recollection that he withdrew his candidacy for re-election.
Russia tactical doctrine does not utilize human wave tactics, and didn’t even in WW II. The recent Ukrainian counter offensive failed because the US generals running it in fact used what amounts to human wave tactics against prepared defenses. The US was rerunning the Somme of 1916.
You might wish to read Andrei Martyanov from time to time. He makes the point that the US and NATO militaries are profoundly incompetent. Neither the US or NATO has any strategic doctrine or capability whatsoever, and their tactical doctrines are utterly wrongheaded, too. The US service academies, which are now miserable diploma mills, teach a fantasy about the Eastern Front in WW II, and their faculties and students have no idea what happened there.
US government contract opportunities are all, by law, put on sam.gov.
When the news was filled with talk about how we couldn’t possibly fill Ukrainian needs for artillery shells of a certain size I went to see what the contract requests were like.
There were no opportunities to fill such a contract. With the deindustrialization of the US, there might not have been a single company that could fill such a contract, but you wouldn’t know it without asking them. The Biden administration didn’t.
On the personnel issue, I dont think you have ever noted that while the average age of an Ukraine soldier is older (43?), it is at least partially because they have a volunteer army and they have not been accepting anyone under 27. That may have to change.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putins-unsustainable-spending-spree
Steve
“they have a volunteer army and they have not been accepting anyone under 27.”
Lets be factually correct. Ukraine hasn’t mobilized under 27, they definitely have been accepting volunteers under 27. Also, take a look at the age pyramid of Ukraine, they aren’t going to unlock much manpower.
As for Russia’s spending — yes it is unsustainable. But given a decade plus of austerity before 2022, its certainly not going to be the cause of the end of the war. Russia’s debt to gdp ratio was 15% in 2022.
Mostly agree on both points.
Ukraine has been slowly transitioning away from the Soviet military model, but changing force structure and culture takes time. It’s most evident at the small unit level and lessens the higher up you go.
The supply problem is related. The Ukrainian Army is still primarily an artillery army. By contrast, the US hasn’t been an artillery army for a very long time. Our force structure is not premised on the need to fire 20k-30k shells a day for offensive operations. Therefore, we don’t have a lot of artillery ammo production or stockpiles, nor the masses of guns and artillery units. Artillery ammo is still the thing the Ukraine military needs more than anything.
There is definitely an issue with older officers with a Soviet leadership style conflicting with younger leaders with actual combat experience. This is nothing new in the history of warfare. The old guard is often set in its ways and slow to change to the realities on the ground.
Manpower is an issue for both sides, but in different ways. Ukraine obviously has fewer people and a large chunk of its population is under Russian control or has fled to other parts of Europe.
In Russia, by contrast, the war is extremely unpopular. Russia has a lot more manpower, but most of it is theoretical because the government can’t tap into it for domestic political reasons. Hence, the shadow mobilizations, the use of prisoners, and the various means to get “volunteers.” Russia wants to avoid another mobilization for domestic political reasons and likely for reasons of regime security. And Russia really, really wants to avoid taking this conflict out of the “Special military operation” legal status which puts on certain legal restrictions since it’s not technically a war – for example, conscripts can’t be used for the “special military operation.” Russia also has logistical, equipment and ammo shortages as well.
As I keep saying, the nature of this type of warfare is all-consuming. It is extremely difficult to maintain forces and operations without full mobilization, and even then, it may not be enough.