So far this morning I’ve seen two Washington Post columns, a Washington Post editorial, and a Wall Street Journal column all calling for an escalation of the war in Ukraine so I guess that’s the prevailing wisdom. Here are some snippets from William Galston’s WSJ column:
For months, Western countries have rebuffed urgent Ukrainian requests to send heavy tanks, such as the American M1 Abrams, the German Leopard and the British Challenger 2. Now the wall of resistance is crumbling. The British government has said that it will send 14 Challenger 2s to Ukraine, and the Poles have announced that they intend to send 14 Leopards—if Germany, which must authorize these transfers, consents.
But the real action is in Washington and Berlin. Last week Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant defense secretary, said that “we absolutely agree that Ukraine does need tanks.†Still, the U.S. has declined to provide the Abrams, citing fuel and maintenance issues. Published reports suggest that the U.S. has about 4,800 of these weapons, including more than 400 freed up by the Marine Corps’ decision to transform its war-fighting strategy. Surely we can spare some to help Ukraine break through Russian lines. It is hard to see a more important and urgent use for them.
and
Along with tanks, Ukraine needs weapons that can counter Russia’s bombardment from the air. The deadly attack on Dnipro last week showed that Russia is prepared to use heavy, inaccurate ballistic missiles armed with 2,000-pound warheads against Ukrainian civilians in large cities. Only the most advanced antimissile systems can protect against these weapons.
Last month the Biden administration agreed to include one battery of the Patriot missile system as part of the latest package of aid to Ukraine. This is a good start, but it isn’t enough. According to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the U.S. military has 16 Patriot battalions with a total of 50 batteries. No doubt some batteries are out of service for repairs or other reasons. Still, the U.S. can send Ukraine more than one battery, and it should do so as fast as possible. It will take time to train Ukrainians on this system, though they have proved to be quick studies. At the same time, NATO should endorse Warsaw’s request that two German Patriot batteries designated for Poland be sent to Ukraine instead.
Is this the right thing at the right time? The Russians are saying that they’re encountering an increasing number of NATO troops in Ukraine, presumably a consequence of casualties among the Ukrainians. That has prompted French anthropologist Emanuel Todd to declaim that “World War II has already begun”.
Update
More calls for escalation: Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic, Jed Babbin in The American Spectator, Jacob Heilbrunn in The National Interest.
It should be noted that this is really counter escalation. Note that your focus, or at least not that of the article, is that Russia is now using larger bombs aimed at civilians but rather trying to stop that is considered an escalation. In general, attempts by Ukraine to defend itself or our efforts to help them seem to be labeled escalation or are called efforts to extend the war. Just because its Russia, or something, Ukraine should just roll over.
A bit OT but nice piece looking at how the EU has coped with the energy issue. The US has really amped up its LNG exports. Some of this is them being lucky with a warm winter so far but given the level of investments the EU is making it seems more unlikely they will go back to Russian gas if the war stops.
https://www.apricitas.io/p/how-europe-is-decoupling-from-russian
Steve
Counter-escalation? Sure. All along Russia has not been particularly scrupulous about distinguishing between civilian and military targets. If you want to call that an escalation, fine.
Whether escalation or counter-escalation the cycle will be the same.
To the question.
If one decides escalation will be needed; then I suppose it’s better to do it earlier then later. The usual reasons for escalating later (for diplomatic/3rd party support) don’t apply.
As whether escalation is the right action — it depends on what the goals are and if escalation can achieve them. I personally don’t believe the goals are achievable since they are considered existential to the Russian government — that was borne out after Russian reverses in the fall led to “partial mobilizationâ€. That was a harder step domestically then “full mobilization†and beyond.
This is just more of what I’ve been saying for a long time now.
This kind of war burns very quickly through equipment and ammunition which is why such wars require the full mobilization of society and the economy and are usually economically ruinous. We’ve known for a long time that the facilities do not exist to repair and replace several key categories of Ukrainian equipment, including artillery, aircraft, air defense, tanks, and APC’s.
Artillery was the first to run out, and now Ukraine uses NATO-standard guns and shells and is completely dependent on the west for ammunition. And the West cannot provide for Ukraine’s needs except by dipping into stockpiles. It was recently reported that the US is drawing down the stockpile we have in Israel to send Ukraine more shells We already did that with stockpiles in Korea and even bought shells from the Koreans. The reason we are doing that is because we don’t have enough artillery production to satisfy Ukraine’s needs. It’s obvious that kind of situation is not sustainable.
The same thing is happening with the other major equipment categories I listed above. And the same sustainment problem remains. We can give them all kinds of different equipment, making them entirely reliant on western production and material support, but that will likely require significant increases in production capacity by the US and supporting governments.
And many of our systems are very complex and therefore require a lot of training to use properly as well as a lot of maintenance and upkeep, which requires a robust logistics system for parts as well as trained personnel. Giving Ukraine stuff doesn’t help them without these supporting capabilities, and getting Ukrainians up to speed on those capabilities will take time and will probably require continued US assistance, particularly with the logistics portion.
But the basic gist is correct. Ukraine’s existing equipment and arms stockpiles are running out, and they have no way to replace them except through support from the west. And this is why Russia is currently pursuing a defensive, attritional strategy that is betting that the west won’t/can’t provide Ukraine’s needs, giving Russia an advantage over the long term.
Whether it is “escalation” to give Ukraine these arms and capabilities is questionable. Without them, Ukraine will likely be defeated. Giving them some replacements maintains the status quo. Giving them enough to decisively defeat Russia – assuming that is even possible, would be escalation IMO.
The stockpile situation is a little deceiving.
The war is stressing army supplies and stockpiles; but not naval or the air force. If the West could apply the air force — it should solve the supply situation. But that would be an escalation. Its also something an indicator of the war’s course I am watching for and think will eventually occur.
If Kissinger’s comment that Ukraine should join NATO reflects the DC consensus — a lot more escalation is still to occur.
By the way, the articles are due to a pending conference of “partners” at Ramstein airbase. Obviously it is to help set the agenda and raise the pressure on reluctant countries.
“The stockpile situation is a little deceiving.
The war is stressing army supplies and stockpiles; but not naval or the air force. If the West could apply the air force — it should solve the supply situation.”
I don’t really agree with that. Air and naval forces have supply and production constraints as well. For example, US stockpiles of several precision munitions kits ran very low because of the Libyan war in 2011, and that was against a third-rate adversary where air supremacy was achieved quickly and the number of ground force targets was much smaller. Going after Russian air defense and then providing air-delivered fires to Ukrainian ground forces is an order of magnitude difference in scale and difficulty.
And giving Ukraine aircraft and associated munitions is not any different than the other equipment classes and arguably of less utility to Ukraine. To be effective, Ukraine would have to establish at least air superiority, and to do that, they’d need the ability to break or significantly attrit Russian air defense – a capability that only the US has.
Even if the US and NATO Air Forces entered the war, the ability of the US to sustain a much higher level of operations against a much more capable adversary is very much in doubt.
Personally, I think force sustainment will be the decisive military factor in this war. We are already seeing the effects of shortages on the battlefield.
The Russian govt may consider it existential, but it is not. It is existential for Ukraine. I understand that the Russians may have convinced themselves, though I suspect a goodly number know it is just a way to justify what they want to do, but we need to keep touch with reality.
Steve
DSJ, but Galston is just a bad person, a serial war criminal, and a psychopath.
The continual escalation of the Russo- Ukrainian war by the US and its Euro-puppets inexorably leads to nuclear war all over Europe and North American. No other outcome is possible.
To the neocon criminals in Washington (Nuland, Kagan, Klaine, Kristol, et al.), who started this war in 2014 by attacking Ukraine and replacing its legitimate, democratically elected government with the current nazi junta, this is all a game. They will use Ukraine to destroy Russia and partition it for easy looting. They are trying a new tack to return to the Yeltsin era of mass robbery. And there will be no blowback. Nothing like the Taliban, or al-Qaeda, or ISIS, useful US’ puppets in previous adventures. The neocons themselves are immune to retribution.
Or so they think, deluded psychopaths and sociopaths that they are.
To the Russians, the war is existential and must be won at all costs. It is the Second Patriotic War, and it has the whole-hearted support of the Russian people and leadership. Consider the sacrifices the USSR made in WW II. That is the scale of effort Russia can muster.
Today, Putin revealed that Russia produces as many missiles as the rest of the world combined, three times what the US produces. Years ago, Russia began rebuilding its industrial base to support a WW II type industrial war. During the same period, US and European financiers sold off the West’s industrial base for short-term profits. The US must either give up the conventional war, which it cannot fight, or it must go nuclear. Bet on the Biden regime going nuclear.
A note to Steve: Russia does not attack civilian targets, at least knowingly. It is the nazi junta in Kiev that attacks civilians as a matter of policy. It has been doing so in Donbas since the beginning of the insurgency. Russia’s recent attacks on electrical substations is a reprisal for Kiev’s attacks on the Kerch bridge and on Engels airbase.
Since the Kiev junta is pretty much a US creation and vassal, the attacks on civilians in Donbas, Crimea, etc., are really US attacks. Attacks on civilian populations were a standard US tactic in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Serbia et al.
PS. The Kievan Minister of the Interior and others were killed today when a US made Stinger missile shot down his helicopter. Another coup?
Do you have a source for that?
Source (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64315594)
The interior minister, deputy interior minister, and secretary of interior are all dead.
It might but probably won’t affect the SBU (Ukraine’s equivalent of the FSB).
I’m talking about a source for the claim the helicopter was shot down by a Stinger. Even the Russian language sources don’t say that. A Russian politician has said it was deliberate but that’s about it.
There’s no evidence that the helo was shot down, much less by a stinger. To verify it was a stinger, one would have to analyze the warhead in the debris, or find the used launch tube nearby. No witness reports claim a missile hit the helo that I can find.
The only thing I found (although I didn’t do an exhaustive search) claiming a stinger shoot down is this “no propaganda” site (irony alert):
https://thedreizinreport.com/2023/01/18/helicopter-carrying-ukrainian-interior-minister-head-of-the-azov-which-is-under-the-interior-ministry-his-deputy-aides-shot-down-by-u-s-stinger-missile-over-kiev-crashes-hits-busy-daycare/
@Andy
I just want to say thanks for your comments. They are insightful and informative.
TastyBits,
Thank you very much – I really appreciate you saying that.