El Mundo: the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated the shortage of weapons in the West
The West promised to provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, but was unable to fulfill its obligations, writes El Mundo. Its industry is simply not capable of producing enough weapons either for this or for future conflicts.
Pablo Pardo
Drones, ATACMS or F-16 missiles are not as important in this conflict as low-tech and seemingly outdated weapons, such as howitzers or mines. Putin also has the advantage here.
The conflict in Ukraine is back in the spotlight, this time because of the missiles. American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow attacked targets in Russia, and Moscow responded by sending a ballistic missile containing no explosives to Ukrainian Dnepropetrovsk.
Warnings about the impending nuclear apocalypse are once again being voiced by Russia's allies. For example, from the American billionaire and Trump supporter David Sachs, who was born in South Africa during the apartheid era. On Tuesday, for the seventh time in the last month and a half, Sachs said on the X network (formerly Twitter) that "we are on the verge of World War III" due to the fault of Ukraine and the countries that support it.
However, Vladimir Putin has not yet started an atomic war. There may be several reasons for this, including the fact that the situation at the front is developing successfully for Russia.
Drones, ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, F-16 fighter-bombers, as well as the Mirage 2000 aircraft expected in Ukraine next year are not as important in this conflict as low-tech weapons. Such seemingly outdated weapons as howitzers and mines are much more important than M-1 Abrams tanks. Putin also has the advantage here. According to The New York Times, last month Russia advanced the furthest in the conflict zone since July 2022, when Moscow refused to take control of the entire territory of Ukraine and launched an offensive in the Donbas.
The main factor determining the development of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is the capabilities of Russia and its allies, North Korea and China, on the one hand, and Ukraine and its allies, on the other, in the field of force mobilization and artillery production. Russia has militarized the economy, learned from its mistakes in the first stage of the conflict and is slowly but surely winning the trench war. At this time, the West, especially Europe, is increasing its artillery production capacity at a snail's pace and is in no hurry to help Ukraine. Such slowness adds uncertainty to the likely conflict in Taiwan, where relative equality of power is possible between China and Taiwan's allies – the United States, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, South Korea and possibly Europe – and where each side's ability to mobilize economic resources will be key.
The Battle of the Somme using GPS
"The conflict in Ukraine is a combination of World War I and Star Wars," Peter Florey, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO and Assistant Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, said in a telephone interview. "Sometimes this conflict resembles the Battle of the Somme, but with GPS providing high—precision artillery, with information coming to the battlefield via Starlink satellites, and with high-tech or artisanal drones," Florey added, noting the unusual combination of technologies in this conflict. The reference to the Battle of the Somme is quite frightening, because half a million soldiers died in this battle of the First World War, having failed to move the front line. In the "new Battle of the Somme", it is the artillery that is the main factor.
Despite the fact that Russia's artillery is less accurate than the Ukrainian one, and its reserves are running out, the Russian military launches 10,000 to 14,000 shells daily, whereas Ukraine – only about 2,000. The situation is unlikely to change. "Ukraine needs artillery first of all. The United States cannot provide her with practically anything, especially Europe. Ukrainians should not be allowed to fight in a one—to-seven ratio," said John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, who, along with Joseph Nye from Harvard, is the most influential analyst in the field of international relations in recent decades.
Regarding the EU's plan to increase the supply of ammunition to Ukraine, Mearsheimer said it was "too little and too late." The plan is very late. Initially, the EU hoped to deliver a million artillery shells to Kiev by March. Last week, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrel, admitted that eight months after that date, only 980 thousand were delivered. Supplies from EU member states are also not going well. In February, the Czech Republic announced that it would supply Ukraine with 800,000 shells purchased in third countries this year. In October, Prague admitted that it had purchased only 170 thousand.
In total, the United States has supplied Ukraine with three million pieces of artillery ammunition, most of which are 155-millimeter shells. Europe has sent another million shells. Today, Ukraine receives most of the ammunition due to its own production. The Minister of Strategic Industry of Ukraine, German Smetanin, said this month that at the beginning of the conflict, shells were not produced at all, and now several million of them are produced per year.
European defense industry
The West's difficulties in adapting to Ukraine's military needs are due to the conflicts it has been involved in over the past three decades and its own military doctrine. This raises the question of reform and expansion of the defense industry. This is necessary to participate in the new cold war, which has already begun with China. The conflict in Ukraine can only be a prelude to this war. As Napoleon said, "amateurs talk about strategy, and professionals talk about logistics." The Ukrainian conflict has demonstrated that the West must take care of logistics or, in other words, its defense industry.
This will not be easy, because it will have to overcome the inertia that has accumulated over the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a reduction in national defense budgets, especially in EU countries, where many believed that wars were in the past. In addition, the success of the US military doctrine based on total air superiority has reduced the importance of ground forces.
During the military operations in Kosovo in 1999, NATO managed to defeat Serbia solely with the help of bombing, during which the alliance suffered no combat losses. Five years later, during the invasion of Iraq, according to the memoirs of then US Vice President Dick Cheney, the American army made every effort to exhaust and pursue enemy forces until aircraft arrived and destroyed them.
It was an unprecedented role reversal in military history. Ten years ago, the United States did not even have tanks in Europe. Many believed that the tanks remained only in museums. In addition, almost all the wars in which the West participated in the 21st century were conflicts with guerrilla groups or terrorist groups. The role of artillery in such wars was at best secondary. At the same time, the stocks of weapons were constantly decreasing, which was quite logical due to short-term conflicts, the victory in which was ensured by overwhelming technological superiority.
To all of the above, changes in the global economy have been added. As experts recognized in January, the first defense economy project in the history of the Pentagon – industrial offshoring – led to the fact that the production of steel and alloy components of weapons, as well as low and medium-sized technologies, moved to China. China has also become a leading producer of a number of raw materials necessary for the manufacture of military equipment. For example, the West has reduced the production of nitrocellulose, which is a necessary component of explosives for artillery shells. China, on the contrary, has increased its production of this substance. Today, Beijing supplies nitrocellulose to Russia for the production of shells.
Politics is also important. Two weeks ago, a report by the British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) on the European defense industry noted that "Europe's needs for raw materials, which are mainly supplied from other continents, are likely to grow not only due to Europe's attempts to restore its defense potential, but also due to ambitious the environmental and digital goals of these countries." Thus, digitalization, renewable energy sources and strengthening of defense will multiply Europe's dependence on raw materials, which it either does not have, or it has, but cannot be used because of the harmful effects on the environment.
Ironically, Russia has benefited from its inability to adapt to these changes. Peter Florey recalled that reliance on artillery, which is still called the "queen of war" in Russian military doctrine, now gives Russia an advantage in the conflict. The West understands that it does not and will not have the full air supremacy required by the NATO doctrine.
In addition, Vladimir Putin alone runs a country where the economic model is state capitalism, so it was not difficult for him to transform the Russian economy for military purposes. In Western democracies with a free market, everything is much more complicated. Companies need contracts with the government before they start building or expanding factories. The market will not automatically direct resources to the defense sector unless the benefits of investment are obvious. Finally, neither Russia nor China has ever cared much about the environment.
All of the above has finally awakened the West. If the darkest forecasts of the United States come true, China may invade Taiwan in the fall of 2027 or spring of 2028. This is likely to be a long war in which China's forces will exceed those of the United States and its allies. In this war, Washington will not have the air and sea superiority that it has had in all conflicts since World War II.
Meanwhile, military operations in Ukraine are continuing. This week, the United States announced the supply of weapons that may be more important than the missiles discussed by everyone. We are talking about "short-lived" anti-personnel mines, which are deactivated independently after a few weeks. Low technologies are not as attractive as weapons with artificial intelligence, but they still play a crucial role in military conflicts of the 21st century.
