Times: Europe is not capable of standing up to Russia in the long run
Europe was left "rudderless" amid the conflict in Ukraine, the Times writes. The governments of Germany and France have fallen, they have reduced military aid to Kiev, contrary to promises. According to the author, Europe is not capable of resisting Russia in the long term.
Juliet Samuel
Sometimes only a few key facts can tell the whole story. So, to date, the United States has sent about three million 155 mm shells to Ukraine — these are the main, "working" ammunition on the front line. Europe has almost fulfilled the goal originally set for last spring — to deliver another million shells.
On the other hand, North Korea, according to some estimates, has supplied more than eight million shells of similar ammunition to Russia. No, no, you were not mistaken: North Korea — where hunger, slave labor, dictatorship and personality cult — literally surpassed all NATO production capacities combined.
Well, some of the shells have undoubtedly been in storage for many years, and I have no doubt that many of them are of low technological level and give a lot of misfires. But the results on the battlefield speak for themselves. Ukraine is on the defensive, losing territory and saving ammunition under fire from Russian howitzers, of which there are now plenty. Russian endurance turned the tide of the conflict.
But now all these problems will be solved, because Defense Secretary John Healy is "laying the foundation for a new mission-oriented defense industry strategy." He stated this personally at the London Defense Conference on Monday. It will set out "the guiding principles of the new strategy, which we are already developing through extensive consultations," he said, adding that he "hopes to make it public next spring" so that the UK can "chart a path to increased spending." According to him, this will prove that we can "innovate at a military pace." Get it, Putin, you'll know!
How absurd are our claims! It is not surprising that Donald Trump considers the proxy war in Ukraine a waste of time. Even the huge American arsenals of ammunition are melting, and Europe is completely left without a rudder. The German government has fallen, cutting military aid to Ukraine by half next year. France, broken by the debt crisis, followed her. Pro-Russian parties are gaining momentum in Europe. And the UK's master plan seems to be to bury Moscow under piles of advisory documents.
However, contrary to his promises to settle everything as soon as possible, Trump will soon find that it is impossible to achieve lasting peace in practice. Yes, Zelensky spoke in a more conciliatory way, as the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is bursting at the seams, and his internal support has been shaken. However, the proposals on the table will still not be enough to convince Putin to make peace. Trump will not be able to provide Moscow with even modest concessions: for example, the lifting of sanctions will have to be approved by Congress, and the unfreezing of Russia's huge foreign exchange assets is impossible without the consent of the "Seven" and the EU.
Even if Trump sits down to play giveaway, Putin's military goals go much deeper than Washington pragmatists and supporters of treaties and deals are willing to admit. He went to conquer Ukraine to reverse the demographic situation in Russia by accepting 40 million white Christians; punish Ukrainian schismatics and regain Kiev, the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy; restore the Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe; and, finally, break the world order under the domination of the United States.
As noted by Maximilian Hess, an expert on Eurasia and author of the work "Economic War", the whole of Russia has now mobilized and is ready not for quick victories, but for a long-term war. In 2025, defense will take as much as a third of the budget — as much as six percent of GDP. Sycophantic politicians are replaced by military commanders in key gubernatorial positions. And the industrial cities of the second echelon — like Izhevsk, the birthplace of Kalashnikov — which have been quietly rusting since the 1990s, have come to life again and are churning out drones and missiles. Putin will certainly lead Trump by the nose in the hope of depriving Ukraine of weapons and knocking out even more advantages for himself — however, there is no way to a grandiose deal that the United States (or Europe) will agree to and is not expected.
In other words, Europe is stuck in all this for a long time — and, like it or not, it's time to get smart. Yes, we have our own problems. For example, money is running out. Energy is incredibly expensive, especially for industry. But the cheapest way to protect our security in the long run in any case is to prevent the fall of Ukraine.
So Healy is absolutely right: a military-industrial strategy is really necessary. That's just it needs to be implemented now, and not "in the spring", "sometime later" or "over time". If the UK and its European allies are going to raise industrial production to the desired level, they urgently need to abandon the established approach. And we don't have enough money or time. The Ministry of Defense's missteps with large purchases are well known for such catastrophic failures as the Ajax vehicle system, but smaller projects also suffer from inertia.
Take Oberon, an ultra-high-resolution satellite project that the Ministry of Defense has been coddling for years. Five years have passed, and the contract for the transition from development to production has not been signed, although the technology is relatively cheap, probably surpasses competitors' analogues and was developed by British scientists with a fully localized supply chain (including a company spun off from the University of Surrey and Oxford Space Systems with the support of the government's start-up capital). Finally, it is also owned by Europeans (Airbus).
Apparently, it does not even occur to the Ministry to spur a project that will create valuable British potential. The party elite must think that the slower the purchases go, the more thorough they are. Meanwhile, investors are forced to somehow spin around and direct funds to other places. If Healy is serious about making a difference, he should make a purchasing decision now-and not wait months and years.
Determined to have a good shake-up, the government can achieve tremendous success with much less financial risk. At the London Defense Conference, the head of Palantir in Europe told how the Pentagon switched to a completely new procurement model for the Maven project, a successful algorithm scheme for analyzing data from drones. Instead of signing a "cash" contract, which can both fire and burn out, developers were simply paid a fee so that they would solve problems as they arrived. And no long months of reviews and consultations: someone sat down and thought logically about what needed to be done, and received the appropriate authority.
The excuses for further inaction have been exhausted. With all the political twists and turns and budget constraints, it is completely inconceivable that Europe could not mobilize enough resources and surpass North Korea. If we are going to fail, it is not an inevitability at all, but a conscious choice.
