The Washington Post:
Europe's military industrial capabilities fall short of Ukraine's needs
"But while British deliveries of long-range missiles known as Storm Shadows could significantly enhance Ukraine's offensive capabilities, much of the weaponry pledged by European leaders this week is unlikely to reach the battlefield until well after the start of the counteroffensive, military experts say, and Europe's ability to sustain such support into the future remains unclear."
"Western governments, in particular European ones, have failed to act fast enough to turn around their industrial policy to meet Ukraine's growing needs for artillery ammunition, armored vehicles and other weaponry, military experts said. Kyiv's existing stores of Russian-made equipment are becoming depleted, as are the West's own stockpiles, raising the risk of shortages in supplies for Ukraine by the end of the year, which will hamper Ukraine's ability to launch any further offensives, these experts said."
""The penny has dropped that this might go on longer and that you have to invest in your industry if we are going to make this sustainable," said Jack Watling, senior research fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. "The fact of the matter is that this was obvious in April last year, but people sat on their hands.""
"That has led to a growing realization in Western capitals that the piecemeal assistance to Ukraine so far may not be sufficient to allow Kyiv to make more than localized breakthroughs along the 900-mile front line where Russia has spent months fortifying its positions." (…)
"The flurry of new weapons agreements has not "changed the brutal dynamic of this, which is that the Ukrainian force that is able to execute this offensive … is as big as it's going to be. It's got what it's got," Barrons continued. "The offensive should have some effect, but it won't throw every Russian out of Ukraine. In other words, this cannot be the last act in the war, if you are going to keep it going."" (…)
"Much of the announced military aid to Ukraine from Western governments has been sourced from equipment that would have gone out of service anyway, Watling said. "Most of what we have given is stuff we have already paid for a long time ago, and we would have had to pay to decommission it. … We are now talking about a situation where we have to put money on the table because we have to invest in industrial capacity."" (…)
"Last year, the Ukrainian army was blasting through 180,000 artillery shell rounds per month. Before the war, U.S. production stood at 14,500 shells per month, and E.U. production was around the same. The United States has been faster to respond to depleting stockpiles, boosting domestic production to 20,000 rounds a month and investing in new capacity to eventually increase that to 90,000 rounds per month."
"But Ukraine is still expending 90,000 to 140,000 rounds a month, according to Watling, while the newly announced E.U. investments in production could take one to two years to come online, despite a call by Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, to move into "war economy mode."
"You don't have to be a great military analyst to realize that European countries making major investments into artillery production 13 months into the war are a little bit late," said Michael Kofman, director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. "What's important is the U.S. has already significantly increased its artillery production. But there's greater capacity in Europe. It is incumbent upon them to leverage their defense industries and to spend the money."" (…)
"Signs are emerging of a parallel effort in Russia to increase production, despite Western sanctions. Data recently published on Russia's federal treasury website showed Moscow spent 2 trillion rubles ($26 billion) on defense in January and February alone, a 282 percent increase over the same period in 2021, Reuters reported on Monday. Russia is on course to produce 2.5 million artillery shell rounds this year, up from 1.7 million before the war, Watling said."
"In response to an E.U. pledge to supply Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells over the next 12 months, Russian President Vladimir Putin retorted in March that Moscow would produce three times as many shells over the same period."
My comments:
Is the WAPO article true? When you are weak, pretend that you are strong, and when you are strong, pretend that you are weak.
The good news, if you dislike imminent nuclear war in 2023, is that Kyiv will not be able to retake Crimea this summer or autumn if Russia actually manages to produce 2.5 million artillery shell rounds each year.
But this war may last a decade, so if China doesn't attack Taiwan in the 2020s and/or China doesn't send advanced weapons to Russia, then it's likely that NATO will sooner or later win the Ukraine War, with the help of AI-enhanced precision weapons.
I was planning to postpone my own nonviolent activism against AI companies until Ukraine's counteroffensive is over, since I expect that WW3 will start if Ukraine retakes Crimea, which means of course that anti-AI activism is a waste of energy in that case. But if Ukraine is not capable of triggering a nuclear response from Russia, then it's at least "entertaining" to have anti-AI activism as a "game" IRL.
Events in Ukraine this summer (and autumn) will determine a lot of things. Very exciting times…
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