The West Boiling Itself: This Week in Ukraine
The price of Western irresolution, a short history of Ukraine and NATO, the Ukrainian electricity crisis and the futility of air defense, Macron’s generosity, and more!
1. Boiling Ourselves
The Biden Administration’s “strategy” (and I use that term loosely) on providing weapons to Ukraine has been described as “boiling the frog,” or slowly infusing more powerful weapons into the conflict to carefully avoid inciting Putin’s ire and escalating the conflict into an all-out world war. Even though what actually transpired was a situational-dependent release of Western capabilities driven by pressure from European countries, Ukraine ultimately benefited (although support was painfully delayed). Ukraine got exceedingly more powerful weapons, and Russia sat back and took it—no marked escalation of the war, especially nuclear, and no physical, geographic spillover. Plenty of Russians were killed, plenty of Ukrainians were killed, and no Westerners were killed. Everything was going just dandy from a Western perspective, until now.
This week, Putin suggested that Russia should be allowed to provide weapons to those entities in direct conflict with Western countries: “If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of these countries?”
How dare he turn this thing around onto the West! He’s not allowed to use a logical argument, especially one with a comparison so clearly directly equitable as this! Now, of course, I want Putin pulled out of a spider-hole bunker, dragged through the streets, sexually violated, and then hung from a lamp post when this is all over (yes, that was a multiple dictator’s demise reference). But he’s not irrational. And yes, I understand that providing weapons to a country illegally invaded by another is different than supporting rogue factions in unstable sub-Saharan African countries, for example, but I doubt if Putin cares.
If I were Putin, I’d simply say the military hardware store is now open to all comers. This move would open up new markets for the Russian military industry, turning it into a larger, more sophisticated North Korea in this regard. How many foes of France could use a couple Iskander-M ballistic missiles? How chaotic would it be if the Mexican drug cartels got Russian anti-air MANPAD missiles or anti-tank missiles? And what about giving bad actors some of the electronic warfare technology Russia is developing during this war (the same technology that the United States is falling behind on because they don’t have observers in country)? How effective would the cartels be then? And, I would argue that any state or non-state actor could use Russian drone technology. Possibly worst of all, even the suggestion of global weapons proliferation will necessitate more defense spending by the West. And the vicious cycle continues.
Putin has articulated a plan to strike back at the West for thwarting his imperialistic designs, and I find it hard to see how the West, in its current mindset, could deter him. More sanctions? Come on. ATACMS missiles fired at Belgorod? Sure, slowly fight escalation with more gradual escalation, and up the ladder we will go. We wanted to slowly boil Russia, and now we are starting to see the consequences. The lesson here is that you must resolve to crush your enemy overwhelmingly, not slowly, allowing them to develop strategies to outmaneuver and outlast. Yet, as we witness in slow motion the results of our current “boiling” strategy, it’s not too late for the West to put aside the half measures and let slip our full military might, crushing Russia and putting an end to this human catastrophe.
2. NAH TO NATO
This week, Time published an interview with Biden in which he disappointed Ukraine by saying, “Peace looks like making sure Russia never…occupies Ukraine…And it doesn’t mean NATO.” This should be no surprise to anyone, especially Ukrainians, as Biden’s remarks are consistent with the Western policy on Ukraine joining NATO, a policy that has repeatedly rebuked and slow-rolled Ukraine since it declared independence: Ukraine will not join NATO.
Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to leave the Soviet Union in 1991. The West’s response was to pledge economic support to Ukraine and Russia and aid the conversion of their command economies into stable open markets. There was a point in the mid-1990s wherein the United States made a concrete decision to focus economic support on Russia to the detriment of Ukraine (especially after Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear weapons in accordance with the 1994 Budapest memorandum). Short of completely abandoning Ukraine, it was clear that Ukraine (and Belarus) would be secondary players to Russia’s development.
In terms of the expansion of NATO, Ukraine has never made the shortlist. Although the expansions in 1990 (Germany’s unification) and 1999 (entry of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary) were among the most significant geopolitical events in the latter half of the 20th century for Europe as a whole, it was the 2004 expansion that probably sealed Ukraine’s fate as a non-NATO outsider. This 2004 cohort included the Baltic states, significant because, like Ukraine, they directly bordered Russia, and Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, important because like the Czech Republic and Poland, these too were Slavic countries. Thus, in 2004, NATO rejected two important sources of Russian anxiety over its expansion: NATO on its borders and Russia’s spurious claim of providence over culturally Slavic nations. Ukraine, which represents both of these categories, was not seriously considered for inclusion.
The last opportunity for Ukraine to enter NATO was after the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia. The invasion made clear that Russia had the capacity to use military force to maintain its hold over what it considered its sphere of influence. The West was concerned that Ukraine, falling squarely inside that sphere and with an anti-Russian president (Victor Yushchenko), was vulnerable to Putin’s aggression. Although NATO extended overtures toward membership, Ukraine’s bid never gained traction. Interestingly, although most of Ukraine was eager to join the EU, it expressed little interest in joining NATO. It wasn’t until the Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 that Ukraine seriously desired the protection of being a NATO member, and by that time it was too late.
Biden’s recent comments simply maintain the policy established since the dissolution of the Soviet Union: Belarus and Ukraine were not to be part of NATO, and they probably never will. Putin (and some pundits) often cite NATO expansion as a pretext for Russia invading Ukraine. The problem wasn’t that NATO expanded too much. The problem was that it didn’t expand enough. NATO balked at every opportunity to include Ukraine, and now the West is left trying to invent an alternate security arrangement that will adequately deter Russian aggression after this war. This umbrella doesn’t just include Ukraine; the West will also need a plan for Georgia (possibly very soon) and Moldova. Once again, the West’s tender consideration of Russian security sensibilities has hamstrung its ability to exert its dominance over this vulnerable, has-been, third-world petrol-dependent dictatorship.
3. Air Defense Crisis = Energy Crisis
This week, Russia continued its assault on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, causing rolling blackouts and forcing the government to prohibit air conditioning in government offices. Before the war, Ukraine was producing 55 gigawatts of energy for domestic consumption. This week, that number is down to 20 gigawatts. Power outages are common throughout the urban areas. If you live in an apartment, you are especially vulnerable, as many people who live in houses have portable generators. Traveling throughout Ukraine now requires carrying a battery of portable batteries. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians have been successful in striking the other’s energy infrastructure, and while attacking enemy civilian targets is not new to modern conflict, the new found vulnerability of that infrastructure is something that countries are going to have to contend with moving forward.
Ukrainian energy infrastructure is exceedingly vulnerable to Russian attack because of the nature of the modern air-defense fight. Before the introduction of relatively small, long-distance suicide drones like the Iranian Shaheds or any number of Ukrainian variations (remote Cessna-like planes filled with explosives, cardboard drones, etc.), attacking civilian infrastructure from a distance was a deliberate and expensive undertaking requiring large munitions (cruise or ballistic missiles) and the corresponding launch platforms (missile cruisers, submarines, bombers, TELs, etc.). The “low density” (I.e. scarcity) of these assets, in concert with their cost of production, made the deployment of corresponding air defense systems “reasonable” in cost and kept them localized to high-value targets. It somewhat made sense to have a $1 billion Patriot battery defend a large regional airport against multi-million dollar cruise missiles.
But the air defense calculus has changed. The proliferation of small, cheap, long-distance methods to attack infrastructure is causing pain across Ukraine and Russia. There are too many locations to defend, too many incoming targets (both high and low cost, often intermixed) to interdict, and too few capable air-defense systems in which to do it. The result is what the Ukrainians are experiencing now: the continual and systematic destruction of their critical infrastructure. Until air defense becomes as numerous, inexpensive, and capable as the threats it must protect against, it will continue to be an expensive and ultimately ineffective purveyor of false hopes.
4. It's Only a Mirage (At Least for the Next Year)
This week, Macron announced that France will sell its forty-year-old, outdated, and unwanted Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine. Better than nothing? Maybe. Ukraine’s air force is definitely outgunned. For example, Russia is dropping ten times more glide bombs (around 3,000) per month than Ukraine. But, the effectiveness of this transaction with the French depends on several issues. What kind and number of armaments will France provide for these jets? What will the training look like? Will anyone be forced to speak French? The danger here is that the Mirage might go the way of some Western tanks, rejected by the Ukrainians for being too difficult to maintain for the capability it provides. Merde!
5. [Video] Russia Blinks First
This week’s video epitomizes the difference between Russian and Western combat proficiency. It shows two infantry fighting vehicles, a US Bradley and a Russian BTR, careening toward each other in an autocannon-laden game of chicken. Of course, the mechanized darling of this war, the Bradley, disintegrates the BTR. To be fair, if it were an Abrams versus a BTR, this video wouldn’t exist because the BTR would have been cut in half a kilometer earlier.