Tag Archives: NATO

Head to Head

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Ukrainian Blouse

Russian Blouse

Like almost anyone living in the West today, I am exposed to a flood of media accounts practically all of which explain how good and bad, respectively, Zelensky/Ukraine and Russia/Putin are. Unlike many people living in the West today, I have my doubts about this picture. Which is why I decided to take a look, albeit a cursory one, into the origins of the conflict that is now threatening to escalate to the point where it takes the world apart.

I History and Politics

Before 600 BCE. The land now known as Ukraine, previously inhabited by horse-riding, nomadic or semi nomadic, tribes known to the Greeks as Scythians, was occupied by tribes later designated as East (as opposed to North and West) Slavs. They lived in fortified settlements which, however, were few, small and scattered all over the immense country.

860-62 CE. Some of the country was unified under a leader named Rurik. What information we have about him is contained in chronicles written centuries later and is therefore not very reliable. However, most historians believe that he and his “Rus” followers were of Scandinavian origin. The term, Rus, originating in Old Swedish, means “men who row.” This would be consistent with the idea that the invaders came by river.

870s. Rurik’s successor, Oleg, establishes Kiev as his capital. In the chronicles, which continue to serve as our main sources for the period, the polity he and his successors headed is known simply as “Rus” (and not as “Kiev Rus.”).

988. The rulers of Kiev, now headed by Volodymyr the Great, reach the Baltic for the first time.

12th century. Various Rurikid princes start intermarrying with the rulers of Muscovy, thus gradually leading to the establishment of Rurikid rule there as well

1187. The term “Ukraine,” meaning “borderland” or “march” is mentioned for the first time in the so-called Hypatian Codex; a compendium of three local chronicles originating in three separate “Rus” cities that is the most important source of historical data for those cities. The term “Ukraine” refers to the principality of Pereyaslavl, located east of Kiev. 

1250s. The Mongol invasions end the independence of Kiev. However, Rurik’s descendants continue to rule as vassal kings both in Kiev and Moscow.

1335. Yuri II Boleslav, the ruler of the RuthenianKingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (the latter, a province of Russia), signs his decrees Dux totius Russiæ minoris. (Duke of all Minor Russians), thus for the first time distinguishing “Great” Russians from “Little” (i.e. Ukrainian) ones.

1383. The Kiev Rus revolt and defeat the Mongols in the Battle of Kulikovo Fields. This marks the beginning of the Golden Horde’s decline.

15th century. Present-day Ukrainian territories come under the rule of four external powers: the remnants of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. Of those the last two would later unite, forming a huge commonwealth that reached from the Baltic all the way to the northern shores of the Black Sea.

1480. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy, whose known origins go back to the first half of the fourteenth century, throws off Mongol rule and gains its independence. Moscow assumes its historical role as the capital of Russia.

1610. The last Rurikid Tsar, Vasily IV, dies. The first Romanov Tsar, Mikhail I, succeeds to the throne.

1648. A Ukrainian (Cossack) rebellion against Polish-Lithuanian rule jump-starts a century and a half process whereby the tables are reversed. Poland, instead of ruling vast stretches of Russia and Ukraine, ends in 1798 by being partitioned between Muscovy/Russia, the Habsburg Empire, and Prussia.

1721. The Grand Duchy of Muscovy declares itself the Russian Empire and Muscovites are proclaimed to be Russians.

1768-83. A series of Russo-Turkish wars, launched by Catherine the Great and commanded by Alexander Suvorov, extends Russian, rule right down to the Black Sea. The conquest gives Russia access to the Bosporus, thus immensely increasing the strategic importance of Little Russia (Malorussia), as Russians call Ukraine.

1918-21. Well aware of what they called “the nationality problem” Lenin, and under him Stalin, seek to solve it by dividing the newly-established Soviet Union into Republics enjoying (rather limited) autonomy. In 1919 the “All-Russian Central Executive Committee,” as the responsible organ was known, created the broad outline of the Ukraine-Russia border by including in Ukraine, roughly, the former Russian imperial provinces of Volhynia, Kiev, Chernigov, Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav. It based this decision on the 1897 census which showed a majority of Ukrainians in each of these districts.

1932-33. These are the years of the Holodomor, the Stalin-inspired and enacted collectivization of farmland which involved the deliberate starving-out of perhaps 10 percent of Ukraine’s population. Memory of the Holodomor is held up as perhaps the most important reason behind Ukraine’s separatism and the current war with Russia.

1941-44. “The Ukraine” as it is known, is occupied by the Germans for the second time in a quarter century. As in almost every other occupied country, the outcome was not insignificant cooperation between occupiers and occupied, with the latter striving towards independence and the former steering an uneasy compromise between encouraging local nationalism and trying to suppress it. Still hatred for Stalin may have led to more collaboration in Ukraine than in most other occupied Soviet districts. World War II over, armed skirmishes between the KGB and various Ukrainians groups continued and only ended about 1950.

  1. For reasons unknown, Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev transfers the Crimea from the Russian Republic to the Ukrainian one.

II Religion and Culture

867. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, triggers the process that, over the next century or so, led to the Christianization of the “Rus” of Kiev

986. According to the Primary Chronicle, a document that covers the development of the Kievian “Rus” from about 850 to 1100, a Rurikid ruler known in Ukrainian as Volodymyr, in Russian as Vladimir, and in both as “the Great,” summons a conference to decide which religion he and his subjects should embrace, finally deciding on Eastern Christianity.

1299-1325. The Russian Orthodox Church moves its headquarters from Kiev, first to Vladimir, east of Moscow, and then to Moscow itself.

1325-1654. Various attempts to unite the Russian Orthodox Church with the Catholic one, imported from the West by way of Poland and Lithuania, were made but ended in failure. The process ended in 1654 when the Russian Church transferred its allegiance from Constantinople to Moscow, thus becoming autocephalous. Over the next two and a half centuries many senior “Russian” ecclesiastical posts were occupied by Ukrainians.

2022. As per a survey published by the Kiev International Institute of Society, 85% of Ukrainians identify as Christians. 72% call themselves Eastern Orthodox, 9% Catholics (8% Eastern-rite, 1% Latin-rite) and 4% Protestants or adherents of other Christian movement.

*

Russian and Ukrainian are similar, but they are not the same. Both grew out of Old East—as opposed to West—Slavonic. Their development into separate, though still closely related, languages started between 1,000 and 1,300 CE. While the Ukrainian alphabet is similar to the Russian one, it also comprises four unique letters to represent sounds specific to Ukrainian. The two languages are mutually intelligible, though often not without some effort. Partly as a result of having learnt it at school, Ukrainians are more likely to understand Russian than the other way around.

While it is always possible to find precedents—going back, in this ease, to the great 17th-century Cossack revolt against Poland/Lithuania—Ukrainian nationalism is mainly a product of the nineteenth century when country’s western provinces were strongly influenced by the Austrian empire. Much later this fact enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin to claim that it was not a native movement but an imported one.

In Ukraine as in other countries, initially nationalism was generated by a tiny urban elite of highly cultured literati by no means representative of the people as a whole. In Ukraine as in other countries, members of this elite sometimes went to the countryside in the hope of discovering and preserving “aboriginal” and “pure” traditions in which to anchor their views. In Ukraine as in other countries, some such traditions were invented almost ex nihil. Old or new, they provided people—mainly Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles—with additional reasons for fighting each other tooth and nail; nowhere more so than in the “Bloodlands” (historian Timothy D. Snyder) of Eastern Europe.

On the other hand, many famous “Ukrainian” (in the sense that they were born in Ukraine) writers actually wrote in Russian. Nikolai Gogol, the best-known “Ukrainian” writer of all, was born in Sorochyntsi, a Cossack village in what is now Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast, but wrote in Russian. The same applied to Anna Akhmatova and Isaac Babel (both from Odessa) and Mikhail Bulgakov (from Kiev). This list could easily be extended.

As per the latest census, 67 percent of Ukrainians use Ukrainian as their “native” language whereas 29 percent use Russian. Most Ukrainian speakers are concentrated in the west and center of the country; whereas Russian ones inhabit in a long arch that starts in the north, extends to the east, and ends in the south. Yet “native” does not necessarily mean day today, as many Ukrainians start using Russian either when they attend school—formerly, having to do so was part of Moscow’s attempts to Russify them—or, as adults, as part of normal social life. To add to the confusion, about 30 percent of the population use both languages interchangeably both at home and elsewhere.

III. The Current Crisis

The current crisis can be said to have originated in late 1989 when the East Block broke up. Since then both Russia and the West, the latter headed by the U.S, have been using all kinds of methods, fair and foul, to make sure Ukraine, a large and strategically very important country, should be on their side. Including, in 2014, the attempted assassination, probably by Putin’s agents, of a leading “Westernizer”, Viktor Yushchenkoof, who was then running for president. In 2019, the election as president of Volodymyr of Zelensky marked the West’s victory in this struggle.

On 9 February 1990, during a meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, then US secretary of state James A. Baker promised that NATO would not expand past the territory of the former East Germany. Speaking in Brussels on 7 May of the same year, NATO’s Secretary General Manfred Woerner repeated that promise. Whether either of these promises was ever put in writing is moot. Certainly they were not made the subject of any treaty.

1991. In February the Warsaw Pact, the chief instrument long used by the Soviet Union to dominate the countries of Eastern Europe (and threaten those of the West), is dissolved. In July-December 1991 the same fate overtakes the Soviet Union. Its place is taken by a “Commonwealth of Sovereign Republics” of which, Russia apart, Ukraine is the largest and most populous. With Kiev as its capital, Ukraine for the first time in history becomes a unified country separate from Russia and under its own independent government. Reflecting the change, the term “Ukraine” takes over from “The Ukraine.”

1997-2004. A number of East European countries, emerging from the Soviet-dominated East Bloc, apply to join NATO and are accepted. To justify this expansion, it is claimed that the promises made by Baker and Woerner did not apply to the new circumstances. In 1997 then Russian President Boris Yeltsin personally expressed his unhappiness with NATO’s eastward expansion, calling it a “threat” to Russians security. Using less restrained language, subsequent Russian spokespersons have spoken of a Western “betrayal.” To Vladimir Putin, who assumed the presidency of Russia in 2000, his country’s collapse is the greatest disaster it has ever sustained and he vows to reverse it. The outcome is a series of relatively small wars: in Chechenia, in Georgia, and in Dagestan.

2014. The Donbas, which is part of Ukraine but has proportionally more Russian speakers than any other Ukrainian region, breaks into civil war, causing Putin to intervene on the Russian side. Other Russian forces seize a corridor from the Donbas to the eastern shores of the Black Sea and from there to the Crimea, which they occupy. This makes alarm bells ring not just in Ukraine but all over Eastern Europe as well as NATO.

2020. By then not only the signatories of the Warsaw Pact but all East European countries, including the newly-established Baltic ones, have joined NATO. The number of NATO members has gone up from 12 in 1949—the year it was founded—to 31. More than one Russian spokesman has said that the “betrayal” is part of a Western plot whose ultimate goal is to dismantle Russia altogether.

Meanwhile the distance between Moscow and its western security border has gone down from 2,000 kilometers during the Cold War to a mere 1,000 today. Should Ukraine’s request to join NATO be granted it will be down to just 850—rather less than it was in 1941 when Hitler attacked.

2021. As preparations for accepting Ukraine into NATO go ahead Russian’s leadership, President Vladimir himself included, repeatedly warns that their country is not going to accept such a move laying down.

2022. On 24 February Russia invades Ukraine. All hell breaks loose, without an end in sight.

Conclusions

Almost as far back as anyone can look, the histories of Russia and Ukraine have been closely intertwined. Now it was Kiev that was the senior partner, now—definitely since about 1500—it was Moscow. Culturally the two nations (a term used by the Russians, but denied by the Ukrainians) are both similar and different. The greatest difference is religion, followed by language.

Concerning the present crisis, the most important factor behind it are 1. The collapse of Russia’s western security zone; and 2. NATO’s eastward drive which Russians see, not without reason, both as a threat in itself and as a possible prelude to an effort to dismantle their country.

With rare exceptions—Sweden in 1905, Czechia in 1992—states are not in the habit of letting parts of their dominions go without a fight, often a very bloody one. Specifically, I am not aware of any great power allowing the zone between its security-border and its capital to be cut by over half without engaging in massive bloodshed. Not ancient Assyria. Not Babylon, not Persia, not Athens, Sparta and Rome. Not China. All used might and main to crush would-be separatists, sometimes with success, sometimes not. More recently, the same applied to Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and the Netherlands. The South’s attempt to secede led to the Civil War, AKA the War of Northern Aggression, which resulted in as many dead as did all of America’s remaining ones combined. As early as 1833, with a population of only 13,000,000 (including 2,000,000 slaves) the U.S had the unheard-of effrontery of claiming the entire Western hemisphere as its exclusive stamping ground.

I know: It is mostly power and interest, not justice and morality, which govern relations between nations and states. So it has always been, and so it will always remain. But I think that what we can do, and what I myself have been trying to do in this essay, is get rid of some of the ira et studio. Both of the lies and the idea that one side is completely right and the other, completely wrong. Whatever else, doing so may make reaching some kind of agreement that much easier.

Going On and On

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Now that President Biden has given his European NATO allies the green light to provide Ukraine with “fourth generation” fighter aircraft, everyone and his cousin are talking about those aircraft. What “fourth (and first, and second, and third, and fifth) generation” means; what the aircraft in question can and cannot do; and the impact their participation in the war is, or is not, going to have on its conduct. Time to shed some light on these questions.

First, this “generations” business.  Starting with the German Me-262, the first three generations of jet fighters entered service in 1944-45 and ruled the skies until about 1970. With each “generational” change they grew faster, enabling them to seize the initiative and dictate the rules of engagement; but only at the cost of being less maneuverable and, to that extent, less suitable both for air-to-air combat and for air-to-ground operations. Starting around 1975, these problems led to a fourth generation of fighters. As the famous late USAF Colonel John Boyd, a fighter pilot who in some ways acted as the brain behind the idea, explained it to me many years ago, aircraft such as the American F-15, F-16, and F-18 were provided with computerized controls. So, somewhat later, were the Russian Su-27, the French Rafale, and the Anglo-German-Italian Tornado. The advent of “fly by wire,” as the system was known, greatly reduced the burden on the pilots, enabling them to focus on fighting rather than simply keeping their machines airborne. In this way, but also by enabling the aircraft to turn much faster than their predecessors, it gave them a decisive edge in combat.

Fifth-generation aircraft are characterized above all by stealth, a technology first introduced around 1990 that greatly reduced their exposure to radar. They also carry sensors able to identify and engage multiple targets simultaneously as well as long-range air-to-air missiles that enable them to take advantage of those sensors. Prime examples are the American F-35 and F-22 as well as the Russian Su-57. By contrast, all Ukraine has are some fourth-generation, Soviet-built, Mig-29s and Su-27s. Old as these aircraft are, just keeping them air- and combat-worthy represents a formidable task; let alone making them fight and defeat their most modern Russian opponents with their superior stealth characteristics, radar, avionics, and air-to-air missiles.

There is also something known as “4.5-generation” fighters, but since there are too few of them to be sent to Ukraine I shall not consider them here. Granted, supplying Ukraine with F-16s is going to solve some of the above problems. But not completely, and perhaps not even by very much. Many of the to-be-provided aircraft are early models built from 1976 on and still being provided to various, mostly third world, customers. Operated for many years—in some cases, decades—by various NATO air forces, making them fit for war risks becoming entangled in a logistic nightmare of different operational capabilities, different spare parts, and different training systems. Of the three, the last-named may well be the most problematic. Some of the sources I consulted say that a Ukrainian pilot accustomed to flying old Soviet-made equipment can be retrained in a matter of months. However, doing the same for the ground-crews may take a year or more.

Nor are those the only problems. At the beginning of the war many observers, comparing the mighty Russian air force (currently it is probably the second most powerful in the world) to the much smaller, in some ways outdated and rag-tag, Ukrainian one predicted a swift victory of the former country over the latter. Two factors explain the failure of Russian air superiority to have a greater impact than it did. First, there is Ukraine’s sheer size—about 600,000 square kilometers, twice as much as Germany—and the consequent dispersed nature of the fighting, much of which takes place not between mighty ground formations but between small and highly mobile teams operating now here, now there. Second, Ukraine’s ground-to-air defenses, particularly those brought into action not against Russian fighters but against cruise missiles and drones, have proved much more effective than anyone could have thought when the war got under way. True, command of the air, meaning the ability to fly where they want and bomb whom they want, has remained mostly in Russian hands. But never at any time has it reached the point where it was absolute.

Overall, the outcome has been and still remains a war of attrition. By definition, and if only because the belligerents tend to imitate one another, in such a war what decides is not tactics, nor even operational art. It is, rather, sheer endurance—a quality which itself is made up of adequate reserves on one hand and willpower on the other. In point of reserves, my prediction is that Western economic might will prevail over that of Russia, even that of Russia as receiving modest support from China. In point of willpower I am not so sure. Some of Putin’s collaborators, tired of the war they fear could end in the disintegration of their country, may band together to remove him and start a new policy. However, it is equally possible that, as happened in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the American people, media and Congress will become tired of the fight and compel the government to abandon it. The more so because an election year is coming up. Do I have to add that, without the US to provide the necessary physical and mental backbone, the rest of NATO is more or less useless?

But these are long-term considerations. My immediate prognosis: With or without the yet-to-arrive F-16s, expect the war, like the Energizer Bunny, to go on. And on. And on.

Guest Article: Spotlight on German Defense

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By

Gen. (ret.) Dr. Erich Vad*

Since Russia launched its full-blown attack against Ukraine in February 2022, Germany has become one of the Ukrainian largest arms suppliers — incurring costs in the billions of euros. This spending and the decision-making behind it have thrown into stark relief at least two things: major shifts in German security policy, and the difficult balancing acts facing the country’s leaders.

What the War Has Revealed About the State and Focus of the German Military

Starting in 2022, Germany has become the third-largest provider of military support for Ukraine after the US and the UK. It sent goods worth a total of €2 billion (~$2.2 billion). Including multiple rocket launchers, self-propelled howitzers, and self-propelled, tracked, air defense systems. A further €2.3 billion (~$2.5 billion) in spending is scheduled for 2023. Including, this time, 18 modern Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks, former East German Mig-29 fighters, and Patriot air defense systems.

Coming on top of aid provided by other NATO countries, this largesse has had a tangible impact on the Ukrainian armed forces’ capabilities. However, it has also come at a significant cost for Germany’s own defense. So much so that Germany’s commitments to its NATO allies, as well as its ability to defend themselves, are now in danger of being compromised.

Even more important, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has fundamentally changed threat perceptions in Germany. For the first time since the end of the Cold War over 30 years ago, German defense policy is once again focused on Central Europe. The era of German peacekeeping missions abroad–in the Balkans, in Mali and in Afghanistan—is over. However, while the focus of German security policy is changing, the Bundeswehr does not have the capability to back the change.

The list of problems is almost endless. Including a shortage of armored and mechanized units; inadequate stocks of ammunition; long-neglected, out of date, facilities such as barracks; to mention but a few. The new minister of defense, Boris Pistorius, is doing what he can to correct these deficiencies. Inevitably, though, doing so will take time.

Nor is the establishment of a special fund of €100 billion (~$110 billion) for military refurbishments going to be a game changer. By my estimate, to restore operational readiness three times that sum would be needed. The necessary ammunition alone would cost at least €20 billion (~$22 billion), while urgent fixes for the ailing infrastructure would call for an additional €50 billion (~$55 billion). And new frigates, tanks and F-35 fighter aircraft have yet to be paid for.

Beyond these hardware-related risks an even greater threat is looming: that of the dire shortfalls in personnel. Following German reunification the Bundeswehr had around 460,000 soldiers. Since then it has been gradually reduced in size until, today, only about 183,000 are left. Currently plans are aiming at an additional 20,000 in 2031—hardly enough to make much of a difference.

Restoring the Bundeswehr’s Operational Readiness Will Take Years

Starting in 1990, Germany believed it could afford to neglect national and alliance defense because the threat situation was quite different. In retrospect, this was short-sighted. The fundamental failure was that Germany “imported” much of its national and alliance defense security, primarily from the U.S. At the same time, it generated a considerable amount of its wealth in China, the geostrategic rival of the U.S, and the West more broadly. And it also imported cheap energy from Russia.

The Bundeswehr’s foreign missions, first and foremost in Afghanistan, dominated the political spotlight and had to proceed, while the rest of its commitments did not seem to matter. To meet ongoing foreign missions personnel and materiel were scrounged from hundreds of Bundeswehr locations. Meanwhile, armament procurement concentrated on armored transport vehicles rather than on battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. This and the ever-decreasing quantities of new equipment also led to reallocation and relocation measures on the part of the defense industry.

Again starting in 1990, every military reform in Germany has been intended, not to strengthen the Bundeswehr in terms of national and alliance defense but to make it smaller and cheaper. The Bundeswehr now has fewer battle-ready tanks than Switzerland and fewer ships than the Netherlands. The hasty phase-out of conscription in 2011 exacerbates the Bundeswehr’s personnel situation to this day. A return to compulsory military service is under discussion, but is not very realistic even though similar policies have been implemented in frontline states such as Lithuania.

At the time, the suspension of conscription at the time was supported by the military leadership because it freed up tens of thousands of professional and temporary soldiers — who had previously been bound by conscription as instructors — for deployment abroad. In the process, however, massive personnel problems arose: Today some 20,000 positions in the Bundeswehr remain unfilled, trend growing. This policy has been repeatedly and rightly criticized and is finally coming to an end. Leading, one can only hope, to the fastest possible rebuilding of Germany’s defense capability within the NATO framework.

What the Future Should Hold for NATO

It is foreseeable that NATO — including new alliance partners such as Sweden (yet to be accepted) and Finland (already accepted) — will have to build up a completely new front line of defense against Russia, and, still in the background, against China as well — from the North Cape to the Black Sea. This line must be capable of being defended if necessary. The NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, which commits the signatories to refrain from permanently stationing substantial combat forces, is hanging by a thread. Whether it will survive remains to be seen.

In any case, Germany will have to be prepared to deploy even more military forces to potential conflict regions in Eastern Europe than it did during the Cold War. In the future, the first priority will be to strengthen the “frontline states.” In all likelihood, Ukraine will — or may even already — be one of them, when it comes to the advance deployment of equipment, ammunition and material. Following NATO directives, Germany must provide about 30,000 troops and 85 aircraft and ships at high readiness for NATO’s defense of Europe by 2025. To this end, Germany would have to establish at least one mechanized division. In addition, it would have to provide a brigade for the Baltic States, which NATO now wants to be able to defend from Day 1, with a high level of readiness. Whether this is realistic remains to be seen. Certainly it will be an enormous feat. The more so because Germany and its European allies can no longer count on our most important ally, the U.S, whose focus is the Indo-Pacific.

Moreover, the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war shows that NATO’s easternmost member states — especially Poland, and certainly Finland in the future — will play a strategically more important role in the transatlantic alliance. Germany continues to be an important logistical hub for NATO’s European defense, but it is no longer a central frontline state as it was during the Cold War.

Time for reorganizing German and European defense is running out. The Russian-Ukrainian war has highlighted different threat perceptions and interests among the European allies, which will have to be balanced in the future. The new frontline states vis-à-vis Russia — above all Poland and the Baltic States — show very little willingness to compromise. Steering the opposite course, France in particular would like to enter negotiations so as to end the war as soon as possible.

While pursuing a substantial increase in the Alliance’s military capabilities, NATO strategists should also keep in mind that the integration of artificial intelligence as a universally applicable technology and robotics will change war to change. If we want to keep pace as a military power in the future, we must have technological leadership in the air, on and under the water, on earth, in space, and, above all, in cyberspace. Along with digitalization, space is becoming increasingly important for all major world powers. Satellites are intimately connected to the global web of communication. Recent developments in hypersonic weapons — which can penetrate all conventional defense systems — raise the relevance of space-based observation and cyber capabilities. Without space security, we cannot rely on digital security on earth. Technological leadership in networked digitalization will ultimately be decisive. However, Europe can only achieve this together with — not separated or autonomously from — the United States.

Limits of the EU’s ‘Self-Defense’

While calling for a peaceful resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian war, France’s Emmanuel Macron has also been pushing for augmenting Europe’s ability to defend itself without American aid. Doing so would mean spending four to six percent of GDP on defense— as compared with the current two percent. At present, I don’t see sufficient political will among EU members to spend that kind of money, especially if ordinary European citizens learn what the oft-repeated demand for more European “strategic autonomy” would actually cost them.

EU states are already spending around 200 billion euros (~$219 billion) on defense every year. At market exchange rates that is about 3 times as much as the Russian budget and not much less than the Chinese one, though it bears noting that the European advantage would be less dramatic if one were to measure these counties’ defense expenditures with an eye to purchasing power parity (PPP). And yet no one is taking the Europeans seriously in the military field. Why? First, the EU states are wasting enormous sums in the defense sector through countless duplications of production lines, weapons programs, national certifications and general egoism — not to mention an overall lack of synergies. Combined, these factors result in constantly shifting security policies, to Europe’s detriment–obstructing its ability to act militarily and autonomously. Second, the EU is still a long way from achieving commonality in military equipment, joint logistics or coherent armaments cooperation. Third, the EU continues to lag behind the U.S in terms of military digitization, the use of space, communications and reconnaissance, and especially in strategic air transport capabilities.

Conclusion

Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Germany’s response to it, including the provision of military aid, much of which has come from Bundeswehr’s immediate inventory, to Kyiv, has highlighted the neglected state and outdated focus of the German armed forces. The war has spurred a much-needed change of this focus from peacekeeping missions to the defense of NATO and of Germany itself. As important, the German government has begun to invest in restoring the operational readiness of the Bundeswehr. But what has been pledged so far is not enough, for it will take years to restore that readiness at the current pace. More important, Germany cannot go it alone. Other European members of NATO should also up the ante to ensure their collective defense capabilities are adequate in the face of the new threats, especially as the U.S. focuses on the Indo-Pacific. In spite of this focus, however, the U.S. will remain indispensable when it comes to the defense of Europe. It is clear that without the United States, Europe cannot strategically balance powers like China or Russia, or even NATO partners like Turkey.

Europe, in my view, will continue to rely on America’s nuclear umbrella, its digital, technological and maritime leadership, and its capability spectrum in cyberspace and outer space for the foreseeable future. Ultimately, enhancements of military capabilities alone won’t make Europe secure either now or in the longer term. Thus, while continuing to aid Ukraine, Germany, France and other members of the EU should join forces in undertaking a political initiative aimed at ending the war and finding a sustainable solution to the conflict.

 

* Dr. Erich Vad is founder and owner of Erich Vad Consulting. A retired Bundeswehr general, from 2006 to 2013 he served as German Chancellor Angela Merkel`s military policy adviser. 

Tertius Gaudens

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These days when everyone is talking about Chatgpt, I find myself thinking of Pablo Picasso. Computers, he is supposed to have said, are completely useless. They can provide answers, but they cannot come up with questions. That is why, this time, I have chosen to put my thoughts in a question/answer format.

What was China’s original stance vis a vis the Ukrainian war?

In February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “friendship without limits” which would bind their two countries together. One sign of this friendship is the fact that, during the first year of the war, Xi has spoken to Putin four times—but did not speak to Zelensky even once.

What came of it?

There has been some cooperation. But not as much as the above statement might imply. So far the most important form of aid China has given to Russia has been to act as a market for the latter’s exports. Including, besides minerals, oil (both crude and distilled), wood and wood products. Also, apparently, some dual use (military and civilian) technology. Also, political support at the UN, in the rest of the world, etc. Recently US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised Beijing’s ire by accusing it of preparing to provide arms to Russia. If the accusations are true, then that would mean a step closer towards direct intervention in the war. But whether they are true, and how extensive and significant the resulting aid would be, remains to be seen.

Why has China submitted a peace plan just now?

Hard to say. One thing is certain: it is not because of Xi’s tender, loving heart. One Chinese objective may be to save as much as possible from the general secretary’s belt and road initiative, which depends on peace in Eurasia and was disrupted by the war. Or simply because China, as a great power, feels it cannot afford not to submit some kind of plan for peace. Just as America did in 1905 (the Russo-Japanese War), 1917 (World War I) and 1974 (the Arab-Israeli War), to mention but a few.

God, Napoleon once said, resides in the details. So what are they?

China’s peace proposal consists of twelve rather general points that can be summed up more or less as follows. First, the need to “create conditions and platforms” for negotiations to resume, a process in which China is prepared to “play a constructive role.” Second, the need to avoid the threat or use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Third, the need for all parties to exercise “rationality and restraint” by respecting international law, avoiding attacks on civilians or civilian facilities as well as women and children. Fourth, China hopes to avoid “expanding military blocs–an apparent reference to NATO–and urges all parties to “avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions.”

Why does the West oppose the plan?

First, because it does not trust Putin to carry out any agreement he may sign, especially in regard to withdrawing his forces from Ukraine so as to restore the latter’s territorial integrity. Second, in the case of Europe in particular, because allowing Putin to retain at least some of his conquests would mean the end of the post-1945 world order which was based, if on anything at all, on the non-use of force in order to change borders. Third, in the case of Washington, because it comes too early and would not lead to a decisive loss of Russia’s power.

How likely is it to succeed?

Not very. Not just because the details remain unknown. But because Zelensky insists, in my view correctly, on the Russians withdrawing their forces from every inch of his country before serious negotiations can get under way.

So what does the future look like?

As both sides gird their loins for a long war of attrition, we shall see blood, toil, tears and sweat. Ending, perhaps, in bankruptcy; as happened to Britain in 1945 and as may yet happen to both Russia (should if suffer from more Western sanctions) and the US (as a result of its huge balance of trade and current account deficits, which the current war does nothing to reduce). And the EU? Just type “EU” and “bankruptcy” into your Google, and you’ll get your answer.

And where does China fit into all this?

Tertius gaudens.

Pussycats, Again

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Intended to spotlight some of the weaknesses of the modern Western militaries, this book was written in 2014-15. Judging by publicly available material, however, during the years that have passed since then many of the problems have become worse rather than better. Consider the following.

1. Subduing the Young

“Anxiety and depression [are] becoming more common among [American] children and adolescents, increasing 27 percent and 24 percent respectively from 2016 to 2019. By 2020, 5.6 million kids (9.2%) had been diagnosed with anxiety problems and 2.4 million (4.0%) had been diagnosed with depression. About 5 million kids also experienced behavior and conduct problems in 2020, a 21 percent increase from the previous year.”[i]

“39.2% of [British] 6 to 16 year olds had experienced deterioration in mental health since 2017.”[ii]

“Mehr-psychische-Erkrankungen-bei-Kindern-und-Jugendlichen,” in Deutschland.”[iii]

2. Defanging the Troops

“The U.S. and NATO exit from Afghanistan may seem simply an episodic defeat. In a broader context, however, the Afghan withdrawal adds to a series of U.S. failures, from Lebanon to the Arab Spring, Iraq, Somalia, Syria—all these adventures ended badly, and the situation left behind was worse. We find ourselves today with the same security problems we had 20 years ago.”[iv]

“In Berlin and other German cities, some Bundeswehr personnel say they prefer not to wear their uniform when traveling to and from work, in order to avoid aggressive stares and rude comments. And in Potsdam, a regional capital near Berlin [which, historically, has been closely associated with the Prussian military], local politicians have been debating whether it’s appropriate for city trams to carry recruitment advertisements for the Bundeswehr.”[v]

Last time my wife and I went to Gatow, the Luftwaffe museum near Potsdam, we were the only visitors. With Ukraine in flames, let’s hope that such attitudes at any rate are going away.

3. Feminizing the Forces

In Finland, we are told, “conscription was opened to women on a volunteer basis” [sic!!!].[vi]

“The [Norwegian] military women in our study reported physical illness and injuries equal to those of military men, but more military women used pain relieving and psychotropic drugs. More military women aged 20–29 and 30–39 years reported mental health issues than military men of the same age. In the age group 30–39 years, twice as many military women assessed their health as poor compared to military men. In the age group 40–60 years, more military women than men reported musculoskeletal pain.”[vii]

“Over 7,000 U.S. service members… have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere” (as of July 2021).[viii] Now Women form about 16 percent of the U.S military, but only a little under 3 percent of those killed in action. Yet there are proportionally more female officers than male ones.[ix] Clearly, when it comes to gaining a commission women, very few of whom engaged in combat, have an advantage over men, many more of whom do.[x]

Compared with their male colleagues, female soldiers have it easy; less exposure to enemy bullets, less strenuous training, less hazardous work, various measures intended to help them cope with pregnancy and childcare, etc. American military women, unlike many civilian ones, are regularly screened for both physical and mental health. Nevertheless, we are told, “women in [the American] military more than twice as likely to die by suicide as Civilians.”[xi]

4. Constructing PTSD

By one 2020 study, “83% of all US veterans as well as active duty service men and women have experienced PTSD since the 9/11 attack, as a result of their military service.”[xii] Nevertheless, to this day no one has been able to define just what PTDS is, what causes it, who is more (or less) susceptible to it (and why), how it should be treated (assuming, indeed, that it is a medical problem at all), and so on. Other problems associated with it are overuse, overlap with other psychological problems and, last not least, the very real danger that, turned into a political issue, it will lose any scientific meaning it may have; which, as this volume has argued, in Germany it did.

Statistics on the prevalence of PTSD among military personnel do not show that the problem is getting worse. On the other hand, it is not getting better either.

5. Delegitimizing War

Some people hold that killing is a worse sin than allowing oneself to be killed. However, that only applies to individuals. Those responsible for the lives of others cannot afford to adopt it; for them, in fact, doing so is a crime. Now that any illusions about the future disappearance of war (e.g. F. Fukuyama, “The End of History,” 1989) have themselves disappeared, that remains as true as ever.

Conclusion: Hannibal intra Portas

We live in a period when life without terrorism, some of it internal, some international, has spread to the point where it has become almost unimaginable. True, a look at the statistics will show that, globally speaking, the number of casualties due to terrorism has not increased over the last decade.[xiii] However, measures taken to prevent it a certainly have. Not a port, not an airport, not a power station, not a mine, not a large-scale installation anywhere that is not being protected against it. Sometimes successfully, but perhaps more often not.[xiv]

Finally –

In 2014-15 American troops were still holding out in Afghanistan and Iraq and French ones, in Mali. Now, having achieved absolutely nothing, they are all gone. Meanwhile major war has broken out in Europe—the very Europe which for decades on end, was widely regarded as so peaceful as to be almost completely war-proof.

Need I say more?

 

[i] Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, Research Update: Children’s Anxiety and Depression on the Rise,” 24.3.3022, at https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2022/03/24/research-update-childrens-anxiety-and-depression-on-the-rise/

[ii] The children’s Society, “Children’s Mental Health Statistics,” at https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/well-being/mental-health-statistics.

[iii] www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/124350/, 3.6.2021.

[iv] S. Pontecorvo, “How Western Errors Let the Taliban Win in Afghanistan,” 2.10.2022.https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/02/kabul-airlift-taliban-win-afghanistan/

[v] M. Karnitschnig, “Germany’s Soldiers’ of Misfortune,” Politico, 15.2.2019, at https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-biggest-enemy-threadbare-army-bundeswehr/

[vi] YLE News, 4.11.2021, at https://yle.fi/news/3-12169597.

[vii] BMC, “BMC Women’s Health,” 17.10.2019, at https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-019-0820-4.

[viii] Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, “Costs of War,” at https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/military/killed

[ix] See Council on Foreign Relations, Demographics of U.S Military,” 2020, at https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military.

[x] See, for the figures, “United States Military Casualties of War,” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war.

[xi] W. Huntsberry at https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/07/25/women-in-military-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-die-by-suicide-as-civilians/

[xii] Cumberland Heights, PTSD, at https://www.cumberlandheights.org/blogs/ptsd-statistics-veterans/.

[xiii] See H. Ritchie and others, “Terrorism,” 2022, at https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#how-many-people-are-killed-by-terrorists-worldwide.

[xiv] P. Knoope, “20-Year Fight against Terrorism Proves a Costly Failure,” Clingendael Spectator, 6 September 2021, at https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/20-year-fight-against-terrorism-proves-costly-failure

 

Tanks Here, Tanks There

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Now that, following decades of non-use, tanks are once again making headlines in Europe, readers rightly demand a short explanation of their origins, development, and role in modern warfare.

Tanks, meaning mechanically-propelled, tracked, weaponized and armored, fighting vehicles, first made their appearance on the battlefield when the British and French armies deployed them in 1916. They went through their greatest days of glory in 1939-45 when the principal belligerents—Germany, the Soviet Union, Britain and the US—all produced them by the thousand (Japan also had them, but in nowhere like the same number or quality). Tanks took a prominent role both in the Arab-Israeli Wars (1948-1982) and in the two Gulf Wars (1991 and 2003-2011). At times, so great was their hold that popular opinion in particular tended to see them as the very symbol of warfare.

1916-1918. Almost from the beginning, tanks fell into two basic kinds: heavy ones, intended to lead the infantry as it tried to occupy and cross the enemy trenches, and light ones meant for follow up operations once those objectives had been achieved. The former moved slowly and were armed with cannon. The latter were faster and were often armed with no more than machine guns. The Germans also built tanks. However, so small were the numbers that came off the assembly lines that they hardly affected the conduct of the war.

1919-45. As World War I ended all the world’s main armed forces experimented with tanks. The outcome was a very large number of different models, including one with no fewer than five turrets and another that could move on rails as well as roads and open terrain. Nevertheless, by the mid-thirties the basic elements that make up a tank had been determined and become well-nigh universal. Including a single turret-mounted gun, a hull, and a suspension system; a configuration that, later on, came to be known as a main battle tank.

During the 1930s Germany pioneered armored divisions. Tanks apart, they were made up of artillery, anti-tank guns and infantry. All under a single headquarters, and all provided with the necessary supply, maintenance and repair services. Strongly supported from the air, they enjoyed their most spectacular successes in 1939-42 when they overran most of Europe and came within a hair of winning World War II both in Russia and in North Africa. Later, in 1943-45, they played an equally important role both on the Eastern and the Western Fronts. The tank’s development may be gauged from the fact that, by 1945, some Soviet ones mounted an awesome 122 mm. gun, a far cry from the 37 mm. that had been the norm even as late as in 1936-37. As guns grew so did the turrets that carried them, the hulls and suspensions that carried the turrets, the armor that protected them, and the engines that drove the lot.

1945-73. Tanks continued to increase in weight and power, finally stabilizing at about 60 tons. Increasingly during this period, it was the Israelis who took the lead in waging modern, mobile, tank-centered warfare. Not only did they fight and win two wars—1967 and 1973—but they started building their own tanks from scratch. Other tank-building countries, Germany with its Leopard II included, sought some kind of balance between firepower, protection and mobility. Not so Israel which, as befitted its limited manpower, put protection first. This approach proved itself during the 1982 Lebanon War when not one Israeli tankman was killed inside his tank.

1973-2022. The period saw any number of technical advances, starting with smoothbore cannon (instead of the traditional rifled one) and ending with the kind of anti-missile missiles designed to prevent enemy missiles from hitting the tank’s own armor. Both in 1991 and 2003, tanks spearheaded the Western invasions of Iraq, easily defeating the fleets of older, Soviet-built, tanks fielded by the latter country. However, even as the tracks churned away in the desert warfare was changing. As more countries either acquired nuclear weapons or the ability to build them relatively quickly, large-scale conventional war appeared to be on the retreat. From Vietnam to Afghanistan, its place was taken by asymmetric war, insurgency, guerrilla, terrorism, or whatever it may have been called. As these forms of conflict showed, in them the role tanks could play was limited, often almost nonexistent.

2022-23. When Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 his generals used tanks to spearhead their forces. And rightly so because Ukraine, with its wide-open, flat terrain, presents invaders with ideal tank country. But that did not mean a return to World War II. As also happened to the Israelis in Gaza e.g, Russia’s tanks were not used in their “classic” role of taking on enemy tanks and opening the way to large-scale maneuvering deep behind the front. Instead they served as close artillery support, helping infantry to advance street by street, building by building, in urban terrain; more like Stalingrad than like the vast maneuvers that led up to it and, now carried out by the Russians, followed it.

The future. Do current events in Ukraine harbor the return of large-scale conventional warfare and, with it, of tanks? Some experts think so and are even now designing all sorts of futuristic fighting vehicles. All this is good and well, but it ignores the fact that the one reason why the current war can be waged at all is because Ukraine’s arsenal, like that of Iraq before it, is limited to conventional weapons. One can hear the hard men in the Kremlin say:

Tanks here, tanks there. We’ve got

The atom bomb, and they do not.

How Much is Enough?

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How Much is Enough was the title of a 1971 volume published by the RAND (Research and Development) Corporation, an American think-tank with close ties to the United States Air Force which provided the funding. The authors, A. C. Enthoven and K. V. Smith, were both veterans of the Pentagon where they had worked for President Johnson’s Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. Both were experts on systems analysis. At that time it was a fairly new and exciting discipline that sought to subject as many problems as possible to mathematical analysis; including not just military problems but such as comprised health services, education, transportation and the like..

Some of the most important problems, taking up a considerable part of the book, concerned what people called the nuclear strategic balance between the US and the USSR. What, precisely were the objectives of building up America’s nuclear arsenal? How many nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles would be needed to deter the USSR from launching an attack? Supposing deterrence failed and nuclear war broke out, what did victory mean and how to ensure it went to America? Should there be one kind of missile/bomber aircraft or a mix of several different ones? If the latter, then how many of each kind? How to best use them, and against what targets? How many, if any, should be kept in reserve? What was the best way to render them invulnerable to a Soviet attack? And so on and so on.

Today in NATO’s capitals—Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and to some extent less important ones too—somewhat similar questions are being asked. With this difference that, as far as the public record is concerned, the issue is not nuclear weapons but how many conventional ones, specifically tanks, to send to Ukraine’s aid. Where and how to employ them, and so forth. It goes without saying that the discussions are highly classified. Still it is possible to draw up a list of some of the most important questions that, in one combination or another, will have to be resolved before a decision is make.

  1. The nature of the mission. Is it to be defensive—just enabling Zelensky and his men to hold out until something gives—or offensive—liberating the Donbas and the Crimea? Suppose the latter is the case and these objectives are attained but the Russians still keep on fighting—as they did in 1812 and, in different ways, both in 1917-18 and 1941—what then? Note that, as a general rule, fighting on the defensive is easier and requires fewer forces than going on the offensive does.
  2. Losses. How many tanks are the various NATO countries prepared to lose, and in what time frame?
  3. Availability and production. Not only are at least some tanks going to be lost, but they are expensive beasts. A brand-new Leopard II costs about 15 million Euro. As a result, no country has an unlimited supply of the most modern tanks in particular. How many tanks can the NATO countries send into the field without putting their own security at too great a risk? How many can be sent now? How many in the future? How long will producing and fielding new ones take?
  4. Substitution. Suppose NATO country A sends some tanks to fight in Ukraine. Will the rest make up for the deficit?
  5. As the Russian invaders have discovered to their cost, and contrary to their image as kings of the battlefield, tanks are vulnerable. To other tanks. To certain kinds of anti-tank weapons. To drones, especially such as are used to attack them from above rather than from the front where tanks carry their thickest armor. Such being the case, tanks rarely operate on their own but are regularly escorted by other forces, primarily artillery, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft defenses, and engineers. How many of those can be sent now? How many in the future? How long will producing and fielding them take? How long will training Ukrainian troops in operating the tanks take?
  6. How many tanks can be supported and kept supplied? Bear in mind that tanks and their supporting forces require huge amounts of supplies. Depending on the terrain as well as the kind of operation, a modern battle tank such as the Leopard II will easily consume 3.4 L/km on road and 5.3 L/km off it. Plus ammunition, plus spare parts. Plus, in case they fight on the defense, various engineering materials. Plus all kinds of other supplies (food, water, medical supplies) which, though small in weight, are must arrive at the right place at the right time. To aggravate the problem, tanks rarely remain at the same place for long, forcing the logistic tails to follow them.
  7. What are the Russians likely to do in response? Open a new front by dragging Belarus into the war? Start at least some operations in NATO territory? Mobilize even more troops? Resort to tactical nuclear weapons?
  8. Finally, politics. Building a model of what a nuclear exchange might be like, Enthoven and Smith all but ignored politics. Indeed their tacit (but far from unreasonable) assumption was that, in that case, there would be no politics. However, the war in Ukraine is not a one-time spasm. If only for that reason, NATO planners cannot ignore them. How much political capital are the various countries, both leaders and populations, prepared to spend in assisting Ukraine? For how long?

In the long run it is this question that is likely to be the most important of all.

Nuclear Games

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Fission and fusion. Warheads and delivery vehicles. First strikes and second strikes. Counterforce and countervalue. Shots across the blow and mutually assured destruction. For decades on end these and any number of similarly mysterious terms have been circling the planet, reflecting the efforts of statesmen, politicians, defense officials, soldiers, academics and journalists to understand what nuclear weapons are all about, by whom and how they might be used, and what the consequences of their use might be. Some of the discussions are public, a great many others classified. Some are committed to paper, but a great many others take the form of wargames in which teams of highly qualified analysts, supported by as much computing power as it takes, try to answer these and similar question for their superiors’ benefit—superiors who, judging by the little that has been published on their reactions, may not even be aware that the wargames are taking place, let alone taken an interest in them.

Still at bottom the issues are very simple. Seven months after their failure to subdue Ukraine by means of a short and decisive coup de main, Putin and his staff seem to be running out of options. They can try and occupy the enemy’s most important cities, i.e Kiev, Kharkov, and perhaps Odessa. However, judging by what happened in the Donbas such an attempt will almost certainly involve them in prolonged, brutal and very bloody urban warfare for which their troops seem to be unprepared and in which victory is by no means assured. They can subject these and other cities to an even more intensive bombardment than has been the case so far, but such a move is unlikely to bring about a quick surrender on the enemy’s part. They can take the offensive in other parts of Ukraine, but given that country’s size and the sparsity of its population many if not most of those efforts are likely to hit little but empty air. Finally, following a strategic switch that has been under way since May, they can renounce the offense in favor of the defense and, by so doing, give up any thought of victory at all.

Even assuming Russia can successfully overcome its current shortage of military manpower, none of the options appear very attractive.  This is a fact of which Putin must be aware and which, at some point, may drive him to despair. Enter nuclear weapons. Here the all-important, indeed decisive, factor is that Ukraine does not have them. Perhaps the more the pity; judging by everything that has happened and not happened since 1945, in that case there is an excellent possibility that the war would never have broken out in the first place.

Next, suppose Putin wants to use his nuclear weapons. However, in that case it is not at all clear what he would do with them. The Ukrainian armed forces, made wise by the invasion, are fighting in too dispersed and mobile a manner to present attractive targets. For the Russians to ignore that fact will only lead to the Ukrainians switching to guerrilla and terrorism, a process that is already well under way. Destroying Ukraine’s vital infrastructure—dams, power plants, airports, and the like—will only make the burden of one day occupying and administering the country all the greater; besides, as evens in the Donbas show, such destruction can be achieved almost equally well by conventional means. Admittedly bombing cities out of existence, as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, is an option. However, exercising it will end up by creating similar and even greater problems for the Russians to deal with. The more so because of the radioactivity that will surely result. So I consider Putin’s words on the topic idle threats. They are relevant only in case Zelensky and NATO mount a large-scale military offensive, complete with intensive air bombardment, into Russian territory—something that is unlikely to happen.

On the other hand, now that the US and NATO seems to be winning the war, they have no interest in nuclear weapons either. The noises they are making, some overt, others covert, are meant primarily if not exclusively to remind Putin of the terrible consequences that will follow if he goes too far. What “too far” might mean, and what the response might be, is deliberately being left obscure. Precisely how NATOs warnings link up with the factors mentioned in the previous paragraph is also not clear.

The conclusion from this is that no one wants, or should want, to see nuclear weapons used in action. That does not, repeat not, mean that the world is safe and that the weapons in question, complete with their PALs (positive action links, mechanisms explicitly designed to prevent any but authorized personnel, normally heads of state), will always remain in the places they are stored. The situation in Ukraine is unstable and constantly changing. Most of us cannot even imagine the stress to which the most important actors are subject. Under such circumstances words, especially words deliberately used to conceal the exact circumstances under which the weapons may be used, are easily misunderstood. War being a tit-for-tat business, the greatest danger is that of escalation. Meaning the likelihood that, once a single weapon is set off, all will be.

As Clausewtiz says, most barriers only exist in men’s minds. That is why, once they are breached, rebuilding them may be difficult if not impossible.

The Other Side of the Coin

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As many readers of this blog know, NATO and the US have been pressing Switzerland to abandon its long-standing policy of neutrality and join them in supporting the good, blameless, democratic Ukrainians against the big bad Russians. Conversely many Swiss media, reluctant to see their country embark on that road, has been bristling with stories that, being less than complimentary to Ukraine, are not always easy to find in English-language sources. Based on an article in Weltwoche, a moderately right-wing Swiss weekly, the following are summaries of a few such stories.

  1. In the West, the terms “Russia” and “oligarchs” are regarded as almost synonymous. In fact, though, Ukraine’s Zelensky is quite as dependent on filthy rich, not always nice and kind, backers as his rival Putin is. In return, no sooner had he come to power in April 2019 than he started pushing through a comprehensive program aimed at privatizing state-owned land. 40 million hectares of it, no less. Continuing policies originally put in place when Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, this reform was accompanied by others: including cuts in social services, changes in labor law aimed at favoring employers at workers’ expense, and more. The result? In 1991 its per capita income was slightly than to that of Russia. Over the next thirty years it dropped to just one third of that figure. No wonder that, by the time the war broke out in February 2022, public support for Zelensky had dropped by two thirds.
  2. Again in the West, the terms “Russia“ and “corruption” are regarded as almost synonymous. In fact, however, there is little to choose between Russian corruption and that which prevails in Kiev. According to one source quoted by Weltwoche, back in 2015 Ukraine was the most corrupt country in Europe. Six years later Transparency International, a Berlin-based organization, ranked it 122nd in the world, just barely ahead of Russia. Corruption, so Weltwoche, is endemic: in ministries, in the bureaucracy, in the public services, in parliament, in the police, and—surprise surprise–even in the High Court specifically charged with combating it. Zelensky himself is said to have received millions from questionable backers in- and out of the country; some of the money was registered on his wife’s name, and some of it was deposited offshore. Among those implicated was Hunter, the son of U.S President Joe Biden. Presumably it was these contributions which, among other things, enabled Zelensky to spend some of his vacations not in the Carpathians or on the shores of the Black Sea—both of them prime vacation areas, by the way–but in the kind of Western resorts that charge tens of thousands of dollars per night.
  3. When Putin proclaimed that one of his objectives was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, Western media were quick to point out that Zelensky himself is Jewish or, at any rate, has Jewish roots. That is true, but two points seem worth making. First, those Jewish roots are rather remote and, inside Ukraine, are rarely mentioned. Second, as may be clearly seen from the tattoos they carry on their faces, trunks, shoulders and arms, many of Zelensky’s most determined supporters identify with the Nazis, Hitler and the SS specifically included. At least one, chief of the so-called National Corps (and one time member of parliament) Andryi Bilestsky, has gone so far as to declare a crusade against the Jew-directed efforts of “sub-human” peoples to do away with the white races.  Indeed Ukrainian right-wing organizations are not unlike America’s militias. Except that they are much better organized, armed, and trained; and except that, rather than being marginal to the country’s political life, they form the indispensable mainstay of Zelensky’s regime.
  4. Even before the beginning of the war, Zelensky’s own regime was showing signs of becoming increasingly authoritarian. Opposition politicians, accused of cooperating with the enemy, have been intimidated, kidnapped and, occasion, shot at. Opposition media have been closed, opposition parties prohibited.
  5. Arrests, kangaroo courts, and even torture have become widespread. It is true that Ukrainian troops did not abuse the civilian population quite as much as Russian ones did (not operating on Russian territory, they simply did not have the opportunity). The abuses that did take place, though, were bad enough; as, for example, when Ukrainian militiamen, acting in broad daylight, seized known left-wingers, stripped them, and beat them up. While the West has focused on the Russian maltreatment of Ukrainian (and a few foreign) prisoners of war, it has ignored cases when Ukrainian troops opened fire on Russian prisoners.

The Weltwoche article that served me as the basis for this post takes up four pages of dense German. I got them down to just eight hundred words, the normal length of an Op-Ed. By no means do I wish to imply that Russia is right and Ukraine, wrong. Only, perhaps, that both sides are not as different as they are usually made out to be—and that, as time goes on, they are steadily becoming less so.

Truth to Say, Qui lo Sa?

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Now that the initial momentum has been spent and replaced by attrition (on both sides), it is possible to speculate about the outcome of the war everyone has been talking about for the last few months.

So here we go.

Outcome No 1. The Ukrainians, supported by the West, succeed in pushing the Russians out and accomplishing their stated objective, which is to reassert their territorial integrity. Whereupon peace talks get under way and everyone goes home happily enough; this is the way eighteenth century “cabinet wars” used to end. Unfortunately, given the Russians’ shorter lines of communication as well as their superior firepower, this outcome is the most unlikely of all.

Outcome No 2. A variant of this outcome is the possibility that internal developments in Russia will lead to a change of policy. Some of Putin’s collaborators, disappointed with the lack of progress and worried about the long-range prospects of their country (and themselves, of course) mount a coup. Or else the combination of reluctant troops with popular discontent forces them to change course. Speculation about this scenario, particularly the one that sees Putin being forced out of office by illness, has ben rife for months.

Outcome No. 3. As both sides keep sending in reinforcements, stalemate ensues. This, in fact, is the situation at present  As time goes on, the populations of more than one NATO country begin to realize the full cost, economic and social and political, of supporting Ukraine. Dissenting voices begin to be heard and cannot be silenced. Making their way from the bottom upward, they cause part of the leadership to wonder how long this can go on. As discontent spreads Kiev’s own allies start putting it under pressure. By way or doing so they may even start reducing or delaying aid. Think of the American retreats from Vietnam (where they abandoned  their South Vietnamese allies), Iraq (where, back in 1991, they did the same to the Shiites), Afghanistan (where they simply left) and Iraq again. Deprived of Western support, the Ukrainians are forced to make the best peace they can.

Outcome No 4. Reorganizing and bringing their full resources to bear, the Russians renew their offensive. No more attempts to end the war with a singe mighty strike. Proceeding systematically and using artillery in order to reduce their own casualties, they attack one city after another to force it to surrender or, if that does not work, reduce it to rubble. Ukraine cracks under the pressure. The government is forced to flee. Terrorism and guerrilla warfare get under way and are suppressed, albeit at the cost of almost unimaginable death, suffering and destruction. As used to be said of the Romans, they made a desert and called it peace.

Outcome No. 5. Terrorism and guerrilla get under way. However, thanks largely to Ukraine’s large size and long borders with NATO countries, they cannot be suppressed any more than they could  in any number of post-1945 wars.  Long-term chaos ensues and may spread to neighboring countries.

Not only may any of these happen, but they may do so in an endless number of combinations and variations. Truth to say, qui lo sa?