I have mentioned before that many leading US politicians see the war in Ukraine as a means to degrade Russia, perhaps even achieve regime change and a possible break-up of the country, all this without risking American lives and “costing peanuts” (and a horrible number of Ukrainian lives, but that is another story). This argument has been repeated by Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren: “It is a very cheap way to make sure that Russia with this regime is not a threat to the NATO alliance” (implying that Ukrainian lives are cheap?). This could indeed imply a very long war, as Russia, according to this logic, would be more and more weakened, the longer it lasts. So why stop it, when it means weakening one of US’ and EU’s perceived main enemies almost for free?
According to leading Republican Senator Mitt Romney in a recent interview with the British newspaper “The Telegraph”, the spending on the Ukraine war “is the best investment in US defence in their entire history”. One wonders: what about the US “investments” in the wars in for example Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya?
However, it is gradually becoming evident that this logic, apart from being morally indefensible, is fallacious.
Firstly, it is not at all obvious that Russia is losing the war. To a naive civilian as me, with little knowledge of military matters, it looks as if Ukraine after a four-month disastrous counter offensive, with horrific losses of lives and military equipment, is losing. Not because NATO doesn’t deliver the military inputs Ukraine is asking for, or because the financial support from the US and the EU is drying up, but because the Kiev government is running out of people to conscript into the army and send to die in the killing fields. A researcher from UK Think Tank “International Institute for Strategic Studies” (IISS) further argues that “geopolitical trends unconnected with the war” are developing in Russia’s favour, particularly “a rise in the strategic assertiveness of small and middle powers”. There is a risk, he says, of “downgrading the war to a regional conflict”.
I don’t know if the Russians are planning a new offensive, or if they just will lean back and wait for the Kiev forces to exhaust themselves in the coming years, but I can only see one final outcome in the end, and that is a defeat for Kiev. Financially, it is an expensive strategy for Russia, but the longer the war lasts, the worse the outcome for the Ukrainian nationalists, and if it lasts long enough it can end with the country losing its statehood. The war has never been about territory, but about NATO’s Eastward expansion. The best way to secure a “for-ever” war is to insist on NATO membership for Ukraine – if that is not taken off the table, there will be no negotiated peace.
Secondly, even if a Ukrainian victory is not a precondition for the argument about a low-cost way of weakening Russia, nobody can guarantee the US that Russia will be weakened as a result of the war, just because it is losing soldiers and is forced to spend more and more on the military. For a historical parallel (even if historical parallels are tricky), consider the second world war. When Nazi-Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, this was the dream scenario for the United Kingdom (the US was not part of the war yet): the two main powers on the continent exhausting themselves in a total war. This was doubtlessly the main reason for delaying the opening of the second front, which the Soviet Union had been begging for to alleviate the German pressure on the East Front: “give them time to exhaust each other”. Then came the German defeat in Stalingrad in late 1942, during 1943 it became obvious that the Red Army might actually reach Germany and D-day finally came in May 1944, starting a race among the allies to reach Berlin first (which the Red Army won). But the point here is that the Soviet Union, contrary to what might have been expected taking into account the absolutely horrible loss of lives (around 24 million against 7-8 million in Germany, 450,000 in United Kingdom and 415,000 in the US), the devastation of its Western territory and the enormous amount of military equipment lost, came out of the war as absolutely the strongest military power in Europe, and in the following decade it rapidly rebuilt its economy.
Victory celebrations in Moscow after the end of World War II. The USSR suffered enormous losses in human lives and destruction, but came out of the war as the leading European military power.
It is absolutely possible that Russia, despite the heavy burden of the Ukraine war, will come out of it in a similar way, not as a defeated and degraded military, political and economic power, but the contrary. There are several signs that this is actually happening.
Firstly, the Russian military industry has proved to be much more capable than Western analysts thought. Production has been ramped up quickly as military factories work in several shifts, and new factories are being constructed. So the hopes that the Russian would run out of weapon and ammunition have been dashed. Furthermore, the Russian weapons turned out to be much more efficient than expected. The hope that the sophisticated, modern weapons provided to Ukraine by NATO (Javelins, HIMARS, Caesar Howitzers, Leopard 2 tanks, Switchblade drones, Storm Shadow missiles, and so on) would be superior to the old-fashioned Russian weaponry has been crushed on the battle field. According to the Western media, the Russian missiles are supposedly outfitted with semi-conductors ripped out of refrigerators and washing machines, so if that were true there can’t be many of these left in the country. So it is obviously not true.
Next US investment in Ukraine: Abrams Main Battle Tank (here in Iraq). Maybe they burn better than the German Leopard tanks? Photo by: PHC D. W. Holmes II, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Secondly, the Russian economy has since February 2022 been through a profound restructuring, where exports have shifted from Western and Central Europe to the East and the South, new supply chains have been established, mainly from China, India and Turkey, and domestic production of everything from machine tools, machinery, civilian aircrafts, consumer goods to software has expanded. Russia is experiencing a virtual reindustrialisation, as the domestic production is increasing under the headlines of “Import Substitution” and “Technological Sovereignty”. It looks as if the war in Ukraine and the “sanctions from hell” unexpectedly have made the Russians mobilise resources that even they themselves were not aware that they had.
According to J.P.Morgan, Russia is topping the list of countries with expansion of manufacturing in September 2023. Czech Republic, Austria and Germany are at the bottom. Source: https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/b7141fc969fc4475bd6e1e2d4e16609e
Thirdly, as the war has been evolving with attacks on Russian soil with weapons provided by NATO, and the NATO countries have turned increasingly hostile to everything Russian, it has made a majority of Russians close ranks, despite all their differences and old quarrels. Because of the hostile external environment and with the risk of an out-all war with NATO, people are more willing to accept the burdens of the war. As I have mentioned before, governing elites normally become more sensitive to the needs of common people during wars, as they need their support for the war. Whether that is true for the Russian Government, remains to be seen. If it does, the chances for regime change are close to zero.
It is an open question, how Russia will cope in the longer run, if it continues to be excluded from trade and interchanges with the advanced Western economies. It will force the country to invest much more in research and development than presently, and it will have to rely on particularly China in some fields where it is weak, among others semiconductors and more generally advanced electronics. Having to duplicate research and development in areas where the demand volume is low, will be costly. So this question is presently difficult to answer.
However, even if Russia comes out of the Ukraine war as a stronger political, economic and military power, this does not necessarily mean that the funds that the US has invested (as they like to term it) in the Ukraine war are wasted. The US has regained its hegemony within the NATO camp, NATO has got new members, the NATO partners are increasing their contribution to the rearmament, NATO has never been more unified, and the goal of NATO as stated by its first General Secretary, Lord Ismay, has been fulfilled: "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".
The real losers are the Ukrainian nationalists, Germany and the rest of EU. Plus the hundreds of thousands of people killed and mutilated in a meaningless war that could have been avoided through negotiations.
