https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-war-long-west-ready-11673571215
The
war in Ukraine, it’s clear by now, won’t end soon. The bet in
Moscow—and the fear in Kyiv—is that the West will lose stamina before
Russia suffers a decisive defeat.
So far, Russia’s expectations
of discord among Ukraine’s backers haven’t materialized. Europe has
severed its dependence on Russian energy with limited pain and no
political cataclysms. As all major Western economies grew in 2022
despite the disruptions, the consensus behind supplying weapons to Kyiv
has only solidified.
Yet, with Russia announcing a mobilization
of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in September and switching its
economy to a war footing, time could be on Moscow’s side. So far,
neither the U.S. nor Europe has made the adjustments, especially in
military production, that are necessary for sustaining Ukraine in a war
that could potentially drag on for several years. Neither are they
immune to pain from further energy shocks.
“The idea that a major
classic conventional war in Europe could last as long as one of the two
world wars is not something we are yet ready for,” says Bruno Tertrais,
deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris think
tank. “Even though the resilience of European societies has been
remarkable, it cannot be taken for granted.”
The same goes
for the U.S. While the lame-duck Congress in December authorized $44.9
billion in funding to support the war in Ukraine, probably enough for
the next nine months, new Republican control of the House means that
further military and civilian aid packages for Kyiv may be more
complicated to fund.
If time works to Moscow’s advantage, it’s in
the West’s interest to dramatically increase support for Ukraine in
coming months, abandoning the excessive caution that characterized
weapons deliveries until now, says retired Air Marshal Edward Stringer,
former head of operations at the British Defense Staff.
“By
continuing to drip-feed just enough for Ukraine not to lose, what the
West is doing is just prolonging the war,” Air Marshal Stringer says.
“Whether we realize it or not, Russia has thrown a gauntlet to the West.
And, even though our own troops aren’t fighting there, we are
thoroughly invested in this conflict, and we have to provide the
materiel to win it.”
Ukraine’s own once-significant defense
industry has been decimated by Russian airstrikes in the 11 months of
war, and the country now is almost wholly reliant on Western-provided
weapons and ammunition to survive. While Russia’s economy, roughly the
size of Spain’s, is a minnow compared with the combined might of the
U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, Western defense
procurement and manufacturing—unlike Russia’s—is largely continuing to
follow peacetime procedures and schedules.
“The West, in general,
naturally overshadows Russia in economic potential and
defense-industrial capacity, and that should make you believe that, in a
protracted war, Ukraine with Western support stands a much better
chance of winning the conflict,” says Michael Kofman, director of Russia
studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, a think tank that advises the
U.S. military. “But that is not a predetermined outcome. Potential is
just that. It takes a great deal of will, and wars are fundamentally a
contest of wills.”
Manpower math
Before last fall’s
mobilization, Russia—which began the invasion using mostly full-time
contract troops—suffered from manpower shortages in Ukraine while
relying on an overwhelming advantage in artillery firepower. Now that
Russia has mobilized 300,000 reservists, it has solved its manpower
problem just as it’s starting to run low on ammunition and materiel.
Long
term, the arithmetic of manpower works to Moscow’s advantage as Russia
has 3.5 times Ukraine’s population. Even if Russia loses two soldiers
for every one Ukrainian service member killed, it still improves its
relative strength. So far, Western officials say, Russia’s battlefield
fatalities—numbering in several tens of thousands—are comparable to
Ukraine’s.
The calculus on ammunition and weaponry is more
complicated. Ukraine uses up Western-supplied 155 mm artillery shells at
roughly twice the rate that they are being manufactured by the U.S. and
allies, military analysts say. At this rate of fire, Kyiv could draw
down U.S. and European reserves to critical levels at some point this
summer or fall.
By then, Russia—with its single-minded focus on
the war—may be able to expand its own ammunition production to keep pace
with the tempo of the fighting. The U.S. and allies are also investing
in new ammunition production lines, but these are unlikely to make a
major difference until next year, creating a potentially dangerous gap
between Ukraine’s and Russia’s firepower in the second half of 2023.
“We
should not underestimate Russia. They are mobilizing more troops, they
are working hard to acquire more equipment, more ammunition, and they
have shown willingness to actually suffer but to continue the war,” NATO
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says. “There is no indication that
President Putin has changed the overall aim of his brutal war against
Ukraine. So we need to be prepared for the long haul.”
An existential fight
The
mobilization has already allowed Mr. Putin to stabilize the front line,
and to launch a counteroffensive around the city of Bakhmut in the
eastern Donetsk region. Possibilities of a negotiated settlement are
remote in the foreseeable future.
“Any notion of the peace
process is out because Putin is doing everything to make clear that this
is existential for him,” says Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to
NATO who heads the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “He is preparing
his population for a long war, and I don’t think he’s ever going to give
up on his imperial ambitions for controlling Ukraine.” With no end to
the conflict in sight, he says, the U.S. and allies should already start
preparing to integrate the government-controlled majority of Ukraine
into Western institutions, without waiting for the war’s conclusion.
Ukraine
says that its war aim is to oust Russia from all territories conquered
in the past year and the areas it lost to Russia in 2014, including
Crimea. Ukraine regaining even part of these areas would endanger Mr.
Putin’s hold on power at home.
Russia seeks, at a minimum, to
conquer the Ukrainian-held parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson
and Zaporizhzhia regions that Mr. Putin declared to be part of Russia in
October. Currently, almost the entire front line runs across what
Russia considers to be its own sovereign soil.
Ukrainian
officials warn that Moscow’s initial war goal, the occupation of Kyiv
and the entirety of the country, hasn’t changed—and that any pause in
the conflict would be used by Mr. Putin to regroup and strike again.
“They
are preparing for new battles, for new offensive operations, not for
talks. Nothing speaks in favor of Russia being ready to talk,” says
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “I know Russia, I see what is
happening in Russia. And I think it’s either them or us. There is
nothing in between now anymore.”
Mr. Trofimov is the chief
foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. He can be
reached at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com.
Corrections & Amplifications
Russia
announced the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in
September. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the
announcement was in October. (Corrected on Jan. 13)
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