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Since @greyenlightenment suggested a list of topics that weren't getting enough attention in the previous CWR thread, I decided to write a bit about Russia-Ukraine situation.
The summer campaign has ended, and Ukraine has found itself in an unenviable situation. The much-hyped counteroffensive has achieved only marginal gains, but the EU has exhausted its disposable stocks of arms and armor and the US, which has enough disposable firepower to zone rouge a medium-sized country, is a) not a charity and b) kinda getting busy with other stuff.
All this means Ukraine knows it won't be able to conduct further offensive operations and its most important medium-term goal is to not lose. There are multiple ways it can lose:
Having so many ways to lose means the time is ripe for a ceasefire or even peace negotiations, but when your adversary smells blood they won't be satisfied with just what they have. So Ukraine either:
The russians haven’t made any progress either. When the soviet inheritance is entirely spent, the attritional industrial war will just be western handouts versus the russian economy, and I don’t think russia looks good in this contest. Whether the ukrainians want to keep fighting is their business, but as a western european I’m happy to foot the bill and keep russia busy indefinitely, especially since there is no long-lasting peace on the table, only a provisional ceasefire.
I could lean on zelensky if you offered pre-feb 24 borders, else let’s just keep playing ,who gets uncomfortable first.
Ukraine's military is the size of the French and military put together. Their military is 30% of the US military in size and currently fighting a high intensity war. The amount of resources required to sustain the Ukrainian military is astounding and completely unsustainable. They are consuming many systems at a much higher rate than they are produced. They will have to replace many soviet systems with western systems. Ukraine will need to retrain large portions of their military and continue to take in tens of thousands of recruits per year. Just the minimal training the European militaries have provided a small portion of the Ukrainian military has already had a real impact on the militaries of Europe.
Ukraine's military is heavily dependent on using its professional core. The officers and experienced soldiers are carrying their efforts. These soldiers have soon been at war for two years and are a draining resource.
The western militaries are coming out of 30 years of cutbacks and fighting in the middle east. The western militaries are in dire need of rebuilding themselves. Just sustaining the western militaries would have been hard enough before the war. Now dozens of brigades have to be rebuilt and equipped, several hundred mid and long range SAM systems are needed for Ukraine, millions of shells will be needed after the war to restock the Ukrainian military. Entire supply chains, bases and training facilities will have to be built up from scratch.
The price of Ukraine won't end when the war ends. The Ukrainian military will be getting aid for decades and decades to come after the war ends. It is going to be a constant black hole for resources. Rebuilding their losses and sustaining their new military will make building the Afghan military look like a cakewalk. This is nation building on steroids.
The main problem for the US is that the US military is old, has a decaying industrial base and has pushed long term costs forward for 30 years. At the same time the US is trying to handle multiple areas of conflict at once. The US military has the Ukraine problem, the middle east and China. While each individual conflict is manageable the US is failing to manage all of them at once.
The amount of resources required to sustain the Ukrainian military is similar to that required to sustain the russian military, only the west is economically about 30 times greater. So assuming the russians go all-in and marshal about 50% of their economy for the special military operation effort, and Ukraine, the sanctions, and technological superiority do nothing, the west needs to assign 1,7 % to that nuisance. That’s relatively high but completely sustainable for a distant power like the US, and outright cheap for the threatened countries of europe.
Europe doesn't have anything. The entire EU together couldn't come up with its promised million shells. Meanwhile North Korea just pulls that out of its back pocket when Russia calls. It's not a video game, they can't just magically turn GDP into ammunition and arms factories instantly.
Funny that the other Korea is doing the same thing for the other side of the equation.
There's a limit on how long Korea can do that though. Yes they have a lot of shells but they also, you know, need them for their national defense. And like Ukraine, while they do have a lot of old shells stockpiled, they don't really have huge production to build new ones.
To which Korea is that most applicable you think?
Both to some extent, but NK has nukes for deterence and isn't bound by cost disease. They're probably much happier to trade their old shells for hard cash.
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I do find the "it's a Korean peninsula proxy war" commentary to be amusing precisely because it's not completely wrong.
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