I'll believe it when I see it.
The welfare-addicted West is too decadent to rearm itself, let alone Ukraine
While Russia’s might grows, Western Europe can find only pennies to spend on defence
LEWIS PAGE 5 April 2024 • 10:00am
Ukraine’s shortage of artillery shells is in the news again. A senior Ukrainian officer has pointed out the blunt truth: that the imminent arrival of F-16 fighter jets from the West will be “irrelevant” if his nation is overrun because its guns have fallen silent.
Many people will be wondering how this can possibly be. Artillery shells are not expensive things. Ukraine only needs 10,000 or so shells a day to hold the invaders back.
In the case of shells, the problem isn’t money, it’s lack of production capacity. Even the mighty USA, owner of the largest military-industrial complex in the world, can only produce 28,000 rounds of 155mm per month – less than 10pc of what Ukraine needs – and this with its factories on 24-hour operation.
The millions of shells Ukraine has already fired have mostly come from existing stockpiles, not from new production. These have not only been American stockpiles: nations all around the world – often preferring not to have their names mentioned, but happy to take Western money – have shipped their stocks of 155mm to Ukraine.
At some point, however, the cupboards will finally be bare.
Why, then, aren’t new factories being built? The short answer is that they are. This situation was understood back in 2022. The US has been building new factories since then, and they are expected to come on line later this year. Soon the US will be producing 70,000-80,000 shells per month. Other nations are ramping up too, though they did not move as quickly as the US and their production will not come as soon.
But it may not make that much sense for the West to establish a massive shell production industry able to keep Ukraine’s guns firing forever. Nothing else appearing, Ukraine will run out of men in the fairly near term. Then, regrettably, our focus would have to turn to our own defence.
Yet as the head of the RAF has lately said: “We do not want to fight this type of war.” And indeed – at least when we fight alongside the US – we don’t fight like that. Saddam Hussein’s large Soviet-equipped tank army was destroyed for almost no British losses in 2003. Our artillery fired just 9,000 155mm shells in the entire campaign.
One way or another, fairly soon after the fighting stops in Ukraine, the Russian army – even crippled – will recover and rearm itself. It will be much bigger than it was in 2022, backed by Vladimir Putin’s new Russian war economy, and battle-hardened.
On the face of it, Putin would still be mad to attack Nato. Even assuming the US withdraws from the alliance, the Russian economy is still smaller than that of Italy alone. Russia should never be able to match the military potential of the non-US Nato nations.
The rise of Russian defence spending is far outpacing that of Western democracies CREDIT: REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
But Russian military spending is rising to 6pc of GDP. Italy’s is just 1.7pc. Russia is already approximately three times as powerful as Italy.
Then, as Napoleon put it while conquering Europe, “the moral is to the physical as three to one”. Grit is even more important than numbers. The West could easily have supplied Ukraine with the weapons to drive the Russians out of Crimea: but we have not, because we lack grit.
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Will Putin really believe he would face serious resistance should he strike into the Suwalki Gap and cut off the Baltics for re-conquest?
There is much talk here in the UK of the need to raise defence spending, perhaps to 2.5 or even 3pc of GDP. But during the Cold War it was 4 to 5pc. The debate should actually be in those terms, and not only here either but all across Europe. Even in Estonia, on the very lip of the bear, defence spending will only hit 3pc this year.
In the democracies of Western Europe we are – to put it bluntly – so addicted to our bloated welfare states that we can find only pennies for defence. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that in 2023-24, Britain will spend just £32bn on defence (other figures are out there, but the UK is well known for creative accounting on its defence spending claims). In total the Government will spend an almost unbelievable £1,189bn.
Nobody dares to suggest a modest 3pc haircut for the other departments so that we can double our defence budget. Yet surely anyone can see that it would be better for all the pensioners, disabled, jobless and sick people to have 97pc of what they have now, given to them by their own government, than ruin and destruction and nothing at all as a newly conquered citizen of a hostile power.
If you’re thinking “that might happen in Estonia, but not here”, think again. When the dictators have conquered continental Europe, they always start looking at us.
Even if we somehow come to our senses and double our defence budget, our welfare mindset and stagnant economy would still cripple us.
Rather than just buying ships, we would keep attempting to revive long-dead British shipyards as social regeneration projects (Harland & Wolff). Rather than just buying fighters and missiles, we’d pour money into foredoomed job-creation schemes intended to copy US technology (GCAP). Rather than just buying drones and armoured vehicles, we’d insist on well-paid jobs for ourselves and in the process completely ruin successful designs (Watchkeeper, Ajax).
As the 155mm shell situation shows us, it’s too late to start getting ready once the war has begun. We need to develop some grit and stop assuming that it’s the Government’s job to give us welfare and nice well-paid jobs.
It’s the Government’s job, first and foremost, to see to the nation’s defences.
Work life balance is achieved through a proper ops tempo cycles, not shoving soldiers sailors into critical and understaffed support positions that now lack continuity becUse of regular posting cycles. They should be in rest/refit mode rather than a “shore posting”. What i suggest is no doubt radical and would lead to more troop downtime and a larger force requirement but Canada could actually make a real contribution and scale up for those critical times.
I just want to understand your position. We should expand the CAF so that when we are not on operation/at sea/in the field ect we should be off on some form of leave ?
Right the first time. Civil servants.
I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.
I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.
It makes sense, but adds a lot of cost.
ECCC employs it's weather observers/upper air sounding techs in a three month rotations. Three months in the arctic, three months off, and three month working at Stony Plain doing training and staffing the upper air sounding/climatology site(8-12hr shifts), before heading back up to the arctic(Eureka, Alert, etc.) for three months. Something like that could be done with the RCN if we wanted to keep ships sailing with a high Op tempo.
You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.I think what a lot of people don't understand is that maintainers and loggies are operating even when they are not on operations. Those guys turning wrenches at TEME, Issuing parts from BSup, Serving your food in a galley are all practicing their job. They are operating.
They are also gaining XP (for you gamers) and understanding of how the support organization works. This part of our PD. As it becomes a needed skill the higher you go.
I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.As for the rotation. So they (The RCN) tried to do this to my ship very very recently, for our upcoming deployment in June. The reaction from the crew was just short of a revolt. These folks had taken a ship worked it up through all phases, over a year and were expecting the reward of a six month deployment at the end.
Telling them we were swapping out 1/3 of them every 2 months was not received well, to put it politely. The ringing theme was "why would I ever to do a working up program again if I can just wait around for a third or two thirds of deployment" and "F-U I'm out if you do this".
This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.I think the rotation idea is interesting, but I don't think it would have the desired effects people think it would. I think It would create a culture of wait until the inglorious work is done then go get dollar bills.
You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.
I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.
This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.
The current situation is untenable, but nobody wants to explore options to fix it. It's the most CAF thing ever.
Nope.How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.
I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.
We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.
I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.Hell I wouldn't want to comment anything about the U.S. Defence spending when the bulk of our own continental defence rides on it.
There is finally a bit of sketchily 'declassified' version that is hard to find but apparently legitimately released on the DWAN, but you have to know a guy to find it. But the names were simply replaced by xxxx, so it's really hard to follow, and because it's essentially buried it's not actually being used for LL. A large part of it is stuff like this;So, you're saying it's time to ATI the Protecteur BOI?
I can agree with your points here.I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.
Never in my time in the CAF did I ask whether I would be paid that month or not. Meanwhile, I was on a deployment during the last actual govt shutdown (there have been close calls since) in 2019 when our US rider didn’t get paid for about 5-6 weeks.
ETA: TD as well. If the govt has any hint of shutdown, all TD stops in case it doesn’t get approved in time. Same with US base childcare, I think, bc it’s also paid through that budget. Basically everything seems to grinds to a halt unless operationally necessary.
Fair. I guess I was really responding to @Oldgateboatdriver comment about oversight in govt spending.I can agree with your points here.
I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.
How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.
I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.
We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.
I can agree with your points here.
I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.