(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Long Game [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-14 A lot of what gets discussed on DK is immediately newsworthy, but perhaps of little long-term significance. As the turn of the year passed I thought it was worth taking two steps back, and trying to look at the bigger picture, and how the war and related matters might develop over the next year or two. Energy Supply Disruptions One of the big short-term problems, particularly for Europe, has been the reduction in availability of Russian oil and gas. How far will the world have rearranged suppliers and consumers in 12 months’ time? Total global production of gas, oil and their derivatives hasn’t been much affected by the war in Ukraine. Global demand for oil, gas and derivatives probably hasn’t been affected much either. Sanctions have reduced European demand for Russian supplies substantially, so the Russians have switched to other customers such as India and China, encouraging both with great deals on price, but facing delivery issues because their pipelines don’t run to these new customers, making deliveries more vulnerable to sanctions. If India, China and others buy more gas from Russia they’ll buy less from their previous suppliers, who will then be happy to sell to Europe, particularly if prices in Europe remain high. There are logistics issues in getting gas to Europe from new suppliers, but new LNG carriers can be built, new floating or onshore regasification facilities can be provided in Europe, larger storage facilities can be built, and after 2-3 years everyone should have the supplies they need, just from different suppliers, and probably still a bit more expensive than in 2019/20, but at prices which won’t require government subsidies. Oil products are less of a problem because more of it travels by sea anyway, and fixed and inflexible pipelines are less important. In the UK & continental Europe gas, petrol and diesel prices are falling as markets do their job of rearranging supply/demand. Lower gas and oil prices will take a lot of potential political pressure off European governments and ought to stiffen the backbones of the laggards (particularly Germany). Military Supplies to Ukraine Arms supplies by the West (including Japan and other West-leaning countries) are more of a problem, but one which was already apparent 3-6 months ago. Both Russia and Ukraine are using artillery shells at enormous rates. The West is beginning to worry about how long it can continue to supply at current rates, while Ukraine wants to have even more, and more guns to fire the shells with. There’s very little information publicly available about how many shells the West can currently manufacture, but quite a lot of noises suggesting it’s a race between Russia and Ukraine to see who can run out first. Running out would be a catastrophe for either side. If anyone has data, or even guesses, about how many 152/155 mm shells Russia and the West can produce in 2023 that is a key metric (which is why it may not be available). Making more bullets for rifles and machine guns is probably less of an issue, but again it would be nice to be reassured about that. Poland recently produced a comprehensive analysis of Ukraine’s needs, and how they might be met, see https://www.pism.pl/webroot/upload/files/Raport/Military-Technical%20Assistance%20to%20Ukraine%20CLEAN%20MAP.PDF This is a lengthy document, and fairly technical in part, but the conclusion (page 60) suggests that NATO can supply enough materiel to keep Ukraine supplied for 2023, but that training should already be happening on new multirole fighters such as the F15 and Gripen, because more air support will be essential in 2023 as existing Ukrainian planes are used up. The USA is now supplying Patriot systems to Ukraine, in spite of their complexity. Re-supply of missiles will be crucial, and these are complex things to make, and the US hasn’t been using them up very fast recently, so manufacturing capacity may not be great. Ditto HIMARs, ATACMs, and anti-tank weapons. NATO always knew it had fewer troops and less equipment than the USSR, and relied on the quality of both being much higher. Russia is busy demonstrating that NATO were right. NATO is now hard at work training Ukrainian troops, but in limited numbers. It really needs to double or treble the numbers it’s training, Ukraine will have plenty of well-qualified volunteers. That training should include training on more advanced equipment. The arguments over Abrams tanks and F-15s have been rehearsed here plenty of times, and I accept the arguments that F-15s take years to learn to fight and to maintain, and that something like the Swedish Saab Gripen is a better choice for Ukraine. The Abrams is too complicated, fuel-hungry and heavy for Ukraine, but there are plenty of more suitable tanks in Europe, and the idea of getting Europe to supply Leopard and other tanks to Ukraine, while receiving Abrams instead must be speeded up. IFVs can be and should be supplied in far greater numbers, they aren’t as complicated as tanks by a long way but they provide mobility and shelter for troops that Ukraine desperately needs and can make good use of. The USA/NATO have plenty of Bradleys, HUMMVs and similar vehicles which aren’t in current use and could easily be shipped to Ukraine now (Bradleys will soon be on the way, hopefully in great numbers). Political Considerations In the end all of these issues are affected by politics. The West has remained united behind Ukraine, to Russia’s surprise, but Ukraine can’t afford to drop out of the headlines. As long as military supplies can continue to flow there’s unlikely to be much pressure on Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, but it’s hard to see the West supporting a long war, five years is hard to imagine at the current rates of attrition. Ukraine keeps saying, as it must, that only complete recovery of lost territory back to 1991 boundaries is acceptable. That means completely defeating a much larger enemy (in terms of economy, manpower and military supplies). Fortunately Russia started incredibly badly and totally blew their first opportunity to win. They must have been turning on factories ever since to make more munitions, and they still have vast stocks of old tanks and old artillery (most in questionable condition). We don’t know how much of that hardware is usable, and how much has been cannibalised, and theft and fraud may severely limit the usable stock of spare hardware. But the Russian armed forces never throw anything away, and they must have engineers hard at work now cobbling together more tanks and artillery. That’s a lot easier than building new planes, and it’s been very noticeable that the Russian Air Force has been keeping out of harm’s way. Ditto their Navy, not always successfully. Ukraine & the West need to accept that if Mr Putin goes his replacement may be worse. Ukraine isn’t going to be saved by the death of Putin, and NATO needs to consider whether there is a point at which NATO will have to become more involved. That might mean boots on the ground in Ukraine, with soldiers who are already trained in the Abrams tank and other new equipment that would take too long to teach to the Ukrainian army, and airplanes in the air flown by NATO pilots, or it might mean even more repair works in Poland and other countries, staffed by experts from all over NATO. That brings closer the risk of nuclear war, but if Ukraine loses to Russia there can be no doubt that NATO members will be next on Russia’s list, after some minor acquisitions like Belarus and Moldova. It may be the Baltic States, it may be Finland or Poland, but beating Ukraine, no matter what the cost, means that Russia will see the concept of rebuilding the Russian Empire as being vindicated. Geopolitically there is quite a lot that NATO should be doing. There’s quite a large consensus in the UN for Ukraine at present, but Russia’s veto makes the UN pretty toothless. Ideally we need to encourage other fringe parts of the Russian empire (as Russia sees it) to make trouble. Georgia, some of the ‘Stans, even Belarus could make life more difficult for Russia. The big one, of course, is China. China has built up its economy and its armed forces to a point where it could throw its weight about a lot more. Taiwan is a small burr under the saddle, but conquering it brings little economic reward. China is quite resource-poor, for its economic size, and Siberia is next door, with a vast range of untapped resources. Going to war with Russia would be far easier than fighting the USA, and potentially extremely rewarding. Russia has hardly any resources left with which to fight a war with China. Apart from nukes, of course, but nobody know how reliable and well-maintained Russia’s nuclear forces are, and the Chinese government probably has even less concern for the individual survival of its citizens than Russia. It’s very hard to see NATO or the US making a fuss if China took over Siberia. Conclusions There is too little public data available about the ability of NATO to continue to supply Ukraine with munitions at the current rate. I suspect that even bringing new factories on line we shall struggle to keep up the flow at the rates that Ukraine would like. Russia has similar problems, of course, and has a far less motivated population than Ukraine, but Ukraine can’t win this war with pitchforks and scythes. NATO needs to preserve the hardware and people to fight Russia if Ukraine loses, although Russia will need time to rebuild after a “victory”. Europe needs to build up its own capabilities, and to lean far less on the USA to provide materiel and men, while the USA spends more time looking towards the Pacific. It’s not a very encouraging picture. Cheer me up, somebody. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/14/2147200/-The-Long-Game Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/