Edward Lucas
As 2023 draws to a close, gloom reigns. Not so much in Ukraine, where gritty determination abounds, but in Western capitals. Ukraine can’t win. The counter-offensive has failed. A deal is inevitable. Better sooner than later. These arguments are rungs on a ladder that leads not to peace, but more war. Russia’s goal is not a modest territorial adjustment with a neutralized neighbor, but the evisceration of Ukrainian statehood and national identity. And with one neighbor tamed, it is only a matter of time before the Kremlin tackles another. Anything else is wishful thinking.
Amid the despondency comes a shaft of light, from the Estonian defense ministry in Tallinn. Called Setting Transatlantic Defence up for Success: A Military Strategy for Ukraine’s Victory and Russia’s Defeat, its 22 crisply written pages should be required reading over the holiday break for every decision-maker.
Its opening contention is that defeatism is the product of Russian information warfare. The first and most urgent step is, therefore, to dump the current strategy, shaped by fears of escalation, and to concentrate instead on making it clear that victory for Russia is not, as the Kremlin would like to believe, inevitable, but impossible. “While Russia is still impervious to the logic of reason, it is continuously sensitive to the logic of force,” the report’s anonymous authors write. In other words, start increasing military and economic pressure on Russia and continue until a breaking point is reached.
That sounds daunting. But given the West’s heft, it is easily doable. The 54-member “Ramstein” group, which coordinates help for Ukraine, has a combined GDP of €47 trillion ($51 trillion). Russia’s national income is less than one-twentieth of that. The combined defense budgets of the Ramstein members are €1.24 trillion, more than 13 times bigger than Russia’s. The problem is not means, but willpower; particularly, patience.
The report implicitly criticizes past over-optimistic assumptions of speedy Russian military collapse followed by political change in Moscow. A hard slog looms. 2024 will be a year of strategic defense for Ukraine, in which it builds up its military and industrial capacity while burning up Russian capabilities. The aim, the report says, should be to kill or severely wound 50,000 Russian troops every six months, forcing the Kremlin to send soldiers to the battlefield prematurely, instead of generating coherent units capable of waging a decisive offensive.
For their part, Ukrainian armed forces will need much better training: not just the five weeks that has been standard for basic defensive operations, but lengthier, costlier, and more sophisticated, providing the staff officers, with realistic battalion-level exercises and fire-control needed for brigade-level attacks in 2025. Western deliveries of shells, barrels, and long-range strikes must increase hugely, from production, refurbishment, or purchase.
The report also suggests relaxing European product standards for drones (which are mostly as stringent as those governing piloted aircraft) to encourage the production of the vast numbers that Ukraine needs to win. The final element is air power: boosting the production of air-defense missiles (right now) and providing fighter aircraft, starting by the end of this year, with effective combat capability by 2025.
The cost of all this? Just €120 billion, or 0.25% of Ramstein countries’ GDP, the report estimates. Coupled with effective sanctions, that would be more than enough to bring Ukraine safely through 2024 and to beat Russia “by 2026 at the latest”.
That may sound like a long time, given the electoral calendar in Western democracies, fickle public opinion, and competing priorities for decision-makers’ attention. But Ukraine’s defeat will shape the world for longer, and impose vastly higher costs. Estonia understands that all too well. Do we?
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