Great Power contentions

[rory_20_uk]

Wrong lesson. The Ukraine War proves the opposite, that headcount is still essential. One of the worst drags on Russian performance is that they have too few infantry, which is why most of their (successful) assaults have been spearheaded by elite infantry behind masses of untrained separatist conscripts, and most of Ukraine's (successful) defenses have been secured by similar masses of untrained volunteer militias. Until the mythical battlefield of autonomous swarms of drones and rovers emerges, relying on tech solutions (tech-fetishism) is self-destructive unless you're the USA. NATO countries could do worse than establishing robust reserve systems capable of rapidly mass-mobilizing civilians to "mere" moderate competency across all specialties from infantry to intelligence, since "moderate" is always better than "untrained."

Poland alone has delivered more in valuation than the UK. You are deeply underestimating cumulative EU contributions so far, or overestimating British ones, even if everyone's contributions have fallen short of adequate (excepting the Baltic states).

NATO should be developing its doctrine and force structure on the assumption of tight future joint operations, which would be best fitted according to comparative advantage. In that case the UK could invest more in its navy. In the more likely scenario that everyone continues to avoid the hard choices and sovereignty-limiting collaboration that the world's challenges require, the UK would be better off just scrapping their navy and investing most of the returns in anti-shipping platforms and standoff fighters.


The sad - though double-edged - reality is that in the 21st-century, high-tech and capitalist-efficient military manufacturing has a lead time of years. Spare capacity does not meaningfully exist, machine tools are irreplaceable, and there is no more suddenly retooling a nail factory and its workforce to produce airplane parts, or whatever. I'm not sure, if the EU and US leaderships had committed in March to stand up a new complex for the Soviet-grade artillery calibers that Ukraine cannot replenish, that they could have under any circumstances reached the production stage before 2023 - and at thousands per month at that. Where basic artillery ammunition is some of the simplest war materiel that exists, behind bullets. If you want spare or scalable capacity, you have to pay for it well beforehand.

I'm 100% civilian so I'll not embarrass myself in arguing the make up of a military army. I was thinking that for a defensive force, a levee en masse armed with anti armour can quickly make attacks extremely costly whereas investing on high tech stuff is all very well and good until the Russian cruise missiles cripple the bases before the next "definitely not a war" happens - you can't disperse tanks / planes / helicopters that much.

So the UK is number 2 in value of aid. Of course another way of looking it is percentage of GDP and then the Baltics and Poland shoot higher as do all the countries who were behind the Iron Curtain. funnily enough. Who isn't high on the list are Germany, France and Italy - the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow respectively - although all three countries vie for each role. Craven, cowardly apologists and deniers seems so far to be a good summary.

Yes, creating some F-35s out of thin air isn't going to happen overnight. BUT Germany has many (a few hundred I think) tanks that they pretended didn't exist (Rheinmetall had to call bullshit on that one) and I am sure they are not alone in having heavier weapons mothballed that relatively quickly can be brought up to scratch. Certainly in Europe there is no greater threat than Russia - and they'll never do more good than now. The USA National Guard and even the police departments have a vast amount of older equipment which they frankly don't need (in the case of the police, positively shouldn't have) and logistically a lot might be easier to make new than collect some is probably worth the effort. Finally, there is The Rest of the World who have a lot of weaponry, most of it is either Russian or NATO compatible and again could be purchased.

This really shouldn't be something the USA should have to do the heavy lifting on - they are paying for Ukraine's weaponry whilst the EU pays for Russia's. Congress has demanded more troops to be station over in Europe and of course I'm delighted since NATO has increased the number of troops on high alert... without saying and specifics. And high alert is anything from 2-3 days to 6 months this does rather matter.