The West must not abandon Ukraine: the role of the defense industry
It is necessary to convince the defense industry to invest in increased production, guaranteeing it adequate orders for a sufficient period of time for Ukraine. General Carlo Jean's analysis
With industrialization, military power has increasingly depended on the capacity of the war industry. The preparation of its mobilization has become an essential element for each State, in order to supply the necessary armaments and ammunition within the timescales envisaged by its strategy.
After the 1st World War, the discussion on the logic to be adopted for industrial mobilization was very intense. It was connected with the fact that military technologies and production systems were very similar to civilian ones. It was a question of converting industries from commercial to military production. States that expected to end conflicts quickly had to prioritize the timing of reconversion. Those potentially more powerful attached greater importance to the extent of war production after conversion. The discussion centered on the priority to be given to the lathe, which can be converted more quickly, or to the assembly line, which is slower to mobilise, but capable of larger productions. The first solution was adopted by Germany, whose times for complete mobilization of the war industry were around one year; the second from the USA, which completed their mobilization only in 1944.
Today things have changed due to the complexity assumed by modern weapon systems, the production of which requires the availability of specialized industries, even if part of their components can be acquired on the shelf, i.e. they are identical to those used also for commercial products. With the end of the Cold War and with the spread in the West of the belief that the era of great wars between the major powers was over, the West drastically reduced its capacity for the production of armaments and munitions. It has also limited the size of its stocks, in order not to immobilize capital which quickly becomes obsolete, given the accelerated technological progress. Quality has been prioritized over quantity, limiting the latter to the small demands of counter-terrorism warfare or limited military operations such as the one in Iraq. The downsizing of the war industry, especially of very sophisticated ammunition – such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, etc. – was even higher than that of the land forces: those of NATO in Europe were reduced to about a third of those existing during the bipolar confrontation with the Warsaw Pact.
With the Russian aggression in Ukraine and with the decision of the US-led coalition to support the resistance of the latter, what had not been foreseen by Western planners has happened. Ammunition consumption is that of high intensity warfare. In two days of the fiercest fighting in the Donbass, as many artillery shells are fired as a medium NATO power, such as Italy, has in its entire stockpile. Almost all the countries that supply Ukraine with arms have gone to the limit of notching up their quantities considered intangible for their own security needs. Many have diverted export materials to Ukraine, such as missiles for the US from HIMARS to Taiwan and CAESAR artillery pieces from France to Denmark.
The problem will certainly be dealt with at the Paris Conference (known as peace, but actually of donors) on December 13th. I don't think it probable that the continuation of the current practice will allow Ukraine to have the ammunition, especially the advanced one, which can put it in a position to have the upper hand in the next Russian offensives. It matters little if even the latter experience considerable difficulty in supplying their forces with sophisticated munitions, given that their armaments industry depends on electronic components supplied by the West. Missiles for Iskander systems are starting to run short, as are guided bombs for aircraft. But Russia has the huge stocks of ammunition inherited from the USSR and, with quantity, is in a position to compensate for the decline in the quality of its ammunition and weapon systems.
It is necessary to convince the industry to make the substantial investments necessary to increase production, in addition to the measures already adopted, such as that of providing for the continuous operation of the plants, with the increase in work shifts. But to convince them, in free market economies, they need to be guaranteed adequate contracts for a sufficient time. This will increase the cost of military support to Ukraine and, therefore, the possibility of conflicts between the USA – which has supplied weapons worth around sixty billion dollars – and the Europeans, whose aid does not exceed half that amount.
The only theoretically possible alternatives would be to dent essential supplies or for the US to decide to cross the red line it has imposed on itself: that of avoiding supplying Ukraine with particularly sophisticated systems capable of striking bases deep inside the territory Russia, such as HIMARS or ATCMS missiles with a range of 300 km, or for contact combat, such as Abrams tanks and Gray Eagles helicopters, so far denied to Ukraine for fears that they would cause an escalation of the conflict and direct US involvement .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/ruolo-industria-difesa-guerra-ucraina/ on Wed, 07 Dec 2022 06:46:45 +0000.