Russia is preparing for a full scale war with NATO by 2026- so says an alleged leak
of German intelligence. The leak supports this conclusion by pointing out the reorganization of
the Russian army, movement of troops along its border with the west and repositioning of both
conventional and nuclear missile forces, and the mobilization of Russian defense
industry. Within five years, the report states, Russian strength could double.
As of the writing of this script the veracity of the report has yet to be confirmed,
but even without confirmation what the alleged report states is clearly evident
already. But wait, we can hear you say in the comments section already- didn't
you report for two years that Russia was weak, Infographics Show? Well,
just because your dad never came back from the store doesn't mean things can't change.
What has prompted this new stance on Russia,
who up until last fall was seen as a rapidly diminishing power? How did we
get here and how confident can we be about further Russian aggression in the future?
It all comes down to western support for Ukraine, as it so often does. When the
history of this war is written, no matter what happens next one thing will be clear:
the west refused to take the Russian threat seriously and treated Ukraine as an afterthought,
sending nothing more than token military aid because it was never serious about defeating
Russia. Even two years into the war we still don't have a definitive statement from either the US or
NATO that its goal is a Russian defeat. For his many, many, many gross missteps in this conflict,
the one thing that Putin has done expertly is make the West brown its collective pants at
any thought of Russian escalation, effectively neutering all but token bits of aid for Ukraine.
We need look no further than France's Emmanuel Macron, who at the start of the war even as
the Russians were being forced to retreat from Kyiv in a humiliating defeat, stated that Russia
must not be quote- humiliated. Well, two years later we have a completely different Macron,
who as one of the few European leaders who has seen the writing on the wall is now mulling
over the possibility of sending French troops into Ukraine- with or without NATO support.
To see how we got here, it's also helpful to compare western aid versus Russia's own
ability to resupply its forces. In early 2023, the west finally agreed to send Leopard 2s,
Challengers, and Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The west celebrated the
move and predictions of catastrophic Russian defeats and Ukrainian forces taking Moscow by
fall made the rounds across the media. Much to the west's collective surprise though,
a paltry force of barely over 100 tanks- not even all delivered in time for summer- failed
to win the war in one fell swoop versus Russia's thousands of tanks and IFVs.
Truly, not even Sun Tzu could have possibly predicted that a few dozen
second hand tanks wouldn't immediately win the war against Putin's hordes.
That's not to say that western tanks didn't help,
or weren't decisive- they absolutely were. Everywhere that western tanks showed up,
Russian tanks immediately became a federally protected endangered species. Western infantry
fighting vehicles were also significantly decisive in engagements against their Russian counterparts-
as has been seen in countless clips from the fighting, while the BMP runs, the Bradley
hunts. And when western vehicles were defeated, their crews didn't immediately join the Ukrainian
space program the way Russian tank crews have historically been promoted to cosmonauts. Instead,
Ukrainian crews survived their vehicle's destruction and lived to fight another day.
But superior as western equipment may be, it's incapable of winning a war in the pithy sums
supplied to Ukraine. Even worse, to date there has been no plan to actually replace
these tanks with ongoing resupply. This leaves Ukraine in the impossible position of having
to plan out military operations where it has no guarantee of actually replacing the
equipment it loses in combat- which means the nation is forced to hoard its resources out of
fear it may not receive replacements. This is not a smart way to wage war.
Now F-16s are on their way to Ukraine, and much hype is being made about their entry
into the war. Like western tanks and IFVs though, there is also no plan in place to
replenish Ukrainian losses and continue supply of jets over the long term. Like western tanks,
F-16s will make a splash wherever they appear but will ultimately be
too few in number to significantly affect the outcome of the fighting.
This mirrors perfectly the entry of long-range strike missiles into the
Ukrainian arsenal. Storm Shadow and ATACMS made a hell of a showing when they entered the war,
with Ukraine granting an early retirement to several Russian Black Sea fleet senior
officers in just one Storm Shadow attack. Likewise ATACMS turned multiple Russian
attack helicopters to swiss cheese in its debut attack, and has on multiple times
permanently de-nazified entire formations of Russian soldiers far behind the front lines.
But within months of their entry into the war, the strikes stopped because the weapons ran out-
and you guessed it, there was no plan for Ukraine to actually get more. Britain itself was already
in dangerously low supply of Storm Shadow due to significantly underestimating the threat of major
conventional war and criminal underinvestment in its military- a casualty of the post-Cold
war peace dividend shared by most powers in the west. The United States balked over and
over again about providing ATACMS out of fear they would be used inside of Russia itself,
and to be completely fair, it's the only nation with a legitimate need for its own stockpile of
missiles as ATACMS could play an important role in a Pacific conflict against China.
France stepped up to the plate and began to provide its own SCALP missiles to
complement delivery of Storm Shadow, and Macron has recently announced the
transfer of forty more SCALP along with hundreds of other aerial bombs. However,
Olaf Scholz refused to provide Germany's Taurus missile despite pressure from across NATO,
fearful of escalation- despite there being no escalation to either Storm Shadow, ATACMS,
or any of the dozens of other weapons given to Ukraine in two years of fighting. Backlash against
Scholz yet again balking at providing war-winning weapons has escalated to the point that German
legislators are investigating ways of providing the weapons in a way that bypasses Scholz.
The west, and wider world beyond, is slowly waking up to the very real threat
that Russia poses not just in Ukraine, but beyond. But other than the west's criminal
neglect in handling the Russian threat, how is Russia gearing up to challenge Europe?
The first factor is Russia's ability to adapt to a war that it was losing
up until relatively recently. Russia has increasingly attempted to emulate
the West's military culture that places a high priority on individual initiative,
without much success. This has left the Russian military still operating under a Soviet-style
top-down command structure with little room for subordinates to act of their own accord. This
has been especially true after the Wagner coup, where Russian military leaders have increasingly
been promoted more for their loyalty than their actual experience or capability.
These are all bad things, but the good thing for Russia is that its military has proven adaptable
to the many strategic and tactical failures of the past. The Russian military for example no
longer operates tanks and armored vehicles in large formations during assaults, which we saw
repeatedly decimated across the first half of 2023 and all of 2022. Instead, it has opted for smaller
scale tactics, often sending assaults out in small groups of unsupported infantry which identify and
fix Ukrainian positions for artillery to the pound. Rather than send in a large contingent
of vehicles to reinforce the attack, instead we've seen far smaller scale attacks of BMPs and tanks,
limiting losses to Ukrainian artillery and drones. This actually exploits Ukraine's shell shortage,
as the UAF is loath to expend its remaining stockpile of artillery shells on small targets.
Next, Russia has offered increasingly lucrative pay packages to new recruits willing to serve
in Ukraine. When the conflict started, junior officers made about 81,000 rubles a month- or
$900, far below rates in western militaries. However six months later junior troops who
enlisted could earn as much as 195,000 rubles a month, or $2100. Other perks include grocery and
housing allowances- things that are typically standard in the US military. In some cases,
Russia even offered as much as 1 million rubles- $11,000- as an enlistment bonus for its quote-
elite divisions. These recruitment packages are incredibly attractive to Russians living in the
nation's poorest oblasts, with an estimated 13.5 million Russians living below the poverty line.
According to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, these incentives have generated quotes- two
combined armies, a mixed aviation corps, and 50 new formations and military units,
including four divisions, 18 brigades, and 28 regiments. Of course, Shoigu is a lying sack
of Shih Tzus so his figures should be taken with a grain of salt- though given the dramatic expansion
of the Russian military, they're also not entirely imaginary as most Russian claims often are.
Then there's the mobilization of the Russian industry, which has now been
officially put on a war footing. This more than anything accounts for Russia's
growing successes in Ukraine, because while Russian equipment may be garbage,
it's generating enough to drown Ukrainian defenders in a tidal wave of it.
In 2024, Russian defense spending doubled to 7.1% of its GDP- a figure similar to the famous arms
buildup of the United States in the 1980s, when America beat the Soviet Union at the Cold War
by simply outspending it. Defense spending will now account for about 35% of the total budget,
and industries directly supporting the war are experiencing unprecedented growth. Production
of transportation vehicles rose 66.7% in 2023, and computer and electronics manufacturing rose
42.6%- indicating that Russia is still able to procure badly needed microchips despite
international bans thanks to China. Navigation devices rose 72.4% and protective clothing
rose by 40.4%. At arms factories across the nation, production is now run 24 hours a day,
and a new government committee has been established to oversee defense production.
This committee has absolute power over Russian industry, even capable of taking over a company's
budget entirely and forcing the cancellation of vacation or time off requests by workers.
If there's a bright spot in all this, it is that Russian industry is significantly less
efficient than it was pre-war. Thanks to a combination of sanctions and the pull out
of western businesses and investments, Russia lacks the investments and technical expertise
to maintain or replace some of its high technology assets, forcing it to rely on more inefficient but
locally produced alternatives. This is hitting the Russian energy sector especially hard,
as Russian oil companies were extremely reliant on western technology inside of
their refineries. Hardest hit has been natural gas, with Russia not having the technology to
liquify natural gas- a growing concern as Ukrainian drone strikes increasingly
target LNG terminals and other refineries rather than actual oil extraction sites.
But the reshaping of the Russian economy paints a dire picture- as the West continues to hem and haw
over every single bullet sent to Ukraine, Russia is pumping out equipment at frightening rates. It
claims to have received 1500 new and modernized tanks after tripling vehicle-generation rates
in 2023- yet it's impossible to know how many of these are new and how many are simply refurbished
vehicles pulled out of deep storage. We know those stores are beginning to run out, and what's left
is unlikely to be of much use- already there is evidence that Russia is ripping the turret out of
T-55s and using them as armored personnel carriers instead. While estimates vary, a modest figure of
200 new tanks a year seems reasonable- and as the numbers of tanks held in deep storage runs out,
those factories will instead be free to convert over to producing new tanks.
In artillery shells, Russia has absolutely dwarfed the west- with estimates of 250,000
new shells being produced a month, in addition to an unknown number of shells purchased from
North Korea. This puts Russia on track to produce 3 million shells a year, while the US
is expanding its own production capabilities to hit 100,000 shells a month by 2025- though this
effort has been stalled out due to Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to allow a vote on the Ukraine
aid bill. Of the one million shells promised to Ukraine by the EU in 2023, just over half of that
was ultimately delivered. There are efforts to purchase one million shells from abroad, but that
doesn't fix the dearth in production by the west- and Russia has a massive head start on production.
The results are evident on the battlefield. Despite a successful and vigorous campaign
against Russian artillery by Ukraine that saw the UAF achieve shell parity or even superiority
across parts of the front, we're now back in the old days. Russia is once more firing ten
times as many shells as Ukraine, with direct battlefield effects. All across the front,
the lack of shells is leading to slow but incremental victories by Russian forces.
Russia has also begun to produce drones in vast numbers. At the start of the war,
Russian forces were completely unprepared for the onslaught of Ukrainian drones. Yet
now Ukrainian forces are reporting not just a parity in drones, but an overmatch in some
areas. Iranian made Shaheed kamikaze drones are now being produced domestically with Iranian help,
and it's converting civilian drone industry to military use. Inspection of crashed Russian
drones has revealed Swiss, American, and Chinese components, leading the west to attempt to tighten
export controls. Yet most of these components are easily available in other civilian products,
and while this limits the effectiveness of Russian drones, the sheer quantity of them
is a quality all its own. While drone attacks against civilian and infrastructure targets
were originally only carried out by a small number of drones, as recently as January the
Ukrainians report shooting down as many as 35 Shahed drones in a single attack.
Leaked internal Russian documents show that the nation plans on expanding
production to 6,000 kamikaze drones by 2025- though this plan comes with
a hitch. These drones rely overwhelmingly on western components from the US, Germany,
Switzerland and other western nations, and an effort to stop or curb second hand sales
outside of the EU and North America could put a serious crimp in these plans. Yet as usual,
the goal of 6,000 drones a month hints at Russia's willingness to pursue this campaign past Ukraine.
It's not a simple matter to mobilize a nation's industry and then just wind it down- switching
from civilian to military production is a sizable investment in resources,
and one you only make if you're expecting to continue producing military equipment
in the long run. Simply put, Russia has opened the floodgate and after
weathering intense western sanctions it has little reason to simply close it up again.
If anything, Russia has gotten tacit approval from the west itself to continue his campaign
in Ukraine and beyond it as well. He has proven that the west is largely disorganized,
and despite proclamations of unity is anything but. Each new major weapon
delivery prompts fierce debate amongst western leaders, and after two years of fighting NATO
has yet to commit to Ukrainian victory. Even worse, as Russian industry mobilizes,
western efforts to match it sputter and struggle to gain traction. Western gear may be superior,
but that matters little when it's drowned out by overwhelming numbers of Russian kit.
NATO has shown that it lacks the backbone to challenge Russia directly, and Putin's indirect
threats of nuclear weapons have been sufficient to deter the west. Facing a disorganized, reluctant,
and unprepared west- Putin has every reason to believe that he could win a war of attrition
against NATO's eastern flank. This puts the Baltics and even Poland directly in the firing
line, and Russia has for years wanted to force the Baltics back into its sphere of influence
and close the Suwalki gap. There is even reason to fear that Russia would attack Finland as well,
as a way of punishing it for joining the NATO alliance- but even more insidiously,
to prove that NATO's article five commitment is a farce.
This has been a NATO fear for decades even before the war in Ukraine. During his presidency,
US President Barack Obama warned of a fait accompli attack into the Baltics by Russia,
with the nation seizing part- or the entirety of- a Baltic state and then
digging in on the defensive. Russia gambled then and today that NATO would
fear escalation to a nuclear conflict too much to actually honor its article
five commitment- and the war in Ukraine has proven that he's probably right about that.
If article five fails, the NATO alliance would lose all credibility and quickly
fall apart- reverting Europe back to a pre-WWII state of insecurity. It
would also open the door for Russia to reclaim the Soviet territories it lost
at the end of the Cold War, a stated goal of Vladimir Putin and his administration.
For years this has seemed far-fetched, and yet it's not just NATO's failure in Ukraine that is
making this possible- it's the possible loss or at least non-commitment of NATO's most important
member: the United States. As its largest military power, the US underpins NATO's security,
and indeed is the logistical backbone that would get much of NATO's forces into the
fight. Yet America's commitment to NATO has become questionable at best, sparking a panic in Europe.
Federal defendant Donald Trump has publicly stated that he would not only allow,
but actually encourage Russia to attack NATO states that he felt weren't quote-
paying their dues. No American president has ever undermined the NATO alliance in this way,
let alone actively encouraged a hostile foreign power to attack America's allies. Yet Trump
harbors other Putin sympathies that has alarmed many in Europe and in the US, and in the past
threatened to pull the US out of the alliance. Now, it's his arm of the Republican party- the
MAGA alliance- which is actively blocking badly needed Ukraine aid, and has done so for months.
Despite a bipartisan agreement to fund both Ukraine aid and border security- the most
robust border security bill in history, and one endorsed by the National Border Patrol Council-
Speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson has refused for months to allow the bill to come to a vote.
Leaving NATO would require congressional approval, and yet Trump has placed himself in
position to gain the support that he needs should Republicans control the Senate. Fear of upsetting
MAGA supporters has prompted many otherwise moderate Republicans to tow the party line,
and with the appointing of Lara Trump to the Republican National Convention,
the MAGA block has significant power to empower the election of MAGA friendly Republicans.
This has opened the door to a Trump presidential win in 2024, with Trump publicly stating that he
would not support Ukraine any further. While loyalists paint this as an attempt to enact
a peace settlement, Europe is in an increasing state of alarm over what a Russian takeover of
Ukraine would entail- and what would come next as Russian industry has been fully mobilized for war.
The writing is on the wall, and Europe must empower Ukraine to fight Russia today,
and do it itself in a few short years- potentially even without US support.
Now go check out “Russia vs Ukraine – 2 years later,” or click this other video instead!