Military platforms that keep the war going
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered the second month; the military campaign has reached a stalemate. Many observers had expected it to last about a fortnight. Evidently, the biggest impediment for Putin and his top commanders has been the determined defence put up by the Ukrainians led by President Zelenskyy. This has certainly gladdened the hearts of his backers in America and western Europe, who have offered — apart from platitudes — varying levels of financial and military support, but no boots on the ground.
And just as well. Contrary to the stated wisdom, the deployment of NATO forces wasn’t required because NATO (without the US) is relatively toothless and by stepping in, it would only enlarge the conflict into a war across Europe. Moreover, the Ukrainians were provided massive arms supplies by NATO countries that allowed them to muster up a strong national resistance to back their regular forces —initially of 1,10,000 soldiers — with a well-armed territorial army of paramilitary soldiers. This swelled their number to over thrice their size and double of what Russia has reportedly deployed — with over 1,50,000 soldiers.
But Russia has the kind of military platforms that only America could counter. However, Russia’s weakness was that many of its army’s frontline units — unlike India’s — have several conscripted soldiers, who were happy to throw in the towel at the first chance they got. It’s clear that they did not believe in the ambitions of Putin and his hangers-on. Only Russia’s specialised units are made up of volunteers who would fight to the finish.
On the other hand, the defence of Ukraine by its determined citizens has perplexed Moscow, who had assumed that their old Slav ties would give their soldiers a cakewalk, as they had in the Donbass region. But the people of western Ukraine, in particular, saw a better future in the EU and have shown that they are willing to die for their freedom.
This is precisely the sentiment that the US and many of its allies were hoping to exploit. Not only would Moscow find it hard to defeat a people who are willing to die, but also those who are armed to their teeth to resist Russia’s immense firepower. Over the past year, the US had pumped in military equipment worth at least $1 billion before the Russian invasion and after the invasion, the US announced an arms package worth $350 million, and more recently, Biden has pledged $800 million of security assistance for Ukraine. Additionally, the EU is financing the delivery of weapons to Kiev worth $520 million and Canada a financial grant of $394 million.
But it’s the list of top-of-the-line military platforms — stinger and javelin missiles, anti-tank weapons, mortars, hand-held weapons like rifles and machine guns with millions of bullets — that’ll be the envy of any guerrilla force anywhere. If the cost of all these is added up, it would run into billions of dollars. All this is clearly what the merchants of war — the arms’ manufacturers — want from America, that is and has remained essentially a ‘military industrial complex’, as their post-war President Dwight D Eisenhower had once stated.
Thus, as long as the battles in Ukraine drag on, Russia’s frustrations will grow and America’s arms industry will prosper! Furthermore, the US has now unveiled a $13.6-billion emergency aid package for Ukraine, and by some accounts, nearly $13 billion will go into America’s arms industry to keep its factories running.
But what’s happening in Ukraine isn’t a new phenomenon. Americans have always made a profit out of wars. For the second Gulf War (2003-2010) in Iraq, the George Bush Jr government had first put the cost at $80 billion along with $20 billion for the two years being shared by Baghdad. Then, the US Department of Defence first projected the cost at $757 billion and, eventually, a Brown University study put it at $1.1 trillion! And then a Congressional Budget Office of 2007 had put the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions at $2.4 trillion. Add a lot more to this estimate in 2021, when the US withdrew from Afghanistan.
Joseph Stiglist, former chief economist at the World Bank and Nobel Prize winner, along with Linda Blimes of Harvard University, says the cost of America’s intervention in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein was a ‘Three Trillion Dollar War’. Apparently, this was a conservative estimate, and it did not reflect the costs to Iraq and the world. In the first Gulf War (1990-91), the Bush administration had initially expected the cost to be remarkably low, both in dollars and American lives — $77 billion was the administration’s initial estimates of the cost of the war.
Pledges of financial support from America’s coalition allies were expected to cover most of the costs. America made Saudi Arabia pay up to $60 billion and Kuwait $32 billion for that war. As we have seen in Ukraine, the US is very good at getting its allies to pick up the tab. Though, to be fair to the US, it had paid the lion’s share of the cost of the Korean War and World Wars I and II. Americans are, thus, unable to see why the world still criticises Washington’s role, even though they destroy and rebuild countries.
But in Ukraine, eminent US political scientists such as John Mearsheimer say: “The West, and especially America, is principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014.” He further adds: “The trouble over Ukraine actually started at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008, when George W Bush’s administration pushed the alliance to announce that Ukraine and Georgia ‘will become members’. Russian leaders responded immediately with outrage, characterising this decision as an existential threat to Russia and vowing to thwart it.”
Now, Zelenskyy says that he (Ukraine) has cooled down, regarding NATO. Had he said that a month ago, there would, perhaps, have been no Russian invasion. But his statement on ABC News recently has been overshadowed by talk about Putin’s madness and the efficacy of America’s missiles. It’s clear that America wants the war to continue!
