Ukraine: a sound-bite war

By Richard North - February 21, 2023

At this early stage, I’m not sure what to make of president Biden’s surprise visit to Kiev. As a show of solidarity in the days coming up to the first anniversary of the invasion, it obviously works but, as Zelensky has made very clear on many occasions, the Ukrainians need physical as well as moral support.

While he was there, Biden did pledge additional military aid, said to be to the tune of $500 million, but even that level of generosity falls far short of giving Ukraine a war-winning boost.

By way of example, with spares and support packages, one Abrams M1A costs in the order of $10 million so, if the new aid was focused in that direction (which it probably isn’t), the money would buy about 50 new MBTs – a healthy contribution but not a game changer, especially as you would need to spend as much again on support equipment.

A cynic could suggest, therefore, that Biden – like Johnson before him – was visiting Kiev for the personal kudos, and to distract from pressing domestic issues. But this is not necessarily a winning stratagem.

Reports indicate that the visit has attracted some hard-line criticism, while polling research suggest growing opposition to providing additional support to Ukraine, outnumbering those who would like to see more assistance.

This shift in opinion, we are told, is mostly attributable to the growing share of Republicans who say the US is providing too much support to Ukraine. A recent survey suggests that 40 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents hold this view, up from 32 percent in the autumn and much higher than the 9 percent who held this view in March of last year.

Whether this partisan divide will have any immediate impact on material US support is difficult to ascertain but, in general terms, Biden has the bulk of the nation behind him, so he is not unduly constrained. Even Republicans are considerably more likely to approve of the administration’s response to the invasion than to approve of Biden’s overall job performance (27 versus 6 percent).

In the UK, though, polls suggest that there might be less of a party-political divide, while overall sentiment in favour of Ukraine is higher across the board than in many other countries – higher than in the US.

Certainly, in a House of Commons debate on Ukraine yesterday, some members were keen to emphasise the level of cross-party support, but that also means that there is no political lead being given to those of the population who might oppose closer involvement in the war.

One wonders, though, why the Commons bothers to hold such debates when, largely, a man-in-the-pub discourse would probably be better informed and less tainted by the stream of consciousness outpourings in which so many MPs seem to delight.

Unfortunately, in this case, the debate also afforded two failed prime ministers the opportunity to share their ignorance, giving the Telegraph its front-page headline for the day, declaring: “Boris Johnson and Liz Truss heap pressure on Rishi Sunak to send fighter jets to Ukraine”.

Truss, on the one hand, said she “could not wait to see fighter jets over Ukraine”, while Johnson said it was time to “cut to the chase” and give Kiev the planes it needs to defeat Vladimir Putin’s forces.

On the face of it, it would appear that this pair are closer in tune with public sentiment than the government, with a YouGov poll showing 30 percent of those polled strongly in favour of sending aircraft, and 33 percent in the “somewhat” in favour category. This compares with 10 percent who oppose the idea, and a similar percentage who “strongly oppose” the idea.

Some of those in favour of sending aircraft could well be thinking along the lines of Mark Francois, Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford. He told the House:

We gave 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. Those are very capable tanks, but in and of themselves they will not change the whole course of the war. What they did do, however, was help unlock the delivery of hundreds of Leopards. What the Ukrainians really want are MiGs, which they are familiar with using, and F-16s. By the same argument, if we gave one squadron of older Typhoons that then unlocked hundreds of MiGs and F-16s, that would be worth doing, would it not?.

Notwithstanding that we have yet to see the “hundreds” of Leopards, whatever complications there are in absorbing new tanks into the Ukrainian armed forces, they multiply enormously when sophisticated warplanes are involved. For the moment, sending aircraft is not a realistic proposition.

In any event, it is probably fair to say that more and better aircraft are by no means the priority. There seems little dispute that the most immediate need is for more artillery shells – particularly 155mm calibre – for want of which the EU’s Josep Borrell warns that “the result of the war is in danger”.

Much is made of the claims that Russian forces are firing about 50,000 rounds of artillery each day and that Ukraine is returning up to 6,000-7,000, with the call that supplies must be lifted to the Russian level.

I wonder though whether that might create another problem. As firing rates increase, barrel wear will be accelerated. The Ukrainian forces could find themselves in desperate need of replacements – which are not immediately available.

It is difficult enough getting the defence industries to produce more ammunition, as it is now recognised that producers need solid, long-term orders to stand up and expand its production lines and cannot simply ramp up supplies overnight. But when it comes to producing replacement barrels, with many of the guns donated no longer in production, we are talking of a different order of magnitude when it comes to procuring new supplies.

But then, in many respects, this chatter over tanks, guns, “planes” and ammunition typifies the conduct of Ukraine’s allies. While the Ukraine army is bleeding to death, we seem to be conducting a sound-bite war, where nations are outbidding each other in their rush to offload obsolete kit and harvest brownie points for their good deeds.

As we approach Friday, and the first anniversary of the war, this can only intensify, even (or especially) in this nation whose media today has devoted most of its front pages to the death of a single woman. The complications of fighting a real war are obviously beyond the capabilities of media and politicians to understand, whence Johnson’s prattling gets more fulsome coverage than expert analysis, or objective reporting.

It remains to be seen, therefore, whether Biden is a true friend to Ukraine or just another sound-bite merchant. Generous though US military aid has been, it still does not constitute a package which would enable Zelensky to achieve his country’s war aims.

For there to be any progress in this war, it is not enough for Putin to fail. Ukraine’s allies must identify what precisely is needed to secure victory, whence there should be a structured programme of supplying those needs, on the back of a coherent strategy, which has yet to evolve.

As Bolton argues in the Telegraph, a list of weapons systems certainly is not a strategy, which emerges first by deciding on goals, then determining and marshalling the resources necessary to achieve them.

If we fail to craft an articulable strategy, he says, those who worry about Nato publics growing tired of yet another “endless war” will indeed have much to be concerned about.

And short of that, anything else will simply be a perpetuation of a sound-bite war.