The US aid package announced for Ukraine is notable in many respects but the one question that stands out is why did the speaker of the US House of Representatives suddenly and dramatically change his mind? Many people I spoke with this week displayed an admirable and understandable lack of interest in the minutiae of US Congressional procedures but that means they have missed a truly remarkable political development.
Speaker Mike Johnson has for months exercised his prerogative and refused to let a $100 billion Senate-approved bill be put to a vote. That bill earmarked $60 billion for Ukraine and the rest to be divided up between Israel, Taiwan and others. The bill also contained a provision to potentially ban TikTok from the US - Chinese spies are popping up all over the world and it is now deemed less than sensible to allow a Chinese Communist Party controlled social media app to have free rein (and malign influence) over 170 million American users. TikTok’s CEO said he would mount a successful legal challenge to the proposed ban.
TikTok is a big deal, but an even bigger one is Johnson’s change of heart. Why did it happen?Why did a man who almost forever has been opposed to sending aid to Ukraine, a view apparently sincerely held (or one dictated by Donald Trump - take your choice), perform such a volte face?
Most analysts (anoraks?) who obsess about this kind of thing think that Johnson has been persuaded by intelligence briefings about the dire state of Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and the real possibility that Russia could win more or all of Ukrainian territory. Johnson himself acknowledged that he doesn’t believe Putin’s protestations that ‘all’ he wants is Ukraine and that the rest of Europe is safe. ‘Better to send bombs and bullets than American boys to fight Putin’ was pretty much exactly what he said. They must have been quite the intelligence briefings to produce such a massive and sudden U-turn.
A majority of Republicans voted against the bill. Aid for Ukraine has become part of America’s culture wars. One thing that is not said often enough is that the ‘isolationist’ Republican’s are much more than their 1930s ‘America-first’ cousins: too many of them are explicitly pro-Russia.
The best assumption that Zelensky and Europe can make is that we have seen the last US dollar allocated to Ukraine’s defence. Time for the rest of us to step up to the plate. Trump threatens to pull the US out of NATO and not to defend it should Russia attack. The mere fact that he has said this - whether or not he means it - fatally weakens the deterrence capability, the raison d’etre, of NATO.
Many people, from this writer to Donald Tusk to learned professors have said that the world has a 1930s air to it. MP and former soldier Tobias Ellwood put it succinctly this week, saying ‘there is a very 1937 feel to our world right now’.
The world spend $2.5 trillion dollars on arms last year. The peace dividend is well and truly over. That, of course, is a tragedy. Just imagine the good that that cash could do if spent elsewhere. The bigger tragedy is that it looks like the only way to prevent another European war is to spend enough - even more - money on bombs and bullets now.
The scale of the task is massive and requires honesty. In the UK, with its 73,000 soldiers, the announcement of an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP was the latest in a long line of fiscal sleights of hand that involve half-truths, dodgy accounting and obfuscation to hide the fact that the ‘increase’ didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Europe also talks a good game about meeting the Russian threat but action on the ground reveals a continent that can’t bring itself to believe that, once again, it could be convulsed by war. It feels so last century doesn’t it?
The week’s diary:
Monday 22nd April
It is probably wise to assume that only a few soldiers and officials in the Pentagon know how long it will take before new shipments of U.S. arms begin to appear on the front line in Ukraine. Most reports say that will be ‘soon’, but that’s probably more a message for Russian ears. The exact timing should, for obvious reasons, remain a secret, as should the current location of weapons planned to be shipped to Ukraine.
Various reports have tried to guess at where the weapons are stored right now, with suggestions including U.S. army bases in Germany and/or caches in Poland, close to the border with Ukraine. One assumes that nobody wants to make these weapons a target by revealing their location to Moscow. If that ‘soon’ report is anywhere near accurate, Ukraine can feel more confident and run down its existing stocks in anticipation of the new arrivals.
Most of the new kit will come from U.S. stockpiles, already depleted somewhat after 17 separate aid packages announced for Ukraine since the war started. Production of artillery shells in particular has had to be ramped up. According to the New York Times, American pre-war manufacturing of 155mm artillery shells ran at around 14,000 a month. It is currently at 30,000 a month with an objective of 100,000 some time next year. The US has supplied around two million shells so far. Other allies of Ukraine have also sent millions of shells.
Costs vary according to the exact specification, but one shell is usually priced at around $5,000. Russia is reported to be firing 10,000 shells a day compared to Ukraine’s 2,000. Russia is actually firing less shells than it used to and is also faced with logistical supply issues if its own. To mount a serious offensive this year or next it is going to need millions more shells than it currently possesses. It can buy more from North Korea and Iran, refurbish ageing stockpiles of Soviet-era shells or ramp up domestic production even further than it has already. Or, most likely, all three.
Tuesday 23rd April
The U.K. stock market has attracted headlines in the last few days, with the FTSE 100 reaching an all time high. Commentators have been quick to point out that it’s not that big a deal because the index has been a terrible performer, relatively speaking at least, for at least a quarter of a century. Compared to the ‘magnificent seven’ the familiar tech-related US behemoths, the U.K. market is an also ran, in terms of both performance and size.
Unless, that is, we look at Rolls Royce. Unsurprisingly perhaps, defence contractors have had rather a good couple of years. Rolls Royce has been the stock to be invested in rather than a basket of the seven U.S. market leaders. Over in the US, it’s been better to have been invested in the defence & aerospace sector than the overall market. In a sign of the times, investments in arms manufacturers globally have done better than a basket of companies involved in clean tech.
The British Prime Minister is on his way to Poland today and will announce the UK’s biggest ever arms package for Ukraine. The military aid will include additional Storm Shadow cruise missiles. A US Senator said yesterday that more long range ATACMS missiles will soon be on their way to Kyiv as part of the latest $60.8 billion package.
Russian State television commentators have reacted in predictable ways to the news about that U.S. arms agreement. In fact, many talking heads have appeared quite emotional, expressing anger, disappointment and bewilderment. One problem they face is that they have spent months telling the Russian people that the U.S. Congress is essentially pro-Moscow. It’s almost as if people on Russian talk shows feel betrayed.
One prominent chat show host, Vladimir Solovyov, has joined Russian calls for residents of Kharkiv - Ukraine’s second largest city - to leave. The Kremlin is trying hard to convince Ukrainians that a large offensive is imminent and that the taking of Kharkiv is a likely target.
Wednesday 24th April
Britain may have just been put on a war footing by its Prime Minister, but many people living in Sudan, Myanmar and the Sahel have known nothing but war for much of their lives. Unlike the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, those other conflicts largely carry on away from the gaze of Western media. It’s not as if those African wars, at least, don’t have a major impact on Europe - the refugee problem has many causes, but war is a major driver.
Indeed, creating waves of asylum seekers has long been a Kremlin policy: Finland is getting ready on their border for more refugees deliberately driven from their homes by Russia. Russian media is full of analysts and commentators calling for more Ukrainians to be forced Westwards into the EU and U.K.
That (mostly) forgotten war in Myanmar - sometimes described as the world’s longest running civil war - has recently reached a new phase. The most recent military coup - the first was in 1962 - in Myanmar took place just over three years ago. In one way or another, that military has run Myanmar for at least half a century. The few people taking an interest in the war have been surprised in recent days to find that the rebels are, in quite a few places, gaining the upper hand. That’s not the same as winning - they are still a long way from that - but it has become a possibility.
Unusually, the New York Times carries a long report about Myanmar’s civil war, and the creeping successes of the rebels, giving details of the crowdfunding suppled by Myanmar’s diaspora of around 4 million people. The 55 million people who still live there often report mystification about why other wars around the world attract so much attention yet their war goes largely unnoticed.
Thursday 25th April
One of the many regrets expressed by Ukrainians is over the 1990s deal struck to give back their Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia. If they still had them, so the logic goes, Putin would not have invaded.Russia, and Western countries, gave Ukraine security guarantees in return for the loss of the nuclear deterrent. That, and many other broken promises, should be remembered every time Moscow states that it has no intention of attacking any other countries. Mindful of this, Poland has muttered on several occasions that it would like its own nuclear deterrent.
As a member of NATO, Poland thinks it able to facilitate ‘nuclear sharing’, which means that, in theory at least, it can host nuclear weapons belonging to another member country. There is no suggestion that Poland is thinking of developing its own atomic weapons program but, in the latest step, President Duda has said “if our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory….we are ready for it”. Duda went on to say that talks about such arrangements have being going on for some time between the US and Poland.
Putin has long argue that the invasion of Ukraine was sparked by ‘NATO expansionism’. That the Eastern European countries who have joined NATO themselves asked to become members is often lost in that particular narrative.
Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, issued a thinly veiled threat this week to attack any nuclear weapons sites in Poland. Russia’s deputy foreign minister gave a more explicit warning, saying that any Polish nuclear weapons facilities would be targeted if they are deployed in Poland.
Meanwhile Russia’s US ambassador has said that the transfer of US long-range ballistic missiles to Ukraine is ‘impossible to justify’. NBC news in the US reported yesterday that ATAMCS missiles, secretly transferred last month, have been used twice this month by Ukraine, one strike occurring 100 miles inside Crimea. US officials have confirmed to reporters that long-range missiles will be part of the recently agreed deal over arms for Ukraine.
Allies that once sent only soldiers helmets to Ukraine for fear of stoking escalation have made a very long journey. One that is still ongoing.
Friday 26th April
Russia has continued its incremental advances, particularly north and west of Avdiivka, the town it captured earlier this year after a long and bloody battle. The UK’s Ministry of Defence says today that Russian forces have created a narrow salient further into Ukrainian territory and have entered the town of Ocheretyne, 15 km north of Avdiivka. This area of the front line has been the centre of Russian operations for some months now and several small towns and villages have been occupied.
Some analysts suggest that these operations amount to ‘scoping’ the battlefield ahead of a summer Russian offensive. Whether that offensive will be conducted by battle-hardened troops or poorly trained conscripts depends on who you read. Russia’s tactics are quite blunt, if not a throwback to a bygone era. Some of their forces have been seen attacking on motorbikes rather than heavily armoured vehicles. Plenty of them are on foot. Heavy artillery bombardment followed by waves of troops, apparently unconcerned about horrific casualties, are the basic tactics.
Russia continues to offer large (relatively speaking) financial incentives to join the army in an attempt to avoid another wave of conscription. Generous payments are made to those wounded or the families of the dead. Inevitably, that means new recruits tend to come from the poorer sections of Russian society and from areas far away from Moscow or St Petersburg.
The Stockholm Institute for International Peace Research has counted up the world’s military spending and says that it increased last year in all 15 regions it studies - the first time that has happened in 15 years. The world managed to spend almost $2.5 trillion dollars in 2023 on weapons. The ‘peace dividend’ following the fall of the Berlin Wall is well and truly over.
The democratic countries in Europe need to take their collective heads out of the sand and prepare for the war that is almost upon us.
Much more military aid needs to be sent to every part of Ukraine
NATO need to grow a set & start standing up to the Russian aggressor.