Don's Weekly, 29 April 2024: Part 3

(….continued from Part 2…)

Diplomacy

Last year, the world’s military expenditure was higher than any other year since 1989. Of that $2.4 trillion spent, the US accounted for more than a third of it with $916 billion (3.4 of its GDP). Ukraine spent $64.8 billion, which is 37% of its GDP. (The US spent about 40% of its GDP on the military during WW2). Russia spent an estimated $106 billion, which is about 5.9% of its GDP. This is the most Russia has spent since 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union…https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/us/politics/ukraine-global-military-spending.html?smid=url-share

Also…https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2024-04/2404_fs_milex_2023.pdf

The UK said it’s putting its defense industry on a war footing. To put this in perspective, the world economies were smaller during WW2, but the UK spent 50% of its GDP on the war. The UK objective now is to spend 2.5% of its GDP on defense sometime before the end of the decade…when economic conditions allow. In the meantime, they will send $620 million more to Ukraine…https://apnews.com/article/poland-uk-nato-ukraine-sunak-military-aid-be9fa8b106eda83c2da140e0f2774fcb

The Czech Republic will assemble turrets for the Leopard 2 tank. They plan to buy 77 of them between 2027 and 2030. Germany is producing 3-4 tanks per month and wants to increase that to 20 tanks per month, which is what it was producing during the Cold War. To do so, it would have to expand production facilities, which is why the Czech companies will be involved.

Hungary and Qatar are still awaiting Leopard 2A7 models. Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain are interested in the Leopard 2A8 model that will enter production in 2026. The Czech army is also in the process of buying 246 Swedish CV90 IFVs…https://echo24.cz/a/HZELq/zpravy-tanky-leopard-2a8-vyroba-v-cesku-czechoslovak-group-michal-strnad-sternberk-excalibur-army-kmw

Leopard 2A7, and…

Leopard 2A8.

The EU reduced imports of pipeline gas from Russia from 40% in 2021 to 8% in 2023. When you add in LNG imported by ships, the EU still imports 15% of its gas from Russia. Norway and the US are the top two countries replacing the Russian gas…https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-gas-supply/#:~:text=Bar%20chart%20showing%20how%20gas,to%2056.2%20bcm%20in%202023.

When Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian government refused to aid Ukraine, opposition politicians organized a campaign to collect €3.9 million in 12 days for the Czech initiative to buy artillery ammo on the world market. When I last checked, 60,500 donors gave an average of €64. A Czech reader (that goes by IT) pointed out that their nation had a campaign to raise money for 10,000 drones and they raised €6.5 million for almost 16,500 drones. 279k international donors raised over €32 million for various projects and are currently raising money for a Black Hawk helicopter and 10 tons of plastic explosives. There are many NGOs that help with humanitarian aid and People In Need raised over €185 million. “IT” says that in two years, Czech-led initiatives raised €240 million averaging €21 per donor.

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The US Aid Bill

The US Senate approved the House version of the aid bill and Biden signed it, which started the first $1 billion in aid rolling to Ukraine. A US spokesman said that the delay “absolutely” caused damage to Ukraine’s defenses. Biden instructed his personnel not to attack Johnson publicly and to provide him regular briefings on the danger of withholding aid. When progress on the aid bill remained stalled, the White House directed that Republican lawmakers receive regular briefings on the current situation in Ukraine and the likely future if aid was withheld. Speaker Johnson said that those briefings were key to passing the aid bill. Of the $61 billion, $10 billion is a loan that Ukraine is required to repay. 50% of the loan can be waived after November 15. The other 50% can be waived in 2026…https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/politics/biden-ukraine-israel-aid.html?smid=url-share

The aid bill provides $95.25 billion in aid to Israel, Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific countries, and about $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. Two-thirds of the money will be given to US corporations and entities to build equipment and buy food that is then shipped on US carriers. 80% will provide financial aid, supply weapons, replenish US stocks or fund training of Ukrainian troops or other operations. 19% will increase US intelligence capabilities.

$8 billion will be financial aid to Ukraine, including $500 million to address food shortages. Unlike past aid, it cannot directly support Ukraine’s old-age pensions. $9 billion is set aside for humanitarian assistance for both Ukraine and Gaza, and $500 million is reserved for Ukrainian resettlement in the US.

60% of the money will stay in the US while the equipment and food is shipped overseas. Companies in 39 of 50 states have already received a contract that aids Ukraine. $24.5 billion will be used to replenish US stocks, though these can then be drawn down and sent as aid again. $1.6 billion will be used to replenish US stocks in Israel, some of which were sent to Ukraine. $5 billion will increase production rates, part of which is the US goal to produce 1 million 155 mm shells a year.

Separate from the aid bill, the Netherlands, Norway, UK, Italy, Denmark and Germany have increased purchases of US weapons from 63 to 99%. Poland provided Ukraine with Soviet tanks and helicopters and will replace them with 370 Abrams tanks and 96 Apache helicopters…https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/25/eighty-percent-ukraine-israel-bill-will-be-spent-us-or-by-us-military/

On February 27th, the political leaders of the Senate (Democratic majority leader Schumer and Republican minority leader McConnell) and the political leaders of the House (Speaker Republican Johnson and Democratic minority leader Jeffries) met at the White House with Biden to supposedly talk about avoiding a looming government shutdown because of the national debt. Instead, the four leaders staged an intervention with Johnson. The CIA director and National Security advisor told Johnson the exact date they expected Ukraine to run out of artillery shells and air defense missiles. Then they painted a picture of what might happen if Ukraine loses the war.

McConnell, Schumer and Biden felt that the new Speaker was looking for a way to support Ukraine even though many Republicans in the House opposed it, as he did before he became Speaker. Republican McConnell spent a lot of his political capital to push Ukrainian aid despite resistance from some inside his own party. He asked Senate Majority Leader Schumer not to separate Ukrainian and from aid to Israel to increase its chances of passing, and Schumer agreed.

Things started to unravel back in November, 2023, when Republicans in both the House and Senate started demanding that an immigration bill be passed first. Schumer started organizing a bi-partisan Senate immigration bill. Biden invited Zelensky to Washington to help convince Republicans but, unlike his first visit, he had a cool reception this time around. The Senate reached a bi-partisan agreement on immigration in early February, but when Trump spoke against the bill, it was doomed. That’s when Johnson realized that the MAGA Republicans would never support aid to Ukraine and he had to choose between providing aid and risking his job or risking a world and national security disaster. He decided to back Ukraine.

Having made that decision, he had to figure out how to make it work.

Many Republicans would vote against aid to Ukraine. Many Democrats would vote against aid to Israel. Many Republicans wanted separate bills for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other issues. So he counted the votes on each issue and created four separate bills, all of which passed with different people opposing or supporting each one. Then he used a legislative procedure to send them to the Senate as a group of bills to be brought to the floor for a single vote for all of them, which is what McConnell thought was the best political move, as well. And then McConnell managed to persuade nine Republican senators who voted against the aid to vote for it. The bill to provide aid to Ukraine and others passed.

“For those who were willing to focus on the facts, it was a compelling argument that we should do what we did,” McConnell said. “Even if it was a request from a presidential personality we don’t want to succeed.”

And in the US today, that is the best we can do…https://wapo.st/44dlvDi

Democratic congressman Jeff Jackson speaks of the politics of the aid bill and his assessment of Speaker Johnson on this issue. I will observe that Johnson was in a politically difficult position and was new to the job, but the decision for a vote could have been made six months ago, and it certainly could have been made soon after he received those briefings.

***

Equipment

The US sent ATACMS cluster munitions earlier that were used against Russian helicopters, but they only had a 160 km range. The US didn’t want to send the longer ranged missiles because they didn’t want to deplete their own stockpiles in case of a future military crisis in the world. They changed their mind because they decided not to sell so many of these missiles to other countries, the production rates of the replacement to ATACMS, the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), reached higher levels, and because of the increased attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure with ballistic missiles.

These missiles were sent as part of the $300 million aid package in March and were used at an airbase in Dzan

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/us-ukraine-russia-missiles.html?te=1&nl=the-morning&emc=edit_nn_20240425

A look at the Russian ground drones that were destroyed by Ukrainian aerial drones…

https://twitter.com/sambendett/status/1782728280887484630

Ukraine is landing drones with mortar shells before detonating them…

https://twitter.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1784314261860483173

Both Russia and Ukraine have used combat balloons…

https://twitter.com/DanielR33187703/status/1782470441992585426

The entire world is learning from this war and it will impact American doctrine for years to come. The US determined that Starlink’s 5800 satellite network was as good as, or better, than their billion dollar satellites. Electronic warfare had little impact during America’s regional wars, or even during training in the Cold War era, but with the evolution of drones and near-peer capabilities, the US opened up an EW training center in Georgia and is pushing out new capabilities to front line troops. Missiles and ships will develop navigation that is immune to current jamming capabilities.

Because the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was slow to disseminate satellite imagery during the first Gulf War the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) was created to collect and process raw data from multiple sources and send the collated data to ‘trigger pullers’: troops deployed in the field. In order to improve the quality and speed at which they collect and disseminate data, the NGA began Project Maven in 2017 that utilizes AI and a user ability to pull their own data. It’s still under development but since the collection of data from various entities exceeded the ability to process the data in a timely manner, it is the next generation tool of NGA’s mission.

Soon after Russia’s all-out invasion, a US and Ukrainian general met on the Polish border. The US general opened his tablet that was connected to Project Maven through Starlink terminals and it was obvious that the US general knew more about the status of the Ukrainian units than the Ukrainian general did. When the Ukrainian insisted that his men had retaken a city from Russia, the American suggested that he call his front line commander. When he did so, he found out that the American was right. Frustrated, he said that the US should be helping more in the fight. The American said they couldn’t because Biden did not want Americans to target Russians. They could point Ukraine to the general direction but could not provide targeting data.

So Ukraine built their own version of Project Maven that collects data from commercial satellite companies and scrapes data from Telegram, Twitter, and Instagram provided by undisciplined Russians that would post images of their assets and not turn off their cell phones. This technology still has not made it to the front line Ukrainian soldier, though…https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/us/politics/ukraine-new-american-technology.html?smid=url-share