Defense expert Ko Colijn has been providing Dutch people with information on armed conflicts for over forty years. For NU.nl he follows the battle in Ukraine and answers our (and your) questions. This time the question is: what lessons does Colijn draw from the use of weapons in this phase of the war?
1. Old-fashioned war with a new edge
Last time wrote We already know that experts have come to the conclusion that old-fashioned warfare still matters. Land grab, trenches, cannons and foot soldiers are the ingredients of the Ukrainian war. Whoever can shoot the furthest with grenades (the longest range, it’s called in the jargon) has the advantage. At the moment it’s the Russians. But if the West provides the HIMARS missile launchers, it will be the Ukrainian armed forces again.
The United States does not want to supply cannons or missiles that can target targets in Russia itself, because then the risk of escalation would be too great and nobody wants that. The deployment of a tactical nuclear weapon (on the battlefield, or above the sea as a demonstration) would then come into the picture. And although that chance is not great, under the circumstances it is close. The new edge is communication on the Ukrainian side. It’s fast, better, and flexible. That plays tricks on the Russians, because they appear to operate ‘rigidly’, which makes them vulnerable.
2. US is still holding off
In the US itself, tests have recently been conducted with a HIMARS version that has a very long range (missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers) and fires fully automatically. Artificial intelligence determines when and what will be shot at. This version is very mobile and thus ‘hides’ itself after use. One person, far behind the front, can see everything on a screen and push a start button or pull the emergency brake, from multiple systems at once. With this, the American army claims to be able to disable enemy launch installations in a conventional manner.
This one-person war isn’t far off, but the Americans have this PrSM version (precision strike missile) has not even been released for its own use, let alone to an ally, let alone to Ukraine. The US Air Force, not free from mutual rivalry, finds such an army adventure superfluous. They think they can do that with their own planes.
3. Influence of aircraft dips while costs rise
But those planes actually play a relatively small role in the Ukrainian war. In fact, there is criticism in the US of the apparently overrated role of increasingly expensive combat aircraft. in the sheet Task & Purpose it is established that the Russians have never succeeded in achieving the classical goal of air superiority to obtain. Their losses are large (75 aircraft) compared to Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses (‘only’ 24 of the 250 S-300 missile systems they had).
The defender seems to have the advantage, and it seems worthwhile to invest in these types of systems. no expensive air superioritybut cheaper air deniability (keep planes away completely) should be the motto, a lesson that the US Air Force should also take to heart. A difficult message for the proud American Air Force, which suffered its last loss on the ground on April 15, 1953 (!).
The USAF finds air superiority with very expensive stealth fighters of course. But it has also been calculated – somewhat jokingly – that if the current rate of fighter aircraft prices continues to rise, you could buy one such aircraft out of the entire defense budget by 2054. By the way, also something for Minister Kajsa Ollongren, who buys six extra F-35s, to remember.
4. This war is distinguished by the extent of the damage
As the war crosses the hundred-day mark (and soon the four-month mark), the results lists inevitably appear. Although a picture of the bodies in Boetsja says more to people, we are also modest about those lists because they tell us something.
They also play a role in the headquarters where the continuation of the war is planned. First of all: the latest edition of the Support Tracker from the University of Kiel puts the Netherlands in 23rd place among countries that give part of their income to Ukraine. That is fewer than Luxembourg (15th) and many other small European countries. And even a place lower than the beginning of May. Not very pretty.
In the first hundred days the war was not only bad, but of course also devastating. The Russian losses could be 25,000 soldiers, with 80,000 “unserviceable” soldiers wounded. In the meantime, of course, more. The Russians lost 1,000 tanks, 50 helicopters, 360 cannons and nearly 40 fighters. These are hastily canceled or, out of courtesy, postponed, and countries that have had Russian missiles in mind are concerned that 60 percent of those munitions failed.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is said to mourn “tens of thousands” of military and civilian deaths, and President Zelensky recently spoke of rising numbers to 100 killed and 500 wounded Ukrainian soldiers a day after the war moved to the Donets Basin. Those numbers have since doubled.
According to Kyiv, Russian bombing in the first 100 days has destroyed nearly 40,000 buildings, 1,900 ruined educational institutions, 350 destroyed bridges, 500 damaged hospitals and about the same number of factories destroyed.
The Russian bombings displaced seven million people in Ukraine and another seven to eight million abroad (of which two million have now returned in hopes of blessing). The Russians now occupy 20 percent (was 7 percent before 24 February) of the territory.
Needless to say, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk dramatically: -35 percent, damage stood at $600 billion. On the other hand, the Russian economy is also suffering from the almost 5,000 separate sanctions that the country has to swallow, and because inflation is almost 20 percent on an annual basis.
The war may be somewhat put into perspective (year in, year out there are about 450 major conflicts in the world, more than half of which are violent), it is distinguished by the direct consequences for the rest of the world. According to UN crisis coordinator Amin Awad, 1.4 billion people are at risk of hunger due to shortages of grain and fertilizer.
5. All agreements are nothing more than paper
With a little cynicism you could say that the war relegates all the beautiful things in world politics to side issues. This applies to the ideal of respect for the laws of war (with respect for civilians and prisoners of war, and 10 percent of Russian ammunition is prohibited by nature alone), hunger and the environment, and many other things that are ‘big’.
But lofty goals such as arms control have also been parked for a while. This applies to Russian threats with nuclear weapons, but we also welcome Finland as a possible member of NATO, even though that country (like other major powers, for that matter) has an outright ban on landmines. rejects† As Finnish Defense Minister Sauli Niinistö put it: “All agreements are now nothing more than paper.”
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