Whisper it softly, but in some quarters people are beginning to ask what was previously unthinkable; what happens if Russian defeats Ukraine in the current war?
Whilst many will deem that scenario unlikely, it is not impossible. Russian conquest of all of Ukraine is technically feasible if the USA cuts off all military assistance, with European allies following suit. This would bring Russia’s army right up to NATO’s border from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian military – with Western support – may well have destroyed nearly 90% of the Russian army that invaded in February 2022 as US intelligence sources seem to suggest, but the Russians are replacing those manpower losses and ramping up their industrial base to make good their material losses much faster than their pre-war capacity would have allowed.
The Russian army may also be bigger than the pre-2022 Russian land forces, and their economy will gradually recover as sanctions become inevitably slacker and the Kremlin develops ways to circumvent or mitigate those that remain. Over time it will recover from its Herculean efforts in Ukraine.
In other words, Russia may once again pose a major conventional military threat to NATO for the first time since the 1990s.
Russian ammunition base hit by Ukraine with huge blast
Since Moscow has already committed to an ambitious post-war military expansion programme, the US cannot be confident that this timeframe will be very long.
Still, the overall military strength of the NATO allies would be much greater than that of Russia and there is little reason to doubt the West’s ability to defeat any conceivable Russian military threat, even assuming that Russia fully absorbed Ukraine and Belarus.
But as we consider the costs of continuing to help Ukraine fight the Russians in the current proxy war we need to also consider the costs of allowing Russia to win. Those costs could be much higher than many people think they might be.
The USA will, therefore, have to carefully consider deploying a sizeable military force to Europe once more. If Russia prevails in Ukraine, then it will also have to station a large number of its most modern stealth aircraft in Europe which would give it the edge over Russia’s comprehensive and layered air defence assets.
Such aircraft are also fundamentally important in confronting the bourgeoning threat in the Indo-Pacific, specifically to defend Taiwan and other US Asian allies against the threat from China, but will also be needed to deter any Russian attack on a NATO ally. There aren’t enough of them at present and a rapid ramping up in American industry may be required.
the Almost any other outcome, therefore, is preferable to Russian victory in the Ukraine war. “Freezing” the conflict and accepting the current status quo is worse than continuing to help Ukraine fight on; that would simply give Russia time and space to prepare for a renewed war to conquer Ukraine and confront NATO.
I think, therefore, that helping Ukraine regain control of its Russian-occupied territory would be much more advantageous in the long term to the West; it would drive Russian forces further to the east and reduce the overall threat..
Further, I would venture that supporting Ukraine to victory and then helping it rebuild would put the most combat-experienced and battle-hardened military on the European continent on the frontline of the defence of NATO, whether Ukraine does or does not ultimately join the alliance.
So, essentially the USA and its NATO allies are facing a spend now, save later scenario when it comes to sending aid to Ukraine, and it is against this background we should be considering the ongoing shenanigans in Washington DC, where President Zelensky has yet again been pleading his country’s case and US politicians have been dithering and shuffling their feet.
Most political manoeuvrings take place in a short timescale where immediate expediency usually triumphs over longer term planning, and so it seems to be proving in the US Congress. Millions of dollars of US and indeed EU aid is being held up by political wrangling, to the extent that the UKrAF are now claiming that the tempo of their operations has had to be curtailed.
This is neither good news for Ukraine nor for the US and its western allies. At some point soon NATO is going to have to decide whether to deal with Russia now via the Ukraine conflict or later in some other, and possibly wider, confrontation.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now
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