With President Biden stepping out of his reelection campaign and Vice President Kamala Harris now the Democratic nominee, there is an opportunity for changes in the US policy towards Ukraine. I think most of us recognize just how bad a Trump presidency would be for Ukraine (and the US, and the entire world) so I won’t belabor that point. But let’s assume Kamala Harris gets elected, she could starting writing a new path for US policy on Ukraine even before a switch in administration.
I would characterize the Biden’s administrations policy on Ukraine as one of stabilization. With prompt intelligence sharing and quickly building a coalition of countries in 2022 to assist Ukraine, the worse case scenario for Ukraine was avoided. Russia did not take Kyiv in 3 days or 3 years. But dreams of Ukraine beating back Russia in quick succession (dreams I was pushing) has been dashed first by a slow rolling of high end equipment (and I’ll come back to this point), then by a disastrous blockage of aid by Republicans from Fall 2023 through Spring 2024, and finally by a refusal to fund Ukraine at a level required to beat back Russia in an attritional struggle.
I’m going to borrow from a Perun video a graphic from his video “New American Military Aid for Ukraine - What's in the package and what impact will it have?” The graphic (reposted to the right, at minute 60 in the video) shows just how much Ukraine is up against from a financial investment in the military standpoint. This is a broad brush comparison so don’t put too much into this, but it does give a sense of what Ukraine is facing. Russia is spending 66%-100% more per year on its military than Ukraine and its aid from allies are. This broad brush ignores Russia’s expenditures on military items not directly associated with the war (Nuclear arsenal, fleets not in the Black Sea, border security, etc) so at best we are talking parity in spending.
And of course there is differences in quality of goods gained per dollar invested. It also doesn’t include Russia dipping into its large former soviet military good reserves. But in general, you’d rather be spending more than your enemy in attritional warfare (provided you can afford it) than being behind in spending. This is not to say Ukraine is doomed if current funding is continued. There is plenty of room for black swan events on par with the Wagner Mutiny, what happens when Russia runs out of its soviet reserves, and potential technology advantages which may appear (hopefully for Ukraine).
To put these expenditures in perspective the US defense budget for 2024 is reported at @ $850 Billion. That is about 7 times as much as Russia is expected to spend and doesn’t include access to our own Cold War reserves and “other” defense related expenditures hidden throughout the federal budget for security reasons. The congressional research office puts the cost (in 2011 dollars) of the following wars at
- WW2: $4 Trillion, 35.8% GDP
- Korean War: $341 Billion, 4.2% GDP
- Vietnam War: $738 Billion, 2.3% GDP
- Persian Gulf War: $102 Billion, 0.3% GDP
- Kosovo: $45 Billion in 1999 Dollars (Combined NATO and includes rebuilding)
- Iraq War (2003-2010): $784 Billion, 1.0% GDP
- Afghanistan (2001-2010): $321 Billion, .7% GDP (remember to add another 10 years of this expense)
The current US aid to Ukraine is put by statista at 0.35% of GDP over the course of the full scale Ukraine war. That is a tenth of the current 3.5% of GDP defense budget. We are expecting Ukraine to defeat a larger opponent on a shoestring budget.
When the war was in a more dynamic state (2022) there was a possibility of victory through maneuver warfare, particularly if Russia hadn’t been as determined to fight on through heavy losses. But Russia was determined, they stabilized the lines and the war is now attritional.
To break the attritional struggle in Ukraines favor we either need to gamble upon Ukraine developing superior technology and Russia not being able to keep up its current burn rate, or we need to outspend Russia. Ukraine on its own cannot outspend Russia. But the US sending 1/8th of its current Defense budget would get Ukraine to parity. Moving to a 1/4th of US defense budget along with the superior quality of equipment could be what’s needed to get Russia out. There is no magic number here. Rather the more we outspend Russia, the more likely they are to fail (and the less likely for Ukraine to fail). If we sent Ukraine 3 times what we are sending now (roughly on par with the Iraq War 2003-2010) we would be sending a message to Russia they can not win.
A slow trickle of aid keeping Ukraine at parity does not send that message. Russia is working the political opposition within NATO in order to remove that aid. Sending, and promising, a considerable amount of aid far above Russia’s capabilities does two things. It removes attrition (as far as material) as a viable path to victory. Large funds sent now buffers Ukraine from experiencing the GOP strangling of aid per 2023-2024. Receiving more than they need provides backup should the GOP succeed in limiting aid again. Large (credible) promises of future aid could also convince Russia to leave the war on par with the US outspending the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
While I haven’t heard of any new authorizations in the works prior to the election, it doesn’t mean Kamala Harris can’t talk about her intentions regarding Ukraine in the volume of aid. I personally don’t know the political ramifications of telegraphing an increase in aid. The media and cynics will probably tell you it’s a political liability. Properly framed, I would disagree. It can be framed as pushing Russia to leave quickly due to cost can be cheaper than years of minimum sustainability. Funding Ukraine in a larger way is certainly more likely to win. Winning quickly compared to Trump surrendering quickly is a big difference.
I’d also like to see a Harris administration reexamine the focus of our military. We are seeing a problem with sending Ukraine big ticket items requiring lots of training instead of cheaper easier to learn items. In an increasingly destabilizing world (from climate change) Ukraine will not be our last receiving of military aid. Just as the US pivoted to anti-insurgency over the last 20 years, we need to examine better ways of low(er) cost and simpler materials to fight in conventional wars. The US having a ready supply of Gripen type jets (cheap and easier maintenance) to hand out to the next Ukraine would allow us to scale up our side of the conflict quicker, hopefully ending it quicker. We need better and cheaper drones and artillery. We need more systems like the Javelin which can be learned in an afternoon and less like the F-35. We still need some high end stuff. But more thought needs to be given to the US as the arsenal of democracy. We currently don’t do that as well as our equipment comes with such a learning curve. We need to fix that.
I encourage Harris to assemble around herself a group of military advisors willing to think beyond just stabilization. We need bold thought and actions. We need to win these winnable wars far more quickly instead of allowing them to drag on. We need to support our democratic partners abroad even if they aren’t already in NATO. We need to be strong for justice. As a prosecutor, I am confident that Harris understands prevention of violence is better than response to violence. I’d love to see her talk more about this.
