This week, Max and Maria were joined by military analysts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee to discuss the latest phase of the war in Ukraine. Max and Maria asked them for their thoughts on the ongoing Ukrainian offensive in Kursk, and whether or not this seizure of Russian territory by Kyiv exposes Russian threats of escalation as hollow. If they are hollow, does that mean Western “red lines” on certain kinds of aid to Ukraine should be reassessed?
[continued from parent]
transcript 2
Rob: Sure. Main conversation right now is on ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. Reporting say that even though Storm Shadow/SCALP made by Britain and France, contain US components so US has a say in how they’re used. JASSM’s been introduced more-recently; also question about whether they’ll be allowed to be used in Russian territory. More-important factor with JASSM is that quantities may be greater. Ukraine fired a lot of Storm Shadow/SCALPs last summer; not sure what the replenishment rate is. Also concern with ATACMS, because Ukraine fired not-insignificant number of ATACMS. At some point, US could give more but may also look at other constraints and might not want to give more. First-off, conversations sometimes focus on all-or-nothing, either weapon will have huge benefits or no benefits. If US permits ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes in Russian territory, there will be military benefits. Important not to downplay that. Steve wrote an article for Foreign Affairs saying that it’s not going to be decisive, and I agree with that. If we allow ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes, it’s not going to win the war for Ukraine…but it can support it. In supporting Ukraine, there’s never just one silver bullet; it’s wholistic. If Ukraine has a capability, it can make plans using it; if not, have to adjust plans. Some things that it cannot achieve: a lot of the Russian missile attacks on Ukraine would not be affected by Storm Shadow or ATACMS. They’re ALCMs launched by strategic bombers that operate more than 300 km from the border from Ukraine. Most glide bombs dropped by Russian Su-34 bombers that no longer operate within 300 km of the border either. They used to be closer, but now they’re pushed back. Releasing Storm Shadow or ATACMS would not be a full solution to either of those problems. What could it help with? Russia has a number of logistics facilities across the border. Right now, Ukraine mostly uses the mid-range ATACMS that uses cluster munitions to go after air defense systems in occupied territories. S-300, S-400. That’s been the priority for quite a long time, and they do this with dynamic targeting, which ATACMS are useful for. That would be quite useful in Kursk to degrade Russian air defense capabilities in that region, which can also allow other operations. Also useful because a lot of Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign conducted via Ukranian-produced weapons, drones, we know they have cruise missile programs, we know they have ballistic missile programs, so if you knock out a bunch of the Russian air defense systems on the border, that could potentially make it easier for Ukraine to perform long-range strikes into Russia. Now, the US may not want to be part of that, but it would help. Another factor is that when the US made the policy change in May to allow the strikes into Russia with HIMARS, the initial effect was that Russia launched a lot of S-300/S-400 missiles as ground defense missiles, consistently struck Kharkiv with that. After HIMARS were allowed, they knocked out a couple of S-300s the first day, and after that there were no S-300/S-400 attacks on Kharkiv for at least a month after that point. A few days ago, there were a few strikes on Kharkiv with S-300s/S-400s. ATACMS would be more-effective; they have a longer range than GMLRS. That would be one justification, saying that we’re trying to help the civilians at Kharkiv; ATACMS could be part of that. It could be the way that happens; we’ve seen before that initially the Biden administration provided shorter-range ATACMS, then later the longer-range ones. The same thing could happen with strikes on Russia. In the Kursk operation, it looks like Ukraine is there to stay for some time. Zelenskyy has mentioned it as a bargaining chip; in order for it to be useful for that, you have to hold it. Allowing ATACMS strikes into Russia will make it easier for Ukraine to hold that area in Kursk. Won’t solve everything, but can knock out tube artillery concentrations, can knock out logistics, all that kind of thing. Variety of ways that that could be useful. I don’t think that it will be decisive. It comes back to the risk/reward and escalation. It would be useful, it would pose more problems for Russia, and that’s one of the considerations here, is that Russia’s strike campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure is a really significant problem. In Mike and my article, we talk about the fighting in Kursk and Donetsk. Most of that is at a tactical/operational level. The strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure have strategic significance, could lead to a situation where winning the war is much much more difficult for Ukraine. I think that the implications are greater. So it’s very important for Ukraine’s supporters to come up with a plan to compel Russia to stop these strikes. Allowing Storm Shadow/ATACMS is not enough, because the range is not enough. Right now, Ukraine is going after Russian energy infrastructure, we’ve seen with the power plants and refineries, UAVs, and I assume that that’s going to continue into winter. Maybe that’s going to get to a point where Russia decides to make a deal, says “You know what? Let’s make a deal, maybe not go after each other’s energy infrastructure because it’s becoming painful for us.” But ultimately, Western countries need to come up with a plan here, because it’s a really significant issue for Ukraine. Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russian energy infrastructure will not defeat Russia. But if it makes Russia stop striking Ukrainian infrastructure, then it could be strategically-critical. It will help Ukraine sustain the war, which could have strategic benefits on its own. If there’s a concern about ATACMS or similar, maybe there’s a role for subsidizing Ukrainian-produced missiles or similar. Maybe that’s the workaround, I don’t know. Russia’s a bigger country; Ukraine has to find ways to compel Russia. If Western countries don’t come up with some kind of plan, then Ukraine’s going to go come up with their own internal capabilities, so I think that that’s the kind of discussion that we would have.
Max: Mike, anything to add? Thanks, Rob.
Mike: Lot of good points, Rob. I think that the main challenge in our provision of capabilities has been that in boiling the frog, we’ve transferred capabilities out of sequence with combat operations, because could not realize advantages when initially deployed to operationally-significant effect. Ukraine would want a capability at scale then, but often we have provided in fairly small numbers, often after operation, so come up a day late and dollar short, probably fairest criticism overall of our approach. As to Rob’s argument on Steve’s point about the best being the enemy of the useful. Aside from aircraft which are out of range, Russia does have a lot of things within range that could be targeted and it would force upon them a significant adjustment period. That could sap momentum, cause a degree of disorganization, could give Ukraine an advantage for a period of, say, a few months. Rob touched on ability of our capabilities to degrade Russian air defense and thus enable Ukrainian strikes, and I think that that’s a better way to look at it. And compelling Russia to end the campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Why? We are not going to find enough air defense in terms of both systems and munitions to cover Ukrainian airspace. We’re not going to be able to do it such that Ukraine can defend critical infrastructure like energy, its cities; people, and its front line. Not with expanded Russian missile production. My view is that an expanded strike campaign which Ukraine would be running in Russia would be a much better campaign than expanded strike campaign in Crimea, which they have been running this year with Western support, which in practice has not been setting the conditions for anything. It’s a year after the campaign that was meant to get to Crimea, no follow-up campaign to strike campaign likely to occur. Already led to significant adaptation by Russian forces in terms of intercept rates on ATACMS; not marginal by a long shot. Ukraine has used fairly large number of ALCMs and – won’t say how many – fairly large number of ATACMS as well. If one is to use munitions at this rate, would want to use them in way that would achieve real effects for you. I think it would be much better to have actual strike campaign against Russian critical infrastructure or Russian air defense in Russia enabling Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia, or try to achieve limited aims such as cession of Russian strike campaign itself. I have understood Crimean operation is end in-and-of-itself in that it degrades Russian air defense, will do as an operation until a better one gets here, but also clear that Ukrainians are not making much of it. Kursk offensive is good example that Ukraine wants to achieve leverage over Russia in different way than campaign we have been supporting.
Maria: On numbers, Michael, you mentioned number of weapons systems offered to Ukraine. US has roughly 370 HIMARS systems, and as of May 2024, had sent roughly 40+ to Ukraine, about 4,000 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, but as of May has sent only 300 to Ukraine. For March 5, Abrams tanks about 4,600 in stocks, only 30 to Ukraine. More than 60 Patriot air defense batteries, only one sent to Ukraine. How explain that? Understand that military planners may have different vision, but why so little offered? Is it different priorities? Is it concerns about how Ukraine is going to use it? Corruption in Ukraine? But I think that Ukraine has proved itself quite capable of using those. Would be interesting to get a perspective; Rob, maybe start with you.
[continued in child]
[continued from parent]
transcript 3
Rob: Sure. I don’t think corruption is the concern. I don’t think that we’ve had any indication that there has been corruption with Western-provided weapons systems to Ukraine. We have examples of Ukraine using them quite successfully including the ones you mentioned; the Ukrainian air defense crews have performed very well with Patriots. They’ve shot down Kinzhals in very complex attacks; I think actually the reputation of Patriots has gone up quite a bit in this war. I think that that will be a long-lasting effect of the war. Bradleys have performed very well too. Every brigade I’ve talked to in Ukraine wants Bradleys. The guys with the 47th Mechanized Brigade, who got them first, have had nothing but good things to say about them; they’re survivable, effective, and they operate them very well. With some of these weapons systems…with HIMARS, the limiting factor is not the number of launchers. It’s the number of missiles. It’s the number of GMLRS we have to provide. Ukraine has lost some HIMARS, and I think that we’ve replaced them. I’m sure that we could provide more, but I think that it’s more a question of how many missiles that we can provide to them that they can fire each day. I think that that’s the greater limiting factor there. With Patriots…they need more Patriots. I think that they want several more than they have. One of the key issues is that their ballistic missile defenses are not that strong in many places. At Kyiv, obviously they have a strong Patriot capability there. In many other cities, they don’t have it; they have very little ability to shoot down Iskanders, to shoot down other ballistic missiles…if Iran provides ballistic missiles, that’d be another issue. They can shoot down cruise missiles more-effectively, they can shoot down Shahed drones more effectively, but ballistic missiles are more difficult. Providing Patriots is a key capability that they need. Patriots can also engage bombers at longer range, so if you have more of them, you can bring some up to try to engage Russian Su-34s at long range to stop these glide bombs. It’s a scarcity issue; Ukraine has pushed up some. One Patriot battery was damaged operating near Pokrovsk doing this kind of mission, and it’s a tradeoff between defending cities from these missiles and being able to knock glide bomber carriers. The more capability they have, the more they can pursue these things. With Patriots, it’s also in large part an issue of how many interceptors they have; it’s a missile issue. They are still constrained in that regard. More systems would be useful, can defend more cities, but also a question of whether they have enough missiles to defend against Russian missiles, and I think that it’s always going to be a negative balance. Ukraine needs more armored vehicles. That’s been a concern for a long time. They are forming new brigades, those do not have enough armored vehicles, and existing brigades do not have enough, and the types they have are kind of like armored cars, not always infantry fighting vehicles. Ukraine loves M113s, easy to operate, easy to maintain. I’m a big fan of providing as many as possible. They also use them as a casualty evacuation vehicle, which they often don’t have an armored vehicle for casualty evacuation, and without that sometimes have to wait to evacuate a wounded soldier, so important for a variety of things. M113s are great. Bradleys are great. My understanding is that we are providing a lot more of these, that that has gotten through. We’re ramping up our deliveries, I don’t know numbers but I think that we understand that they are important. One thing that Ukraine is doing with Bradleys is that instead of putting them all in one brigade, they’re sending them to separate battalions, couple assault battalions. Can send battalions around front lines to plug gaps, lets rotate battalion out. Also provide a number of 155 howitzers. We also have to maintain our own reserves for if we get into war of attrition that does not end quickly. Russia good example of this; they’ve lost a lot of tanks and equipment, but still fighting because they had large stockpiles. Think message has been heard. In some cases constraints that can’t just wish away. In some cases, if we’d known in 2022 that this was going to be a 2.5+year war, there were investments that should have been made. Mostly in ammunition production. Western aid still critical for Ukraine. Passed large aid package for Ukraine this year, looking at Russian production, have talked to people who are pessimistic as to whether we are going to keep doing one as large every year on ongoing basis. Concern that I have.
Max: I want to turn to Mike on that. I think that part of the issue is that Pentagon is focused on US warfighting above all else, focused on Indo-Pacific and China, ROK, Middle East, hitting thresholds that not happy about going below. But other issue is funding one, curious for your take on this. We passed aid package. It’s huge, $60 billion in post-World War aid to country that we’re not at war with but still not blank check, still constraints given how much funding there is. Am I overstating that? Do you think that aid we’re providing being used well? Colin Powell said, if we’re going to provide F-16s, what aren’t we going to provide? Using money on that will eat into things like ammo or Bradleys. How do you see US aid? Is it foundational? Are we doing all we can? Can get more? Any comments on what Rob said?
Mike: Great question. Have to say right up front that I am not a Pentagon person, so this is very much an outsider’s perspective. Someone at the DoD might shudder at about what I’m about to say next. First of all, aid package is large, but mostly aid that won’t leave the US. Second, lot of bureaucratic politics involved. DoD quite adept at getting reimbursed at value of what being provided at far above value of equipment. Probably some military services that have equipment from War on Terror, have hardware that was ridden hard, put away wet, sliding it into presidential drawdown authority and giving it to Ukraine. See Ukraine running offensives in MaxPros, various MRAPs, uparmored Humvees, M113s, latest and greatest of what US had during late Cold War and War on Terror. What do you think Kelley Blue Book value of these items is? If wondering why Pentagon keeps coming up with accounting errors where they keep discovering that they have an extra $2 billion…
Max: One branch of [indistinguishable] wasn’t depreciating the value of the stuff that they were providing so they squeeze more juice out of that supplemental. Works both ways when they’re buying stuff.
[continued in child]
[continued from parent]
transcript 4
Mike: Amazing oversight that they suddenly rectified. Not all magical numbers, but Pentagon accounting for things that don’t have an actual market value can get pretty creative. One factor is that I think that some services are looking hard for ways that they can give away older equipment while getting reimbursement for this equipment well above the value of the equipment. I see that as bureaucratic politics. The Defense Department, as with defense department in any country, doesn’t want to give away high-end, low-availability weapons. One reason is that US gives security guarantees to countries, those countries come with operational requirements. Pinned down by operational requirements for plans for other people who you promised to defend. You can say that demands are too high, but as you know in the world of COCOMS – that’s combatant commands – that’s where the real fight is. Those folks are going to argue for their requirements and things allocated to their operational plans and so anything you want to take, high-end systems like Patriots, you are taking them from someone. People think that there’s some kind of base with Patriots. Not what’s happening. They’re taking Patriots that are actually deployed or allocated to COCOM in event that they have a contingency and are assigned to that plan and people are depending upon that system to be there. Even though the US may have 60, I can assure you that for all 60 or however many they are spoken for by somebody. So when you pull them from someone…political knifefighting. For many of these capabilities, big production backlog. The production backlog for Patriot missiles is something like seven years. That’s why this year they suspended exports to divert supplies to Ukraine until they are able to fulfill Ukrainian needs, because there’s no other way. That’s going to come at the expense of war orders for other countries. Somebody’s in that seven-year order pipeline and is going to get theirs later. When we turn to NATO…our European allies are good at many things, but buying ammunition is not one of them and having large capacities in defense capabilities is not one either. Having given away a lot of their equipment to Ukraine in the past two and a half years to Ukraine, they’re also focusing on rearmament. Now they’re concerned about how much they have left relative to how much they’ve given, that’s issue one, and issue two, looking at the US election, and they’re also unsure about US future commitments, what they can count on. That has a suppressing effect. If you don’t know what the future of the US role in Europe is going to be, you might be a bit hesitant about how much more you’re going to give until you have a sense of what your security environment looks like moving forward. People won’t say that, but I get the sense that that is out there as a background context. I observe a pretty large rhetoric-to-investment gap, especially in the third year of the war.
Maria: Thank you. Follow-up question. Wouldn’t war be beneficial in some ways for US military industrial production the same way that is has been for Russia? More people get employed, why so much resistance domestically to providing aid to Ukraine when good for US economy?
Mike: Without going down standard trope of “war is defense industrial policy”, the war has led the US to issue multi-year contracts for ammunition production and such, which we should have done anyway. One thing it has also done is shown a number of people that we are not prepared for a great power war. We are not prepared for a long, conventional war of attrition against a principal competitor like China. We’ve been talking about it, but you look at our production, it’s not there. Why? We reaped the peace dividend and the benefit of being a dominant superpower for many decades, so we’re short on mobilization capacity. The production capacity matches the need, which is efficient. Not a lot of slack in the system. Not to be glib about it, but modern weapon are complex. You can’t ramp them up that fast. We struggled to ramp up production of artillery shells. Can you imagine what it takes to ramp up production of Patriot missiles? Can’t ramp up rapidly the way you could 50, 70 years ago. Politically, should be easy; most aid is money that never leaves the United States. Corruption concerns are grossly overblown. We aren’t giving that much money to Ukraine at all. People have unfortunate misconception after seeing years or decades of the US giving suitcases of money in Iraq or Afghanistan. I don’t blame public or people in Congress for asking questions given how these wars were run and how then those people just left with those suitcases of cash in the end. That’s still fresh in the memory of some people, but this isn’t that war.
Max: I think that Congress has been surprised by how unprepared defense industry is to ramp up for great power war and how our stocks aren’t as deep as we expected. Maybe final question. Looking forward, given state of Kursk offensive, Russia also ramping up production but also having problems, how do you see balance of war playing out over next year, assuming steady state of US support, maybe another supplemental. Is tide running against Ukraine?
Rob: Podcast was supposed to be about Kursk and we didn’t really talk about Kursk. Got sidetracked. Overall situation, Mike and I were there in June. We’re optimistic. Russia had a number of advantages this year. When we go back to last year, Ukraine’s summer offensive failed, ended when they ran out of infantry. Suffered too much attrition, principal reason why it ended. Ever since, Ukraine has had deficit of manpower, been biggest issue. Also issue that US did not pass aid package, that became a problem too, but manpower’s really the more-significant issue. Ukraine has addressed these things. They also addressed the fortification things. When they passed the new mobilization bill, in April, went into effect in mid-May, and significantly increased number of soldiers. Since mid-May, numbers have increased dramatically. Russia has had manpower advantage over last year. Russia had been getting 25k, 30k people/month, now Ukraine is. If sustained, over time, brigades fill up. Our thesis is that Russia’s offensive potential start to degrade this fall and winter. Then Kursk created a lot of unpredictability. It’s a risky operation. It may pay off, but may not. If it doesn’t pay off, Russia may have made more gains than they otherwise would have. Our view before this was that this fall, this winter, Russian offensive potential would degrade, they’re running through armored vehicles at an unsustainable rate, that manpower issues will grow, and that if Ukraine just maintains a favorable attrition ratio of Russian forces, that things will continue to get better. We know that our ammunition capacity is increasing. We won’t achieve parity with Russian artillery production, but if we can reduce that rate, that can have a significant rate on the battlefield. If we catch up and Ukraine is able to maintain a higher rate of mobilization, then the situation should improve. Would give Ukraine options in 2025 to do offensives or other kinds of things. More unpredictability now with Kursk. Instead of new soldiers going to places like Pokrovsk, many went to Kursk instead, new brigades, question of resource allocation. Think Russia’s offensive will probably last longer now, into fall, since if Ukraine holds this area in Kursk then other areas are going to be exposed for longer. If they hold it until negotiations, then maybe it’s a good negotiation chip. Makes it more difficult to force negotiations on Ukraine, whether allies or anyone else. Gives Ukraine more leverage. We thought situation would improve in 2025, and I think it still will, but also depends on how Ukraine makes it through winter with energy infrastructure, that’s an open question, and how things go on both sides, how well they can mobilize and use resources. One thing that we’ve seen is that for both sides, sometimes military operations are dictated by political considerations, including short-term considerations, that are not always helpful militarily. Sometimes creates problems, influences how war goes. Have to wait and see. The Kursk operation was surprising, possible to see other surprising events moving forward that could significantly affect outcome of war. Think that resource situation looks better for Ukraine in 2025 than 2024, but how that plays out is an open question.
[continued in child]
[continued from parent]
transcript 5
Max: Mike, closing thoughts?
Mike: Think Rob pretty much nailed it. We have had similar experiences. Need to see how next few weeks play out. One of my big questions I have right now is that Russia and Ukraine face a dilemma. Ukraine can try to expand Kursk salient with more troops, see if it can try to cause Russia to divert more forces, try to set something else up, some other operation. However, that risks overextension and more risk in Donetsk. More territory they hold, more risk and tradeoffs. Russia also faces dilemma, which is can continue focusing on current offensives, but if they don’t counterattack, then they take risk that Ukraine will expand salient and will become worse and more embarrassing and that Ukraine will have time to further dig in and entrench. If they don’t mount a counterattack, it will be harder to displace Ukraine out of Kursk, and Ukraine could be holding this Kursk salient well into next year, which is basically what they intend to do. End of the day, military strategy is about tradeoffs. Seeing degree of decision points for both Ukraine and Russia as to how to move forward. Both Rob and I somewhat skeptical that Kursk can really change things, on the other hand, worth a shot, interesting to see what it can do for Ukraine. Also interesting to see how it affects Ukraine’s ability to defend at Pokrovsk and how that plays out. If there is an operationally-significant breakthrough by Russia, if Pokrovsk isn’t stabilized in coming months, may be linked to Kursk. Depends on how those things play out. Don’t know details of front, haven’t been there in two months. Ukrainian planning is emergent. Can’t predict what they will do next, just as we didn’t predict Kursk. Looking at Kursk, hard for us to say even what will happen next month.
Max: War is contingent [this is a favorite Kofman catchphrase], and there is a podcast for that. Thanks so much.