this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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The raw spending figure isn't what is important, but the PPP figure. Russia's economy is about 1/5th the size of the EU's in PPP, and its defense sector is vastly more efficient on a monetary basis than the west - The US alone has given Ukraine close to $60 billion and it is a fraction of the hardware that Russia has produced with fewer dollars.
This isn't a 'Russia stronk, Europe bad' post, it just bears emphasizing that Russia has a large industrial base and has brought much of it into arms production over the past two years. The West hasn't, and defense procurement remains an almost artisanal process where high tech goods are bought - in low volumes - at inflated prices.
PPP doesn't really matter in modern warfare. A modern stealth fighter bomber (F-35) is expensive no matter what currency you use.
Russia only has a cost advantage in anything you can mass produce, like bullets or dumb artillery shells. The US and Europe have insane smart artillery shells and RPGs that completely destroy Russian tanks, personnel carriers, and dug in positions. They're expensive no matter who makes them.
Modern weapons and tactics are force multipliers. Money is not really an issue in warfare, only production capacity. The War Production Board in WW2 forced businesses to produce what the military needed at non-inflated prices. Car manufacturers were forced to make tanks and jeeps.
Yes, you can make the argument that a hyper-modern vehicle is a vastly more effective weapons system, so the disparity in cost is justified.
That isn't what we are seeing in Ukraine - relatively modern NATO-standard tanks are being knocked out by old artillery, immobilized by old mines, and killed by cheap drones. Industrial warfare in the vein of WWI and WWII is clearly not dead yet.
This isn't to say Russia would win a direct conventional war against the west, but we also can't sit here smugly and claim it would be a steamroll like Gulf Storm given the observations from Ukraine.
Iraq has shown that with air superiority, you can completely crush any large opposing force with ease if it's executed well. The reason why this turned into a conventional war is because neither side has air superiority. If Russia did, this war would've been over ages ago. That is also why I think in a Russia vs NATO showdown, Russia doesn't stand a chance, not even remotely when it comes to capabilities.
"Force multiplier" doesn't mean invincible. By "Gulf Storm" I assume you mean "Desert Storm" during the Persian Gulf War. The coalition forces still lost a lot of tanks, APCs, and airplanes even in victory.
The US in particular sent only 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, and none of them were "relatively modern". Those tanks may have actually been in Desert Storm they're so old!
These few tanks are designed to work in concert with massive artillery and air superiority fighter bombers, which Ukraine doesn't have. Right now neither side has a substantial advantage in the air, and Ukraine just doesn't have enough planes to attack with them.
So the actual thing Ukraine needs is more expensive "force multipliers", like Patriot missile systems and F-16s. Artillery shells, mines, and drones can't protect you from those.
Aaaaand they give Ukraine only a tiny fraction of those. Because.
I saw a video of a Ukrainian drone 'factory', which was a large room with some 3D printers and some assembly benches. I think defense spending cost needs to be re-evaluated as a metric.
That's because those drones aren't actual weapons. They become ones when merged with existing stocks of old ammunition you already have stocked.
They are (relatively) cheap conversion kits for obsolete shells they have lying around in the 100 thousands and more.