(Opinion) Speculation has been swirling over the past month about why the US-led West’s Golden Billion decisively shifted its “official narrative” about the Ukrainian Conflict from prematurely celebrating Kyiv’s supposedly “inevitable” victory to seriously warning about its potential loss in this proxy war.
This took the form of related remarks from the Polish Prime Minister, President, Army Chief, and the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after which the New York Times admitted that the sanctions failed.
They decided to shift the “official narrative so decisively” because of NATO’s military-industrial crisis, which the New York Times warned about last November and was then touched upon by Biden’s Naval Secretary last month, finally became undeniable.
Putting all prior speculation about this to rest, NATO’s Secretary-General declared a so-called “race of logistics” against Russia on Monday precisely on this pretext and thus confirmed the bloc’s crippling military-industrial crisis.
According to the transcript of Jens Stoltenberg’s pre-ministerial press conference that was shared by NATO’s official website ahead of his meeting with this anti-Russian alliance’s Defense Ministers, he said the following of relevance to this subject:
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We are in a race for logistics. Key capabilities like ammunition, fuel, and spare parts must reach Ukraine before Russia can seize the initiative on the battlefield.
Ministers will also focus on increasing our defense industrial capacity and replenishing stockpiles. The war in Ukraine is consuming enormous munitions and depleting Allied stockpiles.
The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current production rate. This puts our defense industries under strain.
For example, the waiting time for large-caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months.
Orders placed today would only be delivered two-and-a-half years later. So we need to ramp up production. And invest in our production capacity.
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Well, this is an issue we started to address last year because we saw an enormous amount of support for Ukraine, and the only way to deliver that was to dig into our existing stocks.
But of course, we cannot continue to do that in the long run. We must produce more to deliver sufficient ammunition to Ukraine and ensure we have enough ammunition to protect and defend all NATO Allies and every inch of Allied territory.
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Of course, the industry can increase production in the short run by having more shifts and using existing production facilities. But, they need to invest and build new plans to have a significant increase.
And we see a combination of utilizing existing capacity more and making decisions to invest in increased capacity. This has started, but we need more.
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So I said the current ammunition consumption rate is bigger than the current production rate. That’s a factual thing.
But since we have been aware of that for some time, we have started to do something. We’re not just sitting there idle and watching this happening.
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And of course, the industry can increase production in also short term, but sometimes this is on some non-used or not utilized capability there. But even when a factory is running, you can have more shifts. You can even work during weekends.
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So yes, we have a challenge. Yes, we have a problem. But problems are there to be solved, and we are addressing those problems. We have strategies to solve them in the short and long term as a mobilized defense industry.
And if there’s anything NATO Allies and our economies and societies have proved over decades, we are dynamic, adaptable, and can change when needed.
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And let me also add that having enough ammunition is also a big challenge for Russia.
So it just shows that this is a war of attrition, and the attrition war becomes a battle of logistics. We focus on the logistical part of the defense capacity, defense industry capacity to ramp up production.”
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As proven by Stoltenberg’s press conference, there should thus be no doubt that NATO is experiencing an unprecedented military-industrial crisis, which is responsible for reshaping its members’ narratives and overall strategy toward the Ukrainian Conflict.
This self-declared “race of logistics”, which he described as a “war of attrition”, first proves that the bloc wasn’t prepared to wage a prolonged proxy war against Russia; otherwise, they’d have preemptively retooled their military-industrial complexes accordingly.
The New York Times’ recent admission that the anti-Russian sanctions are a failure also suggests that NATO completely miscalculated by expecting Russia to collapse due to those restrictions, which didn’t happen.
These two factors add crucial context to why the Golden Billion’s “official narrative” about the Conflict so decisively shifted over the past month.
They can’t sustain the pace, scale, and scope of their armed assistance to Kiyv, especially not after their much-ballyhooed sanctions failed to catalyze Russia’s economic collapse or, at the very least, give their proxy an edge in this “race of logistics”/” war of attrition”.
As a result, they were forced to change how they presented this Conflict to their people.
Most tellingly, the Polish President didn’t rule out the scenario of Kiyv making territorial concessions to Russia in his recent interview with Le Figaro, which he said should solely be that country’s choice to make and not anti-war Republicans.
Even Stoltenberg let slip during his latest press conference that “we must continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to win. And to achieve a just and sustainable peace”, which also didn’t include his usual explicit condemnation of the territorial concession scenario.
That selfsame “just and sustainable peace”, according to the Jerusalem Post’s Dave Anderson, can be achieved by Kiyv finally giving up its territorial claims.
In his opinion piece about how “Ukraine can win against Russia by giving up land, not killing troops”, which was coincidentally published on the same day as Stoltenberg’s press conference, he argued that this swift resolution of Ukraine’s territorial disputes with Russia could result in its accelerated admission to NATO.
That outcome would thus sustainably ensure its security, representing a victory over Russia, according to Anderson’s view.
In the broader context of this analysis and, in particular, the interpretation of Stoltenberg’s remarks from his latest press conference, his article can thus be seen as the latest contribution to decisively shifting the “official narrative” about the Ukrainian Conflict in the direction of preconditioning the Western public to accept some “compromise” with Russia.
The reader should be reminded that all of this is occurring because of NATO’s military-industrial crisis hamstringing its members’ capabilities to sustain their bloc’s pace, scale, and scope of armed assistance to Kiyv.
Their “race of logistics”/”war of attrition” against Russia is trending toward Moscow’s favor after that Eurasian Great Power proved that it truly has the wherewithal to sustain the pace, scale, and scope of its special operation despite the Golden Billion’s unparalleled sanctions against it.
Suppose someone remained in denial about the existence of NATO’s military-industrial crisis despite Stoltenberg’s surprisingly candid admission on Monday.
In that case, they should also be made aware of Politico’s exclusive report published on the same day, reinforcing his claim.
Four unnamed US officials told this outlet that their country couldn’t send Kiev its requested “Army Tactical Missile Systems” (ATACMS) because “it doesn’t have any [of them] to spare”.
This revelation should thus serve as the proverbial “icing on the cake,” proving that NATO is in the midst of such a serious military-industrial crisis right now that its US leader itself can’t even afford to spare important munitions that could give its proxies in Kiev the edge that they so desperately need right now.
What’s so stunning about this strategic dynamic is that the combined military-industrial capabilities of the bloc’s two and a half dozen countries can’t compete with their single Russian adversary.
That insight shows just how mighty Russia’s military-industrial complex is and that it’s still capable of sustaining the same pace, scale, and scope of the ongoing special operation in Ukraine despite the sanctions against it.
At the same time, 30 Golden Billion countries can’t collectively do the same. Should its rumored full-scale offensive transpire, it’s likely to deal a death blow to NATO’s proxies due to Russia’s edge in this “race of logistics”/” war of attrition” and thus force them to cede their disputed regions finally.