While US aid to Ukraine has been restored, there will be continuing consequences from the US’s failure to send promised aid in a timely manner. Receiving the aid 6 months late doesn’t mean Ukraine is all set going forward and the negative impacts are done. Wars are not fought on an excel sheet with resources averaged out over time making everything equal. There is a timeliness to combat that can not be ignored and can not easily be fixed after the fact.
First and most importantly, there were lives lost in the past 6 months we can never get back. I think it may be difficult for some folks unfamiliar with military matters to understand how an artillery shell can save lives, so we’ll start with the easier case of air defense and work from there. With air defense, every missile that makes it through means death and destruction. Due to Russia’s targeting of civilians, it means dead mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, kids, grandparents, and more. These are people Ukraine will never get back because we didn’t send them enough resources when it was needed. In addition to the deaths, there are buildings that now need resources to be rebuilt that could have been spent elsewhere. There are power grids that need fixing instead of Ukraine spending those resources on people and fighting the war. Every missile that got through due to lack of ammunition has left permanent holes in people’s lives and well being. This is something that most people probably understand.
At the front, things get even more complicated. Defenses have multiple components such as the infantry, trenches, large artillery, smaller mortars, drones, observation (of different sorts), infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, anti-tank missiles and so on. Each one of those is far more effective when everything else is in place, coordinated, and has plenty of ammo and supplies. When something is missing, not only is the missing piece subtracted from the overall effectiveness, each other aspect loses effectiveness because now other people and resources need to stretch out of their optimal role to cover whatever the missing elements were supposed to cover. If proper observation is missing, troops are more likely to be surprised. If anti-tank missiles are missing, it becomes far more difficult to destroy enemy vehicles. If artillery is missing, then infantry has to fight more enemies when the enemy gets to the line. Every round, every vehicle, every supply of every sort that should have been there but wasn’t means every other part of the Ukrainian defense was less effective IN ADDITION to the loss of whatever was missing.
But we’re not done with the problems. Military operations revolve around anticipation of getting certain supplies at a certain time. This is true even in well supplied armies. There are only so many bullets a soldier can carry. There are only so many rounds that can be loaded into a tank. Every person and system at some point needs to go back to a logistics point to resupply or have what they need brought up to them. And combat operations are designed around this.
For example, the plan is for Bravo Company to take hill XYZ by nightfall and at nightfall a truck will arrive with more ammo. Bravo Company then proceeds to use plenty of coverfire to suppress the enemy and take the hill. Bravo Company has done well and minimized casualties in taking the hill due to proper suppression techniques, but they used up a lot of ammo. Unfortunately the supply truck doesn’t arrive at nightfall. Instead, the enemy counterattacks and because Bravo Company is low on ammo, they get beaten back with many KIA and MIA. If Bravo Company had instead been more conservative with their ammo on the initial assault (perhaps suspecting the supply truck wouldn’t arrive), they would have taken more casualties but they also would have had enough left to repel the counterattack and not lost as many soldiers overall. If the company can rely on the resupply, they can operate more safely but only if their teammates in the supply truck come through. Soldiers who can count on their fellow soldiers to come through can accomplish more themselves.
Soldiers who can’t count on support and backup take fewer chances, capitalize on fewer opportunities, and are more likely to be left in a vulnerable place. Bravo Company is taking the next hill now. They learned their lesson that supply is iffy, but command has promised them on-call artillery support. Bravo Company takes the new hill, and identifies an enemy formation out in the open. The Captain calls in for the artillery mission but gets told the shells that were supposed to have been used in support of Bravo Company just got used in a critical defense situation somewhere else nearby. The guns are available, but with nothing to put in them Bravo Company is once again left hanging. Bravo company chooses not to attack the enemy in the open because without backup the commander doesn’t want to risk another engagement. If instead of running dry that artillery unit had had plenty artillery to run both fire missions, Bravo Company could have taken advantage of an out of position enemy. Instead that enemy moves to a new location and attacks Bravo company latter in the day from a far better vantage point. Because not enough ammo was available for both fire missions, more Ukrainians are dead and more Russians remain alive to keep attacking.
These scenarios work on a larger scale. Ukraine went on the offensive in the summer of 2023 because they knew the US had their back and would keep supplies coming. Ukraine was encouraged to use proper superior firepower techniques and used copious amounts of ammo to suppress the enemy the best they could. Unfortunately things didn’t turn out well and the Russians didn’t break. Ukraine was already running out of offensive steam (culminating) and needing to go on the defensive just as the US aid disappeared almost overnight. So instead of not attacking and saving resources all summer knowing they needed to stretch supplies out, they used up critical supplies right before they were needed the most and the promised resupply didn’t happen for another 6 months.
So now put yourself in Ukraine’s place. They are getting supplies again, but for how long? Depending upon the results of the US election, this recent aid bill may be the last. So Ukraine will have “enough” to get by (hopefully) in the next few months. But from now until November, Ukraine will NOT be able to use all these resources in a timely manner. The US is not trustworthy. Ukraine HAS to continue to keep saving what resources they just got and use them at a far more stingy rate than if they could rely on the US. If they could rely on the US, they could burn through them all knowing the US would send the next bunch whenever the agreed upon timing happened.
So this means in the near future that in a supply depot far from the front there may a large amount of artillery shells. But units at the front may never see these shells for fear of them running out again. Ukrainian leadership will have to try and estimate what’s the smallest amount of ammo they can spend and not lose too much effectiveness. So some poor unit on the front will be asking for artillery support to take advantage of an opportunity, and be denied that support even though somewhere in Ukraine there are plenty of shells. And as crappy as it will be for that front line unit, that decision will be the best one for Ukraine’s larger needs. Because Ukraine can no longer trust the US. Even though the aid is flowing right now, Ukrainians will CONTINUE to die because of our broken trust.
I previously addressed how the aid we just sent will need to be increased significant’y in future aid packages if we wish to properly support Ukraine with the goal of winning. Perun’s video released over the weekend shows much the same. Now because of this delay we will need to give Ukraine even more supplies before they will be willing to go on the offensive and rightly so. We will continue to need to give them far more than they need in-the-moment until such time as we can be shown to be trustworthy.
And before you get on your high horse about how evil Republicans are, they are not solely to blame. They are mostly to blame, but not entirely. From the start the US has taken a businesslike “just-in-time” approach to US aid. Initial aid in small chunks perhaps made sense when military planners expected a quick Russian win and there would be no sense in gifting Russia more material. However, past April 2022, US aid should have been building up far quicker.
Even before Ukrainian air defense was improved to the point of being able to safely store such aid, we should have transferred ownership to Ukraine and stored it on their behalf in Poland until such time it was needed. Obviously many items were still in production or acquisition and so could not have been provided. But even then, had Democrats written aid bills extending for larger periods of time we would not have had this 6 month interruption. Congress frequently writes bills with effects going many years into the future. This latest bill has provisions lasting until 2026. And don’t tell me this was unexpected. I remember quite a number of people worrying about this exact scenario and to my own shame I was one of the people ignoring the concern.
There was zero need from a utilitarian perspective to ending aid in October of 2023. Perhaps there were political limitations. But even so, the funding that expired in October of 2023 included lend-lease provisions that were never used. I applaud President Biden for not wanting to sink Ukraine in debt, but that’s a resource that’s now gone and may never come again. I’m pretty sure Ukraine would rather be paying us back for 80 years and continue to exist than succumbing to Russia because we chose not use a tool that is no longer available.
Ukraine will continue to need support and far more of it than we are currently giving. We have failed Ukraine in a deep and pervasive way. Just because the shipments have started again doesn’t make everything good. We encouraged dangerous courses of action with promises of support we couldn’t keep. The support we have given is considerable, but unfortunately insufficient. We can’t sit back thinking everything is okay. We can’t assume a second term for Biden solves everything. Until aid bills get written and passed which extend to Ukraine the amount of resources that are required to win this war, we are at best stringing them along. Which is better than nothing. But we need to do far, far better.