Putin's Shakeup--Looking To A Future Of Conflict?

I found two items this morning that likely provide some insight into the future of Russia’s relations to the West. It appears likely that Putin sees a future of conflict—whether that conflict will be diplomatic, economic, or military will depend on the American Empire. The Russians fear that the West may seriously opt for actual military conflict in a last ditch effort to preserve their hegemony:

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil

@ivan_8848

West considering large-scale conflict – Russian spy chief

Some Westerns consider large-scale military conflict possible — intelligence service

According to Sergey Naryshkin, "this could happen if the so-called Western bloc considers it, firstly, profitable for itself and, secondly, sufficiently safe"

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Some Western politicians consider unleashing of a large-scale military conflict possible, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) together with its partners is closely monitoring the situation, Sergey Naryshkin, a candidate for the post of SVR Director, said.

"According to the information available to the service, a part of European and American politicians actually considers it possible to unleash a large-scale military conflict in order to preserve their hegemony," he said at a plenary session of the Federation Council, where consultations on his reappointment to the post are being finalized. According to him, "this could happen if the so-called Western bloc considers it, firstly, profitable for itself and, secondly, sufficiently safe."

Naryshkin pointed out that "the Russian Foreign Intelligence, together with partner intelligence services, intelligence agencies, is very closely monitoring the development of the situation in this area."

4:55 PM · May 14, 2024

On the one hand Naryshkin’s words reflect a pretty standard prudential approach to intelligence gathering. On the other hand, this assessment of the dynamics behind the appointment of the new Russian Minister of Defense suggests that Russia is legitimately apprehensive and determined to be ready for “next time”, not to be caught flat footed. Patricia Marins explains what mistakes have been made in preparing for a long war, both by Russia and—much more so—by the West:

Patricia Marins @pati_marins64

The Russian focus:

Planning, innovation and logistics.

More than one year ago, I reported on the restructuring of the Russian arms industry and the plans to solve its bottlenecks. Interestingly, others, including important think tanks, were talking about the collapse of the Russian industry, showing a total lack of knowledge about what was really happening behind the front lines.

Now, Andrey Belousov has taken over as the new Russian Defense Minister. Why appoint a civilian economist as Defense Minister during a war? Precisely because he can't be considered just a civilian economist.

He was responsible for innovation sectors connected to the Russian military industry, such as integrative AI controls, hypersonic vehicles, among other technologies.

Over the last 18 months, the Russians have been investing in the modernization and expansion of their military industry. Today, every Russian tractor factory is involved in military production, while ammunition production in research institutes has grown substantially, indicating a necessary integration of these structures into the military chains.

We can probably call this a silent transition to a war economy, which demands a different kind of leader for these projects.

We are talking about someone capable of reallocating budgets to support new military production lines, such as engines, repair plants, and civilian structures, as well as integrating logistics and, most importantly, fostering innovation.

We can expect an increase in new technologies like drones, electronic warfare (EW), and smart bombs. It's not just about a long war, but about improving the efficiency of the supply chains and incorporating innovation.

The main question for me is this: if I was able to predict the Russians rebuilding their industries and increasing their investment, why did several Western politicians and military leaders ignore this fact?

While the Russians worked to expand their production lines and keep their costs acceptable, Western companies employed a different strategy. Some Western companies made massive acquisitions but also significantly increased their production costs aiming high gains from govt orders.

Recently, the Rheinmetall CEO said that he is ready to receive new orders for ammunition. However, he didn't mention the costs and delivery time.

While the Russians worked to establish sustainable supply chains to win the war, the West relied on companies that are literally extorting the governments. The costs of weapons for Ukraine are unsustainable, and I am referring to ammunition, vehicles and other items.

The only good news in this field is the American Bradley vehicles, which can be sent to Ukraine at a low cost and in high numbers.

Clearly, there are two different models at play: one that aims for high profits from the war, and another that, despite all criticism, is working to win the war.

Several mistakes have been made, and it would require a colossal effort to change the balance of this war—something I don't believe is going to happen.

10:02 AM · May 15, 2024

In this next post Marins gets into some interesting details. Her language is Portuguese and the English translation for this post is a bit rough at spots. I’ve left it as is rather than correcting it—it should still be clear enough. The post is really quite fascinating because Marins basically points out that Russia was unprepared for this war, but had the know how to get the job done in the industrial sector. This major turnaround has to have been thanks to Shoigu’s efforts, to a significant extent. Belousov will be looking to take Russia’ MIC to the next level.

Marins also points out that the West made two major mistakes. 1) Attritional warfare played to Russia’s strengths, even taking into account the initially poor condition of the Russian MIC. 2) Russia didn’t initially target the Ukrainian defense industry—possibly out of a desire to avoid destroying Ukraine—but, instead of relocating Ukrainian factories to safe havens in the West, the West simply switched over to supplying Ukraine with Western “stuff”. The Russians caught on and have now targeted Ukrainian industry. IMO, the Western mistake was probably driven by the greed of the Western MIC. The consequences for Ukraine, dire as they have proven to be, would have been even worse but for the legacy Soviet era factories in Eastern Europe. The West’s capacity was a joke at best.

Patricia Marins @pati_marins64

More money, limited manufacture and a limited arsenal.

While this war has served as a catalyst for significant changes in the Russian military industry, boutique weapons still persist in the West.

The necessary transformations required to develop a robust Western defense system have not materialized, and the reliance on expensive boutique weaponry continues to burden western taxpayers, specially the Europeans.

Although there have been some initiatives to expand the production of vehicles like Patria and Boxers, with the establishment of a few new factories, the defense sector as a whole lacks a comprehensive industrial defense plan.

The costs:

It is understandable that certain vehicles may cost 70% more when produced in US/Europe due several questions, but it is unacceptable for a guided shell to be priced 8 times higher than its equivalent in other countries. It is even more shocking to witness a guided shell costing 200-250 times more than a conventional one.

Recently, Rheinmetall planned to sell the 4x4 Caracal for over $600,000 to the German government under the Ukr AID package. The company has an order for 3,058 vehicles worth €1.9 billion euros. The Rheinmetall 4x4 vehicle costs more than 2 HMMWVs and more than the Maxx Pro or the Korean KMRap, much more complex vehicles.

This Rheinmetall product illustrates exactly why some countries have a high military budget but lack large manufacturers or warfare capacity.

It's a good example of how arms companies have specialized in draining defense resources.

In Jun of this year, Germany had only 20.000 shells in their stockpiles, despite the large defense budget.

The truth is that the western industrial complex more based in maximize profits, was easy prey into a attrition war, falling into the Russian trap.

This was the main mistake of this war: The western accept an attrition warfare in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, there have been minimal changes to the Western military complex, as it continues to lobby for increased budgets.

These persistent issues can be attributed to a high concentration of players and successive mergers that drive up prices.

This became a serious question for western leaders, specially in actual times.

Either the European industry must enhance its competitiveness, or South Korean companies will likely surpass the entire European market. While Western companies may attempt to restrict the market or acquire South Korean companies.

Rostec:

In contrast, just four years ago, more than 80% of the Russian military-industrial complex was undergoing bankruptcy proceedings. However, following the Ukrainian invasion, Russian military facilities received substantial investments of $12-15 billion.

These investments have enabled Russian factories to strengthen their capacity for attrition warfare, even with some serious bottlenecks, while maintaining innovation through the establishment of new facilities for drones and local semiconductors.

The prevalent issue of corruption, often cited as a primary problem, is partially being offset by increased investments. Nonetheless, corruption continues to persist to some extent.

(Muita gente enriqueceu com essa guerra na Rússia, mas também no ocidente - Many people in Russia are getting rich from this war, and even more in the West.)

Actual bottleneck:

The current major bottleneck in the Russian military industry lies in barrel production, but this challenge is expected to be resolved soon. The Motoviilikha factory is undergoing significant expansion, which will triple its barrel production capacity within a few months.

Initially they were dependent of gfm steyr forging machine, but now there are Chinese conpetitors and, also someone countries who did reverse engineering on the GFM Steyr equipment.

Obviously Russia still faces numerous challenges in 2022, but efforts are underway to overcome each of them gradually.

As I previously mentioned, it seems that the Western world has awakened a dormant powerhouse in Russia. Companies like Uralvagonzavod, Kurganmashzavod, Omsktransmash, Volgograd, among others, are far from the Medvedev production numbers, but are producing substantially more than in previous years.

Ukrainian industry:

Now, turning to the Ukrainian industry, during the initial months of the war, few Ukrainian factories were targeted and bombed by the Russians, lefting most of the Ukr industrial capacity intact and with enough time to be transfered to other countries. The Russian objective was to seize major Ukrainian factories.

Despite having time to relocate factories to other countries, the Western allies and the Ukrainian government decided to abandon their military infrastructure and fully transition to Western suppliers.

However, this decision came with a steep price throughout the course of the war.

Some underground facilities in specific factories were not fully functional due to poor planning, but determined managers were able to maintain basic operations for months.

improvements:

Regarding the ongoing war, it is likely that Russia emerge much stronger than before after 20 months of conflict, but with significant debits.

However, it is disheartening to observe a lack of acknowledgment and discussions among Europeans about their failures and opportunities for improvement.

Despite continuous discussions about increasing military expenditures, it is evident that this is not the primary cause of the issues they are facing in Ukraine.

It is necessary to have debates about monopolies and trusts within the defense sector, just as they do about other areas.

However, extending competitiveness in this sector continues to be seen as a taboo for many countries. In some cases the government just sponsor the monopolies and trusts, transfering money from taxpayers to arm companies.

*After several announces of raising the production, the western industry wasn't able to supply Ukraine with 1 million shells and the Ukrainian Artillery is now firing just 10-15 rounds day per piece.

(5-8% of what they were firing one year ago.)

And of they reach something near 800.000 shells, thanks for Czechia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, who produced 70% of that.

9:20 AM · Nov 15, 2023

Conclusion: Russia is well on its way to establishing a functioning war economy, while the West lags far behind and shows no inclination to remedy its MIC problems. In a long war of attrition, both military and economic, Putin’s Russia is surging ahead.