The $61 billion in in military aid that the US Congress voted for Ukraine this week is in the nick of time. The Ukrainians were literally running out of bullets to hold back the Russian steamroller.
But war is expensive. How much bang can the Ukrainians get for their American bucks?
Let’s start with the workhorse of the battlefield – the humble 155 mm artillery shell and the Howitzers that fire them. For the past few months a steady stream of shells from North Korean and Russian munitions factories has meant that the Russians have been lobbing five times as many shells into the Ukrainian frontline than the Ukrainians have into the Russian.
It has been working. The Russians have gradually pushed forward all the way along the 620-mile front and have captured the town of Aadvika. But the release of the American aid means that the Ukrainians can now start firing back at an anticipated rate of 8,000 shells a day.
Each basic 155mm shell costs $3,000. The all-singing, all dancing precision-guided variety can set you back as much as $130,000 a shell. The Anglo-American built howitzer that fires them costs $4 million.
The howitzers have a range of up to 20 miles, which puts them near the front and in harm’s way. The popular HIMARS (the acronym for America’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) is deadly accurate up to 186 miles. This means its mobile launcher (cost $20 million each) can be fired from relative safety. But make each shot count. The missiles cost $434,000 each.
NATO has been reluctant to provide F-16 fighter jets (price $50 million plus approximately $4 million for each air-launched cruise missile). But the Americans have given the Ukrainians thousands of Avevex Phoenix ghost drones at $60,000 a drone. These can be used for reconnaissance or to carry a high explosive on suicide missions.
Ukraine has been pressing for fighter aircraft because they can be used to defend against the increasing and crippling Russian attacks on the country’s infrastructure. But there are other means, including: the Patriot missile defense system and the shoulder-launched Stinger missiles.
The former is a complex and box-like missile system which can detect, track and destroy missiles, drones, and planes. It is a powerful air defense weapon and the price tag proves it – $1.09 billion for the unit and $4 million for each missile fired. Worldwide, there are 250 launchers in 18 countries, including Ukraine. The Patriot ground to air missile system has many billions of dollars for its American manufacturer Raytheon Missile and Defense.
The Patriot missiles have a range of 60 miles and are mounted on a specially-built lorry so that they can be constantly moved. They are therefore difficult for the enemy to locate and destroy. The shoulder-launched Stinger is an anti-aircraft ground to air battlefield weapon. It has a range of two to three miles and is effective against helicopters and attack drones.
The war in the skies is important, as are the naval battles in the Black Sea. But in the end wars are won by boots on the ground and leading the men wearing the boots are tanks. The Russians have on the one hand enjoyed a clear superiority in tank numbers, but they have also suffered severe losses. At the end of February, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, estimated that Moscow had lost 8,800 tanks and armoured vehicles. Almost all of them were destroyed by shoulder-held Javelin anti-tank weapons. A Javelin launcher costs $200,000 and each missile is $400.
The Ukrainian tank force is much smaller and President Zelensky would love to obtain more American M1 tanks, German Leopard and British Challengers. The problem is that the NATO countries do not have a large stock of tanks, plus it takes time to build the tanks and they lag behind Moscow in their armaments industries. A tank will set you back roughly $20 million.
Putin has increased defence spending to 7.5 percent of GDP. The factories are turning out more than 1,500 tanks a year. Russia’s shell production is 5 million a year and another million are being provided by North Korea. In the past year, 520,000 new jobs have been created in the Russian defense industries and the armaments factories are operating 24 hours a day. 3.5 million Russians are currently employed in the death business and the Russian military-industrial complex is on the verge of overtaking the energy industry as Russia’s prime economic growth engine.
One of the main reasons that Moscow lost the Cold War was Mikhail Gorbachev’s failure to improve Soviet living standards while at the same time matching the US on defense spending. President Ronald Reagan exploited America’s greater economic resilience by increasing US defense spending from 4.94 percent in 1978 to 6.63 percent of GDP in 1986. But in 1980, the public was inured to increased defence spending by 30-odd Cold War years. Now we have had 30-odd years of peace dividend and the move from welfare to warfare state will be a difficult pill for democracies to swallow.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".
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12 Comments
I must agree. War is expensive to the young men and families.
Destruction of commerce and facilities. Both long term and short term.
I was born at the end of the last war and remember as a child how housing was in short supply.
Cheap labour removes the trained doctors and nurses from areas of the world that need them. I seen recently how the claiming back of dessert land is becoming a success.
‘The move from welfare to warfare state will be a difficult pill for democracies to swallow. Too true”. I blame Boris Johnson.
According to OR Books War in Ukraine: ‘When Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kyiv on April 9, 2022, Ukraine media reported that he told Zelenskyy to stop talking to the Russian and concentrate on defeating them militarily and assured Zelenskyy that the UK was “in it for the long run.” Ukrayinska Pravda said that Johnson told Zelenskyy the UK would not be party to any agreement between the Ukraine and Putin and that “the collective West” saw a chance to “press” Putin and wanted to make the most of it.’
On June 14, 2021, Boris Johnson said: the deployment of the HMS Defender in Crimean waters was “wholly appropriate. It was entirely right that we should vindicate the law and pursue freedom of navigation in the way that we did”.
On July 12, 2021, Putin responding argued for the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.
On December 26, 2022, the Guardian reported: Ukraine is aiming to hold a peace summit by the end of February – preferably at the UN, with its secretary general, António Guterres, as a possible mediator.
On January 24, 2023, Boris Johnson said: “Ukraine must join NATO for sake of long-term peace.” Ukraine in NATO is Russia’s red line.
With new weapons hopefully stopping a Russian advance, NOW is the time to start talking with the Russians about an end to the war.
If the most the Ukrainians are able to achieve with all the Billions of aid they are getting is the ability to slow the rate of Russian advance, it will not be long until voters begin to conclude that continuing to provide Billions merely prolongs the war and adds to the number of Ukrainians who will die in the conflict, but without altering the eventual outcome.
The main expense of a war is in the loss of human lives.
There was widespread thinking at the start of WW1 that the war couldn’t possibly last more than a few months because governments simply would run out of money. No doubt similar calculations, at the time, on the relative cost of shells and other war materials would have “conclusively” shown this to be the case.
And yet living standards rose afterwards – at least until the crash of ’29 and the 30’s depression struck. It was an even better story after WW2. The increased debts that were incurred to fight it didn’t turn out to be quite the problem many would have predicted. The standard of living in the USA actually increased dramatically during the war itself. Americans didn’t have to wait for it to finish to see an improvement.
If only we could figure out how to get the economic benefits of a war without actually fighting one!
The main purposes of war are for a/the few to make lots of money from the many and for the/a few to control the many by weakening them through persuading and forcing their older children to kill each other.
Please see “The Great Class War 1914-18” by Jacques Pauwels who also wrote the no less analytically accurate “The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War”.
@ Peter Martin “And yet living standards rose afterwards – at least until the crash of ’29 and the 30’s depression struck.”….. I’m afraid not, Mr. Martin. I’d be interested to know your source for that, and also I note you fail to mention Churchill and the return to the Gold Standard.
My understanding is that during the brief recession at the end of WW1, unemployment climbed to 23.4% in May, 1921. It never fully recovered and remained over 10% in almost every month of the 1920’s.
According to Nicholas Crafts in his article, “Walking wounded: The British economy in the aftermath of World War”, 27 Aug 2014,
“It is well-known that World War I was expensive for Britain. The indirect economic costs were also huge. This column argues that the adverse implications of the Great War for post-war unemployment and trade – together with the legacy of a greatly increased national debt – significantly reduced the level of real GDP throughout the 1920s. A ballpark calculation suggests the loss of GDP during this period roughly doubled the total costs of the war to Britain”.
Crafts is Professor of Economics and Economic History at the University Of Warwick, and on a more personal level what you describe was far from the experience of my Durham miner Grandfather and his family throughout the 1920’s.
@ David,
I was including America in my comments too. However, it’s difficult to cover everything in a comment which is limited to 250 words. But you’re right that there was no “roaring 20s” in the UK. Prof Crofts argues that high unemployment was an indirect cost of the WW1 debt. So why didn’t we have high unemployment in the immediate aftermath of WW2 when the debt as a % of GDP was even higher ? His argument clearly ignores the evidence of history. The real reason was the faulty economics as pursued by the reactionary governments of the time.
As I indicated in my original comment, progress was better after WW2. So the question is: Were living standards higher in the 1960s than they would have been had we not had two world wars earlier in the century? Would we have had full employment, the NHS and the general expansion in higher education? Or would we have been still tugging our forelocks when speaking to our supposed betters?
What came afterwards is another story of course.
The conversion to an oil based economy following the decline of coal probably had more to do with growth in the 30 years after ww2 than the effects of the war
There are many results from any war. Of course if more weapons are produced this is helpful for those producing them.
To me the most vivid memories of the last war were the number of children in orphanages. The first school had a large number of children from a local orphanage, all dressed the same and escorted to school, and escorted to school. This was true at the school my parents moved me to. We know that the results for looked after children are very poor. We know this because the figures are collated and available. The question is how many children are being affected by the present wars and how the rest of us can help.
I seem to remember a WW2 communication in USA along the lines of:
President: “Could you build tanks instead of cars?”
Car manufacturer: “Sure, and I’d charge you top dollar.”
President: “No, you wouldn’t. There is a law to prevent that.”
Of course, USA is not at war with Russia, so that law probably doesn’t apply. The munitions manufacturers are free to rip off the customer.
“Each basic 155mm shell costs $3,000.” Really?
John Waller – I am not sure why you are blaming Boris Johnson regarding the peace talks. Interestingly, this is a narrative the Kremlin has repeatedly pushed (Johnson scuppering the peace talks). It is quite amusing how Russia has such an obsession with the UK, for example, blaming the UK for every negative thing occuring in Russia, i.e. the recent theatre terrorist attack.
Re the peace talks – It is not surpring Western allies were unable to provide security assurances when Russia is so untrustworthy. Additionally, at the time of the talks the Bucha massacre was uncovered, along with Ukrainian public opinion being firmly against any terroritorial concessions.
War is expensive in materials, people, the environment and culturally. It is an act of last resort. if we had more powerful global institutions the prospects for peace would be improved.