Challenge of maintaining US ‘arsenal of democracy’

In a fundamental respect, the US administration has recalibrated, shifting to a new strategic heuristic. This is remarkable, both in general and given specific circumstances 

The United States and its NATO allies are playing a critical role in Eastern Europe, ensuring that the Ukrainian military remains well supplied, and the Ukrainian state economically functional. However, the US is no longer the “arsenal of democracy” it was in the 1940s, nor is it the industrial power it was until the 1980s.  

Russia, moreover, is not the only threat to American and allied interests. China poses an equal, if not greater, threat. As the Ukraine war settles into a long attritional phase, the US must ensure it has the capacity to support Kiev in its fight against Russian imperialism while maintaining the supplies to counter China in a future Pacific war.

In a fundamental respect, the US administration has recalibrated, shifting to a new strategic heuristic. This is remarkable, both in general and given specific circumstances.  

All policy stems from a worldview, a series of general assumptions about the nature of man and political interaction, and specific assumptions about political actors and their interest. Inertia drives the American policy establishment, particularly in foreign affairs.  

Biden and Ukraine

Joe Biden’s presidency has revealed him not as a great statesman, but rather as a reflexive anti-interventionist deeply skeptical of American power. This should shock no one, given his record on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and what we know of his role in the Obama administration.  

Similarly, the Biden team seemed unable to craft a coherent strategy. This is unsurprising, given Biden’s foreign-policy staff: With the exception of Lloyd Austin, until 2016 an army officer, all established themselves during the Obama years. 

One would have expected Biden to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as his Democratic predecessor did in 2014: Briefly admonish Russia rhetorically, impose token sanctions, and leave Ukraine to its fate. To its great credit, this is not what the Biden team has done. 

It prepared a sanctions package and pressured recalcitrant allies, namely Germany and France, to comply. It directed US intelligence to support Ukraine, increasing Ukrainian combat power. Most critically, since late 2021, the Biden administration, followed closely by the equally fragile Boris Johnson government in the UK, has poured military equipment into Ukraine.  

Initially it offered light systems like shoulder-launched anti-tank and anti-air missiles. Then it offered loitering munitions and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs). Then it agreed to the transfer of Soviet-era heavy equipment, particularly air defenses.  

Now, it provides Ukraine with NATO-grade field artillery and ammunition, counter-battery radars, older armored vehicles, and potentially anti-ship missiles.  

The Biden administration clearly remains conscious of the potential for escalation. But unlike six weeks ago, it no longer believes that expansive NATO military support to Ukraine will provoke a Russian nuclear response.  

Perhaps the US will green-light a MiG-29 sale soon, a measure that it publicly killed in early March. Moreover, the US is training Ukrainians to use their new systems. 

Clearly, a heuristic has shifted. The Biden administration no longer deems support for Ukraine inflammatory. Rather, it is morally and strategically critical.

The US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization provide Ukraine with crucial strategic depth. If Western aid continues, Ukraine will remain in the fight. Its expansive territory and the quality of its military still preclude a rapid Russian breakthrough. 

By arming Ukraine, and providing it economic support, the US and its allies have forced Russia to contend with a much more dangerous adversary than the Kremlin confronted in 2014 or expected to confront in February.

Western support must be sustained to be effective. The Ukraine war’s operational and strategic realities all point to an extended conflict, one that lasts at least until 2023, and perhaps longer. 

High-intensity ground combat will subside in several weeks once Russia’s offensive in the Donbas either stabilizes a new front line or is defeated by a Ukrainian counterattack. But Putin will not walk away. 

Ukraine will remain under constant military pressure over the summer, and Russia will return for another round of fighting in the fall or winter, after its most recent conscript class is trained and equipped, and perhaps after a general mobilization. American and allied support must continue, perhaps indefinitely, to ensure that Russia does not erode Ukrainian resistance over time and subjugate the country.

The Taiwan question

Does Biden’s policy shift stop at Ukraine? The US and its allies face an equally significant adversary that has not yet made its geopolitical move.  

The China question remains entirely unresolved. Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China (CPC) still eye Taiwan, hoping to absorb the “renegade province” much like Vladimir Putin sought to return Ukraine to Russia’s imperial sphere.  

Just as resolving the Ukraine question in Putin’s favor would solidify his legacy and secure his regime, resolving the Taiwan question in Xi’s favor would elevate him to Mao Zedong’s status. Moreover, Taiwan is strategically critical. 

More so than Ukraine toward Russia, its sovereign existence bars China’s guaranteed access to the World Ocean and gives the US and its allies a commanding position in the Western Pacific. In turn, Xi and the Party believe that the US and its allies will object to their imperial conquest for strategic and ideological reasons. A cross-Strait conflict carries every expectation of becoming a general war.

Xi is unlikely to make his move in the next nine months. Until October or November, the 20th Party Congress will be his undivided focus. It is the final opportunity hostile elements within the CPC possess to remove Xi from power.  

Supply stress

Chairman Xi may deem it more reasonable to capitalize on American inattention now than wait another five to seven years, risking a more coherent US-led coalition that opposes Chinese aggression, and a more effective American military that can defeat a PLA invasion.

Supporting Ukraine in a long war requires accessing American high-end weapons stocks, cultivated over years or decades. The US has sufficient stocks to sustain Ukraine for the next nine to 12 months. But inventories are declining.  

The US has already sent a third of its Javelin anti-tank missile stockpile to Ukraine – around 7,000 weapons, 5,500 of which were delivered after February 24 – and a quarter of its Stinger portable anti-air missile stockpile. Lockheed Martin’s facility in Troy, Alabama, that produces Javelins can make 2,100 a year. Raytheon has produced only a limited number of Stingers since 2000, when the Pentagon bought its final batch.  

The article first appeared on Asia Times