DEAD problem with air superiority

Russian war in Ukraine takaways for NATO military strategy against Russia

There is a new Prime Minister in Poland. In his expose he referred to the Russian attack on Ukraine: 

New Polish Prime Minister on Ukraine 

With concerns growing in Kyiv about its Western allies' commitment to funding its defence against Russia's invasion, Tusk said Poland would advocate for continued support. "We will ... loudly and decisively demand the full mobilisation of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war," he said.

We do hope that it is actually the case. But we do have our memory and we do have knowledge based on the declassified files from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the first term of Donald TUSK. He was the Polish Prime Minister once and according to his new - old Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski it was back in 2008 when Tusk was offered by Putin taking part in the partition of Ukraine. Radek SIkorski shared this story years ago with Politico.com. We described it in our Reset Series: 

Sikorski on Putin’s proposal of Ukraine partition in 2008

Russia has attempted to involve Poland in the invasion of Ukraine, just as if it were a post-modern re-run of the historic partitions of Poland. “He wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine,” says Sikorski. “Putin wants Poland to commit troops to Ukraine. These were the signals they sent us. … We have known how they think for years. We have known this is what they think for years. This was one of the first things that Putin said to my prime minister, Donald Tusk, [soon to be President of the European Council] when he visited Moscow. He went on to say Ukraine is an artificial country and that Lwow is a Polish city and why don’t we just sort it out together. Luckily Tusk didn’t answer. He knew he was being recorded.”

Sikorski revealed this few weeks after he was fired from the Foreign Ministry.He withdrew from those statements after a storm in Polish media. He did however leave a strange passage about the controversial proposals from Putin in his own memo from that meeting. The Politico interview about the 2008 Tusk’s visit to Mosow was published almost 8 months after Russia invaded Crimea. Yet for all those years between the 2008 visit and Crimea annexation the Polish Prime Minister Donald TUSK was building a strategic partnership with Russia. The price that Poland paid for this policy was energy addiction from Russian gas and oil. 

Despite the fact that I do have my own critical assessment of Tusk’s policies, I truly hope that the circumstances and the global wartime reality changed the new Polish Prime Minister’s attitude toward Russia and Ukraine. 

Russia attacks on the East bank of Dnipro 

According to the Institute for Study of War the situation in the area is typical for last months of fighting in the region: „Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces consolidated positions in an area south of Krynky and that Ukrainian forces took advantage of poor weather to transport 30-50 personnel to the east bank. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced in Krynky after conducting airstrikes against Ukrainian positions. Another milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces maintain positions near the Antonivsky road bridge north of Oleshky”

As the front lane is barely moving with territorial gains counted in hundreds of metres or single kilometers, in the best case, the geopolitical discussions take place in Washington or Wladimir Zielinski is talking to Joe Biden:

Zelenski meets Biden

Mr. Biden is hoping Mr. Zelensky will not only sway members of Congress to pass a $110.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes aid for Ukraine but will also reiterate the importance of defending against Russia’s aggression. The visit comes a week after Republicans blocked the package, putting any future financial assistance for Ukraine in doubt.

The war, as it will soon enter, it’s third year of this phase - keep in mind that it really lasts since 2014, which is going to be 10 years in total next year we have more and the more professional experts who are drawing conclusions not only for Ukraine, but for NATO member states as well. One of this kind of texts was published week ago by Royal United service Institute expert Profesor Justin Bronk. 

He claims that on a strategic level, NATO states should be prepared, that when China moves against Taiwan, Russia will hit NATO member states at the same time: 

RUSI: Professor Bronc

"In the event of a clash with China in the Indo-Pacific that removes the capacity for large-scale US military reinforcement and support elsewhere, Europe will be left vulnerable to concurrent military aggression by Russia."

As we read in the text the end US military involvement is and that’s a quote, only likely scenario of direct Russian attack against NATO”:

"The only likely scenario in which Russia might directly attack a European NATO country is during a concurrent standoff or actual conflict that leaves US forces largely fixed in the Indo-Pacific."

The Russian style war of attrition is a strategy aimed not only to exploit Ukrainian weaknesses, but it is a way of challenging NATO, US and the whole collective west:

"Russia is settling down for a long war, aiming to grind down Ukraine and exhaust the capacity and will of its Western supporters... This would not be such a serious risk were it not for the fact that the US military is increasingly facing a threat that it cannot overmatch from Chinese forces in the Indo-Pacific.")

Profesor Bronc argues that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine showed the level of European states and preparedness for a serious military engagement in Europe. An obvious threat that comes from Russia:

"Without major increases in European defence production and a focus on reorganising and training militaries to credibly roll back any future Russian aggression against Alliance territory, Russia will regenerate a capacity to directly threaten NATO faster than most political or even military planners appear to realise."

As we read in the paper -  the only solution that we are actually facing, but no one is ready to admit it on the political level -  is to urgently increase European and western military, industrial capabilities. We simply need urgent, military investments, 

"To deter this concurrent threat, European countries – including the UK – must urgently invest in significantly increasing production capacity for the artillery ammunition, spare parts and air defence missiles required to keep Ukraine in the fight while also refilling their own dangerously depleted stockpiles

But even that will not solve the problem. As the same author wrote almost a year ago in another article, summarizing, the first year of the Russian war against Ukraine, the western idea of building massive airspace superiority over potential enemy, Russia. is not that obvious as we would like to think. Listen to this:

DEAD

"The third major area of concern is that no European NATO air forces currently have sufficient expertise or the required munitions stocks to conduct suppression and destruction of enemy air defences (SEAD/DEAD) at scale.")

What are SEAD/DEAD capabilities?  Well it refers to the military capabilities focused on "Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses" (SEAD) and "Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses" (DEAD). These capabilities involve neutralizing, destroying, or temporarily degrading the enemy's surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and other air defense measures. The author claims that Europe is lacking needed capabilities in that regard here is a quote:

Europe’s air superiority problem

The lethality of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems on both sides in Ukraine is a vivid reminder of the consequences of an inability to conduct SEAD/DEAD at scale” (…) Without such capacity [SEAD/DEAD], European NATO air forces cannot credibly achieve and exploit control of the air over a battlefield contested by Russian forces or even by near-peers such as Iran

Justin Bronc in his text, published almost a year ago, concludes that what we need. Maybe a total red definition of the way we as a NATO member states think about our security. It’s not the air superiority in the first place, it's good if we have it.  But first of all those are classic ground capabilities that we should rebuild, and this: 

would require a total redesign of NATO’s joint forces towards a force that relies on massed artillery, armour and infantry as the core of its fighting power, rather than air-delivered firepower. That alternative implies demographic, political and financial costs that far outstrip the costs of regenerating warfighting credibility for NATO air forces.

But all of this won’t matter if we as a west will lack the will…  

Political will of resisting evil.