Conference – Ukraine scenarios with RUSI & Eastern Circles

Discussing Ukraine’s latest with Eastern Circles & RUSI on behalf of OPEWI (after two weeks of flu..). Couple of thoughts shared:

1/ Budgets are often better indicators than legal agreements or statements. For example, Russia spends around 8% of its GDP on defence while the European “war economy” average is 1,6%. The Western industrial (total) output remains greater than the Russia-China-Iran-North Korea bloc though according to World Bank data: $5500 bil. vs $3500 bil. Meaning that democracies still hold an untapped advantage.

2/ Drones, tech and air power are very useful but their value turns nil if a force loses its infantry. Macron’s “sending troops to Ukraine” comment is an indirect recognition of that obvious demographic parameter. Europeans need to decide where they want to engage Russia. Where and how. New military concepts more adapted to European realities are also needed, e.g. land battles in degraded contexts. I make the argument in this new paper for the Martens Centre: https://lnkd.in/dWjEv4zn

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