Beginner's guide to sending weapons to Ukraine.
How to be less dumb about sending lethal aid to Ukraine.
Are you a journalist who wants to ensure those in power are doing everything they can to assist Ukraine ?
Are you a pundit who wants to provide meaningful commentary on cable news about a topic that is guarantees ratings ?
Are you a random Twitter personality (like me) who wants to do their part to help Ukraine ?
You’re in luck ! This guide is for you. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things you can do to achieve your goal of signaling that you want your government to do more to help Ukraine.
Option 1 : Just be dumb about it.
This option is by far the easiest to implement, since it basically requires you to have a cartoon character level understanding of Foreign Policy and International Relations.
In case you didn’t play that: a reporter for ABC news asked President Biden whether he was “too quick to rule out World War III” thus emboldening Vladimir Putin.
Biden answered “No and No” - which is 100% correct, by the way.
Option 2 : Reach for stuff that you vaguely remember worked in the past.
So you’ve decided to put a tiny bit more effort into your advocacy.
Past performance is a good indicator of future performance, so it stands to reason that you should look at things that worked in the past. Surely they can work in this case as well, right ?
Case in point : No-Fly Zone, Mig-29s from Poland, Tanks and (possibly in the future) Nuclear Deterrence.
No-Fly-Zone. As we can vaguely remember doing in Iraq.
It’s dumb because: Situation is very different in Ukraine (this will be a common thread here, buckle up).
The NFZ over Iraq was put in place after the first Gulf war. For those too young or too old to remember. The First Gulf war started with an air campaign that lasted 43 days that systematically degraded the Iraqi Air Force, SAM sites and other air defenses.
The U.S. and its allies flew more than 116,000 combat air sorties and dropped 88,500 tons of bombs over a six-week period that preceded the ground campaign.
Mind you, not all of those sorties and not all of those bombs were sent towards Iraqi air defenses, but that should give you an idea about how complex it was to degrade the anti air capabilities of Iraq, before a NFZ could be implemented.
Russia has a much larger air force, embeds air defense in their BTGs and is a nuclear power. What could possibly go wrong?
Give the Ukrainians MiG-29s, A10s, Tanks etc. Similar to Lend-Lease in WWII.
It’s dumb because : Situation is very different in Ukraine.
First thing that’s different is War itself. Lend-Lease lasted 4 years. A war with the intensity that we’ve been seeing for the past month in Ukraine will not last that long (the war might last longer, but not the intensity).
Second is that tanks or planes are not useful by themselves. They need to be used particular ways in order to achieve particular goals and need to be provided with particular support in order to be effective. Planes will get torn to pieces by air defense and tank formations are vulnerable to indirect fire (as the Russians have recently learned the hard way).
And third, these types of complex military assets are very resource intensive. Well trained crews, specialized munitions, support troops, maintenance, fuel, airfields etc. All of these are at a premium in Ukraine right now (if they are available at all).
Give the Ukrainians nuclear deterrent. NATO won’t attack Putin because he has nukes, so Putin won’t be attacking Ukraine if they have nukes.
To be fair, I haven’t really seen any prominent people floating this insane idea. So I’m adding this point here just to future-proof this letter.
It’s dumb because : You’d be starting a nuclear war right away.
Honestly, there’s not much more to it than that. If the Russians catch wind of nukes being moved to Ukraine, they will strike first and after that … God help us all.
Any nation that is facing an existential threat on the level that Ukraine is facing would use a nuclear weapon as a way to deter or coerce their opponent into backing down. The Russians themselves said they would use them if faced with an existential threat, so why wouldn’t they believe Ukraine would as well ?
By striking first they may deter Ukraine from escalating, they might take out the infrastructure that allows the Ukrainians to use nukes on them, they might gamble that NATO will not start a nuclear war for Ukraine’s sake. All of these are huge risks, but they sound better than just waiting to be hit by Ukraine, therefore they strike first.
So these are the low-hanging fruit of ideas to help Ukraine. But what if we really want to put some effort in ?
What if we want to be helpful, but less dumb about it ?
Option 3 : The least dumb suggestions
For this entry, I’d usually go for some ‘listen to the experts’ nonsense. But I think it’s best to clarify.
Because I covered why the other aid suggestions were bad, let’s imagine what ‘good’ looks like ?
Aid needs to be effective against Russian assets (particularly tanks and armor).
Aid needs to be easy to use, easy to learn and easy to distribute.
Aid needs to require minimal support.
Have you met the NLAW or the Javelin Missile ?
I won’t beat about the bush here. The US and NATO are making the right moves here. I’m not smart enough to tell you if the right amount of AT missiles are being sent (is the right number 2000 ? or 4000 ? or 2000 now, 2000 later ?) but what I’m certain about is that the West is doing the right thing.
Option 4 : I don’t want to be dumb, but I want conflict and outrage to drive social media engagement.
So I just said that I think the West is (broad strokes) doing a good job at offering the right type of lethal aid to Ukraine, but I have to concede that “The Government did ‘OK’ today” isn’t a great headline.
How could we generate some conflict, without advocating for a nuclear escalation with Russia ?
Well … here are some ideas.
More Switchblade drones.
Switchblades are what are called ‘loitering munitions’. Basically the drones take off, go to a location, stick around until they find a target and then … tank goes boom. It fulfils a similar function as the Javelin AT Missile, except it’s cheaper and can acquire targets at larger range.
It’s still new, but it will definitely be useful to engage Russian armor without exposing Ukrainian forces.
Energy policy, especially - but not exclusively - in Europe.
Turns out, Russia can be hurt with things besides weapons. By destroying Oil consumption the West will indirectly hurt Russia’s revenue and defund their war-machine. Are we making the right moves here ?
More pressure to bring the Gulf States and China in the economic coalition.
China and the Gulf states have been some neutral so far. Additional pressure and actions from them would add to coercive actions against Russia. Are we doing enough on the diplomacy side ?
3 ideas should be enough to fuel some conflict and get more likes on Social Media and they’re yours for free !
I might have more ideas in the near-future so make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss them.
So there you have it. The guide to being advocating for better lethal aid for Ukraine that will not get the World into a nuclear war. As one of my favorite Youtubers likes to say : Now you know better.
Stay safe and sound, friends.
CCS