The Huge Problem Stopping Russia From Buying Weapons

The second most powerful military in the world is running out of weapons, and there's one very big reason why it won't be getting many more anytime soon. The war in Ukraine will soon have been raging for over a year, and a conflict that Russia - indeed even many in the west - predicted would last only weeks at best has turned into one of Russia's greatest historical quagmires. Russian casualties are quickly soaring to the 100,000 mark, and in less than one year Russia has suffered over twice as many casualties as the Soviet Union suffered over nearly ten years in Afghanistan.

The military that many believed was the world's second most powerful very quickly proved to barely be the match of a military ranked at the start of 2022 as the world's 22nd most powerful by GlobalFirePower. As the war drags on, stocks of war material are running critically low, and Russian troops are starting to feel the pinch. The war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call to militaries around the world. Being the first modern industrialized war, the conflict has consumed advanced weapons on both sides at a truly astonishing rate.

Russia's vast stockpile of cruise missiles is down to critical levels, and some analysts predict Russia may only have as many as 100 Iskander ballistic missiles left. Even stockpiles of dumb ammunition like artillery shells are starting to be depleted, to no surprise as Russia is estimated to be expending as many as 20,000 shells a day in fighting. Perhaps the most shocking figure of all though to come from the conflict is the rate of misfires and failures on Russia's side in terms of its advanced weapons. One month into the fighting, US intelligence delivered a surprising report that outlined how some of Russia's smart weapons were experiencing a failure rate as high as 60%. The failure rate varied by missile type, with some exceeding 50%. Two missile types, the Kh-555 and Kh-101, both air launched cruise missiles, were experiencing failure rates as high as 60%.

By comparison, the United States will not certify for combat any weapon that displays failure rates above 2%. Such staggering failure rates not only help account for Russia's failure to achieve basic military objectives, but also dramatically increase Russia's expenditure of weapons as it's forced to re-target objectives that were not destroyed in an initial strike. Essentially expending two weapons per fire mission - or even more given that the next weapon probably has a similarly high failure rate - has consumed Russian stockpiles of weapons it had touted as "world-beating" before the start of the war. Since the launch of the invasion in February, the world has learned a lot about the Russian military and defense industry.

While corruption was a well-known quantity with the Russian military, the full extent of it was never apparent to the west. Falsified troop readiness and weapon capability reports are relatively harmless in peacetime after all, but war has a way of bringing the truth out. What we've learned is that Russia's corruption problem runs all the way to a very deeply rotted core that even affects its defense industry, with supplies providing weapons and equipment that they never truly expected would be used in war and skimming money off government contracts with their cost-saving measures. But if Russia's defense industry is rife with corruption, it also means that it's thoroughly unprepared to resupply the Russian military itself. While the Soviet Union was once a massive exporter of very robust and capable military equipment all over the world, the Russian Federation has struggled to regain the technical and manufacturing capabilities that the Soviet Union once enjoyed.

A large part of this is due to the fact that much of the talent and industrial base now exists in former Soviet republics that are now independent. For instance, Ukraine produced tanks for the Soviets - which explains why some models of Ukrainian tanks are actually more capable than their Russian counterparts. Another massive problem for the Russian Federation was the exodus of scientists and engineers after the fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting economic and political chaos. Many of these former Soviet professionals very quickly sought out better opportunities in the west, taking their expertise with them. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has had a very difficult time retaining talent domestically, let alone importing it via immigration. This explains why American and European components are being discovered amongst the wreckage of failed Russian missiles.

Today, most defense contractors rely on foreign counterparts for at least some of their components. The F-35 for instance is spearheaded by US industry, but relies on a great many foreign partners for sub-components. However, Russia's biggest problem in resupplying its own military is the fact that its defense instruy relied almost entirely on the west for advanced electronics, something that its own domestic industry is unable to produce. Russia's industry lacks the capability to produce the high-technology components used in both civilian and military products, thus it was forced to import them from the west. When the EU and the US implemented sanctions against Russia for its invasion, the import of these items stopped almost completely. Russian intelligence services have set up shell companies to bust sanctions, and are adept at it, but even this can only provide the Russian defense sector with a meager trickle of badly needed components.

However, Taiwan's ban on the export of electronics to Russia severely hut its ability to manufacture modern weapons. The small island nation produces most of the world's semiconductors and other advanced electronics, and it was quick to back up its US partners in putting the crimp on Russia's ability to continue building modern weapons. In effect, this is Russia's biggest problem. Much like during the Cold War, the United States has aggressively maneuvered to economically isolate Russia. It pays to have friends, and when your friends make all the world's best stuff you can impose a sort of technological blockade on an aggressor nation - and that's exactly what the US and EU did to Russia. The effect has been catastrophic, with Russia forced to shut down production entirely on some plants producing weapons such as air defense missiles. Famously, one plant that produced misiles for the S-300 and S-400 family of air defense systems was forced to shut down due to a lack of western components. Its employees were given a choice - go on indefinite leave or accept a paid contract to go fight in Ukraine.

Russia has attempted to rectify its increasingly precarious strategic position by turning to the few friends, or at least partners, that it has. Iran has supplied Russia with hundreds of suicide drones which Russia naturally used to attack civilian targets instead of military ones. In early November, Iran also claimed it was preparing to sell ballistic missiles to Russia - a move that immediately got the west's attention. To date there is no evidence that any Iranian missiles have actually been transferred to Russia, but even if it were to do so, the country is limited in how many it could realistically supply by both sanctions against it and its own defense needs. The confirmation of Iranian drone sales to Russia prompted sanctions from the west against the nation, so further arm sales are only going to bring even more severe punishment against it - something that Iran is likely not willing to endure given the current domestic political climate at home. A major economic upheaval could be the turning point for the ongoing Iranian protests, and could spell an end to the regime.

Likewise, North Korea has sold an estimated "hundreds of thousands" of artillery shells to Russia, and is unlikely to provide any further military supplies. North Korea also has its own pressing defense needs, which naturally limits how many weapons it can afford to give away. Russia isn't the only one with supply woes though. The war in Ukraine has been consuming western supplies provided to Ukraine in an equally aggressive manner, and the west is finding that its own defense industries are woefully unprepared to resupply. Ukraine's armed forces or even their own.

After the end of the Cold War, the western defense industry shrunk dramatically - the US alone saw the shuttering or absorption of dozens of defense manufacturers, leading to dangerous consolidation that in truth has very little wartime production capability. The rate of expenditure in Ukraine has been a huge alarm bell to the Pentagon, who faces the almost certain probability of war against China within the next ten years.

Tooled for the peacetime development of high-tech weapons, even America is extremely ill-prepared to resupply combat forces engaged in high-intensity fighting over a long-term conflict. So while Russia has many issues that prevent it from resupplying its forces - corruption, little technological industry, sanctions - its military faces the exact same problem that every nation's military faces today: it was not prepared for a long-duration, high-intensity, war against a near-peer adversary. Without a major investment in defense manufacturing, western militaries may find that they too will be begging for Cold War era weapons after a year of fighting.

By: Tannor Cannon | Dec 14, 2022

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