G7 looks to shelter weapons flow to Ukraine against rightward shift in US, Europe
(Originally published June 13 in “What in the World“) As leaders of the Group of Seven nations meet in Italy this week to discuss their growing confrontation with Russia and China, efforts are building to put the West’s defense industry on a war footing that shelters it from the vagaries of democratic politics.
Georgia State University Associate Professor Daniel Altman argues that doing so, with multi-year defense contracts that span the election cycle, is the only way to convince Russia that it cannot win the current war of attrition in Ukraine. Russia, he argues, is merely waiting out public support in the West for Ukraine, while the West is supplying Ukraine with only enough weapons to maintain the status quo.
Altman neglects to mention that this state of affairs is steadily depleting both sides of a resource defense contractors cannot replace at any price: a generation of Russian and Ukrainian men and women. That is why both sides have had to resort to using convicts—men and women—to fight on the front lines. Alas, demographics is on Moscow’s side in this battle, and it underscores the cynicism of the West’s approach to Ukraine.
Altman’s argument, however, supports the growing consensus that the West needs to put investment in its broader defense on a steadier course that is less susceptible to electoral whimsy. Advocates of this position assume that the war in Ukraine isn’t an isolated squabble over the Kievan Rus and Russian-speaking Donbas between Moscow and Kyiv, but part of a wider global conflict pitting the Western liberal against an authoritarian axis comprising Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
This group likens the current environment to the rise of Nazi Germany and Japan in 1938. The West’s failure to ramp up military production, it argues, leaves it vulnerable to the same blitzkrieg that resulted in German and Japanese domination of Europe and Asia in 1938-1940.
Washington needs to aggressively ramp up production and stockpiling of munitions, Thomas Mahnken argued in a Foreign Affairs. Mahnken, whose non-profit think tank is funded largely by the Defense Dept., argued that dire shortages of ammunition in Ukraine highlighted the need for larger and steadier production by the U.S. defense industry.
Congress’ delay in passing the defense budget earlier this year highlighted how efforts by the U.S. and its allies to mount increasing opposition to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia remains vulnerable to domestic politics. To solve this problem, Mahnken argues that his financial backers at the Pentagon must be given even freer rein to order up weapons for America’s allies.
All of this plays into the White House’s latest proposal to solve this problem in Ukraine: let Ukraine use seized Russian assets to finance its own weapons purchases. Turning over Russian assets to create a trust fund for Ukraine would make Kyiv a customer for Western weaponry less susceptible to funding constraints from legislators or the White House if voters in America or Europe continue to veer rightward.
Europe’s latest tilt to the far-right could imperil plans among members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to furnish Ukraine with weapons still under construction, like the Netherlands’ pledge to provide Kyiv with €400 million ($432 million) worth of CV90 combat vehicles in 2026. Better Ukraine places its own orders using its invader’s own money.
Iran’s proxies in the Middle East, meanwhile, are still at it, attacking Israel and its allies to retaliate against the war in Gaza.
Houthi rebels continue to attack commercial vessels navigating the Red Sea between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. In their latest assault, Houthis on Wednesday used a boat, drones and missiles to cripple a Greek-owned bulk carrier bound for the Jordanian port of Aqaba.
Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, meanwhile, launched roughly 150 missiles into northern Israel Wednesday from southern Lebanon in retaliation for an Israeli air strike that killed a top Hezbollah commander.