The Unexpectedly Long War

It was a tale of two blunders. Both Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin made the mistake of believing that the Russian army could conquer Ukraine in two days. The New York Times wrote in perplexity, “In Afghanistan, intelligence agencies had predicted the government and its forces could hold on for at least six months after the U.S. withdrawal. In Ukraine, intelligence officials thought the Russian army would take Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in two days. Both estimates proved wrong.”

The unforeseen consequences of that mutual mistake are driving the reactions of each. In the face of his failed blitz, Putin reportedly purged his intelligence chiefs and the ranks of senior officers and has had to commit conscripts and even scour Syria for mercenaries to replace and augment the manpower losses in what has become an unexpected war of attrition. But it’s not clear even that will recoup his failed game. Biden’s belief that Ukraine would quickly fall (as evidenced by his offer to evacuate Volodymyr Zelensky soon after the invasion began, which the Ukrainian leader declined) resulted in no mea culpas, even though it caused him to severely under-budget the logistical support it would need and from which he is also trying to recover.

Western security officials say their strategy initially envisaged equipping a nascent Ukrainian insurgency—recalling the transfer of weapons to mujahedeen fighters who defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—that would employ guerrilla tactics against Russian occupiers. Instead, because Ukraine’s military has managed to keep Moscow’s forces at bay in much of the country, the task has become equipping a regular army engaged in a large-scale conventional war. “The Ukrainians are expending a lot of ordnance, and this is more than we anticipated,” said a Western security official. “We are trying to step up the flow of weapons to meet that new requirement and there are constant shortages.”

The other casualty of the short war miscalculation was the world wheat supply. According to agricultural machinery chief executive Eric Hansotia, about “13% of the global calories came out of production” when Russian and Ukrainian borders shut down. “This is a really big deal, because when that volume of calories comes out of the food chain, it triggers other things. Not only hunger, but unrest. The last time we had this kind of disruption, it was one of the major triggers for the Arab Spring.” Egypt and Yemen are the obvious first victims. Egypt announced it will jail farmers who don’t deliver their wheat quota to the government as a price spike jeopardizes the country’s 270 million daily loaves.

“You cannot tell the farmers who they have to sell their produce to,” Hussein Abu Saddam, the head of the Farmers’ Union, told MEE. “Are we in a free market anymore?The government could have done this by increasing the price and raising it to international market rates.” The new price is around 400 pounds ($25) a tonne less than the price in the international market…

The country spends billions of pounds annually on a vast bread subsidy scheme for tens of millions of people living on rations.

Food prices were already being driven up by shortages in “fossil fuels” even before the Russian invasion. “Oil trickles down to everything,” said Josh Lee, the financial chief for chemical distributor CJ Chemicals to the Wall Street Journal, even the cost of your potato salad to go. “And then this stupid war happened.” Like the weapons shortage, Biden did not see it coming. Joe Biden casually told the press that food shortages were going to be real — even for Europe and America.

With regard to food shortage, yes, we did talk about food shortages. And — and it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well. And — because both Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat, for example — just to give you one example.

Biden on food shortages:

"With regard to food shortage…it's gonna be real." pic.twitter.com/F3dQ7NLqqB

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) March 24, 2022

There was little else Biden could do in the short run except maintain sangfroid. After all, wheat could not be conjured into existence by executive order or printing money. And as for oil prices, perhaps that would also take time until the globe could switch to renewables. Had Ukraine fallen quickly as predicted, the world food supply would not have been disrupted to the extent it was, and neither Putin nor Biden would find themselves in their unexpected predicament. But alas! The billion-dollar intelligence agencies of both men proved fallible and left everyone adrift on a sea of uncertainty over what happens next when the other second-order effects kick in. The great powers bought a ticket to ride but still don’t know where it goes.

Books: The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict by Elbridge A. Colby. He was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America’s goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests. The most informed and in-depth reappraisal of America’s defense strategy in decades, this book outlines a rigorous but practical approach, showing how the United States can prepare to win a war with China that we cannot afford to lose—precisely in order to deter that war from happening.

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