How the Ukraine War Ends: With NATO Chickening Out Because of Empty Stockpiles

Norwegian PM Støre told the press yesterday: 'It is will be more difficult to give more weapons to Ukraine in the future'

And just when you thought everyone is hyperventilating about Vladimir Putin doing this and that in yesterday’s speech, here’s a timely antidote.

Speaking to Norwegian media on 19 Feb. 2023, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støhre said the following, as related by Bergens Tidende (my translation, my emphases):

‘Norway must also consider its own security. This means that it may become more difficult to donate more Norwegian weapons to Ukraine’, says PM Jonas Gahr Støre.

‘We are constantly assessing what we can provide in terms of our own capabilities. But this must be assessed against what we need for our own defence. And in light of what we have already given, it will be more difficult assessments in the future’, Støre said to NTB.

At the Munich Security Conference this weekend, it was repeated time and again that Ukraine must get more weapons—and they must be delivered faster.

Støre points out that Norway has already made major contributions. On Tuesday it became clear that eight Leopard tanks will be sent to Ukraine, but he also said:

But we must also maintain Norwegian security.

Things Are Getting More Dangerous

The world has become a more dangerous place: ‘A world where war breaks out [like, you know, when lightning strikes, you can’t predict anything], where people are bombed [apparently, the Russian-speakers in the Donbassaren’t ‘fully human’] and peaceful conflict resolution hits a wall, it is a more unsafe world’, says the Prime Minister.

[Oh, Pollyanna, what is going on? Didn’t you get the memo that Merkel and Hollande told the press that the West never intended to honour the Minsk I and II treaties?]

‘And when the aggressor is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it makes the world even less safe’, he added.

[‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards’, the White Queen told Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, claiming a ‘great advantage…that one’s memory works both ways’. Aren’t the US, UK, and France also on the UN Security Council? I dunno, but let’s ask the Libyans, shall we?]

In a few days, it will be one year since Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine. Since then, tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced. The ripple effects have affected countries far away from the war, in the form of food, fertiliser, and grain shortages, to name but a few.

The Ukraine war [note the lower case] has completely dominated the Security Conference, which has brought together hundreds of top politicians and decision-makers.

One by one, heads of state have taken the stage and pointed out that the war is not just. It has become a global struggle between different ideologies [which ones?], simply put, between democracies and dictators [nice sleight of hand, but totally off topic: which ideological differences?].

Because if Russia wins, it means that henceforth it is the law of the jungle. Not international law. [what a hypothesis; I’d call this one projection, because what the West is doing is more akin to the former than to the latter]

David versus Goliath

At the conference, to which Russia was not invited, Western countries have been united in their continued support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself called the war a ‘fight of David against Goliath’ when he addressed the conference on Friday.

‘Now we are all David’, Zelensky said, calling on his European supporters to speed up deliveries of heavy weapons. [this is super-odd, because this argument doesn’t work logically: David went up on a one-on-one combat vs. Goliath, by placing all of ‘us’ in the same place, the West is technically and practically not David]

On Saturday, US Vice President Kamala Harris followed up by declaring Russia’s attack a crime against humanity. [talk about the proverbial pot calling the kettle black; no pun or racist slur intended, it’s a figure of speech]

And NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg was crystal clear on what countries need to do now: Strengthen their defence capabilities. [remember: Stoltenberg and Støre are BFFs]

Warnings Against Tunnel Vision

Støre, for his part, believes we need to think about more than weapons.

‘We must not think that only military means prevent war and solve problems. We must not take our eyes off all the other things that contribute to peace and development’, he says. [my favourite agit-prop: say something vacuous without offering details; if my students do that, I’ll call on them to do substantiate such claims]

In the Ukraine package recently adopted by the Norwegian Parliament, NOK 5 billion [approx. US$ 500m] has been set aside for developing countries this year.

[Oh, virtue-signalling is also high up on the list of vices; Statista.de reports that Norway has spent 1.42b Euros on military aid to Ukraine, i.e., three times that amount]

We did this knowing full well that if we don't stand up here, it could in itself create new unrest and, in the worst case, war.

Caption: ‘While participants at the Munich Security Conference discussed the Ukraine war within well-guarded walls, Ukrainians demonstrated outside demanding more weapons and F-16s.’ Note that the two placards read: ‘F-16s and ammunition for [Ukraine]’ and ‘Ukraine’s Victory = Europe’s Security’.

Endless War?

Back to Ukraine: some experts fear that the war will not only be protracted, but that it will be a ‘frozen’ conflict, i.e., an endless war? Støre explains:

Europe has some of those situations, like the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. And Ukraine has been in conflict since 2014.

But wars don’t follow plans. Where we will be in one, two, or three years is hard to say. At the same time, we must work to end the war in a way that allows Ukraine to retain its integrity.

But he does not believe the war will end in complete victory for one of the parties:

The chances of this conflict ending that way do not look good. And the road there is littered with great suffering. Still, negotiations must come only when Ukraine, the aggrieved party, is ready to do so.

---

Bottom Lines

This conflict will quite likely end before too long, if only because Western support—and capabilities to sustain it—are contracting.

There are ‘rumours’ out there already that the US is ‘urging’ the Ukrainians to attack before time runs out.

All of this plays into Russia’s hands.

As to the ‘plan-ability’ of war, well, I maintain that war is the ultimately ‘democratic’ endeavour, as the enemy also gets a say in how it goes.

I doubt that the Russians could believe that NATO would go ‘all-in’, but in a piece-meal fashion. Now, with NATO stocks dwindling, I suppose that the world might be a slightly less war-torn place, if only because the chicken-hawks in D.C. won’t have enough weapons to boss around anyone anytime soon.

Problem is, though, that this also means that Western countries are poised to re-dedicate their productive capabilities towards re-armament.

One last line about the implications of the lunacies I alluded to in the squared parentheses above: whatever you’d like to think about this conflict—and, mind you, I don’t condone attacking countries—Western leaders are clearly delusional.

Støre is a good buddy of Stoltenberg’s, hence, you could probably extrapolate from Norway’s situation to the rest of NATO.

Let’s hope the stocks are dwindling fast enough so that less people have to suffer.