Ukraine War Calculations
Contents
Military Production
- A square mile nominal facility - about 1000 acre production yields 1500 tons of steel per day from solar energy, or 30 tanks worth of armor. An acre of PV produces 3 MWhr per day, or 1.5 tons of steel from scrap - one month to produce a tank.
Numbers
- Russian Economy - Russia is 11th at 1.6T. [1]. SA is #1 at about 10x that, $20T. Ukraine is $110B.
- US Federal tax revenue is $4T [2]. Russia is $400B
- Military spending - USA 800B, Russia 60B [3]. Ukraine - $6B. USA provided $14B aid to Ukraine on March 22. Of this $3.6B is for arms. [4]
- Total US discressionary spending is 1.6T. [5]
- Military population - Ukraine 200k, with 900k reserves [6]. Infographic - [7]. Ukraine has 1M, Russia 3M, but Russia has 1M active. [8]
- What does Ukrainian army cosist of at end fo March? 300k active duty, 150k have been called from reserves [9]
- March 21, 22 - Europe provides $1.1B in military aid. [10]
- UK sends another 6k antiarmor/plane missiles to Ukraine by March 23 [11]
- By March 12, 17k antiarmor missiles [12], 300 Javelins at least. 2000 more are coming? [13]
- 45k Javelins and 12k of their launchers have so far been produced, 18+ countries have them [14]. 70k Stingers were made - [15]. 10k NLAWs were made.
- Stingers and NLAWs are $38k. [16]. Javelin - $100k launcher, $78k missile. [17]
- Patriot missiles - system is $1B, missile is $1-6M a pop. [18]
- How equipment is moved from US based to Ukraine - [19]
- Summary: to kick Russia's ass overwhelmingly, we need 4x the force, which is achievable either by a bunch of pissed off Ukes at the same number, or an army of regulars 4x the size. The cost of this can possibly be measured by the annual spending of Russia. For a point conflict with advanced weapons, that would be say $60B, if typical budgets are 1/4 equipment and 3/4 personnel/O&M. So far, Ukraine got about $3B, which is 1/20 that size - so it would have to work really hard to overcome the enemy. In short - a point budget with immediate arms delivery would be the equivalent annual spending of the aggressor - if the defender has soldiers. That would make it an equivalent of 4 years of the aggressor's buildup in terms of equipment. That puts the armies on an equal footing. Overwhelming defeat would be an army 10x the size. Thus, the max war budget would need to be $600B for quick victory. This is only in the case that ass has to be kicked, ie, the aggressor did not take on the option of collaborating openly as in the OSE military (peacetime) doctrine - in which case resolution would come for free. In the scenario of collaborative arms development, prior to the emergence of the open source economy - a common peacekeeping function with a large army would be 3x more cost effective than the current two tees [20].
Assistance
- $50B in assistance to Ukraine would provide a large number of missile defense systems, MiG-29s ($24M [21]), and much more.
Feeding Russia
- 40% of Russia's economy is energy crops [22]
- About $500M payments per day come from Europe - $19B in one month. This is because Europe takes about 50% of Russia's petro product
- Same source sez - These countries should have no interest in allowing the price of oil to rise too high, because that will sharply accelerate the long-term transition to renewable energy.
- Total export of Russian oil is about 5M barrels/day - [23]. Saudis can produce 2.2M more barrels per day within a month.
- US imported 700k barrels/day from Russia- or about $70M/day. [24]
Weapons Strategy
- How does a Stinger compare to a Patriot?
- How does Patriot compare to a Buk to S300?
- How does Patriot compare to S400? S400 is apparently half the cost, and looks much better on paper. [25]
- Patriots - too expensive and complicated for now? [26]
- Flood of man-portable antiarmor [27]
- RPG-7 is the most common antitank rocket, multipurpose including low flying helicopters - [28]
Integrated Strategy
- Stop funding Russia's business (petrochemicals, currently $500M/day from EU alone)
- Flood of arms support
- Weeks, months, or years - it's our choice - [29]. No solution provided, outside of decision of troops to quit.
- This one proposes a bunch of things happening, but not how we can attain them - [30]
5 Steps
- The quickest way to enable Ukraine to defend itself requires the World to partner with allied nations to enact an arms and medical supplies program to help strengthen the country’s defensive and humanitarian capabilities. Draw clear lines at the end [31]. Sustain support - says Inst. of Peace. [32].
- Offer a neutral Ukraine. This still allows for security by means outside of NATO. [33]. Also, Putin no longer recognizes Luhansk and Donets as independent states. Also, instead of EU, it could be Europe Economic Area. Summary of this article - author does not seem to understand that Putin does not want Ukraine to become a democratic, liberal state. Thus, his proposal is unrealistic, especially if it provides no clarity on withdrawal of hostilities in the separatist areas, nor does it solve Crimea.
Also:
- Need to resolve Kosovo, Donbas, Crimea. Assure Helsinki Accords [34].
Zielenski is ok with non-nuclear status, but needs guarantee. [35]
Useful End Games
- Kissinger - [36]. From 2014 but relevant today. Same with Condolezza Rice.
Other
- Have China step in - [37]
- Us will not step in if biological weapons are used, because Obama already said so. [38]
- It's hard to imagine that some people see sellout as a solution - [39]. Read Never Split the Difference - for win-win situations.
- 10 ideas, no execution - [40]
- Almost 50% in the USA are concerned now about Russia nuking the USA - [41]
