Security dilemma
Arms deliveries to Ukraine can be divided into several stages. The first stage is until February 24th. At that time, only light equipment and Javelins were supplied to Ukraine. At the same time, the Americans were well aware of Russian plans, but officially explained the lack of supplies of normal weapons by their unwillingness to "escalate." I think, in fact, the reason is different - American analysts did not believe that Ukraine would stand. Consequently, any heavy weapons would be squeezed out by the terrible Russians (and it would be a disgrace, as before in Afghanistan). But hand-held anti-tank systems are quite an effective weapon of guerrilla warfare (as in Afghanistan, only thirty years earlier).
But then the unexpected happened - Ukraine withstood with only "Javelins" at the ready. "WOW!" - said the Americans and thought. We also decided to test the Ukrainians by sending them M777 light landing howitzers. Why not Himars? My guess is that Himars (GMLRS) projectiles are guided by satellite, and then there was still faith in the terrible Russian electronic warfare, which jams any communication. Therefore, Excalibur shells were sent to the cannon artillery, which are also guided by satellite - to check how the electronic warfare is there. We checked and realized that it was possible to give out Himars - everyone knows what happened next. Judging by the events of the last couple of months, now it is the turn of the older brother of the terrible Russian electronic warfare - the Russian impenetrable echeloned air defense.
In general, there are obviously political reasons for the slow supply of weapons, and there are bureaucratic ones. But I see another one: at every stage, the Americans simply overestimated the Russian potential and underestimated theirs. Why? Surely, all those analysts who have been writing notes about terrible Russian weapons for years are now busy writing reports in the genre of "why are we so crap." But the thing is that overestimating the enemy is a favorable position. There is such a "security dilemma" in political science. It was originally used to model a thermonuclear race, but this is generally the name given to the situation when one country is arming itself, another is arming itself in response, then the first is arming even more, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, negotiations and periodic disarmament are important. However, in reality, the "security dilemma" has its own interested parties - these are the Ministry of Defense, the military-industrial complex and a bunch of all sorts of hangers-on in the state order. Therefore, it is paradoxical, but the main beneficiaries of the Kremlin parade walks "there are no analogues of weapons" are on the other side of the ocean. They look and immediately run to beg for money for their own wunderwaffles and R&D.
However, it is not so much Russia that is interesting in this regard, which in recent decades has been at least at war, but at the same time is not the first threat to NATO. China is interesting, which has not really fought for many years, but for some reason it is considered to be a formidable force. What if China is even more overvalued?
Mihail Pojarsky 12/10/2022
