James Hasik

"Consent as a secondary issue" -- The implications of breaking arms re-export bans: a counterfactual exploration of the Polish Leopard tanks in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

NATO’s newest unbeloved state is not Turkey, nor Hungary, but presumably transatlantic stalwart Germany. The dispute early this year over the reexport of German-built Leopard 2 tanks from Poland and other countries to Ukraine pitted almost the entire alliance against one of its once-key members. More exposed Poland, having none of German reticence, threatened to break its contractual agreement with Germany, and send its tanks on, permission or not. What then might be the consequences to Poland of unilateral action? The deal might have been done more readily than imagined, with two the ultimate winners beyond NATO: Ukraine, of course, but also South Korea, Poland’s up-and-coming arms supplier of choice.

 

Ukraine had been requesting tanks, and specifically the German-built Leopard 2s, since at least 3 March 2022—one week after Russia’s utterly unjustified aggression began. The well-regarded Leopard is practically a NATO standard: armies across the alliance have about 2,000 all told. The Polish Army alone has about 250 of those. By January 2023, Poland, Finland, Denmark, and Spain had each offered to send a company-set of fourteen to Ukraine, which would form a battalion-set of 56 (assuming that the Ukrainians wanted to form a larger battalion, as most NATO member-state armies do). The United States was separately sending 59 late-model Bradley tank-hunting troop carriers and 18 Paladin armored, mobile howitzers. Other NATO countries hadalready sent Paladins, and mobile cannons of rather longer range. With such modern tanks, troop carriers, and howitzers, the Ukrainian Army could equip another mechanized brigade, and one with much better technology than anything the Russian Army could bring.

 

The problem was the tanks. The German government was continuing to deny permission to reexport the vehicles outside the alliance. Reexport restrictions are a common feature of international arms transfers, if only to prevent dodgy customers from selling on one’s guns to even dodgier customers. The Germans were offering a “you first” condition—the Leopards could go if the Americans consented to sending their comparably modern Abrams tanks. The US Defense Department had for some time protested that the Abrams would not be helpful, as their turbine engines consume too much fuel, and as the vehicles overall require too much maintenance. In conversations with American lawmakers, German Chancellor Olaf Shultz claimed concern that Germany lacks America’s nuclear deterrent, and feared targeting in some forthcoming Russian attack. If America moved first, somehow his fears would dissipate. This continues to seem an odd excuse, as nuclear-armed Britain had already announced that it would be sending fourteen of its more-or-less contemporaneous Challenger 2 tanks. Meanwhile, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are demanding German action, having already sent a disproportionate fraction of their own small arsenals to Ukraine.

 

The American protest that its own tanks were something of gas-guzzling hangar queens seemed an alarming admission. The Poles themselves seemed less concerned, having ordered Abrams recently in two tranches. In 2022, Poland agreed to buy 250 M1A2 Abrams tanks, for $4.7 billion, to be delivered after upgrades in 2025 and 2026. (Note that this number neatly replaces Poland’s Leopards.) In January 2023, Poland agreed to buy 116 older M1A1 Abrams tanks, for $1.4 billion, for delivery later this year. Presumably this later order of older tanks to be delivered sooner will be sourced from the M1A1 fleet declared surplus a few years ago in the reorganization of the US Marine Corps as a more naval force. Separately, in July 2022, Poland signed an agreement with South Korea to buy as many as 1,000 new K2 Black Panther tanks. These were already arriving this past January, and fully 180 should arrive by 2025. Lighter than the Abrams and diesel-powered, the K2s are rather more fuel efficient, and perhaps easier to maintain.

 

All this said, regarding Leopards, Polish Prime Minister Matuesz Morawiecki had stated that “consent is a secondary issue.” His government, he said in January, would “either get this agreement quickly,” or “do the right thing ourselves.” The Poles believed that international law is on their side, under the principle of rebus sic stantibus (things thus standing -- agreements should hold as long as the conditions presumed by the agreements hold. When those things change greatly, so too must the agreements. The right thing, most plainly, was to get Kyiv the weapons it needed (and still needs) to force the Russian Army out of Ukraine. Shortly thereafter, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced that Ukrainian troops would soon start training on Poland’s Leopards, German permission or not. As we all now recall, German permission proceeded quickly.

 

But how advisable for Poland would have been breaking that contract? From the Polish perspective (or that of any other country considering violating a reexport agreement), we can think about the problem in terms of timing and geography. In the short run, tanks must be sustained, both in Ukraine (the secondary importing country) and in Poland (the reexporting country). In the long run, tanks may be procured again, from Germany (the originally exporting country) or some other country—if not actually produced domestically. This framework leads to at least five questions:

 

Could fourteen formerly Polish Leopards be sustained in Ukraine?  Assume that the German government had taken a harsh stand on the reexport, and suspended delivery of spares to Poland (and of course, Ukraine). If Poland were really only sending a company-set, Polish warehouses built for 250 Leopards could readily sustain fourteen forward for a long time.

 

Could Poland sustain its full fleet of Leopards? The bigger question is what would have happened to the readiness of the remaining Polish Leopards. The preceding strategy of focusing supplies on a small contingent would not work for the Polish Army, or any army, as a whole. However, if Abrams and Black Panthers arrived fast enough, this may not have mattered, as tanks from America and South Korea replaced those from Germany. This would have depended, of course, on American or South Korean indulgence about Polish contract-breaking—and more on that below. Regardless, to a great extent, sending Polish tanks forward in Ukrainian hands would mean fewer Russian tanks to vex Poland later. Polish sustainment would have declining necessity as Ukrainians continued to wear down Russians.

 

Next, what if Poland decided to send all its Leopards forward? Could Poland and like-minded countries have reverse-engineered enough parts for the tanks to keep their fleets rolling in Ukraine and elsewhere? The task would have been challenging, as modern automotive technologies roll with tens of thousands of parts. But consider some antecedents. In the early 1980s, through the “Flint River Project,” an industrial consortium in Michigan worked to find ways to upgrade Egypt’s large fleet of obsolescent Soviet tanks, once Egypt had turned west for support. The effort made good progress until the export of M1A1 Abrams kits to Egypt obviated further interest. Recall also recent Russian success in upgrading old Soviet-designed tanks with Western electronics—at least until trade sanctions interrupted much of the flow of supplies. And somehow, Iran still manages to fly some of its F-14s—more than four decades after the US cut off the flow of parts.

 

Could Poland again have imported tanks from Germany?  Simply put, who cares? At some point, even with more than 1,300 tanks optioned and on order, Poland might want yet more tanks. Maybe. In that case, the possibility of a lasting German grudge might be considered. But at that point, who would want German tanks? Politically, not Poland, under this government, as the ruling Law & Justice Party has been making a practice of politically baiting Germany. More practically, few others. Should Germany have failed to summon the will to do the right thing, when reexport was so necessary, would have suggested that Germany would fail again. Germany would then have general troubles exporting arms in the future. After all, import customers buy weapons for at least three reasons: perceptions of technical performance, political connections to the exporting state, and the military example of an armed force that employs them successfully. The Leopard 2 addresses the first factor, but on the latter two Germany is lacking. Even now, no one should soon expect vigorous German support in wartime, and the Bundeswehr has become a bad joke amongst Europe’s armies.

 

Could Poland have imported tanks from elsewhere?  On this side of the Atlantic, the US government does tend to obsess about third-party transfers, with its intrusive “Blue Lantern” inspection regime of allies and their bases. At the time, the US was publicly saying nothing averse about those pending Abrams in the context of a reexport of Leopards. However, should a future American administration hold this against Poland broadly, continued imports or even co-production with South Korea would be a logical possibility. Russia supports South Korea's sworn enemy to the north, and South Korea harbors no illusions about its ability or interest in fine-tuning a balance of power on the other side of the world. The emerging attention of the global markets to South Korea’s often excellent and affordable products has been termed the ‘Hyundaization’ of the international arms industry. For Poland, South Korea could be a most welcome friend. Russo-Ukrainian War may or may not be over by 2025 or 2026, but barring either revolution or collapse in Russia by 2026, the threat from the east will remain.

 

Could Poland produce its own tanks? This is no easy task. The last domestic concept for a Polish tank was the PL-01, in which the Obrum division of PGZ (Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa, “Polish Armaments Group”) teamed with BAE Systems Hägglunds of Sweden, to propose a lightweight tank with a heavy gun in a remote turret. That project lasted only from 2013 to 2015, when the costs of development of even a derivative product become apparent. (I gave a talk on the subject at the British Embassy in Warsaw back in 2014.) Nonetheless, the Polish armaments industry is very capable, money is flowing, and comparative self-reliance (albeit short of illusions of autarky) has become more interesting on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

These are the questions that the Polish prime minister’s office may very well have been asking of the defense ministry, and that the defense ministry should have been and likely was asking of the army and industry. What it was not asking, and indeed need not have asked, is about the right thing. Warsaw did not telephone Moscow about sending Polish T-72s to Kyiv. At that point, it did not need similar input on Leopards from Berlin. Rebus sic stantibus, indeed.

 

References

William Nattress, “Poland Emerges as Europe’s Leader Against Russia’s War in Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, 20 January 2023. https://www.wsj.com/articles/poland-emerges-as-europes-leader-against-russias-war-in-ukraine-invasion-support-weapons-tanks-germany-11674248580.

Bojan Pancevski and Bertrand Benoit, “ Why Germany is Reluctant to Send Tanks to Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, 20 January 2023. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-germany-fears-sending-tanks-to-ukraine-11674225552.

Remarks by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, 17 January 2023. https://www.csis.org/events/conversation-uk-foreign-secretary-james-cleverly.

“Poland signs deal to buy 2nd batch of U.S. Abrams tanks,” Associated Press, 4 January 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/poland-signs-deal-buy-2nd-batch-us-abrams-96177548.

Jakub Palowski, “K9A1 Howitzers and K2 Main Battle Tanks Delivered to Poland,” Defence24.com, 12 June 2022. https://defence24.com/armed-forces/k9a1-howitzers-and-k2-main-battle-tanks-delivered-to-poland.

Ian Lovett and Evan Gershkovich, “Pressure Builds on Germany to Approve Tanks for Ukraine,” Wall Street Journal, 21 January 2023. https://www.wsj.com/articles/pressure-builds-on-germany-to-approve-tanks-for-ukraine-11674297917.

Joe Katzman, “The ‘Hyundaization’ of the Global Arms Industry,” Wall Street Journal, 5 April 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-katzman-the-hyundaization-of-the-global-arms-industry-1428271215.

James Byrne et al., Silicon Lifeline: Western Electronics at the Heart of Russia’s War Machine, Royal United Services Institution, August 2022. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/silicon-lifeline-western-electronics-heart-russias-war-machine.

Please read “Churchill’s American Arsenal”

I am finding myself regretting the recent demise of Michigan War Studies Review (MiWSR). I gather that perhaps the editor has decided to fully retire. Before said presumed decision, I had volunteered to review for MiWSR a recent and compelling book, by a former colleague at George Mason University, by the title “Churchill’s American Arsenal”. Lest I lose that to the ether, I provide it here.

————

Book review: Churchill’s American Arsenal: the Partnership Behind the Innovations that Won World War Two

Larrie D. Ferreiro, Oxford University Press, October 2022

As a young naval gunnery officer in the 1990s, I wondered why my proximity-fuzed anti-aircraft shells were called “variably timed,” or VT. It was technically accurate, but in meaning unclear. Indeed, I learned, it was intentionally unclear. When the technology was developed in Britain during the Second World War, the obfuscating name was chosen to discourage German understanding of the underlying technology. “VT” became the cover name in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

So explains Larrie D. Ferreiro (page 265) in Churchill’s American Arsenal: the Partnership Behind the Innovations that Won World War Two (Oxford University Press, October 2022). As the publisher highlights on the book jacket, many iconic “American” inventions of the time, including the proximity fuze, P-51 fighter, Liberty ship, Landing Ship Tank (LST), and Sherman tank “all began as British projects, brought to fruition by American scientific expertise and industrial capacity.” Penicillin did too, which made Anglo-American cooperation “not only the arsenal but also the pharmacy of democracy” (page 280). From industrial events well before Pearl Harbor, through Churchill’s legendarily personal involvement, to the emergence of postwar enthusiasm for government-funded scientific research, Ferreiro traces intriguing stories of contemporary relevance.

As author, he is well-qualified to comment. An American, he undertook his doctorate in the history of science and technology from Imperial College London, and later became a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He currently serves as director of research at the Defense Acquisition University and as an adjunct professor of history at George Mason University, both in Virginia. He previously served a long prior career as a naval architect—though the book is not overly naval.

Rather, the book describes the development of a wide range of solutions to battlefield problems during World War Two, with particular emphasis on the transatlantic cooperation that brought them to fruition, and the British and American teams that effected that success. The work serves to recount and analyze the bilateral relationship at multiple levels of political and technical leadership and execution. Ferreiro’s occasional details about the exigencies of air and sea travel in the 1940s help reveal some of the merely logistical challenges.

There were differences of opinion, and political challenges too. The British and the Americans had, at times, different views of the potentials for certain technologies. They certainly had different interests in the war, at least in the long run. The challenges of managing intellectual property may have been yet more daunting, but the book describes how decisive action and common sense resolved or just bulldozed certain problems. In 1940, needing to power those soon-to-be-developed P-51s, newly-installed Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook used his “near-dictatorial powers” to establish a second source for their engines across the Atlantic:

On May 28, while British forces at Dunkirk were being evacuated, he telephoned Arthur Sidgreaves, the head of Rolls-Royce, with instructions to pack up a complete set of blueprints and specifications for the Merlin 61 engine and await a special train, whose crew would pick them up. Beaverbrook would not give further details, saying only that the blueprints were going to the United States. He had decided that the entire engine, not just its parts, was going to be built there, without even a production license from Rolls-Royce. Other company executives were justifiably concerned at the one-sidedness of the deal with the Americans, but Sidgreaves brushed them off. “If their having the drawings would enable us to win the war, we would willingly give them without any claim. If we lose the war, it certainly won’t matter about the drawings.” (p. 104)

The book is logically structured into chapters and sections with varying focus: partly chronological; and partly on the domains and locations of conflict—air and sea, beaches and cities. Through these stories, Ferreiro argues how much of the wartime success came from combining what Bennett Archambault, head of the London branch of the US Office of Scientific Research and Development, called British science and American engineering. Fairly, there was lots of American science too, particularly in the Manhattan Project.  The evidence weaved into the recounting shows a broad use of secondary sources, and impressive attention to primary records and personal accounts from the war.

All this makes for an intriguing “history of the middle”, as Paul Kennedy described his own book, Engineers of Victory: the Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War (Penguin Random House, 2013). Overlapping in some content but hardly redundant, Ferreiro’s book offers another such look at the work of scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, and business managers—pivotal players in the middle of the industrial and technical networks and hierarchies that made for military success. We need more such histories, and more such people. This book is of great value to strategists and policymakers, both technical and industrial, and most notably those concerned with wartime, transnational armaments development. It will be useful to academics as a reference. While it breaks little new ground, it provides some excellent reminders. De Gaulle’s line immediately after Pearl Harbor—“well, the war is finished”—should serve as a warning to tyrants today that “nothing can stand up to the power of American industry’ (p. 70).

I could complain that this is a book about history and engineering, and that some of the analyses do not thoroughly consider the economics of the problems, on either a macro- or micro-scale. Then again, already exceeding 400 pages with its notes, the book could not be all things to all readers (especially political economists). I might also complain that Churchill’s American Arsenal sometimes made for slow-going reading. I had some trouble keeping track of which impressive scientific volunteers, with names like Vannever Bush and Henry Tizard, discussed which technology at which fancy club in Washington DC on which day in 1940. On reflection, those details were enlightening, and a little inspiring. Upon reading about such a meeting at the Cosmos Club (page 62), one can imagine oneself dealing with a future crisis in a future meeting at the Cosmos Club.

The problems, solutions, and venues are all still there: I was indeed satisfied to remember that my first lunch at Cosmos Club, in 2018, was to discuss industrial mobilization. And that shows why this book is timely. As Ukraine defends all of Europe against Russia, many of its problems are just old problems new again. Iranian Shaheds fly much slower than did German V-1s, and impact with much less blast, though much greater accuracy. By the end of the launchings in 1945, RAF Fighter Command and Army Anti-Aircraft Command were downing over 90 percent of the German missiles (pages 266–269). That is comparable to Ukrainian performance today, though on considerably lesser resources.

This begs an intriguing question: can we do this again? What Ukrainians design, from battlefield experience  and technical excellence, can Americans build? In some circumstances today, can Americans best build what others design? Maybe—if American bureaucracy can avoid mucking it up. Moreover, some industrial limitations have persisted for almost a century. Ferreiro reminds us that at the beginning of the war, American cargo ships cost three times what comparable British ships cost (p. 159). American shipbuilding is still about that cost-effective, but other sectors are world-leading.

That term VT would stick past the Cold War. Ferreiro’s book is a reminder that more trenchant parts of the wartime experience should as well. In his closing line, he extols a liberal internationalist virtue as practical reality: “what makes America exceptional today is what helped it win World War Two: its ability to adopt and adapt the best ideas from its allies across the world, and make them its own” (p. 317).

— James Hasik

The Air Mobility Obsession: Why the US Army Should Stand Down its Three “Airborne” Divisions

Never interested in avoiding controversy, I inveigh with a working paper on one of the biggest problems in military force structures today: adherence to obsolete concepts. Here is the abstract:

The US Army today maintains more than three divisions of troops ostensibly devoted to two inessential and hazardous missions, and with inconsistent capability. As the recent experience of the Russo-Ukrainian War has made yet more clear, mass insertions by parachute or helicopter are things of the past. At the same time, the Army cannot recruit enough troops to fill the ranks of its desired force structure. It is therefore time to do away with the three “airborne” divisions—11th, 82nd, and 101st—and redeploy their troop strength to more pressing missions.

Download Air Mobility Obsession

On Navies, Anti-Navies, and the Limits of Sea Power

The recent naval campaigns on the Black Sea, between the Russian Navy and Ukraine's now "Anti-Navy" have led me to look at how recent results fit into historical patterns. I offer the linked working paper, "On Navies, Anti-Navies, and the Limits of Sea Power." Here is my abstract:

    Since the development of precision-guided weapons in the last century, there have been ten cases, across six wars, of anti-ship missile attacks on ships defended by their own missile systems. In five cases, the defenders did not fire or fire in time for effective defense, and a targeted ship was hit. In four of those five cases, the ship was heavily damaged or sunk, by just one or two missiles. All of these attacks were launched by “anti-navies”: poorly regarded attackers firing cruise missiles from land-based aircraft or trucks. This historical record has recently been reinforced by the experience of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, effectively chased from half its operating area, by Ukrainians bereft of their own ships afloat. All this suggests that hostile coastlines are dangerous, that the detection of inbound strikes is the foremost problem for defensibility on the surface, and that even large warships can be readily rendered combat ineffective. Worse, rapidly improving surveillance technologies are making hiding on the surface of the ocean very difficult. The strategic implication of these anti-navies is that surface warships are less useful in combat than assumed. In response, fleet architectures should emphasize smaller, more numerous surface ships; that can hide in plain sight; supported by organic, autonomous surveillance.

My objective is to inform debate on how the purpose of navies and the design of their warships need to change.I will be delighted for comments, though I ask that it not be cited until I have had ample time for revisions. I am sure that this will benefit from some expert advice.

 

Battlefield Lessons for the Arsenals of Democracy

"The NATO summit has ended, pledges of assistance for Ukraine abound, but execution still lags." That's how starts my recent essay for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), where I recently came aboard as a non-resident senior fellow (NRSF). If you're not from around Washington DC, NRSF is a exalted but unpaid gig for people with PhDs to try to effect political change, one erudite essay at a time. CEPA is a great platform for that.

As I argue in the essay, there's a military-technical revolution, as the Russians used to say, continuing to unfold in Ukraine, as it has been unfolding slowly for some years now. The lessons to be drawn may be more or less radical. Defense ministries and industries could conclude that everything must change, and totally overhaul their equipment purchasing and marketing. Or, they might conclude that combined arms warfare is still a thing, and that their armor and aircraft need serious upgrading to stay relevant. Either way, to make a difference on the battlefield, they need responsive procurement—something at which the US Department of Defense really does not excel. After alluding to my recent book on the marketing of the MRAP, I conclude with explanations why.

Anyway, you can read all about it here: "Battlefield Lessons for the Arsenals of Democracy" (CEPA).

James Hasik is a senior research fellow at George Mason University, and a senior research fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.

James Hasik is a senior research fellow at George Mason University, and a senior research fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.