Ukraine has done remarkably well in the war, why is that and will it continue in 2023?
With the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion having jut passed I wanted to reassess how I’ve thought about the conflict so far, and how best to understand it going forward. I’ve been consistently more pessimistic about Ukraine’s chances than most of the mainstream Western media, which has been the wrong approach to take. It’s an understatement to say that Ukraine has overperformed relative to consensus expectations a year ago. In this week’s post I will try to understand why Kyiv has held out, and true to my overall pessimistic view of the war I will also outline what I believe to be the most likely scenario for the tide turning against Zelensky. As I keep repeating, I hope that Ukraine wins; I just think it’s dangerous to conflate what we want to happen with what we think will happen. The West’s investment in Ukraine has paid off big time so far, will that continue into 2023?
I think there are three key reasons why Ukraine has been able to withstand the Russian assault. Firstly, Zelensky’s leadership. I don’t like the ‘great man’ theory of history which attribute national achievements to a single decisive executive leader, and I don’t think Zelensky was the only man who could have saved Ukraine. That being said, the fact that he never publicly even considered leaving Kyiv, his insistence that Ukraine can take back everything it lost including Crimea and Donbass, and his unrelenting work to make sure Ukraine supplied with military gear has gone a long way in keeping up morale. Putin thought the war would be a cakewalk because he thought there was no real Ukrainian nation, nothing real keeping the people together in hardship. Clearly the Ukrainian people are united and resilient in the face of the invasion but I don’t think that would be enough if they didn’t have leaders who made it clear that they believe in Ukraine, through words and actions. Zelensky has always made sure to the Ukrainian people that he thinks there is no doubt that they will win and that sort of leadership has been crucial to keep morale up.
Secondly, Western military support. The West and eastern Europe has showered Ukraine with military kit ranging from howitzers to main battle tanks, and has trained hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in basic soldiery and using advanced kit. One of the deciding factors in any war is the quality and supply of resources needed to keep the fight going. With so much of the fight being on Ukrainian land and with so much damaged or destroyed infrastructure it would be extraordinarily difficult for Ukraine to produce enough ammunition and weapons to fight the Russian’s at peak effectiveness, and the war has disrupted the Ukrainian economy to a point where it would be difficult to find the money to import the supplies the Ukrainian armies need. Western support is a life line for Ukraine, and if Kyiv is going to win the West needs to be united in continuing to support the fight. I think the Kremlin didn’t expect Ukraine to get so much stuff from abroad and counted on Russian advantages in population and military production capacity to guarantee a victory on the battlefield.
Thirdly, Ukrainian competence. The Ukrainian army has time and again shown that it is smart, tactical, and calculating when it comes to using its limited resources and has been able to not just slow down the Russian offensive to a grinding stalemate on some fronts, but also liberating large swathes to territory held by the enemy. I think there are enormous benefits for Ukraine to showing that it can liberate territory from the Russians, as it boosts morale and confidence at home and shows that supplying Ukraine has a positive return of investment for backers abroad.
This brings us to what I consider to be the most pressing threat to Ukraine’s chances of being able to continue it’s resistance in 2023. Ironically, the threat stems from the very same three key factors which have so far made Ukraine more effective than most thought. As explained above, Ukraine is dependent on Western support to be able to continue fighting at the current level of effectiveness, and that support is in turn contingent on Ukraine’s backers seeing that Ukraine has a chance against Russia; otherwise the support would be wasted on an a project which is doomed to fail. In essence, foreign support is a positive feedback loop. The risk is that that same feedback loop becomes negative if Zelensky and his military leadership makes a major mistake. If Kyiv understands that it has to make tangible progress on the battlefield for it’s supporters to continue sending military kit I think there is a real risk that those incentives creates an atmosphere where feels that it has to make more and more ambitious counter-offensives to show that it’s worth supporting. If one such counter-offensive fails due to insufficient planning, not having enough kit, or simply bad luck it could be devastating to Ukraine’s chances. If Kyiv overplays it’s hand and suffers a major defeat on the battlefield the aforementioned positive loop might well turn negative where tactical defeats lead to less support which in turn makes every subsequent battle harder.
As I’ve said, I’m impressed with how well Ukraine has done, and at least during the first year of the war it’s clear that Ukrainian military leaders are substantially more competent than their Russian counterparts. That being said, it’s always worth considering incentives when analysing how people will act, and there is a real risk that the West have created incentives which aren’t in line with Ukraine’s interests. I also continue to believe that the longer the war drags on the more the balance tips in Russia’s favour, which adds another pressure for Ukraine to undertake ambitious counter-offensives.
Time will tell whether or not I’m right on this. Hopefully I’m very wrong, but as with investing in financial markets past performance doesn’t indicate future returns.
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've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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