Para bellum?

This phrase is literally translated from Latin as ‘prepare for war’. Let us reflect on what a new arms race gaining momentum is leading the world to.

It is generally believed that the main trends that shaped the world agenda from 1945 to 1991 were the confrontation between the USSR and the USA, known as the Cold War, and the arms race between them. Both of these concepts are inseparable, since both giants could dictate an unyielding will relying on colossal military power sufficient to destroy a rival and its allies, and the rapid development of the military and industrial complex would be impossible without a political order.

Stake on modernisation

It is believed that the end of the first arms race coincided with the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union fell due to a number of external and internal reasons. The West in general and the United States in particular considered themselves the winners in that confrontation, and philosopher Francis Fukuyama published his famous essay ‘The End of History’ and proclaimed the triumph of liberal values. Throughout the 1990s, this concept seemed to be quite fair — Russia and the CIS were struggling to get out of the crisis of the late and post-Soviet era, while NATO was cleaning up the breakaway countries of the former socialist camp around the world that refused to voluntarily agree to join a global consumer society.
With the collapse of the USSR, the West had no need for constant rapid upgrading of its armed forces. During the Cold War, this need was compelling — as soon as one of the parties showcased a certain military novelty for the troops, the opponent immediately developed an antidote, at the same time hastily strengthening the on-duty samples. In contrast, in the era of the neocolonial wars of the 1990s – 2010s, it was enough to use gradually upgraded, well-proven equipment.
Vyacheslav Shpakovsky, a well-known Russian researcher of the history of weapons, has suggested calling this process 'sluggish modernisation'. Indeed, if you look at the timing of creation, commissioning and upgrading of new pieces of armament during the Cold War and in the next three decades, it becomes clear that the expert is not far from the truth.

Food for the god of war

The start of confrontation with the West and the beginning of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine brought the global military and industrial complex out of thirty years of dormancy. A large-scale conflict, equal to which Europe has not seen since 1945, brought civilisation back to the days when artillery shells were the main deficit, and a keen engineering thought started to work anew on inventions in order to hit the enemy even more effectively.
The arms race, the initial stage of which we are witnessing now, touches upon quality and quantity issues. The latter indicator primarily concerns not only units of equipment or weapons, but also the amount of ammunition they can be provided with. According to the data announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use about 5 thousand shells a day. In November last year, the British daily broadsheet newspaper,
The Telegraph, specified the figure of 6 thousand shells for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and about 20 thousand shells for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation per day. Other sources report that during the peak moments of the summer offensive, Ukrainians fired more than 7 thousand shells daily, while Russians — about 40–50 thousand. Such expenditure figures are comparable to those during the times of world wars. This burden falls on the shoulders of economies that existed in a different paradigm for the last 30 years. 
Russia successfully overcame the difficulties with ammunition supply that the troops experienced in the autumn–winter of 2022 and that persisted in some areas until the spring of 2023. According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the Armed Forces received more than 20 million rounds of ammunition with an 82 to 240 mm caliber over the past year. The West seriously lags behind — in 2022, the United States produced 14–15 thousand 155 mm shells per month, and in 2023, it boosted its production to over 20 thousand. By 2025, a sharp increase to 70 thousand shells per month is planned. NATO can offer some more — the organisation is going to produce 42 thousand shells per month in 2024 and 75 thousand a year later. The EU had planned to transfer 1 million artillery shells to the Kiev regime by spring 2024 before German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius confirmed that the EU would be unable to fulfill its promise, ‘It is safe to assume that the one million rounds will not be reached’.   
In terms of the SMO, it is important to understand that Russia relies on its own industrial base. Ukraine, however, having exhausted the Soviet-era arsenals, totally depends on supplies from NATO countries. The shell starvation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in recent months is nothing else than the consequence of the depletion of the alliance’s reserves and the fact that Germany, France and other Western countries have failed to promptly transfer their economies to military rails.

Robots go into battle

The second aspect of the arms race is qualitative. It is generally admitted that major military conflicts push engineering forward. Thus, the SMO became the catalyst for a real revolution in military affairs. This refers to the massive emergence of drones on the battlefield. 
Sea, air, and ground drones are not only used today in a wide variety of theatres of war, from Ukraine to Sudan, from Gaza to Yemen, but are also being continuously upgraded. For example, the Russian Lancet kamikaze drone, which has become one of the main means of counter-battery warfare, received a target acquisition and guidance system and
a thermal imager just in the last year and a half, increasing the range up to 70 kilometres. 
The next stage of the military revolution will be the use of artificial intelligence. The first steps in this direction have already been taken. 
AI is already actively used to analyse large amounts of data, especially those related to traditional reconnaissance and open-source intelligence (OSINT), as well as analysis of satellite images. An American company, Palantir Technologies, whose main investor is the CIA, provided the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the integrated battle management software used in the battle for Bakhmut last year. The report by David Ignatius for The Washington Post revealed that the software package collected data from participants in the battle, Ukrainian spies on the ground, and UAVs in the air, allowing a complete picture of what was happening on the battlefield to be formed.
The new arms race is a serious challenge for humanity. It is not once nor twice that the world was on the verge of destruction during the Cold War. The challenges that civilisation is facing now are even more severe. After all, artificial intelligence is entering the arena now along with politicians, military commanders and soldiers of flesh and blood. 

BY THE WAY

In the current situation, the Republic of Belarus has chosen the path of a reasonable approach to the army modernisation. Our country does not enter an arms race, yet at the same time we maintain a high level of combat readiness of the Armed Forces. As the Deputy Defence Minister for Armament, Chief of Armament of the Armed Forces, Major General Andrei Fedin told the VoyenTV channel in an interview, the arsenal of the Belarus’ Armed Forces will be replenished with Mi–35M attack helicopters and Tor–M2 surface-to-air defence missile systems this year. The ground forces will be supplied with upgraded T–72BM2 tanks. Modernised BTR–70MB armoured personnel carriers will continue to be sent to special operations forces. The intelligence agency will receive Rogneda air monitoring complexes. There is heightened interest in drones and means of combating enemy drones. “Definitely, a lot of attention will be paid to such areas as rocket science and the fight against unmanned aerial vehicles. This is the key direction nowadays,” Dmitry Pantus, Chairman of the State Authority for Military Industry, told BelTA before the meeting of the board ‘On Results of Activities of the State Authority for Military Industry and its Affiliate Organisations in 2023 and Tasks for 2024’.  

By Anton Popov