Oil And Water

Scarcity of oil and rising petroleum prices, and climate change driven drought, are a big deal. But there are fairly clear paths by which our society can adapt to both. Neither would be apocalyptic, even though it would drive significant, visible changes in our day to day material culture.

These matters are particularly worth thinking about on Earth Day, which is today.

Oil

A very large share of all petroleum consumption is for transportation, mostly cars, trucks, construction vehicles, boats, ships, and trains. Advances in battery technology, and EV manufacturing and infrastructure are making electric vehicle alternatives to all of those technologically viable. And, advances in renewable energy and nuclear power can replace almost all of the fossil fuels in the electrical power grid. Coal is well on its way to be phased out in the United States and much of the developed world. Alaska and Hawaii are the only U.S. states where a significant share of electricity is generated from petroleum. Heat pumps are paving the way as an alternative to heating buildings that were historically heated with heating oil in the U.S. (mostly in the Northeast). 

Heat pumps and evaporative coolers (together with better insulation) also dramatically more energy efficient than conventional air conditioning, and renewables like solar and wind combined with modern batteries are particularly well suited to meet the demand for electricity to provide cooling.

Lots of fertilizers that are petroleum based could also become unaffordable, as they have as global petroleum supplies have been interrupted by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, and its counterattacks. But organic farming techniques are now well established enough that these methods pose an obvious alternative path for agriculture is petroleum based fertilizers cease to become economically viable. Dutch models of intensive hydroponic agriculture suggests another off ramp from what is now considered conventional agriculture.

There are some applications where there aren't good alternatives to petroleum, like plastics and jet fuel. But these are such a small share of total petroleum consumption that these uses could be sustained, even if they become more expensive, even if petroleum prices soar and the supplies contract greatly. 

Of course, plastics and petroleum based fabrics like nylon, have only been in wide use for about sixty years. If plastic becomes too expensive, we can revert to using metal, glass, wood, and plant and animal fiber alternatives for applications like kitchen ware and trash bins that aren't uniquely suited to plastic, as traditional alternatives becomes more affordable relative to plastic with rising petroleum prices.

The changes wouldn't be geographically neutral. A collapse in demand for petroleum driving by electric vehicles and organic farming would crush the economies of petrostates in the Middle East, in Brunei, in Nigeria, in Venezuela, and in select states within the United States. West Virginia has already seen its coal based economy collapse, as have many historically coal mining economy based regions in Europe. Wyoming will follow suit. 

On the other hand, rare earth rich areas who supply key components of modern batteries and electronics, may see mineral economy booms.

Water

In most of the arid west, marginal agricultural activity consumes 80%-90% of all fresh water, while landscaping and golf courses consume about half of the rest of the fresh water. If water becomes scarce, entire regions can eliminate their water hungry landscaping, golf courses can close or become much more expensive or use artificial grass, and marginal agricultural operations can close.

In places like the Arabian Peninsula, Greece, Utah, and California, desalination technology might become more prominent as a water source, at least for high value municipal waters uses like drinking, cooking, and bathing, and gray water systems would use non-potable water (such as salt water from the ocean or salt water lakes) in applications where drinkability wasn't important, like flushing toilets.

Climate change that produces global warming ultimately both gives and takes away arable land. It renders much of the arid West unsuitable for farming and ranching, but makes places that were too cold for farming in the past, more suitable for it. Even when climate change doesn't actually change the total amount of arable land somewhere, it may change the kind of agriculture that is appropriate in that place.

Places that used to support subtropical orange groves may freeze more often and get dryer and become more suitable for cotton and the soft wheat varieties currently grown in places north of Florida in the American South. Crops now grown in the South might start to be grown in the Midwest. The abundant corn and wheat fields of the Great Plains and Midwest might move north to Canada. The Great Plains might transition from grain farming to cattle grazing.

I'm not a climate scientist. I don't have exact models of exactly when and where climate zones that are suitable for particular crops and livestock will relocate. But that's the basic concept.

The ongoing wars across the Sahel of Africa illustrate how ugly the process of having herders ecologically forced into historically horticultural land can be without strong geographically large states to force the transition to be made with money instead of violence can look. But with strong states that remove violence as a viable option, the transition, while still massively disruptive, could be less tragic in places like North America and Western Europe.

Similarly, the skiing industry might relocate from places like Colorado and Vermont to places like the Yukon and Alaska, in North American, and from places like the Alps in Europe to the northern Urals and the Himalayas in Eurasia.

Many Sunbelt communities in places like Arizona and Texas and Florida may see the waves of migration to avoid the cold winters of the north replaced by migration north to avoid the months of hundred degree plus water in the Sunbelt which are already commonplace in cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas, while the rust belt, with its winters made milder due to global warming and abundant fresh water, may start to look more attractive, and may attract mass return migrations.

One of these days, people in the Sunbelt may return to the traditional solution of having midday siestas, inside cooler, shaded adobe insulated homes, and becoming more active once the sun goes down and the air cools late into the evening.

Coastal communities will have to build dikes or lose land area as sea levels rise, and many will have to remake their architectural landscape in the face of increasingly severe storms, something that will hit the U.S. states of Florida and Louisiana and some islands in Oceania particularly hard.

Species limited to narrow microenvironment ranges will go extinct en masse, as human encroachment upon their habitats, ecological disruption, and human predation have already done to many species already.

How fast will it happen?

We are, in 2026, at about the place on this path that we thought we'd be in the year 2006, back in 1986. Events like the transitions to EVs and heat pumps and renewables and industrial scale organic farming happened, but it took about twice as long as futurists at the time thought that it would.

Climate change, on the other hand, is happening faster than expected by a decade or three. The changes that were initially looking like they would take a century to run their course are now looking like they will occur in half of that time.

Certainly, these transitions are medium to long run trends. They will probably takes decades more to run their course. These transitions probably won't be complete in my lifetime, although they probably will run their course in the lives of my children, or at least, in the lives of my future grandchildren. Less poetically, this time frame is about 30-90 years.

But these trends are both massive and inexorable, like plate tectonics but much, much faster. Fast enough that it will be visible in future tree ring records.

Conclusion

These are huge, traumatic changes that will force mass migrations and fundamental changes in people's day to day culture. But they don't mean the end of modern life as we know it either. And falling birthrates will eventually lead to smaller global and regional populations that put less strain on scarce water and fossil fuel resources.

Military Technology Musings

Nuclear Weapons

Most of the nuclear weapons in the world are H-bombs (which create a nuclear fusion explosion from heavy hydrogen) and ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that carry H-bombs) with multiple warheads that spread out over a large area, and a much greater explosive power than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs (that created a nuclear fission explosion from uranium) that were the first and only time that nuclear weapons were used in combat in 80 years ago.

The problem with one of these typical weapons in nuclear arsenals worldwide is that blowing up everyone and everything in a major metropolitan area, irradiating that area for many years, doing significant harm to the global environmental, and risking a counterattack in kind from other nuclear powers under the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine, is almost never a militarily useful thing to do. We justify them primarily under the MAD doctrine as a way to discouraging anyone from ever using nuclear weapons.

Even for extreme military missions like "bomb Mecca", or destroying the headquarters of an enemy government in a capital where its top leaders are located, or destroying a large military base isolated from civilian populations, or penetrating deep bunkers (such as a North Korean or Iranian nuclear facility or an ICBM missile base or an underground submarine base in China), a single warhead much less potent than a typical U.S. ICBM or SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missile) and closer in explosive power to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs, are more than adequate in terms of explosive power.

Really, the only mission for which such powerful weapons make any military sense is planetary defense, to break up a large incoming meteor or comet into small enough pieces to burn up in the atmosphere before doing serious damage, or to divert an incoming meteor or comet from a collision course with Earth, in the basically oxygen free environment of deep space.

Indeed, one of the main reasons that nuclear weapons haven't been used again for 80 years, despite the fact that quite a few countries now have them, is precisely because they aren't a good fit to any military objectives, and not because the countries that have them been particularly ethical.

Tactical nuclear weapons, such as the backpack sized "Davy Crocket" bomb from Cold War era, are another matter. These can be as potent as, or perhaps ten times as potent as the largest conventional missiles and bombs, but can be five hundred times less massive. This makes them the right size to bust deep bunkers, sink aircraft carriers and other large warships, or destroy a large dam, bridge, or military base, or a dictator's palace while the dictator and his top lieutenants are in residence, with a single blow. This could be delivered using a small hypersonic missile, or small fast supercavitating torpedo, or small stealthy drone, or a guided bomb delivered with a stealth warplane, or by special forces soldiers disguised in a civilian boat or car or ATV, that can more easily evade air defenses that could more easily intercept a conventional sized missile or conventional bomber aircraft. If one could make a tactical nuclear weapon with a much smaller yield than even the 10-20 kiloton Davy Crocket bomb, one would even use it to make much smaller anti-armor/anti-ship/anti-fortifications weapons - with a four to ten pound mini-missile doing the damage of the two thousand pound bombs that are the largest typically used by fighter aircraft and as conventional ship and submarine launched missiles.

But, the much smaller size of the bomb is less likely to provoke a civilization ending counterattack, and, particularly if it is an H-bomb that doesn't spread uranium or plutonium all over the place, leaves a much smaller area irradiated for a shorter time period and doesn't do nearly as much damage to the global environment.

What this means for policy is another matter. 

On one hand, it suggests that investing in large numbers of multiple kinds of large modernized nuclear missiles and bombs doesn't really make sense. Optimally, one wants no more of them than is necessary to present a credible MAD deterrent. Why, for example, should you have land based ICBMs at all, when they turn those bases into first priority targets in World War III and are easier to use missile defenses against than SLBMs and nuclear bombs delivered by stealth aircraft or shorter range hypersonic missiles launched from aircraft.

On the other hand, if you create a significant arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, particularly if other nations and insurgent groups follow your example, it is much more likely that they will actually be used in war. And, honestly, existing conventional bombs are more than adequate to destroy or disable that most heavily armored vehicles and all but the deepest and most secure bunkers, without crossing the line of normalizing the use of nuclear weapons in war.

Nuclear Batteries

Nuclear power for military applications has only been used for military submarines and large ships like aircraft carriers and mega-cruisers, in part, because they have been hard to scale down in size, and in part, because the nuclear materials in them could be used by an enemy, if captured, to make nuclear weapons.

But nuclear batteries, using lighter radioactive isotopes than uranium and plutonium (like thorium), that are not nearly as suitable for use in nuclear weapons, share the immense energy density of existing nuclear power plants on submarines (which use only 10 kg of fuel for decades), and large warships, and can be scaled down to arbitrarily small sizes (e.g. a pacemaker or watch or single automobile). Nuclear waste from nuclear batteries using lighter isotopes is also reputedly easier to dispose of than uranium. This has tremendous (I hesitate to use this overused phrase but it's appropriate here) game changing potential to reduce the logistics burden of military units. 

In fiction, this is basically the innovation that makes Iron Man's suit possible. 

Nuclear batteries facilitate quieter, lower maintenance, all electric military systems that don't need to be refueled for years, and that can also use that spare power to recharge electric devices in the unit and military lasers and directed energy weapons, and they allow fuel supplies to be decentralized to individual vehicles, systems, and equipment items. It generates no smoke or emissions smells. Combined with night vision, IR sensors, and LIDAR these vehicles could operate without lights at night. If a ship with a nuclear battery were sunk, it wouldn't create an oil slick that would endanger sailors who abandoned ship. 

The logistics burden involved in providing water to troops could be reduced as well. In coastal areas and at sea, it could power a desalinator, at least for showers and cleaning use, even if it wasn't good enough to make tasty water for drinking. In deserts, it could power a device to extract clean water from the air. In jungles and forests, it could power a water purifier that would allow local water supplies to be used. It could also power heat pumps in places that were too hot or too cold.

No more tanker ships. Propeller and rotor driven aircraft could dispense with aerial refueling tankers. No more vulnerable, unarmored convoys carrying diesel fuel. No more vulnerable fuel depots. No more reliance of distant fuel supplies whose prices are influenced by foreign powers who may become adverse to you.

And, because nuclear batteries can be much more compact than conventional fossil fuel tanks or chemical batteries, without sacrificing range, there is one less thing in the military system which can be easily struck causing the vehicle or military system to explode from its own fuel, because nuclear batteries are a much smaller target and, if properly designed with this risk in mind, aren't necessarily explosive if hit with a high explosive round.

Things That Are Hard To Predict

The mix of drones (armed and unarmed), guided bomb and missiles, active defenses including but not limited to directed energy weapons and jammers, new materials that could make armor lighter and stronger, hypersonic missiles, prototype "invisibility" cloaks, claimed (but not demonstrated) sensors that can penetrate radar stealth, and the use of artificial intelligence to organize information in the fog of war, identify incoming targets and respond before a human could react, and guide drones and guided munitions without active direction from a human controller and guide sniper weapons more accurate, all combine to make the future of warfare hard to predict.

Active defenses, particularly as used by Ukraine and Israel in recent conflicts, and by U.S. naval ships, have made securing air superiority much more challenging, intercept something like 85-90% of incoming missiles and drones reversing the one shot, one kill trend established by the first guided weapons, and could be the only thing that rescues tanks and fixed forward operating bases from obsolescence (while allowing the use of less armor since threats only countered by heavier armor can be actively intercepted). 

And, these are only in the early days. There is plenty of room to make interceptor munitions less expensive (particularly with directed energy weapons), to make them and their associated sensors smaller, lighter, and more secure, to increase the percentage of incoming munitions that are intercepted, and to increase their range.

On the other hand, countermeasures to active defenses, like AI guided and wire guided suicide drones that make jamming ineffective, are being developed rapidly too, out of necessity. So far, suicide drones have been mostly crude modification of commercial, off the shelf quadcopters, but there is also plenty of room to make them quieter, harder to see, and to make them harder to discern with radar and electronic signals.

Part of what makes the future course of these technologies so hard to predict is the constant, rapid Red Queen hypothesis evolution of measures and countermeasures. 

For example, recent efforts to develop rail guns with unguided rounds that rely purely on kinetic energy without resort to explosives or guidance systems, which were set aside because they were too difficult technologically, may receive renewed attention for their immunity to active defenses based upon jamming, lasers, or other directed energy weapons (like microwaves), and may be possible to scale down in size as heavier armor is abandoned in favor of active defenses.

Armed drones are much smaller and cheaper than comparable manned warplanes, warships, submarines, and military ground vehicles, and can be used to take much greater risks since the smaller ones are expendable. They have become the dominant weapons in the Ukraine War and in military encounters directly between Israel and Iran, and have been one of the primary weapons used in the war on terrorism carried out by the U.S. in the wake of 9/11. They can strike targets well beyond the range of slug throwing artillery, and can be effective in precisely striking the most vulnerable parts of moving targets whose exact location isn't known when they are launched, while reducing the risk of friendly fire.

So far, simple, remote controlled, flying drones have been predominant in military applications. But, we have seen glimpses of other possibilities. Large sophisticated drone fighter aircraft are smaller, cheaper, and capable of higher-G maneuvers and faster reaction times than manned fighter aircraft. Flying drones have been used to resupply troops in war zones in environments where there is too much enemy fire or the terrain is too difficult for conventional logistics convoys. Drone jet skis and speed boats filled with explosives have destroyed large warships in the Black Sea. Small, comparatively inexpensive, drone ships carrying anti-ship missiles in shipping containers have been successfully tested against target test ships. Small anti-personnel aerial drones carrying small arms or grenade sized munitions have been prototyped but not yet widely used, but could facilitate sniper-like tactics in conditions where these tactics were previously not viable.

Reconnaissance drones can identify enemy forces in ways that previously took much larger and more expensive helicopters, fixed wing reconnaissance aircraft, and satellites, at a cost and size that make them cost effective for even platoon or squad sized army units to use organically for themselves in real time. Coast guard cutters can use them to patrol far more of the sea at once, and more quickly and in more places at once, than any ship or boat could. Smaller battery powered reconnaissance drones can be similar in size, speed, and noise level to birds, making them harder to detect. The smallest insect-sized reconnaissance drones can enter buildings or clear anti-drone netting, undetected, aren't that expensive, are harder to shoot down if detected, and can be deployed in swarms. There have also been successful efforts to put cameras on actual roaches and other insects for tasks like locating survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings. Small remotely monitored sensors can constantly monitor roads, bridges, fields, buildings, and ports with a much reduced risk of detection. And, unlike a human scout or forward observer, who is also easier to detect, they can't reveal many secrets, or create a POW hostage situation or casualty if they are captured.

Submarine drones can be on constant patrol for days or weeks for enemy armed submarines, sea mines, and enemy ships, or could follow enemy submarines to their hidden bases, while appearing to sensors like sea life. Submarine drones or mostly submerged drone ships can be used to smuggle supplies in interdicted waters, in the way that drug dealers have used them. Submarine suicide drones (or armed submarine drones) can be used to destroy enemy ships without being detected until it is too late, at distances far exceeding what is possible with a conventional torpedo.

Nuclear batteries could be used to create drones or remote sensors that can operate autonomously for years without human contact or maintenance.

It is hard to know what kind of balance and mix of technologies will emerge as experience and economics guide the choices that make sense as these technologies become more mature. 

For example, lots of drone and missile guidance systems (and military aircraft) are expensive to a significant extent, not because they are expensive to manufacture, but because a large premium is being paid for the intellectual property rights arising from the development process. So, a significant part of the cost barrier to their use is economic and could be addressed without any technological advancement (perhaps the military would be better off paying for R&D itself on a work for hire basis and retaining all of the intellectual property).

Things We Can Predict

This said, there are some predictions and conclusions that can be reached with some comfort:

* Tanks and conventional warships without active defenses are as obsolete against a near peer opponent as horse cavalry, warships with sails and cannons, swords, and bayonets. Howitzers and mortars throwing unguided slugs will follow soon.

* Large, mostly unarmored and undefended forward operating bases near "front lines" (such as they are), massed formations of ground troops and armored vehicles, and small pillbox type fortifications are obsolete tactics against near peer opponents.

* No armor, unaccompanied by active defenses, is effective against anti-armor weapons, which are increasingly inexpensive, light, and effective, making large, heavy military systems that rely on armor ineffective against near peer opponents. Armor pretty much only makes sense against enemy forces or insurgents or civilians with only small arms.

* The cost and availability of the weapons necessary to be effective, in a cost-effective way, against a big budget sovereign nation military force has greatly declined.

* National borders, national waters, and military tactics organized around front lines have limited relevance when long range strikes are widely available.

* Large nuclear weapons will continue to not be used because they don't serve useful military objectives.

* Biological weapons are unlikely to be widely used until they can be better controlled, because the risk of blow back to the user is great.

* Despite being lumped in with nuclear and biological weapons, chemical weapons, at least historically, have not been significantly more effective than conventional weapons, and have been amenable to effective countermeasures when they have been used like air sealed vehicles with positive air pressure, filters, protective clothing, and gas masks.

* Advances in modern military weapons have made great strides in destroying distant and armored targets, but drones, missiles, and guided bombs can't hold or control populated territory, which is one of the most common military objectives, without boots on the ground.

The Air Force Plans To Phase Out B-2 Bomber By 2030

In a continuing reshuffling of Department of Defense procurement under the Trump Administration, the Air Force now wants to retire the B-2 stealth bomber with the similar, but smaller and more modern B-21 stealth bomber, in just five years, rather than its previously planned 32 years from now. 

The current plan is to buy far more B-21s (at least 100) than the current fleet of B-2 bombers (which is under 20).

The B-21 is almost ready for prime time, having made its first flight in 2023,  and almost unprecedentedly for a project of this scale, is under budget. The lower cost is a result of accepting the limits of current technologies (which have still advanced significantly from the B-2) rather than trying to push beyond them, and of resisting the temptation to make the bomber supersonic or giving it air-to-air missile capabilities. It's smaller size also reduces the per bomber cost.

The B-21 will have a smaller bomb payload than the B-2, the B-1, or the B-52, despite having a similar global range. While the B-2 Bomber can carry two 30,000 pound GBU-57 MOP bunker buster bombs (the largest in U.S. service which it entered in 2011), a capability highlighted in a recent B-2 bomber strike on nuclear facilities in Iran, it will carry, at most, a single 22,000 pound "next generation penetrator" which can be delivered from a greater distance, from a platform that is more stealthy in the first place, and is more accurate, but has a smaller warhead. The 22,000 pound NGP is about the same size as the C-130 delivered MOAB GBU-43 bunker buster bomb.

Does this moderately degraded capability, that has been used only once and didn't exist until 2011 matter?

It would take about three B-21s to deliver the same amount of ordinance as one B-2. But the plan is to buy more than three times as many B-21s as the current fleet of B-2s. Even the 30,000 pound MOP bombs used in pairs in Iran did not, however, as briefly claimed after the strike, decisively destroy the deep nuclear facility bunkers there anyway.  

A tactical nuclear weapons, like the Cold War 51 pound Mk-54 Davey Crocket with a yield of 10-20 tons of TNT, could do the same, but would require crossing the threshold to using nuclear weapons. 

This would be a yield about 1,000 times smaller than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. The Hiroshima A-Bomb weighed 9,700 pounds (including 64 kg of Uranium-235) producing a 13-18 kiloton yield, and the Nagasaki A-Bomb weighed 10,300 pounds (including 6.2 kg of Plutonium-239) producing a 19-23 kiloton yield.

Realistically, one of the main missions of the B-21 would be to launch anti-ship missiles against a feared large Chinese fleet trying to invade Taiwan, and for that mission, a 22,000 pound bomb load is more the sufficient and quantity matters more than quality.

The Air Force has just announced an earlier retirement of the B-2 bomber by 2030. This is the second time that this has happened. This budget driven decision means that “…new B-21 must replace—and not be additive to—much of the existing bomber fleet. The Air Force had previously planned to operate the B-1 and B-52 until 2040, and the B-2 to 2058.” In addition, the Air Force has almost zeroed B-2 modernization.  

This may eliminate the U.S. ability to deliver the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (GBU-57/B or MOP) which is by far the most effective U.S. conventional weapon against hard and very deeply buried targets. The B-2 bomber is the only U.S. bomber cleared to deliver the MOP. It is also the only current U.S. bomber that can penetrate advanced air defenses. 

At about the same time, the Air Force accelerated the development of the Next Generation Penetrator (NGP) which would be carried by the new B-21. The NGP will be significantly lighter (no more 22,000 pounds) compared to the MOP’s (30,000 pounds). It will be superior to the MOP in some important respects. It will have a standoff capability, which is very important against advanced air defenses and substantially greater accuracy. However, it is unclear that it will be equal much less superior to the MOP in attacking and destroying large, hard and very deeply buried facilities such as Fordow in Iran. Moreover, at this point the NGP is untested. 

. . . 

The NGP has 8,000 pounds less weight available for high explosives which is only about 20% of the weight of the MOP. This is usual for penetrators which have to be built very heavy and strong to survive rock and reinforced concrete penetration. In addition, a significant part of the NGP weight will be the rocket motor which will further reduce the weight available for high explosives. Thus, it is possible that the NGP will be less effective than the MOP against large, hard and very deeply buried targets such as Fordow.

The B-21 bomber, the world’s first sixth generation aircraft, is an enormous improvement over the B-2 in most respects. It clearly has much greater stealth. The Air Force has characterized its stealth level as “extremely low observable.” Reportedly, its radar cross section has been reduced from .1 square meter in the B-2 to either .0001 or .0004 in the B-21. This would greatly increase its ability to penetrate advanced air defenses. Its stealth is much more robust than the much older technology which was used in the B-2. This will substantially increase bomber combat availability. The aircraft carries advanced sensors and electronic warfare capabilities. The B-21 has an open systems architecture which will facilitate future upgrades. Northrop Gruman has done an incredibly good job in bringing the B-21 into existence actually under budget. When the contract award was announced in 2015, many doubted whether this was possible.

However, the B-21 was designed in a period of defense budget starvation under the Obama Administration. It was deliberately made less capable than it could have been. Retired Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz, wrote in his memoires that the Next Generation Bomber (NGB, sometimes called the 2018 bomber) “‘…had grown too big’ and was carrying too many missions and requirements. It was to have an air-to-air missile capability for self defense.” This original concept for the NGB was de facto terminated in 2008 although it was described as a delay. The need to minimize B-21 costs (no more than $550 million per aircraft in 2010 dollars) resulted in an adoption of a low technical risk strategy, a smaller bomber, no possibility of it ever having a supersonic capability and a production equipment limitation on the possible production rate. Some analysts believe that stealth must be combined with supersonic speed to deal with the long-term projected threat environment and that the number of penetrating bombers must be doubled.

The size and weight of a bomber has a significant impact on its costs. For most missions the B-21s bomb load is sufficient. However, good capabilities against hard and very deeply buried facilities require the maximum practical bomb load. 

. . . 

It is clear that the B-21 is significantly smaller and lighter than the B-2. (The B-2 itself is also substantially lighter and smaller than the other U.S. heavy bombers, the B-52s and B-1s). According to noted aviation journalist Bill Sweetman, “The B-21’s resemblance to the original B-2 bomber design is close, but it is a smaller aircraft, with a wingspan estimated at 132 ft. compared with the B-2’s 172 ft., and is approximately half the empty weight.” If so, this would make it an advanced medium bomber with intercontinental range. The payload of the B-21 is clearly limited compared to the bombers it is replacing. Sweetman and a number of other aerospace journalists have reported that the bomb load of the B-21 is about 20,000 pounds. Christian Orr, editor of the National Security Journal, writes, “If Mr. Sweetman’s estimates are accurate, that would cast serious doubt upon the newer warbird’s ability to carry the 30,000-lb. (14,000 kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb immortalized by its usage in the Midnight Hammer strikes.”

There are many reports that the B-21 can carry a single MOP, but this appears to largely be speculation. There is no official confirmation of this and it appears unlikely. If the weapons load is limited to about 20,000 pounds, it cannot carry even a single MOP. There are reports of higher bomb load numbers for the B-21 but the limitation of the weight of the NGP to 22,000 pounds suggests that the lower estimates of the B-2 bomb load are more accurate.

Even if the B-21s were able to carry the MOP, they certainly would be unable to carry more than one compared to two on the B-2. The MOP was originally designed to be used two at a time to maximize the probability of target destruction.

From here. 

In other military procurement news, the U.S. Navy is extending the life of three cruisers from 2026 to 2030. The U.S. Army is adding four new Patriot Missile battalions. And, the U.S. Marine Corps has ordered 44 of its new air defense systems for about $32.52 million:

The MRIC (Medium-Range Intercept Capability) is a mobile and modular air defense system developed specifically for the U.S. Marine Corps to provide a medium-range intercept capability against a wide array of aerial threats. Designed to operate in expeditionary and contested environments, MRIC fills a critical capability gap between short-range systems like the Stinger missile and long-range assets such as Patriot. The system is capable of intercepting cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and indirect fire threats such as rockets, artillery shells, and mortars.

The Ukraine War After Almost Three Years

An Overview Three Years Later

In three years of war, Ukraine and Russia have both had immense casualties (as have the North Korean soldiers deployed with Russian forces), and have lost immense amounts of military equipment.

Ukraine is able to obtain replacements for its military equipment losses from the U.S. and Europe. Russia has a very limited capacity to replace its military equipment and is able to buy additional military equipment primarily only from North Korea (whose equipment is of poor quality) and Iran (which has primarily supplied it with military drones).

Estimates of what military equipment resources Russia and Ukraine, respectively, have to use right now are hard to come by (previous posts at this blog have tried to estimate this for Russia). Russia has so far been able to largely replace its casualties with new recruits and conscripts, but the expertise of the huge swath of its officer corps and experienced career soldier veterans which it has lost are much harder to replace than warm bodies with minimal military training.

But it is fair to say that Russia's resources to fight conventional ground warfare have been greatly reduced by the Ukraine War, while NATO countries have simultaneously increased their capacity to wage war with Russia in response to the Ukraine War (and NATO has also expanded to add new members as a result). And, this ignores the extent to which Russian military secrets about its tactics and readiness have made it easier for its opponents to figure out how best to counter its military and has allowed them to more realistically assess how its forces on paper translate into actual military capabilities.

Russia has lost more troops and military equipment than many countries in the world have at all. Russia inherited the Soviet Navy, but at a fraction of the USSR's population, struggles to maintain and operate it.

Russia's economy more generally is also starting to struggle, as 57% of its sovereign wealth fund has been used up, its fiscal deficit has increased thirteen-fold, its cutting pay for soldiers, its inflation rate has leapt to 24% (with key food items like butter and potatoes surging 30% and 56%, year to year, respectively), consumer loans are almost impossible to get (95% of applications are rejected) and business loans are much harder to get because interest rates are being artificially capped at 21%, 700,000 to 900,000 economically mobile Russians have moved abroad since the war started, this and diversion of people from the work force to the military, and mass deportations of foreigners in response to terrorist attacks, have created shortages of workers, and sanctions have slowly but effectively taken a toll on it. Russia's fossil fuel sales have taken a hit as well.

For the most part, the Trump Administration has been intent upon pulling the rug out from under Ukraine and doing what Russia wants, but in one surprising deviation from that policy, it has floated the idea of providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

Russia continues to make some territorial gains, but is going so slowly and at an immense cost in soldiers, equipment, and money.

So far, Russia has used the excuse of the war to crack down on internal dissent and shut off foreign influences. It has been largely successful in doing so, apart from one mutiny by Russia's mercenaries which was quickly abandoned.

Military Casualties in the Ukraine War

"In a rare public estimate, President Volodymyr Zelensky told US news outlet NBC over the weekend that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and some 380,000 wounded. But independent Ukrainian war correspondent Yuri Butusov said in December 2024 that his army sources estimated some 70,000 dead and 35,000 missing. Several Western media, citing European and US sources, have reported numbers that hugely vary -- with estimates ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 Ukrainians killed in combat."

From France24. 

"The Russian army has lost almost 250,000 soldiers in the war against Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Feb. 15 during his speech at the Munich Security Conference. . . . In addition, a total of over 610,000 Russian troops have been wounded since Feb. 24, 2022, according to the president. . . . 

Up to 12,000 North Korean troops were deployed to Kursk Oblast last fall to support Russian forces in countering a Ukrainian incursion launched in early August 2024. Zelensky previously said that North Korean troops fighting for Russia against Ukraine have suffered 4,000 casualties, two-thirds of whom have been killed. The heavy losses of the North Korean army may be related to its lack of combat experience and the tactic of human waves attacks with a limited amount of equipment[.]"

From the Kyiv Independent.  

Russian Military Equipment Losses

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported in early February 2025 that Russia has lost (presumably damaged or destroyed) almost 10,000 tanks since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Data from the Ukrainian General Staff indicates that Ukrainian forces destroyed or damaged 3,689 tanks, 8,956 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), 13,050 artillery systems, and 407 air defense systems in 2024 alone. The British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) recently estimated that Ukrainian forces destroyed 1,400 Russian main battle tanks and over 3,700 Russian IFVs and armored personnel carriers (APCs) in 2024. (IISS's numbers likely differ from those from the Ukrainian General Staff as IISS data likely only accounts for destroyed vehicles.) Dutch open-source project Oryx, which uses photo or video evidence to verify Russian equipment losses, confirmed that Russia has lost at least 3,740 tanks, 5,459 IFVs, 615 APCs, 446 towed artillery systems, and 880 self-propelled artillery systems since February 2022 as of the time of this writing.

From an Institute for the Study of War report, dated February 19, 2025.  

Replacing Russian casualties and resupplying Russian military equipment

Russia is replacing its military casualties at a roughly one to one rate with new green recruits, and North Korean forces have barely made a dent in that issue. 

Russia's efforts to replenish its military equipment are in even worse shape, and are forcing it to dig deep into Soviet boneyards for inferior older models that are hard to refurbish and will be exhausted in a year or two. Russia is burning through artillery and tank shells as fast as it can make them. 

North Korea is supplying Russia with military equipment, but its products are inferior. Iran is mostly limiting itself to selling Russia drones. China is refusing to sell Russia military equipment.

Russia's current reported monthly recruitment rate is either just equal to or just below the quantity needed to replace Russia's monthly casualty rate one-to-one. Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reported in October 2024 that Russian forces were suffering roughly 1,200 casualties per day. UK Defense Secretary John Healey stated in November 2024 that Russian forces suffered an average daily casualty rate of 1,345 troops per day in October 2024. Russia's casualty rate increased in late 2024 as Russian forces made gradual, creeping advances in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that December 2024 saw a record-high Russian loss rate with 48,670 casualties, even though Russian advances slowed in December 2024 compared to September through November 2024. Syrskyi reported in January 2025 that Russian forces suffered more than 434,000 casualties in 2024. Similarly high casualty rates have continued into 2025, with Russia reportedly suffering 48,240 casualties in January 2025. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed in late December 2024 that 440,000 recruits signed military service contracts with the Russian MoD in 2024 — about 36,600 new recruits per month. . . . The roughly 12,000 North Korean troops in Kursk Oblast would offset nine to 12 days of theater-wide Russian losses at current rates.

        . . . 

Russia's defense industrial base (DIB) cannot produce new armored vehicles and artillery systems at rates that can offset Russia's current tempo of losses in the medium- to long-term. Russia is reportedly able to produce about 200 IFVs per year — far below even the more conservative figures for Russia's IFV losses in 2024. Russia is reportedly able to produce about 50 artillery gun barrels per year but is unable to quickly scale up this production as Russia currently only has two factories that are equipped with the specialized machines used to produce gun barrels. Russia has one factory producing new tanks — Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil. Estimates vary widely for the factory's production rates, ranging from about 20 tanks per month to just 60 to 90 per year. Uralvagonzavod can also reportedly refurbish about eight tanks per month, while three other repair plants can reportedly refurbish about 17 tanks per month each. Еven Uralvagonzavod's higher new production estimates plus Russia's reported refurbishment rates leave the Russian DIB unable to replace Russia's continued high tank losses.

Russia has maintained its offensives by tapping its Soviet-era stocks of armored vehicles and artillery systems to compensate for these high loss rates, but this resource is finite and approaching a point of diminishing availability. IISS assessed that Russia refurbished and built over 1,500 tanks and 2,800 IFVs and APCs in 2024 — suggesting that Russia produced enough vehicles to replace all of IISS's estimated tank losses and three quarters of IISS's assessed Russian armored vehicle losses in 2024. Other open-source assessments of Russian military depots using satellite imagery find that Russia retains 47 percent of its pre-war tank reserves, 52 percent of its pre-war IFV reserves, and 45 percent of its pre-war APC reserves in storage as of December 2, 2024. Some analysts forecast that Russia will run out of its Soviet-era equipment stockpiles by the end of 2025 or in 2026. IISS also notably assessed that Russia may be suffering from a shortage of spare parts to refurbish tanks and armored vehicles. Significant portions of Russia’s Soviet-era tanks and armored vehicles remaining in long-term stores are likely the remains of cannibalized or unsalvageable hulls in deteriorated condition that cannot be used to offset the high equipment losses Russian could face in 2025 and beyond.

Russian forces have reportedly been using fewer armored vehicles in assaults in the most active areas of the frontline in recent months, likely in part due to heavy losses and the need to conserve these vehicles as Soviet stocks dwindle. ISW began observing indications in November and December 2024 that Russian forces were using fewer armored vehicles in Donetsk Oblast, particularly in areas where Russian forces had previously relied heavily on mechanized assaults to make significant tactical advances. Ukrainian military officials have reported in recent months that Russian forces are fielding fewer armored vehicles in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions — the two operational directions with the highest intensity of fighting and where Russia has the densest concentrations of its forces — in favor of highly attritional, infantry-led assaults. IISS noted in February 2025 that Russia has adapted some of its tactics to address ongoing equipment shortages and is increasingly relying on infantry-led assaults to advance along the frontline.

Russia's DIB may not be able to produce or procure enough artillery ammunition to support the current rate of Russian offensive operations in the medium- to long-term. Russia cannot produce sufficient shells to meet its current operational needs despite the fact that Russia has increased its artillery production since the start of its full-scale invasion. CNN reported in March 2024 that NATO intelligence estimated that the Russian DIB was producing about 250,000 artillery shells per month. The Royal United Services Institute's (RUSI) and Open Source Center reported in October 2024 that Russian forces' rate of fire since June 2022 has been "fairly consistent" between 7,000 and 16,000 rounds per day, with an average of about 10,000 per day or about 300,000 per month — just over Russia's average production rate. Russia’s previous 5:1 artillery advantage ratio over Ukraine has been reduced to 1.5:1 as of December 2024 and will likely continue to decrease provided current trends continue.

Russia has had to lean on allies and partners to satisfy Russia’s materiel requirements. Up to 60 percent of the artillery and mortar shells that Russian forces have been firing as of December 2024 have reportedly come from North Korea, which reportedly sent Russia as many as nine million shells — indicating that the Russian DIB was unable to sustain the required level of supplies on its own. It remains unclear if North Korean and other foreign provisions will be able to compensate for the Russian DIB's inadequacies indefinitely. North Korea reportedly increased its domestic production of 152mm shells in 2024, but the North Korean shells that Russian forces are currently firing are reportedly of a low quality, with about half of them proving to be duds.

Iran has supplied Russia with weapons, particularly Shahed drones, as Russian-Iranian relations have intensified since Russia's full-scale invasion. However, it is unclear if Iran would be willing or able to significantly increase its materiel supplies to Russia. The January 2025 Russia-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement lacked a mutual defense clause, and Iranian officials noted at the time that the agreement is "not a military alliance" and differs from Russia's agreements with North Korea and Belarus — suggesting that Iran is unwilling to participate in Russia's war in Ukraine at a higher level on par with North Korea or Belarus. Iran also lacks the stockpiles or defense industrial capacity to provide Russia with much needed tanks, IFVs, APCs, artillery systems, or ammunition.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has larger materiel stocks and could provide Russia with vehicles, artillery systems, and ammunition, but has so far refused to engage in such direct support. The PRC will likely continue to refuse to do so out of fear of triggering economic sanctions or decoupling from the West.

From an Institute for the Study of War report, dated February 19, 2025. 

Historic Comparisons To Russian Casualties And Prospective Casualties In The Ukraine War

Russia has annexed four regions, or oblasts, of eastern Ukraine, although it does not control all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Moscow also controls Crimea, the peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine which it annexed in 2014. Russia's control over the regions is not internationally recognized, and Kyiv has vowed to reclaim the annexed territories.

From Newsweek.

The same link recounts that the top British General and Admiral say that to control the four regions in Eastern Ukraine (in addition to Crimea), that Russia claims to have annexed, would require a total of 1.5 to 1.8 million casualties and five years. This is double the size of the entire Russian military in early 2022 which had about 900,000 active duty service members at the time.

The British military estimates that Russia has suffered 550,000 casualties since early 2022 (only modestly less than Ukraine's estimate of 570,000), and the BBC estimates that this includes at least 60,000 deaths, so far. According to Ukraine, Russia adds about 30,000 new soldiers a month, and has slightly more casualties each month.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea was almost bloodless.

This is in addition, of course, to the immense losses of military equipment Russia has suffered which continue to accrue daily. For example, Russia has already lost tanks equal to 125% of the number initially assigned to the mission in February of 2022, and has lost daunting amounts of almost every other conventional military resource.

The British military estimates that it will take Russia at least five years after the conflict ends to restore itself to something approaching its 2022 situation.

Ukraine is suffering epic casualties, both civilian and military, as well, in addition to losing control of a significant part of its territory, since the war is being fought mostly on its territory.

But the Ukraine War has strengthened the military position of NATO.

NATO has expanded, has seen its members strengthen their militaries in reaction to the Ukraine War, and is seeing Russia, the primary adversary it exists to protect members from, incredibly weakened in its capacity to engage in conventional warfare from casualties and loss of military equipment. The Ukraine war has also revealed Russia's military tactics and weaknesses, and its actual state of readiness free of propaganda claims of a larger military, which was hollow, which helps NATO prepare for any future conflicts with Russia.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that Russia has one of the largest nuclear arsenal's on Earth if it gets desperate enough to use it.

Comparisons To U.S. Wars

By comparison, in the Vietnam War, the U.S., which had a population one-third larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 48,100 deaths and 153,300 non-deadly casualties over nine years. In the three years of the Korean War, the U.S., which had a population 5% larger than the current population of Russia, suffered about 35,600 deaths and 103,300 non-deadly casualties over three years. The current Ukraine War has cost Russia more than either of these wars cost the U.S., but are on the same order of magnitude.

Despite suffering lower casualties in those wars, the U.S. had more troops involved in the Korean War (5.7 million) and Vietnam War (8.7 million) than Russia does, either in absolute terms or proportionately, in the current Ukraine War.

The current Ukraine conflict is on track to be more costly to Russia than World War I was for the U.S. with 106,500 deaths and 204,000 non-deadly casualties over a year and a half, when its population was 70% of Russia's current population. Relative to the U.S. population at the time, the total U.S. casualties in World War I are already comparable to those of Russia in the Ukraine War, and the number of Russian deaths is so far about half of the U.S. deaths in World War I adjusted for population (but has no end in sight).

Russia's war in Ukraine is so far, not so costly to it as either World War II or the U.S. Civil War were to the U.S., however. Both World War II and the U.S. Civil War also involved far more U.S. soldiers relative to its population than the Russia has deployed in the current Ukraine War.

The ratio of deaths to total casualties in the current Ukraine war is likewise lower than in any of these five major historic U.S. wars (probably, to a significant extent, due to better medical care).

Other U.S. Wars Compared

Russian casualties in the current Ukraine War far exceed those of the U.S. in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War of 1846-1848, Spanish-American War, Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, and other lesser U.S. military engagements (like the "Indian Wars" with tribes in U.S. territory, and the most recent invasion of Panama) in both absolute terms and relative to the U.S. population at the pertinent times.

The number of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf War (2.2 million) was roughly comparable, relative to the U.S. population in 1991, which was about 75% larger than Russia's current population (the U.S. force then was equivalent to about 1.3 million soldiers on a population adjusted basis) to the number of Russian troops involved in the Ukraine War. But, the Persian Gulf War was a rout that resulted in few U.S. casualties.

Comparison To Historic Soviet And Russian Wars

Russia and the Soviet Union have been involved in many military conflicts over the course of history.

How does the current Ukraine War compare to some of the bigger conflicts it has been a part of since the mid-19th century?

The Crimean War of 1853-1856, resulted in about 450,000 Russian deaths, including 73,100 in combat, in a war it lost, in an area that overlaps with the site of the current Ukraine War, when Russia's population was about a third of what it is now. This was clearly worse than the current Ukraine War so far.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 resulted in 43,300 to 71,500 Russian deaths, 146,000 non-deadly casualties, and 74,400 Russian soldiers captured. There were also 18,600 combatants killed on both sides combined, at least 20,000 wounded, and at least 38,000 captured in the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. These two wars took place when Russia's population was about 60% to two-thirds of its current population. These conflicts combined are of the same order of magnitude of losses as the current Ukraine War so far.

The Ukraine conflict has been much more costly for Russia than the war in Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union (although a vastly greater number of its Afghan allies and civilians died in that war than have died in the Ukraine War so far). The Soviet Union fought a counterinsurgency action in Afghanistan for nine years from December of 1979 to February of 1989, a war that ended pretty much as badly as the U.S. war in Vietnam and the U.S. war in Afghanistan, in terms of benefits achieved. At the time that war started, the Soviet Union had a population 80% larger than the current population of Russia. The Soviet Union suffered about 14,500 deaths and 53,800 non-deadly casualties in that war.

It was also more costly than the Russia's First Chechen War of 1994-1996 that left 14,000 Soviet soldiers dead, or Russian's Second Chechen War of 1999 to 2009, which left 6,000 Soviet soldiers dead.

The Russo-Georgian War in August of 2008, meanwhile, only caused about 200 deaths.

There were about 7,000 deaths in the 2014-2015 Donbas phase of the Ukraine war for Russia and Russian allied militias, and about 16,000 wounded. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was almost bloodless.

Indeed, the Ukraine War has in two and a half years been more costly to Russia than all five of these conflicts (counting Donbas and Crimea in 2014-2015 as one conflict) from 1979 to 2015 combined.

The Soviet Union's casualties in World War I (and including the overlapping Russian Civil War from 1917-1923, and Polish-Soviet War of 1918-1919 which itself caused 60,000 deaths which is comparable to current Ukraine War casualties), however, were far greater than Russia has suffered so far, with about 2 million deaths at a time when the population of the USSR was about 2% smaller than the current population of Russia (of 144.2 million) and would have been almost exactly the same but for 1-2 million people emigrating from Russia at that time.

World War II (including the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and the Soviet-Japanese War in 1945) was likewise much worse, causing about 27 million Soviet deaths, including 8.7 million military deaths, at a time when the Soviet Union had a population about 26% larger than the current population of Russia.

Which Countries Are Most Technologically Advanced?

Which countries are most advanced technologically, or at least, more advanced than the U.S., in various areas?

Civilian technologies

Civil engineering

* Rapid construction of public works and high rise buildings: China

* Earthquake resistant construction: Japan

* Dikes and canals: Netherlands

Electronics, digital technology, and consumer products

* Software and Artificial Intelligence: U.S.

* Technologically advanced voting systems: Estonia 

* 5G cell phone networks: Finland

* Wi-Fi and broadband access: Lithuania and Finland

* Satellites (GPS, communications, Earth monitoring, and "telescopes"): U.S.

* Cashless consumer transactions: Sweden, Finland, China, South Korea, and the Netherlands

* Computer chip manufacturing and advance electronics design: Taiwan and Japan

* Cell phone design: U.S., Sweden, Japan

* Toilets: Japan

Medical and biotechnology

* Trauma centers and stroke centers: U.S.

* Using drones to deliver medical care: Sweden (e.g. to deliver AEDs or drugs to medical emergency scenes)

* Public health, epidemiology, and health oriented population genetics research: All Scandinavian countries (including Iceland)

* Pharmaceutical development: U.S., Denmark (e.g. inventing Ozempic), Finland, Germany

* Ancient DNA analysis: Germany

* Animal Cloning: South Korea

* Cannabis horticulture and processing: U.S.

Energy

* Fracking: U.S.

* Geothermal energy: Iceland

* Tidal energy generation: South Korea, France, and the U.K.

* Co-generation (efficiently using waste heat from power plants): Germany

* Nuclear power and nuclear fuel reprocessing: France

Transportation

* Commercial aircraft manufacturing: Europe (Airbus) and U.S.

* Civilian supersonic aircraft: U.S.

* Electric car batteries: Japan and the U.S.

* Electric car adoption: In order by market share: Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Germany, and China.

* High Speed Trains: Japan, France, and China

* Ferries: U.K. and Australia

* Airport Security Technology: U.K.

* Ice breaker ships and civilian nuclear ships: Russia

Pure Science

* Particle Accelerators: Switzerland. The U.S. and China are in second place.

* Moon exploration: China

* Mars and other solar system exploration: U.S.

* Space telescopes: U.S.

* Graduate science and engineering education: U.S.

Military technologies

Naval

* Diesel-electric submarines and air independent propulsion: Sweden

* Military nuclear submarines: U.S.

* Anti-submarine warfare: U.S.

* Aircraft carriers: U.S.

* Amphibious assault ships: U.S. and China

* Missile boats: China, with Iran also leading the U.S. in this area

* Torpedos: Russia, China, and U.S.

* Littoral patrol warcraft: Sweden and U.S.

Air Forces

* Military carrier based aircraft: U.S.

* Maritime patrol aircraft: U.S.

* Warplanes (including stealth): U.S.

* Military helicopters: U.S. followed closely by Russia

* Military transport planes: Europe (Airbus) followed closely by the U.S.

* Guided aircraft launched bombs: U.S.

* Military aerial drone production: U.S., followed by Turkey and Iran

Missiles and strategic weapons and counter-missile systems

* Tactical nuclear weapons: Russia

* Active defense systems to missiles and rockets: Israel and U.S.

* Localized active defenses (e.g. against artillery and anti-tank missiles): Israel

* Anti-aircraft missiles: Russia, U.S., Israel

* Artillery missiles and long range artillery rounds: U.S.

* Anti-tank missiles: U.S. and Germany

* Hypersonic missiles: China

Ground military systems and small arms

* Tanks: Israel and Germany, followed by U.S. and Russia.

* Recoilless rifles: Sweden

* Mortars: Finland

* Small arms (e.g. machine guns): U.S. and Israel

* Mine resistant armored vehicles: South Africa and U.S.

* Sniper and gunshot location: U.S.

* See though wall and around corners tech: Israel

Other Military Technology

* Military field medicine: U.S.

* Electronic intelligence and cryptography: U.S.  

What Has The Economic Cost Of The Ukraine War Been?

What Has The Economic Cost Of The Ukraine War Been?

The relatively direct economic costs of the Ukraine War over the last 27 months have been roughly $2,250 billion U.S. dollars. 

This includes the economic value of deaths and physical injuries to civilians and military personnel alike, damage to civilian property, relocation costs for displaced persons, psychological care costs for war related trauma, losses of income and economic production, operational military costs, and losses of military equipment to Russia and Ukraine combined from the war and related economic sanctions. 

It also includes the cost of foreign aid that other countries have given to Ukraine in connection with the Ukraine War, and increased military spending by other European countries over the last two years that has been incurred in response to the Ukraine War and what it indicates about the threat of Russian aggression.

This estimate excludes global macroeconomic effects of the war on countries other than Russia and Ukraine, apart from the costs that governments other than Russia and Ukraine have incurred to provide foreign aid to Ukraine and to strengthen their own defenses in light of heightened Russian aggression. These macroeconomic costs are almost certainly non-zero, and almost certainly amount to many billions, tens of billions, or hundreds of billions of dollars. But the indirect global macroeconomic effects of the Ukraine War outside of Russia and Ukraine are exceedingly difficult to credibly disentangle from myriad other macroeconomic impacts on the global economy. 

Perhaps those macroeconomic impacts were $450 billion over 27 months (less than $17 billion per month), which is only a very thinly supported guess, but is in the right economic ballpark. If so, then the Ukraine War has cost the 8 billion people who live on Earth, as a whole, about $100 billion U.S. dollars a month so far, about $12.50 U.S. dollars per person per month, for everyone in the entire world.

This analysis also ignores the existential global threat to humanity's survival caused by Russia's threats to escalate the conflict into nuclear warm, and the global impacts economic and military that have flowed from Russia brining us closer to World War III.

Details regarding how this was determined in each category are summarized in the remainder of this post.

Whose Fault Is This Immense Economic Cost?

This immense cost to the world as a whole, can reasonably be considered the personal responsibility of Vladimir Putin, Russia's President, who authorized the invasion of Ukraine and has been the driving force Russia's continued prosecution of the war. 

There were no significant political factions within Russia pushing to conquer Ukraine before Putin initiated the war, and he did so with very little consultation with, or preamble directed at, the Russian general public, Russian elected officials, or Russian economic elites (the so called "oligarchs"). 

Even many key members of the inner circle of Putin's cabinet and advisors, and many senior military officials in parts of the military that weren't involved in the invasion in 2024 were kept out the loop in the process by which Russia decided to invade Ukraine.

This war is one of the clearest cases in history of an international war which was unequivocally started unilaterally by the aggression of a single country, in violation of international law, pursuant to an international law obligation which it expressly recognized in a treaty not long before the first stage of the war in year 2014, when the Russia purported to annex and took de facto control of Crimea and most of the territory in eastern Ukraine which it controls now. There had been a de facto cease fire in the wake of the 2014 stage of the Ukraine war for a decade, before Russia began a far more expansive effort to conquer the entire Ukrainian state on February 24, 2024.

The Ukraine War aptly illustrates the fact that a handful of highly culpable rogue national leaders account for an outsized share of the geopolitical threats and misery in the world. 

Yet, this seems like a problem that it wouldn't be impossible for some future international institutions to address in a manner that could gain a wide global consensus from non-rogue nations, to the enormous benefit of the world as a whole, and without fundamentally upsetting the parts of the current world order that work well enough.

Combined Russian and Ukrainian Military Losses

Neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose their own military losses in the current Ukraine war between them which started when Russia launched an all out attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But they do make claims about the military losses that they have inflicted on the other side in the war. 

These may be used as upper bounds on the severity of the losses inflicted, but independently verified numbers, which are admittedly incomplete since not all losses can be verified independently, and credible third-party estimates, do suggest that each side's claims made by losses inflicted are in the right ballpark. Ukraine's claims, in particular, are close to accurate (although Ukraine words its statements about losses of Russian soldiers as if they were all were all killed, when in reality most personnel losses on both sides are injuries not mortal, soldiers captures as prisoner's of war, and desertions).

Ukraine has suffered fewer military losses than Russia, but has suffered the lion's share of civilian casualties and civilian property damage in the conflict, because Ukrainian territory has been the site of the vast majority (although not all) of the fighting, and because Ukraine has taken more care to not indiscriminately target civilians than Russia.

Combined, the combatants claims that more than 630,000 Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed, injured, been taken prisoner, or deserted in 27 months. Of these, perhaps 90,000 troops have been killed, while 540,000 or so have been seriously injured, taken prisoner, or deserted. 

The military equipment losses of Russia and Ukraine combined in the 27 month long war include up to 27 Russian warships (including one Russian submarine) and all of Ukraine's meager pre-war navy which it destroyed to prevent its ships from begin captured, 962 warplanes, 600 military helicopters, far more than 26,992 aerial drones and cruise missiles, 1,339 anti-aircraft systems, 24,353 multiple rocket launchers and artillery systems, 38,814 tanks and armored vehicles, and 39,942 unarmored military vehicles. 

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces posts figures on Russia's troop and equipment losses as part of its daily update on Moscow's full-scale invasion of the country, which began on February 24, 2022. 

It said Russia lost 22 armored personnel vehicles in the past day, bringing the total number to 14,913. Both Moscow and Kyiv have lost significant amounts of personnel and equipment amid a recent ramped up push by Russia in Ukraine's east to seize territory. Kyiv said this month it had stabilized the situation on the front line after the Kremlin's forces kick-started an offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10, seizing a number of villages on Ukraine's northeastern frontier. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Russian losses during its Kharkiv offensive were eight times higher than Ukraine's.  

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces also said Russia lost 1,160 soldiers over the past day, bringing the total to 506,260. Moscow has also lost a total of 7,710 tanks, 13,101 artillery systems, 17,849 vehicles and fuel tanks, 815 anti-aircraft warfare systems, 2,222 cruise missiles, 357 military jets, 326 helicopters, and 27 warships in the war. . . . 

A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment leaked in April 2023 said that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 dead.

Russia's Defense Ministry said in its latest update on Wednesday that its military has so far destroyed 605 Ukrainian aircraft, 274 helicopters, 24,770 unmanned aerial vehicles, 524 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,191 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,322 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 9,930 pieces of field artillery and mortars, as well as 22,093 units of special military vehicles.

Via a May 30, 2024 story in Newsweek.

Valuing military lives at a fairly standard figure used in cost-benefit analyses in civilian life, of $5 million each, and other military casualties at $100,000 each, the combined loss of life and injuries to military personnel can be valued at about $500 billion U.S. dollars.

Major warships and submarines cost perhaps $1 billion each, and lesser warships cost at least $100 million each. Warplanes cost perhaps $20 million each and military helicopters cost at least $10 million each. Anti-aircraft systems, multiple rocket launcher and artillery systems, tanks, and armored vehicles each average something on the order of $1 million each. Unarmored vehicles, aerial drones, and cruise missiles average at least $100,000 each. The replacement value of the combined equipment losses in the war appears to be in the ballpark of $100 billion U.S. dollars.

Thus, Russia and Ukraine combined have suffered about $600 billion U.S. dollars of military losses in the last 27 months of the Ukraine War.

Combined Russian and Ukrainian Military Operational Costs

Russia has spent about $530 billion on fielding military forces to conduct the Ukraine War. Ukraine has spent about $150 billion on fielding military forces to conduct the Ukraine War (basically its entire military budget of $65 billion a year since its entire military is devoted more or less exclusively to fighting this war).

Thus, Russia and Ukraine combined have spent about $680 billion U.S. dollars to field military forces to conduct the Ukraine War.

Ukraine's Civilian Losses

According to Oxfam, as of 22 February 2024 (the latest data available), 10,582 civilians have been killed in the conflict and 19,875 civilians have been wounded in the conflict. Valuing civilian deaths and serious injuries on the same basis of military deaths and serious injuries set forth above, the economic value of civilian deaths and injuries in the last 27 months of the Ukraine war can be valued at $55 billion U.S. dollars.

In addition to all of these other costs, probably at least 25 million civilians (about 40% of the population of Ukraine) have suffered psychological traumas and/or minor injuries that will require at least some medical care or psychological care during their lives as a result of the war. Even valued at a modest $1,000 per person, representing a few months of psychotherapy or some urgent care treatments, the economic cost of this psychological care and treatment for minor injuries to people not classified as civilians wounded in the war, is not less than $25 billion U.S. dollars.

One of Ukraine's universities has estimated that Ukraine has suffered about $155 billion U.S. dollars of property damage in the war. 

Ukraine's GDP has taken a roughly 30% hit (i.e. $60 billion per year) as a result of the war from a prewar starting point of about $200 billion per year. For a total hit of $150 billion over 27 months.

About 10 million people have been displaced by the Ukraine War, about a third internally, and two-thirds of whom are refugees. The cost of internal displacements is probably at least $10,000 U.S. dollars per person, and the cost of fleeing the country and living abroad is probably at least $20,000 U.S. dollars per person. On this basis, the economic cost of these displacements is on the order of $150 billion U.S. dollars.

Thus, Ukraine has suffered a total of about $535 billion U.S. dollars of civilian economic harm.

Russia's Civilian Losses

As a very crude estimate, based upon the relative proportions of civilian deaths, civilian injuries, and property damages to Russia and Ukraine, Russia may have suffered $15 billion U.S. dollars of military action caused civilian deaths, injuries, and property damage in Russia itself. 

Civilian property damage in Russian annexed parts of Ukraine dating back to 2014 (mostly parts of eastern Ukraine which it controls and a lesser amount in Crimea) is probably on the order of $100 billion.

Sanctions have cost Russia about $30 billion. Other war related harm to the Russian economy has been more or less offset by increased wartime production and rising oil and gas prices. Russia's GPP has declined about 2% of a prewar $2,240 billion U.S. dollar annual GDP, which is about $50 billion U.S. dollars. But $30 billion of this amount is double counted as Russian losses due to economic sanctions.

Thus, Russia has suffered a total of about $165 billion U.S. dollars of civilian economic harm.

Economic Harm To Countries Other Than Russia And Ukraine

European governments other than Russia and Ukraine have also felt the need spend about $100 billion U.S. dollars to strengthen their own military defenses as a result of the heightened threat to their security that the conflict has made evident over the two years sine the Ukraine War started.

Ukraine has received about $170 billion U.S. dollars of foreign aid, mostly from the U.S. and Europe, during the current Ukraine War.

In both cases, I have converted Euros to U.S. dollars at about $1.10 U.S. dollars per Euro, roughly the exchange rate, at the time of this post, between these currencies. 

It appears that while Russia has sold goods to countries that support, or at least do not oppose it, in the Ukraine War, and has been able to find some countries like North Korea and Iran, who have been willing to sell weapons to it, in fair market value transactions, that it has not received any meaningful amount of foreign aid in connection with its Ukraine War effort.

Thus, the Ukraine War has caused about $270 billion U.S. dollars of direct economic harm to countries other than Russia and Ukraine.