The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy, recently raised the issues of the United States providing lethal weapons assistance to Ukraine while on a recent visit to Washington D.C.
Parubiy noted the urgency and importance of providing lethal weapons to Ukraine, and that the issue remains open for discussion with U.S. lawmakers, who are set to decide by the end of the year when Congress passes its annual defense budget for 2018.
In 2015, the U.S. Congress approved granting lethal defensive weapons, but President Barack Obama opted not to actually give Ukraine any weapons. German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed with him.
Current U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis disagrees, while President Donald J. Trump has remained silent thus far, and President Petro Poroshenko is expected to raise the issue on his current trip to Washington on June 19-20.
Why isn’t defense reform a priority?
Everyone agrees that Ukraine’s defense sector needs critical reforms to be implemented in order to ensure the country’s sovereignty and national security.
It is now also well-known that ex-President Viktor Yanukovych deliberately deconstructed Ukraine’s defense complex when he was in power, and that the three successive Ukrainian presidents since the fall of the Soviet Union grossly neglected to modernize the country’s defense sector.
Today, in the midst of a serious war in the east that has no end in sight, and while pension, tax, health care and land are the most debated reforms in parliament, why has defense reform taken a back seat?
Since the start of Russia’s war in the Donbas, Ukrainian officials regularly headlined their speeches to the U.S. Congress and NATO with quixotic rhetoric that the issue of providing lethal arms to Ukraine should, in fact, be a global priority – a matter of defending the Western way of life, characterizing Ukraine as the last bastion between Russian brutality and upholding Western democracy.
The fact remains that the Western alliance has been fairly generous to Ukraine with financial and military assistance. The US alone has provided over $600 million in training and non-lethal assistance to Ukraine since the start of hostilities in 2014, and despite the fact that the U.S. Congress approved the provision of lethal defensive arms to Ukraine several years ago, Obama never actually made good on the nod from Congress.
Obama remained unconvinced throughout his second term that granting Ukraine lethal defensive weapons would deter further Russian aggression, or lead to any lasting peace.
Despite strong bipartisan support in Congress for providing lethal weapons to Ukraine, Trump is also very unlikely to overturn Obama’s precedent, and not only because he could be a Russia sympathi zer or may wish to restore U.S.-Russia relations.
The issue of whether to provide lethal defensive arms to Ukraine runs far deeper, and is one which Ukrainian politicians do not want to talk about – probably because it exposes gross irresponsibility and corruption among the country’s ruling elite.
Perhaps the real reason why Obama did not provide lethal defensive arms to Ukraine is not only because of Western apathy or the West’s weak stomach to confront Russia.
Secretive, corrupt arms exports
While it is true that the West has taken its way of life for granted, which is now under serious threat by Russia’s global ambitions, the bigger reason may actually be that the West sees that Ukraine still has not taken ownership and accountability for its own defense, even if the very survival of the Ukrainian state is at stake.
At the core of Ukraine’s unmodernized defense complex lies a shamelessly disorganized Ukrainian bureaucracy, an obscure Ukrainian constitution which stifles decision-making efficiency, and which hides one of the most secretive, corrupt – and secretly profitable – of all Ukrainian institutions: Ukraine’s arms export sector.
Despite its rich farmland, vast territory, developed manufacturing sector (including a highly developed aerospace sector), and highly educated population, the IMF ranks Ukraine 63rd in terms of gross domestic product per country – lower than Sudan, Algeria and Vietnam, and even the small island of Puerto Rico. The population of Puerto Rico is a mere 3.7 million people, and Ukraine’s population of roughly 45 million people is greater than any of these countries save Vietnam.
When it comes to examining the issue whether the West should arm Ukraine, what is more troubling to learn than Ukraine’s lagging economic performance compared to its peers is its ranking on the list of the world’s largest arms exporters.
Ukraine ranks an impressive 10th on this list – just behind the likes of G8 economic powerhouse countries like the US, Russia, China, Germany, the UK and France.
Ukraine is also well-known for its aerospace sector, impressive civilian aircraft, heavy machinery and aircraft engine manufacturing complex. Ukraine is also well-known for its rocketry engineering (hint: a Javelin is also a rocket) and astronautics production sectors, as well as the high quality of its human engineering cadre.
At first glance and in light of the war in the east, there seems to be a solid justification for Ukraine nagging the West for arms. Ukraine’s leaders also relish playing into the typically Ukrainian emotional cry of “feel sorry for us,” which works well on many self-pitying Ukrainians.
Ukroboronprom sells needed weapons abroad
A little-known fact, however, is that Ukroboronprom, the state arms production concern, produces every line of armament that Ukraine needs to wage its defense on the frontlines in the east.
Many of the country’s most advanced weaponry is sold abroad – facilitated by its elite, and oftentimes through shady channels – even though some of those same arms could be used on the frontlines in Donbas to defend the country.
A recently published study by the RAND Corporation, the U.S. think tank, conducted for Poroshenko, analyzed Ukraine’s security and defense sector.
According to the report, Ukraine’s military was unprepared to wage war prior to 2014, and while there have been improvements since 2014, there remain a wide range of structural issues that cannot easily be solved by foreign-provided weapons or assistance but which, if corrected, could significantly improve war fighting, promote the efficient use of resources, and help Ukraine meet NATO standards of transparency and accountability.
Ambiguous power structure
At the very top of Ukraine’s national defense structure, there are serious ambiguities and inefficiencies as to how the executive branch manages Ukraine’s defense sector.
One of the most central problems is that the president’s authority to “administer” the defense of the country is not clearly differentiated from the authority of the Cabinet of Ministers to “direct and coordinate.”
This ambiguous structure does not foster a culture of accountability, and it creates an unclear and disorganized line of command which endangers the country’s very independence.
In addition, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the Armed Forces are not part of a coordinated single chain of command. Also, both bodies are headed by military officers, undermining the coordination and accountability that would otherwise be present if they were under civilian control. This is the main rationale behind why the heads of defense of most major Western countries are typically civilians, including the US.
Finally, what most Ukrainians perceive to be the country’s authoritative body for the defense of the country – the National Security and Defense Council – is actually more of an inert, contemplative body, like a think tank, which lacks any real, independent decision-making authority. The NSDC serves mainly as a public-facing forum for discussion and has only a limited role in executing the decisions of the senior leadership.
No accountability
The overall result of this quagmire is that Ukraine’s defense structure lacks accountability and efficiency, and it encourages Ukraine’s decision-making bodies to avoid taking responsibility and accountability for the country’s defense.
In the case of Ukraine’s defense procurement system, for example, Ukraine actually boasts an enormous defense industry that builds a wide range of advanced equipment. But most of the best equipment is sold abroad, in part encouraged by a hazy legal and constitutional framework that aids corruption and obscure backroom arms deals which almost certainly fill the pockets of Ukraine’s self-seeking elite.
Single-source contracts, as part of an opaque yearly defense order, undermine competitiveness and efficiency. Ukraine has indeed made progress with a new transparent e-procurement system, but the pre- existing system for purchasing armaments continues to prevent the government from mobilizing the defense industry to provide for Ukraine’s combat needs.
In the case of logistics, combat units are no longer without basic supplies, as they were at times in 2014, in large part due to the reestablishment of Soviet-era systems.
Outdated systems
However, Ukraine continues to rely on an outdated paper-based system for tracking arms and supplies, supplemented only occasionally with computers. This arcane system allows arms to slip out of inventories and be sold through backdoor channels.
Just in January, for instance, a planeload of Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles – the same type of missiles Ukrainian officials have been pleading the U.S. to hand out – was uncovered at a Kiev airport just prior to taking off for Iran. There is little doubt that this kind of thing happens more often than it is reported; there is also little doubt that at least someone in Ukraine’s government had knowledge of this shipment, although the incident was flat-out ignored by the current administration. Strangely, despite a very PR-focused anti-corruption campaign by the current General Prosecutor’s office, no mention of the incident or any investigation was ever made again, either in the media or otherwise.
Constitutional reform needed
The solution to Ukraine’s defense woes is not Javelin missiles being given to its soldiers, but rather constitutional reform, because it is in Ukraine’s constitution where the root of all these underlying problems lies.
Without constitutional reform and reform to Ukraine’s procurement and electronic inventory systems, the United States and other allies cannot responsibly provide modern weapon systems to Ukraine, even purely defensive ones.
On the other hand, the fact Ukraine has managed to defend itself even in spite of these structural inefficiencies is a testimony to the will of Ukraine’s gritty servicemen, even if underequipped. Ukrainians clearly want and deserve their independence.
Ukraine’s leaders regularly publicly whine that the country’s lack of money is responsible for Ukraine’s defense problems. Defense officials have also repeatedly complained about the poor quality of equipment previously provided by the West – for free: old Humvees, drones that are missing parts, and other secondhand field support logistics.
Putting nation’s interests first
When Ukraine’s leaders finally put the country’s interest before their own and decide it is high time to privatize the country’s defense sector, this bold move will attract foreign investment overnight, and if Ukraine’s defense sector actually does lack funding, this is the real solution to any financing or budgetary shortfalls.
If privatization ever happens, the world’s leading defense companies will pour money into modernizing Ukraine’s defense industry in droves. Modernizing the defense sector will also have other far- reaching effects for the country: It will create valuable income to the state budget, it will create valuable jobs, and it will give foreign investors confidence that the country can protect itself, encouraging greater foreign direct investment.
Despite the issues, many of which are well-known by Ukraine’s leaders, defense sector reform in Ukraine will remain a long-term effort – one which Ukraine’s partners should nevertheless continue to support. Lethal defensive assistance should indeed be given to Ukraine immediately, but in a controlled manner: Ukrainian soldiers should be trained en masse how to use Javelin missiles, and a large cache of Javelins should be stockpiled on Ukraine’s western border in Poland, Hungary and Romania for Ukraine to mobilize quickly in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion.
But granting full supervisory control of lethal weapons like the Javelins should not happen until and unless Ukraine’s leaders take the necessary practical steps to reform the defense sector and, even more importantly, to acknowledge that the main problems of Ukraine’s self-defense lie squarely in the hands of Ukraine’s leaders to address, not the West.
West’s Javelin gift could boomerang
Otherwise the Javelins given to Ukraine could very well end up being sold for profit or, still worse, being smuggled to Iran, Syria or Afghanistan to be used against American or NATO soldiers – just like grenades and Kalashnikovs are increasingly being smuggled out of the war zone in Donbas and sold on Ukraine’s fast -growing and dangerously underpriced black market for arms in Kyiv.
Even more disturbing is that ISIS has in the past officially confirmed it purchased anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons from Ukrainian suppliers; and Ukraine remains a preferred transit point for black market arms being shipped to the Middle East.
Simply granting Ukraine Javelin missiles is not the solution to Ukraine’s defense woes – at least not yet.
Basil J. Papan is Ukraine country analyst for Mozayix International, an Arlington, Virginia-based risk and security management advisory firm. Papan can be reached at [email protected].
