Why is it in the interest of the American - and European - arms lobby to prolong the Russian-Ukrainian war indefinitely? Is it that, from the point of view of the USA, distant battlefields provide an opportunity to salt away old weapons, or that they can try out the most modern military technology without risk? Security policy expert József Horváth also spoke about this at the evening of the Civil Academy in Szeged.
– First of all, it would be a shame to underestimate older military technology. The 152 millimeter battery left here from the Soviet era may be 50 years old, it may not be digital, it may have to be adjusted manually, but if the officer and the officers can use it, if they know the math, the logarithm, then from then on with high accuracy you can also fire with those 50-year-old devices. Of course, someone can aim the gun faster with a digital device, but at the moment the Ukrainians have very few digital devices, while the Russians have a lot of analog ones.
- Let's not forget that the Westerners also have business considerations in this. The older technology was swept out of the warehouses of the European armies. The Germans first gave the Ukrainians those armored transport vehicles and the Leopard 1s, which were waiting to be melted down, because they had rusted there 30 years ago, but they were still well-made German weapons. A little oil, a new battery, and they breathed life into it.
As for new tools, it turns out that there is no magic bullet
- The most modern high-tech device can be worthless if it is handled by an incompetent person. The Germans handed over the self-propelled guns, like the ones we bought now. An excellent tool, but only if they understand how to use it. Anyone who owns a car packed with modern technology knows that the computer suddenly tells you that you need to take it to the service center for a periodic inspection. If we don't take it, after a week it says it again, and then again, and if we still don't "listen to it", the car suddenly stops and we can't restart it. The car "doesn't want to break down". The same thing happened with these excellent tools. There was the number of operating hours, how many shots, after which it must be taken for maintenance. Only the Ukrainians thought that the Germans don't know this well, we shoot twice as much with it and three times faster. So the system was disabled. This is one of the problems of high-tech devices.
- Another,
which developers are always afraid of, that what they spent billions on might turn out to be not so good after all.
Because until then it is easy to say and advertise that my tank is the best, American, British, German or Israeli products can compete, but in real combat it will be proven that none of them can guarantee the safety that they have promised in their advertisements. At the parade organized on the occasion of Victory Day, the Russians paraded the shot enemy tanks, because it turned out that none of the super weapons can withstand the armor punch that tears off the tracks. And if the tank is immobilized, it's easy to hunt down. In 1956, the guys from Pest did the same thing, when a Soviet tank entered a narrow street where it could not turn around. They were able to kill him with three Molotov cocktails.
– Or the example of the South Slavic war: the talented Hungarian gunners serving in the Serbian army shot down the American stealth, even though they did not have radars like today and could only work with analog devices. And where were the wreckage of the shot down stealth within a week? in China. And what do we see today? The Chinese have first class stealth. Everyone who sends modern weapons to Ukraine is also afraid that they could fall into the hands of the adversary. There is no perfect weapon, they all have weak points, but as long as only the developers know about it, it's okay. However, if the enemy knows, from then on that weapon is worth very little.
– Of course, the Americans don't mind if the German Leopards or the British tanks are shot down, but the war does hurt Europe, because it costs a lot and the outcome is, to say the least, uncertain. Of course, we could say that this is Russia with approximately 140 million people, while the camp with the Americans and Canadians has approximately 800 million people, so the numerical superiority will decide the issue, except that there are a few small problems here. Take the greatest force, the US military.
It has been their concern for a long time, and the events in Afghanistan showed that they have few soldiers.
This is true for the French and the Germans as well. The USA tried to help the problem by saying that although an American citizen cannot drink alcohol before the age of 21, he can join the military at the age of 17. It's a bit of a spicy situation, but they still couldn't fill the army, so they recruited from Central and South America. They said if you serve 5 years as a US soldier you get US residency and then citizenship. If you sign up for another 5 years, we will also pay for your college education. The consequence of this was that many of their soldiers did not even understand an American officer in Afghanistan, because he only knew Spanish. And the 17-year-olds couldn't stand the M16 assault rifle, so they dragged it behind them in the dust.
– If we look at Western European armies, say the German one, the same problem. The German army is calibrated to 200,000 people, now I want to increase it to 250,000, but currently the number is barely 170,000. And it is diminishing, because since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, a wave of disarmament has started among them. They only wanted to be soldiers until they were threatened with having to fight.
In addition, the German army is also untrained.
For the past ten-odd years, their ministers of war have been women, and the military has remained consistently underfunded. They were also there in Afghanistan, they could buy a car or anything from the budget, but not a weapon. The German army practiced with wooden rifles because they had no handguns to put in the hands of their soldiers. And that was before the stocks were wiped out and sold or given to Ukraine. Therefore, it is not authoritative that eight hundred million could stand against the mentioned one hundred and forty million Russians.
"Now we're looking at the Russians." They didn't make the mistake that Western Europe did, where they proclaimed that world peace is here and that those who leave are soldiers, male chauvinists, far-right, maybe fascists, stupid and lazy because they don't want to work, and I could go on and on about the jobber trainers.
The Russians have retained the ethos of Mother Russia. They didn't have to order a lineup, so many volunteers applied.
Ten thousand new volunteers, quasi-mercenaries, were planned to be recruited for the month of the memorable terrorist attack in Moscow. But 20,000 applied only because of the terrorist attack, so there is no problem with them not being willing to serve in the military.
"But there is another problem here." In NATO, they say that it takes 5-6-7 soldiers to serve one fighting soldier. Health care, social, technical staff and the rest. So if the Germans or the French have an army of, say, 200,000, that means only 25,000 soldiers capable of fighting. When President Macron says that he would send 20,000 soldiers out of their 200,000-strong army to the Ukrainian front, that means barely 2,500 actually fighting with weapons. Contrasted with the Russian army of, say, 400,000. In addition - and this is supported by public opinion polls -
the majority of young and middle-aged Europeans are not even willing to join the army and possibly die for their own country, let alone for Ukraine.
– Knowing this, let's see how realistic the idea put forward by Macron, which envisages an independent European army, is realistic. It can be said that in the next 5, 10, 15 years, Europe must stand on its own two feet so that we are not vulnerable to a possible attack by the United States of America. This in itself could be a sensible idea to be considered, but the experts should be consulted first. A politician wouldn't hurt once in a while. One should ask, for example, what is the state of the European military industry at the moment. Moving on, what is the state of European agriculture? Could you provide those four hundred and a few million people in Europe with healthy food for up to 3, 4, 5 years? Hardly, when the Union puts European farmers in such a situation as it is now. For example, they quickly concluded the free trade agreement with Brazil. What's happening? Brazil buys supercharged tankers that, say, transported oil and raises the chicks there while the ship puffs through the ocean. No one from them asks how many square meters the chicken had for scratching and whether it has ever seen the sun of God, which is what European farmers are asked to account for.
They will go bankrupt and Europe will become vulnerable to suppliers from outside the continent.
– But we are also light years away from being able to meet the challenges of the age from a technical point of view. 10 years before, for example, France regularly launched its own communication satellites from its former colony, French Guiana, with its own rockets. It hasn't fired a single missile in 10 years. If we want to build an independent, real army at some point, we have to start collecting money from somewhere for research and development, because at the moment there is no independent fighter jet production in Europe. China, Russia, India have it. Europe does not have a single satellite in the sky that transmits, say, military intelligence. If the Americans think that they will turn off the satellites, then gps positioning will not work either. If Europe says that it wants to put a positioning device in the hands of a soldier, with which, say, the scout gives the coordinates of the target to the artillery, it is at the mercy of the American satellite. So the
Europe is unbelievably behind in hi-tech developments, and we weren't even talking about Star Wars then.
The Russians have a space station, the Chinese have a space station twice as big, the Americans are just starting to build, Europe has nothing. However, space exploration is always about weapons. We should not believe that it serves and makes the future of humanity happy, so we are very far behind.
– Not to mention that the European military industry currently buys natural gas three times more expensive than all the great powers of the world.
If we wanted to boost European arms production, the question is also where to buy iron ore?
From the Russians? Yes, not from there. So we bring it over the sea from the Americans? How much time, how much energy, and what will it cost to assemble a tank in Europe? It will not be competitive with any major power. And then we didn't mention that a self-serving federation not only has to accumulate food reserves, but also raw materials, and at the moment, let's say, there is nothing in Europe of the rare earth metals that are essential for the hi-tech industry.
- In summary: if you were to ask me now when the Ukrainians can win, I can't find a moment to which I would say that if this happens, then they have a chance, just as I can't find a basis for Europe to have a real, serious army in the foreseeable future be. First of all, the foundations should be created, and by the foundations I also mean that order should be made in the minds of young people. Patriotic education would be needed, to understand that national defense is not only a right, but also a duty. Generations fell out of it. We cannot protect our country with mercenaries, we have seen this in Hungarian history as well. In the war against the Ottomans, Szolnok was defended by mercenaries and surrendered, but the defenders of Eger did not surrender, they fought and won despite being outnumbered many times.
