Winning the Industrial War: Comparing Russia, Europe and Ukraine, 2022–24 By Dr Jack Watling and Oleksandr V Danylyuk

In an environment where Europe must be able to deter Russia with reduced US support, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine should spur significant efforts to address what has been demonstrated to be a manifestly inadequate defence-industrial base. This paper focuses on the key policy issues that have shaped military-industrial production in Russia, Ukraine and European NATO.

Protracted wars are won by the party able to generate new, competitively trained forces and the armaments with which they are equipped and sustained. The ability to generate a second and third echelon of forces is an important aspect of a state’s deterrence posture.

During Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian defence industry has managed to significantly increase defence production. Ukraine has also done this, although to a lesser extent. European members of NATO, meanwhile, faced substantial problems in expanding defence-industrial output, despite an abundance of funds. This paper examines the processes of military-industrial mobilisation in each of these areas to assess the causes of radically different outcomes.

First, Russia had a well-developed plan for military-industrial mobilisation which it implemented early in the war. Ukraine did not have such a well-developed plan but could draw on its Soviet legacy to regenerate industrial capacity. Europe, meanwhile, lacked both a plan and the data with which to build one; this made investment into defence production inefficient.

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