{"id":10755,"date":"2025-11-14T17:56:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T16:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/?p=10755"},"modified":"2025-11-14T17:56:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T16:56:04","slug":"wars-are-won-in-factories-not-in-the-trenches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/en\/2025\/11\/14\/wars-are-won-in-factories-not-in-the-trenches\/","title":{"rendered":"Wars Are Won in Factories, Not in the Trenches"},"content":{"rendered":"

The war in Ukraine reminds us how crucial industrial production capacity is in a long conflict. During the Cold War it was believed that small professional armies, well trained and equipped with advanced technologies, were capable of preserving peace. Instead, numbers and quantities are decisive: a country that fails to keep pace with its adversary in producing military materiel will sooner or later witness the defeat of its armed forces. On the other hand, it was economic strength that guaranteed the Allies victory in the two world wars of the twentieth century. And it is for such scenarios that Europe and NATO must prepare: if they want to counter Russian imperialism, their best weapon is strengthening and integrating their defense industries.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contemporary warfare is incredibly complex. Success on the battlefield requires tight coordination between infantry, artillery, and aviation. Small units capable of operating autonomously during combat are essential both in defense and attack. All this presupposes very well-trained and motivated troops, led by skilled commanders. The increase in firepower, speed, and intelligence capabilities brought by technological progress makes these requirements increasingly critical.<\/p>\n

Yet there is another fundamental condition for success on the battlefield: the quantity of resources available. Even if enemy troops are more experienced, having a larger number of soldiers can guarantee victory. In 1939\u20131940, the Red Army suffered heavy losses against the Finnish army, which was well prepared and highly motivated, but the overwhelming Soviet superiority in manpower and equipment soon forced Finland to cede large swathes of territory in exchange for independence.<\/p>\n

Industry in Wartime<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The availability of resources is not limited to troops, tanks, ammunition, or aircraft: it also involves industrial capacity. When neither side possesses enough superiority to achieve a rapid victory, and diplomacy fails to find an acceptable compromise, the conflict turns into a war of attrition. Under these conditions, arsenals must be constantly replenished and expanded: if military production fails to keep pace with destruction, the army collapses and the war is lost.<\/p>\n

Maintaining high military production over prolonged periods implies a true mobilization of the entire industrial apparatus. Companies producing weapons and ammunition must drastically increase output, and the same applies to the steel industry, the rubber industry, the chemical sector, and all other strategic fields. This shift of labor and capital toward military production inevitably reduces the supply of consumer goods and generates the so-called \u201cwar fatigue,\u201d with resulting social tensions and political instability.<\/p>\n

Alex Vershinin, researcher and former lieutenant colonel at the Royal United Services Institute in the United Kingdom, observes that in recent years European military strategy has focused mainly on small professional armies, highly trained and ready to intervene in a wide array of crises. According to him, however, this approach is misguided: in an industrial war of attrition, the winners are the economies capable of outperforming the enemy in productive capacity, pouring onto the battlefield quantities of weapons and ammunition that the adversary cannot match. In this context, the decisive advantage belongs to those who can sustain the war effort longer. Industrial capacity thus becomes an integral part of military power: trained troops and skilled commanders are indispensable, but only a solid industrial base can provide the long-term support needed to achieve victory.<\/p>\n

The Lessons of the Twentieth Century<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is enough to look at twentieth-century history to understand this. The great European powers certainly did not imagine that the war begun in 1914 would drag on for four years. When neither the Entente (the alliance of France, the United Kingdom, and Russia, later joined by Italy and the United States) nor the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies) managed to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy, the conflict sank into the quagmire of trench warfare.<\/p>\n

By the end of 1915, Erich von Falkenhayn, the German chief of staff, recognized that there was no possibility of achieving a decisive breakthrough on the front. He therefore proposed to \u201cbreak the back\u201d of the French war effort with a battle of attrition at Verdun, inflicting losses so great as to undermine the political will to resist. The incessant bombardments and waves of infantry assaults caused around 400,000 deaths and 800,000 wounded, almost equally divided between French and Germans, without producing any decisive outcome. The plan failed. It was in fact Germany that could not withstand the industrial power of the Allies, especially after the entry of the United States into the war. The British naval blockade deprived Berlin of food imports, while the needs of military production diverted resources from essential goods for the population. Famine and social unrest ultimately weakened the German effort, leading to defeat.<\/p>\n

The lesson of the First World War was well understood by Adolf Hitler, who in the 1930s systematically prepared the German economy and arms industry for a long industrial war of attrition. The conquest of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, rich in natural resources, was intended to secure supplies of food, raw materials, and oil. And as Adam Tooze wrote in The Wages of Destruction<\/em>, the planned extermination of Jewish and Slavic populations under the \u201cGeneralplan Ost\u201d was also conceived to reduce \u201csuperfluous demand\u201d for food.<\/p>\n

Yet even in that case, the economic power of the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom proved decisive. In 1944, the U.S. produced in a single month more fighter-bombers than Germany managed to build in an entire year. The German war effort was not stopped by internal resistance but came to a halt only with the total occupation of the country. Overwhelming Hitler and his army required not only the formidable military commitment of the Allied forces: a crucial role was played by the enormous productive capacity of the Allied countries.<\/p>\n

After the Second World War, with the advent of nuclear weapons, the fear of mutual annihilation pushed the major powers to avoid direct confrontation. But history does not stop: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 showed that wars of attrition can still break out and that industrial strength remains a central element of military power. Shortages of equipment, delays in supplies, and interruptions in aid have severely hindered Kyiv\u2019s ability to resist. Even now, the outcome of that conflict may depend on whether foreign support for Ukraine\u2019s war effort continues.<\/p>\n

The Economy of War in the Future<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What scenarios, then, can we imagine for the future? It is unlikely that a potential conflict between Russia and NATO would be decided by nuclear weapons. As has been the case since 1945, the fear of spiraling into total atomic war will continue to deter both sides from using nuclear arms. More realistic, instead, is that Moscow might attempt new territorial conquests with conventional means, and that NATO would seek to stop it with similar tools.<\/p>\n

In such a scenario, avoiding a long war of attrition would be possible only if one of the two sides achieved its military objectives quickly. For example, if NATO managed to push Russian units back across the border immediately. But it seems implausible that the European forces of the Atlantic Alliance\u2014largely lacking direct combat experience\u2014could rapidly defeat a massive, well-armed Russian army with years of battlefield experience. Stopping\u2014or even just slowing\u2014a Russian offensive would therefore require a prolonged industrial effort, based on solid productive capacity in the defense sector.<\/p>\n

This is no small feat, considering that at 2024 production rates, Russia could reproduce in just a few months\u2014between two and seven, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy\u2014the entire arsenal possessed by Germany in 2021, including aircraft, tanks, artillery, and other equipment. And if China decided to put its industrial power at Moscow\u2019s disposal, these timelines would shrink even further.<\/p>\n

What should Europe and NATO do in the face of this prospect? The first objective is to deter Moscow from undertaking any further invasion. Beyond trained troops, advanced equipment, and a solid intelligence apparatus, it will be industrial capacity that convinces the Russian leadership that it is impossible to win a long war against NATO. For this reason, directing private investment toward the arms industry becomes crucial, including through public subsidies that incentivize increased production. Alternatively, confidence that governments are determined to wage a conventional war until victory may push private actors to invest, attracted by the potentially significant profits in case of conflict.<\/p>\n

European states should also coordinate their defense policies instead of maintaining fragmented national armies, which are less efficient economically, militarily, and politically, as argued for example by Massimo Morelli and Eugenio Peluso in eco<\/em>. This is especially relevant in the context of an industrial war of attrition: the costs for defense companies and their supply chains would be greatly reduced if Europe integrated its capacities and developed common projects and platforms\u2014such as adopting a single tank model instead of the seventeen currently in use across EU countries.<\/p>\n

In the event of a prolonged conflict, it is equally essential to prevent social and political tensions from emerging within countries. Creating high productive capacity in the defense sector now can reduce, in the future, the need for painful transfers of labor and capital from consumer goods production to military production.<\/p>\n

But that is not enough. The \u201cUkraine fatigue\u201d and \u201cwar fatigue\u201d already felt in NATO countries raise doubts about the real willingness of public opinion to support a long-term conflict. It is far from certain that American, French, or German voters would be ready to endure economic sacrifices to defend the Baltic states any more than they have been for Ukraine. It therefore becomes crucial to spread clear awareness of the importance that the defense of Eastern Europe holds for all NATO members: only in this way will it be possible to maintain the political will necessary to sustain effective industrial mobilization.<\/p>\n

The lessons of the two world wars and the conflict in Ukraine warn us not to underestimate the importance of massive production of armaments and military material. Defending Europe from a potential Russian invasion requires industrial power, coordination, and the willingness to bear economic sacrifices in wartime. The real question is whether the political will exists today to face this challenge: on it depends the ability of European democracies to withstand the threat of Russian imperialism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bal\u00e1zs Mark\u00f3 is a PhD candidate at the Department of Economics at Bocconi University in Milan. His research areas concern the macroeconomics of defense and climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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