Ukraine, The New Arsenal of Democracy

In December of 1940, as the United States agreed to supply arms and equipment to the United Kingdom as part of the Lend-Lease program, FDR referred to the United States as “the arsenal of democracy”; the Americans may not have been directly involved in the fight against authoritarianism but it was absolutely involved in supplying the weapons that others would use. This is a situation that would continue throughout the Second World War and then the entirety of the Cold War and beyond, where US arms made up the backbone of Western and Western-aligned military equipment. Even with the end of the Cold War, American dominance in arms sales continued albeit in somewhat modified form as demand changed and declined. And yet, despite the relative decline in demand, American dominance remained.

But the arsenal that has been supplied has very much been oriented towards the type of combat that would have been experienced or expected during the Cold War: either conventional large-scale peer-to-peer warfare including tank battles in Germany’s Fulda Gap and the Iraqi desert or insurgency/counterinsurgency warfare as experienced in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. And while these types of combat take on very different forms, at the end of the day the core similarity is that combat is centered on the uniformed soldier, no matter if they are air, land, or sea.. This has also meant producing equipment that would keep that soldier as safe from harm as possible, increasing procurement times and costs. These higher costs had the effect of limiting what states could realistically compete in the global arms market, especially for big-ticket hardware.

However, technological advances in recent years have begun to radically shift this pattern; drone technology has started a process where combat is being conducted remotely. This is a dramatic change in the type of military equipment that needs to be procured, and without the need to accommodate humans, the change has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry to the arms producing market. Nations like Turkey and Iran have emerged as key players.

As an example, Turkish supplied Bayraktar drones, supported by Israeli-designed models, played a decisive role in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 as well as the subsequent 2023 Azerbaijani offensive where the enclave was brought under Baku’s control. In the three years since then, drone warfare has become the ubiquitous form of combat being waged in Russia’s war against Ukraine. And it is in this war that the new face of the arms industry seems to be emerging. Russia, although it has its own domestic drone development industry has leaned heavily into the Iranian Shahed-type drone, making their own modifications to the models as part of domestic production.

But most notably, Ukraine has rapidly established its own domestic drone production facilities as well, with millions of units being produced inside the country. This is an increase from the estimated 3000 units available in February 2022, all of which were imported. By many recent accounts, over 90% of Ukrainian drone production is happening inside Ukraine and although many of the component parts are still required to be imported, domestic development and production of component pieces is increasing rapidly, including such advanced pieces as seeker components, a critical item to ensure the drone strikes its target. Ukrainian drone technology has become so sophisticated in fact that, in the midst of fighting its own existential war of survival, it is signing international trade deals with partner nations to export technology and expertise, including deals with Finland, Turkey, the UK, Netherlands, Taiwan, Germany, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.

2S22 Bohdana howitzer (АрміяInform)

And in terms of military hardware, it is not just drones where Ukraine is building domestic capacity. Since the 2022 full-scale invasion, domestic development of the 2S22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzer has moved into high gear, from a single prototype at the start of the war to at least a hundred units per month being built. Critical ammunition shortages present in the early stages of the war, highlighted by President Zelensky’s retort that he needed ammunition not a ride, have been overcome with the establishment of domestic production of various ammunition types, including mortars, tank and artillery shells, and small-arms ammunition. Other major homegrown weapons projects include the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile, capable of deep strikes against enemy targets and the R-360 Neptune cruise missile, originally developed as a ship-to-ship missile, but which has been successfully modified for use as in ground-to-ground strikes. Incidentally, the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva in 2022 has been credited to a pair of strikes on the Black Sea flagship by Neptune missiles which Ukrainian forces had modified to be able to fire from ground-based launchers.

So it is becoming clear that Ukraine is building a substantial domestic arms industry which vitally includes homegrown development of systems, going beyond just the manufacture of items. This alone places Ukraine in an advantageous position for when the current war with Russia eventually ends, potentially making it a leading arms supplier in a world that is rapidly rearming. But more vital even than this is the combat experience that its soldiers and its citizens have endured in that war. In the more than four years of combat, they have been increasingly fighting at the leading edge of a technological change in warfare. To extrapolate on this, it means that not only is the equipment the Ukrainians are developing and building combat tested but its use is being constantly tested in battle. This means Ukraine has one of the largest pool of modern combat-experienced soldiers in the world, versed in both offensive and defensive operations. Ukrainian knowledge is already demonstrating itself to be in demand, with English-language drone training centers being established in Kyiv and Lviv and new international partnerships being established with nations like Saudi Arabia, eager to learn how to minimize the threat of drone strikes from regional opponents like Iran. This experience will continue to be a valuable exportable commodity for years to come, even after an eventual end to the war in Ukraine.

An instructor in the drone school, shows two women how to plan a course for their drone to gather reconnaissance and evade detection in Kyivon Oct. 27, 2022. Julian Hayda/NPR

So this brings us back to the arsenal of democracy that I started off with. The title holder for decades has been the United States but recent trending, certainly since the first Trump administration but rapidly accelerated from the start of his second administration, has seen democratic rights and norms quickly eroded and international trust in Washington shattered. This is the result of constant threats and insults to allies and as well as actions and statements that seem to favour traditionally adversarial authoritarian governments like that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Questions over America’s commitment to upholding democratic values on the global stage are certainly being raised and this is leading to wariness among many nations in trusting American arms and equipment, especially given that much of that advanced equipment is highly reliant on US back-end systems for their efficiency, especially things like GPS targeting systems. HIMARS and ATACMS artillery systems supplied by the Biden-administration to Ukraine and used to great effect, have both seen greatly reduced effectiveness once access to American GPS targeting data was turned off in 2025. The F-35 Lightning, the stealth strike fighter the US military has been selling to allies around the world has run into challenges with the implied threat that software updates that allow the aircraft to continue to function can be turned off. By doing so, this would render the aircraft ineffective in combat and it has caused several countries, including Canada, Spain, and Switzerland to reduce or reconsider purchase of the aircraft. All this to say, the American preponderance as a global arms supplier has been hurt by its own actions with traditional arms buyers beginning to look elsewhere for products.

And this is what brings us to Ukraine. As a country that is well positioned to assume a significantly greater role in the global arms market, Ukraine is partnering and supplying arms to allied countries, largely in the democratic West, a cultural affinity to which Ukraine is committing itself. While it is true that democracy in Ukraine is still at a fledgling stage and has had great struggles since the establishment of an independent state in 1991, since the Revolution of Dignity, great strides have been made in creating a free and truly democratic society based on equal rights and the rule of law, free from the endemic corruption that plagued the nation for so long. The nation will continue to see challenges to the long-term viability of democracy the longer the war continues, as elections continue to be on hold due to the establishment of martial law and questions remain over how long it will take to resume elections once a peace deal with Russia will allow it. However, given the continued support of allies both in the West and globally, there is real and good prospects that democratic nation building can and will continue in Ukraine. This, coupled with the growing experience of the Ukrainian arms industry may just see a new Arsenal of Democracy rise to prominence among the sunflowers of Ukraine.

sunflowers