NATO ‘Does Not Have Enough Ammunition For High Intensity Conflict’—ex US General

A Russian soldier patrols in a street of Mariupol on April 12, 2022. Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

A former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe has told a House of Lords committee in London NATO “didn’t have enough ammunition for a high intensity conflict” like the war in Ukraine.

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges was giving evidence to the international relations and defence committee and was asked to comment on Britain’s integrated review of defence, security, and foreign policy, which was published in March 2021.

Hodges, speaking by videolink from Washington, said the review had been a “solid effort” but looked a bit like “doing the best you can with the available resources” rather than anything more.

He said: “After watching the last four-plus months of Russia’s continued attack against Ukraine we’ve been reminded about the enormous consumption of ammunition and other logistics in a high-intensity conflict ... the Chinese are watching this, as well as Russia and other potential adversaries.”

Hodges said there was no doubt the NATO countries, including the United States, “did not have enough ammunition for a high intensity conflict” and he said he felt the integrated review did not address that issue, although he accepted it was written long before the Ukraine conflict.

‘How Much Depth can you Afford?’

“One of the most difficult challenges for any legislative body is ... how much depth can you afford? None of us has enough depth. Even ours, which is the biggest defence budget in history, is stretched,” he added.

Earlier Professor John Louth, director of the defence, industries, and society research programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was asked by Lord Stirrup, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, if NATO’s forces were “agile” enough to cope with the current threats.

Louth said: “The honest answer is nowhere near enough. That is probably due to the speed of technological change we see now.”

He said: “Flexibility is needed to make sure those emerging elements, like AI, artificial intelligence, which is used in the oil and gas industry, but less so in defence, but much more so in the future. AI is going to be right at the heart of our posture.”

“The agility needed to get all that to work together is significant and it’s difficult for programme managers to do that effectively if they have only been educated in linear processes,” Louth added.