Daily Brief: 05 January 2026
Ukraine burns through America's monthly artillery output in two days. Sudan's 150,000 dead barely register while the West obsesses over precision weapons losing their edge.
Ukraine | Defence | Western precision weapons lose effectiveness while artillery consumption outpaces industrial capacity by orders of magnitude
Situation
Ukraine fires 6,000 artillery rounds daily while Russia fires 20,000. Before February 2022, US production was 14,000 rounds monthly—barely two days of Ukrainian consumption. Russian electronic warfare has degraded the effectiveness of precision systems like M982 Excalibur shells from 55% hit rates to 6%.
Western response has been swift but constrained. The US aims to reach 100,000 rounds monthly by 2025, up from 14,000. The EU targets two million shells annually through its ASAP program.
Production bottlenecks prove stubborn. Artillery manufacturing depends on specialized supply chains for propellant and nitrocellulose that cannot rapidly scale, requiring years to expand meaningfully.
Context
For three decades, NATO optimized for precision over mass, assuming technological superiority would transcend industrial capacity. The Gulf War’s success with precision-guided munitions shaped doctrine that prioritized fewer, more sophisticated platforms over volume production.
This philosophy worked against technologically inferior adversaries but fails in high-intensity attrition warfare. Ukraine demonstrates that precision weapons remain devastatingly effective when their enabling infrastructure survives, but electronic warfare and air defenses can systematically degrade their performance.
The industrial asymmetry compounds monthly. Russia increased production 200-300% through command economy mobilization while Western targets, even if achieved, would supply only months of current Ukrainian consumption rates.
Trajectory
The conflict reveals that Western militaries built force structures for wars they wanted to fight rather than wars they might face. Correcting this requires more than budget increases—it demands fundamental procurement philosophy shifts.
Military effectiveness depends on matching capabilities to context. Neither pure precision nor pure mass provides the answer, but rather maintaining both capabilities and the industrial capacity to sustain them.
The lesson is not that mass defeats precision, but that procurement strategies assuming permissive environments produce forces unprepared for contested warfare where industrial capacity becomes the ultimate constraint.
Africa | Conflict | Sudan’s 150,000+ war deaths receive minimal Western response despite being world’s largest humanitarian crisis
Situation
Since April 2023, Sudan’s civil war between General al-Burhan’s Armed Forces and Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces has killed over 150,000 people and displaced 12 million. More than half the population—25.6 million people—face crisis-level food insecurity, with confirmed famine conditions in multiple areas.
Western response has been limited to sanctions frameworks and diplomatic statements. The US issued Executive Order 14098 authorizing sanctions, while the EU established similar measures months later. Mediation attempts in Jeddah and Geneva have produced no meaningful progress.
This contrasts sharply with rapid, comprehensive Western mobilization for Ukraine, highlighting a stark disparity in crisis response based on strategic utility rather than humanitarian need.
Context
Sudan’s abandonment reveals a new hierarchy of geopolitical concern where humanitarian catastrophes rank below strategic interests. Unlike Ukraine (European security), Gaza (US domestic politics), or Taiwan (semiconductor supply chains), Sudan offers no compelling strategic rationale for Western intervention.
Three structural forces explain this paralysis. Libya’s 2011 intervention destroyed the Responsibility to Protect doctrine—Russia and China now automatically veto humanitarian interventions after feeling deceived by NATO’s regime change mission. The UAE’s support for RSF forces complicates Western action, as Abu Dhabi remains a crucial strategic partner elsewhere.
Twenty years of failed interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have exhausted Western appetite for military engagement in complex civil conflicts, particularly where no vital interests are at stake.
Trajectory
Sudan demonstrates that humanitarian intervention capability has effectively collapsed under great-power competition and intervention fatigue. The gap between moral rhetoric and strategic action will likely widen as Western powers prioritize resources for peer competition with China and Russia.
This selective engagement model will become the norm, with intervention reserved for conflicts directly threatening core Western interests. Humanitarian crises in strategically peripheral regions will increasingly rely on regional powers and international organizations lacking enforcement capability.
The precedent suggests future African conflicts will receive similar treatment—rhetorical concern without meaningful action, establishing a de facto two-tier system of international crisis response.
Yesterday’s Assessments
Until tomorrow.
