National Military Manpower Breakpoints
Supporters on social media from both sides widely claim that the war is being waged “to the last Ukrainian” or “to the last Russian.” True, looking at the initial manpower strength of both militaries on the eve of the invasion and combining them with some of the more outlandish casualty estimates, it would seem that both militaries have been destroyed several times over. Yet, the same units continue to reappear…as do many new ones. The historical parallel that comes to mind is when Germany accounted for roughly 200 Soviet divisions in 1941; after two months, their intelligence had counted 360. 1
There are various examples in history in which a nation-state is considered to be “bled white” of its military-aged manpower, losing so many of its men that society losses its cohesion, industry no longer functions efficiently, and the demographical impact is felt for generations. For this exercise, I will call this a national military manpower “breakpoint” and I have selected four examples of when this point has been potentially reached, though even that is debatable. Is either Ukraine or Russia close to this hypothetical breaking point? Looking at the historical record, the answer seems to be a resounding no. Let’s explore why this is.
For practical purposes, the mobilized military population for full-scale war tends to be about 18 to 60-year-old men. There is, of course, some variability in this. If a war lasts three years, those who were 15 at the outset would be 18 at the end of it. In some desperate cases, young boys, older men, and women are drafted. The prime military age is towards the younger end of the 18 to 60 age bracket; both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries are noted to be older than what might be typical in other countries.
In future analysis, it might be better to look at the 18 to 40 bracket specifically. Historic demographic data is not always available, especially during wars. There will be some variability in the exact age brackets I use in the below examples, but I tried to keep it roughly from 18 to 60. Additionally, not all men will be qualified for military service. Again for simplicity, I did not take this into account and assumed a roughly similar percentage will not be qualified in different modern conflicts. Anecdotally, I know that fewer men percentage-wise are technically qualified for service now than in previous major conflicts.
Current population estimates for Ukraine vary significantly due to the large number of refugees. Roughly 10 million men were in the 18 to 60 age bracket before 2022.2 Approximately 250,000 men turn 18 annually.3 There were also about 50,000 to 60,000 women in the Ukrainian military as of last year, so for every 10 or so males, there is about one female. This raises what we might consider being available for full mobilization to be around 11 million. There are approximately 8 million Ukrainians that have fled the country: about 90% of those are reported to be women and children. Russia’s male 18 to 60 age bracket is about 40 million4 and approximately 700,000 men turn 18 annually.5 Note that Russia’s male military-aged population is about four times as large as Ukraine.
At the high end of estimates for military deaths, you have people like Colonel (ret.) Douglas Macgregor, who is often cited in pro-Russian circles as being “authoritative.” He claimed 300,000 Ukrainian servicemembers had been killed as of May.6 If we want to round that estimate up to 350,000 to take an additional month into account, we can. Without getting too side-tracked Colonel (ret.) Macgregor has claimed Ukraine has been on the brink of collapse since the war began so I do not think he is an authoritative source. Neither is Scott Ritter. Both of these figures have a certain target audience in the United States and their innate political biases result in flawed analysis. In the actual Russian pro-war community outside of the United States, there is a growing realization of this. There are only so many times you can claim Russia is about to finish Ukraine off any day now and still be taken seriously.
For Ukrainian estimates of Russian losses, we have their General Staff updates, which claim 220,000 “liquidated.” I have had many conversations about what exactly “liquidated” means. Most tend to think it does mean killed, so that’s how I will use it here. If that number included killed *and* wounded, I think it would actually be fairly close to accurate. In my opinion, the actual number of Russian war dead is probably around 60,000 (including DPR and LPR) while the Ukrainian number is perhaps somewhat less, but not decisively so, especially taking into account the population advantage Russia has. I’m definitely less confident about Ukrainian losses than I am about Russian losses.
Going into the first of our historical examples, we have the Confederacy (generally referred to as the South) in the American Civil War. The American Civil War is still the bloodiest in our nation’s history. The general historical consensus is that the South never had a real chance at winning due to its huge disadvantage in terms of industrial might and manpower. Almost the entire white Southern male population was mobilized, but it still could not hope to match the North’s manpower. If you have any male ancestors from the South during this time period in American history, they were almost certainly in the Confederate Army. Coincidently, I have ancestors from both sides, as most American families do that came to the United States prior to the war. A 2019 academic paper estimated the Confederacy’s white male population in the 20 to 54 age bracket to be about 1,052,000.7 About 290,000 Confederate soldiers died during the war, although more recent estimates put this number higher. This means about 28% of the military-age male population available died during the war.
For our second example, we have the two most heavily engaged European powers in World War Two, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Both nations struggled with manpower issues towards the end of the war. In 1939, Germany’s male population aged 15 to 65 numbered about 25 million.8 German military deaths in World War II estimates vary from 5.5 to about 7 million. This results in a figure ranging from 22% to 28% of the military-aged male population being killed, remarkably similar to the Confederacy’s figure. For the Soviet Union, the male population aged 15 to 65 numbered 52 million in 1941.9 Soviet military death estimates vary tremendously, most estimates seem to be around 9 million. The resulting figure of 17% is slightly less than the German and Confederacy numbers.
Our last example is the most recent I could think of in which a nation, by and large, fully mobilized its manpower and economy, and was reported to be suffering manpower shortages: North Vietnam in the Vietnamese War. A declassified CIA document estimated the male population of North Vietnam aged 15 to 64 was 4.9 million in 1968.10 Vietnam estimated the number of dead North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers at 1.1 million.11 This yields a figure of 22%, although many of the Viet Cong members were likely from South Vietnam.
These historical examples result in a plausible manpower breakpoint at something around 17% to 28%. Assuming the worst case for both Ukraine and Russia, neither is close to this number. 350,000/11,000,000 = 3% and 220,000/40,000,000 = 0.55%. When you take into account that the worst case is likely highly inflated for political purposes, it's even further away from the breakpoint range. Linear growth would result in Ukraine reaching the manpower breakpoint in 5 or more years in the worst-case scenario, or indefinitely if it’s closer to my estimates.
Are modern societies less able to sustain the manpower loss rates that occurred in 20th-century high-intensity conflicts? Perhaps. There are signs both Ukraine and Russia are casualty adverse and trying to maintain some level of normalcy that countries in World War 2 for example did not. Currently, I think if either one was faced with strategic collapse, such as the loss of Crimea for Russia, or the loss of Kyiv for Ukraine, they would go to a full wartime societal footing, much as their 20th-century ancestors did in the Great Patriotic War.
To summarize, if the war ends in less than five years, I do not think manpower shortage will be the critical factor per se, it will be the lack of availability of that manpower to fill critical roles within the military, or something else entirely, like supplies or political will. Russian units appear to be undermanned, but the analysis above suggests they *should* have manpower available. Are they simply not trained yet, or is Russia so far unwilling to pull from its major cities significantly? If both Russia and Ukraine are not able to employ all of their theoretically available military manpower in war both claim is pivotal to its future existence, what does that say about other conflicts that might occur in the near future? How much of its manpower might China or the United States be able to employ for Taiwan? Questions for others or another time. As always, these posts are just as much to generate thoughts as provide definitive answers.
The German Campaign in Russia, p. 63. https://history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-21/cmhPub_104-21.pdf
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006655/ukraine-population-by-age-group/#:~:text=Out%20of%20a%20total%20population,aged%2060%20years%20and%20older.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/10/ukraine-draft-troops-reinforcements-training/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1005416/population-russia-gender-age-group/
https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=130&t=100
https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/17709383
https://journals.upress.ufl.edu/jpms/article/view/977
https://www.feldgrau.com/ww2-germany-statistics-and-numbers/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1260605/soviet-population-changes-wwii-gender-age/#:~:text=Russian%20estimates%20suggest%20that%20the,of%20the%20Second%20World%20War.
https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/tet-documents/cia/THE%20MANPOWER%20SITUATION%20IN_15472910_.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/question/How-many-people-died-in-the-Vietnam-War#:~:text=In%201995%20Vietnam%20released%20its,250%2C000%20South%20Vietnamese%20soldiers%20died.