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Voluntary Involuntary Disarmament
For those (like me) who have concerns about what American interest is served by our financial and military material support for Ukraine, there is a theory that the American arms establishment is pushing the conflict and looking to goose their bottom lines by selling the US government arms to replace those sent to Ukraine. But what if that isn’t so?
There is a Powerline post out today that raises questions about the ability of arms providers to rearm America. Quoting from the Wall Street Journal:
[T]he largest ground war in Europe since World War II isn’t translating into boom times for U.S. defense contractors. Hobbled by supply chain disruptions, a tight labor market and a Pentagon procurement process that can take years, arms makers have been struggling to respond to the soaring demand. . .
When the Pentagon ordered new Stinger antiaircraft missiles—widely used in Ukraine—in August, it was the first U.S. order from Raytheon for the weapons in 18 years. By December, Ukraine had burned through 13 years of production, said Greg Hayes, chief executive of Raytheon. Five years worth of Javelin missiles had also been used in the conflict.
Raytheon was still making some Stingers for an overseas customer before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but found some suppliers had gone out of business and had to redesign parts to boost production.
Couple that with the chart from Center for Strategic & International Studies and you begin to wonder whether arms merchants really are behind Biden’s actions or whether they are untethered from reality:
When they say “follow the money,” whose money should you be following? If the cupboard is bare and it will be a while before you can fill it up again, how are the arms merchants profiting in the near term from sales that can’t be completed for months/years? If America is to avoid a nuclear exchange with Russia, the theory is it is because the Russians know that we could defeat them even with just conventional weaponry. But what if the Ukrainians have already thrown our conventional arms at the Russians? What is the deterrent then?
I once had a boss that said, “Don’t let your mouth promise something my *ss can’t deliver.” If arms producers are pushing this conflict, has the sales department been talking to manufacturing? Russians have spreadsheets, too. They can calculate the tipping point where either we, or the Ukrainians, don’t have enough armaments to finish the job.
And don’t take your eyes off the CCP.
Published in General
But Trump still warned them and they laughed at him if I recall.
I hope you understand US forces not using Stingers in combat is a good thing.
Trump took them to task for failing to live up to their NATO obligation of 2% defense spending. For practical purposes, the horse left the barn many years ago.
And they did laugh at Trump because, in their worldview, nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.
Or a hot war in middle Europe.
And stop shipping LNG to Germany.
Here are the NATO nations paying their full share on defense spending:
Finland is ramping up their defense spending, as is Germany. Poland is on track to become the largest military power in Europe without nukes.
155mm ammunition rebuild not possible because of ‘training requirememts’…what does this mean? Training who, in what?
They are integral to airbase defense. Not used much= nothing is attacking our bases at the moment.
The ‘Left’ might not understand the replenishment times, the Chinese probably do. I’m still expecting a move on Taiwan.
Ha!
In the late 1980’s, I was the first analytical staffer for the Munitions Industrial Base Task Force I worked for a large defense company that made tank ammunition, helicopter rounds, torpedoes, etc. and was detailed over to the industry marketing co-op), charged with producing the report on lead times for various stockpiled and doctrinally meaningful ammunition. There was zero concern about maintaining a replenishment capability, keeping warm lines at minimum sustaining rates, etc. The idea was always that there was a new weapon around the corner that would multiply forces so that you needed fewer and fewer shots to achieve needed results. In short, the current situation is the same old thing that has inhered since the end of the Vietnam war.
But the Ukraine theater is the right place- no Chinese conflict over Taiwan would involve this kind of ground conflict, mostly different weapons (air-air, sea-based) would be involved.
The thing about this debate that amazes me is the sophomoric claims that we have no interest here, we are headed for American troops in ground combat, Abrams needs US soldiers in order to train/maintain, etc. That betrays, I think, short-sightedness, lack of critical thinking/imagination, and naivete. We have a pretty big stake in the world that does not favor a moat strategy, and we should be flooding the zones where other countries are willing to engage Russia, Iran, and China. Active duty US military personnel are not needed to train or maintain systems that are in use all over the world. The alternative is not Peace In Our Time.
Call me a neocon, I’d wear that label gladly before I’d be proud of abandoning free nations to rapacious thugs.
That idea is utter nonsense, as you intimate.
I have seen a number of calls to “transition” the military from fossil fuels to solar power, including laughable talk about solar-powered tanks and aircraft. NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg has given a number of speeches about the importance of moving to renewables, but as far as I can tell he has kept his public remarks rather vague–it’s the journalists who have interpreted his remarks in various foolish ways.
Oh, we wasted an awful lot of money and readiness when Ray Mabus paraded around His Excellency Colonal Obama’s “Great Green Fleet” so that Navy ships could reach speeds of three, maybe four knots powered only by peanut butter. Or something.
Ukraine, for its entire history since independence in 1991, has been governed (more accurately, sliced, diced, fleeced) by alternating sets of rapacious thugs. In terms of the lives/livelihoods of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, which particular set thereof was lording it over them at any given time made little difference. In terms of the competing geopolitical notions/aspirations of Russia and the US/NATO, however, it made all the difference in the world. Hence the 30-year old to-and-fro jostling between the two sides, each trying to influence Ukraine’s internal politics with an eye to installing a set of rapacious thugs that is friendly to THEIR interests.
This proxy war didn’t start on February 24, 2022. That’s just when, as warned about repeatedly over the last 3 decades by various Western diplomatic/military/etc. officials and such who are now being smeared as Chamberlain-type Putin-loving appeasers and such, it went from a “cold” proxy war to a “hot” one.
I respect your viewpoint, but life is not a simple white hat/black hat. One can decide to be the armorer for the world, but you need to organize your policies and have an economy that supports that. “Guns and butter” is where things started going wrong in our economy. And killing off our fossil energy base imposes costs on the populace that reverberates around the world.
Oh, yes. Jokes about ships powered by vegetable oil. Possibly the USS Mazola. (And as I recall these biofuels are less energy dense, which may limit engine power and certainly requires more frequent refueling. Not to mention questions about engine compatibiity and maintenance, of which I know little.)
What if it’s the U.S. that’s being the rapacious thug?
Not the rapacious thug. Just one of them.
There are no White Hats among the major players in this mess.
Yep actually it was when he pointed out that Germany might not want to make itself dependent on Russian gas, that they laughed, because of course Putin was always so trustworthy and honest.
Agreed. but those were the End of History days.
When in the history of history itself has a forward slash been shorthand for the word “and”?!
How many tanks have been taken out by drones compared to the number taken out by shoulder-fired missiles?
That’s a very big “if”.
You used “between” without specifying the other party. The interpretation was natural.
Weirdo.
Nah. I think the last 30 years shows the opposite.
But I’m now an antiwar hippie.
When there is a Big Guy that gets his cut , from the very nation that cut came from , that’s a tinny tinny “if” .
When foreign policy is how our ruling class get rich (both parties) . That “if” shrinks more.
When the military industrial complex has a stake in the “incursion” or “liberation” the “if” is getting hard to see .
When the action fit’s very nicely into the “Great Reset ” . Poof ! Where did that if go ?
It can work well for “against”.
The problem I have with all of that is it excuses Putin’s behavior. Of course as I said before I don’t think we are in this primarily because it is in the interest of the US. I think we are in this because it appeals to the emotions of global leftists. I do think the US has legitimate interests in seeing Russia humbled and not seeing Russia absorb its neighbors, so I have very complicated feelings about this.
Here is an example of the cheap drone fitted with the explosive head of an RPG allegedly taking out a Russian BMP. https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=54003
It is not why I want us to support Ukraine, but one side benefit is that it is teaching us a lot about our own military readiness. It isn’t always a good picture. I hope we learn some lessons from it.
It’s not only the inventory of munitions that I wonder about. The fact that sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine requires such an elaborate infrastructure to go with them, and that it takes so long, makes me wonder.