If the US could not provide the munitions necessary for Ukraine to kick Russia out of Ukraine then the US couldn't defend itself against its most hostile adversary either. You'd be making an excellent argument for enlarging the US military production base if it were true.
Which it isn't. Not remotely. See below.
The US has no say in whether Poland gives its MiG-29s to Ukraine. It didn't supply them in the first place so has no contractual leverage over them. Germany did—it sold Poland some East German leftovers after reunification—but it quickly acquiesced to sending 5 of them to Ukraine, on top of the 8 they'd already sent.
You may be referring to a deal Poland proposed in 2022 (shortly after the latest phase of the invasion began) to run a donation thru the US. That didn't happen, but since then Poland has donated the planes anyway.
So about US defense industrial capacity... .
So your vid is supposed to be reassuring ? I watched all of it and I understand it. The macro. I did accomplish a BBA in Organizational Management in 2007 so my education is relatively recent compared to most here on this kind of topic. Anyone else get a 4 year degree during this century ? I have experience in the manufacturing sector most recently into the early 90's working for a company called Swagelok you may have heard of, so I have both experience and formal education in operations and operations management. I just happen to currently be an optician, with a Class A CDL.
The first 20 minutes was the same old same old, swords into plowshares that I went through post Viet Nam. The debates about maintaining idle capacity are the same now as then. What makes it worse now however as your vid highlights is the corporate consolidations, plant closures and the decimation of the labor force needed for this type of industry. It just glosses over the problems with development and turnaround times from drawing board to stock on the shelf.
If anything my takeaway from watching your vid is that my perceptions of the big picture are spot on. The numbers used by Sen. Vance are the same as in the vid. The bottlenecks illustrated in the vid are big. One of the areas in my studies was about identifying and resolving bottlenecks in the production process. There are no quick fixes as they are usually as much of a result of technology and design flaws as they are also about corporate mentality or corporate culture. The part about corporate culture is getting even bigger since the defense industry is subject to federal regulations which currently are mucking up things with things such as DEI regulations where identity trumps ability or merit.
With democrats in charge these problems will get worse. Traditionally, the repubs rebuild our defenses and the dems run them out and debilitate them. Take what Biden did to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He drained it to the lowest levels since its creation purely to buy votes. With the imbedding of DEI into the defense industry it will take more than one or two repub administrations to undo the damage. Time we do not have in this carefully crafted war of attrition against us and our resources, with China holding the cards on the rarest of necessary ingredients used in the electronics side of the equation.
The side benefits of ramping up production because of Ukraine will not likely benefit us in time for when (not if) China decides to act and take Taiwan.
I don't know how much deeper you want to go into this but bring it on. I'll play.
As it stands now, the U.S. defense industrial base âdoes not possess the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resilience required to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale,â according to a draft version of the report, obtained by POLITICO.
The document, dated Nov. 27, adds that âjust as significantly, the traditional defense contractors in the would be challenged to respond to modern conflict at the velocity, scale, and flexibility necessary to meet the dynamic requirements of a major modern conflict.â (...)
The report notes that after the Cold War, the defense industry shrank as companies merged. Yet China has spent the past 30 years becoming a âglobal industrial powerhouseâ in shipbuilding, critical minerals and microelectronics. Chinaâs industryâ âvastly exceeds the capacity of not just the United States, but the combined output of our key European and Asian allies as well,â it says.
The report also points out that the Covid pandemic laid bare the supply chainâs vulnerabilities. Then Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel âuncovered a different set of industrial demands and corresponding risksâ as the U.S. races to produce arms to support Ukraine and Israel.
âIt has become clear that insufficient production and supply capacity are now deeply entrenched problems throughout all tiers of production supply chains,â the report says.
Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war. Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraineâs then defense minister assessed that their base line requirement for these shells is over four million per year, but said they could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. Weâve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year â less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administrationâs goal is to get this to 1.2 million â 30 percent of whatâs needed â by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.
The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system â our premier air defense weapon. Itâs of such importance in this war that Ukraineâs foreign minister has specifically demanded them. Thatâs because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 every year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but thatâs still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.
These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war.
Yeah, the math does not add up. It is a war of attrition and the US cannot provide what is needed to win.
Would have been a whole different situation if Biden had let Poland give their MIG's to Ukraine back in the beginning. And how are those F-16's in Ukraine doing over there ? They have been forth coming for over a year now. Talk, talk, talk ... thanks, Joe. Maybe if they needed help with abortions they would get that sooner than F -16's.
If the US could not provide the munitions necessary for Ukraine to kick Russia out of Ukraine then the US couldn't defend itself against its most hostile adversary either. You'd be making an excellent argument for enlarging the US military production base if it were true.
Which it isn't. Not remotely. See below.
The US has no say in whether Poland gives its MiG-29s to Ukraine. It didn't supply them in the first place so has no contractual leverage over them. Germany didâit sold Poland some East German leftovers after reunificationâbut it quickly acquiesced to sending 5 of them to Ukraine, on top of the 8 they'd already sent.
You may be referring to a deal Poland proposed in 2022 (shortly after the latest phase of the invasion began) to run a donation thru the US. That didn't happen, but since then Poland has donated the planes anyway.
Yeah, the math does not add up. It is a war of attrition and the US cannot provide what is needed to win.
Would have been a whole different situation if Biden had let Poland give their MIG's to Ukraine back in the beginning. And how are those F-16's in Ukraine doing over there ? They have been forth coming for over a year now. Talk, talk, talk ... thanks, Joe. Maybe if they needed help with abortions they would get that sooner than F -16's.
And what would your great orange blob have come up with? He wants to choke off any aid... period. Zelenski recently asked to meet with him to discuss Trump's plan to end the war. Trump declined. Presumably, his plan to end the war would be to stop all aid to Ukraine and suggest to Ukraine to give Putin whatever it is that he wants.
And don't pivot to "Well if Trump was president" Russia would not have invaded" as that might be even a bigger lie than the stolen election. Trump was (and continues to be) Putin's lap-dog as he can't even begin to condemn Putin's role in this conflict.
J.D. Vance: The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up Ukraine needs more men than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more material than the United States can provide.
Fundamentally, we lack the capacity to manufacture the amount of weapons Ukraine needs us to supply to win the war. Consider our ability to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells. Last year, Ukraine’s then defense minister assessed that their base line requirement for these shells is over four million per year, but said they could fire up to seven million if that many were available. Since the start of the conflict, the United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025. This would cost the American taxpayers dearly while yielding an unpleasantly familiar result: failure abroad.
The story is the same when we look at other munitions. Take the Patriot missile system — our premier air defense weapon. It’s of such importance in this war that Ukraine’s foreign minister has specifically demanded them. That’s because in March alone, Russia reportedly launched over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine. To fend off these attacks, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and others have indicated they need thousands of Patriot interceptors per year. The problem is this: The United States only manufactures 550 every year. If we pass the supplemental aid package currently being considered in Congress, we could potentially increase annual production to 650, but that’s still less than a third of what Ukraine requires.
These weapons are not only needed by Ukraine. If China were to set its sights on Taiwan, the Patriot missile system would be critical to its defense. In fact, the United States has promised to send Taiwan nearly $900 million worth of Patriot missiles, but delivery of those weapons and other essential resources has been severely delayed, partly because of shortages caused by the war.
Yeah, the math does not add up. It is a war of attrition and the US cannot provide what is needed to win.
Would have been a whole different situation if Biden had let Poland give their MIG's to Ukraine back in the beginning. And how are those F-16's in Ukraine doing over there ? They have been forth coming for over a year now. Talk, talk, talk ... thanks, Joe. Maybe if they needed help with abortions they would get that sooner than F -16's.
J.D. Vance: The Math on Ukraine Doesnât Add Up Ukraine needs more men than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more material than the United States can provide.
Feng Yujun, one of the China's leading Russianists and a professor at Peking University: Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine â The Economist
Four reasons why Russian Federation will lose to Ukraine, according to Feng Yujun:
The first is the level of resistance and national unity shown by Ukrainians, which has until now been extraordinary.
The second is international support for Ukraine, which, though recently falling short of the countryâs expectations, remains broad.
The third factor is the nature of modern warfare, a contest that turns on a combination of industrial might and command, control, communications and intelligence systems. One reason Russia has struggled in this war is that it is yet to recover from the dramatic deindustrialisation it suffered after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The final factor is information. When it comes to decision-making, Vladimir Putin is trapped in an information cocoon, thanks to his having been in power so long. The Russian president and his national-security team lack access to accurate intelligence. The system they operate lacks an efficient mechanism for correcting errors. Their Ukrainian counterparts are more flexible and effective.
His conclusion is as follows:
Russia will be forced to withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea.
Russia's nuclear capability is no guarantee of success. Feng Yujun gives the example of the United States, which left Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan with no less nuclear potential than the Russian Federation has today.
Kyiv has proven that Moscow is not invincible, so a ceasefire under the "Korean" scenario is ruled out.
The war is a turning-point for Russia. It has consigned Putinâs regime to broad international isolation. He has also had to deal with difficult domestic political undercurrents, from the rebellion by the mercenaries of the Wagner Group and other pockets of the military â for instance in Belgorod â to ethnic tensions in several Russian regions and the recent terrorist attack in Moscow. These show that political risk in Russia is very high. Mr Putin may recently have been re-elected, but he faces all kinds of possible black-swan events.
After the war, Ukraine will have the chance join both the EU and NATO, while Russia will lose its former Soviet republics because they see Putin's aggression there as a threat to their sovereignty and territorial integrity.
According to Feng Yujun, the war, meanwhile, has made Europe wake up to the enormous threat that Russiaâs military aggression poses to the continentâs security and the international order, bringing post-cold-war EU-Russia detente to an end. Many European countries have given up their illusions about Mr Putinâs Russia.
The Looming Ukraine Debacle There is indeed a serious risk that, rather than the West teaching Russia a lesson and putting Putin in his place, the opposite may occur.
Didn't know you were such a fan of religious zealotry Richard!
Dugin aktualisierte letzte Woche Uwarows nationalistische triadische Doktrin des russischen Imperiums von 1833 ("Orthodoxie, Autokratie und Volkstum") militaristisch und esoterisch und machte Russland zum archaischen faschistischen Erfüller eines "ewigen" Auftrags gegen Europa. pic.twitter.com/GgjwLSajwF
The Looming Ukraine Debacle There is indeed a serious risk that, rather than the West teaching Russia a lesson and putting Putin in his place, the opposite may occur. Matthew Blackburn, The National Interest
I'm guessing Campbell uses, perhaps superior, CIA data. As for the Pentagon/allies they've been in rose-coloured glasses mode from the start. Still are.
Of course he is, because that's how you inform off-the-cuff remarks at conferences.
But now now the CIA is a credible source? Good to know.
That's for the Russians to decide, not US/Euro/NATO bloviators.
Put in a good word, comrade. But avoid tall buildings with windows.
From the same article: "Campbellâs assessment seems to contradict those of the Pentagon and Americaâs allies in Europe."
So this one dude, speaking at a conference on an entirely different topic, is contradicting people who ought to knowâincluding people much closer to the situation. But he says something appealing to you, so he's credible.
Sure, sounds legit.
I'm guessing Campbell uses, perhaps superior, CIA data. As for the Pentagon/allies they've been in rose-coloured glasses mode from the start. Still are.
Lazy8 wrote:
Maybe Russia should reconstitute its political leadership instead.
That's for the Russians to decide, not US/Euro/NATO bloviators.
From the same article: "Campbellâs assessment seems to contradict those of the Pentagon and Americaâs allies in Europe."
So this one dude, speaking at a conference on an entirely different topic, is contradicting people who ought to know—including people much closer to the situation. But he says something appealing to you, so he's credible.
Sure, sounds legit.
But let's say he's right, and the Russian military has recovered from the absurdly high attrition its brute-force tactics have cost it. Then...what? The western world should stop supporting Ukraine so they're forced to submit to an imperialist conquest of their country? Or what?
That mighty military, at full strength, bogged down trying to crush an adversary many times weaker than itself. It is feeding its young men and resources into a meat grinder, gaining a few meters a day. It controls about 18% of Ukraine's land mass, down from 27% at peak occupation.
Maybe Russia should reconstitute its political leadership instead.
So Elon Muxk, capitalist running dog gadfly who constantly talks out his ass about topics he doesn't understand and is wrong about everything, is now credible?
yes! because tankie troll patrol have their marching orders
Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing According to high-ranking Ukrainian officers, the military picture is grim and Russian generals could find success wherever they decide to focus their upcoming offensive.
With a history of urging Ukraine to agree to territorial concessions â and his opposition to the $60 billion U.S. military aid package snarled on Capitol Hill amid partisan wrangling â Musk isnât Ukraineâs favorite commentator, to say the least. And his remarks received predictable pushback.
But the billionaire entrepreneurâs forecast isnât actually all that different from the dire warnings Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made in the last few days. According to Zelenskyy, unless the stalled multibillion-dollar package is approved soon, his forces will have to âgo back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.â He also warned that some major cities could be at risk of falling.
Obviously, Zelenskyyâs warnings are part of a broad diplomatic effort to free up the military aid his forces so desperately need and have been short of for months â everything from 155-millimeter artillery shells to Patriot air-defense systems and drones. But the sad truth is that even if the package is approved by the U.S. Congress, a massive resupply may not be enough to prevent a major battlefield upset. (...)
The officers said thereâs a great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive. Moreover, thanks to a much greater weight in numbers and the guided aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now, Russia will likely be able to âpenetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,â they said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely.
âThereâs nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We donât have those technologies, and the West doesnât have them as well in sufficient numbers,â one of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO.
