Yohan wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2024, 8:07 pm
Natural_Born_Cynic wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2024, 11:23 am
Ukraine is f*cked whether GAY-NATO and USA likes it or not. GAY-
NATO doesn't have the industrial capacity, political unity and economic priority to manufacture fresh new weapons and send them to sinkhole Ukrainistan. Too much red tape, lack of standardization amongst NATO Countries, too much labor cost, lack of willing recruits and too much profit chasing instead of delivering reliable, rugged, cheap weapons like the Russians do. Same "bullscheisse" with the USA.
@Natural_Born_Cynic
Honestly, I have no idea what gives you the impression that NATO countries do not have the industrial capacity to produce weapons and to support Ukraine with all what it needs to fight off the Russian invaders.
This is going on now since about 2 years and Russia so far could occupies only about 20 % of the Ukrainian territory (most parts arewith a significant Russian population) - but only with a high loss of young soldiers who lost their life or are now severely handicapped (totally maybe around 400.000 persons), and with a huge loss of warships, tanks, other vehicles and airplanes.
Productivity of Western countries (and not only NATO members) which support Ukraine frequently is much higher than those of Russia. And so far, not even one NATO-soldier died.
About NATO, because of Putin's threats, it became even larger, with reliable countries of Finland and Sweden joining the union.
And about money, do you really think that Russian factories produce military related items of all kind (like airplanes, ships, tanks, weapons in general etc.) for free?
My guess is this war might go on maybe even for years.
@Yohan
1) NATO and U.S said this themselves. They are NOT fully geared towards full war time industrial production and unable to support Ukraine in the long term once their old warehouse stock runs out. Meanwhile the Russians have very little problem producing new tanks, missiles, equipments and others thanks to their black market oil and gas money.
2) Russian armament factories are state owned and not bound by profit chasing like Western defense companies. Russian State factories are government funded and directly tied to the government, that's how they get their funding. As long as the black market Oil and Gas money keeps coming in, Russia has no problem producing more weapons and China, North Korea, and Iran would be very happy to supply the Russians.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/europe-ne ... ts-ukraine
Commentary by Max Bergmann
Published January 17, 2024
Europe’s approach to supporting Ukraine’s war effort is no longer fit for purpose. There is a desperate need for Europe to ramp up its defense industrial production. But despite a clear consensus behind this urgent need, European production lines are not yet maxing out their capacity. The root of the issue is not so much a lack of political will but, as is frequently the case with European defense, a failure to cooperate and a lack of funding.
Time is of the utmost urgency. Russian defense production is accelerating, with Russia gearing up for a winter offensive and bombarding Ukrainian cities in the December at the highest rate since the conflict began. It is clear that Putin is not seeking an off-ramp or negotiated settlement to this war but to reverse Russia’s humiliation and subjugate Ukraine. However, Europe has not yet shifted to the new reality that Ukraine faces a long war. Should the U.S. Congress fail to pass more funding for Ukraine, the transfer of U.S. weapons, most worryingly munitions, will slow to a trickle. With U.S. support for Ukraine on thin ice in Congress, former president Donald Trump leading the polls, and Russia ramping up its war machine, Europe needs to act urgently to both support Ukraine and restock its warehouses to improve its own military readiness.
Over the past two years, Europeans have supported Ukraine by emptying their warehouses of aging equipment and munitions. The European Union’s European Peace Facility (EPF) has incentivized its member states to give military equipment to Ukraine by reimbursing them for some of the costs. However, there is now little left to give, as most of the old equipment has been divested. As such, European military support to Kyiv is lagging. The problem is that there is a tension between rebuilding European militaries and supporting Ukraine. Thus, European countries are much more reluctant to give Ukraine newer, more expensive equipment, which is vital for national defense and meeting NATO targets.
A new paradigm is urgently needed for Europe’s military support for Ukraine. The challenge now is less about incentivizing countries to give weapons to Ukraine but about getting European defense industries to ramp up production. This requires significant new funding and requires Europeans to do something they rarely do in defense: work together.
https://stratnewsglobal.com/articles/us ... s-diluted/
‘US Lacks Capacity To Arm Ukraine, Focus On Indo-Pacific Has Diluted’
US not producing enough arms and ammunition for Ukraine, Indo-Pacific and China not getting attention
This may seem odd even unbelievable, but the US with a defence budget of over $800 billion last year, is running seriously short of munitions to support the Ukrainian war effort. Wilson Beaver, a policy analyst with the right wing Heritage Foundation based in Washington DC, said that US manufacturing capacities have degraded since the end of the Cold War.
“A lot of the problem we are facing now is we haven’t been engaged in the large scale production of these munitions really since the 1980s. A lot of the stuff being expended is end of the Cold War munitions stockpiles. In the 1980s, defence spending was around six to 9 percent of GDP, earlier in the 1970s it was even higher at 10 percent.. and the US has just as many responsibilities then as now.”
Beaver pointed out that people are calling on the US to take on Iran, China and Russia but the military is stretched thin. The debate in Washington and the Pentagon is if the US can’t do everything, which theatre should it prioritise. Given his conservative credentials, Beaver believes his country should re-orient the military towards China and the Indo-Pacific. But currently, a lot of US blood, sweat and treasure is being expended in Ukraine.
“The rest of Nato should be doing a lot more,” said Beaver, referring to European member states of Nato that are often accused of not doing enough for their own defence leave alone contributing substantially to the Ukraine war effort.
Beaver believes “Russia is manageable from a European perspective, it really is … if the Europeans want to deter Russia I think they can on their own. The US is going to stay in Nato and will help with a strategic umbrella and things like that. I don’t think we should abandon Europe.”
President Biden’s move to give $60 billion in military and other aid to Ukraine, “does not square with US priorities,” argues Beaver, “since he has allotted only $5 billion for the Indio-Pacific.”
The danger in continued US involvement in Ukraine is the potential risk of China starting something in the Pacific, which the US may find tough to deal with given that so much military hardware, ordnance and stores have gone to Ukraine.
