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| 'Arsenal of Democracy' is empty: Ukraine broke the American military-industrial complex | ||
| 2023-07-06 | ||
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victoria Nikiforova [RIA] In the second year of the NMD, the unexpected turned out: the US military complex was not ready to conduct full-scale military operations. The idea to overwhelm Ukraine with weapons was designed only for a blitzkrieg. As conceived by American strategists, Russia should have lost long ago, plunged into the chaos of a civil war, on its ruins the Americans would have planted their puppets and with their help would have fallen on China. But the Americans had no plans for a war of attrition.
But if you look only at the numbers, then the American defense industry is the richest industry in the world. American weapons and equipment are positioned by their creators as "works of art." All this in total is worth some insane trillions. Fascinated by the cargo cult, Ukrainians are dying en masse for the "holy Javelins" and the bright "Stingers" - so long as their supplies do not stop. However, in all this splendor there is, as they say, one nuance. The influential publication Foreign Affairs notes a paradoxical flaw in the modern American military-industrial complex: it is perfectly sharpened for export sales of glamorous equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but it is decidedly not suitable for waging a big conventional war. Well, this is such a war where artillery works a lot, where an inhuman amount of shells is spent, where glamorous equipment burns as hot as old and unadvanced ones, where it always lacks spare parts and where soldiers need ammunition in an amount that is an order of magnitude greater than that, what is now. Why did it happen? Foreign Affairs believes that all the problems stem from the fact that the American state after the Second World War lost control over the defense industry and handed it over to private owners. Five giant monopolies now rule the US military-industrial complex - Raytheon , Boeing, Lockheed Martin , General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. In turn, the largest shareholders of these companies are such legendary investment funds as, for example, BlackRock . That is, the production of military equipment, in fact, is controlled by financiers. Naturally, they are only interested in profits and stock growth. Therefore, companies enter into contracts with the state for the maximum possible amount and produce the most expensive equipment - such as stealth aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Then this glamorous technique is exported. The company's profits are growing, the shares are also growing, the shareholders are happy, everything is fine. But with the production of the simplest "Stingers", artillery shells, even ordinary gunpowder, things are much worse. First, the United States has a very expensive labor force. Hiring a highly skilled proletarian for a military plant is initially unprofitable. Secondly, this labor force still needs to be trained for a long time, which also requires expenses. Well, the price of shells is a penny, you can’t really weld or saw them here. So it turns out that the production of vital ammunition is unprofitable. An interesting fact: American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were constantly short of ammunition, because in the United States at that time there was exactly one factory for their production. Or here's another: in 2021, one of the few American factories for the production of black powder exploded, and so far it has not been restored - this is unprofitable, the plant was unprofitable. Therefore, although they started talking about the need to increase the production of shells a year ago, things are still there. New production lines have not been built because it is unprofitable for large corporations. Small private traders could take on an order with state money, but they are afraid that the government in Washington will change and immediately cancel injections into the military-industrial complex. And the production will already be launched, and then what to do with it? The "arsenals of democracy", from which it was planned to feed the Armed Forces of Ukraine , are "devastated", states Foreign Affairs, while the defense capability (of the United States) "has suffered noticeable damage." This topic will be discussed at the upcoming NATO summit - in the same pessimistic vein. Yes, production needs to be increased, but it is not clear where to get the money for this. On salaries alone, European proletarians - if they agree to stand at the machine - can be ruined in a year. It turns out that, by demilitarizing Ukraine, we simultaneously managed to thoroughly demilitarize the United States. In any case, there are no more hatred moods of last summer, when Washington, in all seriousness, was going to fight with Russia and China at the same time. On the contrary, walkers are now being sent to Beijing , one by one, now Blinken, now Yellen. And they wave a white flag in front of Russia, offering - through the same Foreign Affairs - various options for a truce. For example, military analysts from the RAND Corporation, serving the interests of the American military-industrial complex, advise Kiev to accept all territorial losses and agree to refuse to join NATO in exchange for an agreement with the United States on defense and defense. They can offer whatever they want, of course. Russia will continue to carry out all the goals of the NMD, especially since the side effect of our special operation is the undermining of the largest military-industrial complex on the planet. Nothing personal, gentlemen, it's just collateral damage - collateral damage, as they say. | ||
| Posted by:badanov |
| #6 What? You expected that the likes of Joe Biden could be trusted not to miscalculate? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2023-07-06 13:12 |
| #5 as planned... |
| Posted by: 746 2023-07-06 11:34 |
| #4 Truth. Federal arsenals closed. Foreign suppliers (especially communist China for crying out loud!) depended on for critical parts because they were the cheapest bidder. If it wasn't for greed and/or stupidity you would assign it to malice. |
| Posted by: magpie 2023-07-06 10:30 |
| #3 Well, if the plan is to surrender to the Chicoms, might as well turn that ordnance into boodle before the final capitulation. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-07-06 07:19 |
| #2 ...We slit our own throats 30 years ago with the drawdowns - and it wasn't so much losing the troops as it was losing the support infrastructure. The Army ammunition plants, the Navy Yards/Shipyards, and the consolidation of the aircraft and overall defense industries - that's what's hurt. The losses in a potential conflict with China will be the things of genuine nightmares. The Navy could be broken beyond help for decades, the USAF could lose most of its aircraft in the Pacific on the ground, and the ground forces would be fed into the kind of meatgrinder that hasn't been seen by US forces since WWII. And the official response is - IMHO - kabuki. Mike |
| Posted by: MikeKozlowski 2023-07-06 06:53 |
| #1 Load of cr@p. Some munitions are in short supply, but US troops don’t use a lot of Javelins or artillery anyway. Stingers are obsolete, and mothballed armor was never going to be used. |
| Posted by: Hupolunter de Medici7308 2023-07-06 05:25 |