It’s always really easy to armchair criticize using versions of, “why weren’t you prepared for every contingency at all times?” And I see versions of that in the comments. Supply chain is really really really hard. Keeping it warm for decades is really really really expensive. Especially if you’re not churning out 50 million of something every year.
Though I imagine there are valid criticisms if we had all the details. “They didn’t think to preserve X specimens.” “Y software was lost on a tape drive somewhere.” “Z blueprints got improperly stored inside the Ark of the Covenant.”
I think the issue is that there should have been a plan in place to create an equivalent in functionality even if it isn't an exact copy. The US doesn't need Stingers, they need something/anything that functions as a MANPAD.
Not having a way to increase production of Stingers is acceptable, but they've apparently done nothing since 1987 to make sure they have a viable blueprint for scaling production of a critical part of any modern military. That's the real story here, because it shows a fundamental problem in how the US military procures things and there is most likely similar issues all over the place for other critical things(artillery shells have similar shortages). How does the military not have a plan for war breaking out and needing to scale production? That's supposed to be their core job
You are overlooking a critical fact: the US capacity is optimized for US military doctrine and practice i.e. how the US fights wars. For those purposes, they have plenty. The US doesn't have vast numbers of artillery shells, for example, because the US doesn't need them nor would have any use for them if they were produced en masse. It would make no sense for the US to maintain the supply chain for a Soviet style military if the US isn't a Soviet style military. The shortages now are only relative to the military doctrine of other countries, not intrinsic to the US military.
> What if we need to support a country that does need lots of artillery shells like Ukraine?
We have allies to do that for us.
Before the Russia-Ukraine war escalated in 2022, Ukraine was procuring drones from Türkiye, artillery from Germany, and combat training from Canada and the UK.
If we began directly providing offensive weaponry to Ukraine before 2022, we would have ended up escalating the conflict much sooner.
By allowing our allies to handle procurement we were at least able to buy Ukraine enough time to rebuild their army after it collapsed in the aftermath of 2014.
I think Turkey tried a couple of years ago to specify that the spelling of the country’s name in English should be the same as in Turkish. I remember reading about it in the news.
Probably that suggestion/rule is followed by some parts of the UN and perhaps some documents from a few foreign ministries. I certainly hadn’t ever seen it in the wild until the GP comment. It made me chuckle…not at the commenter but at the country.
But what the hell, yes I wrote (and will continue to write) “Turkey”, but I won’t call Istanbul Constantinople, much less Byzantium.
Well... There is an argument for those based solely in the volume of loan words from French though right?
Not saying it's wrong to not deride someone for using the proper spelling but the existence of the French forms shouldn't inherently require forms from languages without significant influence on English.
I'm pretty sure that Germany was not selling any artillery systems to Ukraine prior to the 2022 invasion. Otherwise they wouldn't have been so reticent to supply PZH2000 and MARS.
Common sentiment was that the US would go more isolationist, no more foreign adventures with the exception of maybe shooting some rockets on some djihadists.
That sounds great until first engagement where you learn your whole air superiority doctrine doesnt work because enemy rolled out some new type of weapon (swarm of $1000 autonomous drones).
It could make sense for NATO to maintain the supply for Soviet style military.
Poland plus Romania plus Czechia plus Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia, and potentially Ukraine and Bosnia and Central Asia with Georgia and Azerbaijan, where these could be used.
It was totally not obvious that Russia (an important but quite small subset of Warsaw pact) will keep its military production capacity but the rest of collective will not - eventually running out of it and often without meaningful replacement.
The current US national defense strategy says the US must be capable of fighting one major war against a near peer enemy (nominally China) and defeating them:
The lack of basic weaponry seems to be a failure in that regard. Imagine if the US and Russia were fighting directly. The US may not have air superiority because of Russian jamming and air defense systems. Neither side wants to use nukes. So a long term ground and air war is a possibility, and the same seems possible with modern China. The Pentagon was not prepared for this as shown by what is happening in Ukraine. Instead they seem to have assumed that there will be no more big wars (not unreasonable until Russia decided otherwise and the US decided to "diversify supply chains" away from China) and they spent all the trillions on ever more advanced weaponry, never making large quantities of anything, but always starting the next new program. It is apparent they were caught by surprise, as was the EU who underinvested in defense for a long time. Now everybody is putting out contracts for new arms, but the manufacturers are going to take years to ramp up production. I expect this is partly caused by Congress in the US who tend to assume money solves everything, but in this case money can not buy time. Much of the material needed to make gunpowder and rocket motors comes from China, good luck ramping up production of those quickly if the US is fighting China. Part of the problem is outsourcing of manufacturing to other countries such that the US no longer has the ability to quickly switch industry to a war footing. US car makers rely on thousands of parts from other countries. That happened slowly over time, but even so the Pentagon wasn't keeping their eye on the ball and let capabilities slip away; car factories today could not make a tank, they are not set up for handling the heavy sheets of armor, all the robots would be useless, and there are no workers still trained in the old manufacturing methods. Yet another factor is secrecy, the US can't/won't give its most current weapons to Ukraine because that would reveal them to Russia and China. So all our super weapons can't even be used because of secrets. This shows a lack of foresight that not everyone fighting on our side in a war is going to have access to the most current US weapons. If it was NATO fighting Russia the EU do not and would not have the most advanced versions of the F35 and F22 for example, they'd have the export versions. There are factors unique to the Ukraine war, such as the time needed to train the Ukrainian military to use Western weapons (where the assumption was the US and EU already knew how to use them, so no problem for us) and the fear of escalation to nuclear war, but it seems the US military really was not ready for a long drawn out war in a remote location and they are obviously scrambling to adjust to that. A big concern recently is the realization that it would be very difficult for the US to fight against China (say to protect Taiwan) because it is so far away and we have few bases in the area. F22's and F35's can be refueled mid-air, but mid-air refueling planes can be shot down. Aircraft carriers are really vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Basically it seems the world has changed (or perceptions of it anyway) and the US military has not adjusted (yet) to the that and didn't seem to see it coming. Maybe their hands were tied by Congress (for example demands to keep old planes flying instead of stocking more ammunition), we'll probably never know. The US has not fought a war against a near peer power in a long time, much of its planning for such a war has to be guesswork by people with little experience. If the US was attacked by Russia or China in a conventional war current munition stockpiles would probably be plenty, the long distance would work against the attackers. A war on the other side of the world is a very different set of logistical problems, yet may be considered just as crucial as defending home territory. If US military strategy says that is not worth considering, that's a decision to intentionally limit what kinds of wars can be fought. History would then judge whether that was a mistake or not.
Your comment lacks not only paragraphs, but understanding of both US doctrine and understanding and US logistical systems.
1) Poorly trained (by highly motivated) Ukrainian soldiers are fighting successfully against the best the Russian Federation can offer, using both old Soviet era that they owned and manufactured (Most of the good Soviet gear was made in Ukraine), and old US and NATO gear. Old HIMARS, old M113, old Leopard tanks, etc etc. The best stuff being provided is Javelin, M777, a few Patriot batteries, etc. Even the Abrams and Bradleys are old versions.
So the Russians aren't doing well, and are no threat in conventional terms.
2. The US wasn't surprised at all by the invasion, though the IC was surprised at how poorly the revamped Russian military performed.
3. The EU has been underinvesting in defense for 50 years, so their lack of deep inventories is no surprise.
4. This isn't WW2 where Detroit can switch in a month from building Studebakers to Sherman tanks. The only tank factory in the US is in Lima, OH, and has been building Abrams since 1980. The idea that defense items can be built quickly and cheaply ignores the complexity of the gear US forces use.
5. NATO members who have purchased the F-35 have the same capabilities as the USAF etc. There's no "export" version, and some purchasers are even part of the manufacturing process. And none of them have the F-22 as you imply, since it's not available for export (and the production line has been shut down for decades).
6. It's not "a big concern recently" about the tyranny of distance in fighting a war against China. This has been discussed for decades.
7. Finally, you say that the US has not fought a war against a near peer power in a long time. Well, duh. The US has had the most powerful economy since 1916, two oceans to keep enemies away, and hasn't had it's homeland significantly touched by an enemy since the War of 1812.
The idea that the US would not achieve air superiority against Russia is laughable. Russia’s Air Force has been pathetic in Ukraine relative to all their claims of supposed capabilities. The lack of stingers is not a hugely important factor compared to modern fighter jets, long range striking capabilities, and a competent set of pilots.
The “game changing weapons” that the US has been providing are very old. And we’re still not giving them the good stuff. Secrecy is not the reason.
Ukraine wants ATACMs for the HIMAR units and F16s.
The storm shadow missiles which have been making headlines lately are fired off of Ukrainian Soviet era planes
I worked on the F22 program, the same things that have prevented Russian air superiority in Ukraine can prevent American air superiority. F22's and F35's are not immune to attacks from lots of cheap IR missiles. Russia has also not yet brought most of its air force to the Ukraine fight. Secrecy is very much a stated reason for not giving Ukraine some weapons, the US doesn't even give some secret weapons to its EU allies. That is why it has export versions of weapon systems. Russia is perfectly capable of reverse engineering anything they capture in Ukraine.
Russia’s Air Force is largely non functional. It’s not capable of bringing it all to the front due to a mix of parts, maintenance, and pilot shortages. The latest phase of the war has seen them trying to use their copters (which are effective) but they’re dropping pretty fast.
It’s true that surface to air missiles are very good these days. But that’s not very useful against long range missiles precision weapons. Which Russia largely does not have. See their recent use of an iskander ballistic missile to take out a company of infantry under a bridge out of desperation and lack of alternatives.
The Stinger shortage is exactly contradicting your point about artillery shells.
Everyone in the military did indeed have their "doctrine and practice" in mind, the status quo, and suddenly the world rushed up to the military's front door, knocked furiously at the door saying "we need 20,000 Stingers, fast!" And hopefully they had the introspection to realize 'wow, we failed. We can't supply this. Our doctrine and tactics are wrong."
Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority.
Begs the question what's going on with the lack of common sense in the military.
>Do you seek air superiority via spending money to create an air-superior fighter jet, or do you seek air superiority via spending money to give every infantry soldier a manpad? Two different tactics with the same goal. Except that the former is a wasteful illusion of superiority, the latter is meat-and-potatoes common sense superiority.
That doesn't make any sense at all. Stinger type MANPADS are designed for short range point defense, no greater than 5km range and limited by cloud cover. It's a completely different ballgame to have air superiority fighters with radar guided missiles covering you from above. US doctrine is based entirely around this fact; that winning a war means being the side which is able to maintain that.
If the US military ever requires manpads to down enemy aircraft, things have gone so incredibly wrong that not being able to supply thousands a year is the least concerning part of the situation.
Stingers would provide no protection against a competently managed and equipped air force. If we were fighting the Russians in Ukraine, we would be using JADAMs etc from well outside the engagement envelope of any MANPAD.
The only way to achieve air superiority is with a fighter aircraft and its associated support aircraft. You can deny air superiority with a full spectrum AD program (which a MANPAD is but a small part), but you can not impose it.
But they are. In any remotely evenly matched conflict neither side will have air supremacy. Patriots and NASAMs can not kill things they can't see--against aircraft flying a treetop level their engagement range is very short. However, aircraft flying at treetop level are very vulnerable if they fly too close to a MANPAD launcher. Flight time will be a few seconds and the desired engagement is from behind--about your only chance of beating it is automated flare dispensers or anti-missile lasers (blinding the seeker, not actually killing the missile.) An aircraft that could fly home crippled from a marginal hit will still go in because the pilot has no altitude to trade for time.
Ukraine isn't an edge case, Ukraine is what you would expect from anything less than a turkey shoot. It's just we haven't been in anything other than a turkey shoot since the Stinger came out.
Is there any air war that the USAF would not be in a turkey shoot that is not a direct war against China? Let's be realistic here... The US expects to have full air supremacy against most any adversary. They certainly would against Russia. Despite Russia having a few exceptional air superiority fighers. They're only "as good or worse" as the best American equivalents and they might have one tenth as many as the US does.
Russia denies air supremacy with a spectrum of anti air defences, not air superiority fighters.
IIRC Russia is at 99% air defence effectiveness vs the start of the Ukraine war; i.e. it has not been materially degraded at all, despite HARM anti-radar missiles and so forth given to Ukraine.
I meant vs the USAF, with modern stealth multi role jets such as the F35. We can target their anti-air for long range GMLRS artillery / precision artillery like Excalibur, or with cruise missiles like tomahawks. The SEAD / DEAD missions seem quite appropriate for F35s.
Though I don’t full agree with Russia only using ground based air defense as the few newer generation jets Russia have are shooting down a lot of Ukrainian jets. They fly higher, faster, and can both lock and engage Ukrainian jets before the Ukrainian have even detected them.
Well, to be fair the the Ukrainians, they're flying old old Flankers and Fulcrums. Compared to Su-35 etc, it's no contest.
I think that the USAF will have its hands full overcoming Russia's A2AD environment, assuming it's set up and competently managed. The range on S300/S400 makes it hard to use anything other than Tomahawks and stealth aircraft to target. It definitely won't be like Baghdad during DS.
In the first 48 hours of the Afghanistan war, a tomahawk was launched, on average, every 12 seconds. To pivot back to near peer threats like china, the US Marine Corps now has a ground based tomahawk launcher[1] they can setup on small islands. Also, the US has a crapload more stealth aircraft than the Russians and the maintenance is actually performed on them.
You're seriously comparing the air defense capability of Afghanistan against a near peer? I love the Tomahawk, and I think it still has some use until LRSO comes into inventory in significant numbers, but I think it's going to struggle against China if it comes to that. Even with saturation attacks, you'll have to have a lot of luck and careful planning to overwhelm China's A2AD.
Currently, there is no air force in the world that will match the US. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to see a combination of aircraft that can match up.
The US Air Force is the largest one in the world. The second largest? The US Army. 4th largest? US Navy. I think the USMC is #7 or so.
That doesn't mean the US will have air supremacy in every situation or even air superiority, but it's unlikely to be close to even for long, if it ever is.
None of that airplanes, except perhaps a few very secret ones, is going to fight in Ukraine. As other comments explain, the important point is what air defense weapons can be sent.
That's not the point - if the United States is actively taking part in a war, which it is definitely not currently in Ukraine, we will have air superiority.
I'm not doubting USA air superiority in any plausible war, but it doesn't matter because what's needed is vastly different: reinforcing Ukrainian air defense, without sending planes to fight.
A military that cannot send stingers to allies, right now, is objectively not very capable; focusing on air superiority might be the best choice after all, but it cannot be an excuse for late stingers.
So during the Balkan conflict, Serbia was able to send up fighters to challenge the NATO air fleets? Nope. They had to rely (and did an exceptional job) on their SAM systems and radars.
Not really. I meant that Balkan operation was nowhere even close in technological terms to the full-scale Russian invasion, supported by their most advanced air tech.
> ... despite a world-class air force’s best effort against a second-rate defense, the United States never gained air supremacy. High-value intelligence platforms such as the E-8 Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System were prohibited from flying over land where their sensors were most useful and instead had to stand off outside the threat region.
While your comment could be true, if it were phrased as a hypothetical, there isn't anything that could bring an "evenly matched conflict" to the US. The US military capability is literally approaching two orders of magnitude greater than almost everything else on the planet.
IIRC, at least on the original Stinger, the heat signature of the trees and other objects on the horizon confuses the seeker head so you need a clear shot. You also need the target to be a certain distance away, otherwise the rocket can't maneuver toward it. Something close and literally at treetop level might not be an ideal target.
You don't have to go back too far for Russia to be viewed as a legitimate military threat who could roll through europe. I wonder if there are anything other than turkeys for the us military to shoot.
This not really well supported by basic constraints, nor by history. On the constraints side, nukes alone preclude this possibility, but even against non-nuclear enemies - war against people that can (and do) fight back is extremely difficult, grueling, and brutal. And the outcome is never certain. Both the USSR and the USA lost to Afghanistan, the US lost to Vietnam and 'drew' against North Korea (with the backing of an at the time poorly developed China), Russia lost a war to Chechnya, and much more.
Nuclear powers feared conflict between each other not because one or the other's conventional army (or arms) were superpowered, but because it dramatically increased the chances of a conflict escalating to the nuclear level - which could well be the end of both civilizations, if not the better part of the entire human species.
It's a symptom of the US itself having no intention nor need of fighting a very protracted war in the style of WW1 utilizing artillery.
The US only has a shortage of Javelins because they have sent so many into Ukraine. In the past half a century the US hasn't had to supply a military conflict as it has with Ukraine v Russia, and almost nobody in a position of power (including across Europe) on the planet was predicting Russia's invasion. The notion of literally planning for every possibility is absurd, and if the US military tries to do that regarding a budget, it'll just get that much more flak for spending policies.
Armchair Internet users will proclaim the US military should know all and see all and know exactly how many Javelins it will need based on knowing every single conflict that will happen before it happens. And if they make a mistake, and spend a lot of money on weapons they don't need, then they must be attacked for the ridiculous spending. The armchair crowd can't have it both ways.
> almost nobody in a position of power (including across Europe) on the planet was predicting Russia's invasion
I’m surprised by this. There were articles and discussions on it for years. The water supply to Crimea was sore point. In the immediate lead up to war the troop build ups were in the news.
I don’t disagree that it shows these issues, but identifying these empirically is one of the reasons the US likes to constantly inject itself into international conflict.
Weird edge case? Nonsense, proxy wars are the norm. Just because Stingers aren't a critical part of the US military doesn't mean you throw away the documentation and specification. Any military procurement should include reference material on the entire manufacturing pipeline as part of the deliverables - the manufacturer can keep the rights but military assets are too important to risk permanent loss.
Yup, all documentation and tooling should be retained except when specifically ordered otherwise by the DOD. (I'm thinking of the F-14 where they deliberately destroyed the ability to maintain them when they were retired because they wanted to ensure Iran couldn't maintain theirs.)
The article doesn't say anything about the documentations and specs being destroyed, just that the tooling etc will need to be dusted off and new workers trained. The biggest issue is legacy chips and electronics that are no longer made. These will need to be replaced and the Stinger basically redesigned with a new seeker head.
Keeping this production line hot would be extremely expensive, and since none of our allies were buying any and the US military expects to have air superiority/supremacy in any conflict they fight, this is a tempest in a teapot.
There’s a deeper structural problem that affects almost all military supply chains.
Modern military equipment is incredibly expensive, complex, bespoke, and made in small batches. Even in cases when that is not true, as with artillery shells, peacetime supply chains cannot meet wartime demand. Ramping them up takes time, and maintaining them in a constant scaled state of readiness entails an opportunity cost that most societies are not willing to pay.
HN readers should know that military supply chains are not like global commercial supply chains. The supply chains that say Apple or Walmart have built are global scale and quickly responsive to demand. That simply does not apply to many military components from manufacturing through assembly and deployment. The timelines are much longer.
There are things Ukraine needs that money cannot immediately solve. These bottlenecks are an example. (Fears of escalation are another…)
Ukraine is fighting a poor man’s war with a lot of second-hand Cold War equipment and Stingers that served the mujahedeen just as well decades ago.
This is partially due to US funding mechanisms. It’s very easy for Biden to exercise discretion in what he sends (and therefore regulate the intensity of the war) through the mechanism of Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which can only draw upon existing DOD stocks. He relies heavily on PDA, thus the nature of the second-hand stuff.
What’s interesting is the dual-use piece of the equipment used in Ukraine. By paying frontline soldiers some 5x what they would normally earn, Ukraine has created a market driven by the demand of infantry, usually pooling their purchases in small groups.
They are buying all sorts of equipment, notably power banks, satellite ground terminals, mobile devices, from much more responsive supply chains.
That is, we have strong revealed preferences of the kind of equipment soldiers buy when their lives depend on it, and it looks very different from the bloat purveyed by primes to the Pentagon.
Disclosure: I work with Ukraine Defense Fund to send dual-use tech to the AFU.(Ukrainedefensefund.org)
this isn't just a military production issue. Industry has always been bad at contingency planning. Healthcare was blindsided by the covid pandemic, even though the flu has been the most prominent pandemics in human history. Finance industry was blindsided housing crash. Supply chain disruptions make waves through the entire system.
Businesses barely do any contingency planning because there is no money to be made in it and it takes away from making money. so when a contingency finally hits, they're all caught with their pants around their ankles
> Supply chain is really really really hard. Keeping it warm for decades is really really really expensive.
I’m glad this realization is making its way to the knowledge of the general population.
People have been seduced by cheap foreign goods, and balked at the idea of something costing more than the lowest cost.
Come to think of it, I am wondering if making cheap industrial labour generally available was a “soft power” exercised by some countries. This enabled the dismantling of flexible Western production capabilities, increased reliance on these countries, and dissuaded aggression towards them.
Also see the reliance of Europe on Russian fossil fuel imports.
I feel this is true. I think one effect is that when merchandise and fossil fuels are super cheap for long enough, people stop perceiving them as being super cheap, and any return to a healthy state of more domestic production and conservation is seen as things becoming super expensive. And then they’re bigmad and someone else ought to pay.
My general understanding is that "dismantling of flexible Western production capabilities, increased reliance on these countries, and dissuaded aggression towards them" was the whole point of global supply chains; literally the doctrine.
Not sure about the implicit attempt to address power imbalance: if you invest your IP in some "underdeveloped" country and then they decide to sell chips to all comers, or not to sell to you and sell exclusively to your global competitors something is going to give... or break. Or get broken.
But that's literally how it was sold: give up your industrial base for a safer world. (We thank you for your patriotism, former industrial worker of the western world.)
This is true. It was an explicit tactic. Also, the plan was to help develop China as an ally against Russia. So we setup trade conditions that were favorable to China. And it worked beyond all expectations. But now they're not much of an ally. And we're having a hard time returning to balanced trade conditions.
> cheap industrial labour generally available was a “soft power”
Of course it is. But US and Global Capitalism fought tooth and nail to get into China. The manufacturing base in the US was dismantled (literally) on purpose by American billionaires and the politicians they owned.
the initial plan made sense as a way to weaken the Soviets, but after the USSR collapsed in the 90s the US should have pulled out and also not let China into the World Trade Organization unless they played fair. Going to be seen as an all time historical blunder.
Tiananmen square made it clear China wasn't going to change and the idea that "improving economy leads to democracy" has literally never happened unless that nation was occupied by the US military like Germany and Japan
"An actual war breaking out" is an extremely foreseeable contingency when building weapons of war. That said, I blame the government more for not keeping the supply chain alive, and in particular not ensuring they can change manufacturers.
"An actual war breaking out, against the full Russian army, that NATO isn't directly involved in so it's fought in a very different way than NATO would, but in which a large part of the equipment is still provided by NATO" is quite different though.
NATO would have air superiority and not need as many stingers.
This isn't a proxy war between NATO and Russia, this is Russia invading a neighbor, and the neighbor being supported by many different countries, some of which aren't even in NATO or "the West". Framing it as NATO vs Russia is precisely what the Kremlin talking heads try to do on a daily basis. NATO is a defensive alliance and a set of shared standards. Also, Russia has no proxy in this.
If you squint a bit, Russia is the proxy. China's to be specific. The outcome tested the waters a bit for how the international community might react to the invasion of a somewhat developed nation vs a developing one. It also uses up munitions and war chests of those that might get involved. And in the now seemingly inevitable case that Russia's economy and political power are severely damaged, it has a trading partner that makes plenty of food and fuel that everyone else has promised not to trade with, so the prices are cheap.
Agreed on the first part, but I'd say the rest isn't so important: while China does rely on food imports, it's mostly stuff like meat, rice and soybeans - nothing that Russia has in abundance.
It did not *start* as a proxy war but it *became* one when we started flooding Ukraine with weapons.
So many politicians blathered on about the peace dividend but the bear was hibernating, not dead. I was repeatedly ridiculed for saying so. Fortunately, it turns out the bear rotted from within pretty badly during it's hibernation.
The best way to describe it is that it's unfinished conflict from WW1, WW2 and the Cold War, and therefore seeing it as Russia vs the west makes sense if you look at the entire history. Quite crazy that this is still happening in 2023.
Is it that, or is it Russia acting as the imperial power it once was? Ukraine has been a meaningful part of Russia for a long time, with its achievements (social, arts, science etc) being a big part of Russian history. I’m not sure that Russia is taking the loss very well. I’ve encounter Russians who dispute the existence of Ukraine “it’s all Russia”. The feelings run very deep.
A Russian would travel to any interesting part of Ukraine (usually Kiev, Crimea, Odessa, Kharkov) and notice that nobody actually talks in Ukrainian around them.
A week of not hearing anybody actually use the only official language of the country, that Russian would conclude that Ukraine is mostly fake.
Of course that led Russians to underappreciate the willingness of Ukraine citizens to actually fight for it.
This is both Russia invading its neighbour and a proxy war between NATO and Russia. It doesn’t have to be one of the other. NATO and its allies are directly propping up Ukraine which would have collapsed without them and they do that mostly to curtail Russia’s ambitions which is fine.
NATO is first and foremost a military alliance setup to contain the western expansion of the USSR. It’s a strategic alliance. It’s defensive in as much as a military alliance can be.
What the US is using NATO for now that the USSR is no more and what is the EU getting out of it are actually very valid questions.
What the US is using NATO for now that the USSR is no more and what is the EU getting out of it are actually very valid questions.
They were very valid questions up until the Ukraine invasion revealed Russia to be the mustachioed villain we were always told they were. Now nobody questions the need for NATO. Good job, Mr. Putin, your "Recruiter of the Year" plaque is on the way.
Countries don’t need protecting. Countries should aim to protect themselves. The EU doesn’t need the US for its protection and should have invested in a proper army decades ago.
It’s obvious that the main benefit for the USA is that NATO dissuades the EU to actually be a power. That some countries in the east are happy to play lapdogs is a major issue.
> Countries don’t need protecting. Countries should aim to protect themselves. The EU doesn’t need the US for its protection and should have invested in a proper army decades ago.
It's simply not possible from some countries to protect themselves for other larger aggressive countries (such as Russia) that can both out spend them and have many more bodies to throw at the problem.
A collective defensive alliance in this cases makes sense as both a deterrence to any possible belligerents and as a practical measure if someone does try something.
> Can you still call protectorates country? They are sovereign in name only.
No one is NATO is a 'protectorate' this is absurd on the face of it.
Why do you think its bad that smaller countries in Europe that have historically been invaded and dominated by Russia should not be in a alliance that allows themselves to effectively protect themselves from threats like Russia?.
> No one is NATO is a 'protectorate' this is absurd on the face of it.
If you can’t defend yourself and have to rely on a foreign power to do so, you are de facto a protectorate like it or not. That’s the case of at least the Baltic states in Europe and could probably be extended to other former USSR republics in the east.
> If you can’t defend yourself and have to rely on a foreign power to do so, you are de facto a protectorate like it or not. That’s the case of at least the Baltic states in Europe and could probably be extended to other former USSR republics in the east.
This implies that _anyone_ who receives any military aid is a protectorate which imply that states like Russia are a protectorate of Iran
That’s silly. There is a difference between buying material from a foreign country and being entirely reliant on another one for your survival.
I don’t mind the fairly honest debate and disagreement we are having. I understand your view on NATO even if I think it’s wrong and fail to acknowledge the actual effect the alliance has on its members. Still there is little point in going further if you are not interested in a modicum of intellectual honesty.
> That’s silly. There is a difference between buying material from a foreign country and being entirely reliant on another one for your survival.
> I don’t mind the fairly honest debate and disagreement we are having but there is little point in going further if you are not interested in a modicum of intellectual honesty.
I feel like you are the one being intellectually dishonest. To claim someone is a protectorate because they enter into a defensive alliance for their defence is absurd and does not follow.
No one is entirely reliant on NATO for survival but theres plenty of armies that wouldn't survive an insane from Russia without the extra material.
The proxy war started in 2014 with Euromaidan. Here is what's baffling: no army goes to war except with strategic plans. The geniuses in the Pentagon decided to push for war but omitted to make plans for armament supplies! The same mistake thankfully did Hitler in - the switch to the war economy came only in 1942 when it was clear that Stalingrad was going to fall.
What matters as far as planning is concerned is analyzing likely outcomes given your own actions. We can for the sake of the argument just take as a given that the Russian government is bloodthirsty and expansionist and wants Ukraine.
Event: Euromaidan
Likely long-term outcomes: ?
There’s not more to it than that. No need to moralize over who did what or who is culpable. This is all about one entity (America) analyzing likely outcomes given a series of events.
Technically correct, it was the US State Department and Congress (See: McCain, et. al.) implicated in the ouster of a legitimately elected Ukrainian president in what would most reasonably be described as a violent coup with the president being far upon by far-right militia, one that might reasonably described as Neo-Nazi in nature.
Considering Us behavior when the Soviet Union installed assets on Cuba, there isn’t a whole lot of ethical ground to be found here. Just Great Power politicians playing stupid games with innocent lives.
Yup, poor innocent Yanukovych was only minding his own business when the cruel protestors set upon him, he definitely wasn't ramming through draconian laws[0] that would have ended free speech and the right to protest, given the secret police expansive powers, and censored the internet.
It was the US State Department and Congress (See: McCain, et. al.) implicated in the ouster of a legitimately elected Ukrainian president in what would most reasonably be described as a violent coup ...
No one in Ukraine believes this narrative. Why do you?
> Technically correct, it was the US State Department and Congress (See: McCain, et. al.) implicated in the ouster of a legitimately elected Ukrainian president in what would most reasonably be described as a violent coup with the president being far upon by far-right militia, one that might reasonably described as Neo-Nazi in nature.
None of this is true, what happened in reality and not in the fever dreams of FSB, GRU and SVR agents is that there where protests when Yanukovych went back on a number of election promises and started aligning himself with Russia instead of joining the EU Like he promised he would.
After that happened he was removed from his seat of power by the parliament and he fled back to his handlers in Russia.
The Pentagon should have recognized that the Eastern expansion of NATO would collide with the national security interests of Russia, and that war would be the inevitable consequence. It probably even did, the task of the High Command is to draw up and revise plans for every contingency. What went on between the Pentagon and the Secretary of State's office? Why was the military establishment with all its experience in logistics overruled? The incompetence and lack of preparedness that are on view here is staggering.
> The Pentagon should have recognized that the Eastern expansion of NATO would collide with the national security interests of Russia, and that war would be the inevitable consequence.
NATO is absolutely zero threat to Russia, and Russia knows it. Finland joined and Russia shrugged, and has since even removed many troops from that border because it knows NATO will not attack.
What matters is the national security interests of Ukraine.
Russia is a massive threat to the national security interests of Ukraine, and Ukraine really wants to join NATO to be safe from Russia. Russia knew that if it wanted to invade and conquer Ukraine, a souvereign country, it would have to do soon because it would not be possible anymore after Ukraine joined NATO.
Russian security interests, fuck off. Neither Ukraine nor NATO is a threat to Russia.
Ukraine's security interests, those are very obviously threatened.
> and has since even removed many troops from that border because it knows NATO will not attack.
They've removed them because they need to avoid any possibility of a provocation. The merest hint of a wrongful look at Finland will not go well for them.
"The so-called victim must have realized that going out dressed like that last night would collide with the interests of young, frustrated males in her vicinity. Who, as she must understand, would surely be unable to control their impulses. And so what happened after that was just the inevitable consequence of her recklessness."
Yes, if you are a third-party citizen and observe a woman as well as a group of men who you suspect to be absolutely predatory scumbags, you can make predictions about what might happen.
> You know who the "victim" of the current invasion is. It's not the US.
Mhm.
The whole topic here is about how America could/couldn’t have anticipated the invasion. The very comment that you replied to says “The Pentagon should have”… that’s not Ukraine.
The whole topic here is about how America could/couldn’t have anticipated the invasion.
The topic here, at least where it started to veer way off course from the original thread, is the essentially pro-Kremlin narrative in the GGGP comment and its GP ("The proxy war started in 2014 with Euromaidan"). In this context - US calculations as such are a red herring. What matters here is the clear (and basically rather crass) implication in these comments of core Western responsibility for Russia's military actions.
Which implication your words definitely seemed to be (if obliquely) echoing and supporting. Or at least playing footsie with, for some reason known only to you.
> Which implication your words definitely seemed to be (if obliquely) echoing and supporting. Or at least playing footsie with, for some reason known only to you.
I’ll note that you can’t even accuse me of doing anything even remotely concrete. “Seemed to.” “If obliquely.” “Playing footsie.” All just accusations of association. Not a leg to stand on at all.
Take your control round over who is batting for the correct team elsewhere.
NATO/US have big air forces that would simply put a bunch of its big-$$$ aircraft into the air at high altitude to fire expensive and highly accurate air-to-air missiles and knock down opposing aircraft, then bomb the ground from high altitude to get rid of anti-air installations, and only then fly in close air support.
Stingers are inexpensive comparatively cheap surface-to-air missiles that allow an individual soldier on the ground to pick off an aircraft that happens to fly sufficiently low; it's useless if air superiority is actually being contested or if aircraft are bombing away from high altitude and mainly functions to whittle down the size of the edge the opposing force's air superiority gives in the ground combat.
Russia also has accurate air-to-air missiles - with longer ranges. And very good integrated air defense. How do you overcome that without losing half your aircraft (let alone keep them fueled while your air tankers are shot down and airfields pummeled)?
The US hasn't supplied Ukraine with aircraft capable of flying SEAD/DEAD according to USAF or NATO doctrine. The Fulcrums launching HARM (old versions at that) are using 10-20% of the missiles capability.
So no, other than one old missile, they're not using US gear, nor US tactics, nor US ISR for SEAD/DEAD.
Thats not most of what Ukraine has been getting though, the majority of what they have been getting is decades old like.
- Leopard 1's.
- M113 APC's
- Mig 29's
- Sukhoi 24's
- Mi-28's
- Mi-8s
The HARM's that you speak off, we don't know what variant they are but they won't be super effective because they cannot be effectively integrated with the aircraft Ukraine has so they are probably older variants using pre programmed fixed coordinate attack modes.
That should hopefully change once the F-16's arrive and they can start more effectively using more modern air borne weapons especially for SEAD.
The air defences are probably some of the most modern pierces of equipment that Ukraine has.
HIMARS are a good example of modern equipment with relatively modern munitions but they still haven't gotten any PrSM's or ATACMS.
Latest HARM has a 150km range. Kh-58 has a 250km range.
Where are the F-16s going to take off from (they need pristine runways)? Who will maintain them? How will they refuel without airtankers (they don't have enough range to make it to Donbas and back). How will they avoid the R37M (300km range) when the AMRAAM is not even 200km? And what about Russian SAMs and EW?
> Latest HARM has a 150km range. Kh-58 has a 250km range.
> Where are the F-16s going to take off from (they need pristine runways)?
Probably relatively far from the action.
> Who will maintain them?
Ukrainians its one of the reasons why its taking so long for them to get them.
> How will they refuel without airtankers (they don't have enough range to make it to Donbas and back).
They don't have to fight at the front line, they can be used effectively as missile trucks to throw long range weapons like Storm Shadow and other long range weapons at Russian lines.
If a SU25 and Mig29 can survive doing that a F-16 will have no problem.
> How will they avoid the R37M (300km range) when the AMRAAM is not even 200km? And what about Russian SAMs and EW?
The same way that the SU25 and Mig29 do, the F-16 will survive much better.
Russian AAMs don't do any good if they can't target an F-22 or F-35. Russian IADS doesn't do so well against cruise missiles that are stealthy, and the US has THOUSANDs of them, as well as Tomahawk.
And how is Russia going to pummel NATO airbases? This isn't 1985 when the Soviet VVS had thousands of fighter bombers tasked with taking out the airfields. They're not next door to Germany/France/UK anymore since NATO has expanded East. The RuAF might have 500 flying aircraft for their entire nation. They have no stealth aircraft in service (the Felon isn't in production yet if ever).
I disagree entirely with your statement "Russia has objectively outclassed the West with missile tech (and defense)." Ukraine has shown that the A2AD, "hypersonic" and cruise missile tech touted by the Russians for decades aren't quite as impressive as the marketing brochures would imply.
Let's just look at AA gear. Pantsir has been shown to be ineffective against most drones, Storm Shadow, etc. Same with BUK. S300 and S400 have really good range, but I think that Patriot and SAMP stand up well in comparison. The Ukrainians are using older Patriot missiles and are successfully engaging Khinzal and any cruise missile the Russians can throw at it. NATO has THAAD and better versions of Patriot in their arsenal, so even being generous, I think this is a draw.
For offensive weapons, the Russians have nothing in the class of SCALP/Storm Shadow, much less JASSM/LRASM. They would even have a hard time coping with Tomahawk.
So what weapon system are the Russians going to use against Lakenheath and Mildenhall? A Kalibr is going to have a very hard time making it across the Baltics to the UK, and I doubt any aircraft doing a suicide mission would make it either. How about Aviano? Same problem. Ramstein and Spangdahlem as well.
And Russia sure has done a great job "pummeling" Ukrainian airbases, right? I mean, they've utterly failed at this. The Ukrainians are still flying Fencers, Fulcrums and Frogfoots from their bases.
Indeed it is and the proof shows that Ukraine intercepts a large number of Russian missiles with air defence.
Whilst Russia intercepts a lot of Ukrainian weapons with the intended targets.
The Russians have maybe shot down a single stormshadow out of all the ones that have been fired.
They don’t seem so good at intercepting modern western cruise missiles.
This all ignores that Ukraine managed to get TU141 drones that look like they have the radar signature of a truck past Russian air defence to hit targets within Russia.
> Yeah, they’ve shot down many more than that… plenty of photo evidence.
They have a single photo of a single storm shadow.
Because they haven't shot down anymore, I presume they will move it to 100 different sites to try and claim they have shot down more like they did earlier with the downed drones.
I don't really know if NATO+allies would establish air superiority.
However my guess is that they may use a combination of tactics from HALO insertions[1], long range missile strikes from land and sea, and around-the-clock bombing from stealth aircraft like the B2[2], to knock out AA batteries until the enemy can no longer adequately defend it's skies.
Then jets like the F-22[3] would be used to establish command of the airspace.
HALO insertions against an A2AD environment are suicide. Same with using something like an AC-130 in daylight. They rely on large, slow, easily detected transports.
For fun, let's assume they could get in; the math still doesn't work. A bunch of parachuter guys with automatic guns and limited ammo vs Russian combined arms is going to end very poorly.
I guess they might have been Russia's best airborne units, but both at Hostomel and in other engagements, they've been shown to be overrated. Then again, Hostomel was a shitshow of poor planning/intel. I bet the VDV would have loved to know that there was a UKr unit right next door with heavy artillery before they kicked off the assault.
If the enemy's air defense is either DEAD or SEAD, then why would you need to insert operators/SForces via HALO? At that point you could just use helicopters to infiltrate/exfiltrate.
Around-the-clock bombing, missile and artillery strikes, and deep insertion of covert assets are not US/NATO doctrine? Did I watch a different invasion of Iraq than you?
Edit: If you're objecting to HALO insertion as a measure against AA then fine but even describe as a way around AA:
"The technique is used to airdrop supplies, equipment, or personnel at high altitudes, where aircraft can fly above surface-to-air missile (SAM) engagement levels through enemy skies without posing a threat to the transport or load. In the event that anti-aircraft cannons are active near the drop zone, the HALO technique also minimizes the parachutist's exposure to flak...
... The combination of high downward speed, minimal forward airspeed, and the use of only small amounts of metal helps to defeat radar and reduces the amount of time a parachute might be visible to ground observers, enabling a stealthy insertion."
Edit: I don't understand why you're fixated on one or two options being insufficient for certain scenarios out of a redundant number of options at the U.S. disposal but whatever.
Like HALO is the only way to insert a team? You're clearly not clueless about a variety of tactics so I'm confused why you're not extending that here.
1. Round the clock bombing. We saw how F-117, flying the same route day after day in Serbia was shot down by an S-75 Dvina (first deployed in 1957) in optical mode. You will never see a B-2 flying in daylight any more than you would see an AC130.
2. What US artillery can outrange an S300/S400? US artillery is already outranged by Russian artillery.
3. Missile strikes are the only thing you list that are even doctrinal against a modern A2AD system. And those are limited, as NATO found out when several members ran out of smart munitions when overthrowing Qaddafi. But yes, that's what we'd use. JASSM, Tomahawk, SCALP, etc.
4. Using Iraq as a measure of how we'd fight a near peer opponent is ridiculous. While Iraq had a large standing army, it was never a match for the US in 1991, much less 2003. There are numerous things we did in Iraq that we'd never have attempted in the Fulda Gap.
5. Finally, back to HALO. Sure the operator jumping out using HALO might have a minimized signature, but remember that big, lumbering transport that he's jumping out of? The one with the ginormous radar signature? Flying high (so the H in HALO) can occur, meaning every radar in the world can spot it? BOOM. Shot down as soon as it's in range of an S400. Which is roughly between 300 and 400KM. So if you're expecting a team dropping in by HALO to survive, you're delusional.
Do you think that the B-2 is the latest that the U.S. has[1]?
It doesn't need to be singularly successful since it's part of a collective of redundant systems[2]. Air isn't working then increase missile strikes, missiles can't attain good effect on target then increase covert operations with local insurgencies, etc.
That's just some of the possible angles of attack. There's leaving out things like drones and cyber attacks that would also be employed to some effect.
Eventually the enemy loses the ability to fight since it's critical points are weakened to such a point it can no longer wage an effective resistance.
Another example: why attack heavily defended artillery positions when you can blow up the logistical route and starve them of rounds to attack with?
Well, for one - with impunity, Russian choppers over the last month have decimated the Ukrainian counteroffensive attempts to the point of shocking even Western some observers (the uneducated ones). This is partially due to greatly degraded Ukrainian air defense after an intentional multi-month bombing campaign (using missiles, not planes - meaning no dead pilots). And Russia has shown to be very effective at intercepting various modern weapons systems via EW or direct. Maybe they are evil incarnate, but they math good.
No one's doubting Russia has built a capable defense over the last year however that's not changing the direction of the war.
How many helicopters can Russia sustain to lose? They've lost several over the last few weeks.
Supply routes have be successfully attacked by Ukraine with estimates of slowing logistics by 50% in certain areas.
And again how many AA batteries can they sustain to lose?
Meanwhile Ukraine has made slow but steady advances forward gaining ground.
Where's Russia changing the direction? Is that by terrorizing civilian targets (your bombing campaign) and blowing up hydroelectric dams? So essentially they're just using the tactics of terrorists.
Yet they still can't freely fly over Ukraine because they still lack control over the skies.
When's Russia regaining the momentum in their favor? Last week one of their best units tried to storm Moscow and hang their top military leaders.
AND now Russia is more weakened to a full confrontation with NATO than they were before starting their war in Ukraine.
So all the more likely to lose air superiority to NATO+allies.
> And Russia has shown to be very effective at intercepting various modern weapons systems via EW or direct. Maybe they are evil incarnate, but they math good.
I dunno know about this part of the statement, the fact that we are still seeing long range deep strikes into important Russian territory (sometimes killing hundreds of soldiers at a time), tells me that maybe Russias EW and AA against semi modern cruise missiles isn't as good as people think.
Well, considering the reports coming out about how their radar systems have been deployed lacking the necessary gear (due to widespread corruption), I think that it's possible the B-2 could still penetrate. Russia's a huge country, and he who defends everything defends nothing.
The qualifiers you raise are largely irrelevant. You only have a military because you want to be ready for war. In a war, no matter the reasons or participants, you're going to fire a lot of ammo. Probably more than you really wish. And you might hope you fire less of some particular sort, because of some other battlefield victory you plan on attaining, but you're still a fool if you absolutely depend on it, because the enemy gets a vote.
And all I'm saying is, plan to be able to start the dang factories again.
Yeah but that’s just the same kind of unqualified broad answer. Then there’s someone blaming the government for spending so much money during peacetime. Then someone will say that military spending is such that they ought to be able to. And someone will say the Stinger is 50 years old and they should be building something entirely new instead. And nobody can actually quantify any of their feelings on the matter.
I think when the dust settles from all the supply chains restarting, we'll be able to quantify the benefits pretty well. For anyone actually interested in truth, anyway.
That's the tricky thing with preparatory expenses, though, right? Skipping them always looks like "the advantageous choice", right up until you bitterly regret it.
> I blame the government more for not keeping the supply chain alive
A broad section of Americans, from the 1970s (roughly post peak Soviet power) through today (albeit declining), has called for dismantling our military-industrial complex. That production capacity is the military-industrial complex. The peace dividend of the 90s was a direct result of reörienting military production to civilian use, making fewer guns and more butter.
I think the blame should be less for not keeping the supply chain alive, and way more for being caught by surprise. The interval between needing/buying X and receiving X is critical to understand.
Crucial electronic components for a piece of equipment designed in 1978 and last manufactured in 1987 are no longer manufactured, and replacing them will require a redesign and a requalification? Who could have understood that, besides anyone with a EE degree.
> Though I imagine there are valid criticisms if we had all the details. “They didn’t think to preserve X specimens.” “Y software was lost on a tape drive somewhere.” “Z blueprints got improperly stored inside the Ark of the Covenant.”
The thing is, in IT it's a common saying "a backup ain't a backup unless you regularly validate it". The US MIC clocks in at many hundred billion dollars a year in budget - seriously it can't be that hard for the government to select every five years a couple dozen small metalwork, electronic and other companies needed to make arms parts, give them all the blueprints and instructions and look if they can make parts that meet the specs?
Had they done that instead of allowing the weapon manufacturers to gobble up small competitors left and right, they wouldn't be stuck with the current clusterfuck. Because what I just said is precisely what would happen should the US be forced to enter a full blown war with China instead of just steamrolling over some poor guys in deserts armed with Kalashnikovs.
Exactly. Oftentimes its not even that they don't have the original design data and files. Sometimes it's that they don't even have the computer and software to open it anymore because it doesn't exist. It's akin to trying to re-shoot a movie with just the script and a few DVDs of the movie. It's like step 1 - boot up your SGI indigo workstation and open this software, if you don't have those two things contact this guy who retired long ago. And then it's a whole engineering project just to open the files
Does the traditional idea of "supply chain" actually apply here? There isn't a "market" for these parts. There's a single buyer and a single supplier behind an exclusive government contract. The single-use equipment has no intrinsic value, can't be put to any other use, and can't be sold after it's shelf life has expired.
Oh, the idea of supply chains, and supply chain management make aboslute sense. Traditionally, logistics, and as an out grow of that supply chains, started with the military.
In the case of military goods, especially of the more expendable type like all kinds of ammunitions but also complex systems like tank or fighter jets, it is even harder since there is, in piece time at least, no continious demand. That means as soon as the large initial production runs are delivered, production capacity sits there unused. And gets ultimately dismanteled, technology becomes obsolete, people change jobs and retire.
All that is left at some point is maintenance capabilities, which only gets you that far in terms of building new gear, and low level production to replenish stores or conduct retrofits. Increasing that lost capacity is expensive and time consuming.
Generally, a supply chain is everything that has a supplier and a customer and moves physical goods. And the general, underlying principles haven't really changed since the days of the first silk road, or heck, since as early as the bronze age.
There's a single buyer that wants a particular missile, and multiple defense contractors bidding on right to supply it. At some point hopefully before, but sometimes after the bid is won, that contractor has to figure out how to make and deliver that thing, which is a standard manufacturing process involving a bunch of components and subsystems, some of which are made in house, some of which are bought of the shelf, and some of which are outsourced. That part's the supply chain.
This is just another example of the depth of issues caused by allowing production and mechanical know how to apathy. We literally have to build up the generational knowledge again from nearly nothing.
which in turn caused a cascade of mergers in defense contractors and the retirement of much this production and mechanical know-how. I think you are incorrectly conflating this transition period with the offshoring knowledge decay.
It's not due to apathy, it's due to economics. Emotions or willpower don't factor in here at all, just pure costs.
The alternative is to raise taxes or tariffs to pay for keeping unneeded production lines active, which means hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money. Which might sometimes be the right tradeoff for national security, but you only ever really know in hindsight.
Presumably the parent meant “atrophy” and not “apathy”. Seems like the kind of shit my phone’s autocorrect is likely to pull.
> The alternative is to raise taxes or tariffs to pay for keeping unneeded production lines active, which means hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money. Which might sometimes be the right tradeoff for national security, but you only ever really know in hindsight.
The parent wasn’t talking narrowly about keeping defense supply chains maintained (although that’s probably a good idea) but about maintaining our manufacturing industry in general so we have the equipment and experience to build. This requires a policy shift, but an eminently sensible one for reasons besides military policy: we (the US) should reduce our dependence on a reliably oppressive dictatorship (particularly with respect to critical supply chains like defense) and bring those jobs and ingenuity back home (or at least to friendly shores).
To wit, middle class Americans would bring home more money (although not so much for the American managerial class, which has enriched itself by outsourcing American middle class jobs), but there would be less cheap, disposable plastic junk on our shelves—things would cost more but they would last longer and we would repair our goods rather than disposing of them.
Apart from reasons of global and national security, economy, etc, why should we allow products on American markets that were made with labor and environmental conditions that we would never tolerate here? Why should we be complicit?
It’s not just economics. Manual labor and trade work are generally looked down upon by our culture; there is a misguided belief that white collar is better than blue collar. This has steered many people away from keeping these skills even as hobbies.
No, it’s purely economics. Manufacturing is really tough to get right and producing at scale is a monstrous problem. There is no hobby that teaches you the exact process for creating a stinger missile using 247 custom parts assembled in 36 steps in a highly choreographed process of man and machine. To build even the most basic thing you need a team of highly experienced people who have been doing that job for a decade. Keeping those production line active while producing no parts is a crazy expensive proposition.
There was a post that hit the front page recently about how the us airforce paid $50k for an airplane trashcan. It costs that much not because the raw materials + direct labor to create it cost that much, but instead because you have to pay for the 30+ people involved to restart that product line again for a super small batch.
This is the thing, you don't actually have to pay to get "a" suitable trashcan. You do have to pay to get that exact one and be able to prove it. Certifications, approvals and so on carry significant costs. And significant benefits, like making aviation extremely safe, and standardisation allowing interchangeability and cooperation.
When the system ossifies over time, plenty of people are more than happy to simply follow the rules in their silos rather than think about whether there's a better way. And, indeed, this sometimes is the best way rather than doing something clever, expedient and inventive that gets your name included in a NTSB report in 15 years' time.
I don't know about the trashcan but I do know about Lockheed's infamous $500 toilet seat. In that case it was hand fabricated fibreglass that fit over the top of the tank where waste was held and what you would call the seat was attached to it. It actually cost more than $500 to manufacture but they got so much bad publicity that they dropped the price.
How is it purely economics, when it was a political will to create "business friendly" trade relations. This "pure economics" is playing right into various gangster despots hands.
Mearshiemer was saying one fucking week before the invasion that the US was being hysterical, that there would be no full invasion, that Putin was, quote, "much too smart to do something like that".
He has been entirely wrong about Ukraine for years but still people pretend that no, actually he was right for some vague reason that has little basis in reality.
And lately he's resorting using "Moon of Alabama" (newspaper run by a religious cult) as if it was a legitimate citation, because his ego won't allow him to back down from his wild statements. Why does anyone take this guy as an authority?
I wasn’t saying he’s smarter than you! I was just saying he’s one example of someone who has been saying for a decade or so that we’re headed for conflict in Eastern Europe. That he overestimated to rationality of world leaders is entirely besides the point. Parent said “nobody” but there have been many somebodies.
I think you confused them with someone else, Moon of Alabama is just an anonymous pro-Russian blogger:
>The editor and the person who runs the blog are anonymous, and the about page states that “Bernhard started and still runs the site, and you can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard
>In this update, we find that Moon of Alabama has become sympathetic toward Russia and the war in Ukraine, often citing misinformation ... Generally, Moon of Alabama is a pro-Russian conspiracy website.
Would you want the Russians to go nuclear like Mearsheimer anticipated of them? Perhaps the reason he is wrong is because he doesn't think of them in the best possible light.
Skimmed it. Yikes. I can't believe in the analytical ability of someone who thinks the invasion happened because of rational Russian security concerns as opposed to the fever dreams of an unhinged kleptocrat.
We had diplomacy: it produced Helsinki, Budapest memorandums, Ukraine Russia border treaty, and NATO Russia founding act. All of these reaffirmed the security of borders, right of countries to pick their alliances, and the independence of Ukraine. Russia just doesn't like what it signed up for.
NATO could simply have promised that Ukraine would never be a NATO member or shadow NATO member, but instead they entertained it and organized a coup in 2014. Just backing off any time over the previous decade would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of fewer dead young men.
This isn't to say that Ukraine can't defend itself from Russia, or that the invasion was good, but a simple recognition that there were things that led to this situation that were unforced.
The point of NATO has been said to "Keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Soviets out" [of Europe]. Post-1991, there is no need for it and it has mainly been used to provoke and bomb other countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, and now Ukraine/Russia. Arms manufacturers are kissing their freshly printed dollar bills and thanking our economic system for their great fortune.
You are just spewing russian propaganda talking points.
Russia requested that nato would leave all the eastern european countries that had joined, Poland, Baltics, Czechia, etc. Then russia could also start invading us after it had taken Ukraine.
Russia was mot interested in diplomacy, they just wanted Ukraine one way or other.
Sheesh this is a wildly misinformed post (or rather, informed exclusively by baseless Russian propaganda).
1. There was no 2014 coup in Ukraine, there was a change in president (ratified by parliament) because the first guy (Putin's stooge) had the police kill protestors. This predictably provoked riots, but a riot isn't a coup and indeed the government wasn't overthrown.
2. The invasion was never about NATO; this was just one in a litany of obvious propagandist justifications and it has no more credibility than any of the others ("de-Nazifying Ukraine" and "defending ethnic Russians against genocide"). To wit, if Russia was genuinely motivated by NATO encroachment why would he, after years of NATO weapons, personnel, and doctrine being turned away from Russia and toward the middle east, would it do the very fucking thing designed to flood Russia's doorstep with NATO weapons, personnel, and member states?
3. The idea that there has been no need for NATO since 1991 (because Russia hasn't been particularly aggressive) is a non-sequitur--Russia hasn't been particularly aggressive since 1991 because of NATO.
4. NATO has not been used to provoke conflicts with anyone.
5. NATO didn't provoke an attack in Afghanistan; Afghanistan aided and abetted an attack on a NATO member state. Recall NATO is a defensive alliance.
6. NATO wasn't involved in Iraq; various member states were involved.
7. NATO bombing in Libya was implementing a UN Security Council resolution (recall that China and Russia have UNSC veto rights which they declined to exercise).
8. NATO did intervene to halt an ethnic cleansing campaign in Yugoslavia. They found a loophole in International Law that allowed them to intervene legally.
9. NATO had no role in the Ukraine/Russia conflict except to provide Ukraine with the weapons, training, intelligence, etc necessary to defend itself. Russia is the unambiguous aggressor.
10. "The point of NATO has been said to..." this is not evidence, it's baseless rhetoric. I promise
> The alternative is to raise taxes or tariffs to pay for keeping unneeded production lines active, which means hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money
If taxes are raised then yes hardworking Americans in the rest of the country take home or keep less money.
If tariffs are raised then it's not hardworking Americans that take home or keep less money. It's people who import things that can and should be built locally instead.
Better to keep the money in the USA instead of sending it overseas; better to pay Americans to build the things instead of paying people who are already rich to get richer.
> If tariffs are raised then it's not hardworking Americans that take home or keep less money. It's people who import things that can and should be built locally instead.
Well, it's the customers that suffer due to higher tariff-induced prices. And if prices are kept the same and the company takes the hit, workers get hit by the lack of new investment the company now can't afford to make.
Which are artificially-supported jobs that soak up labor that could be used in a more productive way. Trade restrictions destroy economies of scale by breaking up markets and make us all poorer.
Eh, production and individual components are such a minor thing that according to the article, it takes 30 months MAX to get the production line going again.
In a true emergency, we could find replacement parts by spending money on design, and we could machine shop the actual production.
That isnt what is happening here. This is a case of being frugal, not changing the design, and reassembling the assembly line as if nothing happened over the last few decades.
No one is spending money on design here and it shows. No one wants to spend money on machine shopping these, it shows.
Makes sense too, 30 months max isnt so bad when you have a stockpile, you are going to be making some during pre-production, and its not an emergency.
I've seen some amazing things happen when emergencies happen. Prototype/Machine Shops will boggle your mind, but they make you pay.
Disclaimer: I didn't work with the military, so I imagine there is some 'top secret' access that makes all of this worse.
This sort of thing is true nearly everywhere. In my own career I try to seek out those with the tribal design knowledge and deep understanding and learn as muh as possible.
Why build it up internally when you can just issue a bunch of visas and import it as needed? That's pretty much the labor policy of the United States. Looks like it has some minor flaws.
I'm no fan of the US military-industrial complex. We spend almost $1 trillion a year on the military and can't account for where it goes [1]. It's absolutely true that we have a military profiteering problem.
But I'm not sure that's what's going on here. Think of the Saturn V. When Congress greenlit the SLS, the obvious question came up: why not just build the Saturn V again? And the answer is... we can't. Obviously there are specs and manufacturing processes and documentation for taht but I'm not sure we even have it all. Some of it was rushed too and bespoke. These were really hand-built every time. Also, materials science has changed in the past 50+ years so it may be an issue producing materials that are to spec.
These are remarkably complex systems. And you have to fit in with current logistics processes. Users, installers and maintenance crews need to be trained. If what you build now behaves differently, it's a potential problem. Think of the MCAS issues with the 737MAX. That was a system added to counter more reliable and more powerful engines that were placed more forward on the airframe. You see how these things can cascade.
Why revive stinger production instead of adopting something more modern, like starstreak or any of the other NATO manpads? Surely technology has come a long way since the 80s. License the technology and build it at home.
US weapons are designed to be continuously upgraded with new technology as it becomes available. The current weapon carrying the Stinger name (FIM-92) is state-of-the-art and has more capable terminal guidance than MANPADS like Starstreak (which is a beam rider).
The introduction date of US weapons has little bearing on their sophistication due to the Ship of Theseus upgrades, and most were a decade or two ahead of their counterparts when released anyway. Most can be upgraded or downgraded to a specific version/standard on demand. Downgrades are commonly done for export of US military inventory.
Because it’s the American version of those and they have updated the design and tech throughout the years to keep up with the latest improvements. Just because it was first build in the 80’s doesn’t mean the design has been kept static.
Yes, but the Starstreak has one big missile that releases 3 smaller missiles at mach 4. I get your point, but on the other hand, what about weird British missiles?
Starstreak is impervious to flares because it requires a human to paint the target. Stingers are fire-and-forget, and modern versions use dual-mode IR and UV imagers that are impervious to flares.
Other than a new proximity fuse, they really haven't updated the design much for a decade. Most of the upgrades have been to extend the service life of the missile, since most munitions have a Best Use By date...
I believe that is the point, notiwthstanding that all jobs programs are not the same. Time for some baseball (my favorite analogy).
If you want to preserve your ability to "play ball" "against the day": it's not enough to keep a stock of balls, gloves and bats. You have to be able to make gloves, balls and bats. You need suitable "dual use" fields, or a plan (and force) for rapidly converting fields for baseball use. But that's just the infrastructure.
You need to preserve your ability to play ball. You can't just hire some people and put them on retainer. (And creating NFTs of baseball players doesn't work either.) The players need to practice as a team in realistic conditions; some of them could get hurt during practice (and equipment could get destroyed). You can't just hire H1Bs for this (although a nod to the French Foreign Legion, at least historically), you need people who are actually good at it and passionate for the game: you're going to have to have continuing tryouts and a farm system for identifying potential top players, and you'll need to cycle talent through over time because people don't stay at the top of their game forever. Finally, that passion is required of players if you expect them to stay at the top of their game over time in the face of a world which doesn't care.
I agree with you. But I believe there are two ways to sell a weapons program to the public. One is covered by your baseball analogy. Yes, you want to be self-reliant and be able to manufacture critical defense systems in case of a hypothetical all-out war. But job programs have some immediate benefits for both politicians and their constituents.
If you switch to a different platform you will also have to change the way you do training, logistics, (field) maintenance, etc. That's going to be a hell of a project. So if you have something that works...
Though I imagine there are valid criticisms if we had all the details. “They didn’t think to preserve X specimens.” “Y software was lost on a tape drive somewhere.” “Z blueprints got improperly stored inside the Ark of the Covenant.”