IT'S KeeeeEEEEEEEEEVE!!!!
Posted on 07/16/2023 5:31:58 AM PDT by george76
The weapons stockpile of the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are becoming “dangerous low” with no “short term” solutions, according to a top U.S. Air Force commander.
Gen. James Hecker, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, made the remarks at the Chief of the Air Staff’s Global Air & Space Chiefs’ Conference in London, reported Breaking Defense.
The air force general urged NATO allies to think seriously about their stockpiles.
“I think it’s very important that we kind of take stock of where we are in our weapons state across the 32 nations of NATO, and we’re getting way down compared to where we were,” Gen. Hecker said on a panel with the air chiefs of the United Kingdom and Sweden at the conference, reported the outlet.
“And it’s probably not going to get better—well, it’s not in the short term—but we’ve got to make sure in the long term we have the industrial base that can increase what we have,” he said at the July 12-13 event, urging all NATO nations to start making deeper investments.
The United States is at “roughly half the number of fighter squadrons” it had compared to when it engaged in Operation Desert Storm, a U.S.-led operation that started in January 1991 as part of a response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the general said. He added there’s been a similar decrease in fighter squadrons for the UK.
“So we don’t have nearly what we had at the heart of the Cold War,” he continued.
“Now you add that we’re giving a lot of munitions away to the Ukrainians, which I think is exactly what we need to do, but now we’re getting dangerously low and sometimes, in some cases even too low, that we don’t have enough. And we need to get industry on board to help us out so we can get this going.”
The United States has provided Ukraine over $41.3 billion in security assistance since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to the U.S. State Department as of July 7. This encompasses more than $15 billion in weapons and equipment taken from U.S. military stocks to Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
It comes after the Biden administration last week announced it would send to Ukraine the controversial cluster munitions, which have since arrived in the country.
The cluster munitions, after they are fired, open in midair and release bomblets over a wide area to strike several targets simultaneously. They can be delivered by planes, artillery, and missiles. More than 100 countries, including two-thirds of NATO allies, have banned such weapons because they can cause many civilian casualties.
Cluster munitions can be fired using artillery that the United States has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them that were facing decommissioning if it wasn’t for Ukraine’s voiced need for more ammunition.
...
The Biden administration said the cluster munitions will enable the Ukrainians to continue their war effort with the ordnance they need, while the United States and others who supply Ukraine ramp up their production of artillery shells to further assist Ukraine’s defense.
“We don’t see this as a permanent solution but rather a bridge,” Colin Kahl, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, said at a July 7 press briefing.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a separate briefing: “We are reaching a point in this conflict, because of the dramatically high expenditure rates of artillery by Ukraine and by Russia, where we need to build a bridge from where we are today to when we have enough monthly production of unitary rounds that unitary rounds alone will suffice to give Ukraine what it needs.
“So, as a result, this is the moment to begin the construction of that bridge so that there isn’t any period over this summer or heading into this fall when Ukraine is short on artillery and, being short on artillery, it is vulnerable to Russian counterattacks that could subjugate more Ukrainian civilians.”
Mr. Sullivan stopped short of saying there was a shortage of artillery shells.
...
Heidi Grant, Boeing’s director of business development, who was a former top official for the Pentagon’s weapons sales, told the panel in London that in order to start production lines, industry needs a “written, on-paper request” of what’s required, reported Breaking Defense.
“It’s hard for us to make the investment unless we know that [the demand is] really there,” Ms. Grant added.
Elections do have consequences. Electing FJB was a huge mistake. The boy thought he needed a war to survive his presidency so he decided to finance one for his pal, Zelenskyyyy.
Not only that, but just look at where our country has gone since we let the election be stolen....
A straight white male General telling the truth…he’s putting his paperwork in now. Voluntold style…
I thought we had "smart" munitions that could be fired and once in the target area, guide themselves right into the turret of an OPFOR tank.
Maybe we do, but haven't given those to Ukraine...
“The weapons stockpile of the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are becoming “dangerous low” with no “short term” solutions, according to a top U.S. Air Force commander.”
What’s the big deal here? Can’t they just order more from Amazon? If not, then just turn the lights back on at the DOD factories run the assembly lines again, just like the good old days of the Cold War.
Oh, the defense factories are now Golf Courses and Shopping Malls, due to the Peace Dividend (hint to Westerners - as long as Neocons exist, there can NEVER be peace).
I guess, in that case, we need to get rid of the Golf Course and Shopping Malls, and replace them with defense factories. Not a problem! Just re-hire the people who did the same thing 40+ years ago during Reagan’s build up - they know how to do it. Oh, they got older since then and many died? Well, I bet you they had kids and taught their kids what they knew. Oh, the kids did go to college but learned Queer Studies, instead of engineering? Well, we still have those big engineering schools turning out millions of graduates every year! Oh, those graduates all went back to China (and other countries) after they graduated.
In that case, let’s order the weapons we need from Amazon!, since most of their stuff is from China.
Problem solved!
The benefit of the so called “peace dividend” with the breakup of the Soviet Union.
I have read (here) that the total of Biden’s handlers touted effort to increase 155 mm artillery shell production is only the recent addition g of a second shift line in PA. To truly increase production significantly and even approach what the Ukes are using and further need will require ordering and waiting for long delivery time of steel press machines, which has not even begun. Thus I suspect govt assurances we are doing all we can are lies.
I can’t believe it didn’t change human nature in perpetuity…
IT'S KeeeeEEEEEEEEEVE!!!!
That’s a shame. Looks like you’ll just have to ask for more funding & give those big defense industry donors some additional juicy purchase contracts
The demise of military readiness, is part of the agenda by democrats and leftists all around the world.
They’ prefer to spend the money on social programs, at the risk of instigating wars the world over. They’re doing the same with police/sheriff departments.
Why would we ever share information about our stockpiles? Do we no longer have enemies?
The US has provided a few of these gps guided shells (Excalibur, M982) to Ukraine, but they are a small minority of the stockpile. Apparently less than 10,000 have been made to date.
Note, because they are gps guided, they aren’t good at moving targets. In theory the earlier Copperhead (M712) round should work better on moving targets, but that had to be “painted” with a laser designator. That meant that infantry had to be in sight of the target. But Copperhead is old, and nay no longer be in the inventoryl
Nearly all 155mm shells fired, even for “precision” counterbattery, are plain HE.
“The Biden administration said the cluster munitions will enable the Ukrainians to continue their war effort with the ordnance they need”
This decision will come back to haunt them for decades to come, as will many others made by this administration.
“Thus I suspect govt assurances we are doing all we can are lies.”
I don’t think they lied, they likely are doing all they can. But at this point, I doubt they even know what materials and production equipment to order, since I don’t believe retention of skills and techniques was ever a priority in the West.
What they’re not doing is LEVELING WITH THE PUBLIC. We emptied out our military production capability because we really bought into the crap that we’d reached “The End of History”, and thus no more major wars could ever happen. So bringing it back takes years, many years now, given of the Leftist crap that producing anything in the US has to endure.
Even for WW2, FDR spent the years leading up to that war getting the US ready for it. In this case, Obama and Biden’s people let the Neocons run wild starting the Ukraine War and maybe getting one started with China, but never bothered with the boring task of getting the US on to a wartime footing, not even to the point of approaching what Russia had maintained, as they knew, I guess, that the Neocons were coming for them.
Eisenhower’s warning against the military industrial complex was prescient. I don’t trust any of them at this point. And for an Air Force brat who served 30 years himself, that is really difficult for me to say.
Colonel, USAF JAGC (Ret)
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