Beware worn out cliches from the 60s.
Posted on 05/05/2022 5:37:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
"Military planners are likely getting nervous," according to Mark Cancian, a security analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The United States has delivered so many Javelin tank-buster missiles to Ukraine that the Pentagon's own stocks have dwindled perilously, according to defense insiders.
The U.S. has sent more than 5,000 Javelins to Ukraine, the Pentagon said, with analysts estimating that some 20,000-25,000 of the missiles remain in the Defense Department's inventory — an amount that may not be sufficient for potential U.S.-involved conflicts.
"Military planners are likely getting nervous," according to Mark Cancian, a security analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The U.S. maintains a weapons stockpile in reserve in case conflict erupts in North Korea, Iran, or other potential hot spots, Cancian noted in an essay for CSIS.
"At some point, those stocks will get low enough that military planners will question whether the war plans can be executed," he wrote. "The United States is likely approaching that point."
Described by manufacturer Lockheed Martin as "the world's premier shoulder-fired anti-armor system," the 49-pound Javelin guides itself to the target and "takes the fight to the enemy." The missile can be fired from 2.5 miles away from the target, and climbs over the target in order to strike from above.
The system has been a boon to Ukrainian forces, who use the missile to strike Russian armor at its weakest spot, on top of each tank. The missile has produced a 90% kill rate against Russian armor in Ukraine, a senior defense official told reporters this week at the Pentagon.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday praised the missile and its assembly-line workers while visiting a Lockheed Martin production site in Alabama.
"You're allowing the Ukrainians to defend themselves and, quite frankly, they're making fools of the Russian military in many instances," Biden said while visiting the site in Troy, Ala. "A big part of the reason they've been able to keep up fighting and to make this war a strategic failure for Russia is because the United States together with our allies and partners have had their back."
Biden made the trip as part of his push for Congress to approve more funds to help Ukraine fend off a months-long assault that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered in February.
"You're changing the nation," Biden told the Lockheed workers. "You really are."
The Javelin deliveries to Ukraine might also bring changes to the U.S. in terms of depleted missile stocks, others have noted.
"The obvious answer is to build more missiles," Cancian wrote, adding that the U.S. has been buying Javelins at the rate of about 1,000 per year. "The delivery time is 32 months; that is, once an order is placed, it will take 32 months before a missile is delivered," he wrote. "This means that it will take about three or four years to replace the missiles that have been delivered so far."
The Pentagon downplayed the potential threat to U.S. Javelin missile stocks and deflected questions on how many remain on hand.
"We're not going to talk about what our own inventory is of anything," Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday at the Pentagon. "And I think you can understand why we wouldn't do that. We don't think it's particularly helpful to lay out what our inventory level is for any one particular system or set of munitions."
Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) last week said the stocks were depleted to the point that Biden should invoke the Defense Production Act in order to jumpstart new production lines.
"The cupboard is empty, or it will be very, very shortly unless the president invokes the Defense Production Act to provide that demand signal on an expedited basis," Blumenthal said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The stocks are in good shape, Kirby countered.
"With every drawdown package, we make an assessment about the impact on our readiness," he said. "And what I can tell you is that thus far, we have not seen any negative impact on our ability to defend this nation across a range of military capabilities."
The issue "is not something we take lightly," Kirby said.
"It is a legitimate thing that we look at with each and every drawdown package," he added.
Ukraine likely could use additional Javelins, according to Cancian. Open-source reports show that Russia has lost about 1,300 armored vehicles in Ukraine, but has thousands more on hand.
"The bottom line is that the Russians are not going to run out of armored vehicles anytime soon," Cancian wrote.
So, do we believe the stories that fit our narrative or theirs’s?
Beware the military-industrial complex.
It has long been a truism that wars are won through logistics.
And I believe one of the big takeaways from the current conflict is that Russia has done a poor job with logistics and this has caused big problems for them.
And I keep hearing news stories about how the US (which, technically, is not even engaged in a war) is running low on some key weapons. Pretty amazing.
Have you ever noticed that gigantic storage bunker system east of LA in the desert?
The MIC is saying they *can’t* make any more right now due to the supply chain issues. They aren’t making money when they can’t make a product to sell.
maybe the Talleyban will resupply Miley and his Pentagram?
(...sounds rhetorical...)
Did Biden's "Destroy America at every opportunity!" people have a role in the decision?
THERE!
Solved it.
I have never been in the military so I may be showing my ignorance. If we sent 5000 javelin missiles, say they used 4000. At 90% accuracy does that mean the Ukrainians destroyed 3600 tanks? And what about the supplies from the other countries?
I hear this is old technology, we don’t have more advanced objects in our storage?
On one hand the war profiteers want more contracts to build weapons and on the other hand the government is run by idiots. So it’s a toss up if we are really out of javelins or just another scam to waste American tax dollars.
Depleting our weapons caches as well as our oil reserves. It’s almost like they’re trying to destroy the country...
Who knows? Yesterday it was reported that we gave the Ukes a third of our Javalins and that we only made 800 a year.
Incompetence from the top down.
Beware worn out cliches from the 60s.
“The Long, Lucrative & Bloody Road To World War 3”
> MAY 05, 2022 - 02:00 AM
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/long-lucrative-bloody-road-world-war-3
Well, this war in Ukraine will last “months and years.” At least, that is what the leaders of the D.C. foreign policy blob, the media, President Joe Biden’s men, Pentagon and NATO leadership have decided. Their plan is to pour oil on the flames and keep the fire raging. Also, Americans are going to have to cough up the dough for another massive aid package, with $20 billion worth of weapons to keep the blood flowing. In total, this next package will cost the taxpayer $33 billion. With Biden’s proposed $813 billion “defense” budget for 2023, the U.S. is spending more on the military and war now than ever before in the country’s history.
/snip/
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said with a clear eye toward increasing Russian casualties and the long term destruction of Moscow’s conventional power.
Perhaps, Austin wants to cripple Russia so severely that his Pentagon can fight a war with China, the “most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department,” without having to worry so much about Moscow—deemed a second tier “acute” threat, albeit one armed with roughly 6,000 nukes—getting involved.
Austin’s Raytheon pals are making a killing on this proxy war as well as the ancillary effects such as European NATO states, at long last, increasing their military spending.
As Ron Paul has written,
One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”
He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The U.S. has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.
By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.
[rest at link]
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/long-lucrative-bloody-road-world-war-3
Who was the US planning to use those anti armor missiles on? My guess is most of them would be slated to Russia.
I think we can make more javelins in the time it will take Russia to make more tanks and invade Europe.
It does cause one to question as to whether this war is being used to deplete the US of weaponry.
Correct. The Military-Industrial complex (AKA Deep State) is no longer a cliché but rather a fait accompli.
“The missile has produced a 90% kill rate against Russian armor in Ukraine, a senior defense official told reporters this week at the Pentagon.”
LOL. Is it according to Ghost of Kiev?:)
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