Biden announces U.S. will send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine

The decision to move forward with providing the tanks marks a reversal for the Biden administration, which had been resisting pressure from Germany to send them to Ukraine.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that the United States is sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The U.S. will also provide the necessary training and supplies needed to operate and run these tanks, he said.

The president said sending the tanks will "enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives" because they are "the most capable tanks in the world.”

"That’s what this is about — helping Ukraine defend and protect Ukrainian land. It is not an offensive threat to Russia, there is no offensive threat to Russia," the president said.

During a background call previewing Biden’s remarks, senior administration officials said the announcement is “very much a continuation of our effort to provide Ukraine with the capabilities that they need to continue to better defend themselves.”

“And it’s also in keeping with that representative of a long term, long term commitment that we have to Ukraine’s defense needs,” a senior administration official said.

You are right that now I am making the assumption that our military isn’t entirely woke and broke.

I never said it was entirely woke and broke, but Milley and Austin are determined to destroy the institution and transform it into a partisan political organization that is more concerned with social justice than winning wars. When I left the USN in 1972 after almost 8 years of service morale in the military was at its nadir. It took decades to bring it back primarily due to an all-volunteer force.

I was in Riyadh and Dhahran as a Foreign Service Officer during the entirety of Desert Shield/Storm. I worked with our forces as we helped them set up their logistical base and liaisons with the Saudis all over the country. I was impressed with the quality and professionalism of our troops as I observed them firsthand for the first time since I left the USN. In 1999 I was the only civilian assigned to a session of the Capstone program and got to know many of the newly-frocked generals and admirals. An impressive group. We traveled all over the country and internationally to visit select military installations/headquarters of all the services and intel agencies.

Fast forward to today. I see a military that is having severe recruitment and retention problems. I attribute that partially to the woke policies of today's leadership. These problems didn't begin with Biden, but rather with the Obama/Biden administration. Another factor is the endless wars that have worn out the forces and their equipment with multiple combat deployments. You must have experienced that. How will the military cope? Lower standards?

But historically speaking, we were very smart about these sort of things. We can’t predict every need perfectly, but it is exactly our logistics and war industrial base which made us prevail in many of these conflicts, like WWII.

Logistics wins wars. The complete mobilization of our industrial base and population during WWII almost defies description. At the end we were turning out a Liberty ship a day. We were fortunate to have two oceans to protect us and allow us the time to become the Arsenal of Democracy. We were ill-prepared for WWII as well as Korea when it comes to having the wherewithal to fight a major war. We won't have the luxury of time when it comes to a war with China.

The soldiers we fight in many of these wars are just as willing to die for their country as I was, my father or grandfather... Some were probably tougher and meaner, maybe even more experienced at least in the beginning of the war. But NO-ONE could shit a P-51 Mustang in a matter of 6 months (blueprint to full scale production), no one can squeeze out almost 4,000 B-29s in the war (truly the most capable bomber of the entire war - forget jets, bla bla bla, junk), nuclear bombs, at the peak of the war we were building 1 aircraft carrier per month!

If you read the report I linked you to in my post, the problem is with certain systems that are more difficult to produce. We have not mobilized our industrial base to address these problems whether it is supply chain issues or outsourcing.

"The U.S. defense industrial base is not adequately prepared for the competitive security environment that now exists. It is currently operating at a tempo better suited to a peacetime environment. In a major regional conflict—such as a war with China in the Taiwan Strait—the U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), leading to a problem of “empty bins.”

"According to the results of a series of CSIS war games, for instance, the United States would likely run out of some munitions—such as long-range, precision-guided munitions—in less than one week in a Taiwan Strait conflict. These shortfalls would make it extremely difficult for the United States to sustain a protracted conflict—and, equally concerning, the deficiencies undermine deterrence. They also highlight that the U.S. defense industrial base lacks adequate surge capacity for a major war. These problems are particularly concerning since China is heavily investing in munitions and acquiring high-end weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than the United States, according to some U.S. government estimates.

In addition, some U.S. programs and regulations, such as the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), are outdated for a wartime environment and need to deliver weapons systems more rapidly to key allies and partners. Growing strategic competition with countries such as China and Russia, which are attempting to export weapons systems and technology, threatens to offset the United States’ competitive advantage.

The war in Ukraine has also exposed serious deficiencies in the U.S. defense industrial base. U.S. assistance to Ukraine has been critical to halting Russian revanchism and sending a message to China about the costs and risks of aggression—and needs to continue. But it has also depleted U.S. stocks of some types of weapons systems and munitions, such as Stinger surface-to-air missiles, 155 mm howitzers and ammunition, and Javelin anti-tank missile systems (especially the command launch units). The United States has been slow to replenish its arsenal, and the DoD has only placed on contract a fraction of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine.3 Many U.S. allies and partners in Europe also have defense industrial bases that are unprepared for major war, heavily reliant on the United States, and chronically underfunded.

The history of industrial mobilization suggests that it will take years for the defense industrial base to produce and deliver sufficient quantities of critical weapons systems and munitions and recapitalize stocks that have been used up. It might take even longer to materialize facilities, infrastructure, and capital equipment, making it important to make changes now.5 The long timelines are manageable in peacetime but not in the competitive environment that now exists. The U.S. military services have underinvested in weapons systems and munitions for a conventional war, and the DoD’s acquisition system faces challenges in creating the incentives for industry to invest in sufficient stockpiles of key weapons systems.

Concurrently, Biden is drawing down the SPR at an alarming rate to 40 year lows. All in the name of politics.

***Why do I say all of this? This is our game! The Russians are pitting their war industrial base against ours. They will ultimately succeed in Ukraine when we decide to call it quits, but they CANNOT keep us with us and today the balance is even more dilapidated than in the Cold War where they lost for the same reason (Reagan outspending them). This is sucking the life out of them.***

The war in Ukraine is sucking the life out of us. We are the world's largest debtor nation with a national debt of over $31 trillion and counting. Debt servicing costs are approaching $500 billion annually and will eclipse the defense budget by 2029 with over $1 trillion a year in interest costs. The Medicare Trust Fund (HI) is exhausted in 2028 and the SSTF in 2034. Both programs represent an unfunded liability of over $100 trillion. Adm Mike Mullin said, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.”

We have spent north of $100 billion on Ukraine so far. Zelensky estimates a trillion dollars will be needed to rebuild the country. What is the exit strategy? What is the definition of winning? How long will we be stuck to this tar baby, one of the most corrupt in the world?

FWIW Col. Doug MacGregor has a different take when it comes to the war in Ukraine. Retired Col. Douglas MacGregor Discusses Status of Ukraine War and Background of Biden Sending Abram M-1 Tanks Well worth the 30 minutes.

This is a situation where we can exploit our strength: economic might in the macro, war industrial capacity, resources, high tech., massive stockpiles, the capabilities of our allies (UK, Germany, Korea, Japan...) and there is NO WAY the Russians can keep up.

Russia is not the threat, China is. We are driving Russia closer together with China. Russia has the resources and China has the economy.

Writing in 1997 at age 92, George Kennan, one of America's greatest diplomats, declared that expanding NATO to the east “would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” He was right then and now.

I agree with most of what you and the Col say, except for a few of the conclusions drawn.

Just because something is wrong or stupid (like this war), that does not mean that all arguments in opposition are entirely valid or serious concerns.

Specific to our war stock, I do not doubt that a few weapon systems might not be at levels they should be nor that lead times for some complex weapon systems are longer.

This song of shortages is sung in every war, and there surely is some degree of truth to it (this is a sliding scale issue) and it ultimately depends on what our adversaries do. Since I do not know exact inventory levels nor even all the systems being shipped to Ukraine and their numbers, I am relying on the DoD and their assessment, which hopefully isn’t entirely skewed by political considerations, which you seem to believe is the case. Based on how the DoD does its Operational Readiness (OR) reporting, I do not doubt that there might be some merit to what you claim.

Yes, the PRC is our threat, no question about it. We do not want to see this threat, because the same globalist corporate America, for sale US politician and media which are behind the war in Ukraine, do not want to see anything wrong in the PRC.

We sell, buy, and manufacture much in PRC and Apple, HP, Cisco, GM, Hollywood, Dell, Amazon, Walmart... all agree that we should not rock the boat. The PRC spends a lot on lobbying, US media engagement, US political campaigns (through their US based firms or their expats). They outright pay US media in some cases for favorable coverage, get to pipe their own media into the US, and in a few cases own some of the media. They have one of the largest expat populations in the US and many of them have ties back to the PRC. With the PRC we do not want to hear nor talk about the human rights issues, their occupation of Tibet, we are much more reserved with the Taiwan issue, we don’t want to talk about oppression of religion, forced labor, lack of EPA standards, political prisoners, torture and executions, or the fact that PRC is a single party communist regime. Nope, we want to talk about Ukraine and Democracy, because we all know Ukraine was a flowering democracy (sarc).

***All that said, a conflict with PRC would be a naval and air campaign at onset and I do not believe we sent a lot of B1/2’s, F35/22/15/16, Mk82/CBU87/97/GBU28... nor Harpoon/SM2/SM3, Mk48, RAM, Mk15... to Ukraine.***

Again, we have huge war stocks, allies that can potentially fill shortages and in some cases we want to transition to an all new system anyhow, i.e. Stinger: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/04/07/us-army-initiates-plan-to-replace-stingers-with-next-gen-interceptor/

Politicians like to play games and hide the negative consequences of their decisions. There is a reluctance to ramp up production / fork out even more money. Bill Clinton did the same thing with the Balkans and Somalia, the DoD was not funded for the additional operational costs of these campaigns which of course impacted procurement, R&D, training...

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