Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
I don’t get where this narrative that the U.S. is holding back support is coming from. Ukraine is blowing through munitions at an astonishing rate (as militaries in hot wars do). The U.S. doesn’t have infinite stockpiles of artillery, SAMS, etc. And no country’s military brass is going to be okay with reducing their own stockpiles beneath the minimums needed to meet their own defence needs*. American arms production capacity is ramping up, but that can’t be achieved in a few months.
* American military doctrine calls for the capacity to fight two overseas hot wars simultaneously (ie in Europe and in Asia), each consuming military hardware in at least the rate that we’re seeing in Ukraine. Given the growing power of China’s military, that’s a huge commitment of resources that need to be held back for national security.
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That would be the case if the US gave everything they could until production was ramped up, but it took months for each item to finally be approved. Months of "we don't want to escalate" followed by finally approving in a slow piecemeal fashion. It took 4 months for the US to finally say ok to HIMARS. Tanks were a no until UK just said we'll do it. The US could've given all that stuff from the start as they still haven't replaced what they gave earlier. Both Europe and the US did not start ramping up artillery production until a few months ago. F-16s were "absolutely not" until last week.
Yes they need to have enough materiel for readiness, but that hasn't prevented them from what they have given. Why was it all approved so slowly?