This is what happens when pronouns are a higher priority than logistics<\/p>\n
U.S. Weapons Stockpile Disaster Limiting Our Ability To Deter China In Taiwan<\/a> In late January we reported that U.S. military weapons stockpiles were so low that various commentators were describing the shortages as \u201cuncomfortably low,\u201d \u201cinsufficient,\u201d \u201cprecarious,\u201d and \u201cdangerous\u201d due to the large quantities of these weapons we had given free of charge to Ukraine:\u00a0U.S. Weapons Stockpiles \u201cUncomfortably Low\u201d Due To Arms Shipments to Ukraine:<\/a><\/p>\n To date, the U.S. military has provided a \u201cstaggering\u201d amount of military hardware and munitions to Ukraine in its defense against Russia\u2019s invasion, amounting to more than $27 billion. This U.S. support has included over 1 million rounds of 155 mm howitzer ammunition. It has also included 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, 32,000 anti-tank missiles of other types, 5,200 Excalibur precision 155 mm howitzer rounds, and 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, among many other weapons systems and munitions.<\/p>\n [T]he Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for National Defense concludes that \u201c[t]he fact that only a few months of fighting in Ukraine consumed such a large percentage of U.S. Stingers and Javelins suggests that the DOD\u2019s plans, and the stockpiles that result from them, are insufficient.\u201d Even the Washington Post has conceded the seriousness of the situation, noting that \u201c[s]tocks of many key weapons and munitions are near exhaustion,\u201d and citing a\u2026CSIS report that concludes that \u201cthe U.S. defense industrial base is in pretty poor shape right now [and] we don\u2019t make it past four or five days in a war game before we run out of precision missiles.\u201d The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) describes the state of U.S. weapons stockpiles as \u201cprecarious.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. Naval Institute describes them as \u201cdangerous\u201d due to their low inventory levels. Even a U.S. Department of Defense official quoted by the Wall Street Journal admitted that munitions stockpiles are \u201cuncomfortably low\u201d in that they are \u201cnot at the level we would like to go into combat.\u201d This official explained that the only reason the issue isn\u2019t \u201ccritical\u201d is because \u201cthe U.S. isn\u2019t engaged in any major military conflict\u201d at the moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The key problem, of course, as we\u00a0reported<\/a>, is that the administration\u2019s official position is that, in the words of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley, \u201cwe will continue to support [Ukraine] all the way\u201d and \u201c[w]e will be there for as long as it takes to keep Ukraine free,\u201d despite the obvious impact of such support on U.S. weapons\u2019 stockpile levels.<\/p>\n And one of the side issues, although of critical seriousness, is that this arms largesse to Ukraine severely impacts our ability to come to Taiwan\u2019s aid in case of an invasion by China, as we\u00a0reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [T]he risk from the U.S. military\u2019s dwindling munitions supplies is something that needs to be thoughtfully considered before another arms package for Ukraine is considered. The risk seems especially noteworthy as regards a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. An NDIA article points out that \u201c[t]he Biden administration has signaled support for turning Taiwan into a \u2018porcupine\u2019 that would be costly to invade, thus deterring the People\u2019s Republic of China from attacking,\u201d meaning that Taiwan would use an \u201casymmetric warfare\u201d strategy that \u201cplac[es] an emphasis on the use of systems such as Stingers and Javelins as opposed to tanks and helicopters.\u201d But Stingers and Javelins are two of the systems provided to Ukraine in large numbers, as explained above, and which are now in short supply, which has resulted in CSIS describing their current U.S. stockpile inventory as \u201climited.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, President Biden\u2019s Taiwanese \u201cporcupine\u201d might be short quite a few quills. The effect of exhausted munitions stockpiles on national defense writ large may be equally dire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, even the Gray Lady has realized that there is a problem, and reports that the January $27 billion in weapons aid to Ukraine is now $33 billion and growing rapidly:\u00a0From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine<\/a><\/p>\n [There is] a problem that has become worryingly apparent as the Pentagon dispatches its own stocks of weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia and Washington warily watches for signs that China might provoke a new conflict by invading Taiwan: The United States lacks the capacity to produce the arms that the nation and its allies need at a time of heightened superpower tensions.<\/p>\n In the first 10 months after Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting Washington to approve $33 billion in military aid so far, the United States sent Ukraine so many Stinger missiles from its own stocks that it would take 13 years\u2019 worth of production at recent capacity levels to replace them. It has sent so many Javelin missiles that it would take five years at last year\u2019s rates to replace them, according to Raytheon, the company that helps make the missile systems.<\/p>\n If a large-scale war broke out with China, within about one week the United States would run out of so-called long-range anti-ship missiles, a vital weapon in any engagement with China, according to a series of war-game exercises conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nice of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0to finally notice, and it does its best puff-piece job of blaming the post-cold war drawdown in the 1990s for the Biden Administration\u2019s current problems. But the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0summarizes<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe United States underestimated the threats it now faces \u2014 or failed to prepare adequately,\u201d as \u201cPentagon officials acknowledged.\u201d The\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0also recognizes the potential\u00a0problem with Taiwan<\/a>:<\/p>\n For Taiwan alone, there is a $19 billion backlog of orders for American-made weapons \u2014 large chunks of it for Stinger missiles with rocket engines built by Aerojet that are already in short supply. Thanks to the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0for confirming our earlier reporting, including about the impact our voluminous weapons shipments to Ukraine have caused for the defense of Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is what happens when pronouns are a higher priority than logistics U.S. Weapons Stockpile Disaster Limiting Our Ability To Deter China In Taiwan It\u2019s so bad now, even the New York Times is reporting about it. In late January we reported that U.S. military weapons stockpiles were so low that various commentators were describing … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,50,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-goobermint","category-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91248,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91247\/revisions\/91248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt\u2019s so bad now, even the New York Times is reporting about it.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nDeputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks\u2026said the goal is not necessarily to prepare to fight a war with China \u2014 it is to deter one from breaking out.
\n\u201cStill, we must have the combat credibility to win if we must fight,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n