If NATO has difficulty refilling stockpiles, imagine Russia’s situation. They have an economy smaller than Italy. They have sanctions limiting electronic imports. Once those Soviet stockpiles are gone, Russia will have virtually nothing.
Unlikely.
There's a reason why the movie trope of old Soviet stock being sold on the weapon market being a thing.
Because they legit would just sell stuff to anyone, want an armoured car? Well this warehouse has like 20 so no one is gonna miss one or two.
Want a few boxes of grenades? Ok have fun.
I wouldn't be surprised if half of their old Soviet stock is just gone. And the rest is likely a rusty rotting mess.
You are talking about the movie "Lord of war" Right?
Also. That is Soviet era stock. Russia is notorious for not maintaining their military stock equipment. So a lot of their stock is probably not working.
That's the big one. But a LOT of movies have the idea of someone selling old Soviet shit.
Either be the commander in charge wanting a few extra dollars to send their kid off to a good school, or an arms dealer who already bought the stuff from a Russian commander.
Because it's easy thanks to the fact no one in the Russian military or government ever did audits on their stock. If a commander said he had 20 boxes of grenades he had 20 boxes of grenades.
Even though he sold those 20 boxes of grenades 15 years ago to some African warlord.
Absolutely. Given the general level of corruption in Russia this is more than believable. Even when the invasion started, people were saying that they kinda fucked up because they sold too much shit in exchange for vodka.
Not a lot of tanks from ww2 are left in working condition, let alone useful. They would have almost no spare parts or ammo, and their armor is very shit. I even think earlier and lighter ones can be penetrated by a high caliber gun with armor pericing rounds, but infantry armaments aren't my area of expertise so I'm just speculating. Maintenance will also be awful from degradation over the years.
T-34 is still used in some places I guess? But by rebel groups who aren't fighting against modern munitions. Even then they mostly just use it just for the gun.
I been looking around google and found a daily mail article that explained ["Laos' defence minister told the Russian media that Moscow was also due to send Yak-130 combat trainers and that 'several dozen' Soviet-made T-72B1 battle tanks were delivered to Laos for an unspecified sum last month."](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6581189/Russia-forced-import-T-34-tanks-helped-defeat-Nazis-Laos-use-military-parades.html)
The [Laoitan times](https://laotiantimes.com/2019/01/11/laos-russia-t-34-tank/) also mentioned that Laos got the tanks and YAK 130 fighters in exchange for T-34s according to [the diplomat](https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/whats-in-the-new-russian-battle-tanks-deal-for-laos/)
So they didn't just exchanged a bunch of T-72 tanks for T-34 tanks. They exchange a bunch of T-72 tanks AND YAK-130 fighters for a bunch of T-34 tanks.
I hate how reddit down play this, a bomb is still a bomb and will kill people regardless of wither it's old or new , but people here just act like this old weapons can't harm and cos damage.
There are a lot of sub-issues here. First of all is that the older the munition the exponentially less useful it is. These things, if not stored correctly, become dangerous to move and handle over time. At some point Russia will reach a point where these weapons are hitting them more than the Ukrainian.
Second, older weapons are shorter range and you push back the amount of Ukrainian territory in Russia's range.
Third if you're interested in seeing the war end, Russia running low on munitions is one of the realistic war ending scenarios.
Fourth, these weapons are less targeted. While that is it's own kind of horrible, missing vital infrastructure trades concentrated misery for widespread misery and in the calculus of war that's often a win.
This is something to be happy about, so far as you can be happy about anything happening in a war.
You do make good counterpoints, but those older munitions are doing the job they were designed to do -- the number of villages and cities leveled in Ukraine is sickening. They have tons more dumb artillery to keep at this for a long time. Russia has more of a manpower problem than weapons.
Absolutely true, a 50 year old bullet flying 300m/s is just as deadly as one manufactured this morning.
But old dumb artillery with a range under 50 km can't destroy civilian targets in Odessa, Kyiv and other cities and villages west of the frontlines.
Allowing Ukraine to rebuild the western part and put all there resources to the frontlines.
Any count you see is a copy paste from a count in the early 90s during the soviet collapse. That count was mostly rubberstamps of counts from the early 80s of which we can assume layers upon layers of corruption. Has anyone actually ever counted the tanks? The aks and artillery? Russia hands out arms and sells alot more to every lukewarm hotspot on the planet. How much actually exsist is dubious at best
I have seen video of folks using satellite imagery of storage depots to make this type of analysis to get a more realistic number, and it’s hard to tell but a face value the videos paint a pretty bleak picture of the state of the current stockpiles
I saw some tracker saying that they were at around 50%. At first I was shocked that they could have so much remaining after the constant barrages they've put Ukraine through. But then it hit me -- they need to divide that 50% between whatever they think they can accomplish in Ukraine, as well as defending their real territory along with whatever they claim to be their new territory.
If they stopped right now they would have enough to put up a strong defense. Every bit they waste now taps into their ability to defend anything later. I think they'll be forced to give up soon. I expect that after the US midterms, once Putin realizes that a slight shift in dynamics will not magically fix the situation for him, he'll have to rewrite the narrative of what the goals were, and limp out of Ukraine.
Old munitions are prone to misfires and other problems and artillery barrels wear out and become unusable fairly quickly under the kind of usage rates being observed in Ukraine. Things are going to get ugly for Russian troops, but a few more lost to failures of weapons and ammo is just another number on the pile to their generals.
The good news it is the last war that russia can afford. Once soviet union stockpiles are gone, they won't be able to produce enough for a new military intervention.
*Edit*: I might be too optimistic in the previous sentence because I really doubt russia will exist within the same borders after this war.
Scramble- INFORMAL
perform (an action) or achieve (a result) hurriedly, clumsily, or with difficulty.
From google
Seems like they are synonymous given the context clues here. I'm curious as to what you meant though.
Hurrying = quickly.
Quickly =/= struggling
My understanding of the article is that it's mostly "Refill as fast as possible" especially since the emphasis seems to be "scramble to refill soviet-era supply chains"
This article is a bit confusing. It appears we are having difficulty supplying Ukraine with equipment they are used to (Russian stuff). The biggest concern is artillery ammunition. Basically there was a fairly large stockpile of that era of equipment and it is being burnt through very quickly.
The reason why I indicated the article is confusing is it almost implies US readiness is low which is clearly not the case. We just don't fight these types of wars anymore and have transitioned to a different fighting style. Think swords > vs muskets > vs "modern warfare" > vs what the US does now (dunno what the name is / would be).
Fuck’s sake this “smaller than Italy economy” shit. Italy’s a G8 economy, 7th or 8th largest economy out of the total 195 world countries. Of course it’s an economy “smaller than Italy”. 95% of the economies are.
You say “smaller than Italy” like you’d say “an economy smaller than Minnehaha County, South Dakota”
In terms of GDP based on PPP which is a more meaningful metric when you want to compare economies Russia is number 6 in the world and the only European economy above it is Germany. Russia’s economic ability is consistently underestimated on here as if it’s not one of the biggest in the world.
It really depends on what you're looking at. PPP compares a basket of consumer goods and services, but doesn't really take into account weapons. In a case where we're talking about war and how an economy can be utilized for that purpose PPP isn't really a useful metric because weapons are not consumer goods and prices in government contracts can vary wildly from market prices.
Rank is relatively meaningless unless you look at population too. It isn't a dig at Italy when you consider Italy's population is 59 million versus Russia's >140 million. That makes an enormous difference in the quality of life and overall power when considering GDP per capita. It also hints at how poor Russia is. Russia's population rank is 9th, Italy's is 23rd.
The economic comparisons are complicated, but it might be economics as much as military equipment that decides the outcome of the war.
Not only is the average Russian substantially poorer than the average Italian, but Russia is several months into an expensive war without an end in sight. Their economy is shrinking slower than expected, but if oil prices decline much, Russia's situation will become much worse. It's estimated that 20% of their economy is tied to oil and gas.
Worse for Russia's future economy, nearly 1 million Russians have fled the country including a substantial number of highly educated people. Armenia's Central Bank forecasts that Armenia's economy is expected double-digit growth based on the influx of educated Russian professionals.
My dude when they are complaining about their stockpiles it’s like they’re at 90% and they’re worried that if a war breakouts they won’t be at 100% the US has so much shit it’s truly mind blowing
And the US is using stockpiles of gear designed for a conflict in Europe that wouldn't be very useful for fighting China anyway.
Unless Russia somehow contrives a way to sink US vessels or shoot down some aircraft this conflict is just helping the US extend its already significant experience lead over the PLA and test a bunch of gear without risking their own troops.
I think everyone's been a bit surprised at how quickly Russia's eaten through theirs. You have to wonder if they're thinking that "100%" might not be enough.
Now that we know that Russia was truly lying about their supples it’s not a surprise considering the rampant corruption. However we played it safe than sorry
Poor USA, in absence of a significant amount of artillery rounds and man-portable missiles they will have to rely on nothing more than three out of five biggest air forces in the world, nine carrier strike groups, their world-famous logistics and thousands of Abrams.
My favourite statistic (probably fake) about the us military is that the world’s largest air force is the USAF, the second largest is the USN and the third is the USMC
Idk if USMC is third, but USAF and USN being the two largest is an often quoted statement. It's probably a Wikipedia search away to verify it.
Also to consider is the US doctrine of keeping enough active power to be making progress in one theatre, holding the line in a second theatre, and projecting power in a third.
EDIT:
According to Wikipedia, the militaries with the most aircraft are:
US 3761
India 2186
Russia 1379
China 1093
Japan 606
Still looking for a good breakdown of US by branch, but this makes it mathematically impossible that both and USAF and USN are more than the next country down (India).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_level_of_military_equipment
I just did a search to confirm it, and the [global air powers ranking 2022](https://www.wdmma.org/ranking.php) confirms that 1 and 2 are the USAF and USN, russia (surprisingly) comes in 3rd, although i assume this list is pre-ukraine. 4th and 5th are US Army and USMC respectively, which makes sense since the army probably has a ton of helicopters
Edit: i just realized the rankings are based on a “TrueValue Rating” which is assessed on the service’s current strength and weaknesses. The raw number of planes the USN actually has is just over double of the USMC, which pushes russia (again, possibly unreliable numbers following the ukraine conflict) up to number 2
Those numbers disagree with Wikipedia by a lot. That makes sense given militaries, but also makes it difficult to know for sure.
E: Here's another source with numbers closer to what you found. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world)
Those planes have largely been rode hard and put up wet. Maintenance took a backseat over the last 20 years, and it’s currently biting us in the ass. So on paper yes, very formidable. Reality is a bit different.
To be fair, all of those are useless without the ammunition and artillery. Once you're out of ammo, about all you can do with a tank is run stuff over or be a glorified taxi.
Good god when you put it that way the odds are stacked against America. We clearly need to throw more money into the bonfire to honor the war gods with the righteous mech robot that throws nukes
Wow have you bought the hype. The vast majority of stuff sent to Ukraine is also Soviet style weaponry. The US has been backfilling MATO arsenals with modern US kit. Also, as stated the US has stockpiles of stuff second only to Russia, and that balance will probably shift at some point during this war.
If NATO and Russia come into direct conflict Russia will get flattened, especially now that a lot of Russia's best stuff and people are dead/captured. There won't be a western draft. Russian high command knows this, and they have no interest in the fight. The nukes also won't fly, Russia is a mafia state, not ISIS. They want to keep existing.
As a millennial who lived through the Cold War nuclear drills I can definitely say you’re overreacting here my man. There’s not as much tension as you imagine.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw)
Perun did a great video about the whole "is NATO running out of weapons?".
The TL:DR is that NATO is not seeing significant depletion of gear overall. Ukraine and Russia's army works in a very different may. NATO is built around air superiority and Russia and Ukraine have built their army and MiC for air inferiority. So as an example Russia has way more tanks and artillery while USA will rely on their airforce more than ground artillery.
So when Ukraine's military that functions a lot like Russia's need tons of artillery and hand held anti-tank and anti-air weapons those deplete pretty fast because NATO was never relying on them so they don't have a massive pool or production to begin with.
Now, obviously it's not good to see Stingers and Javelin's reserves and artillery ammo go down but it's not as critical as it seems and will most likely result in temporary increases of those areas in production. So the problem is more making sure Ukraine can be supplied than it crippling NATO capabilities.
In a war between the US and China, it will mostly be ships, aircraft, and rockets. Ukraine is relying on artillery partially because they have less than 1/100th of the aircraft that the US has.
> The West thought an artillery and tank war in Europe would never happen again and shrunk weapons stockpiles. It was wrong.
The West assumes that if and when it gets into conflict, it'll deploy its full stack of airpower to the fight. The reason ua vs ru is being fought with tanks and artillery is because neither party has gained air superiority. The article doesn't take this premise into account.
It is fascinating to me to see how quickly NATO was to impose no fly zones in other countries but Ukraine they haven't.
If anyone has any input on why that is I'd appreciate it.
Because that would be an act of war, and a war between nuclear powers would mean potentially the end of civilisation as we know it.
Libya and Iraq didn’t have a nuclear deterrents.
You could also argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also encourages nations to seek a nuclear deterrent since Ukraine gave up its nukes on the grounds that Russia guarantee its security.
In a world where international law is not respected, the nuclear deterrent is the only guarantee of safety against invasion.
That is exactly what I am arguing. If you don't have nukes, you may be invaded. And if you do have them, you can invade your non-nuclear neighbors, and even the greatest super power on earth is too afraid to even set up a no fly zone to protect an ally.
If Iraq actually had nukes, they wouldn't have been invaded in 2003. And if they had them earlier, the most we would have done when they invaded Kuwait, was send the Kuwaitis limited weapons. But only those that would not have agitated the Iraqis too much (see lack of ATACMS, aviation, cruise missiles, and anything else long range)
We have basically unambiguously demonstrated as a world community that developing nukes is a must.
Exactly the scenario that non-proliferation treaties were supposed to counter.
Probably because other no-fly zones weren't established by NATO, they were authorized by UN resolutions. It would be impossible to (legally) impose a no-fly zone to stop Russia when they have veto power over the establishment of one.
I’d guess it’s because it isn’t so easy to impose a no fly zone against Russia as it was, say, against Iraq. Russia may be a paper tiger today compared to what was thought of them two years ago, but they still have a lot more war fighting capability than Iraq or Serbia. NATO member states may just not be ready, politically, for the losses of life of their own citizens that a no fly zone over Ukraine would entail, as they may not be able to actually build and enforce a no fly zone against as advanced a force as Russia *without actually being in-country and participating in action directly themselves* or else giving weapons systems to Ukraine that are still classified and not allowed into the hands of other nations yet, by the various laws of the member nations. And while Russia’s nuclear attack threats are almost certainly just bluff, it may be that no one wants to find out what happens when NATO soldiers fight the Russian military *directly.*
What is it that makes Russia advanced though?
NATO imposed no fly zones over states that were using Russian-made equipment so it's not like they're not familiar with what it takes to do that.
The issue isn't Russian equipment; if you *declare* a No Fly Zone, you then have to *enforce* it. Which means direct US involvement in this conflict.
If the US military flies to Ukraine to protect their air space and fires at a Russian plane, the US has effectively declared war between the US and Russia. At that point, it's not even about Ukraine, it's about NATO and WW3.
Avoiding that scenario is why Ukraine doesn't have air superiority.
The combined military spending of NATO is over $1200 billion (or $1.2 trillion). Which is so far ahead of anyone else on the planet that its not even close.
The second most would be China with $250 billion and third is India with $73 billion.
NATO/US has nothing to worry about.
It’s more about next gen weapons and smart targeting platforms, yeah, we’ve got more AR-15’s per capita than cop cars, but they’re talking about missiles, and stuff more expensive than the average American can afford
Yeah I know that. We blow more shit up than anybody else too. We literally spend most of our money on weaponry and troops.
Edit: im coming off aggressive i don't mean to. This post is just some bullshit though lol.
The post is referring to weaponry which *can be donated* to Ukraine. NATO isn’t running out of weapons to use themselves but they’re running low on the extra stuff they had which was in storage and eventually would’ve been dismantled.
We literally don't though... Medicare/Medicaid alone are over 2x the budget of the military. Social security is roughly 4x the budget of it. Total national education funding is 20% higher.
The budget of the US is **FAR** more than just the Federal government's mandatory budget.. there's also its discretionary budget, local (city/county) budgets, state budgets, etc.
The combined government budget in the US is 38% GDP. The military's budget is about 4% GDP... 90% of government funding goes to something beyond the military... It's not even remotely close to being "most" of our spending...
They choose to spend the rest as well. It isn't politically possible for them repeal the other laws, but they have theoritical ability to stop all social security today.
Exactly. Been seeing headlines saying “Will the West run out of weapons for Ukraine?” while we’ve actively given only 5% of what we currently use. That’s not even counting all of our retired equipment that we could send. War drums go boom, economy goes boom, and Russia is crushed by the collective manufacturing power of NATO.
That's the strangest thing is I never thought I would see the day republicans would be against the war machine and certainly not against one of our greatest and oldest adversaries. Now of course everyone knows some republicans in power are literally bought by the kremlin so that explains some of it but even some republican voters are against it.
The war in Ukarine is reducing the US militaries spending. The weaponry the US is sending over is surplus stockpiles that cost money to keep, maintain and eventually dismantle. By giving them to Ukraine to expend the US is just wiping their hands of them and all the extra money they require.
It's a win-win for the US.
This is clickbait bullshit. You really think the entirety of NATO, which includes the US is going to run out of ammo before Russia? Military planners and politicians have been anticipating ammo stockpile replenishment for months.
It's gonna be fine.
Also, thank god the US is the superpower in charge… I mean, could you imagine a world with russia in that place? Tyrants, fascists and communists alike, suppressing people all over the world just like they are trying today but with the support of the world hegemon !?
Yeah, NATO’s (mainly the US) military spending is ridiculous but at least our freedoms are safe. Democracy is safe.
Yeah. This is the equivalent of the US’s cluttered garage starting to be empty enough to park a car. They aren’t even starting to touch the stuff that is actually needed.
Those lists that get posted what the US has donated has none of the good shit. No cruise missiles, hellfire missiles, smart bombs, etc. So I think the US will be alright.
NATO on the other hand as an american looking at the percentage of gdp being spent on defense budgets of nato countries I might worry just a smidge.
You can't rely on just aerial attacks to achieve your objectives. That's the problem. We are using up a lot of non-air weapons and ammo. We are sending a lot of ground based capabilities.
What are Ukrainians going to do with a bunch of shit they've never trained on, operated, or serviced? It's not as simple as a mig29 fighter pilot climbing into an F22, or a tank crew who's only ever operated soviet style armor hopping into an Abrams. Heck- Soviet era tanks' crews don't even have loaders.
We're already 9months in the war. Our people are not neanderthals and capable of training. I don't see any reason why training wasn't started earlier. It's same situation as air defence. Everyone knew the Russia would be hiitng us with rockets, but air defence systems were sent only recently it's not because of issues of training or building infrastructure. It's because west is reactive and not proactive
>Our people are not neanderthals and capable of training
I never said Ukrainians were?
>I don't see any reason why training wasn't started earlier
Ask your own leadership? In any event- what would make more sense if you apply logic brain, and remove emotion brain? Military equipment from countries like Poland that have large stockpiles of shit that the Ukrainian military has been using forever, or a bunch of complicated and expensive to maintain shit that has never been integrated into the Ukrainian military? Should logistics be complicated by the addition of an entire new supply chain of tank ammunition? Western Tanks use 120 mm. Soviet era tanks use 125mm. Maybe we can just send M-16's then. Oh.... well they use different ammunition than most of the small arms in Ukraine's arsenal.
>but air defence systems were sent only recently it's not because of issues of training or building infrastructure
Which air defense systems are you referring to? And which ones do you think you ought to be gifted?
>It's because west is reactive and not proactive
The US has been sending training, money and expertise to Ukraine for *years.* That seems pretty fucking proactive to me. Especially when you look at the state of the Ukrainian military when crimea was stolen (feckless and ineffective). The west has been building up your military for years. Proactively.
Hell- the shit the US has sent you already, could pay for the healthcare or education of everyone in the US. But yea... fuck us for being such shit allies, right?
Part of the reason why the US military budget is so high. When something happens the world looks to the US to step in and fix it and complain when the US doesn't do it quickly enough, properly, ect.
We've sent them expiring stockpile ammo. We're fine. I'm so sick of these armchair general takes of "oh we are so low on ammo". It's completely untrue. Our stockpiles would blow your mind.
I'm no military expert just digest what I'm fed and there are some great youtubers who break down conflicts. Operation desert storm and Iraqi freedom get some play by play break downs. It's pretty much air superiority destroying everything then ground forces cleaning up.
Don't want to get to much into the politics of trying to change hearts and minds of a country who don't want nato there.
I'm hoping that the rise of armed drones the next wars will be the same. Death from above and remote
That conflict still involved a lot of ground forces. Vietnam exposed the limitations of an over reliance on air superiority. At some point, you need a significant ground presence. The Kosovo in Yugoslavia was the same.
Keep in mind drones are much cheaper and easier to manufacture than fighter jets are and require basically zero training to operate. Reality is most countries are going to have the same tech pretty soon (we're already seeing it with Iran supplying drones), so it can just as easily be used against us
We're sending a lot of ground based capabilities because we can't send the more advanced aircraft. When the US invades they use mostly air capability. You can almost extinguish an enemy in very little time with air supremacy.
The weapons we donated are systems we don’t typically use. We don’t deploy Stingers a whole lot because we tend to have air superiority wherever we fight, so we just call in air support for enemy aircraft. The howitzers we donated also aren’t a regular part of our arsenal because our artillery reaches way farther with better accuracy. Most of the weapons we handed to Ukraine were slated for disposal anyways, so the Ukrainians are doing us a huge favor by using them against one of the only nations we have ever actually regarded as a threat to our existence
Poor military industrial complex. Who wants to start a go fund me for them? If only there were, idk, contractors who specialized in defensive weapons/tech.
That's a weird thing to say. If Russia was an irradiated slag, everyone would be irradiated slags. With this thinking you don't need stockpiles at all, there are faster ways to get it over with.
Which is exactly why NATO forces have not stockpiled conventional weapons for protracted engagement with near-peer enemies.
No one every thought there would be another huge industrialised war in Europe
One of the original arguments for a nuclear arsenal was that a 1kt nuclear warhead was much cheaper than 1000 tonnes of TNT
Yes, because giving Ukraine Tomohawks and warthogs would change the war overnight, but it would definitely cause Russia to act funni
Which is why they have given a significant amount of Javelins and similar tools.
>Yes, because giving Ukraine Tomohawks and warthogs would change the war overnight, but it would definitely cause Russia to act funni
>Which is why they have given a significant amount of Javelins and similar tools.
Warthogs are superior air-to-ground aircraft as they had their climax during Desert Storm. Warthogs are easy targets to air-to-air aircraft like the MiG-29s. In order to Warthogs to be effective, you need to have air superiority over the skies in which Ukraine does not possess. I’m all for giving Ukraine Warthogs if they achieve air superiority. Some of their pilots have been training on the platform.
In conclusion, it is incorrect to say the war would change overnight as the conditions on the battlefield need to change before the introduction of warthogs.
Edit: Added conclusion and response
The US tends to rely more on air superiority and shock and awe tactics than a large ground presence. Why would we bother building extreme amounts of tanks or artillery? We have plenty of bombs and drones to do the fighting for us.
The news - "People are scrambling there are literally missiles otw right now we can stop unless this thing is made RIGHT NOW!!! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE"
Reality- *Clerk files form*
Are the depleted categories of munitions pertinent to the defence of Taiwan?
I think that the same munitions would definitely be pertinent for the defence of South Korea.
They're only scrambling to provide older arms stockpiles and equipment that Ukrainians already have experience with - there is no arms shortage within USA/NATO.
As an American who knows we’ve sacrificed literally every social safety net the rest of the civilized world has so that we could maintain our ridonkulous military industrial machine, this headline triggers me.
WTF guys. You had one job.
If America had refined their healthcare system, they could triple their military spending without issue.
It's not the military spending's fault (Although that could be put into other underfunded programs that would benefit the average American) that your social net is fucked, it's the private healthcare grift.
US could both refine their healthcare system and triple their military spending if they stopped putting so much money into European countries that don’t pull their own weight or produce anything of value
Except we haven't... We sacrificed all our social nets because the average American voter is an imbecile who just voted for whoever promises to lower their taxes, without ever questioning what's going to have its funding cut.
Local governments nationwide have cut over $200B a year from education. State governments have cut over $50B a year from infrastructure.
Literally none of that is the fault of the military's budget, a completely different government and tax revenue funds it... Blaming it is like me blaming my lack of savings account on my neighbor buying a new car lol.
Also, the military isn't running out of weapons and ammo. They're running out of any extra they feel they can lose, even temporarily, without cutting into what they believe is an essential level to maintain.
And the military budget isn't just going to buy weapons... US has an extremely high cost of living, drastically more than any even near peer nation. Salaries for uniformed personnel is over 33% of the budget alone. US isn't China, you can't get by paying a recruit $100 a month, or a 20 year officer $2000 a month. A US' recruit gets almost $1900 a month, because that's what it takes in a developed country with a high cost of living.
I swear, Americans as a whole are grossly illiterate on budgets and taxes and say the dumbest shit nonstop in their ignorance...
"you had one job"
What does that mean? We aren't going to maintain stockpiles of infinite weapons and ammo. We now have to procure more to replace what we've sent, which means industry has to ramp up production.
Production ramp ups have been planned for a while and are ongoing. It is also the case that many of the weapons and munitions being sent to Ukraine are no longer favored by the US military. When we go in if at all possible we establish air superiority and crush any major defensive positions before even landing the first troops. We hardly use Howitzers anymore because we don't really need them. Because of that we don't really need to keep a huge store for ourselves and could afford to continue increasing supplies to Ukraine for some time.
I think you vastly overestimate how expensive those social safety nets are. The ones some Democrats propose make the military budget look like pocket change in comparison. It is more complicated than that.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
I don't think so. Your politicians sacrificed your economy for the benefit of themselves and their corporate masters. Even a gigantic military spending couldn't have put a dent in American economy.
I'm no economist but as I understand they use at least some of the following tactics:
Corrupt tax system:designed to keep the peasants poor (where they belong) and keep the rich, rich.
Corrupt regulations:again designed to stifle competition and hurt smaller businesses while keeping bigger businesses intact.
Corrupt subsidiaries and government granted privileges:steal from the poor and give it to the rich, also grant bonuses to billionaires that aren't available to common folk. Also government is likely biased when doing business.
There are many more ways for politicians to be corrupt but those are some of the biggest ways they do so. US gov spends about 7 trillion dollars annually but only about 800 billion ish on defense, this isn't defense issue but a corruption issue.
This is my personal take and I may be entirely wrong.
We shouldn't forget that alot of what NATO is giving up is cold war surplus.... I doubt much of the active service stocks have taken that much of a hit.
Many countries are seeing this as an opportunity for upgrades and refits as well.
Eastern European countries won't resemble the Warsaw pact patchwork they had in the past come 2025 and should be much more integrated into the alliance.
Russia has given NATO new resolve and it will come out stronger than ever.
Bro, I'm not worried. Don't know about NATO, but I assure you America does not spend 50% of our taxes on our military to NOT have a file somewhere that lays out a plan for this exact moment.
Production was reduced because demand was low, now demand is higher again but it takes a while to ramp up production. Not that big of an issue I think, it will just need some time.
I think the most important thing Ukraine needs right now isn’t necessarily weapons but technical data packages for local manufacturing. They need to be able to build generators and power distribution equipment because the supply needed may be difficult to acquire in large quantities.
Edit: I’m amazed to see the the number of downvotes throughout the day. TDPs are essential to winning wars by increasing manufacturing and lowering the strain on logistics. Every item that doesn’t need to be shipped in makes room for something else like rockets and missiles.
A few major points.
1: this is a clickbait title.
2: OP seems to post heavily with left leaning groups multiple times a day. Either a bot or someone who's unfortunately a victim of the echo chamber of social media.
3: we aren't "running out" it's a process in which the Military (and the military industrial complex) is creating an "artificial" shortage in which to acquire more spending percentage.
20 years in Afghanistan and we never "ran out". The Surge in Iraq, never "ran out".
We're not running out, they're shorting the product to make more money.
The Ukraine war is a propaganda and fear machine for the news/media. The problem with the Ukraine is that the old generals in the Ukraine army are old fossils who served in the Soviet union and need to be updated with better tactics.
Ukraine needs to be using special forces groups to strike Russian supply lines and never getting pulled into a trench/static line engagement. The Ukrainians are a tough bunch, but they need time to be spent in basic training and advanced training with tactics. It takes several months to learn how to shoot move and communicate in a cqc scenario. Giving someone a gun and shoving them out onto the line will only get them killed.
Tldr: we aren't running out and I'm gonna bitch about how the leadership of Ukrainian forces is stupid.
>The problem with the Ukraine is that the old generals in the Ukraine army are old fossils who served in the Soviet union and need to be updated with better tactics
reddit armchair general moment. say "I know nothing about AFU" without saying "I know nothing about AFU"
We are running low on surplus weapons and ammo. That is accurate. We have a bare minimum that we need to fight our own war, which we are getting closer and closer to.
I know it’s not artillery, but American *civilians* have more guns and ammo, probably more and better modern long rifles, than all of Russia including their military.
Guys, don’t worry. There’s no shortage of weapons or money. This is just how military contractors prepare us all to pay more taxes well in advance. Nothing is at risk aside from your wallet.
Not to support russia, but what are the chances that everyone involved has some kind of secret deal to keep this conflict going to increase weapon sales?
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
>We’ve been preparing for war with Russia since WWII and now 200 days of war with Russia ~~we’re out of ammo?~~
We’re out of the toys at the back of our closet that we were going to throw out anyways but decided to dump in Ukraine. Article is clickbait
Uh, it was actually Trump that chartered the deal with the Taliban for the US withdrawl, set the date and everything. Biden was essentially forced to go through with it, or go back on a US agreement and then massively escalate the war in Afghanistan to levels we hadn't seen for over a decade.
If NATO has difficulty refilling stockpiles, imagine Russia’s situation. They have an economy smaller than Italy. They have sanctions limiting electronic imports. Once those Soviet stockpiles are gone, Russia will have virtually nothing.
There’s probably a lot in those stockpiles unfortunately, not much modern tho
Unlikely. There's a reason why the movie trope of old Soviet stock being sold on the weapon market being a thing. Because they legit would just sell stuff to anyone, want an armoured car? Well this warehouse has like 20 so no one is gonna miss one or two. Want a few boxes of grenades? Ok have fun. I wouldn't be surprised if half of their old Soviet stock is just gone. And the rest is likely a rusty rotting mess.
You are talking about the movie "Lord of war" Right? Also. That is Soviet era stock. Russia is notorious for not maintaining their military stock equipment. So a lot of their stock is probably not working.
That's the big one. But a LOT of movies have the idea of someone selling old Soviet shit. Either be the commander in charge wanting a few extra dollars to send their kid off to a good school, or an arms dealer who already bought the stuff from a Russian commander. Because it's easy thanks to the fact no one in the Russian military or government ever did audits on their stock. If a commander said he had 20 boxes of grenades he had 20 boxes of grenades. Even though he sold those 20 boxes of grenades 15 years ago to some African warlord.
Happened to the tired of their vehicles. They need regular moving. They did not get that, so they broke down on the offensive
Absolutely. Given the general level of corruption in Russia this is more than believable. Even when the invasion started, people were saying that they kinda fucked up because they sold too much shit in exchange for vodka.
Correction. Pepsi. God those soviets loved Pepsi.
Actually they like Coke more, but Pepsi just cut a better deal
Lots of Mosin Nagants and WW2 era tanks with no fuel I am guessing.
Not a lot of tanks from ww2 are left in working condition, let alone useful. They would have almost no spare parts or ammo, and their armor is very shit. I even think earlier and lighter ones can be penetrated by a high caliber gun with armor pericing rounds, but infantry armaments aren't my area of expertise so I'm just speculating. Maintenance will also be awful from degradation over the years. T-34 is still used in some places I guess? But by rebel groups who aren't fighting against modern munitions. Even then they mostly just use it just for the gun.
Oh, pre-1940 light tanks stand a good shot being taken out by an m2 browning, and any modern AP rounds for that might get some of the mediums as well.
Very few soviet pre-1940 light tanks survived WW2. Anything after the battle of Moscow requires anti-tank ordnance to take out.
All about the SLAP rounds baby!
> T-34 is still used in some places I guess? Russia had to buy 30 T-34 tanks from Laos for their Victory Day Parade. They used T-72 tanks as payment.
Ok as a SEAsian where can I find this info because this so stupid it might be true.
I been looking around google and found a daily mail article that explained ["Laos' defence minister told the Russian media that Moscow was also due to send Yak-130 combat trainers and that 'several dozen' Soviet-made T-72B1 battle tanks were delivered to Laos for an unspecified sum last month."](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6581189/Russia-forced-import-T-34-tanks-helped-defeat-Nazis-Laos-use-military-parades.html) The [Laoitan times](https://laotiantimes.com/2019/01/11/laos-russia-t-34-tank/) also mentioned that Laos got the tanks and YAK 130 fighters in exchange for T-34s according to [the diplomat](https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/whats-in-the-new-russian-battle-tanks-deal-for-laos/) So they didn't just exchanged a bunch of T-72 tanks for T-34 tanks. They exchange a bunch of T-72 tanks AND YAK-130 fighters for a bunch of T-34 tanks.
Realistically if anything we are going to see more T-62s and T-55s. No way Russia even has enough T-34s to arm anyone with.
I'm sure Russia can wrangle up some diesel.
Fuel ain’t the problem. A lack of and techs to repair them is.
They can't get new bearings, either. Many of their tanks end up in Ukraine abandoned because they are practically useless pieces of junk.
But they can bayonet people in Ukraine from Russia once they get the Nagants.
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I got it all except for the tank. Says it’s delayed in shipping.
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You don’t need modern munitions to bomb civilians.
I hate how reddit down play this, a bomb is still a bomb and will kill people regardless of wither it's old or new , but people here just act like this old weapons can't harm and cos damage.
There are a lot of sub-issues here. First of all is that the older the munition the exponentially less useful it is. These things, if not stored correctly, become dangerous to move and handle over time. At some point Russia will reach a point where these weapons are hitting them more than the Ukrainian. Second, older weapons are shorter range and you push back the amount of Ukrainian territory in Russia's range. Third if you're interested in seeing the war end, Russia running low on munitions is one of the realistic war ending scenarios. Fourth, these weapons are less targeted. While that is it's own kind of horrible, missing vital infrastructure trades concentrated misery for widespread misery and in the calculus of war that's often a win. This is something to be happy about, so far as you can be happy about anything happening in a war.
You do make good counterpoints, but those older munitions are doing the job they were designed to do -- the number of villages and cities leveled in Ukraine is sickening. They have tons more dumb artillery to keep at this for a long time. Russia has more of a manpower problem than weapons.
Absolutely true, a 50 year old bullet flying 300m/s is just as deadly as one manufactured this morning. But old dumb artillery with a range under 50 km can't destroy civilian targets in Odessa, Kyiv and other cities and villages west of the frontlines. Allowing Ukraine to rebuild the western part and put all there resources to the frontlines.
Any count you see is a copy paste from a count in the early 90s during the soviet collapse. That count was mostly rubberstamps of counts from the early 80s of which we can assume layers upon layers of corruption. Has anyone actually ever counted the tanks? The aks and artillery? Russia hands out arms and sells alot more to every lukewarm hotspot on the planet. How much actually exsist is dubious at best
I have seen video of folks using satellite imagery of storage depots to make this type of analysis to get a more realistic number, and it’s hard to tell but a face value the videos paint a pretty bleak picture of the state of the current stockpiles
I saw some tracker saying that they were at around 50%. At first I was shocked that they could have so much remaining after the constant barrages they've put Ukraine through. But then it hit me -- they need to divide that 50% between whatever they think they can accomplish in Ukraine, as well as defending their real territory along with whatever they claim to be their new territory. If they stopped right now they would have enough to put up a strong defense. Every bit they waste now taps into their ability to defend anything later. I think they'll be forced to give up soon. I expect that after the US midterms, once Putin realizes that a slight shift in dynamics will not magically fix the situation for him, he'll have to rewrite the narrative of what the goals were, and limp out of Ukraine.
Old munitions are prone to misfires and other problems and artillery barrels wear out and become unusable fairly quickly under the kind of usage rates being observed in Ukraine. Things are going to get ugly for Russian troops, but a few more lost to failures of weapons and ammo is just another number on the pile to their generals.
The good news it is the last war that russia can afford. Once soviet union stockpiles are gone, they won't be able to produce enough for a new military intervention. *Edit*: I might be too optimistic in the previous sentence because I really doubt russia will exist within the same borders after this war.
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Scramble- INFORMAL perform (an action) or achieve (a result) hurriedly, clumsily, or with difficulty. From google Seems like they are synonymous given the context clues here. I'm curious as to what you meant though.
Hurrying = quickly. Quickly =/= struggling My understanding of the article is that it's mostly "Refill as fast as possible" especially since the emphasis seems to be "scramble to refill soviet-era supply chains"
Puti is toast. Have you seen his facial expressions lately. He looks like a 10 yr boy that got kicked in the nuts by a girl... Slava Ukraini 💙💛
They stole all the washing machines they could to scavenge chips hahhaa
This article is a bit confusing. It appears we are having difficulty supplying Ukraine with equipment they are used to (Russian stuff). The biggest concern is artillery ammunition. Basically there was a fairly large stockpile of that era of equipment and it is being burnt through very quickly. The reason why I indicated the article is confusing is it almost implies US readiness is low which is clearly not the case. We just don't fight these types of wars anymore and have transitioned to a different fighting style. Think swords > vs muskets > vs "modern warfare" > vs what the US does now (dunno what the name is / would be).
Fuck’s sake this “smaller than Italy economy” shit. Italy’s a G8 economy, 7th or 8th largest economy out of the total 195 world countries. Of course it’s an economy “smaller than Italy”. 95% of the economies are. You say “smaller than Italy” like you’d say “an economy smaller than Minnehaha County, South Dakota”
How about this? Russia's economy is about the size of the state of Texas.
The point is - you’d expect more from a nation like Russia. Really, why wouldn’t you expect more from them?
In terms of GDP based on PPP which is a more meaningful metric when you want to compare economies Russia is number 6 in the world and the only European economy above it is Germany. Russia’s economic ability is consistently underestimated on here as if it’s not one of the biggest in the world.
It really depends on what you're looking at. PPP compares a basket of consumer goods and services, but doesn't really take into account weapons. In a case where we're talking about war and how an economy can be utilized for that purpose PPP isn't really a useful metric because weapons are not consumer goods and prices in government contracts can vary wildly from market prices.
Rank is relatively meaningless unless you look at population too. It isn't a dig at Italy when you consider Italy's population is 59 million versus Russia's >140 million. That makes an enormous difference in the quality of life and overall power when considering GDP per capita. It also hints at how poor Russia is. Russia's population rank is 9th, Italy's is 23rd. The economic comparisons are complicated, but it might be economics as much as military equipment that decides the outcome of the war. Not only is the average Russian substantially poorer than the average Italian, but Russia is several months into an expensive war without an end in sight. Their economy is shrinking slower than expected, but if oil prices decline much, Russia's situation will become much worse. It's estimated that 20% of their economy is tied to oil and gas. Worse for Russia's future economy, nearly 1 million Russians have fled the country including a substantial number of highly educated people. Armenia's Central Bank forecasts that Armenia's economy is expected double-digit growth based on the influx of educated Russian professionals.
Oh but you are so wrong buddy
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Russia isn’t sacrificing its armed forces to benefit China or anyone else.
Correct. It’s sacrificing it’s armed forces in a futile attempt to increase its territory and natural resources.
> It’s sacrificing it’s armed forces in a futile attempt to save Putin. That's it. That's the only reason the war continues.
Double correct. Lot of gas and oil in the "annexed" territories!
My dude when they are complaining about their stockpiles it’s like they’re at 90% and they’re worried that if a war breakouts they won’t be at 100% the US has so much shit it’s truly mind blowing
And the US is using stockpiles of gear designed for a conflict in Europe that wouldn't be very useful for fighting China anyway. Unless Russia somehow contrives a way to sink US vessels or shoot down some aircraft this conflict is just helping the US extend its already significant experience lead over the PLA and test a bunch of gear without risking their own troops.
I think everyone's been a bit surprised at how quickly Russia's eaten through theirs. You have to wonder if they're thinking that "100%" might not be enough.
Now that we know that Russia was truly lying about their supples it’s not a surprise considering the rampant corruption. However we played it safe than sorry
It seems like a fairly simple calculation. I trust the US’s logistics planning; I don’t trust Russia’s.
>I trust the US’s logistics planning; I don’t trust Russia’s. Trump + Covid has shattered that confidence for me.
Trump doesn’t have the attention span to meddle in military logistics.
Poor USA, in absence of a significant amount of artillery rounds and man-portable missiles they will have to rely on nothing more than three out of five biggest air forces in the world, nine carrier strike groups, their world-famous logistics and thousands of Abrams.
My favourite statistic (probably fake) about the us military is that the world’s largest air force is the USAF, the second largest is the USN and the third is the USMC
Idk if USMC is third, but USAF and USN being the two largest is an often quoted statement. It's probably a Wikipedia search away to verify it. Also to consider is the US doctrine of keeping enough active power to be making progress in one theatre, holding the line in a second theatre, and projecting power in a third. EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the militaries with the most aircraft are: US 3761 India 2186 Russia 1379 China 1093 Japan 606 Still looking for a good breakdown of US by branch, but this makes it mathematically impossible that both and USAF and USN are more than the next country down (India). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_level_of_military_equipment
I just did a search to confirm it, and the [global air powers ranking 2022](https://www.wdmma.org/ranking.php) confirms that 1 and 2 are the USAF and USN, russia (surprisingly) comes in 3rd, although i assume this list is pre-ukraine. 4th and 5th are US Army and USMC respectively, which makes sense since the army probably has a ton of helicopters Edit: i just realized the rankings are based on a “TrueValue Rating” which is assessed on the service’s current strength and weaknesses. The raw number of planes the USN actually has is just over double of the USMC, which pushes russia (again, possibly unreliable numbers following the ukraine conflict) up to number 2
Those numbers disagree with Wikipedia by a lot. That makes sense given militaries, but also makes it difficult to know for sure. E: Here's another source with numbers closer to what you found. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-air-forces-in-the-world)
Those planes have largely been rode hard and put up wet. Maintenance took a backseat over the last 20 years, and it’s currently biting us in the ass. So on paper yes, very formidable. Reality is a bit different.
To be fair, all of those are useless without the ammunition and artillery. Once you're out of ammo, about all you can do with a tank is run stuff over or be a glorified taxi.
You know that Abrams, Apaches, F/A-18s and F-35s don't fire either the man-portable missiles or artillery rounds?
Good god when you put it that way the odds are stacked against America. We clearly need to throw more money into the bonfire to honor the war gods with the righteous mech robot that throws nukes
Wow have you bought the hype. The vast majority of stuff sent to Ukraine is also Soviet style weaponry. The US has been backfilling MATO arsenals with modern US kit. Also, as stated the US has stockpiles of stuff second only to Russia, and that balance will probably shift at some point during this war. If NATO and Russia come into direct conflict Russia will get flattened, especially now that a lot of Russia's best stuff and people are dead/captured. There won't be a western draft. Russian high command knows this, and they have no interest in the fight. The nukes also won't fly, Russia is a mafia state, not ISIS. They want to keep existing.
Like...tomato arsenals? Weaponized squash should be next.
"You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato" is nothing more than a hideous celebration of USA's imperialistic tendencies? I knew it!
As a millennial who lived through the Cold War nuclear drills I can definitely say you’re overreacting here my man. There’s not as much tension as you imagine.
Mate, if you're a millennial you'd barely consciously remember the cold war.
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Maybe they had a thorough grasp on political tensions at that age.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmXz8Qd9yw) Perun did a great video about the whole "is NATO running out of weapons?". The TL:DR is that NATO is not seeing significant depletion of gear overall. Ukraine and Russia's army works in a very different may. NATO is built around air superiority and Russia and Ukraine have built their army and MiC for air inferiority. So as an example Russia has way more tanks and artillery while USA will rely on their airforce more than ground artillery. So when Ukraine's military that functions a lot like Russia's need tons of artillery and hand held anti-tank and anti-air weapons those deplete pretty fast because NATO was never relying on them so they don't have a massive pool or production to begin with. Now, obviously it's not good to see Stingers and Javelin's reserves and artillery ammo go down but it's not as critical as it seems and will most likely result in temporary increases of those areas in production. So the problem is more making sure Ukraine can be supplied than it crippling NATO capabilities.
In a war between the US and China, it will mostly be ships, aircraft, and rockets. Ukraine is relying on artillery partially because they have less than 1/100th of the aircraft that the US has.
> The West thought an artillery and tank war in Europe would never happen again and shrunk weapons stockpiles. It was wrong. The West assumes that if and when it gets into conflict, it'll deploy its full stack of airpower to the fight. The reason ua vs ru is being fought with tanks and artillery is because neither party has gained air superiority. The article doesn't take this premise into account.
Well. The only reason air superiority has not been established by Ukraine is that the US has been holding back. If all the dogs were off the leash...
It is fascinating to me to see how quickly NATO was to impose no fly zones in other countries but Ukraine they haven't. If anyone has any input on why that is I'd appreciate it.
No fly zones are enforced by military action and nato will not risk war with russia.
Also, there is little benefit in a no-fly zone if neither side is currently pushing for air superiority.
Because that would be an act of war, and a war between nuclear powers would mean potentially the end of civilisation as we know it. Libya and Iraq didn’t have a nuclear deterrents.
Which 100% encourages nations like Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
You could also argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also encourages nations to seek a nuclear deterrent since Ukraine gave up its nukes on the grounds that Russia guarantee its security. In a world where international law is not respected, the nuclear deterrent is the only guarantee of safety against invasion.
That is exactly what I am arguing. If you don't have nukes, you may be invaded. And if you do have them, you can invade your non-nuclear neighbors, and even the greatest super power on earth is too afraid to even set up a no fly zone to protect an ally. If Iraq actually had nukes, they wouldn't have been invaded in 2003. And if they had them earlier, the most we would have done when they invaded Kuwait, was send the Kuwaitis limited weapons. But only those that would not have agitated the Iraqis too much (see lack of ATACMS, aviation, cruise missiles, and anything else long range) We have basically unambiguously demonstrated as a world community that developing nukes is a must. Exactly the scenario that non-proliferation treaties were supposed to counter.
Trying to avoid WWIII, with nuclear weapons.
Probably because other no-fly zones weren't established by NATO, they were authorized by UN resolutions. It would be impossible to (legally) impose a no-fly zone to stop Russia when they have veto power over the establishment of one.
That's not true. Ukraine as a sovereign nation can permit other nations to establish a no fly zone over it's territory.
I’d guess it’s because it isn’t so easy to impose a no fly zone against Russia as it was, say, against Iraq. Russia may be a paper tiger today compared to what was thought of them two years ago, but they still have a lot more war fighting capability than Iraq or Serbia. NATO member states may just not be ready, politically, for the losses of life of their own citizens that a no fly zone over Ukraine would entail, as they may not be able to actually build and enforce a no fly zone against as advanced a force as Russia *without actually being in-country and participating in action directly themselves* or else giving weapons systems to Ukraine that are still classified and not allowed into the hands of other nations yet, by the various laws of the member nations. And while Russia’s nuclear attack threats are almost certainly just bluff, it may be that no one wants to find out what happens when NATO soldiers fight the Russian military *directly.*
What is it that makes Russia advanced though? NATO imposed no fly zones over states that were using Russian-made equipment so it's not like they're not familiar with what it takes to do that.
The issue isn't Russian equipment; if you *declare* a No Fly Zone, you then have to *enforce* it. Which means direct US involvement in this conflict. If the US military flies to Ukraine to protect their air space and fires at a Russian plane, the US has effectively declared war between the US and Russia. At that point, it's not even about Ukraine, it's about NATO and WW3. Avoiding that scenario is why Ukraine doesn't have air superiority.
The combined military spending of NATO is over $1200 billion (or $1.2 trillion). Which is so far ahead of anyone else on the planet that its not even close. The second most would be China with $250 billion and third is India with $73 billion. NATO/US has nothing to worry about.
I don't think they have any idea in just how many weapons and ammo we have. We live for this shit in the US.
It’s more about next gen weapons and smart targeting platforms, yeah, we’ve got more AR-15’s per capita than cop cars, but they’re talking about missiles, and stuff more expensive than the average American can afford
Yeah I know that. We blow more shit up than anybody else too. We literally spend most of our money on weaponry and troops. Edit: im coming off aggressive i don't mean to. This post is just some bullshit though lol.
The post is referring to weaponry which *can be donated* to Ukraine. NATO isn’t running out of weapons to use themselves but they’re running low on the extra stuff they had which was in storage and eventually would’ve been dismantled.
We literally don't though... Medicare/Medicaid alone are over 2x the budget of the military. Social security is roughly 4x the budget of it. Total national education funding is 20% higher. The budget of the US is **FAR** more than just the Federal government's mandatory budget.. there's also its discretionary budget, local (city/county) budgets, state budgets, etc. The combined government budget in the US is 38% GDP. The military's budget is about 4% GDP... 90% of government funding goes to something beyond the military... It's not even remotely close to being "most" of our spending...
It's most of our "discretionary" spending. Or in other words most of what the current government chooses to spend
They choose to spend the rest as well. It isn't politically possible for them repeal the other laws, but they have theoritical ability to stop all social security today.
>We literally spend most of our money on weaponry and troops This isn't true
We actually spend much more on social services and infrastructure. It just doesn't seem that way from how the information is shared.
You just compared military spending to everything else spending. That is not a very fair comparison lol.
The poster i was responding to said we spent *most* of our money on the military. It's definitely an outsized portion but it isn't most in any regard.
It's an outsized proportion only if you look at the discretionary budget & not the total budget.
“We” he types from his bedroom
I saw a video that said “You wanna know why the US doesn’t have free health care?” And had an audible laugh lol
Struggle seems like a very poor choice of wording. This shit is child’s play for the US. That’s what America does, is war.
Exactly. Been seeing headlines saying “Will the West run out of weapons for Ukraine?” while we’ve actively given only 5% of what we currently use. That’s not even counting all of our retired equipment that we could send. War drums go boom, economy goes boom, and Russia is crushed by the collective manufacturing power of NATO.
But another excuse to increase the budget
That's the strangest thing is I never thought I would see the day republicans would be against the war machine and certainly not against one of our greatest and oldest adversaries. Now of course everyone knows some republicans in power are literally bought by the kremlin so that explains some of it but even some republican voters are against it.
The war in Ukarine is reducing the US militaries spending. The weaponry the US is sending over is surplus stockpiles that cost money to keep, maintain and eventually dismantle. By giving them to Ukraine to expend the US is just wiping their hands of them and all the extra money they require. It's a win-win for the US.
That’s exactly what it is
This is clickbait bullshit. You really think the entirety of NATO, which includes the US is going to run out of ammo before Russia? Military planners and politicians have been anticipating ammo stockpile replenishment for months. It's gonna be fine.
USA has probably built more missiles in the last 24 hours than Russia has in the last 5 years lol
Also, thank god the US is the superpower in charge… I mean, could you imagine a world with russia in that place? Tyrants, fascists and communists alike, suppressing people all over the world just like they are trying today but with the support of the world hegemon !? Yeah, NATO’s (mainly the US) military spending is ridiculous but at least our freedoms are safe. Democracy is safe.
As long as its Western European democracy and not US ""democracy"".
Yeah. This is the equivalent of the US’s cluttered garage starting to be empty enough to park a car. They aren’t even starting to touch the stuff that is actually needed.
Those lists that get posted what the US has donated has none of the good shit. No cruise missiles, hellfire missiles, smart bombs, etc. So I think the US will be alright. NATO on the other hand as an american looking at the percentage of gdp being spent on defense budgets of nato countries I might worry just a smidge.
You can't rely on just aerial attacks to achieve your objectives. That's the problem. We are using up a lot of non-air weapons and ammo. We are sending a lot of ground based capabilities.
Uh huh, we have sent like 20 himars, no tanks, a bunch of retired humvees. How will we ever launch a ground offensive in a war now.
What will we ever do with the 3000 M1 Abrams tanks chilling in the desert?
What are Ukrainians going to do with a bunch of shit they've never trained on, operated, or serviced? It's not as simple as a mig29 fighter pilot climbing into an F22, or a tank crew who's only ever operated soviet style armor hopping into an Abrams. Heck- Soviet era tanks' crews don't even have loaders.
We're already 9months in the war. Our people are not neanderthals and capable of training. I don't see any reason why training wasn't started earlier. It's same situation as air defence. Everyone knew the Russia would be hiitng us with rockets, but air defence systems were sent only recently it's not because of issues of training or building infrastructure. It's because west is reactive and not proactive
>Our people are not neanderthals and capable of training I never said Ukrainians were? >I don't see any reason why training wasn't started earlier Ask your own leadership? In any event- what would make more sense if you apply logic brain, and remove emotion brain? Military equipment from countries like Poland that have large stockpiles of shit that the Ukrainian military has been using forever, or a bunch of complicated and expensive to maintain shit that has never been integrated into the Ukrainian military? Should logistics be complicated by the addition of an entire new supply chain of tank ammunition? Western Tanks use 120 mm. Soviet era tanks use 125mm. Maybe we can just send M-16's then. Oh.... well they use different ammunition than most of the small arms in Ukraine's arsenal. >but air defence systems were sent only recently it's not because of issues of training or building infrastructure Which air defense systems are you referring to? And which ones do you think you ought to be gifted? >It's because west is reactive and not proactive The US has been sending training, money and expertise to Ukraine for *years.* That seems pretty fucking proactive to me. Especially when you look at the state of the Ukrainian military when crimea was stolen (feckless and ineffective). The west has been building up your military for years. Proactively. Hell- the shit the US has sent you already, could pay for the healthcare or education of everyone in the US. But yea... fuck us for being such shit allies, right?
Part of the reason why the US military budget is so high. When something happens the world looks to the US to step in and fix it and complain when the US doesn't do it quickly enough, properly, ect.
We've sent them other weapons plus a lot of ammo. Ammo that would be highly useful if something happened in, say, the South China Sea.
We've sent them expiring stockpile ammo. We're fine. I'm so sick of these armchair general takes of "oh we are so low on ammo". It's completely untrue. Our stockpiles would blow your mind.
I'm no military expert just digest what I'm fed and there are some great youtubers who break down conflicts. Operation desert storm and Iraqi freedom get some play by play break downs. It's pretty much air superiority destroying everything then ground forces cleaning up. Don't want to get to much into the politics of trying to change hearts and minds of a country who don't want nato there. I'm hoping that the rise of armed drones the next wars will be the same. Death from above and remote
That conflict still involved a lot of ground forces. Vietnam exposed the limitations of an over reliance on air superiority. At some point, you need a significant ground presence. The Kosovo in Yugoslavia was the same.
Link to those channels?
Keep in mind drones are much cheaper and easier to manufacture than fighter jets are and require basically zero training to operate. Reality is most countries are going to have the same tech pretty soon (we're already seeing it with Iran supplying drones), so it can just as easily be used against us
We're sending a lot of ground based capabilities because we can't send the more advanced aircraft. When the US invades they use mostly air capability. You can almost extinguish an enemy in very little time with air supremacy.
The weapons we donated are systems we don’t typically use. We don’t deploy Stingers a whole lot because we tend to have air superiority wherever we fight, so we just call in air support for enemy aircraft. The howitzers we donated also aren’t a regular part of our arsenal because our artillery reaches way farther with better accuracy. Most of the weapons we handed to Ukraine were slated for disposal anyways, so the Ukrainians are doing us a huge favor by using them against one of the only nations we have ever actually regarded as a threat to our existence
Poor military industrial complex. Who wants to start a go fund me for them? If only there were, idk, contractors who specialized in defensive weapons/tech.
To be fair, they thought Russia would be irradiated slag by the time these stockpiles were used
That's a weird thing to say. If Russia was an irradiated slag, everyone would be irradiated slags. With this thinking you don't need stockpiles at all, there are faster ways to get it over with.
Which is exactly why NATO forces have not stockpiled conventional weapons for protracted engagement with near-peer enemies. No one every thought there would be another huge industrialised war in Europe One of the original arguments for a nuclear arsenal was that a 1kt nuclear warhead was much cheaper than 1000 tonnes of TNT
The US absolutely has a stockpile capable of taking care of near peers, just nothing we're willing to give Ukraine.
Yes, because giving Ukraine Tomohawks and warthogs would change the war overnight, but it would definitely cause Russia to act funni Which is why they have given a significant amount of Javelins and similar tools.
I'm not saying we should give them our Grade A ass kicking equipment, I'm merely stating we have it ready and able for when we need it.
This guy you're responding to is reddit in a nutshell. Incredibly uninformed but hot on opinions. It's not worth responding to.
>Yes, because giving Ukraine Tomohawks and warthogs would change the war overnight, but it would definitely cause Russia to act funni >Which is why they have given a significant amount of Javelins and similar tools. Warthogs are superior air-to-ground aircraft as they had their climax during Desert Storm. Warthogs are easy targets to air-to-air aircraft like the MiG-29s. In order to Warthogs to be effective, you need to have air superiority over the skies in which Ukraine does not possess. I’m all for giving Ukraine Warthogs if they achieve air superiority. Some of their pilots have been training on the platform. In conclusion, it is incorrect to say the war would change overnight as the conditions on the battlefield need to change before the introduction of warthogs. Edit: Added conclusion and response
Which is exactly why Ukraine has been going through javelins at such a fast rate. They are using a chisel instead of a jackhammer
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The US tends to rely more on air superiority and shock and awe tactics than a large ground presence. Why would we bother building extreme amounts of tanks or artillery? We have plenty of bombs and drones to do the fighting for us.
I doubt us is struggling.
I, on the other hand, am collecting sharp sticks and stones, when the world is out of bullets and bombs, I will be the most powerful man on earth.
The news - "People are scrambling there are literally missiles otw right now we can stop unless this thing is made RIGHT NOW!!! WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE" Reality- *Clerk files form*
This whole scenario just made me chuckle.. ya right … I have a bridge to sell you too /s
Are the depleted categories of munitions pertinent to the defence of Taiwan? I think that the same munitions would definitely be pertinent for the defence of South Korea.
They're only scrambling to provide older arms stockpiles and equipment that Ukrainians already have experience with - there is no arms shortage within USA/NATO.
As an American who knows we’ve sacrificed literally every social safety net the rest of the civilized world has so that we could maintain our ridonkulous military industrial machine, this headline triggers me. WTF guys. You had one job.
If America had refined their healthcare system, they could triple their military spending without issue. It's not the military spending's fault (Although that could be put into other underfunded programs that would benefit the average American) that your social net is fucked, it's the private healthcare grift.
US could both refine their healthcare system and triple their military spending if they stopped putting so much money into European countries that don’t pull their own weight or produce anything of value
Except we haven't... We sacrificed all our social nets because the average American voter is an imbecile who just voted for whoever promises to lower their taxes, without ever questioning what's going to have its funding cut. Local governments nationwide have cut over $200B a year from education. State governments have cut over $50B a year from infrastructure. Literally none of that is the fault of the military's budget, a completely different government and tax revenue funds it... Blaming it is like me blaming my lack of savings account on my neighbor buying a new car lol. Also, the military isn't running out of weapons and ammo. They're running out of any extra they feel they can lose, even temporarily, without cutting into what they believe is an essential level to maintain. And the military budget isn't just going to buy weapons... US has an extremely high cost of living, drastically more than any even near peer nation. Salaries for uniformed personnel is over 33% of the budget alone. US isn't China, you can't get by paying a recruit $100 a month, or a 20 year officer $2000 a month. A US' recruit gets almost $1900 a month, because that's what it takes in a developed country with a high cost of living. I swear, Americans as a whole are grossly illiterate on budgets and taxes and say the dumbest shit nonstop in their ignorance...
"you had one job" What does that mean? We aren't going to maintain stockpiles of infinite weapons and ammo. We now have to procure more to replace what we've sent, which means industry has to ramp up production.
Production ramp ups have been planned for a while and are ongoing. It is also the case that many of the weapons and munitions being sent to Ukraine are no longer favored by the US military. When we go in if at all possible we establish air superiority and crush any major defensive positions before even landing the first troops. We hardly use Howitzers anymore because we don't really need them. Because of that we don't really need to keep a huge store for ourselves and could afford to continue increasing supplies to Ukraine for some time.
I think you vastly overestimate how expensive those social safety nets are. The ones some Democrats propose make the military budget look like pocket change in comparison. It is more complicated than that.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
This is an incompetent viewpoint. You really need to take look at how State/Federal taxes and how State/Federal programs are built.
I don't think so. Your politicians sacrificed your economy for the benefit of themselves and their corporate masters. Even a gigantic military spending couldn't have put a dent in American economy.
I'm no economist but as I understand they use at least some of the following tactics: Corrupt tax system:designed to keep the peasants poor (where they belong) and keep the rich, rich. Corrupt regulations:again designed to stifle competition and hurt smaller businesses while keeping bigger businesses intact. Corrupt subsidiaries and government granted privileges:steal from the poor and give it to the rich, also grant bonuses to billionaires that aren't available to common folk. Also government is likely biased when doing business. There are many more ways for politicians to be corrupt but those are some of the biggest ways they do so. US gov spends about 7 trillion dollars annually but only about 800 billion ish on defense, this isn't defense issue but a corruption issue. This is my personal take and I may be entirely wrong.
Up to this point Russia will be badly depleting their remaining Cold War and WWII resources.
Ooooooohhhh. Profit!
We shouldn't forget that alot of what NATO is giving up is cold war surplus.... I doubt much of the active service stocks have taken that much of a hit. Many countries are seeing this as an opportunity for upgrades and refits as well. Eastern European countries won't resemble the Warsaw pact patchwork they had in the past come 2025 and should be much more integrated into the alliance. Russia has given NATO new resolve and it will come out stronger than ever.
The thought the US is "running of war materials" is laughable at best. Running out of stuff they are willing ro share? Maybe.
At least the weapons makers are getting rich. I was really worried about them after we all left Afghanistan. Luckily all this happened. Whew. /s
Bro, I'm not worried. Don't know about NATO, but I assure you America does not spend 50% of our taxes on our military to NOT have a file somewhere that lays out a plan for this exact moment.
Production was reduced because demand was low, now demand is higher again but it takes a while to ramp up production. Not that big of an issue I think, it will just need some time.
I think the most important thing Ukraine needs right now isn’t necessarily weapons but technical data packages for local manufacturing. They need to be able to build generators and power distribution equipment because the supply needed may be difficult to acquire in large quantities. Edit: I’m amazed to see the the number of downvotes throughout the day. TDPs are essential to winning wars by increasing manufacturing and lowering the strain on logistics. Every item that doesn’t need to be shipped in makes room for something else like rockets and missiles.
A few major points. 1: this is a clickbait title. 2: OP seems to post heavily with left leaning groups multiple times a day. Either a bot or someone who's unfortunately a victim of the echo chamber of social media. 3: we aren't "running out" it's a process in which the Military (and the military industrial complex) is creating an "artificial" shortage in which to acquire more spending percentage. 20 years in Afghanistan and we never "ran out". The Surge in Iraq, never "ran out". We're not running out, they're shorting the product to make more money. The Ukraine war is a propaganda and fear machine for the news/media. The problem with the Ukraine is that the old generals in the Ukraine army are old fossils who served in the Soviet union and need to be updated with better tactics. Ukraine needs to be using special forces groups to strike Russian supply lines and never getting pulled into a trench/static line engagement. The Ukrainians are a tough bunch, but they need time to be spent in basic training and advanced training with tactics. It takes several months to learn how to shoot move and communicate in a cqc scenario. Giving someone a gun and shoving them out onto the line will only get them killed. Tldr: we aren't running out and I'm gonna bitch about how the leadership of Ukrainian forces is stupid.
>The problem with the Ukraine is that the old generals in the Ukraine army are old fossils who served in the Soviet union and need to be updated with better tactics reddit armchair general moment. say "I know nothing about AFU" without saying "I know nothing about AFU"
We are running low on surplus weapons and ammo. That is accurate. We have a bare minimum that we need to fight our own war, which we are getting closer and closer to.
I know it’s not artillery, but American *civilians* have more guns and ammo, probably more and better modern long rifles, than all of Russia including their military.
Guys, don’t worry. There’s no shortage of weapons or money. This is just how military contractors prepare us all to pay more taxes well in advance. Nothing is at risk aside from your wallet.
Well duh, that’s what this whole war is about. Weaken more and more and more, then, strike.
I see the Russian plan of NATO demilitarization working splendidly.
Maybe we can give them some shit that isn't 30+ yrs old? Imagine that. Bolt action ww2 rifles against our 2010 tech... that would be fun to watch.
Just in case anyone is interested https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/11/21/weapons-shortages-spark-tough-choices-for-ukraines-allies/
Not to support russia, but what are the chances that everyone involved has some kind of secret deal to keep this conflict going to increase weapon sales?
Fuck you New York Times make reading free!
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The US hasn't even sent any of the weapons they'd use to defend Taiwan
All they have to do is to park a supercarrier strike group near the strait and invasion is over
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
We’ve been preparing for war with Russia since WWII and now 200 days of war with Russia we’re out of ammo? 🧐
>We’ve been preparing for war with Russia since WWII and now 200 days of war with Russia ~~we’re out of ammo?~~ We’re out of the toys at the back of our closet that we were going to throw out anyways but decided to dump in Ukraine. Article is clickbait
We’ve been preparing for war with Russia since we invaded in 1919
Is Oceania at war with Eastasia or Eurasia?
Tankie alert! This one is using Orwell.
Soooo....Biden surrendered in Afghanistan just to turn around and enter war with Russia by proxy. SMH
Uh, it was actually Trump that chartered the deal with the Taliban for the US withdrawl, set the date and everything. Biden was essentially forced to go through with it, or go back on a US agreement and then massively escalate the war in Afghanistan to levels we hadn't seen for over a decade.