We’re Sending So Much to Ukraine, We Are Leaving Ourselves Wide Open

The escalation of U.S. weaponry provided to Ukraine is stunning. We started with Stinger surface-to-air missiles to shoot down Russian aircraft, and Javelin missiles, which are potent anti-tank weapons. Next, we provided the HIMARS system, which is a long-range heavy artillery piece with precision-guided shells.

Since then, the U.S., UK, and Germany have pledged to provide top-of-the-line tanks including the U.S. Abrams tank, the UK Challenger, and the German Leopard II. Without skipping a beat, Ukraine’s President Zelensky demanded F-16 fighter jets.

All of this has been backed up with billions of dollars of intelligence, surveillance, and communications systems designed to spot Russian targets and direct the application of U.S. weapons. Ukrainian causalities have been high, nonetheless. Some sources indicated that as many as 20,000 Polish troops are on the front lines dressed in Ukrainian uniforms, making them foreign mercenaries. U.S. and UK forces are also on the ground there not in uniform, which is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

None of this has been particularly effective. Ukraine is losing the war badly. Many of the weapons pledged (including the tanks) have not actually arrived and may not be ready for six months or more.

The F-16s are a pipe dream because Ukrainian pilots don’t know how to fly them, and training can take almost a year. Still, apart from their effectiveness, another question arises. Can the U.S., UK, and Germany actually afford to provide these weapons without damaging their own readiness in the event of wars elsewhere?

This article answers that question. The fact is Western arsenals have been badly depleted because of the weapons and ammunition provided to Ukraine. The European arsenals were not large to begin with, but even the U.S. supplies dropped into the danger zone.

The situation is worse than that because the shortages cannot be made up quickly. The U.S. has shut down many ammunition factories. These can be restarted but full wartime mobilization takes years, not weeks.

World War II is a good example. By 1945, the U.S. was producing wartime aircraft at a rate of over 100,000 planes per year. But in 1941, that number was only 18,000. The Ford Motor Co. basically stopped automobile production and converted its huge River Rouge factory to aircraft production for the duration. That six-fold increase in fighters and bombers took four years to achieve. It was not done in months.

It’s fair to ask if this war is worth it in broad terms. It’s even more pointed to ask if it’s worth jeopardizing U.S. national security by running down vital inventories of weapons to prop up a corrupt oligarchy in Eastern Europe. The American people may discover the hard way that the answer to both questions is “no.”

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