Another “Wonder Weapon” Won’t Help Ukraine. They’re Losing the War.

The history of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine over the past year is one of complete failure.

The U.S. supplied M777 howitzers to Ukraine and then proceeded to run out of the 155 mm shells used by that artillery.

The U.S. supplied HIMARS precision-guided artillery only to discover that the Russians could jam the GPS signals needed to guide the projectiles so they landed randomly without hitting targets.

The U.S. supplied Patriot anti-missile batteries at $1 billion each, only to see them destroyed by Russian hypersonic missiles that the Patriot system can’t hit.

U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles have been left burning on the battlefield due to Russia mines. The same is true for the German Leopard tanks and the British Challenger tanks.

One after the other, U.S. and NATO arms shipments have proved worthless due to obsolesce, incompetence, or superior Russian technology. Now we learn that the U.S. and NATO are ready to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets that will supposedly level the playing field and give Ukraine much improved air power against Russian positions.

Let’s look at the problems with this.

The F-16s are coming from the Netherlands and Denmark. No specific number has been promised and the delivery itself won’t happen until “conditions for such a transfer have been met.” There is no clarification of what those conditions are.

The planes won’t be delivered until Ukrainian pilots have been trained, which will take at least six months. (Actual F-16 pilot training takes a year or longer beginning with pilots who are already proficient on other jets).

A huge amount of logistical support, jet fuel, and spare parts are needed to support the F-16 operations. No one knows where that support is coming from.

Ukrainians who will support the F-16s have to learn technical English even to take training and read the instruction and maintenance manuals. There are no runways in Ukraine capable of supporting F-16 missions and the Russians would blow them up if there were.

If the F-16s actually did get into the air, they would be shot down by Russian S-400 anti-missile systems, putting more burning wreckage on display to demonstrate NATO military weakness.

Assuming all of those obstacles could be overcome (they won’t be), the earliest the F-16s might see action is late 2024; the war is likely to be over by then with a Russian victory.

In any case, the whole thing is a scam because the Netherlands and Denmark want to dump their obsolete F-16s anyway in order to buy more advanced F-35s from Lockheed Martin.

So, this is really about making money for U.S. defense contractors and upgrading NATO while pretending to help Ukraine. Pity the Ukrainians.

Corporate leaders and institutional fiduciaries looking to incorporate state of the art predictive analytics to their risk mitigation and strategic analysis should click the link to learn more about Raven Predictive Analytics®.