Yury Kobzar22:26, 03.10.23
The old strategy for supporting Western armies showed its unsuitability for the demands of a full-scale war.
NATO countries are already “seeing the bottom” in their own arms stocks, so further supplies to Ukraine should come from new production. This was stated by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, at the Warsaw Security Forum, writes BBC .
According to him, decades of insufficient investment in the NATO military-industrial complex led to the fact that partner countries were forced to supply Ukraine with weapons from the arsenals of their own armies, but now their ammunition depots are already half empty.
Bauer noted that the “just-in-time, just-enough” strategy of military production that has dominated the West for the past 30 years is not suitable for wartime. “We need large volumes,” the admiral said, explaining the need to increase the work of the military-industrial complex.
British Undersecretary for Defense James Heappie agreed that the just-in-time, just-enough model “certainly doesn’t work when you need to be ready for tomorrow’s fight.”
“We can’t stop just because our supplies look a little thin. We have to keep Ukraine in the fight tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. And if we stop, that doesn’t mean Putin will automatically stop,” he said Hippie noted that NATO should supply weapons to Ukraine straight from the assembly line and at the same time restore its own reserves.
Swedish Defense Minister Paul Johnson said it was vital for Europe to get its defense industrial base into shape to support Ukraine in the long term. “We’ve learned some hard lessons here about scale and volume, at least when it comes to artillery ammunition,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon warned that previously allocated funding for American aid to Ukraine is already on the verge of exhaustion. As Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said, the White House has $1.6 billion remaining for this purpose, so it is important that Congress approve the next round of funding.
“We need Congress to act to ensure there is no disruption to our support. As (Defense Secretary Lloyd) Austin said on Saturday, we call on Congress to live up to America’s commitment to provide urgently needed assistance to the people of Ukraine as they fight to defend their own country.” against the forces of tyranny,” CNN quoted the spokesperson as saying .
According to Singh, these remaining $1.6 billion will be spent depending on the current priorities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – on air defense, artillery, and mine clearance equipment.
Western aid to Ukraine – latest news
As UNIAN wrote, today US President Joe Biden held talks with partners and allies to assure them that the United States will continue to help Ukraine in the fight against the Russian aggressor. Such assurances were needed because on Saturday the US Congress approved a temporary budget that included no spending at all to support Ukraine.
Meanwhile, problems are emerging on the horizon not only from Washington. As The Guardian writes, gradual fatigue with the costs of supporting Ukraine is growing in other Western countries. Particularly in the UK .
(C)UNIAN 2023
Breaking: U.S. House speakership is now vacant.
Maybe @bert should do it in the meanwhile.
A Bert would just propose a bill to give a trillion of dollars to Ukraine to buy arms,
and then he would disappear and would never be seen again in Washington D.C.
^bert
They do have (I forget the fancy word for it) a temporary. However Im not sure they ever made it solid that the speaker had to be from the House.
Patrick McHenry is the interim speaker, but he can’t do much.
Not only need the speaker not be a member of the House, they don’t need to hold any office or be a politician.
“he can’t do much” –
Apparently, all he can do is recess, adjourn, and hold votes for a new speaker.