Because they’re at war and we’re not. Without a command economy, if we want to bump up our shell production for instance, we need a business that is willing to build a factory that makes and sells shells. But what happens to that business after the Russo-Ukrainian War is over, and the shell consumption dries up? Who buys the shells, and what happens to those investors that paid for the factory? Will they pull a profit, or won’t they?
This makes it more challenging to simply “build more shells”. It’s also why S Korea being willing to sell shells would be very helpful. Unlike most of NATO, which prefers to drop explosives from aircraft rather than shoot them out of tubes when an enemy needs blowing up, S Korea has a massive artillery-based army, and routinely goes through large numbers of shells just over the course of regular training for their mandatory military service. They’re the only ones in our entire alliance sphere that could potentially satisfy much of Ukrainian shell hunger without some huge, economically impractical build-up. They have laws against war profiteering, however.
This is why getting Ukraine our jets is so important. Jets are our thing, we have those munitions factories already, nobody will simply go out of business after the war is over and Ukraine stops needing missiles and JDAMs.
Anyways, I assume that’s more or less what the article said. It’s not a complicated concept.
I assume that’s more or less what the article said.
When even the best commenter doesn’t read the article. 😂
The USA has an ok supply chain, but Europe’s supply chain has been crap for decades.
Until the Ukraine War, a lot of European countries never had to care about defense as important policy. They could rely on the USA if something happened and call it a day. Now, there is a decent risk that something could happen to then and the USA wouldn’t respond.
Depends heavily on the item. With artillery shells most notably, we haven’t been making them in really significant numbers for a lot of years. Something like small arms ammunition isn’t so much an issue for us though.
Without a command economy, if we want to bump up our shell production for instance, we need a business that is willing to build a factory that makes and sells shells.
I don’t know, maybe don’t leave the security of your country to private businesses?
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Because quantity over quality…
Quantity has a quality of it’s own
