A Lockheed Martin plant in Camden, Arkansas, February 2023. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Foreign Affairs: How America Broke Its War Machine
Privatization and the Hollowing Out of the U.S. Defense Industry
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States pledged its “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.” This support has materialized in over $75 billion in security assistance to date, with the United States committed to aiding Ukraine until the fighting stops. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in announcing a new installment of weapons to Ukraine: “The United States and our allies and partners will stand united with Ukraine, for as long as it takes.”
These unlimited commitments to furnishing Ukraine with weapons to counter Russian aggression have invoked parallels to World War II. Weeks after the fighting began, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that the United States and its allies are “serving as the ‘arsenal of democracy,’ giving the defenders of freedom the material means to keep fighting” in Ukraine. Journalist Elliot Ackerman then wrote that the workers building missiles for Ukraine’s defense “are a key component of America’s arsenal of democracy.” President Joe Biden has also embraced the “arsenal of democracy” analogy. When he visited a Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Alabama, in May last year, Biden told the audience that the United States “built the weapons and the equipment that helped defend freedom and sovereignty in Europe years ago” and is doing so again today.
But this lofty rhetoric does not match the reality on the ground. Shortages in production, inadequate labor pools, and interruptions in supply chains have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly. These problems have much to do with the history of the U.S. defense industry since World War II. Creeping privatization during the Cold War, along with diminished federal investment and oversight of defense contracting since the 1960s, helped bring about the inefficiency, waste, and lack of prioritization that are complicating U.S. assistance to Ukraine today.
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WNU Editor: The above article is one of many in the past year detailing how inadequate America's industrial base has become when it comes to supplying the basics for the US military and to supplying the armaments that Ukraine needs.
11 comments:
Fluoridation of our ice cream stands and water supplies has befouled are bodily fluids and made us weak.
The gays win again. Nicholas Maduro.
I am not a crackpot.
It is broke. And it is not going to get better.
This is from an industry stand point and from the common soldier, sailor, marines stand point
It can't support any industry. Nevermind Ukraine it was fucked before that
Fluoridation?
You know the story of how that originated? It is not nefarious.
https://ptable.com/#Properties
Trolling, like 10:24 does, is your career track, when you are not command material; you are not bright enough for intel; and you don't want to get sent to the front.
While you are at it 10:24, you better check out your strontium levels. Some of your calcium got swapped out for strontium and no telling what that might do.
we are phucked! go to Mars and buy land.
Meanwhile Biden continues to take credit for Trump renegotiation of NAFTA.
Has nobody on this site seen Dr. Stranglove?
Purity of essence indeed.
"I am not a crackpot"
it is possible to be sane and an asshole. you meet that standard.
Look up the words sane and asshole. They are usually not compatible.
Perhaps. But I know some people who by most standards of psychiatry are called sane but for me they are nonetheless assholes. Perhaps you are not sane? Or are you an asshole? if not both.
Psychiatrists keep changing the diagnostic manual. We are in version 5.0 something. the Psychiatrists association are also known to bow to political or social pressure.
the word sane comes into the English language from Latin.
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