World News

Yeah, the real problem isn't sending weapons to Ukraine, it's the problem that occurs when Ukraine runs out of ammo, or people to operate said weapons.

The US (and NATO) has often measured its ability to wage war by spending (in dollars, or percentage of GDP). Spending on single high tech missiles that costs millions are included here. So those numbers look really impressive. But if those missiles aren't being used (because they're too expensive, or we can't risk them being recovered and reverse engineered), and are kept in reserve indefinitely, then what remains is an ammunition gap.

Furthermore, I am of the strong opinion that Ukraine loses, eventually, unless NATO boots are on the ground in Ukraine, and NATO planes are in the air above. It doesn't matter what the exchange ratio of casualties is once the available manpower in Ukraine is low enough. And without air superiority, Russia wins a ground war given enough time.

I realize that NATO boots on the ground constitutes an escalation. So we should do it slowly, like turning up the temperature on the pot of frogs.

Lastly, if we're going to spend so many billions on missiles, they should be ABMs (anti ballistic missiles).

I am but an armchair general, sitting comfy in Canada. I've got a family map of Ukraine here with Melitopol circled that says "grandfather's birthplace" -- my family fled due to Russification 120 years ago. It seems Russia never changes.

Mass late-game zergling strategy?

Even so, historically it has been effective.

Keep in mind this is just a all too often rehashed myth and didnt reflect the sorry state of the German military where 2.75 million horses were the number one logistics transport, among many other shortcomings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horses_in_World_War_II

And Winter. Don't forget the winter.

The Ukrainians are not Nazis, nor are they invading Russia.

The Germans were artisans.

They could build beautiful tanks in a beautiful way the west could only dream of. They kept skilled workers doing a craft that was the envy of workers around the world.

An American tank was fixed with replaceable parts punched out on a factory line by a women with 2 hours of experience. Germans tanks were unique and were taken back and repaired in a factory that had been bombed 3 times.

Ukraine's inability to establish complete air superiority is what is making Russia's ability to sacrifice its own people in droves a viable strategy and tactic. NATO (and the US specifically) has spent decades ensuring that it can establish complete control of the skies within a few days of the outbreak of hostilities; when you have air superiority in a theater, waves of infantry and massive amounts of artillery just turns into targets for air-based weapons platforms which cannot currently operate in Ukraine due to Russia's ability to maintain its AA systems. These AA systems are a non-issue in a NATO conflict due to the money and time which has been poured into developing stand-off munitions and stealth platforms designed to cripple AA and even detection systems.

Israel was able to execute the Bekaa Valley Turkey Shoot forty years ago because of NATO (US) weapons platforms and strategic vision. Ukraine is unable to establish air superiority because they don't have enough of the former.

In a total war wartime economy Europe would dwarf Russias production and acquisition capabilities.

One estimate has put Russian artillery shell production at 7x the combined production of all of NATO.

In practice this isn't as bad as it seems for NATO, that production goes into other things like aircraft and naval armaments, but in terms of supplying Ukraine it's a problem unless you want to loan them an entire air force.

And, of course, there's the simple reality than 10 artillery shells at ~$800 a pop are still an order of magnitude cheaper than a single Hellfire at ~$150k.