One lesson from the War in Ukraine: The USA is not materially ready for a big war. Our post-Cold War manufacturing ability is pathetic. We can’t produce enough artillery shells for Ukraine, our stockpiles were not adequate, are now depleted and will take years to replenish. And artillery shells are relatively simple and just one example. I just heard we are having to import explosives because we can’t produce enough of our own. Our entire defense industry has been consolidated, just-in-timed, off-shored, shrunk down to paltry peacetime replacement capacity only levels with little excess capacity for emergencies. We’ve been sleeping.
It’s not just the USA. Europe is not in much better shape. None of us are ready for a really big, sustained war. We’ve started rebuilding some of our defense industrial capacity, but it will take years to replenish our depleted weapons stockpiles let alone supply our allies and Ukraine.
Enough talk, now is the time to do.
