[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

the American strategy in Ukraine, one that gives the Ukrainian people just enough military aid not to lose their war but not enough to win it[...] is slowly bleeding Ukraine, and its people, to death.

[...] Lethal drones and reconnaissance drones alike are reshaping the battlefield at an unprecedented pace. The U.S. military has yet to reckon with this. The current family of low-cost, highly effective drones used by the Ukrainians are all manufactured in China.

Spoiler

No U.S. equivalent exists in the marketplace, as the efforts of several American companies have stalled. [...]

Achilles made his appeal with an urgency that American policy makers don't seem to share. The speed of innovation on the battlefield has made some long-awaited Western weapons systems all but obsolete by the time they were delivered. [...] Ukrainian soldiers at the front told us that any innovation they develop is countered by a Russian response within weeks. Both armies are innovating at a pace that is leaving the sclerotic U.S. and NATO defense industries behind. [...]

Zelensky [...] is now pleading simply for the delivery of weapons that have already been pledged. Currently, these delays are the result of U.S. Department of Defense protocols that affect the drawdown rates of U.S. stockpiles. [...] However, the United States is nowhere near such a crisis. If anything, and ironically, we keep our weapons in reserve for a crisis exactly like the one playing out in Ukraine. We must make those weapons available to those who would use them in our shared defense.

The Abandonment of Ukraine (The Atlantic - msn.com)

The obvious counterargument being that we might "need" some parts of those stockpiles to deter China from invading Taiwan, or in the event of a Chinese blockade and/or invasion... though I'd imagine that many things that are proving useful in Ukraine either couldn't easily be shipped to Taiwan past a Chinese blockade (fighter jets trying to rush in through enemy defenses to airdrop off tanks? not likely... nor rocket launchers, and I doubt there's some secret underground tunnel).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: Yesterday, 10:21 PM