Globalization, Ukraine Aid Has Drained US Military’s Ability to Fight Great Power War
12:06 GMT 28.04.2023 (Updated: 13:29 GMT 28.04.2023)
© AP Photo / Matt Rourke
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US media reported this week that the loss of America’s sole operational black powder plant to a massive explosion has left the defense sector lacking a critical component for bullets, bombs, mortar and artillery shells and missiles. But this problem is just the tip of the iceberg, says former US Army HQ Staff Officer David T. Pyne.
The destruction of the black powder factory in Minden, Louisiana in June 2021 left the US military-industrial complex dependent on stockpiles and foreign imports of the crucial material – small amounts of which are required in key ordnance like 155mm howitzer shells and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The Department of Defense and the plant’s new owners hope the plant will reopen and resume operations later this year after being refurbished.
How did the US end up in a situation where it came to depend on a single plant for its entire supply of black powder? Post-Cold War cutbacks and "consolidation," Pyne says.
“During the Cold war, the US had a seemingly vast number of weapon, explosive and munition manufacturers but since then the Department of Defense has encouraged the consolidation of suppliers reducing the number to a much smaller number of large manufacturers,” the expert, who now serves as deputy director of national operations of the EMP Task Force National and Homeland Security, told Sputnik in an interview.
But the problem is much deeper, according to Pyne.
“The US decision to pursue policies of globalization over the past few decades, in which the US has outsourced and offshored tens of thousands of its high-tech manufacturing plants to other countries including the PRC has served to massively reduce US military industrial production capabilities while China now has a manufacturing base twice as large as ours. Unilateral free trade with China is a policy that both parties have championed since the 1990’s until the Trump administration increased tariffs on Chinese goods. What’s worse, is that the US purchases ninety percent of its rare earths, which are necessary to produce advanced weapon systems from China even though we have rare earths in abundance here in the US. Accordingly, in the event of a prolonged conventional war with Russia and China, the chances of the US prevailing are in considerable doubt,” the observer explained.
The Biden administration has made things worse by sending vast stocks of Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers and Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, despite the fact that it will take “nearly a decade” to replenish them even if production rates are accelerated, Pyne lamented.
27 April 2023, 12:27 GMT
“The Biden administration is essentially unilaterally disarming the US military and prioritizing the defense of Ukraine, a country which the US has no security commitments to and no national interest in defending whatsoever. Thanks to Biden’s decision to ship tens of thousands of missiles, rockets and over four million rounds of heavy ammunition including artillery rounds to Ukraine, the US is ill-prepared to fight a great power war against Russia or China. A recent congressional wargame showed that the US would run out of long-range precision guided munitions after the first day of high-intensity combat with the PRC if Biden decided to go to war with China to defend Taiwan,” the national security expert stressed.
Meanwhile, Pyne noted, Washington lawmakers are engaged in political theater in a new House resolution “affirming” that it will be US policy to see Ukraine emerge “victorious” against Russia.
The resolution is nothing but pie in the sky rhetoric, according to the former Army officer, who points out that Russia is 35 times larger than Ukraine, has an economy that’s 11 time bigger, and has “five times more people, tanks, combat aircraft and artillery systems" than Ukraine, not to mention nuclear weapons.
“According to a recent estimate, Ukraine would need at least two-three million troops to retake control of its lost territory and they are already running out of troops to mobilize after suffering nearly 150,000 troops killed in action and nearly 300,000 wounded. As the Russian Foreign Ministry stated back in September when it called for a cease-fire to end the war, Russia had achieved most of the objectives of its special military operation by that time and believed it could achieve the rest by purely diplomatic means,” Pyne emphasized.
Pointing to the revelations in the so-called Pentagon leaks, the expert said that they not only show a lack of confidence in Washington about Kiev’s ability to make substantive gains in its long-awaited “spring offensive,” but that “behind the scenes, the administration has reportedly informed Ukrainian leaders that they need to try to retake as much territory during this offensive as the US will not be able to continue providing heavy weapons and ammunition…past summer of this year and that the war will only end at the negotiation table as Russian leaders have been stating for the past year.”
9 April 2023, 18:42 GMT
Pyne is at least heartened by the fact that both of the top Republican contenders in 2024 – Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, support a ceasefire to end the Ukrainian quagmire, before it escalates into a full-scale shooting war between Russia and NATO. On the Democratic side, top Biden challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has similarly laid out a plan to end the US and NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
For more of Pyne’s analysis on the House Resolution, check out Sputnik’s Telegram post here.
