Military

US Risks Undermining Own Military by Arming Ukraine and Israel

In the aftermath of Hamas' surprise attack, Israel requested military support from the US, primarily Iron Dome missile interceptors to strengthen the nation's air defenses. Does it mean the US will supply its rockets and shells to Israel instead of Ukraine?
Sputnik
The Pentagon has sent the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean and moved to deploy additional US Air Force fighter aircraft squadrons in the region. Some military supplies have already been provided to Tel Aviv under the 2018 Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Israel for security assistance.

"It's already on," Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. "It's already going to be on. I'm sure [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky realizes that the US is much more favorable toward Israel because of the number of Jewish Americans in the United States and the Jewish lobby in Congress, it's quite extensive. Ukraine doesn't have that kind of a representation in the Congress. American people do not want a war with Russia. So that's basically what would occur if we continued unabated any assistance to Ukraine. So for the White House, it's at a very serious crossroads in geopolitical thinking on what direction we go. And I think we're going to be seeing a competition between the two for assistance. We have ironclad commitments with Israel in terms of Iron Dome. We help them develop it, in fact."

Analysis
Why US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel
If Israel launches its ground operation in Gaza and the war with Hamas spirals into a wider regional conflict, Israel would need not only ammunition but artillery, probably bombs that would be dropped from aircraft, according to the military expert. The problem is, however, not that either Israel or Ukraine would get more or less arms, but what would be left for the US own military forces, he stressed.
"So you're probably going to see more Iron Dome rockets going and launchers and they could easily get more aircraft. We have a surplus of those, but the US stockpile will be limited. Howitzers, bombs and artillery - It's all been going to Ukraine. And the question is what is our own standing with our own US military in terms of its preparedness? And nobody's talking about that. And I think that some of the reports I've heard are that they're wanting and they're having to delay shipments to the US military because it's all going at that point, when I heard the reports, going to Ukraine," Maloof said.
Analysis
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Per the former Pentagon analyst, the US capabilities to supply its allies aren't limitless. So, in order to flood its allies with shells and bombs it would have to restructure its economy. The question is whether the American people want that, according to Maloof.
"The United States then will have to make some very serious decisions in terms of production at home on the scale that we saw during World War ll, where industries would have to switch from peacetime production to wartime. Is that what we want? The American people I know right now don't want that. They don't feel this urge to fight other people's wars all the time, simply because we've been at it since 2001."
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