I was looking at the production numbers for stuff like thaad missiles and tomahawks. They’re all in the dozens annually and seemingly have been for ages.
Given the staggering numbers these are used in, and how it seems like the way the usa fights wars now is to launch stupid amounts at people, like multiple years worth in a day. What happens when they can’t? How close are they to that, interceptors are low atm but given there are hilarious announcements like: https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/over_1000_tomahawks_1900_aim_120s_500_sm_6s_per_year_us_moves_to_multiply_missile_production-17408.html I assume many offensive rockets are running low.
Is that level of production feasible? I know the usa has a surprising industrial base but a 20x increase in even one armament seems ambitious, do they have the factories mothballed? The skilled workers? The raw materials?
If they don’t is there any inkling of what their military people intend to do when they can’t realistically threaten to park a fleet off your coast and level your cities?
I’m not a military nerd, just a random person if I’m missing sometimes obvious or said sometimes funny.
I mean the long and short of it is we have no idea. We think the interceptors are running out. Movements of THAAD batteries from South Korea to West Asia seem to imply that. B52s strapped with cruise missiles are replacing a lot of Tomahawk strikes, which again implies they’re running out of those missiles. It seems Iran launches fewer drones and missiles, but more get through, again implying lack of interceptors. But we really don’t know what their stockpiles are, the fog of war is thick.
As for manufacturing, it’s functionally impossible to scale up manufacturing in the United States in a way that would make any difference for this current war. It is possible that they do so after, realising it is a fool’s errand to fight China without having any real weapons manufacturing base, especially when they depleted their stockpiles in this farcical “special military operation,” but that would require rejecting the God of Short Term Profit. Unlikely that the current rulers of the USAmerican Empire would make such a choice.
Thr long term effects of this is worldwide rearmament. Users like @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net have been predicting this for a long while, and I think after this war it’s even more likely. Countries within the empire are seeing the United States cannot protect them. They do not have the arms nor the will to do so. The obvious answer is you need to develop your own arms industry, your own defensive platforms, your own missiles, etc. The empire is always gonna prioritise Israel (look at Ukraine rn, or the Gulf, both of which, despite being more “important,” are getting no arms).
The empire is always gonna prioritise Israel (look at Ukraine rn, or the Gulf, both of which, despite being more “important,” are getting no arms).
Why do they put so much weight on Israel though? I know their sole existence is being the USA’s feral dog in the Middle East so they are always a good bet for the USA, but don’t Gulf states also matter a lot to them since they’re already puppet states that unlike Israel also have a ton of oil to provide them?
Ideally for the USA they would spread power to Israel and also a number of their protectorates in the area so there isn’t a single point of failure and is also easier for the US to surround Iran.
I suppose the reason is that they lack the resources to do this efficiently so they fully commit to keeping Israel powerful instead.
It’s because the folks running the empire don’t understand how the empire works anymore. Israeli propaganda is very very very good, as is American propaganda about the importance of Israel. Combine this with lack of understanding of how power actually flows, white supremacy (Israelis are definitely more “white” than Arabs), and apocalyptic Christian shit and boom you get this insane focus on Israel at the expense of the far more important vassal states in the Gulf that actually matter economically.
Book of Revelation doesn’t say nothin’ about the gulf states
I think its something to do with the limitations of reach towards periphery from imperial core. Israel is utilized as an extension of the imperial core, and has been designed for that role, in order to more effectively enact fascistic expropriation through the periphery from the rest of the global south. Seemingly, distance is important
Yeah i’m pretty sure it’s because of all the epstein shit
Users like @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net have been predicting this for a long while
Gone when we needed them most, RIP. Would have loved to read a 5 paragraph effort post on the 15th 5 year plan outline that just came out.
What happened to xiaohongshu?
XHS just logs off for long stretches sometimes
Gets sick of our liberalism smh
Something happened, so the head of the ‘Nothing ever happens’ gang has gone into hiding.
I don’t mean just this war, in general the usa has been using bombs at rates that it seems are above production for 25 years. The state of foreverwar they’ve been in seems unsustainable to say the least.
Am I just wildly underestimating the arms manufacturing power?
What the fuck? It’s a trillion dollar government program. Is it just so rotten with corruption that you can’t keep it stocked? I heard there was just in time production of supplies even there? I guess I just imagined it an oasis in the desert. There are trillion dollar companies, but there’s a trillion in liquid money going to a concentrated number of people. If a trillion dollars doesn’t buy you forever war then a dollar ain’t what it used to be
Is it just so rotten with corruption that you can’t keep it stocked?
Yes.
Remember when Jon Stewart went viral for that time he was chewing into some bureaucrat about the military not being able to pass an audit? Seems like the bureaucrat should be the one interested in making sure that money is well spent.
It seems like it would serve bourgeoisie interests to have a good war machine especially if you intend to use it to do violent extraction. Wanting to profit from corruption and also profit from violent extraction seems removed a contradiction that is currently hightening. Has anyone looked into this? Thank you for your attention on this matter
This don’t work like that, of course that well working military machine would be in a long time more profitable for the MIC, but capitalism work in the short time. And it’s not like they don’t know it, but the failing rate of profit ruthlessly promote grift over real economy and capitalism also makes worst dregs of humanity to the top, so their chief philosophy is “apres mois, le deluge”. All this was already pointed out by Marx as one of capitalist contradictions.
Also, USA has been at war for as long as it existed and that grift never failed yet, so why change things now?
in general the usa has been using bombs at rates that it seems are above production for 25 years
That doesn’t add up. I think you’re confusing JDAMs and hellfires for patriots and THAADs here.
No it does, in one of the articles tervell posted on the Ukraine war, they said the botleneck was explosives production. Then someone argued that the lack of artillery production didn’t matter because the us uses some acronym bombs that are better(they are not, canon artillery delivers orders of magnitude more volume), without addressing that the botleneck was chemical precursors to explosives, and that acronym bombs are presumably also made of explosives.
Chemical shortages explains why the US hasn’t scaled up artillery production. That shortage can be explained by the US’s shift to expensive “smart bombs” which are allegedly more efficient with their explosives. You can’t conclude from that the US has been under producing smart bombs for 25 years.
It’s an issue of volume. The explosives, can be made into bombs, artillery, missiles, etc, but the volume of whatever is made is limited. They can’t produce enough volume of whatever is the end product. The claim that bombs are better than a trusty cannon, is a way to justify the lack of production. But there is a still a lack of production, due to problems in the chemical industry.
It really sounds like the shift to smart bombs caused a scale down in explosive chemical production, which prevents a re-scaling up of dumb bombs.
For what your arguing to be true, the chemical problems have to be beyond the market forces, something like a raw input shortage. If you’ve got the article from tervell you cited handy, please share. Or at least tell me how far back in his timeline I should dig and any keywords, etc.
It was years ago, I’m not gonna look for it, but he posted another article on similar issues earlier today.
As I understand it is market forces that prevent investment, variable demand discourages increasing capacity.
In Iraq they used 800 tomahawks, that’s around 16 years production. a few hundred in Syria/against the houthies etc. A bunch elsewhere.
The empire is always gonna prioritise Israel (look at Ukraine rn, or the Gulf, both of which, despite being more “important,” are getting no arms).
Just normal vassal treatment here, sacrificing every other vassal for them
No… no its not.
There definitely isn’t enough time to build out the facilities to ramp up production. These aren’t fin stabilized bombs. These are very technically advanced doohickies and require lots of specialized equipment, personnel, and facilities to manufacture.
Most of these munitions are going to require a network of radar installations to have any shot of functioning, everything from early warning to target acquisition. Having more munitions but them being blind… is a bit of a problem.
As munitions get low, the launchers are going to start showing signs of wear and tear, being damaged in attacks, or being outright destroyed. So having more fancy missiles stops being useful. Maybe its easier to build more launchers than the missiles but if the USA is balking at having more manufacturing capacity for the missiles why wouldn’t this also apply to the launchers.
All the while, somebody has got to figure out how to get all the stuff from the USA or Europe to the Western Asia area to be installed in the countries who are being attacked by Iran and other resistance groups. With Iran and those other resistance groups being pretty open about why these USA aligned countries are being attacked, “Stop working with the USA/Israel, who are attacking us, and we will leave you alone.” At some point, the math is going to work out for some countries where "Hey, the USA has already failed to protect us once when they had all sorts of fancy radar installations, launchers and munitions for the launchers… now that they are rushing to rebuild the radar sites, launchers and munitions… why not take those resistance groups up on their offer of “we’ll stop the attacks when you stop letting the USA/Israel do {insert thing here} on your country’s soil?”
Tell the American taxpayer we are winning the war. Then place an order for more.
Im eating all the guns and ammo and missilea mmmm yim yumny
I wouldn’t be surprised if they switched to a hyper-aggressive, Korean War-style approach if their defensive weapons ran out.
