The Great American Blunder
From a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. today has never been weaker than since the post-Vietnam era. Remember the images of U.S. helicopters taking off from its South Vietnamese embassy in 1975, loaded with refugees trying to escape the country?
It was a national humiliation.
So was the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2022. Desperate Afghans, eager to escape Taliban rule, clung to American transports leaving Kabul.
It might represent an even greater national humiliation.
In both cases, U.S. weakness was on full display for the world to see. Its defeat in Vietnam led to Soviet geopolitical gains throughout the world.
U.S. credibility around the world was restored during the 1980s as Reagan rebuilt the U.S. military into a powerful force.
U.S. geopolitical power peaked after its dramatic victory in the First Gulf War in 1991. But the U.S. proceeded to squander that power in the wake of 9/11, with strategic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, for the past 20 years, the U.S. focused on fighting terrorists that have limited combat capability, not serious rivals like Russia with significant conventional forces.
Wonder Weapons?
Many U.S. weapons systems supplied to Ukraine have proven to be inadequate or in some cases, total failures.
Patriot missile batteries cannot shoot down Russian hypersonic missiles. The Patriot batteries are being blown up one-by-one at a cost of $1 billion each.
U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles have been left in flames and ruins on the battlefields of Ukraine due to Russian mines.
The M-777 howitzers the U.S. and its allies have sent to Ukraine have proved too fragile to withstand the high rates of fire required on the Ukrainian battlefields.
And U.S. HIMARS precision artillery doesn’t always work because the Russians have learned to jam the guidance systems with electronic warfare techniques.
Don’t think that the rest of the world hasn’t taken note of all this.
Meanwhile, the U.S. industrial capacity to provide the weapons and ammunition to fight this type of attritional war is highly inadequate.
The U.S. produces about 14,000 artillery shells per month, which it hopes to double over the next few years. That might seem like a lot. But 14,000 shells is only enough to supply Ukraine for about a week at current firing rates.
On the other hand, it’s estimated that the Russians are producing anywhere from 250,000-400,000 shells per month.
