Is the Empire Functional Enough to Take Advantage of Russia’s Snail Pace in Ukraine?

There is an opportunity. But is the Empire capable of seizing it?

In 1940 the US was on the way to become the supplemental industrial defense sector of Britain and especially of France.

The American way of war is vastly different from the kind of war Ukraine is fighting. The composition of the Ukrainian military is vastly different, and what Ukraine needs is vastly different from what America has in greatest abundance.

The US is an air superpower and does most of its fighting from the air. Even when it fights with aerial drones these are still some of the largest and most expensive drones in existence.

What Ukraine needs the most are artillery, small drones, and loitering munitions (kamikaze drones). But it is precisely these weapons that America uses only sparingly, because it does the same things with heavier and more expensive systems like fighters and multi-million dollar drones.

If the US sticks to transferring to Ukraine only what it can spare from its stockpiles and arsenals, and only from current production then that will not be game-changing. It will drive up the price of Russian victory in blood and time, but won’t ultimately radically alter the outcome.

To affect the outcome in a great way the US would have to radically ramp up production. And by ramping up I mean by orders of magnitude.

The US could certainly do it. America has exploited its reserve currency status to outsource much of its manufacturing abroad and not have to work for a chunk of its consumption. But there is no doubt that when they put their mind to it the Americans are *without equal* in churning out military gear at great speed and very well-made to boot.

However this would require sinking a ton of money into expanding production lines that would become redundant the moment the war in Ukraine ended. 

It would mean hiring many thousands of new workers, expanding and retooling many factories, knowing all of this great effort and expense would soon become unneeded and obsolete. Majority of the new workers would have to be fired with severance, and all the new and expanded plants would have to be closed or re-tooled to something else again.

It is a cost that the private sector is certainly not going to bear.

No self-respecting plant owner is going to sink hundreds of millions into expansion knowing the demand is likely to evaporate in just a few years or even months.

The only way this happens is if the US government is willing to bear the costs. If it is willing to finance these expansions knowing the new capacity may soon become redundant.

So far I do not see the evidence of this.

By failing to secure its objective in Ukraine quickly Russia has created the opportunity for America to interfere in a game-changing fashion by becoming a true military-industrial complex of Ukraine.

Now it remains to be seen if the US will seize this opportunity or not.

This will tell us something about the nature of the Empire. Is it ruthless. Is it capable of mercilessly and maximally exploiting every miscalculation of its enemies?

Will the US punish Russian setbacks in Ukraine to a radical degree as it is in America’s power if it is willing to mobilize on the defense production front? 

Or is the Empire relatively ineffective itself, with numerous domestic obstacles standing in the way?

We’ll find out soon enough.

I suspect that the US will be slow and reluctant to do what it would truly take to make a massive difference. However, that does not mean that Kremlin gifting the US this opportunity at all wasn’t irresponsible and less than competent.

That said I must profess myself ignorant about how much goes into manufacturing a small (kamikaze or not) drone. Does ramping up the production of the same also require massive investments? Perhaps not, especially if numerous components can be purchased from abroad.

 

16 Comments
  1. Agarwal says

    I doubt the USA will ramp up production to some sort of mythical WW2 level for a number of reasons. There is a lot of dysfunction in the American system as I and almost everyone living inside the USA can see. Great cities like NYC, SF, LA, Chicago, which are the economic engines of what is left of America’s economy, are plagued by relatively easily solved problems that instead go unaddressed. The amount Congress earmarked for Ukraine is a drop in the bucket of recent American spending, but would go a long way to fixing urban American dysfunctions. That those dysfunctions are left to linger in exactly the places where the American elite live, work and play says a lot about the state of the country. What I am saying in a round about way is that the American system is not ruthlessly rational.

    I see the American strong support for Ukraine as not primary about realpolitik, but as a welcome escape from the depressing realities of decline and dysfunction around us. It’s a pretty daydream in the USA, arming a freedom loving European people trying to escape the new Hitler.

    Also, I think American manufacturing is more far gone than the author might think. There has been a significant deindustrialization even compared to 20 years ago, forget about 40 or 50 years ago. Whole segments of skills have almost disappeared, and America is used to buying almost everything from China. Relying on American IP (enforcement of which against China is based on nothing except Chinese goodwill) and ingenuity (increasingly focused on worthless speculative or socially destructive areas like social media, NFTs/crypto, the metaverse) to maintain its economic position.

    If America did ramp up production to try to break Russia once and for all, this would also invite a Chinese reciprocal response. And at this point I think China can outproduce the USA to the same degree that the USA can outproduce Russia. China is staying aloof so far, but if faced with a real collapse of Russia and Russia’s 1990s style reabsorption into the West as an economic colony, and a spectacular success for the USA which would encourage similar efforts with goading China over taiwan, I think China would come out openly in favor of arming and helping Russia.

    1. Tom says

      USA is a nation that has been raped, robbed and pillaged by the very same Khazars who are now raping, robbing and pillaging Ukraine.

  2. YakovKedmi says

    You start from a false premise, and go downhill from there. The fact, on the ground, is, Empire NATO has plenty of time, Empire Russia has none. Empire USA likes long wars —there is no money in short ones.

    By now everyone is forced to acknowledge that the planning department of Empire USA is a lot better than the planning department of Empire Russia. All those spies (1,000 ?, 2,000?, 10,000?) whom the Russian Empire employs to gather information and to provide situation reports, cluster-failed. They either lied profusely or they really had no idea that the Obama & Biden administration were their enemies, that the people of Ukraine, the foot-soldiers in the Army will NOT fold, but make a stand; that the government of Ukraine will not collapse & run; that NATO will not just walk away.

    Based on lies and false reports of their spies, the leadership and planning department of Evil Empire Russia made magnificent plans of grandeur. By February 28 the imperial delusions gave way to reality.

    On the other hand, the planning department of Empire USA assessed the leaders of Russia accurately. They set a trap for the siloviki enforcers. V.V., his generals, the Cheka, walked right into this death-trap. American spies assessed them correctly, that they won’t be willing/able to make the right decisions even after they realized that they had been fooled. By the end of February it was clear even to the blind that this Special Operation could only lead to disaster —so the Cheka brought out the shovels and started digging themselves deeper into this hole.

    The purpose (one of them) of this death-trap is to bleed Russia, bleed it on the battle-field, bleed it economically. NATO can fight this war to the last Ukrainian soldier. If every dead Ukrainian soldier takes with him a Russian soldier, even the marching-band from the Red Square Parade has to join the battle in Ukraine.

    // WW2 could have ended in December 1943, but Empire USA felt it would be better if it lasted a while longer. Empire USA won, CCCP lost. Rest easy, NWO planners are good, Russian planners are Dugin day-dreamers.

  3. Pink Unicorne says

    This is not a very informed piece.

    The Empire is surely gearing up for SOMETHING, but that something is its vision for a chaotic, no-holds-barred competition between itself and China, one in which Russia is largely reduced to a nuisance, not a great threat by itself. (F35, B21, NGAD, submarines, etc.) The Empire does not view, and I concur, the Ukraine war substantially changing this dynamic. The Ukraine war is primarily fought with Soviet vintages: S300, T90, the Moscova, etc. There is no way on Earth for the US to use the Defense Production Act to change that. Try as the Empire might, there will not be any Ukrainian M1 Abrams divisions any time soon. Even if the Empire can somehow spare 3000 M1s (it can not), the Ukrainians can not be trained in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

    The only gear that can be outsourced is the commercial $500 quadrotor drone, not the MQ9 Reaper you mentioned.

    Take the Javelin in your picture for example. The missile needs a solid rocket booster, a thermal reserve battery, an uncooled infra-red seeker head, an ASIC CPU, military-grade explosives, and of course specialized targeting & control software. As you might have guessed, none of these can be ordered on Amazon. Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are your go-to the same way Boeing was your go-to for the B29 in 1944. This missile is also one of the cheapest among equivalent (yes, even Chinese ones are more expensive) at $80,000. This might sound expensive until you realize even the shitty T90 it destroys costs at least $1,000,000. Even the entirety of the Empire’s Armed Forces has only about 15,000 of these missiles, the primary reason being that the Empire uses these things as a last resort anti-armour punch, not the mainstay of its army (for that the Empire has Apaches and A-10s, not to mention the Air Force’s Stormbreakers Small Diameter Bomb GBU40, thank you very much).

    Another rather amusing fact is that Raytheon has to remind the Empire that it can not simply show up at its Quarterly Earning Zoom meeting asking for 10,000 Stingers because the Empire has not ordered a single Stinger for the past 18 years! (thank you again air dominance)

    Additionally, it is doubtful that Javelin and the Stingers and the Switchblades could make a difference in Donbas. For that, you need massive numbers of self-propelled artillery. Traditionally, the Empire is not big on its ground forces’ artillery fire for obvious reasons, so it can not make sufficient numbers of these either. The 155mm howitzers are probably all it can spare. Those are 155s for god’s sake!

    The only way lies with the Europeans. I do not see this as even necessary, but if it’s to be done, the Empire must bludgeon the West Europeans into setting up assembly lines in Germany or Poland proper to use whatever it is their versions of the DPA to start making the aforementioned self-propelled artillery in tens of thousands at the least. The Europeans CAN certainly do that, but it is WARTIME production, i.e. damn the inflation full speed ahead and words to those effects.

    Currently, I do not see that as necessary. It MIGHT or MUST become so if our dear friend Vlad finally had the courage to call millions, if not tens of millions, of however many youths (I hope if it came to that Vlad would not stoop so low as to call on girls) it’s still got left to “defend” East Slavdom (I call dib on that namesake for your new state, Vlad had better pay me for a proper IP transfer) in Great Patriotic War 2.0. If there are to be additional atrocities, real or staged, e.g. dead children (with blonde hair and blue eyes, of course), I expect the last vestiges of French or German resistance to disappear overnight. (Just how well Vlad excelled in the art of making enemies out of friends!)

    So your next piece probably should examine the domestic situation and evaluate the possibility of a general mobilization in East Slavedom’s Rus Province, not fret about what weapons the Empire will field the Ukrainians.

    (On an additional note, has it ever occurred to you that the Empire might actually WANT Vlad to stay in power and NOT dream to redraw the map of Europe? If not Vlad, then it’s the Silovikis or the Igor Girkins in their mom’s basements, am I right?)

  4. ken says

    -“No self-respecting plant owner is going to sink hundreds of millions into expansion knowing the demand is likely to evaporate in just a few years or even months.”
    -“The only way this happens is if the US government is willing to bear the costs. If it is willing to finance these expansions knowing the new capacity may soon become redundant.”

    This is the major problem today. Most think the government has never ending wealth. Well, it does until it impoverishes everyone and there is no one left to mulct. And that’s where we are at today.

    -“But there is no doubt that when they put their mind to it the Americans are *without equal* in churning out military gear at great speed and very well-made to boot.”

    Sorry Charlie,,, That was decades ago when Americans had a reasonable education,,, and skills, both in extreme short supply today. America’s production was given to the nations with the lowest national wages. China in particular. It took over 40 years for China to educate its citizens comparable to the US. American corporations invested billions of dollars and years building the skill levels up to where China now builds some of the finest equipment in the world.
    During those 40 years, Corporations were abandoning America and Americans were losing their jobs and the skills which made it great. Today, only some of the weapons production remains and even some of that has been off shored. Skilled Americans retired and many have died. It would require the same 40 years to reacquire the skills but the education is a total lost cause. Any education required to design and build stuff is now considered racist/White Supremacist This will not disappear but will likely cause a breakup of the nation. Too many generations are already lost.

    In short,,, America will ‘print’ the currency which will cause even more inflation and contribute more to the demise of the dollar which is exactly in line with what the WEF wants. Americans no longer care for their country or their children’s future. It’s all for ME! They depend on government to raise and school(indoctrinate) their children. They now receive monthly checks for their children’s child care, yearly bonuses at tax time, food and medical care and free housing. It is obscene to those that grew up in a time when America WAS great.

    1. Anonymous says

      Truth ^

      All of it.

      Sublime post.

      1. Tom says

        Ironic that the US in supporting the Khazars in Ukraine — Is supporting the very people responsible for the rape and death of the US

  5. Pink Unicorne says

    Besides, if you think strategically, the Empire’s current lukewarm wait-and-see-throw-pocket-change-and-propagandize actually makes a lot of sense.

    If it’s 1940 we are talking about, the US back then was not sure whether the Europeans would simply appease the Nazis and leave it a lonely cheerleader instead. Besides, the American Silovikis weren’t as powerful then as they are now.

    Back then, the US essentially had 3 plans executing concurrently:

    (1) if Europeans accommodate the Nazis, then pretend nothing happened, no wartime production (meaning no money spent), but new weapon projects accelerated (current US strategy)

    (2) if Nazis declared war on the US, then there is domestic justification to spend a massive amount of money, therefore go in with the current inventory, then wartime production of the current weapons and use factories & massive labor force to wartime produce new weapons projects (this version of history actually happened)

    (3) IF Europeans & Soviets CAN NOT hold the Nazis, give up on Eurasia altogether, wartime produce current weapons to supply Europeans and Soviets for long enough before the sign of Allied defeat is clear, then use the factories and labour force to produce asymmetrical extreme range deterrence weapons (nukes and B36s in this case, and I want to add the Empire can easily mass produce nasty stuff like nuclear ramjet cruise missile that drops nukes, nuclear powered torpedo with nuclear warhead, unmanned nuclear submarine that fires these torpedos and cruise missiles faster than the Axis even with the latter’s victory, all these weapons Russia is either developing or has already developed), with a focus on disrupting shipping lanes of the Japanese Empire and probably turning Europe to a radioactive wasteland.

    Has it not become clear? The Empire never acts first. It must always wait and see because it thus attains maximum legitimacy. The Empire’s back was NEVER against the wall: it ALWAYS had scenario (3) to lean on, and even in this scenario, the Empire could live a comfortable life and even attract tech talents like Albert Einstein, whilst the same can not be said for either the Axis of WWII or Russia, China & Cos of today. And no matter what version of history happened, the Empire would ALWAYS come out victorious, if not in 4 years then maybe 40 years.

    It has nothing to do with weapon technologies but everything to do with the 2 moats known as the Pacific and the Atlantic. Someone ELSE will always be the first victim of the first EXPLICIT aggression (which will ALWAYS be committed by someone else, and please don’t bitch about Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, etc.), and that means the Empire can ALWAYS cry its heart out for said victim, and ALWAYS frame its next move as morally righteous & get international support. This is directly contrary to the strategic thinking of Eastern Slav’s of course, who always think looking and acting tough is of first-order importance, which may have something to do with latter’s historical upbringing.

    The Empire’s strategy is purely one of reaction. It has to be because it can not be the first aggressor, not because it lacks confidence in its military abilities (it frequently does, spoilers alert), but because crying for the victim & claiming defence for the weak is the SUREST way to legitimately transition to the next stage, no uncertainty needed to be stomached. This strategy requires of course the Empire’s enemy to commit extreme atrocities in the first place, thus explaining the Empire’s persistent prodding & hurling of petty insults at its enemies, Russia & China alike. It’s not doing these things without a plan in mind, rather it’s ALWAYS thinking in terms of the aforementioned scenario (3).

    Was there any miscalculation of the Empire’s grand strategy from 1933 to 1991? Certainly. The Soviet Union was the biggest miscalculation. The Empire never imagined the Eastern Slavs were capable of becoming anything more than an economical & tech backwater (which they’re sliding back into these days). However, the Empire never imagined the Soviet Union would off itself in such short order, it actually made plans to live with it indefinitely. Contrary to Eastern Slav’s misconception, the Empire NEVER had much of an ego back then or now.

    It is imperative to realize that the Empire is not the Roman one of the old. When the Empire dominates, it NEVER swings its sword (although it got plenty), but rather softly NUDGES the world into a CONFIGURATION in which everyone suddenly woke up one day and it dawns on them that their countries, real or imagined, are either monstrous & chest-thumping national-fascist & aggressing and/or poor & unstable & in irreversible decline. No other country, not even the 19th century European Empires, can adopt this strategy, because they do not have a scenario (3), certainly not East Slavdom.

    The Empire’s grand strategy is simply repeatedly nudging the world into a configuration it likes. If it fails at any step: if there’s too much blowback, too much dissent domestic, or too many dead soldiers, it simply puts the nudgings on pause. After a while, it retries. It’s a robust grand strategy plan because

    (a) its own Silovikis deeply identify with this vision, and
    (b) each aggression of its enemies effectively reinforces Silovikis’ narrative to the max and suppresses all domestic and international dissent in a DEEP, EMOTIONAL, almost RELIGIOUS way.
    (c) So what about all other times? Simple. When there’s no blowback and no aggression, no one else would be looking, and Silovikis can try to trigger the next batch of enemies to aggress.

    The only way this strategy can misfire is if Silovikis chose the wrong enemy. Right now, I do not consider this an even remote possibility.

    The last point to realize is that during all these cycles of aggression and reaction, precious TIME passes. Even if the Empire chose the wrong enemy, the real enemy may simply run out of time and miss its chance to challenge the Empire altogether. The Empire has the world’s and its own home turf’s resources, its enemy frequently is running on some kind of steam it can not replenish, whether it’s industrial capacity, nationalism based on pseudo-historical grievances, a youth bulge, chokehold on valuable resources, or a combination of all above.

  6. mijj says

    USA would have killed 1/2 million civilians by now .. and destroyed all life supporting infrastructure.
    USA supporters must be laughing at Russia’s measured pace.

    1. Jasonovich says

      The US regime regard human value as commodities at their disposal and will cause devastation and havoc without the slightest remorse, the situation is different in Ukraine, many Russians see this as a conflict between brothers and thus, the modus operanti is to save as many lives as humanly possible.
      That’s the difference between the civilised world and the world that has only existed for less than 300 years.

  7. Anonymous says

    The US can’t source critical raw materials or heavy crude oil necessary for diesel and aviation fuel, and has been deindustrialized for 30+ years. Doubtless our emasculated Boomers will persist in their World War II “Arsenal of Democracy” fantasies for the foreseeable future, but this country lacks the means and the ability for fight a peer adversary in a protracted war, and win.

    Most importantly, the United States can no longer summon men to defend its national and global interests; the population of the US is a dumbed-down, semi-literate, historically and geographically ignorant demographic. The One World policies of American politicians have, in the last half century, transformed this country into a Tower of Babel that can only unite its various racial, ethnic, and religious groups on the basis of mindless consumerism and materialism.

    TL;DR: the United States of America is finished as a credible military and world power.

  8. Jasonovich says

    If the truth ever comes out, I wonder how many Americans will pour out into the streets demanding the heads of top officials. Most Americans are too far gone or totally apathetic towards their neighbours. Narcissism has taken the place of empathy, they’re totally phucked up and beyond salvation. I hope I’m wrong, I hope there’s enough humanity to spark the fire. I hope Biden will be the catalyst and people will take over and we can all look on with some glee and yeah, Karma has finally arrived.

  9. Jasonovich says

    NATO should have dismantled when the Warsaw pack came to an end in 1991. We are in a difficult place right now, the US and it’s vassalage is using NATO (Protection racket) to enforce unipolarity and US global hegemony.
    I don’t think they will break Russia, not with China standing by its side. It is just one throw of the dice hoping the cubes will land a double six but more likely the US economy will implode taking with it, the vassals, the EU down into the bottomless pit.

  10. mark says

    This is an anti empire article, how?

    1. Field Empty says

      It’s called analysis, retard. Enjoy finding another site to read. I warned you to watch your tone

      https://anti-empire.com/no-more-trash-new-commenting-policy/

      There is a way to say anything with respect or without it. You made your choice.

      1. mark says

        This is the first time ever that I comment on your site. Nice to see that is tor friendly. But now you insulted me because I said something that you didn’t like. Not impressive.

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