Ours is already in deep trouble, and it’s not improved when the likes of Lindsey Graham want Ukraine to become part of NATO.
Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it.
Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions.
Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack.
https://spectator.org/whats-a-defense-industrial-base-lindsay-graham/
by JED BABBIN
In his long congressional career, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has occasionally been right, but not often. And when he isn’t right, he is explosively, extravagantly wrong.
We have to remember that he was the late Sen. John McCain’s most worshipful follower, playing Tonto to McCain’s Lone Ranger. When McCain and Ted Kennedy pushed their immigration bill — which would have opened the southern border long before what President Joe Biden is doing now — Graham was a primary advocate for it.
Now, Graham is pushing an idea that is at least as bad and maybe worse: the admission of Ukraine to NATO before Putin’s war against it is over. He said: “Ukrainian NATO membership is vital to the future security of Europe and the world. I believe there is an overwhelming majority of senators supporting this proposition.”
Wiser men, such as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, have said that Ukraine should become a NATO member but only after the Russia war is over.
It’s obvious what would happen if Graham got his wish and Ukraine were admitted to NATO now. Ukraine would — and would have to — invoke the Article 5 provision in the NATO treaty for mutual defense, and we — and the other NATO nations — would be at war with Russia.
Graham’s idea is so stupid that it’s hard to believe that any large number of senators would support it. Aid to Ukraine still flows — the only good decision that Biden has made as president — while support for it is diminishing. But there is a problem with our continuing aid: Like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, our defense arsenal is just about bare.
Biden’s announcement that he would send “cluster bombs” — ones that are released by a larger casing holding dozens of “bomblets” that are effective against troop concentrations but not vehicles — was a shock to some Democrats. They practically want us to outlaw cluster bombs. About 100 nations (including most NATO members) have agreed to never use them, but the United States and Ukraine haven’t.
Biden said his decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine was not because they’re what the Ukrainians need but because we are running out of other munitions. He said: “[T]he Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. The ammunition — they call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it.”
So, let’s give them whatever we have lying around, not what they need.
The reason we are low on ammunition is not new to faithful readers of this column. We’re running so low on critical munitions — artillery rounds, short-range missiles, and more — because Biden, despite his half-hearted orders to replenish our arsenal, has found it nearly impossible to do so. (RELATED: Charlie Brown’s Pentagon)
Some strategists have said, for example, that we’d run out of critical munitions in less than a week if we defended Taiwan against the coming Chinese attack. This brings us to the question of our defense industrial base.
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