Biden effect: U.S. military running low on sophisticated Javelin anti-tank missiles after shipping thousands to Ukraine
By jdheyes // 2022-05-12
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The Biden regime continues to demonstrate to Americans that they care more about the borders of other countries than they do our own border. No sooner than Russia invaded Ukraine, the regime -- along with the rest of the West -- picked a side, condemning Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin while ignoring years' worth of reporting on Ukrainian Nazism and corruption. And shortly after the U.S.-led NATO picked Kyiv over Moscow, weapons began flowing to Ukrainian soldiers. Biden's handlers ordered the Pentagon to join the effort, including shipments of more than 5,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, which have been extremely effective against Russian armor. But the problem is this: The Pentagon's Javelin stocks are running low and thanks to decades worth of off-shoring U.S. industrial production, combined with the current manufactured supply chain crisis, the U.S. military cannot quickly replace them, according to a leading Republican lawmaker. In an interview with Fox News, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), said that the regime is dangerously depleting Javelin stocks at a time when more conflicts involving American troops could break out around the world (such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan). "What's bad is the president himself seems at times to constantly want to remind everybody what we won't do and putting arbitrary limits on our assistance, I think, undermines our effort. But, the real ugly is that we are running low in terms of our stockpiles," he said. "We just burned through seven years of Javelins and that's not only important as we continue to try and help the Ukrainians win in Ukraine, that's important as we try to simultaneously defend Taiwan from aggression from the Chinese Communist Party," he continued. "They are going to need access to some of these same weapons systems, and we simply don't have the stockpiles at present in order to backfill what we've spent in Ukraine," he noted further. Last week, our dementia patient president, Joe Biden, visited the Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Ala., where the defense company builds Javelins. Lockheed officials said that the company is attempting to increase its workforce in order to crank out more of the missiles, but it is doing so at a time when the labor market is the tightest it has been in decades. That said, the company is still expected to ramp up production in the near term. On Sunday, Jim Taiclet, the president and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation, told Face the Nation that production of the weapon would double from "2,100 missiles per year" to "4,000 per year," adding that production "will take a number of months, maybe even a couple of years to get there because we have to get our supply chain to also crank up." But we may not have a couple of years is the problem, which is what Gallagher was getting at. And yet, the regime is purposely depleting stocks of a weapon that would be critical in another major power conflict which literally could flare up at any time. That said, the missiles are not magic and cannot be deployed in all types of terrain, especially congested urban centers. "We couldn't even launch one. I think it's completely useless in an urban environment, as something always gets in the way," said Col. Vladimir Baranyuk, the commander of Ukraine's 36th Naval Infantry Brigade, as quoted by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph. In addition to Javelins, the Raytheon-produced Stinger anti-aircraft missile stocks are also being depleted, and that company's CEO has also said ramping up production amid a tight labor market and supply chain nightmare isn't going to happen quickly. The Biden regime is purposefully harming our national security. The question Americans ought to be asking is why. Sources include: ZeroHedge.com DailyTelegraph.co.nz
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