America prefers to build high-cost weapons, so now we can't make shells. Plus the Russia problem.

War planners in the US and Europe have admitted surprise that the conflict in the Ukraine has lasted for more than a few weeks. And decades of neglecting basic weapons manufacturing in favor of high-cost, high tech weapons have left our arsenals empty.

This is evident across many weapons platforms, but especially so for 155-mm shells, the most common artillery shell in the world today. Russia, assisted by North Korea and Iran, are producing and firing weeks' worth of Western production every day in Ukraine, and NATO countries are scrambling to catch up. The United States also is struggling to resupply Israeli forces, and to restock our own inventories, but sufficient domestic production is still at least two years away and will need to be subsidized for years after.

In previous deployments of US precision munitions in Ukraine, Russian countermeasures were quickly adapted to render them useless.

Resources and links:

CNN, US and NATO grapple with critical ammo shortage for Ukraine
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/18/po...

Bloomberg, South Korea Is Making Weapons Faster and Cheaper Than the US
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...

Bloomberg, America’s War Machine Can’t Make Basic Artillery Fast Enough
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/20...

Russia’s Putin welcomes Türkiye’s interest in work of BRICS bloc
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific...

US vs Global military spending:
  / usa_military_spending_vs_world_military_sp...  
https://www.statista.com/statistics/2...

Some U.S. Weapons Stymied by Russian Jamming in Ukraine
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/25/wo...