An attack towards Kharkiv is quite realistic, even if it is just a feint to draw forces away from Donbas which is the main Russian political goal. Russian forces are pretty thin on quality now, but they will have around 200k troops with 1960s vehicles. If Ukraine’s army gets substantially knocked around, that Russian mass will be able to grind over prepared Ukrainian positions.
That’s what makes the coming Ukrainian offensive risky. If it doesn’t work, their depth will be exhausted and mobile reinforcements not strong enough to rebuff a Russian assault.
How many Abrams tanks does Australia actually have, compared to purchase orders?
I assume the US would be exercising the same controls on purchaser disposal as does Germany with Leopards.
Not only Ukraine but the West are so damn fortunate this unlikeliest of leaders became and grew as Ukraine’s President. He’s been nothing short of inspirational. I salute him.
So go win the war Volodymyr Zelenskyy with hopefully the hardware, training and bullets you need and so definitely deserve.
Something needs to be considered when judging the level of support the US is providing. US is very concerned about an increasingly likely attack by China on Taiwan. Their current munition stockpiles aren’t suited for a prolonged air and naval conflict in the Pacific. The more US aid goes to Ukraine, the less industrial capacity exists to prepare the gear needed for their Pacific strategy. Throw too much at Ukraine and Taiwan’s protection weakens.
2008? Are you talking about Crimea (2014) or Georgia?
But considering Russian currently claims sovereignty over the annexed regions (inc Crimea) to the point of including them in the Russian census data, and considering those territories are being bombed and ‘occupied’ by UKR, I’d have to disagree
I think the White House and U.S MoD will make sure the balance of armaments to thwart that parallel scenario is maintained. Well that’s just mho but historically their form has always been so.
I can’t wait to get a close up look at the new toys. The current ones are mind blowing enough for someone like me who isn’t an expert on them. They are a impressive machine
The weaponry for Ukraine would be quite different to the weaponry required against an amphibious/air invasion of Taiwan. US force projection in the China sea will be largely Naval and tbh if China gains a foothold on the island there’s unlikely to be a protracted , small arms based conflict. It’d be a gigantic encounter but over relatively quickly , with ongoing industrial capacity likely to be less relevant. Whatever you have now, is what you’ll have in total.
Pretty sure the latest wargaming/simulation showed that a full scale CN invasion of Taiwan would result in CN losing, Taiwan’s military being completely wiped out and irreparable costs to both the US and CN militaries
Yeh, a conflict in Taiwan will largely be a naval affair.
There’s some cross-over, of course, eg surface to air missiles, but I don’t see it being a tank / artillery heavy conflict.
The challenge is industrial capacity. The current stockpiles of some precision weapons are expected to last a week in a full scale confrontation over Taiwan. US military industrial focus has been on counter terrorism for 20 years. They currently don’t have be industrial output they need and upgrades are a 2+ year timeframe.
We’ve seen it with artillery production. We’ve seen it with HIMARS ammunition production. The US is realising that they’ve lost the majority of their relevant industrial output and now need to rebuild it. They currently don’t have the capacity to multitask well.
They really want to focus on building up relevant stockpiles quickly. That’s being distracted by Ukraine urgency. The gear is different, but much of the industry is similar.
I can’t see it being a long term clash , so it’s really whatever you have available at the flashpoint rather than an industrial production issue months down the line.
Similar to the “six day war”, it’ll be massively definitive in a short strategic period.
I guess theoretically China could make multiple attempts over months/years, so their industrial capacity would be a factor in the medium to longer term. But there’s no chance the US would ever attempt an invasion to “win back” a lost Taiwan.
The only thing I think I understand about the Chinese psyche is that as much as they believe Taiwan is China, there is a stronger belief that they cannot risk being placed in a similar position to what Russia is in now economically, politically, globally.
They won’t risk it, and instead will play the long intimidation game, and then they’ll offer enormous economic bribes for Taiwan to come back to the motherland. But I think realistically Taiwan is lost to China.
