7 ms·

At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale. High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carrie

by fooker 7mo ago

At the heart of this is the fact that America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale. High tech interceptors and missiles and aircraft carriers are great, but with China's help these are outnumbered by three (soon to be four) orders of magnitude. It's unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes, with not much in between.

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
- generic92034 7mo ago
  > We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. But Putin would not like that! /s
- giantg2 7mo ago
  "We make plenty of stuff at scale." Not the stuff that matters (chips, electronics, metals, etc). We don't even have a primary lead smelter, which we would likely need if we got into a peer conflict. It's also important to note that the US lacks the ability to quickly pivot and set up plants. Much of the knowledge to do so has been disappearing as employment in that sector has been steadily declining for decades. Sure we make stuff at scale using automation, but that automation can't be changed to significantly different stuff in a reasonable timeframe.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    We suck at ultra-heavy industry that outputs commodities. We're great at light industry, or specialised heavy industry, which includes a lot of electronics. You're correct on inflexibility.
    - fooker 7mo ago
      Can you give some specific examples of what light industry we are great at?
      - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
        Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and craft food and beverage products come to mind. Guns and ammo, too.
        giantg2 7mo ago
        Yeah, even if we can produce them now, we don't have the pipeline to keep them running - steel for guns comes from other countries, we don't have a primary lead smelter in the country, medical devices that rely on electronics rely on foreign components, etc. The only reason pharma can operate here is because of the regulations, and even then many components chemicals are sourced internationally.
        fooker 7mo ago
        We don't even produce things like bolts, screws, and springs. If we suddenly had to, it would take billions of dollars and several months to spin up any real capacity.
        phil21 7mo ago
        More like years. Perhaps decades if you needed to do it at scale across entire supply chains all at once. All this stuff requires people. And we simply don’t have them. The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are still in primary school.
        fooker 7mo ago
        The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are being either deported or harassed for daring to come to the US for studying.
- pjc50 7mo ago
  > We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
  - NooneAtAll3 7mo ago
    Ukrainians are unimpressed that US no longer supports war to exhaustion. US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Problem is that US wants to distance itself instead of ending the conflict
    - Erem 7mo ago
      Did I miss something? When did Ukraine support any side in elections?
    - Quarrelsome 7mo ago
      > US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Sorry, what is "the other side" exactly?
    - CamperBob2 7mo ago
      US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Considering that Trump literally tried to blackmail Zelenskyy in his first term, why on earth would they have supported him in 2020?
    - pjc50 7mo ago
      US doesn't actually have a way to end the Ukraine war. It doesn't have a way to end the Iran war either. Other than unconditional surrender.
- fooker 7mo ago
  > We make plenty of stuff at scale Maybe this video of a rather famous YouTuber trying to manufacture something as simple as a grill scrubber with a US supply chain would help you understand how bad it is? https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
  - mmh0000 7mo ago
    TL;DW: skip to 17m55s for the important bit [1] https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?t=1075 https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?t=1075
    - fooker 7mo ago
      There are multiple interesting bits, worth watching the whole thing at some point. Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. And that they could find one retired guy after scouring multiple states who could help make an injection mold. I'm sure some of the larger defense contractors have a few guys who can do this, but that makes for a pretty low bus factor.
      - quickthrowman 7mo ago
        > Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. US manufactured fasteners are available*, the Build America, Buy America Act created a market for them. You’re not going to find them at Home Depot or your local hardware store, professional supply houses will sell them to you. Waivers are available if no US supplier is available, but there usually is a US supplier. I assume bolt manufacturing is automated to the point where you load up a CNC machine with steel hex stock and get boxes of bolts on the other end, there’s not a ton of labor involved. The machine cuts the hex stock to length, then removes material to create a cylindrical shaft and then threads are cut. * By US manufactured, I mean ‘compliant with BABAA requirements’, which is something like 55% of the materials and manufactured here.
- pydry 7mo ago
  >We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base. Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.
  - pjc50 7mo ago
    Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads. The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.
    - pydry 7mo ago
      The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons. The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO. These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page. Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.
- SideburnsOfDoom 7mo ago
  > We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. That is happening, only with "EU" not "America". Because the EU are Ukraine's allies. https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-export-centers-in-europe-in-2026-zelensky-says/ https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-expor... https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory-fire-point-denmark-vojens/ https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory... https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-for-ukraines-defence/ https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-fo... As for the US being Ukrainian allies as compared to EU, well: https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropped-99-in-2025-report-finds/ https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropp...
  - tim333 7mo ago
    I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. The UK has some Ukranian drone manufacturing going on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o
    - SideburnsOfDoom 7mo ago
      > I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. I think that it's understood that when we use shorthand such as "US is not supporting Ukraine" that it is the respective governments that we are discussing. The point about the "majority of Americans" is true enough (though you might say that the majority of Americans care about the price of gasoline and groceries and little else politically) but it is rather irrelevant if the administration does the opposite. In other words, "thoughts and prayers from people" is not enough to make you an ally. Money and policy is the real thing.
      - tim333 7mo ago
        Yeah though most of the US government excluding Trump is pro Ukraine. Biden at least gave some weapons and Lindsey Graham pushed a tough sanctions package which was working quite well until stopped due to the Iran invasion.
- s1artibartfast 7mo ago
  I think there's very little to be learned from Ukrainian technology. They dont have unprecedented servos, software, or manufacturing. What they have is a dire situation that drives efficient and pragmatic proucurement. This is much harder to export.
  - freefaler 7mo ago
    They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement. It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used. They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field. They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit). What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking). Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications. This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.
    - maxglute 7mo ago
      UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do. And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war. But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for. TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  > We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Should have worn a suit. The US is not an ally of Ukraine, it sees Ukraine as a nuisance that should have rolled over long ago but somehow refuses to and because the US still needs Europe for a bit longer (but maybe not that much longer) they're still playing ball as long as Europe pays (as it should, but that's besides the point). Allies come to each others aid, the US has all but abandoned Ukraine after Trump came to power and did far less than it could have done early on. Why you would expect Ukraine to be generous after the numerous put downs and actions that were clearly organized to benefit Putin is a mystery to me.
  - pedroma 7mo ago
    This sentiment is very popular in Europe. From the perspective of the American, it's like, help was offered for 90% of the time in the Ukraine conflict, then we took a break and suddenly we are more an enemy than China. From my point of view, the pushing away is not one-sided like Europeans like to portray, but has been mutual for awhile.
    - jacquesm 7mo ago
      I think when you start to threaten your former allies by wanting to attack/invade them you probably should be dinged in the trust department for that. The same goes for when you try to strongarm a country into fabricating evidence to shore up your lies. The USA was an ally in 1945 and has since steadily eroded that. In 2001 they briefly regained a lot of sympathy but squandered it just as fast and now we're at low tide. And I wonder how much lower it will go before people with common sense will be back at the helm and reparation of the relationship can begin, but I don't expect the aftershocks of this to be gone quickly. And no, help was not offered '90% of the time'. Most of the time it was just business in disguise, altruism did not factor into it as far as I can see.
      - deleted 7mo ago
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      - pedroma 7mo ago
- scrubs 7mo ago
  We (the US) probably spend too much per munition and do not have manufacturing capacity like China. We're not helpless, but i dont get the sense we have plenty of stock either. Both are problems. (1) In this back and forth I'm surprised mines in the straight are not mentioned. (2) im having difficulty seeing how cheap drones incapacitates a carrier. They are there to project force well into enemy territory for precise strikes. The carrier can be some distance from the shore. Now, the question turns to strike what? Surely drone manufacturing plants and barracks would have to be on list or ... they'd be less effective. (3) if drones are sub-mach speeds why not shoot down with a glorified gattleling gun as opposed to expensive missiles or lasers?
  - deleted 7mo ago
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- justonceokay 7mo ago
  I doubt that. If American soil was threatened I think you would see a mass mobilization. People like living in America and they won’t give it up easily. I know I would join. See how long Ukraine has lasted with far fewer resources. Americans are fat and happy now but we are not always this way.
- jbm 7mo ago
  > We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs, you get the "Oh we produce high value products, mostly military". Then you get posts like this. How is one to reconcile these ideas? Is Lockheed Martin the Ferrari of weapons?
  - sdsd 7mo ago
    The US is responsible for over 10% of world manufacturing, putting them in second place of all countries (after China). >When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs That percentage goes down every year due to reduced manufacturing but also jobs are lost to high-tech automation in manufacturing. But it's still a buttload.
    - adrian_b 7mo ago
      The 10% in value does not account about the fraction of a final American product that consists of parts or raw materials imported from elsewhere. Many of the best known American products, e.g. computers, are only assembled in USA from imported parts. If the imports from certain countries would be completely interrupted, it is unknown how much of that US manufacturing would be able to continue.
cyanydeez 7mo ago
is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats. Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a small but persistent offensive weapon. So now Americas got billions of dollars worth of ammo up agains millions of dollars worth of fodder, and that won't clear the way to controlling a large, well defended plot of land. America's leaders are drunk and high on their own propaganda, even while Ukraine has demonstrated just how useless the old, bulky and costly tech is.
- angry_octet 7mo ago
  China has been cutting off Ukraine from direct drone supplies, they have to use front companies and middlemen.
- IAmBroom 7mo ago
  My theory is that China is playing wait-and-see. Likely futures: Russia survives; business as usual, if much poorer. China doesn't want to poison that relationship. Russia falls; China helpfully "adopts" the orphaned Asian lands. Iran falls; turmoil follows; the USA as usual (since WWII) has no plans for afterwards. Do nothing until opportunity presents itself. Iran survives; the US falters; wait and benefit from the opening that creates. I can't see a path where China picking sides in UKR/RUS nor USA/IRAN benefits China at all.
  - kergonath 7mo ago
    As someone says, don’t interrupt a rival when they are making a mistake. China can gain quite a lot by just waiting on the side lines, contributing as much as they can get away with while still looking reasonable (which is quite easy, when the other protagonists are Putin, Trump, or Khamenei jr).
  - yanhangyhy 7mo ago
    not sure if anybody notices, after the war, russia opens a lot of markets to chinese companys.
petesergeant 7mo ago
Sorry, at the heart of this is that the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War are idiots. It's not clear how any of this situation would be any different if America had a dramatically higher production capacity.
- fooker 7mo ago
  These are orthogonal problems. Getting into this war was stupid. Being unable to win it is also pretty bad.
  - pjc50 7mo ago
    Clausewitz would say they are the same: the stupid war is the continuation of stupid politics by other means. The objectives are unclear, which prevents them being achieved.
  - petesergeant 7mo ago
    These are the same problem. Getting into this war was stupid because it's virtually impossible to win it.
- chneu 7mo ago
  Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. He is a super zealous religious fanatic who very much wants to destroy as many Muslims as possible. He has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about killing heathens in his WEEKLY SERMON. He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing.
  - mcphage 7mo ago
    > Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. [...SNIP...] He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing. That sound like he knows what he wants to do, but that's not the same as knowing what he is doing.
    - ryandrake 7mo ago
LatteLazy 7mo ago
What would you manufacture at scale that would open the straits? If you had an interceptor with a 99% rate of interception (even in such a tight space, and assuming it could intercept underwater as effectively as in air) then if the Iranians fired 50 drones at a ship, they’d have a about a 40% chance of getting at least 1 through (1 - 0.99^50). So they would likely sink 4 in every 10. No sane insurer let alone captain or crew would take such a risk I think. This is the issue with interceptors, you need phenomenally high reliability AND very large numbers AND very cheap prices per unit to make them workable. As it is, I would argue this is a classic example of America trying to solve a POLITICAL problem with MILITARY force. This has never actually succeeded as far as I know. Certainly not on the last few decades.

by fooker 7mo ago

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago

> America has lost the capability to manufacture anything at scale We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. > unclear if we can do much other than threaten sanctions and nukes We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.

generic92034 7mo ago
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. But Putin would not like that! /s
giantg2 7mo ago
"We make plenty of stuff at scale." Not the stuff that matters (chips, electronics, metals, etc). We don't even have a primary lead smelter, which we would likely need if we got into a peer conflict. It's also important to note that the US lacks the ability to quickly pivot and set up plants. Much of the knowledge to do so has been disappearing as employment in that sector has been steadily declining for decades. Sure we make stuff at scale using automation, but that automation can't be changed to significantly different stuff in a reasonable timeframe.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  We suck at ultra-heavy industry that outputs commodities. We're great at light industry, or specialised heavy industry, which includes a lot of electronics. You're correct on inflexibility.
  - fooker 7mo ago
    Can you give some specific examples of what light industry we are great at?
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and craft food and beverage products come to mind. Guns and ammo, too.
      - giantg2 7mo ago
        Yeah, even if we can produce them now, we don't have the pipeline to keep them running - steel for guns comes from other countries, we don't have a primary lead smelter in the country, medical devices that rely on electronics rely on foreign components, etc. The only reason pharma can operate here is because of the regulations, and even then many components chemicals are sourced internationally.
        fooker 7mo ago
        We don't even produce things like bolts, screws, and springs. If we suddenly had to, it would take billions of dollars and several months to spin up any real capacity.
        phil21 7mo ago
        More like years. Perhaps decades if you needed to do it at scale across entire supply chains all at once. All this stuff requires people. And we simply don’t have them. The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are still in primary school.
        fooker 7mo ago
        The folks who could be trained to build such stuff are being either deported or harassed for daring to come to the US for studying.
pjc50 7mo ago
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America I think the Ukranians are still unimpressed with the withdrawal of US support, especially from the shells which were being manufactured in the US (now moved to Rheinmetall), and the de-sanctioning of Russian oil: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
- NooneAtAll3 7mo ago
  Ukrainians are unimpressed that US no longer supports war to exhaustion. US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Problem is that US wants to distance itself instead of ending the conflict
  - Erem 7mo ago
    Did I miss something? When did Ukraine support any side in elections?
  - Quarrelsome 7mo ago
    > US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Sorry, what is "the other side" exactly?
  - CamperBob2 7mo ago
    US in unimpressed that Ukraine supported other side in elections Considering that Trump literally tried to blackmail Zelenskyy in his first term, why on earth would they have supported him in 2020?
  - pjc50 7mo ago
    US doesn't actually have a way to end the Ukraine war. It doesn't have a way to end the Iran war either. Other than unconditional surrender.
fooker 7mo ago
> We make plenty of stuff at scale Maybe this video of a rather famous YouTuber trying to manufacture something as simple as a grill scrubber with a US supply chain would help you understand how bad it is? https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY
- mmh0000 7mo ago
  TL;DW: skip to 17m55s for the important bit [1] https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?t=1075 https://youtu.be/3ZTGwcHQfLY?t=1075
  - fooker 7mo ago
    There are multiple interesting bits, worth watching the whole thing at some point. Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. And that they could find one retired guy after scouring multiple states who could help make an injection mold. I'm sure some of the larger defense contractors have a few guys who can do this, but that makes for a pretty low bus factor.
    - quickthrowman 7mo ago
      > Something that stuck with me was that dude had an uncle that worked at a bolt factory down the road, and now there is literally no way to source domestically made bolts. US manufactured fasteners are available*, the Build America, Buy America Act created a market for them. You’re not going to find them at Home Depot or your local hardware store, professional supply houses will sell them to you. Waivers are available if no US supplier is available, but there usually is a US supplier. I assume bolt manufacturing is automated to the point where you load up a CNC machine with steel hex stock and get boxes of bolts on the other end, there’s not a ton of labor involved. The machine cuts the hex stock to length, then removes material to create a cylindrical shaft and then threads are cut. * By US manufactured, I mean ‘compliant with BABAA requirements’, which is something like 55% of the materials and manufactured here.
pydry 7mo ago
>We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base. Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.
- pjc50 7mo ago
  Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads. The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.
  - pydry 7mo ago
    The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons. The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO. These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page. Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.
SideburnsOfDoom 7mo ago
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America. That is happening, only with "EU" not "America". Because the EU are Ukraine's allies. https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-export-centers-in-europe-in-2026-zelensky-says/ https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-to-open-10-weapons-expor... https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory-fire-point-denmark-vojens/ https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-to-open-arms-factory... https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-for-ukraines-defence/ https://euobserver.com/209049/eu-signs-off-on-e260m-grant-fo... As for the US being Ukrainian allies as compared to EU, well: https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropped-99-in-2025-report-finds/ https://kyivindependent.com/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-dropp...
- tim333 7mo ago
  I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. The UK has some Ukranian drone manufacturing going on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dvjwygk1o
  - SideburnsOfDoom 7mo ago
    > I think the majority of Americans are on Ukraine's side but of course the president has other ideas. I think that it's understood that when we use shorthand such as "US is not supporting Ukraine" that it is the respective governments that we are discussing. The point about the "majority of Americans" is true enough (though you might say that the majority of Americans care about the price of gasoline and groceries and little else politically) but it is rather irrelevant if the administration does the opposite. In other words, "thoughts and prayers from people" is not enough to make you an ally. Money and policy is the real thing.
    - tim333 7mo ago
      Yeah though most of the US government excluding Trump is pro Ukraine. Biden at least gave some weapons and Lindsey Graham pushed a tough sanctions package which was working quite well until stopped due to the Iran invasion.
s1artibartfast 7mo ago
I think there's very little to be learned from Ukrainian technology. They dont have unprecedented servos, software, or manufacturing. What they have is a dire situation that drives efficient and pragmatic proucurement. This is much harder to export.
- freefaler 7mo ago
  They have a working operational system and battle tested tactics, not only procurement. It's not the rifle that distinguishes the special forces, but how it's used. They built a network centric warefare with starlink and cheap android tablets down to the drone teams in the field. They built a network of cheap acousting sensors (old phones) as passive sensors and using ML models to find the drones cheaply and increase the coverage. (Radars are expensive and easy to hit because they emit). What they achieved is a "sensor fusion like" distributed system buid on cheap components and updated realtime. And all this is battle tested in the new environment of transparent battlefield (there is always a drone looking). Also a lot of real-life electronic warfare stuff and drone applications. This is what's missing in the US army. They are optimized for a symetrical 20th century warfare.
  - maxglute 7mo ago
    UKR = entire country of +40m is on the battlefront so they can do total war mobilized homefront distributed system... so can Iran. But it's very different for force projecting security guarantor US - can't convince paying protectorates to pivot total war defense posture in peacetime, that's what they bribe US not to do. And ultimately whatever model of distributed lethality / survivability (which US planning foresaw) is less relevant that US global commitments requires high end hardware that has to be rotated / propositioned selectively, and sustainable only in limited numbers vs adversaries mobilized on total war. But the fundamental problem is US adversaries are catching up on precision strike complex. Iran isn't asymmetric warfare, but restoration of symmetry. It's not so much US getting weaker as adversaries getting stronger, and without monopoly over mass precision strike (which naval / air superiority / supremacy is only delivery platform), US expeditionary mode simply on the losing side of many local attrition scenarios. Ultimately all US adversaries will gain commoditized local precision strike (even deadlier if bundled with high end ISR), at varying scales due to proliferation requiring persistence across global theatres US simply doesn't have numbers/logistics for. TLDR: US expeditionary model is bunch of goons with rifles in trucks, driving around neighbourhood where everyone had knives that could not get in range. The second everyone else buys guns, then rifles, the expeditionary model breaks.
jacquesm 7mo ago
> We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Should have worn a suit. The US is not an ally of Ukraine, it sees Ukraine as a nuisance that should have rolled over long ago but somehow refuses to and because the US still needs Europe for a bit longer (but maybe not that much longer) they're still playing ball as long as Europe pays (as it should, but that's besides the point). Allies come to each others aid, the US has all but abandoned Ukraine after Trump came to power and did far less than it could have done early on. Why you would expect Ukraine to be generous after the numerous put downs and actions that were clearly organized to benefit Putin is a mystery to me.
- pedroma 7mo ago
  This sentiment is very popular in Europe. From the perspective of the American, it's like, help was offered for 90% of the time in the Ukraine conflict, then we took a break and suddenly we are more an enemy than China. From my point of view, the pushing away is not one-sided like Europeans like to portray, but has been mutual for awhile.
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    I think when you start to threaten your former allies by wanting to attack/invade them you probably should be dinged in the trust department for that. The same goes for when you try to strongarm a country into fabricating evidence to shore up your lies. The USA was an ally in 1945 and has since steadily eroded that. In 2001 they briefly regained a lot of sympathy but squandered it just as fast and now we're at low tide. And I wonder how much lower it will go before people with common sense will be back at the helm and reparation of the relationship can begin, but I don't expect the aftershocks of this to be gone quickly. And no, help was not offered '90% of the time'. Most of the time it was just business in disguise, altruism did not factor into it as far as I can see.
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    - pedroma 7mo ago
scrubs 7mo ago
We (the US) probably spend too much per munition and do not have manufacturing capacity like China. We're not helpless, but i dont get the sense we have plenty of stock either. Both are problems. (1) In this back and forth I'm surprised mines in the straight are not mentioned. (2) im having difficulty seeing how cheap drones incapacitates a carrier. They are there to project force well into enemy territory for precise strikes. The carrier can be some distance from the shore. Now, the question turns to strike what? Surely drone manufacturing plants and barracks would have to be on list or ... they'd be less effective. (3) if drones are sub-mach speeds why not shoot down with a glorified gattleling gun as opposed to expensive missiles or lasers?
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justonceokay 7mo ago
I doubt that. If American soil was threatened I think you would see a mass mobilization. People like living in America and they won’t give it up easily. I know I would join. See how long Ukraine has lasted with far fewer resources. Americans are fat and happy now but we are not always this way.
jbm 7mo ago
> We make plenty of stuff at scale. We just haven’t designed any of military around it since WWII. When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs, you get the "Oh we produce high value products, mostly military". Then you get posts like this. How is one to reconcile these ideas? Is Lockheed Martin the Ferrari of weapons?
- sdsd 7mo ago
  The US is responsible for over 10% of world manufacturing, putting them in second place of all countries (after China). >When people claim that America is losing manufacturing jobs That percentage goes down every year due to reduced manufacturing but also jobs are lost to high-tech automation in manufacturing. But it's still a buttload.
  - adrian_b 7mo ago
    The 10% in value does not account about the fraction of a final American product that consists of parts or raw materials imported from elsewhere. Many of the best known American products, e.g. computers, are only assembled in USA from imported parts. If the imports from certain countries would be completely interrupted, it is unknown how much of that US manufacturing would be able to continue.

cyanydeez 7mo ago

is china helping ukraine also? The real "force multiplier" is basically the same as it was 100 years ago: fancy advanced tech works great to clear large, unoccupied spaces with no terrain costs; it still won't go into a jungle, climbmountains or fight in the streats. Whats compounding existing reality, is how cheap it is to use commercial tech from any of these manufacturing hubs, china included, and turn it into a small but persistent offensive weapon. So now Americas got billions of dollars worth of ammo up agains millions of dollars worth of fodder, and that won't clear the way to controlling a large, well defended plot of land. America's leaders are drunk and high on their own propaganda, even while Ukraine has demonstrated just how useless the old, bulky and costly tech is.

angry_octet 7mo ago
China has been cutting off Ukraine from direct drone supplies, they have to use front companies and middlemen.
IAmBroom 7mo ago
My theory is that China is playing wait-and-see. Likely futures: Russia survives; business as usual, if much poorer. China doesn't want to poison that relationship. Russia falls; China helpfully "adopts" the orphaned Asian lands. Iran falls; turmoil follows; the USA as usual (since WWII) has no plans for afterwards. Do nothing until opportunity presents itself. Iran survives; the US falters; wait and benefit from the opening that creates. I can't see a path where China picking sides in UKR/RUS nor USA/IRAN benefits China at all.
- kergonath 7mo ago
  As someone says, don’t interrupt a rival when they are making a mistake. China can gain quite a lot by just waiting on the side lines, contributing as much as they can get away with while still looking reasonable (which is quite easy, when the other protagonists are Putin, Trump, or Khamenei jr).
- yanhangyhy 7mo ago
  not sure if anybody notices, after the war, russia opens a lot of markets to chinese companys.

petesergeant 7mo ago

Sorry, at the heart of this is that the Commander in Chief and Secretary of War are idiots. It's not clear how any of this situation would be any different if America had a dramatically higher production capacity.

fooker 7mo ago
These are orthogonal problems. Getting into this war was stupid. Being unable to win it is also pretty bad.
- pjc50 7mo ago
  Clausewitz would say they are the same: the stupid war is the continuation of stupid politics by other means. The objectives are unclear, which prevents them being achieved.
- petesergeant 7mo ago
  These are the same problem. Getting into this war was stupid because it's virtually impossible to win it.
chneu 7mo ago
Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. He is a super zealous religious fanatic who very much wants to destroy as many Muslims as possible. He has a crusades tattoo and openly talks about killing heathens in his WEEKLY SERMON. He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing.
- mcphage 7mo ago
  > Correction: Hegseth is a crusader. [...SNIP...] He might be an idiot alcoholic, but he very much knows what he is doing. That sound like he knows what he wants to do, but that's not the same as knowing what he is doing.
  - ryandrake 7mo ago

LatteLazy 7mo ago

What would you manufacture at scale that would open the straits? If you had an interceptor with a 99% rate of interception (even in such a tight space, and assuming it could intercept underwater as effectively as in air) then if the Iranians fired 50 drones at a ship, they’d have a about a 40% chance of getting at least 1 through (1 - 0.99^50). So they would likely sink 4 in every 10. No sane insurer let alone captain or crew would take such a risk I think. This is the issue with interceptors, you need phenomenally high reliability AND very large numbers AND very cheap prices per unit to make them workable. As it is, I would argue this is a classic example of America trying to solve a POLITICAL problem with MILITARY force. This has never actually succeeded as far as I know. Certainly not on the last few decades.