‘The closet is bare’: Aid to Ukraine depletes US weapons supply

Thanks to the United States and its allies, javelin and stinger missiles are flooding into Ukraine. But there's a side effect to providing the eastern European nation military aid. CNN's Alex Marquardt reports why US weapons inventory is running low and how some say those numbers can be boosted. #CNN #News

85 comments

  1. Stingers and Javelins are only a tiny part of the total and are used exactly for what they were produced – to kill the Soviet tanks. The title is a clickbait.

    1. @David Bett I hope not, and it isn’t really necessary. Raytheon et al are super happy to print more.

      And in reality, for sustained conflict, it is Russia’s manufacturing output vs NATO’s … thats a contest we definitely win.

      If anything this is just ramping up the big Defense Bill that will come along, even tho the previous aid Bill’s to Ukraine are already paying for the restock.

    2. @binh phuoc well to be fair …. we have been shipping Quite a lot of em in that two months.

    1. Most of the Ukrainian military are use to using soviet era weapons….

      Besides… Russian are sending soviet era weapons….

      Turns out… Russians go boom…. 😅

  2. Defense contractors will be happy to expedite deliveries of replacement weapons at additional cost.

    1. @Henry Oddsball Sorry. Freedom IS NOT FREE. What Will YOU DO To Preserve Our FREEDOME??? WHINE, Cry, Belly Ache And Complain??? Big Help That Will Be…

  3. So…2/3 full is “bare”? When was the last time the US actually used anti-tank weapons? Iraq? Not an urgent issue, just trying to justify another big military spend.

    1. @SlipNin2darkness I’ll tell ya what. If any of those 3 invade the United States with tanks I’ll eat my hat.

    2. Even Russia is holding back there own weapons, you need your military to be combat ready in case of war thats why they wont dip below 2/3.

    3. @pretzelogic From what we have seen in Ukraine so far and assuming the confrontation would be conventional, one can imagine the outcome to be Desert Storm in steroids.

    4. @michael dy the infantry have the ability to call in close air support. There’s a legendary airplane the US has called the A-10 warthog. The US also has F-16s, F-18s, F-22s, F-35s all armed with precision weapons from Raytheon. I think we are going to be able to defend ourselves without those javelins.

  4. keep in mind, that for every tank/vehicle/aircraft the ukrainians take out with an american missile is one less vehicle/aircraft that NATO would need to take out in a war with russia later. they cant make anymore.

    1. @Jordan Summach china can make stuff that is good.. they choose not to most of the time because americans still buy it.. and its more profitable. though ive done enough QC for companies bringing in stuff from china to know that it totally depends on the factory.. and even then sometimes they get lazy if they are too busy.. corners get cut so they dont have to slow down production schedules etc.

    2. They could build more planes and tanks however they would be garbage. Imagine all those cheap Chinese parts.

    3. @Not A Stone yeap! Im confident there will be some huge adjustments to make but long term for the best

  5. When they say “we only have 2/3 remaining”, they actually say “we still have 2/3 remaining”.

  6. I very much doubt the U.S. closet is “bare” no more bare than UK closet is.The supporting nations will be fully aware of their inventory.

    1. Not just the US or the UK. You have Germany with the Stugna P, Sweden (can’t remember the designation), plus many other countries shipping weapons to Ukraine. Granted, the ranges are all a bit different, but when you’re in a knock down drag out fight you use what you have and make it work for you.

  7. That’s definitely not an accurate assessment. We keep more than sufficient weapons on hand at any one time to fight a larger war- on more than one front- than is happening in Ukraine. On the other hand, this sort of thing Does help to rid us of older weapons, paving the way for the newer and better weapons in the pipeline.

  8. The good point is that, at least those weapons were most likely made to wreck Russian material in the first place, so they are doing their job.

  9. Neither the US or UK are likely to be involved in an open tank battle in the near future, so depleting stocks by 33% will not be a problem.

    1. yeah and even then they are only emergency weapons anyway, we have much more effective vehicle platforms to deal with the enemy

  10. I am grateful to my country (United States) and other NATO countries for still helping Ukrainian soldiers/civilians with what they need.

  11. Asian supply chain problems due to Covid is a good thing in the long run. The US is in a long discussion phase of how to turn this around. The largest silicon factory in the world is being built in Ohio thanks to Intel coming to its senses that the industry’s off shore madness has a major down side.

  12. Government: “We need more weapons fast, the shelves are empty!”

    Military Industrial Complex: “Marry Me!”

    1. @steve garcia I mean those weapons were designed for the Cold War to destroy Russians tans, Ukraine is pretty much doing it for US without any risk to their own troops. US will be alright, they only gave them a 3rd of their weapons plus other NATO countries are providing weapons. IMO US can give Ukraine 90% of the Javalins and stingers if it means destroying the Russian Military.

  13. But it’s not going to waste. These weapons and supplies aren’t just helping Ukraine to succeed, they’re also helping Russia to fail, and that’s money well spent.

    1. @No Name and that American tech, its 30 years old, if the Russians haven’t captured a copy in Iraq or Afghanistan by now….

  14. They were designed to destroy Soviet tanks so I don’t see what the problem is. This is the golden opportunity to put them to use.

    1. @southparklion Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops in recent days and maintained their dominance of Kharkiv, an eastern city about 25 miles from the Russian border, according to the Pentagon.

      Russia is struggling to even take Kharkiv which is so close to Russia’s border. What an embarrassment. The hard part is not even taking, but holding and Russia is already failing at taking.

  15. Like a store, things expire and go bad. At least we will know our weapons will be more freshly made, even if it takes some time. Better than fighting with broken weapons that the world is realizing Russia has a lot of. And the bigger picture, would we really have let them sit in the closet rather than save innocent lives, the reason these weapons are created? Good job for assisting what we can spare.

    1. I’m gonna call you MC Reacher, because you’re really reaching to put a positive *spin* on a snafu.

    2. And just how long do you think it will take to restock pile dummy and at what cost this is Dumbacrat mentality

  16. As I recall, the Pentagon was just saying last year that the majority of the US stockpile of Stingers were nearing the end of their service life span and would need to be replaced soon anyway. Better for them to be used against evil than rotting in a warehouse

    1. @Joshua Ortiz Less and less buying power for the middle class, too, if there’s still any left.

    2. They just want to complain and nag, that’s journalism today ladies and gentlemen!!!

    3. @George Woodard Russia’s nukes have a very short lifetime. Often 10 years. The United States nukes last several decades with little to no maintenance.

  17. What astonishes me is that we are openly giving this type of information to the enemy , hopefully it is all part of the game and it’s actually a ruse but to me we should be keeping them guessing and not always showing our hand.

    1. When you say “we” you are referring to Americans, whose right to freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. You should go back to high school.

    2. Its not command and conquer red alert 2. I don’t think we have to worry about Russian tanks invading the us mainland anytime soon.

    3. We are capable of manufacturing 100s of thousands of javelins. We just don’t want to spend 100s of thousands for something that expires. The replacement of these things is a few years or so so. They have expiration dates.

  18. The thing is, if the US had to fight some country with a lot of tanks, who would that be? There aren’t a lot of potential enemy states that have large tank forces. The only obvious one that really comes to mind is Russia.. And we’ll have a much easier time replacing our javelins that they will have replacing their tanks.

    1. @New User the american military doctrine is to maintain readyness to fight of russia, and china. at the same time. so some stockpile consumption is fine as russia is losing alot in the process…

    2. @mewimi Justin Truedough has been getting a little authoritarian as of late, so we better keep at least 50 Javelins to deal with Canada’s 50 tanks.

    3. The Russians might be able to take Hawaii & Alaska with conventional forces but that’s it as far as U.S. & Canada is concerned.

    4. Russia used those 30k of Soviet tanks as a clearance sale… They have the latest stored for the US war! 😎

  19. Depleting US supplies also depletes Russian supplies, with a pretty good ratio I would say.

    1. Just worry about the Chinese. We’re oing to need the ability to produce armaments in a far shorter timeline than 3yrs (start to finish). That’s an absurd approach to warfare. WW2 was won because America was an industrial powerhouse and could manufacture massive amounts of munitions and equipment in short order.

    2. @Sam Thompson I think amount doesn’t count that much 2 day, technology and smart decisions. First is ahead, as for second? that is the key to all win/lose outcome.

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