A 155 mm artillery strike on Biden’s defense trade-offs delusion
Tom Rogan
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The Biden administration has long insisted that defense trade-offs aren’t necessary when it comes to supporting global partners. Biden officials have repeatedly claimed that the United States has the resources to support different friends maximally at the same time.
The fiction of these claims should have always been obvious. It is a fiction proven by the inadequacy of the U.S. industrial base to produce munitions at scale. At a scale, at least, that could simultaneously allow Ukraine to defeat Russia’s invasion, allow Taiwan to defeat a Chinese invasion, and allow the U.S. military the reserves it needs for other contingencies, such as a new Korean war.
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Anyone who is honest about what these combat operations would actually entail knows as much. Not all needs are the same, but some needs require the same finite resources. The challenge with threading the needle of military readiness and geopolitics is that of surprise. You don’t know the contingency until it arrives.
Well, thanks to Hamas, the contingency is now upon us.
Enter Israel’s war on the terrorist group in the aftermath of its Oct. 7 atrocity. And on Thursday, we gained stunning proof of the “no trade-offs necessary” fiction. The U.S. is to send 155 mm artillery shells to Israel that “had been designated for Ukraine from U.S. emergency stocks several months ago,” Axios reported. “U.S. officials have suggested that diverting the shells from Ukraine to Israel would have no immediate impact on Ukraine’s ability to fight against Russian troops.”
That would be a laugh-out-loud line were the stakes not so serious. After all, U.S. officials have spent most of 2023 rightly pointing out the increasingly urgent shortfall of Ukraine’s artillery stocks. The Biden administration now wants us to believe that Ukraine’s shortfall suddenly no longer exists. Is it because they stumbled upon a treasure chest of forgotten artillery shells? It is not. Is it because Ukraine has suspended multifront offensive and defensive combined arms action? It is not. Is it because Russian President Vladimir Putin has abandoned his battlefield ambitions? It is not. Rather, it is simply because the Biden administration’s political interests have changed.
Such utter hypocrisy in terms of treating Americans as fools on national security is dangerous for our society. But Americans are not fools. They will see this announcement for what it is: proof that the U.S. cannot do everything maximally everywhere. Elbridge Colby and Alex Velez-Green have repeatedly emphasized this point. I disagree with them on some of the weapons trade-offs for Ukraine and Taiwan. But their basic point is well made and now proven true: National security wants are infinite, and national security needs are finite (there’s also a lesson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ego here).
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Still, the trade-off problem goes beyond munitions. What happens if Chinese President Xi Jinping decides now is the ripe time to invade Taiwan? Or if Putin joins that effort? Or if Putin starts a simultaneous confrontation elsewhere? Or if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presses the button? Contingencies are easier until they become real. But the reality is that the U.S. lacks the ships, submarines, fighter jets, bombers, and, yes, munitions to do everything everywhere. Allies must step up if they are to retain their credibility. Members of Congress, such as Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), must be more honest about shipbuilding.
Because, as with these 155 mm shells, the hard truth is that more challenging choices are sometimes necessary. In the end, the choice of proud rhetoric and easy delusion is music only to the ears of Kim, Putin, Xi, and Khamenei.