The political unrest in South Korea is very concerning because Western militaries have come to depend on South Korean weapons systems way too much.
We shouldn’t depend on global supply chains for crucial stuff as much as we do. This shouldn’t be a partisan position because it’s simple common sense.
In SA, we have plenty of the critical raw materials. That’s why the position of “neutrality,” i.e., play both sides off against each other for the best deal makes the most sense.
https://www.africanews.com/2019/08/25/south-africa-mine-boasts-highest-rare-earth-grade/
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For reasons that still elude me, the US military has allowed itself to be hollowed out. Now there has always been to some extent politics involved the higher up in rank you go. That is true no matter the country or the government of said country.
However what I don’t think most people understand is just what bad condition the US military actually is in at the moment.
The Pentagon gets a budget every year, it is supposed to be used for numerous things, but one of the big ones is procurement. That is the purchase of new weapons, vehicles, ammo, spare parts, food, etc. I would say boots and cloths, but US troops are required to pay for their own uniforms for some reason.
I don’t know when it started. It could have been after WWI, it might have been in Nam, but it almost certainly had to be after WWI kicked off. The Pentagon started spending ludicrous amounts of money on everything. To the tune of anywhere from 30% more to 300% more depending, on every single item it purchased. A company with a military contract will make money hand over foot because the Pentagon will overpay so badly.
Then there is the quality of what they are buying. Now typically any military will buy cheap and in quantity, with the caveat of it has to work at least half the time. So not only are they overpaying, but they are buying absolutely bargain basement level quality.
But it gets even worse. At some point after WWII the US went from internal supply lines to external supply lines. That is previously any steel, and plastic, any etc if at all possible came from US mines, factories, etc. Then it changed, now most of the material is purchased from overseas. Worse yet and this is a major worse yet. A sizeable majority of any rare earth materials required to produce some of our weapon systems are purchased from China, and other countries who don’t particularly like us.
Seriously how insane do you have to be to put your logistic network not only outside your own country, not just purchasing from your apparent enemies, but to also string it out across the ocean. I mean have they ever heard of subs? Its not like submarines are a new technology.
But the bad news keeps on coming. The low quality material actually gets worse. There was an article about 3 maybe 4 years ago now where one of the major groups selling iron or steel to the US Navy from Japan had apparently been caught deliberately sabotaging it, by weakening it before selling it.
Moving from that nonsense, another of the Pentagon’s budget is for the Navy. You remember the navy, the boys in the boats that are being used to police the world’s waterways for reasons that were never fully explained.
Yea so about that, first off 7 of the 11 major US Navy Shipyards have closed since WWII. Then the ships in the various fleets themselves are mostly composed of older ships which I would say were given upgrades and fresh coats of paint, except they weren’t. To the point where at some point in the last few years a task force that was sent to Australia to show the flag, was photographed absolutely covered in rust.
So why is rust important? Well the thing about rust is, that if a ship is not being maintained properly it starts rusting, the rust is a sign of neglect, or poor to no maintenance. Worse yet these ships were supposed to show the flag which means that they were likely the ones in the best shape of the warships available in the area.
The last point I want to bring up is manpower. Note the word man in the word manpower. Despite what DIE and the media will tell you, if you ask the actual military troopers they will gladly explain how mysteriously right before deployment the women wind up preggers and get off the ships, same thing mysteriously happens in the other branches as well. Leaving gaps in the organizations structure of crews and units right when they really don’t need those sorts of issues.
Then there are the men, or rather the lack of them. The military has done such an absolutely poor job of recruitment that their (official) numbers show for the last several rounds of recruitment they were short by an average of 20% This is made worse by the poor treatment of military personnel (volunteer military personnel mind you) that many of them are actively telling their younger family members or others looking to join to not bother. That last bit matters because a sizable portion of the US military comes from what is referred to as military families or families with a military tradition. They are being actively discouraged due to how badly the troops are being treated. I cannot stress how absolutely insane it is that the military is losing their prime recruitment base. Seriously it is extremely bad and no one in the military high command seems to grasp the extent of problems this will cause down the line.
But it gets worse. Not only have politicians been bringing up the idea of a draft, and that likely won’t go as well as they have imagined, but even if they put it in place, the general health of American men is so absolutely horrible, that even after lowering their standards (which the military has already done at least once, I think twice actually), something like 2 of every 3 men (and it is probably higher) would not qualify to serve, or would need at least 6 months in fat camp before the 2 months of so in basic training. Meaning even if they were drafted it would be roughly half a year minimum before they could be deployed. Likely longer as I think there is more training after basic.
So yea, the US military right now is in absolute shambles. That wasn’t even all of it, it just felt like a good stopping point. A war right now with anyone outside of a bunch of bronze age bushmen will not go well, and I have my doubts about the bushmen too. As not only do they get a say in war, but so to do our politicians who absolutely deserve to be point on the spear-tip of the front line, every damned treason’s one of them who voted for war or for the draft. Traitors the lot.
Thank you for posting this. It’s exactly that, all of it. And more.
Have you, folks, seen a group of young American recruits? Any group. Have you noticed their physical state? And that’s only the stuff we can see. They’ve been medicated from infancy and fed extraordinary crap their whole lives.
We effectively don’t have an army. So I don’t know what it is that people fear from Hegseth but let’s be realistic with where we are right now.
I have zero desire for the US to go to war but having a strong, functioning army is what precludes wars and not the opposite.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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