Biden Makes 'Stunning Admission,' Admits U.S. is Running Low on Ammunition
The big beneficiaries from war are politicians and their overlords in the military-industrial complex
U.S. President Joe Biden admitted in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday that the decision to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs is because Washington’s own ammunition stockpiles are running low.
“This is a war relating to munitions, and they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden said.
Ret. Lt. Col. Darin Gaub told Fox News on Sunday that his sources say it will take up to 15 years for the U.S. to recover what has been sent over to Ukraine.
He told Fox that the U.S. is "running perilously low on ammunition" and is behind in manufacturing 155 mm artillery shells and other systems.
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, called Biden’s comments a “stunning admission.”
Vance tweeted, “The Ukraine war is a massive drain on our national security.”
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel now with the Center for Strategic International Studies, warned in February that U.S. stockpiles are getting low and Ukraine was using these shells at a pace that far exceeds the U.S.’s capacity to replace them.
“They're using about as much in a month as we produced in the year,” he said, according to CBS News.
The U.S. finds itself in the precarious position despite far outpacing what other countries spend on their militaries.
The Biden administration has requested $842 billion from Congress for the fiscal year 2024, which would be an increase of $26 billion from 2023 levels and $100 billion from 2022. Last year, the U.S. spent three times more on the military than China, which comes in second place.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, military spending across the globe hit an all-time high of $2.24 trillion last year.
Biden has been using his drawdown authority to pump Ukraine with millions of ammunition for HIMARS, 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, and millions of rounds of small arms ammunition.
Jens Stolenberg, the NATO head, said in April that the war is consuming an enormous amount of ammunition and “depleting allied stockpiles.”
“The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain. For example, the waiting time for large caliber ammunition has increased from 12 to 28 months,” he said at the time.
(When Stoltenberg made the comment, Russia was firing up to 20,000 shells per day into Ukraine. To put that number into perspective, the U.S. can produce 20,000 rounds a month at the current rate.)
TREND FORECAST: As we have forecast before the War began, Ukraine will not defeat Russia. Barely reported by the mainstream media is that Russia controls some 20 percent of Ukraine since the invasion and has destroyed much of Ukraine’s power and transportation infrastructure. Therefore, Ukraine cannot push Russia out, and Russian President Vladimir Putin will achieve his goals.
The big beneficiaries from war are politicians and their overlords in the military-industrial complex. Need more proof? As we have noted, Lloyd Austin served on the board of directors of Raytheon, America’s second-largest defense contractor before Joe Biden appointed him as U.S. Defense Secretary.