United States has been denying to send Abrams main battle tank to Kyiv despited repeated requests by Ukraine.
According to some reports, Washington is running out of enough weapons, including tanks to arm Ukraine.
The Newsweek magazine has quoted US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro warning that the US may find it “challenging” to continue to arm itself and supply weapons to Ukraine if weapon production doesn’t increase.
William Reno, Professor and Chair of the Political Science department at Northwestern University, told Newsweek that “Weapon Supplies” were finite, even if there were increased production. After all, weapons transfer impact providers’ military preparedness, he argued, detailing how a US military division may pass weapons on to another department for training and how that unit’s “command asks whether those transfers impair their capacity to perform.”
As a policy, Western nations usually produce arms at much smaller volumes during peacetime, with governments opting to slow down expensive manufacturing and only produce weapons as needed.
“Some of the weapons that are running low are no longer being produced, and highly skilled labor and experience are required for their production, things that have been in short supply across the US manufacturing sector for years,” according to a CNBC report.
However, all this does not mean that the Western nations, particularly the United States, are not competent enough to produce arms if they so desire.
In fact, unlike Russia, which has a limited number of arms manufacturers making their weapons, the US military relies on thousands of private companies, both big and small, to replace its stocks. In addition, the US has partners like Israel and South Korea that could produce weapons if needed. Therefore, there could be a strategic reason in US slowness to supply major arms to Ukraine.
The Biden Administration believes that providing American tanks to Ukraine would be seen as a sign of escalation by the United States and could be a risky step for a global superpower trying to avoid a broader conflict with Russia.
But officially, US officials say that the US does supply quality weapons, including fighting vehicles such as Strykers and Bradleys to Ukraine. And if the US is not supplying Abrams, such tanks are ill-suited to battle in eastern Ukraine. After all, supply lines for their specific fuel, frequent maintenance, spare parts, transport, and training could easily be cut off.