Great Power contentions

[spmetla]

NATO should be developing its doctrine and force structure on the assumption of tight future joint operations, which would be best fitted according to comparative advantage. In that case the UK could invest more in its navy. In the more likely scenario that everyone continues to avoid the hard choices and sovereignty-limiting collaboration that the world's challenges require, the UK would be better off just scrapping their navy and investing most of the returns in anti-shipping platforms and standoff fighters.

The sad - though double-edged - reality is that in the 21st-century, high-tech and capitalist-efficient military manufacturing has a lead time of years. Spare capacity does not meaningfully exist, machine tools are irreplaceable, and there is no more suddenly retooling a nail factory and its workforce to produce airplane parts, or whatever. I'm not sure, if the EU and US leaderships had committed in March to stand up a new complex for the Soviet-grade artillery calibers that Ukraine cannot replenish, that they could have under any circumstances reached the production stage before 2023 - and at thousands per month at that. Where basic artillery ammunition is some of the simplest war materiel that exists, behind bullets. If you want spare or scalable capacity, you have to pay for it well beforehand.

I think NATO is adjusting correctly to the Russian threat. The UK is investing much more in its Navy and I hope continues to do so, having a capable UK ground force and RAF though are equally important as they provide significant contributions to the Baltic security rotations, which as a nuclear power and as a 1st rate military in quality is significant.
The slow lead time in manufacture is sad and expected, NATO countries would have had to continue maintaining their large stock piles in the post war era and continue to keep manufacturing lines open despite the last 20 years of war being a counter-insurgency focus. No excuse really but people like me that are advocates for a strong defense are usually seen as war mongers and ignored in favor a 'peace dividend.' The stupid but correct logic in a well-armed military for deterrence is that it is doing its job well if it never has to be used for war if the deterrent is credible enough. A hard sell for almost every government which would rather spend money on education and health care which have much more visible returns on investment short of war breaking out.

I think we're seeing the start of a proper Western rearmament though; the corporate cultures being forced to decouple with Russia and probably recalculate their investments in China will see a more polarized and economically independent factions over the next decade, especially as we try and restrain China's demands for its place under the sun.

Yes, creating some F-35s out of thin air isn't going to happen overnight. BUT Germany has many (a few hundred I think) tanks that they pretended didn't exist (Rheinmetall had to call bullshit on that one) and I am sure they are not alone in having heavier weapons mothballed that relatively quickly can be brought up to scratch. Certainly in Europe there is no greater threat than Russia - and they'll never do more good than now.

I think there's some sort of unofficial EU/NATO policy against supplying German tanks, even the older Leopard 1s. I recall about two weeks ago Spain was mulling sending its Leopard 2A4s that have been in long term storage and then backed out with a line of 'they're in too poor shape to send' which is a piss-poor excuse because that really to me means disposable so send them to be refurbished and then onto Ukraine. Same with the older Leo1s, like you wrote, Rheinmetall has quite a few but no okay to send despite having made clear since a few days after Feb 24th that they can be refurbished and sent. The Germans seem to have quite a hang-up about German "Panzers" fighting the Russians in the Ukraine again, simply ludicrous.
At least the older warsaw era inventories of eastern and central europe are being cleared out for donation including finally some Slovak MiG-29s while the neighboring countries make up for capability gaps like the Czechs covering air policing for the Slovaks and the Germans providing their own German manned patriots for air defense.

The USA National Guard and even the police departments have a vast amount of older equipment which they frankly don't need (in the case of the police, positively shouldn't have) and logistically a lot might be easier to make new than collect some is probably worth the effort. Finally, there is The Rest of the World who have a lot of weaponry, most of it is either Russian or NATO compatible and again could be purchased.

As a member of the National Guard, I'd rather not give away the functioning equipment we have, the US Army doesn't use us as a last resource branch but rather an 'operational' militia/reserve force so every four years each Brigade deploys in some capacity (training or peacekeeping missions due to the lack of wars now) so we actually need that equipment. Also, as the US is the major deterrent force for the 1st World in Europe and East Asia it's best we don't erode our capability too much.
As for police forces, well for one the equipment they have that is 'military' are really just wheeled APCs, tall ones at that to be good against mines/IEDs, honestly not very good for a straight up fight like in Ukraine. There's no police armor or artillery forces (let's hope we stay sane and keep it that way). There's also the thing that even if they had good equipment for Ukraine that it'd be owned at the County or State level and not within the capability of the Federal government to gift to a foreign power.

If it were up to me there'd be Ukrainian pilots training on export versions of the F-16s, JAS-39 Gripens, Leopard 2A4s- 2A6s, CV-90s and Marders, as well all older cold war stock Leopard 1s and M60s MBTs while continuing the supply of rocket and cannon artillery in all forms. Former warsaw bloc members of NATO probably don't have the manufacturing capability for boosting production of ammo and spare parts in the quantity needed by Ukraine so I think we need to try and switch them to NATO equipment during the war so that the effort can be sustained longer.

This really shouldn't be something the USA should have to do the heavy lifting on - they are paying for Ukraine's weaponry whilst the EU pays for Russia's.

I think it is key though that the US continues to do the heavy lifting as it is the least vulnerable to Russia's hydro-carbon diplomacy and has the benefit of everything we do for Ukraine is watched by Beijing in regard to gauging US support for Taiwan. Europe's weening of Russian energy should have started eight years ago but better late than never and hopefully the promised investments in defense (especially Germany) lead to a revamping of much atrophied industries.

EDIT:
Excellent look at the problems of German rearmament.
https://youtu.be/8jDUVtUA7rg