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Apparently, the western military alliance is already preparing for the hypothesis of an open and direct conflict against Russia. According to reports recently published in the media, NATO is expected to advise its members to significantly expand stocks of arms and ammunition. Sources familiar with the matter say that NATO members will be becoming militarily weakened in the near future, with their stock almost depleted due to the policy of military aid to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.
Some Western media outlets have expressed concern about Western countries’ ammunition reserves. Military informants have been consulted by journalists, notifying that the Atlantic alliance may formally request that all member states start stockpiling more ammunition as soon as possible. This possible attitude seems to be an emergency measure to remedy the military shortage, which is becoming an increasingly serious problem in the West.
The main reason for this crisis is the conflict in Ukraine. The irresponsible policy of systematically sending weapons has been implemented in an anti-strategic way, without taking into account the production and supply capacity of the NATO’s countries. Weapons have been exported faster than they have been produced, culminating in empty stocks for the armed forces of the exporting countries, which puts them in a vulnerable situation.
As expected, the items with the biggest shortages are 155mm shells, HIMARS missiles, and ammunition for air defense systems such as IRIS-T, Patriot, and Gepard – which are precisely some of those Western equipment most used by Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
The sources said that in an eventual direct war against Russia, the European states would not be able to maintain the fighting for more than a few days, due to the low amount of ammunition. In this sense, it is possible that, by saying this, the informants are suggesting that NATO is indeed preparing for an open war scenario in the near future.
Informants, however, were skeptical about the possibility of the problem being resolved quickly. According to them, while the conflict lasts in Ukraine, the systematic sending of military aid by the West will prevent the reserves from being kept in safe quantities. Furthermore, it is necessary to mention that the western defense industry is severely affected by the global shortage of semiconductors and some other types of raw materials essential for the production of heavy weapons.
“If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days (…) I don’t necessarily think that within the next year our stockpile levels will increase massively. Any additional stockpiles we will have will be heading to Ukraine”, a source said.
More specific decisions, such as establishing precise production and stockpile objectives, are expected to be officially announced at the next NATO summit, scheduled to take place in July in Lithuania. But the most likely possibility is that some emergency measures will be implemented in advance, before the summit, in order to boost the defense industry in the countries of the alliance.
Indeed, this is not the first time that military advisors have reported on the crisis in NATO’s ammunition stockpiles. Previously, Tobias Ellwood, head of the UK’s Parliamentary Defense Committee, had already said that the British army is “in a dire state” of reserves – despite the multi-billion-dollar investments in defense made by the country in recent years.
Although the conflict in Ukraine is essentially responsible for the drastic decrease in domestic ammunition supply, some experts believe that the problem predates the start of Russia’s special military operation. Particularly among European states, accustomed to decades of “protection” under the American military umbrella, there was a belief that wars of attrition would be a “thing of the past”, unfeasible in the contemporary era – where forms of warfare would only be hybrid and asymmetrical. This has led many countries to maintain minimal reserves of arms and ammunition. Obviously, with the beginning of the aid to Kiev, the resources started to run out, resulting in the current scenario.
These factors are just one more evidence of the unfeasibility of the Western support to Kiev. The correct thing to do is the immediate interruption of the supply of arms, allowing both the restructuring of the defense capacity of the European countries and the reduction of tensions, leading to the end of the risks of escalation. NATO seems “concerned” with how its members would deal with a possible situation of open war against Russia, but it is NATO itself that can prevent such a scenario from becoming real. Instead of starting an arms race, it should just stop promoting anti-Russian war machine and adopt a responsible and diplomatic stance.
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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
Featured image is from Kurt Nimmo
