A report
in
The New York Times said that the West was mistaken when it thought that a war with artillery and tanks would never break out in Europe again, which prompted it to reduce the size of its weapons stockpiles.
According to the report, when the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, European countries reaped the "fruits of peace" and dramatically reduced their defense budgets, armies and arsenals, according to the American newspaper.
war effect
However, following the emergence of al-Qaeda nearly a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, "terrorism" became the target, which required various military investments, lighter forces, and units assigned to perform limited combat missions in foreign countries.
The newspaper pointed out in a report from Brussels that NATO's involvement in the war in Afghanistan for a long period of time cannot be compared to a large extent with a ground war in Europe using heavy artillery and tanks, which almost all defense ministries believed would never be repeated. Except it did happen.
However, a European war of this kind, which was believed to be impossible, broke out in Ukraine and is consuming modest stocks of artillery, ammunition and air defences.
Even the powerful United States - according to the newspaper - has only a limited stock of the weapons that the Ukrainians want and need, but Washington is not ready to transfer major weapons from sensitive regions such as Taiwan and South Korea, where China continues to constantly test its strength.
essential element
Now, after 9 months of war, the West's unpreparedness was a key element that led to a "frantic scramble" to supply Ukraine with what it needed and replenish NATO stocks of weapons as well.
With both sides depleting their weapons and ammunition at a rate not seen since World War II, the competition to maintain the flow of materiel has become a "dangerous aspect" that may be a crucial element in the Ukraine war, in the words of the New York Times.
For their part, NATO officials describe the amount of artillery used in the war as staggering. In Afghanistan it is believed that NATO forces may have been firing as many as 300 artillery shells a day, and were not concerned about air defenses.
On the other hand, Ukraine can launch thousands of missiles per day, but it still needs air defense to repel Russian missiles and Iranian-made drones.
Search for equipment
By comparison, the United States produces 15,000 rounds each month, the report said, "so the West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can now use, including the S-300 air defense missile." ) and T-72 tanks, especially artillery shells.
The West is also trying to find alternative systems - even if they are outdated - to replace the shrinking and expensive stockpiles of air defense missiles and the American "Javelin" anti-tank missiles.
Investment possibility
The newspaper indicated that there are discussions about the possibility of NATO investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to re-manufacture 152- and 122-mm Soviet-era shells, to fill the shortage in Ukraine's stocks of artillery weapons, whose warehouses still largely maintain these. Quality since Soviet times.
But without that, countless obstacles such as solutions are being followed, according to the report. There is the problem of legal controls on exports that govern whether weapons and ammunition sold to a country can be sent to a third country in a state of war, and this is the reason that prompted the Swiss - under the pretext of neutrality - To refuse to allow Germany to export to Ukraine which needed anti-aircraft ammunition made by their country and sold to Berlin.