this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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Ukraine has broken the EU. Now they're out of weapons, they cannot make more, and the US is leaving (kdwalmsley.substack.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Bullets:

  • The war in Ukraine consumes vast quantities of arms and ammunition, supplied almost entirely by the US and the EU.
  • Battlefield demands in Ukraine far outstrip the combined production of the entire Western bloc.
  • Arsenals across the EU are empty, and the United States is far more reluctant today to supply the Ukraine war effort.
  • But Europe faces severe problems in their efforts to rearm, and to make good their public support and promises to Ukraine.
  • Despite having a far smaller economy than either the US or the EU, Russia easily produces more ammunition and war materiel than the NATO countries, combined.
  • Meanwhile, Russia's close ally China has the world's most productive industrial sector, and monopolies on the supply chains necessary to build armaments.
  • Last year, China cut off exports of antimony, a critical component of explosives, and antimony prices have more than quadrupled in less than a year.
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But he only talks in real values, why is ppp relevant? Note I dont necessarily share his point, I'm just not sure what you mean.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Right, I should make myself clearer. I'm no expert in economics, I just try to build a reasoning based on what I know.

The context of his statement is that Russia is outproducing the West in ammunition, specifically artillery shells. Earlier he states Russia is producing 4 millions shell a year compared to .5 for the US. So without qualification, the statement implies Russians are somehow 80x superior as they produce 8 times more with an economy a tenth the size.

I feel he should have qualified his statement to improve reader understanding:

  • in general domestic production for domestic consumption should be compared using PPP, in which the Russian economy is "merely" a fourth of that of the USA (hence my PPP comment)
  • the sanctions Russia is under distort the nominal picture since they restrict trade
  • weapons production is hard to put a number to, since they are very "custom" goods that can't be easily compared or traded, and even moreso for Russia which has a huge domestic arms industry
    • granted, that last point is is much more true of things like fighter jets than artillery shells
    • still though, there is some Western focus on quality over quantity that also explains the discrepancy (or at least there was before countries realized their entire inventory wouldn't last more than months in Ukraine)

Because he didn't provide this context to the number he is giving, I thought that either he wanted to misled or he was not sufficiently informed, and assumed the more charitable option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Aah yes, you were right. I mistakenly thought that you tried to compare the economies by using the arms manufacturing. But you only said the statement about economy size is wrong, which indeed because of ppp it is. I also agree that he uses this for propagandist purposes. Investing heavily into arms production and having more oppressed workforce doesnt sound as good I guess.