Pentagon stockpiles ‘uncomfortably low’ due to Ukraine arms transfers: DoD

Arms makers are licking their chops as defense officials worry about shortfalls in weapons stockpiles.

Pentagon stockpiles ‘uncomfortably low’ due to Ukraine arms transfers: DoD

Related:

Ukraine War Depleting U.S. Ammunition Stockpiles, Sparking Pentagon Concern

In recent weeks, the level of 155 mm combat rounds in U.S. military storage have become “uncomfortably low,” one defense official said. The levels aren’t yet critical because the U.S. isn’t engaged in any major military conflict, the official added. “It is not at the level we would like to go into combat,” the defense official said.

In the U.S., it takes 13 to 18 months from the time orders are placed for munitions to be manufactured, according to an industry official. Replenishing stockpiles of more sophisticated weaponry such as missiles and drones can take much longer.

Speaking on an earnings call July 19, Jim Taiclet, chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp., said the Pentagon has yet to put the contracts in place or coordinate with industry to buy more supplies, a process that often takes two to three years.

Mass Shootings: The Vicious Cycle Fueled By America’s Toxic Cult of Violence

“Mass shootings have become routine in the United States and speak to a society that relies on violence to feed the coffers of the merchants of death. Given the profits made by arms manufacturers, the defense industry, gun dealers and the lobbyists who represent them in Congress, it comes as no surprise that the culture of violence cannot be abstracted from either the culture of business or the corruption of politics.”—Professor Henry A. Giroux

Mass Shootings: The Vicious Cycle Fueled By America’s Toxic Cult of Violence

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Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA

Complicit: The Countries, Companies and Think Tanks that Support the deadly Nuclear Arms Trade

Posted on August 8, 2021 by beyondnuclearinternational From ICAN report ..shared with thanks

A new report from ICAN — Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons spending — names names and produces some horrifying spending numbers, made all the more immoral by the desperate needs around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the ever worsening conditions brought on by the climate crisis.

Complicit: The Countries, Companies and Think Tanks that Support the deadly Nuclear Arms Trade

How The Military-Industrial Complex Gets Away With Murder in Contract After Contract

Increasingly, this means contractors are able to hold the Pentagon hostage over a weapon’s lifetime, which means overcharges of just about every imaginable sort, including for labor. The Project On Government Oversight (where I work) has, for instance, been uncovering overcharges in spare parts since our founding, including an infamous $435 hammer back in 1983. I’m sad to report that what, in the 1980s, was a seemingly outrageous $640 plastic toilet-seat cover for military airplanes now costs an eye-popping $10,000. A number of factors help explain such otherwise unimaginable prices, including the way contractors often retain intellectual property rights to many of the systems taxpayers funded to develop, legal loopholes that make it difficult for the government to challenge wild charges, and a system largely beholden to the interests of defense companies.

— Read on www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/21/how-military-industrial-complex-gets-away-murder-contract-after-contract

Holy crap!