West Sacrificing Economy, Military Readiness to Back Ukraine

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The Ukraine proxy war has shed light on the weaknesses of Western militaries as the US and its allies have struggled to continue to arm Kiev.

The analyst joined Sputnik’s The Backstory program recently to comment on the ongoing Ukraine proxy war as voters in Western countries increasingly turn against the quixotic effort.

“The enthusiasm for Ukraine in America is just about tapped out after these two hurricanes and the disastrous damage they’ve inflicted, and the fact that it took a week for anybody to even notice that North Carolina and Tennessee are facing biblical floods,” said Malic. “That’s basically the vibe in America that I can see from here: no more, not a penny more to Ukraine.”

“The Pentagon is drawing on its [weapons] stockpiles as much as they can,” the analyst claimed. “It’s not the issue of, ‘oh, send everything.’ They are sending everything. This is everything they can spare.”

“Ten days ago when the Iranians fired all of those missiles at Israel apparently the US ships that were stationed there fired off 12 interceptors, not to very much effect from what I could see. And it turns out that’s the entire annual production. They’re making 12 missiles a year. So, it’s not like they have something to send. They’re already raiding the US armory as it is.”

A Ukrainian soldier carries a U.S.-supplied Stinger - Sputnik International, 1920, 11.10.2024

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The Ukraine proxy war has shed light on the weaknesses of Western militaries as the US and its allies have struggled to continue to arm Kiev. A report earlier this year revealed that Russia is producing three times more artillery than the United States and its European partners combined. The conflict has brought the two competing models of defense production into stark relief, with privatized Western military contractors unable to produce arms in the same quantities as Moscow’s state-owned production industry.

Western military planners are also not accustomed to waging a large-scale war against a formidable opponent like Russia, a fact tacitly admitted as the US military began a massive restructuring this year to prepare for a possible war against China in the Pacific theater. Western armed forces have most recently focused on counterinsurgency strategies against resistance forces in the Middle East.

Russia has meanwhile proven itself capable of quickly adapting amid its special military operation, even as the US and European countries like the UK and Germany send Kiev their top-of-the-line equipment.

“Most people in the West can’t even conceive of this scale and intensity of warfare,” Malic claimed. “Western militaries aren’t built for it.”

“I remember reputable military experts warning five, six, ten years ago when they were trying to ramp up military spending in the West that NATO has the capability to fight for maybe two weeks,” he continued, noting the resources required to build costly Western equipment like Abrams tanks. “That was two and a half years ago, and now they’ve depleted all of their armories and all of their ammunition stocks, and now you have to wonder whether they still have the ability to fight for two weeks.”

Polish soldiers parade through the streets of Swietoszow, in southwestern Poland in their Leopard tanks that they received Monday, Sept. 16, 2002 from the German Bundeswehr in a deal that is to help Poland's army upgrade to NATO requirements. - Sputnik International, 1920, 09.10.2024

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“If there is a direct conflict with NATO, it will immediately go nuclear, and everybody knows this.”

Meanwhile European countries are facing the consequences of their leaders’ near single-minded focus on war with Russia. German industry continues to falter amid sanctions on Russian natural gas which have dramatically increased energy prices, while social services throughout the continent have struggled to adapt to the strain of accommodating Ukrainian refugees.

EU leaders have signaled intransigence amid public opposition to their foreign and domestic policy as protests spread throughout the continent. French President Emmanuel Macron has faced ongoing resistance to cuts to hard-won labor rights, while farmers in Poland and other countries have demonstrated against neoliberal economic measures favoring Ukrainian agricultural product.

“They’re literally sucking out what little economic energy there is in Europe,” Malic said of EU and NATO leadership. “Their own populations are getting poorer by the day. There’s an energy crisis going on. There’s a manufacturing crisis going on. Their industrial production is non-existent. And that’s just us not talking just, like, military production, but civilian industry.”

“We’ve got German car makers going bankrupt for the first time ever. This is serious stuff and they’re still living in this lala land of the 1990s of Fukuyama’s end of history. Even Fukuyama himself has abandoned this as a mistake, but they haven’t gotten the memo.”