The Biden administration has long insisted that defense trade-offs aren't necessary when it comes to supporting global partners. Biden officials have repeatedly claimed that the United States has the resources to support different friends maximally at the same time.
The fiction of these claims should have always been obvious. It is a fiction proven by the inadequacy of the U.S. industrial base to produce munitions at scale. At a scale, at least, that could simultaneously allow Ukraine to defeat Russia's invasion, allow Taiwan to defeat a Chinese invasion, and allow the U.S. military the reserves it needs for other contingencies, such as a new Korean war.Anyone who is honest about what these combat operations would actually entail knows as much.
That would be a laugh-out-loud line were the stakes not so serious. After all, U.S. officials have spent most of 2023 rightly pointing out the increasingly urgent shortfall of Ukraine's artillery stocks. The Biden administration now wants us to believe that Ukraine's shortfall suddenly no longer exists. Is it because they stumbled upon a treasure chest of forgotten artillery shells? It is not.
Such utter hypocrisy in terms of treating Americans as fools on national security is dangerous for our society. But Americans are not fools. They will see this announcement for what it is: proof that the U.S. cannot do everything maximally everywhere. Elbridge Colby and Alex Velez-Green have repeatedly emphasized this point. I disagree with them on some of the weapons trade-offs for Ukraine and Taiwan.
Because, as with these 155 mm shells, the hard truth is that more challenging choices are sometimes necessary. In the end, the choice of proud rhetoric and easy delusion is music only to the ears of Kim, Putin, Xi, and Khamenei.
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