US to buy South Korean howitzer rounds to send to Ukraine
By: Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp (AP NEWS)
So, every Cold War conflict is being revived. No doubt before the Ukrainian war is over we'll be hearing about the involvement of Vietnam and Cuba, too.
The thing is that the war in Ukraine is not an ideological war. Russia is not fighting to overthrow the West's contrived democracies. And Ukraine is not fighting to defend truth, justice, and the American way of life. The war in Ukraine is being driven more by Soviet history than by western ideology.
Somehow building up the South Korean 'private' defense industries will lead the world toward peace. According to the Biden doctrine, peace can only be achieved through wars that Biden won't fight. Every proxy war of the Cold War is being reignited and that poses a greater risk of a hot war. Someone needs to take the matches away from Biden before all of this becomes too hot to handle.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will buy 100,000 rounds of howitzer artillery from South Korean manufacturers to provide to Ukraine, a U.S. official said Thursday, in a deal the two governments have been working on for some time.
The agreement comes as Ukrainian leaders press for more weapons and aid to take advantage of a counteroffensive that is pushing Russian forces out of some areas they had taken over earlier in the war. And it relieves concerns within the U.S. military — particularly the Army and the Marine Corps — who are worried that persistent transfers of the Pentagon's howitzer ammunition to Ukraine are eating into their stockpiles.
Other defense officials confirmed the broad outlines of the contract and said it would help with stockpile pressures, specifically involving the howitzer ammunition, which Ukrainian forces have been using at a high rate. Last week a defense official briefing reporters said Ukraine was burning through as many as 7,000 rounds of ammunition a day, while Russia was firing as much as 20,000 rounds daily.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal had not been made public.
South Korea's Defense Ministry in a statement acknowledged ongoing talks over exporting an unspecified number of 155-millimeter artillery shells to shore up diminishing U.S. inventories. However, the ministry said the negotiations were proceeding under the presumption that the U.S. would be the "end user" of those rounds and that Seoul maintains its principle of providing only non-lethal support to Ukraine.
The South Korea agreement provides a sharp counterpoint to U.S. accusations earlier this month that North Korea was covertly shipping artillery to Russia. It's not immediately clear whether the deal opens the possibility of South and North Korean artillery being fired against each other in Ukraine.
North Korea has aligned with Russia over the war in Ukraine while also blaming the United States for the crisis, insisting that the West's "hegemonic policy" has forced Russia to take military action to protect its security interests. However, Pyongyang has repeatedly denied U.S. claims that it has been sending large supplies of artillery shells and other ammunition to Russia, accusing the Biden administration of a smear campaign.
Experts say North Korea has the potential to become a major source of munitions for Russia, considering the interoperability of their weapons systems based on Soviet roots. They say that the North, which has used the distraction created by the war to ramp up missile tests to a record pace, could seek to receive in return Russian fuel and technology transfers to further advance its military capabilities as it pursues more powerful missiles and nuclear warheads.
Until now, South Korea had previously limited its support for Ukraine to non-lethal equipment and supplies. In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed South Korea to provide lethal arms after Russia's attack on Mariupol. Seoul's Defense Ministry confirmed at the time that it had rejected the Ukrainian request for anti-aircraft weapons, citing the South Korean government's principle of sending only non-lethal aid.
International security experts have said both North Korea and South Korea maintain vast stockpiles of ammunition due to the decades-long tensions along their heavily fortified and militarized shared border.
In a statement, Army Lt. Col. Marty Meiners, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. government has been in discussions to buy ammunition from South Korea's non-government defense industrial base. The ammunition would not come from South Korean military stocks. He declined to provide details.
Meiners said any potential sales always take into account the South Korean military's readiness and requirements and "will not detract from our defensive posture or readiness to respond against regional threats." He added that South Korea's defense industry regularly sells military equipment and weapons systems to allies and partners, including the U.S.
South Korea has also inked several recent arms deals with European countries eager to bolster their defenses in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including almost $9 billion in multiple contracts with Poland to provide F-16 fighter jets, training aircraft, tanks and howitzers.
The ammunition deal was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Meiners said he could not provide information on how quickly the ammunition could get to Ukraine. He said the Pentagon has regular conversations with South Korea and other allies around the world about how best to support Ukraine in the war.
The revelation of the agreement came as Russia said it was beginning to withdraw its forces from the key city of Kherson. Ukrainian officials acknowledged Moscow's troops had no choice but to flee Kherson, yet they remained cautious, fearing an ambush.
Kherson was the only provincial capital Moscow captured after invading Ukraine in February. A Russian withdrawal would mark a serious setback for Moscow, while giving Ukraine a critical launching pad for supplies and troops to aid its effort to win back other lost territory in the south, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
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The United States can't even supply a tiny, isolated regional conflict without gutting American stockpiles and overwhelming American manufacturing. And the United States is a superpower? Oh, that's right, it's those nukes stored in the back room that really matters.
“And the United States is a superpower?”
In a word, yes.
Economically, militarily, and politically…should more words be required to buttress the point.
You write well, which is appreciated hereabouts, but those words are not grounded in fact, historical context nor logic. Thus rendering those words meaningless and easily dismissed.
An agenda does not an argument make.
The term 'superpower' is an artifact of the Cold War. Superpower status was determined by capability to conduct global nuclear war; capability to wipe out an enemy with nuclear weapons. That superpower status was an unspoken threat used to enforce policies that can only be considered imperial in scope.
The United States is a superpower because the United States can annihilate countries using nuclear weapons. That's all that superpower status really means.
South Korea and North Korea have to be looking at each other and saying "They can't be this fucking stupid can they?"
Two of the world's super powers can't supply ammo (in this case howitzer shells) to keep this moronic war going? "Crank up the prices and let the good times roll!"
The two largest military arms suppliers in the world are having to outsource?
.
I am sure US arms contractors are pissed that they are so overwhelmed by the US government's largesse to Ukraine that they can't keep up. The last thing they want is competition from South Korea; so the government can outsource- and their customers can go somewhere else.
The stupidity of this entire situation burns.
US foreign policy has been stuck on stupid forever. Instead of learning from mistakes we are doubling down and creating a whole new realm of stupid to explore.
Sorry US citizens; but inflation is here to stay. We have to fund the war in Ukraine; and it is getting very damn expensive! But don't worry, your US tax dollars are hard at work making sure foreign economies will be made even stronger!
Morning..thought logistics wise that would be a sensible thing for the US to do.
It's the same here we have supplied Ukraine with hundreds of millions of $$$ and not exactly practical for us to send hardware 20,000 kilometres away... shells, bullets etc..
We buy what Ukraine needs off Germany/France and other near by countries and send it through that way..
We have sent over 90 odd Bushmaster carriers and the only way they can get there is flying them into Poland..not sure if they are your planes or ours we use.
Besides who cares how it gets there, or who supplies it..so long as it gets to Ukraine to stick it up Putin..and the Ukrainians are doing it oh so we'll..
Go Ukraine..🇦🇺🇺🇦