Ukraine and Russia are lobbing so many shells at each other that the world’s armies are turning to the two Koreas for spare supplies
(Originally published Nov. 28 in “What in the World“) The war in Ukraine is bleeding the West’s arsenals dry, so much so that the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia worry that they may be left vulnerable.
Much of the problem is that the war in Ukraine has devolved into a 20th Century-style shelling match most military planners assumed was a thing of the past. Dueling artillery requires that Ukraine expend as many shells in a single day as the U.S. used in Afghanistan in a month.
Russia, which is pounding southern and eastern Ukraine as well as the city of Kherson after losing it earlier this month, is going through ammunition at an even faster clip and faces shortages of its own. It has resorted to buying drones from Iran and deploying 1980s-era cruise missiles stripped of their nuclear warheads.
As stockpiles run low, the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been scrambling for new supplies of both old Warsaw-pact, 122m and 152mm ammunition and NATO-compliant, 155m shells. The shortage prompted the chief of Canada’s defense staff to pay a personal visit earlier this month to General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems to see how to boost 155mm production.
The U.S. has poured so many weapons into Ukraine that it has left a $14 billion backlog of shipments earmarked to help bolster Taiwan’s defenses against possible attack by China. That includes 208 of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon’s FGM-148 Javelin antitank weapons and 215 of Raytheon’s FIM-92 surface-to-air Stinger missiles.
Fearful of running out, U.S. officials have been trying to urge Ukraine not to use the more expensive missiles to down cheap Iranian-made drones. The U.S. has also begun sending Ukraine Raytheon’s older BGM-71 Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided, or TOW, anti-tank missiles.
NATO and Russia have both turned for new supplies to one of the most heavily armed territories in the world, the Korean peninsula. Moscow has reportedly been buying artillery from North Korea, while the U.S. is turning to Seoul.