Several news reports (example) have come out in the past few days saying that stockpiles of weapons such as anti-tank missiles, MANPADS, artillery shells, etc. are running low in NATO countries. We have apparently sent a *lot* to Ukraine, which has spent the last nine months using those weapons to grind down the Russian military. The result is that NATO may soon run out… meaning no more for Ukraine, and little enough left for us. This is, perhaps naturally, portrayed as a Bad Thing.
But, utilized correctly, it’s not. It is in fact a Good Thing. Why? Because the war in Ukraine is, comparatively, a small one. Compared to Russia invading NATO, or China invading Taiwan or Japan, this war is dinky. And if we’re running low on ammo now… that is one hell of a bright shiny message that we need to stock the frak up. Doing so will take time of course… and we’d better start that clock *now* rather than waiting for when the Big One actually comes. Some of these weapons will take two or more years just to ramp up production… often, the last time these weapons were made was before the soldiers likely to use them were even born.
This will of course cost a lot. But the war in Ukraine has shown that western weapons are pretty damn effective, certainly compared to the Russian systems; it’s not just NATO and Ukraine that will want them, but *everybody.* It’s conceivable that the costs involved in restarting production could be paid for by export sales. Hell, just avoiding the insane student loan forgiveness idea would save the funds needed; perhaps those student loans could be paid off by said students working in the arms factories. Put those gender studies degrees to good use running lathes.