From the article:

Trump and his appointees during his current and previous terms bear only part of the responsibility for the current situation. The fundamental problem has been a bipartisan neglect of America's military-industrial productive base over the past three decades. The United States allowed many of its strategic industries, such as shipbuilding, to wither. Its post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan involved brief invasions followed by years of relatively low-intensity counterinsurgency warfare that, whatever its difficulties, did not require mass stockpiles of munitions.

Informed by these experiences, military planners appear to have been operating under the assumption that future wars would be short and containable. If China attacks Taiwan and the United States wants to come to the island democracy's aid, the Pentagon will not be prepared for a protracted war.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has failed to learn from the war in Ukraine ... .

It was interesting, watching John Cornyn and Thom Tillis go through the ritualistic motions of a silly kabuki dance; one in which they pretended to accomplish something other than underscoring the standard Republican pattern of willingly performing acts of personal humiliation on Donald Trump's behalf. It was a bit sad, though, noting of the GOP's Senate Cowards' Caucus that even those claiming to possess standards to uphold and nothing to lose on their way out the door - other than future lobbying and corporate moolah - still feel compelled to harken to the sound of their master's braying.

Now that boom-boom supplies are down, down, down here comes shrieking for more, more, more at a ramped-up pace, as - coincidentally, of course - costs shoot up, up, up.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address
1/17/1961

Ka-effin-ching!

#6
Both funny (because it's funny) and newsworthy (because it's true). Life isn't all bad on the wrong side of that big neon "Jurassic Park" sign.

That the blame falls on Trump's slumped shoulders seems obvious.
After all, he started it.
It's Donald Trump's Forever & Ever War of Choice.
Come on, GOPers, puff out your chests: this is what you wanted and voted for.
And inflicted on your own nation.

"If the United States appears less powerful and less reliable than it once was and is running through munitions faster than it can produce them, many more countries will follow Ukraine's example. The Pentagon is belatedly ramping up its efforts to develop less expensive self-guided weapons. But those initiatives so far seem inadequate to address the problem that the war with Iran has revealed: a gap between America's military needs and what it is capable of manufacturing quickly and cheaply."

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has failed to learn from the war in Ukraine. Iran has learned to mass-produce cheap drones"ones that the Russians first imported and now produce themselves. In other words, their effectiveness had been tested, and their existence was widely known. But that seemed to make no difference to U.S. planners. Perhaps in the arrogant belief that a war with Iran would quickly end in a decisive victory, the Pentagon did not have cost-effective systems ready to intercept these weapons. Neither did the Gulf countries that have counted on American weaponry for their self-defense.

The "latest evolution of warfare" noted above:

Making America's challenge still more daunting is a major shift in war-fighting technology toward cheap, unmanned aerial vehicles. The United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf have been forced to use expensive, advanced air-defense systems"such as Patriot PAC-3 missiles that each cost millions of dollars and have a long production cycle"to shoot down Iranian drones that can be swiftly assembled for about $30,000.

Can't imagine it took much talking. Surely there's a way Bonesaws could withdraw the $2,000,000,000.00 in Saudi sovereign wealth fund dough he entrusted - but surely did not gift - into the grasping mitts of not-too-bright Old Yeller son-in-law Prince Pencilneck.

Iran sent SA and all Gulf States a message about their essential and vulnerable desalination plants. Based on this example of Bonesaws yanking Old Yeller by the golden chain, that message was received loud and clear.

And on this - as with so much- MAGAts sleep the sleep of the deeply dumb.