"When the United States leaves a war zone, they generally don't take their munitions. It costs more to bring it back than buy new stock."In 2013, I posted about Egypt, F-16s, and American Strategy. A couple of days ago, I saw this article from the Washington Post: Pakistan eyes U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan. Apparently, much of the buzz revolves around whether to retain, destroy, or sell thousands of vehicles, including MRAPS.
- Nicholas Cage, Lord of War
While I was working in the Middle East (ironically, for the MRAP program), I personally witnessed equipment being moved out of Iraq, and my organization was able to benefit from some of the surplus created by the coalition's withdrawal. Iraq was a large and complex retrograde operation, but it was essentailly "cheap and easy" due to Iraq's geography, particularly its proximity to ports in neighboring Kuwait. It has been much more expensive to get equipment and supplies into Afghanistan, and although much of it will be removed, that removal will be a gargantuan task (and one that's been discussed for the last several years). Many will find the prospect of Pakistan receiving MRAPs and other military supplies unsettling, but military logisticians are likely limited by a challenging cost/benefit situation - even if the quote from Lord of War is actually fictional nonsense.
I also saw this article from CNN: NATO websites attacked by hackers. It reminded me of this comic from xkcd.
No comments:
Post a Comment