However, the most disturbing aspect of just how poorly the U.S. Army and Congress maintained our artillery shell supply chain was revealed by an internal U.S. Army document from 2021 detailing “foreign dependencies” on at least a dozen chemicals critical to manufacturing artillery shells that sourced from China and India

I wonder if some folks in China pondered whether they should be selling artillery materials to the americans and made th call that they'd never get within range of Chinese units.

You'd've thought that a Military-Industrial Complex would at least be good at doing the things that are in its name. Fancy that!

[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 47 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Preventing your enemy from developing their own supply chains by letting them use yours could actually be a workable strategy.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 30 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Making it irresistible to use yours, even. Reminds me of those mycelium that allow trees to share resources, but can also cut them off: the fungi giveth the nutrients of life, but the fungi can taketh away.

[–] featured@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is what the US and UN do with food aid. To paraphrase Sankara, real food aid isn’t grain and millet, it’s tractors and fertilizer. Just in China’s case they’re sabotaging empire, and in the former it’s in service of it

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago

A good chunk of famines happen because of the us dumping corn on local markets until local food ag collapses, then losing interest when the price of corn changes.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

"Hm, could selling artillery components to america present a danger further down the line?"

Looks over at comically large pile of DF-21 hypersonic missiles

"Haha, nevermind. Forgot."

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 27 points 1 month ago

They focused too hard on the complex part.