Ukraine Conflict Revealed Key Weaknesses In US Readiness For Big Wars - Marine General

The past year of hostilities in the Ukraine conflict have revealed major structural weaknesses in the capability of the United States to fight and sustain armaments, industrial support and logistics for any extended war against a near peer adversary, Marine Corps Combatant Development Command Chief Brigadier General Mark Clingan told a Washington conference.

"Some key weaknesses (were) identified in the military industrial complex," Clingan told a conference at the Atlantic Council on Monday.

Chinese shipbuilding capacity is vastly larger than that of the United States and the US armed forces needed to invest far more heavily in building a new advanced technology 21st century infrastructure focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D printing and proliferating vast numbers of cheap, easily manufactured unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, the general said.

Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Distinguished Research Fellow Thomas X. Hammes added that it would be a mistake to try and rebuild and recreate the kind of massive broad industrial base the United States enjoyed in the decades after World War II. Instead, weapons designs and replacements should be streamlined so that far fewer parts should be needed for replacement and maintenance in conflict situations, he said.