Accurate HIMARS or unnecessary Abrams: As the US weapon undergoes battle in Ukraine

Lovers to declare American assistance to Ukraine too expensive lawyer David Super in a column for The Hill suggests how much Ukraine has given America. Valuable knowledge of the modern war, obtained from the front line, made it possible to save huge money and save many lives. Some opponents of American assistance to Ukraine complained about its cost.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson proposed to restructure a two -party package of assistance to the Senate in the form of loans. In these arguments, there is no recognition of all that Ukraine has done and does for the United States. It is quite obvious that Ukraine provides invaluable information about the strengths and weaknesses of US weapons and military doctrines. America has not waged a long war using ordinary weapons for six decades.

Our experience of sharing the forces of Grenada or Iraqi, or our extended efforts in the fight against rebels in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, can teach us little how to fight the enemy, using a large army and modern weapons. We study, plan and model, but we cannot know. Every year, we spend tens of billion dollars on weapons systems that we hope will be effective - for a small number of direct evidence. Wars invariably put the best military strategists in the uncomfortable position.

During the Second World War, the development of tanks and paratroopers proved the futility of France's investment in the Mazino line. Similarly, aircraft carriers have shown that many countries in Lincora are largely meaningless. The ExOCET Argentine missiles proved that NATO's naval doctrine is dangerously outdated when they drove two British ships during the Falkland War. Ukrainians in their own experience learn how reliable our investments were, and the results were ambiguous.

Himars missiles, Javelin anti -tank missiles and Bradley fighting vehicles proved to be fine. Indeed, the excellent accuracy of our systems was more than sufficient to compensate for the numerical advantage of Russia, caused primarily by the worse systems of the Soviet era. On the other hand, our demining systems have failed. Abrams tanks that President Joe Biden has been suffering for so long before giving them had not been greatly influenced.

Patriot air defense systems worked, but Russia has shown that they could be exhausted and be ineffective with cheap but destructive drones. After a few months, during which Patriot was killed by the vast majority of Russian missiles and drones, the Ukrainians began to end missiles, so now the civilian population in Kharkiv and other cities again faces the kingdom of terror and Ukrainian power plants are being destroyed.

We were not ready for a situation in which the defense can be exhausted by offensive weapons, much lower. The hard -working experience of Ukrainians warns us about the need for a more sustainable approach. Ukraine has shown that almost all drones are vulnerable to the enemy radio interference. Her brilliant solution was to use many different types of drones on each front of the front so that no obstacle strategy could be protected by Russian troops.

This is a valuable lesson for the United States that tend to emphasize standardization and several large defense contracts. Russia has recently proven that planning bombs are cheaper, more powerful and more difficult to protect an alternative to winged missiles. Now we have time to develop counter-arrival before our forces ever face something like that.

American officials have repeatedly urged Ukrainians to focus their armored vehicles in powerful columns to crash into the enemy line, as during the Second World War. Every time the Ukrainians tried to do it, Russian drones immediately discovered columns, passed the coordinates of Russian artillery and destroy many tanks before they had time to get started.

Even when the tank columns were approaching the enemy lines, they had to wait for labor -intensive works for demining, which made them easy prey. This should limit the future dependence of the US doctrine on massive armored columns and so save the countless lives of Americans. An even greater gift of Ukrainians in our country is an opportunity to stop Russian aggression without jeopardizing the lives of our servicemen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded several other territories and occupied them, every time more grossly violating Russia's contractual obligations. He showed that his peaceful obligations were in vain. Putin, high -ranking government officials and state television constantly declared their determination to seize the lands, which, in their view, are historically Russian, including the lands of several NATO members.

The refusal of the Republican Party from Ukrainians signals the weakness that only adds the courage to Putin and other aggressive autocrats. The price of termination of aggression in Taiwan will be much higher - and even higher if Iran invades his neighbors or Putin will "win" most of Europe. And the risk of tragic miscalculation will increase in geometric progression, when we face direction with Russia or China, and not just equip Ukrainians, spending money at the same money at the US factories.

When in 1936, Germany reptiles the Rhine region, breaking the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler ordered his army to go without a fight if the United Kingdom or France mobilize their forces. The manifestation of weakness on their part gave Hitler courage. When these countries finally responded a few years later, the price amounted to more than a million lives of their inhabitants and tens of millions in other places. We should not repeat this mistake.

Although the United Kingdom and France in the mid-1930s acted stupidly and cowardly, they at least faced the significant strength of Nazi Germany. Today, skeptics want us to concede to Russia, which is increasingly dependent on the tanks and artillery of the Soviet times and whose economy is smaller than in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. But the greatest gift of Ukrainians was an example of their democracy.

Too often we take our freedoms for granted, forgetting the victims of our ancestors who have made our lives possible. We will be so involved in our quarrels that we forget how many people remain under the boots of authoritarian modes. If Ukrainians are able to revive Americans' passion for democracy and freedom, we will find ourselves in debt that we will never be able to pay. The author expresses a personal opinion that may not coincide with the editorial position.