What I'm most afraid of is that after everything is said done, all these powerful, but man-portable weapons will fall into the wrong hands with the apparent rush to ship them. Stingers were shipped to Afghanistan during the 80s, but that conflict lasted years.
"Did the U.S. leave Stinger missiles in Afghanistan? However, Russia still denies the claim being made about this missile. In the mid-980s, the US intelligence agency CIA handed over a consignment of more than 500 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen of Afghanistan under Operation Cyclone. Some reports claim that the US handed over 2000 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen."
Ukraine is requesting 500 *a day*. I think it's a foregone conclusion that there's going to be skimming off the top with illegal resales taking place. Never let a crisis go to waste. Too many in government live by that mantra.
What I'm most afraid of is that after everything is said done, all these powerful, but man-portable weapons will fall into the wrong hands with the apparent rush to ship them. Stingers were shipped to Afghanistan during the 80s, but that conflict lasted years.
"Did the U.S. leave Stinger missiles in Afghanistan? However, Russia still denies the claim being made about this missile. In the mid-980s, the US intelligence agency CIA handed over a consignment of more than 500 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen of Afghanistan under Operation Cyclone. Some reports claim that the US handed over 2000 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen."
Ukraine is requesting 500 *a day*. I think it's a foregone conclusion that there's going to be skimming off the top with illegal resales taking place. Never let a crisis go to waste. Too many in government live by that mantra.
It's not just the Stingers that they are requesting/getting from other countries. Poland gave them a couple thousand of PPZR "Piorun" missiles, older PPZR "Grom" missiles as well as soviet Iglas that they still had left.
What I'm most afraid of is that after everything is said done, all these powerful, but man-portable weapons will fall into the wrong hands with the apparent rush to ship them. Stingers were shipped to Afghanistan during the 80s, but that conflict lasted years.
"Did the U.S. leave Stinger missiles in Afghanistan? However, Russia still denies the claim being made about this missile. In the mid-980s, the US intelligence agency CIA handed over a consignment of more than 500 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen of Afghanistan under Operation Cyclone. Some reports claim that the US handed over 2000 Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen."
Ukraine is requesting 500 *a day*. I think it's a foregone conclusion that there's going to be skimming off the top with illegal resales taking place. Never let a crisis go to waste. Too many in government live by that mantra.
The US government hasn't been ignoring that, but given how dire the situation is in Ukraine their conclusion is that the urgency and need in the short term is so great that it outweighs the longer term dangers of pumping those weapons in Ukraine. They also believe at least that because of the near constant fighting, the weapons being sent into Ukraine will mostly be used in Ukraine and unlikely to be smuggled or sold off in the short term because the demand and need in Ukraine is so high at the moment.
As for what Ukraine has requested, that doesn't necessarily match up with the amounts we're sending. Even the US thinks 500 a day is pretty crazy, but the US acknowledges that the need is high enough to warrant that we're pulling from our own stockpiles. This is causing the US a supply problem themselves, as the US hasn't purchased any additional stinger missiles for 18 years now. We'll need to restart production lines as well as source materials to begin making them, which we're currently having problems with. The US was simply not expecting this kind of conflict to break out.
