[FredPret]

America ramped up from having no appreciable military to being the number 1 military power during WW2, all in time to help win the thing.

So can the entire West crank out more shells than Ukraine can shoot at Russia if global stability depends on it? Of course we can.

[b112]

Canada, any single major NATO nation could produce arms in sufficient quantity, to make a major difference.

It's all about cost, not capability. And right now, that cost is being spread over dozens of nations, quite a few of them with wealth greater than Russia.

And that was GDP before sanctions.

So yes, 100%, we can supply the Ukraine forever. And beyond this, many countries are sending good, but aging equipment. Even artillery, ammo has age limits.

So we send older, but well maintained gear, and then buy new, refreshed supplies. That's what is happening in Canada, at least.

So Russia is actually helping the West's offensive capacities, by increasing military spending, and refreshing hardware.

[pydry]

And they could ramp up again, but it's not going to make a difference in the next six critical months especially without putting the economy on a war footing and suppressing civilian production like they did last time.

If China decides to supply Russia, it'll make even less of a difference. Russia already outproduces the US in steel (key input into shells, and a bottleneck in both wars). China outproduces by a factor of 10.

[kspacewalk2]

Nothing is "critical" about the next six months. In fact, it's possible nothing much will happen in the next six months, if Ukraine opts to spend it training the >100k troops it just called up during the late fall and winter, waiting for the armour from the West to be delivered, and building up a stockpile of ammo. Ukraine has this choice because Russia just exhausted its offensive capability in a mid-winter offensive that didn't accomplish much and has stalled out. Russia is spent as an offensive force until the mid-summer at the very earliest.

If China decides to supply Russia, it won't be in the quantities sufficient to make much of a difference, because they don't wish to trigger significant retaliatory sanctions, certainly not right now when the Chinese economy is in a vulnerable state of coming out of the COVID-era funk. China significantly underproduces Western countries in terms of military industrial complex, quantity but especially quality. I don't want to pull numbers out of thin air but it's Nx, N > 1.

[b112]

China outproduces by a factor of 10.

You mean Chinese steel, which is terrible, barely passable junk?

Yes, great for mission critical stuff.

[pydry]

Ukraine doesn't need artisanal, hand crafted shells. It needs 10x more than it already has.

[b112]

Russia doesn't need shells exploding early, or combat gear parts snapping under load.

And that's what Chinese steel does. Fail.

They've only been able to make ball point pens, with a proper round steel ball, for a decade!

[xtian]

They built the largest high speed rail network in the world in less than 20 years.

[b112]

And probably sourced the steel out-of-country, as they have for other things.