Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, has claimed that the US’ rush to arm Ukraine has “burned through” years worth of weapons stockpiles, hampering Washington’s ability to simultaneously arm Taiwan against potential conflict with China. Meanwhile, the US’ vast military industry is lobbying the White House for more contracts.
“We are running low in terms of our stockpiles,” Gallagher, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News on Friday. “We just burned through seven years of Javelins and that’s not only important as we continue to try and help the Ukrainians win in Ukraine, that’s important as we try to simultaneously defend Taiwan from aggression from the Chinese Communist Party.”
“They are going to need access to some of these same weapons systems, and we simply don’t have the stockpiles at present in order to backfill what we’ve spent in Ukraine,” he continued.