I was going to say this feels very out of character for both Trump and Destantis. That's why I questioned it. Not surprise.
The Daily Mail article mentions both Axios and NYT article as citations. Of course its bullshit.
Seriously, how much dirty money is tied up in Ukraine belonging to U.S. politicians and their donors that in the face of all our domestic troubles, we're still focusing all of our energies on this country?
Billions. And no, I'm not exaggerating. If any of the leaks from that Latvian bank are correct, there is a fortune in dirty money held in various Eastern European countries that was extorted and embezzled in one way or another, if not from the usual in-country corruption then by diverted foreign aid payments, all going on for at least a decade. Hunter was just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm just worrying about Taiwan. If Russia starts invading Ukraine,who's to say that China won't invade Taiwan during the chaos?
Taiwan. The current balance of power very much favors Taiwan thanks to China's lack of a real navy, home ground advantage, and the absolutely hellacious terrain, both in Taiwan itself and the countless jagged rocks and tricky currents in the strait.
On top of this - A near-peer war will be won or lost in the first few weeks of committed material, not manpower. Neither side would be able to sustain the material losses needed to hit the manpower losses that would justify a draft, much less sustain the material losses for long enough to train the draftees to even the most basic level of competence. Any lesser commitment of materials to avoid the above issue would be a correspondingly lower intensify of conflict, nullifying any realistic need to draft in the first place.
The days of converting car factories to producing tanks are long gone. Even if they drew up wartime designs to utilize the manufacturing capability that is available, they wouldn't be able to keep up demand for other components such as electronic systems that would be required to avoid making it just a rolling missile practice target. And you are simply put not capable of just press-producing critical equipment like aircraft no matter how hard you try to retrofit existing lines. Outside of small arms and support vehicles, you're going into any war with what you've got stockpiled, and you'll win or lose off the merits of that equipment, not what you could be producing a year down the line.
So... the US wins by default, then? Ironic that the very thing that makes modern combat vehicles viable on the battlefield (lots of classified, high-tech components) also prevents their mass production in time of need.
Also, it wasn't car factories that made tanks in WW2. It was converted locomotive factories, with tractor plants cranking out half-tracks. Trucks were far too valuable to convert their factories to tanks, and tanks just too dissimilar from automotive work. But their construction methods weren't too different from how trains were made. And the most productive plant by-far, the Detroit Arsenal, was scratch-built from the ground up for armored vehicle production. Same deal with Willow Run and its bomber an hour.
That said, you're drastically understanding US production, even during the Cold War. Lima was cranking out 120 M1A1's a month during the Cold War, or
4 per day. And that was just for stockpile and peacetime issue, not full-blown war production. You bet your ass we'd build another dedicated factory or two to supplement. For everything the USA has sold off or moved overseas, a surprising amount of production capability still remains.