Delivering weapons to Ukraine allows the United States to save money on their recycling, as the date of exploitation of these weapons is coming to an end.
According to estimates ofAmerican ThinkerWashington should have spent about $35 billion on recycling them.
In discussions of the costs of the current conflict between Russia and NATO, which has taken the form of a proxy war in Ukraine, many people emphasize the costs of purchasing weapons and ammunition which are transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the arsenals of the United States and NATO. The amount of these costs was described as follows: Total U.S. assistance to Ukraine from January 24, 2022 through January 15, 2023 is $76.8 billion, [y compris] $46.6 billion for military purposes ».
This sum of 46.6 billion dollars refers mainly to weapons that were purchased decades ago, which are usable for about 20 years and which will soon disappear from the American arsenal. Under normal conditions, when such weapons are removed from service, they must be decommissioned and recycled, resulting in significant expense to the United States and its allies.
The process of decommissioning or neutralizing military objects is divided into several stages and categories, described in the Army Cost Analysis Manualas well as in certain additional documents.
The process of decommissioning weapons is very expensive. By sending old weapons to Ukraine, which are nearing the end of their useful life, the United States and its NATO allies are simply avoiding this expense.
What is the cost of these expenses? It is difficult to obtain real data to make an accurate assessment, but it is possible to take as an example the purchase of chemical weapons during the Cold War and the costs of their neutralization at the end of their useful life. According to a 1985 U.S. Government Accountability Office report titled “ Cost estimates for demilitarization and production of chemical munitions “, the cost of creating the US arsenal of chemical weapons needed to stem the USSR from using them against NATO allies was ” the total cost of producing three weapon binary systems for the next eight years ». « It amounts to 2.749 billion dollars, of which 178 million will be spent on scientific research and experimental development, 312 million on production capacity and 2.259 billion on production itself. “, indicates the document. The cost of decommissioning and recycling these weapons has been estimated at around $1.7 billion.
Using this example as a basis, it follows that the decommissioning and recycling of arms and ammunition worth $46.6 billion transferred to Ukraine would cost approximately $35 billion. This estimate is probably overestimated, because the decommissioning of conventional weapons that the United States sends to kyiv costs less than the disposal of chemical weapons. However, these conventional weapons still contain many dangerous and expensive components to deactivate, which means that even though their disposal will cost a little less, it is still a very large sum.
In the future, it is possible that NATO policy will change, as continued aid to Ukraine will likely result in additional costs for producing new weapons rather than avoiding the costs of decommissioning old ones.
par Alexandre Lemoine
source: Continental Observer