The first is an independent state since 1966 and a former British colony inhabited by a mix of Indian (indeed Hinduism is the plurality religion), black and native people situated to the west of Suriname and bordering Brazil and Venezuela. It has had a nominally socialist government since even before independence, though I do admittedly not know much about the country's politics.
French Guiana is NOT independent and is part of France. The population is majority black, with a large presence of white Europeans (compared to less than 1% in Guyana) and is largely important for the French/ESA space program. It borders Brazil and Suriname.
The US has given its entire stockpiles of land war weapons to Ukraine. And is giving its entire stockpile of air war weapons to Israel.
The US hasn't given Ukraine or Israel anything but ageing platforms that were ultimately up for retiring in any significant numbers, and most of the aid money "given" to Ukraine has been spend in the US modernising production facilities and working on replacements for the gear that was sent.
What they have given away was never going to see any use in a conflict outside of WWIII. While it would be nice to think they couldn't do anything about Venezuela, they still have thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, fighter aircraft and bombers.
This is not true. I've seen actual US special forces units openly complain about weapons they need to be fully combat effective having been taken literally from their units to be sent to ukraine. It was a popular brand of complaint that was going around early on. Things like the mountain of Javelins that were sent weren't "aging platforms" they were tools actively being used. The conventional artillery ammunition stockpiles in particular would be used in any war that involves ground operations, they used them in iraq, afganistan and they'd use them in any new wars. And they dipped into artillery-based cluster munitions stockpiles because they simply ran out of everything else in my opinion.
Seriously, read through this: https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/
"more than 2,000,000 155mm artillery rounds". is serious shit, it's the entire fucking stockpile. You are right in assessing "this wouldn't be used outside of a ww3 scenario" but the point is that the US doesn't want to get into combat without having it there as a backup, as a contingency. It usually operates on the knowledge they have infinite resources it can dip into and not having the stockpiles scares them. US Generals don't want to do shit without knowing they have such resources if things go wrong.
In Israel on the other hand we so far know of more than 5,400 MK84 bombs, 5,000 MK82 bombs, about 1,000 GBU-39 small-diameter bombs, and around 3,000 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. We don't know the full extent of things being sent though because there's zero transparency for what is being sent to Israel compared to Ukraine because they requested secrecy for it, not even congress knows.
Yeah cool, but stockpiles are built over years not weeks. Manufacturing happens at a set rate and scaling that manufacturing for sudden replacement is not a small task. US stockpiles won't be back where they were pre-Ukraine for another 5 years and that's assuming they're gonna stop.
Money doesn't make the bombs, labourers in the factories do, and those factories operate at a maximum output based on what they needed before Ukraine happened. Until you expand them their output is limited by that (x bombs per day). And expansion takes time on top of the actual manufacturing itself post-expansion taking yet more time.
In short throwing money at it is only the start of a multi-year process of solving their stockpile problem.
If France couldn't do shit to Burkina Faso it can't do shit about Guyana.
Britain's aircraft carriers can currently only carry helicopters.
The US has given its entire stockpiles of land war weapons to Ukraine. And is giving its entire stockpile of air war weapons to Israel.
I sincerely believe that the empires have never been this overstretched in recent history. Not since ww2 or the losses of the British empire.
Guyana =/= French Guyana.
The first is an independent state since 1966 and a former British colony inhabited by a mix of Indian (indeed Hinduism is the plurality religion), black and native people situated to the west of Suriname and bordering Brazil and Venezuela. It has had a nominally socialist government since even before independence, though I do admittedly not know much about the country's politics.
French Guiana is NOT independent and is part of France. The population is majority black, with a large presence of white Europeans (compared to less than 1% in Guyana) and is largely important for the French/ESA space program. It borders Brazil and Suriname.
Yeah so is it even relevant? It has a whole ass country in between. Maybe in the sense that a hot war would affect it economically and with refugees?
French Guyana? I doubt it. Also I doubt there'd be much of a grand scale of fighting. Guyana has an army of 4500 people. Venezuela's is much large.
The question is, if the US would decide to enforce the Monroe Doctrine by force and invade.
The US hasn't given Ukraine or Israel anything but ageing platforms that were ultimately up for retiring in any significant numbers, and most of the aid money "given" to Ukraine has been spend in the US modernising production facilities and working on replacements for the gear that was sent.
What they have given away was never going to see any use in a conflict outside of WWIII. While it would be nice to think they couldn't do anything about Venezuela, they still have thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, fighter aircraft and bombers.
This is not true. I've seen actual US special forces units openly complain about weapons they need to be fully combat effective having been taken literally from their units to be sent to ukraine. It was a popular brand of complaint that was going around early on. Things like the mountain of Javelins that were sent weren't "aging platforms" they were tools actively being used. The conventional artillery ammunition stockpiles in particular would be used in any war that involves ground operations, they used them in iraq, afganistan and they'd use them in any new wars. And they dipped into artillery-based cluster munitions stockpiles because they simply ran out of everything else in my opinion.
Seriously, read through this: https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/
"more than 2,000,000 155mm artillery rounds". is serious shit, it's the entire fucking stockpile. You are right in assessing "this wouldn't be used outside of a ww3 scenario" but the point is that the US doesn't want to get into combat without having it there as a backup, as a contingency. It usually operates on the knowledge they have infinite resources it can dip into and not having the stockpiles scares them. US Generals don't want to do shit without knowing they have such resources if things go wrong.
In Israel on the other hand we so far know of more than 5,400 MK84 bombs, 5,000 MK82 bombs, about 1,000 GBU-39 small-diameter bombs, and around 3,000 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. We don't know the full extent of things being sent though because there's zero transparency for what is being sent to Israel compared to Ukraine because they requested secrecy for it, not even congress knows.
Dwindling immense stockpiles != Empty.
Of course the military needs more funding for stockpile replenishment - when don't they?
Good excuse to park a carrier group off the coast and have reasons for asking for more Naval stockpile replacement cash soon
Yeah cool, but stockpiles are built over years not weeks. Manufacturing happens at a set rate and scaling that manufacturing for sudden replacement is not a small task. US stockpiles won't be back where they were pre-Ukraine for another 5 years and that's assuming they're gonna stop.
Money doesn't make the bombs, labourers in the factories do, and those factories operate at a maximum output based on what they needed before Ukraine happened. Until you expand them their output is limited by that (x bombs per day). And expansion takes time on top of the actual manufacturing itself post-expansion taking yet more time.
In short throwing money at it is only the start of a multi-year process of solving their stockpile problem.