Inventory control will be lost in the conflict, leaving many of the weapons in the hands of desperately poor Ukrainians with corrupt overlords. The weapons will go to the highest bidder.

Consider that the US is unable (or unwilling) to prevent the movement of massive quantities of drugs over its southern border. Clearly the capacity exists to move large objects across borders with little fear of government intervention. Consider also that the EU has effectively no internal barriers to cross-border movement of goods.

Long after the Ukraine has been tossed down the same memory hole as the Biden/Milley chaotic abandonment of Afghanistan, the weapons that the West is so foolishly pumping into the Ukraine will be turning up elsewhere — and not used against Russia.

The StarStreak is, in effect, a manpad version of anti-aircraft artillery. It is line-of-sight and therefore of limited use against fast moving targets at low altitude. The system still, obviously some sort of “proximity fuse” to trigger the launch of its “darts”. Aircraft use flares/smoke to disrupt infrared/heat tracking which would also limit visual tracking, especially if the “flares” are used before a change. in direction. It is also not clear if the contents of the “smoke”, now or at some time in the future, might trigger a proximity fuse to launch and thus “waste” its dart payload.

The StarStreak might be “useful”, but it isn’t magic.

I would be concerned about having StarStreak systems fall into the “wrong” hands. Commercial aircraft do not have defensive systems and when they are low and near airfields they don’t make sudden changes in direction. Since the Ukraine seems to be as corrupt as Chicago, there is no telling where the missiles sent to that nation could eventually end up.

First of all, common sense dictates that the operator having to sit in a fixed position painting the target with a laser beam is a bad thing.

Painting a fast moving, maneuverable target is very difficult. Sitting around doing it makes the operator more vulnerable in a modern warzone.

As for this device’s man portability, it’s laughable.

Just look at this photo of a Starstreak getup on some exercise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starstreak#/media/File:Starstreak_launcher_on_Dartmoor.jpg

That is easily 100, maybe close to 200 pounds of gear. No one is running around in the field with that.

Highly likely many units will ‘fall through the cracks’ and end up in odd hands; but that doesn’t even matter really at this point. UK is another occupied province of globohomo like the rest of them, antithetical to the natives, and so the more trouble they have the more opportunity the natives have.

The bigger issue for the UK is that they are sending MANPAD-type highly portable anti-aircraft weapons into what was (is) the most corrupt country in Europe, now with the added chaos of war and the presence of the Ukraine’s recruited foreign mercenaries.

How many of these valuable portable weapons are going to be traded out from the Ukraine, some of them presumably back to the IRA and other European groups with serious grievances? It would not take many instances of redirected use of these UK weapons to shut down all European airports. Unintended consequences abound!