The first problem is the gutting of Air Defense and sending most of it to the National Guard as like insurgents don’t like have air forces n stuff.

The second problem is despite popular misconceptions most of the Industrial part of the MIC – Military Industrial Complex – went the way of the Warsaw Pact in the 1990s and no longer exists. You see.
Sure it’s there, nothing like Cold War, and with outsourcing of everything including the I in MIC in the 90s it will be a decade at least to get the base back. As it happens we are reshoring, but we’re really in the position of Russian in 2009 when they realized the West was coming to ‘regime change’ them and carve them up and we need to start getting the base for war now. Russia began rebuilding it’s military in earnest in 2009 and was ready for war in 2019. We need to continue reshoring and may be ready for war in 2030-2032.

There’s nothing like swatting at phantoms though, right? MIC! MIC! MIC!

Saying MIC is like saying Soviet or NAZI or Confederacy but ok. If you live in online movies or video games then these are valid concerns !

The Third problem is an unknown number of all our weapons including from line units and Stingers have been shipped to Ukraine. The one thing that may be happening is the Russians aren’t using much air on Ukraine. Then again with missiles, rocket and Tube artillery being their mainstay the Russians don’t have to use air. The people who need Air support are the masses of Ukrainian infantry advancing over open ground into artillery barrages. < this being the American style, by the way. It works with insurgents. It's not working so well in Ukraine, except for the Ukrainian gravediggers.

So Adar is correct, it's not like you go to Amazon and order an industrial base to actually rebuild your military with…

Now we're in 'discussions' amongst our elites to restart the production line. This means every palm must be greased and every ring kissed as our government is essentially academic faculty with nukes and other nice toys and toy soldiers to play with but the academic faculty palm greasing [see Peer Review for another example with less money] is the essential dynamic. The answer to what would happen if wise academics ruled the world [or at least the American Empire] has been answered, the results lie before us all.

You can take the faculty out of academia but can't take the academic out of the faculty.

“Ukrainian defenders on the ground have kept Russian aircraft at bay and under threat. To do so they have used the long range S-300 family, medium range SA-11s, and short range SA-8 Gecko systems.”

I do hope the USAF and NATO Air forces are paying attention.

The Russians are the Master Class at Air Defense, as this article bears witness. The Russians knocked the entire Ukrainian air force from the skies in 2014 all with their air defense weapons.

We gutted ours over the last generation , and what was left we sent to Ukraine.

Now if this denial about denial about who denied who with what helps us rebuild our US air defense systems – most of the Stingers are in the National Guard you know…then I suppose it’s worth a click.

I don’t think the Ukrainian air force is flying? But lets not quibble, they may not have an air force anymore.

Are the Ukrainian air defenses such that Russian Air Operations are ‘prohibitive’? see below. USAF definition of Air Superiority.

https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Portals/61/documents/doctrine_updates/du_17_01.pdf?ver=2017-09-17-113839-373

“Air Superiority is that degree of control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference from air and missile threats.

o Historically, air superiority has proven to be a prerequisite to success for an operation/campaign

o Prevents enemy air and missile threats from interfering with operations of friendly air, land, maritime, space, and special operations forces, thus facilitating freedom of action and movement. [I'm going to interject this is rather a high bar "

It can be said perhaps with fairness that neither side perhaps has air superiority, as one side [Russia] is we are told not flying as much and the other side [Ukraine] is not flying.

I’m not sure I’d trust Oryx or articles that use them as a source, unless you’re a Turkish Drone salesmen.

Saya it all, doesn’t it? In addition to the expected Fog of War, the Kiev crew are deliberately filling the internet with half-truths & lies. The consequence is that none of us know what is really happening there — including whether or not weapon systems are effective.