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more closely resembles a Just in Time, or more accurately, an them realize that while this approach is novel to say the least,

Amazon home delivery approach. it appears to ? t within reasonable international standards of

Instead of shipping missiles to a country, it makes more trade, law and warfare.

sense to have the arms supplier warehouse the arms at a read- Let’s further de? ne what would take place. Let’s say an Ar- ily available distribution point from which the threatened leigh Burke destroyer is parked off the coast of Ukraine with country can order arms for ready deployment as needed. a nice and ? exible collection of missiles.

In real terms this would mean that an arms supplier would The Ukrainian government has a purchase agreement for position a suitably loaded ship (or truck or aircraft) with arms these missiles, but asks the US to keep them stored aboard and arms deployment gear near the threatened country, and, af- their vessel until they are needed.

ter proper ? nancial arrangements have been made, the threat- The US will never launch these missiles to target countries ened country can ask the arms supplier to deliver ordinance and that do not agree to have them explode within their own coun- missiles to locations they select within their country only when try. As such, in the Ukranian war they would not land in Rus- needed. If an invasion occurs, the arms supplier would simply sia since that would be an act of war. However, when Russian light off missiles, etc. for the delivery location within the invaded forces cross into Ukraine, there is no restriction of law for country. Ukraine to ask these missiles to be delivered on targets they

The arms supplier does not select where the arms go within select anywhere within their borders.

the customer country, and they do not have to know why these The US delivers the missiles to coordinates or objectives arms are being deployed within the customer’s country. selected by Ukraine within Ukraine, and no other countries

I ? rst suggested this idea to my maritime colleagues in my can make any claim with regard to acts of aggression or acts of? ce who sounded skeptical, but further discussion made of war by the US or Ukraine.

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