This idea that Ukraine is a vassal state to the US doesn't really hold water.
The US isn't pushing Ukraine into resisting the Russian invasion - the Ukrainians are. If the Ukrainians decided that they'd rather join the Russian sphere of influence (and not the Western one), the US won't stop them.
The US isn't telling Ukrainians what they can and cannot do with weapons acquired elsewhere. It's just telling them that they won't sell them missiles that will be used to attack Moscow. Furthermore, the US isn't restricting Ukraine from finding or building armaments without the strings attached. Calling Ukraine a US vassal while we supply them as THEY hold off a foreign invader would be like declaring the UK a US vassal during the Lend-Lease Act era in WWII.
As for how the endgame will play out, I'd advise keeping your powder dry on that one. Who had Ukraine invading and successfully taking out Russian ammo depots on their 2024 Bingo card? For all we know, the endgame might be Ukraine surrendering the mine-infested Donbas to the Russians, severing the Kerch Bridge from Russia to Crimea, and letting the Russian Crimeans thirst to death. In exchange for the Donbas, is it outside the realm of consideration that Ukraine might annex a similar amount of Russian territory to make up for that loss?
Ukraine cannot beat Russia without western aid. Period. Ukraine is doing the fighting, true. Would we stop them from joining Russia’s sphere of influence? You bet we would. We have exercised great leverage to that end in the past.
I think part of the issue with the administration's handling of the conflict is due to the personnel that were in-place: they believed Kiev would fall, and Ukraine would be made a vassal of Russia. They were wrong, but they are still in-place - and their worldview is reliant on Russia being what they are and maintaining their position in the world. So "Russia losing" is not part of their acceptable outcomes. This isn't necessarily what Biden or Harris want, but likely why the "red lines" are such a concern.
They've also forgotten that the way to deal with nuclear sabre-rattling is M.A.D. During the Cold War we didn't surrender to such threats: we need to remember how to deal with them.
So why is there a difference in approach between Ukraine Russia versus Israel Hamas et al? With one there’s a constant demand for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid with worries about civilian casualties, and in the other there’s not. The need for diplomacy in both wars is very apparent. The concept that Zelensky is doing nothing wrong but Netanyahu is just another double standard. The 2 conflicts are not exactly the same but they are similar.
Israel doesn’t need the U.S. to beat Hezbollah, or Hamas. (And probably Iran.) Israel is also a nuclear power. Ukraine would not last very long (months, a year?) without constant western aid. Fundamentally different.
Israel can likely defend itself without the US, but a direct conflict with Iran would likely be nowhere near as easy: Israel doesn't have the assets necessary to wage a major campaign at that distance and with the necessary volume needed. One-off strikes are different.
The comments made yesterday by trump regarding Ukraine made me eternally grateful he wasn't president during World War 2. It shouts volumes: "Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
With the ass-clowns he surrounds himself with that's entirely possible Jay. Lord knows none of the real generals would come near him. Flynn might just be the guy to get er done.
When a nation at war stretches itself too thin, either economically, militarily, or both, what happens? They either go down to defeat, or they retreat to regroup, rearm, and live to fight another day. Such is the situation we are in today. We are broke, we are stretched way too thin around the world, and our military leaders say that they are extremely worried that we would not be able to fight a protracted war, much less war on multiple fronts. I hear all these armchair generals saying that we MUST continue to support Ukraine, whatever the cost. Well, the cost could, and very well will be, extremely high if we maintain our position vis a vis the war between Russia and Ukraine. At 36 trillion dollars in debt(and actually much more) we simply are in no position to continue being stretched so thin. We need to pull back, and get well on a lot of fronts before we extinguish ourselves, let alone Ukraine.
In actuality it costs us very little to support Ukraine. It’s marked up and robbed from existing military budgets. We mostly give them deprecated equipment and old ordnance. Including a ton of artillery shells stored in Israel in case of another war that Israel could use right now.
200 billion dollars, roughly, that's very little? I beg to differ, we can't afford anything war related in light of our exploding national debt. Furthermore, you completely missed my larger point, what happens if and when we have to fight a war, say against Iran, or Russia or China?
The dollar value is just a number on a page: actual monetary aid is much lower.
How much of that dollar value is money already spent and currently sitting waiting to be disposed of? Bradleys, M1 Abrams, DPICM shells, etc... Those are all occupying space, waiting for disposal - and storage and disposal costs more than sending it to Ukraine.
So, in actuality: it's saving us money to send that equipment to Ukraine.
I wasn't just talking about Ukraine, I'm referring to the vast capital that we have invested all over the world, both militarily and economically, which has us at a great disadvantage vs China, and Russia or both together.
Not talking about foreign aid. We have thousands of troops in bases in South Korea, Germany, Guam, Italy, and other countries, and they need to be maintained. Not to mention our air bases, and naval forces in the Persian Gulf, the South Pacific, and elsewhere that need billions of dollars to keep maintained. In a few short years, it will take a trillion dollars just to keep up our military at the current levels. Now if you add a multi-front war on top of that, what do you suppose happens to the cost of all of that?
China is waiting for us to further weaken ourselves militarily and economically and then they will strike against Taiwan. They are playing the long game. China is very patient in this respect.
I didn't say anything about appeasement. But in fact, shouldn't Germany, France, Poland, Italy, England and others in the region stand against Russian aggression? What we, the US should do is negotiate an end to this war, then Europe can blunt any further aggressive action Russia might engage in.
This idea that Ukraine is a vassal state to the US doesn't really hold water.
The US isn't pushing Ukraine into resisting the Russian invasion - the Ukrainians are. If the Ukrainians decided that they'd rather join the Russian sphere of influence (and not the Western one), the US won't stop them.
The US isn't telling Ukrainians what they can and cannot do with weapons acquired elsewhere. It's just telling them that they won't sell them missiles that will be used to attack Moscow. Furthermore, the US isn't restricting Ukraine from finding or building armaments without the strings attached. Calling Ukraine a US vassal while we supply them as THEY hold off a foreign invader would be like declaring the UK a US vassal during the Lend-Lease Act era in WWII.
As for how the endgame will play out, I'd advise keeping your powder dry on that one. Who had Ukraine invading and successfully taking out Russian ammo depots on their 2024 Bingo card? For all we know, the endgame might be Ukraine surrendering the mine-infested Donbas to the Russians, severing the Kerch Bridge from Russia to Crimea, and letting the Russian Crimeans thirst to death. In exchange for the Donbas, is it outside the realm of consideration that Ukraine might annex a similar amount of Russian territory to make up for that loss?
Ukraine cannot beat Russia without western aid. Period. Ukraine is doing the fighting, true. Would we stop them from joining Russia’s sphere of influence? You bet we would. We have exercised great leverage to that end in the past.
How would the US stop Ukraine from joining Russia's sphere of influence?
I think part of the issue with the administration's handling of the conflict is due to the personnel that were in-place: they believed Kiev would fall, and Ukraine would be made a vassal of Russia. They were wrong, but they are still in-place - and their worldview is reliant on Russia being what they are and maintaining their position in the world. So "Russia losing" is not part of their acceptable outcomes. This isn't necessarily what Biden or Harris want, but likely why the "red lines" are such a concern.
They've also forgotten that the way to deal with nuclear sabre-rattling is M.A.D. During the Cold War we didn't surrender to such threats: we need to remember how to deal with them.
So why is there a difference in approach between Ukraine Russia versus Israel Hamas et al? With one there’s a constant demand for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid with worries about civilian casualties, and in the other there’s not. The need for diplomacy in both wars is very apparent. The concept that Zelensky is doing nothing wrong but Netanyahu is just another double standard. The 2 conflicts are not exactly the same but they are similar.
Israel doesn’t need the U.S. to beat Hezbollah, or Hamas. (And probably Iran.) Israel is also a nuclear power. Ukraine would not last very long (months, a year?) without constant western aid. Fundamentally different.
Israel can likely defend itself without the US, but a direct conflict with Iran would likely be nowhere near as easy: Israel doesn't have the assets necessary to wage a major campaign at that distance and with the necessary volume needed. One-off strikes are different.
Because they are just at root different conflicts.
The comments made yesterday by trump regarding Ukraine made me eternally grateful he wasn't president during World War 2. It shouts volumes: "Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.”
God help us all.
Maybe during a second term, Trump’s isolationist policies could lose WW2, after the fact.
With the ass-clowns he surrounds himself with that's entirely possible Jay. Lord knows none of the real generals would come near him. Flynn might just be the guy to get er done.
When a nation at war stretches itself too thin, either economically, militarily, or both, what happens? They either go down to defeat, or they retreat to regroup, rearm, and live to fight another day. Such is the situation we are in today. We are broke, we are stretched way too thin around the world, and our military leaders say that they are extremely worried that we would not be able to fight a protracted war, much less war on multiple fronts. I hear all these armchair generals saying that we MUST continue to support Ukraine, whatever the cost. Well, the cost could, and very well will be, extremely high if we maintain our position vis a vis the war between Russia and Ukraine. At 36 trillion dollars in debt(and actually much more) we simply are in no position to continue being stretched so thin. We need to pull back, and get well on a lot of fronts before we extinguish ourselves, let alone Ukraine.
In actuality it costs us very little to support Ukraine. It’s marked up and robbed from existing military budgets. We mostly give them deprecated equipment and old ordnance. Including a ton of artillery shells stored in Israel in case of another war that Israel could use right now.
200 billion dollars, roughly, that's very little? I beg to differ, we can't afford anything war related in light of our exploding national debt. Furthermore, you completely missed my larger point, what happens if and when we have to fight a war, say against Iran, or Russia or China?
The dollar value is just a number on a page: actual monetary aid is much lower.
How much of that dollar value is money already spent and currently sitting waiting to be disposed of? Bradleys, M1 Abrams, DPICM shells, etc... Those are all occupying space, waiting for disposal - and storage and disposal costs more than sending it to Ukraine.
So, in actuality: it's saving us money to send that equipment to Ukraine.
I wasn't just talking about Ukraine, I'm referring to the vast capital that we have invested all over the world, both militarily and economically, which has us at a great disadvantage vs China, and Russia or both together.
Foreign aid is less than 1% of GDP.
I think you're going to need to clarify what exactly you're trying to say is an issue.
Not talking about foreign aid. We have thousands of troops in bases in South Korea, Germany, Guam, Italy, and other countries, and they need to be maintained. Not to mention our air bases, and naval forces in the Persian Gulf, the South Pacific, and elsewhere that need billions of dollars to keep maintained. In a few short years, it will take a trillion dollars just to keep up our military at the current levels. Now if you add a multi-front war on top of that, what do you suppose happens to the cost of all of that?
If we abandon Ukraine to Russia, we WILL have to fight a war against Russia and its allies. Appeasement only emboldens the aggressors.
Bully correct
Not to mention China using that as a green light to Taiwan, given that the lack of American appetite for supporting allies is pretty small.
If you thought that the COVID supply chain disruptions for high-tech items was bad, just wait until China blockades Taiwan.
China is waiting for us to further weaken ourselves militarily and economically and then they will strike against Taiwan. They are playing the long game. China is very patient in this respect.
I didn't say anything about appeasement. But in fact, shouldn't Germany, France, Poland, Italy, England and others in the region stand against Russian aggression? What we, the US should do is negotiate an end to this war, then Europe can blunt any further aggressive action Russia might engage in.