War in Ukraine

Not our problem.

NB: "not our problem" =/= "good guys."

NB 2: "=/=" = "not equal to" (ie does not equal, ie not the same as....).

NB 3: short list of our actual problems which we have subordinated to "not our problem":

1. Our national debt;
2. Our debt spending;
3. Poverty in our own country;
4. Chicom infiltration and control of our leadership;
5. Our southern border, and all kinds of threars entering in with impunity to the tune of 10 million unvetted ppl from all over the world, including places you can't come here from at all due to national security risks, fenty dealers and their fenty (logging a brisk 100k / year death toll), drug n sex traffickers, on and on...

Meanwhile, we become more commie by the day, as God is continually reduced in our society, moral decay, disunity, our campuses overtaken by redical antisemitism, law and order continue to be attacked and undermined...

By whom, and for what end?

 

Ahhhh....of course.

If we weren't preoccupied with Russia-Ukraine, why then we couldn't focus on China-Taiwan.

Makes perfect sense.

Garsh, how'd I miss such an obvious call there?

Well I guess that blows my death by a thousand (self-inflicted) wounds hypothesis right to hell.

Clearly the chicoms are not patiently waiting for us the destroy ourselves (with their suicidal influences, whispering in our ears how harmless a few more Trillion dollars of debt here and there is, and doesn't it feel so good to spend spend spend...),...

I mean....it's the Chineese...

Patience was never their strong suit, right? ...so wth do I know?

 

You seem impervious to the possibility may have had its reasons for bulldozing over Ukraine.

You’re adequately informed about one thing though. Russia is bulldozing over Ukraine. We know it’s bulldozing over Ukraine and we also know there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

 

C'mon man...

Russia's been stuck in the mud about half the width of Florida for like 3 years now.

If that's "bulldozing", I'd submit your bulldozer's dun broke down, and your pushing it manually, rather than riding it.

 

“Why attack your enemy when he comes to you to be killed ?
— Sun Tzu or some guy —

 

Russia was being patient and strategic, too … until they weren’t. Putin wanted to see this territorial objective complete in his lifetime and was no longer satisfied with undermining NATO by a thousand cuts. The Chinese, as you suggest, have indeed been patient and strategic, especially the previous three leaders, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao. Xi Jinping is something different. The Chinese people might be willing to wait as long as it takes for Taiwan to reunify of its own accord, but Xi wants to see this happen during his rule and not leave it to karma. He’s also done much to purge the government of anyone who would oppose him on this and to psychologically prepare the Chinese people for war. Defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression is one of the rare circumstances where the liberal internationalists and realists agree (for different reasons). Having studied what that fight will look like, I can tell you our best bet is to deter it from happening at all. Even if we pull off a Midway-level lopsided victory, the casualties and damage we would take would blow your mind. My assessment is that the best way to deter Xi Jinping is to facilitate Russia’s defeat. There are certainly others as well that we need to be pursuing.

 

Ok. Still not "bulldozing". Perhaps hunkering down, and asserting their claim to that enormous sliver of land they earned over the last 3 years....

Very scary.

 

What kind of deterrent will we represent, if we're ruined? We'll be about as scary as Russia is now (not all this feigned shit your britches terrified shit so many on this thread seem to pretend to, but like "hey, look at us, and laugh at us" scary...), if our economy collapses, and our society fractures. China, imho, is not only banking on this, they're actively pulling every lever at their disposal, to bring it about....which even fits your take on Xi Jinping, seeking to expedite so it happens on his clock.

#Wu(hoo!)han!

#magicbatdunshatonawetmarket!

....34 Trillion and counting, and...what's the battle cry?

LET'S SPEND MORE!!!

Who's driving this suicidal trajectory to expedient resolution?

Are WE really that dumb?

...or might we just have us a cancer metastasizing in our thinking parts?

 

Both Russia (under Putin) and the Soviet Union were/are essentially dictatorships, where a person normally ruled until he died. Russia pretends to be a democracy, but Putin chooses his opponents, and even if an opponent is not on the ballot, Putin might have him killed if gets too popular. Russia and the USSR both had/have a goal of global domination, and both would take action to cause harm to the U.S. whenever possible.

The word "communist" is not the problem. Just because China is communist, doesn't necessarily make them bad for America to do business with or associate with. (It makes things bad for the people who live there, of course, since they have no freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and little economic opportunity.) China became bad to us when it militarized and started threatening its neighbors and claiming the entire South China Sea. We were very friendly towards China until this happened--probably more than we should have been, considering they were stealing our technology left and right.

 

None. I’m not suggesting we ruin ourselves. We agree that the CCP is the main problem. We have a difference of opinion on how to deter war or, failing that, put ourselves in the best opinion to win and reduce our own losses. You don’t see a connection between Russia and China. I feel there is a clear connection. I totally understand your frustration with the money that we’re spending on this aid to Ukraine. I wish Russia had not started this inexcusable aggression and that we could complain about wasting money on other things instead.

 

Grownups shouldn’t be allowed to characterize Russian actions as “unprovoked.”

But since I’m not on the political left I don’t advocate for censorship or coercion or cancellation.

 

Quite possibly the least persuasive poster to ever grace Too Hot.

 

Please. You’ve just forgotten a couple of the people you’ve blocked.

 

I guess you can say that Russia was "provoked" if the desire to have an independent country rather than return to its former status as part of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire under the Czars as was Ukraine prior to 1991 a form of provocation.

 

Amazing how Ukraine was able to physically shift its legal borders into Russia in order to be attacked.

 

Grownups shouldn’t be allowed to just contrive new realities to suit their needs. And yet, somehow, some grownups have succeeded in doing just that. Nice work!!

 

OK, bottom 5.

 

Not our problem = isolationism, or turning a blind eye to an empire building country consuming its neighbors.

Isolationism = wait until the opponent is much more dangerous and finally attacks you (i.e., Pearl Harbor); watch as allies and trading partners disappear and cost of products go up. Remember, we did not start the hostilities with Japan in the 1940's; we used legal means to deny them resources that they needed to continue conquering Asia.

National debt will be much worse if you allow an empire-building adversary to build up resources, supplies and equipment before they decide to attack you. Because as that threat level increases, so does your spending on national defense. Remember, when it comes to sneak attacks, the adversary knows when and where that will happen, and only has to prepare for that battle and the ones that spring from it, while you have to prepare for every possibility, causing a tremendous outlay of cash, most of which will never be used. In WWII, we set up defenses in California and Alaska which were mostly unused. That's exactly what happened in the 70's and 80's with the Soviets. We only recovered in the 1990's because we supported the Afghans to defeat the Soviet Army in the 1980's.

We are in a global economy, whether you like it or not. If empire building (Russia & China) gets out of control, the damage to the U.S. economy will make everyone regret it. You simply are NOT committed to reducing debt spending if you turn a blind eye to Russia's invasion of Ukraine (or you are an extremely short-sighted person). We saved $2.55 trillion by spending a few billion supporting Afghanistan, so it's not like I'm making this up.

Maybe the U.S. would be less "commie" and more committed to reducing moral decay and disunity, if certain people would stand up for freedom and against grand theft and murder on an international scale.

 

So, basically, you have no understanding of the numbers involved, even after they've been presented to you several times. You have no concept of balancing a budget and what that takes long-term. You do not understand cause and effect. You see big spending, like over $100 billion, and you crap your pants in fear. Guess what, big boy? We spend $700-800 billion on national defense every year. A $100 billion outlay to Ukraine over two years is NOTHING, considering that Russia is one of our two biggest threats. And many of the weapons that we sent to Ukraine were rusting in warehouses, with near-zero chance of them being used by the U.S. in combat ever again. Ukraine is practically doing us a favor, taking these tanks and Bradleys off our hands. So that leaves ammunition, which is what Ukraine really needs right now. (We are not sending cash to Ukraine.) This war has taught us that we are not ready for an extended fight with Russia or China, because we would run out of ammo within a year or two. (We're getting that fixed.) This is the cheapest way to get to world peace (and the economic benefits that come with that). Ammo is one of the smaller expenses of war. We are not having to mobilize troops (a huge expense), large numbers of ships, tanks, trucks and other equipment. We are not having to set up military hospital operations. We don't have to spend money on the logistics of getting supplies where they are needed. All we are trying to do is send in ammo, along with the occasional piece of military hardware. We are only spending maybe 3-5% of the cost of operating a war in a foreign country (maybe taipan can give a more accurate estimate). We aren't spending trillions of dollars like we did by invading Iraq.

Long story short, there is no way that spending even $50 billion a year on Ukraine is going to make a dent in the U.S. economy or a significant change in the U.S. national debt. Failure to see Ukraine through to victory with military aid will have a huge impact on our national debt over the next decade, as we spend trillions of dollars on new weapons systems and stockpiles of ammo.

If you can't understand the difference between spending billions of dollars versus spending trillions of dollars, then we can't help you. (You're hopeless.)

 

Not to mention an all-season propaganda machine that ignorant people respond to.