War in Ukraine

Do you mean the Maginot Line, or are you talking about something else?

 

Well, d’uh! How stupid would you have to have to assume that Putin had Navalny murdered ?

Putin Did Not Order Alexei Navalny's Death, US Intelligence Finds | ZeroHedge

 

SITREP 4/27/24: U.S. Admits Top Weapons Failures to Superior Russian EW

 

Actually, the French continued to spend on the military after WWII, and arguably tried to redeem themselves in Indochina (Vietnam). Unfortunately, that went badly for them, and they naturally expected the U.S. to take over for them. Ike had just ended the Korean War a few months earlier, and had no interest in going into Vietnam. LBJ took up the cause a decade later.

It is possible that having two horrible failures in a row ruined France's confidence in their military.

 

I wrote a paper on the battle of dien bien phu. The French were super arrogant in 1954 from a military perspective. I’m not sure if they have the same confidence any longer.

 

Ike spent billions of dollars in South Vietnam and sent in military advisors. Truman had sent in 35 military advisors, Ike raised that number to 1000 and JFK to 16,000. LBJ and Nixon obviously took it to another level.
How the Vietnam War Ratcheted Up Under 5 U.S. Presidents | HISTORY

 

US bought a bulk purchase of Russia aircraft from Kazakhstan. Maybe parts or rebuilds for Ukraine. Kazakhstan seems like next target for Putin

US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says

The US has acquired 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan, the Kyiv Post reported.
Kazakhstan, which is upgrading its air fleet, auctioned off 117 Soviet-era fighter and bomber aircraft, including MiG-31 interceptors, MiG-27 fighter bombers, MiG-29 fighters, and Su-24 bombers from the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Hard to believe you can buy a fighter jet for $20K.

 

If it's Russian-made, you may have paid too much. Your next trip might be a one-way trip. Sounds like they haven't been maintaining them, and using them as spare parts is the only option for them.

 

Why aliens always elect to land in the US …

 

more russian anti-aircraft gear taken out in Crimea

Crimean Air Defenses Hit by Ukraine ATACMS Strike: Reports (msn.com)

"At night, the enemy attacked air defense system units at Cape Tarkhankut with ATACMS missiles, presumably with a cluster warhead," a translation reads. "The enemy is trying to knock out entire air defense areas; intensified attacks are predicted against the backdrop of Kyiv's attempts to organize information and combat actions for Victory Day and the inauguration of the Supreme Commander."
..........
Ukraine previously destroyed a Russian S-400 air-defense system in Cape Tarkhankut on August 23, 2023. "Given the limited number of such systems in the enemy's arsenal, this is a painful blow to the occupiers' air-defense system," intelligence officials from Ukraine said in a statement seen by The Kyiv Independent.

 

Could be directly for Ukrainian use. Could be just to keep spare parts away from the Russians. I understand that back in the day before scholarship limits, Bear Bryant would recruit players and keep them on scholarship even if he had no intention of ever playing them. Why? Just to keep them from playing for someone else.

 

Situation on frontline has worsened, Ukraine army chief says — BBC News

No matter where you stand on Ukraine, this has been a recurring issue. When you telegraph every detail to the enemy ahead of time and become predictable, things like this will happen. Also, a pitfall of making this such a political hot button.

 

The US will need to significantly increase aid to Ukraine after the election.

Sad but true. We missed our shot most likely.

 

As I’ve been asking, at what point do you tap out? How far do you allow Russia to advance before you try to strike a deal? I don’t see that Ukraine have regained anything in a very long time, but Russia are escalating gains. I think most people agree that a deal will have to be struck eventually. When do you do that?

 

The reason Russia advanced was because our aid dried up.

From my perspective, if and when Ukraine wants to make a deal to give up part of their country should be up to them. But I’d ask you, aside from some addn war funding, what is the downside of US continuing to fund Ukraine and have Russia experience a death by 1000 cuts? We do spend some more on military stuff, but Russia gets significantly degraded. It doesn’t seem like a bad trade-off to me.

 

Actually Russia made small advances during Ukraine’s glorious counteroffensive that began last spring. At that time, Ukraine was fully funded. And they still lost ground. Nobody talks about that. Wonder why.

How badly is Russia really going to be degraded and how exactly does that benefit the U.S. taxpayer? And understand that any “degradation” will quickly be replenished as Russia has ramped up their war machine and a few years of time heals their troop losses worst case scenario. Not sure how America benefits from this small degradation that will only degrade the Russian military for a very short period of time, at best.

 

several reasons to keep investing into Ukraine, far too many to list exhaustively, but imo:
1. Until Ukraine throws in the towel the free world should support them. Period.
2. The longer you can keep Russia pinned down in a Ukrainian quagmire the better. They’ve had to go to a full war footing at this point - which is not sustainable forever. Ideally you wear them out here.
3. Ukraine has the largest army between Russia and the Atlantic. No reason to just give that up especially because …
4. Western world needs time to ramp up defense production in a non war footing economy. That takes time and you want it ramped up ideally while Russia is in Ukraine and not attacking nato.
5. As soon as the west folds on Ukraine Taiwan is likely next.
6. the benefit to the tax payer, if you compare it to direct conflict, is enormous.
7. Europe probably won’t let Ukraine lose, so if the us stops funding it could lead to a larger war.

we could go on and on. What’s sad is that with aggressive funding from the start the war is probably over. Alas, it’s been too little too late for almost 2,5 years now. But with f16s coming online this year and with Ukraine clearly about to take out or attempt to take out the Kerch bridge you def keep the pressure on as long as you can.

 

And then what? And what good does it do to blow up the Kerch bridge when Ukraine controls zero ports around Crimea? Worst case scenario is a very heavily fortified peninsula will be replenished by barge. Worst case. It’s not like it’s going to break open the war somehow. Ukraine would first need to control some ports around Crimea and they have not shown an ability to advance the ball in almost a year and a half now. All the while Russia digs in more.

 

And we get lots of battlefield testing and improvement in our systems.