Trump is going to have to do something major to have any chance of getting credit for Ukraine winning the war against Russia. Otherwise, Biden will be known as the guy that defeated Russia. And to Trump, getting credit is the most important thing to him. Not peace, saving lives, protecting democracy, or stopping violence or imperialism. Getting credit.
Without a doubt. That’s why I have asserted that Russian collapse (while it would feel good) is not in our strategic interest. That said, we cannot be so afraid of Russian collapse that we fail to apply all of the pressure we can short of general war, which has been one of Sullivan’s failures. We need to apply that pressure, tell Russia we don’t want them to collapse, but we will let it happen if Russia does not start making some wise decisions in its own interest.
I’m actually not aware of any civilian deaths during British and French bombing of the Ruhr in late 1939 and early 1940. History only seems to record that it had negligible military effect and might have killed some livestock.
It doesn’t matter who does what and when. Both sides are going to steal the credit for whatever goes right and deliver the blame for whatever goes wrong. And who gives a damn? What I care about is that the war ends on terms as favorable to Ukraine as possible, not who gets credit.
Taking fleets off at a time instead of individual ships is past due. This is also going to push oil up which will push inflation which.... Likely why Biden didn't do it before. Hopefully Saudi follows up with threat and ramps up production so inflation doesn't stifle demand
I was fairly certain that some civilians would have to have been killed from air-dropped bombs at some point during the war. One of the chemical plants I work in is in that area, and still has a watchtower from WWII with 3'-thick concrete walls that has seen a lot of action, with numerous 12"- and 18"-radius hemispheres blown out of the outer walls. Any time they have dug earth to build new sections of the plant, they've unearthed unexploded WWII bombs and had to call the bomb squad. And, of course, there are a lot of old neighborhoods within a mile of the plant--not much buffer zone.
I think it might have been Lincoln who made the observation (paraphrasing) "It's amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets credit." Trump seems to prove the opposite of this statement: "It's amazing how little you can accomplish when all you are concerned with is getting credit."
Elites not happy that the FSB has now moved into the military in ways previously unthinkable Putin under pressure as Russian elites fume over military purge Dozens of individuals lost their jobs and were imprisoned by Russian authorities, with three of them reportedly being close associates of Sergei Shoigu, the report revealed. The former defense minister, a trusted ally of President Vladimir Putin, was dismissed from his position in May 2024. He now assumes the role of Secretary of the Russian Security Council. "The lack of clear boundaries for the new waves of arrests and the uncertainty surrounding Shoigu himself are clearly making his entire clan nervous. Shoigu himself, although he has so far been kept out of harm's way by personal guarantees from the president, is forced to watch what is happening without any possibility of protecting his inner circle or stopping the new arrests," the report said.
I mean, I don't get it. Everything in Russia is going swimmingly in terms of the economy, and the armed forces are absolutely crushing Ukrainians in the field, seeing them driven before inexorable Russian hordes, while the lamentations of Ukrainian woman fill their ears. Victory is coming, like, any day now. Why mess with success when things are going this well?
Russia struggling to develop new multi-warhead ICBM missile, nicknamed "Satan", so they are stuck with an old 1988 missile, which is well past its service life. The new missile keeps suffering catastrophic failures. Putin promised in 2000 to have the new ICBM ready in 2007. Russia's new ICBM with lots of warheads keeps running into problems, leaving it stuck with older, inferior missiles
Biden cost a lot of Ukranian lives by not unleashing the longer range weapons much sooner. for the first time in the war, Ukraine is not severely outnumbered wrt artillery. have to wonder how many ukranian soldiers would still be fighting if he would have done that a year ago Ukrainian commander-in-chief: Russians halved ammunition spending after Ukrainian attacks Ukraine's strikes on targets within Russia have forced the Russian forces to halve their artillery ammunition expenditure. Quote: "For several months now, the artillery ammunition expenditure rates in the Russian army have practically halved. If previously the figure reached up to 40,000 rounds per day, it is now significantly lower." Details: Syrskyi noted that Ukraine primarily targets military facilities, factories or plants producing ammunition, missile components or dual-use products, as well as oil refinery infrastructure on Russian territory.
I get why they weren’t “all in” at the start, but after that it did feel like they were always lagging behind. Not in the amount of military assistance, but the restrictions and type of aid.
the name is Jake Sullivan. An argument could be made that no single person this side of Putin killed more Ukranian soldiers thane he did by slow playing the release of advanced, longer range weapons, and then allowing them to be deployed against military assets within Russia. I often wonder if the Ukranian offensive into Russia was to prove to Biden/Sullivan that the big bad wolf wouldn't huff and puff and blow their house down if Russia was attacked. The nuclear bluster is just that, always has been, but biden.sullivan acted like scared little girls every time Moscow would rattle their saber.
I absolutely agree. There was a lot of shock at the start of this, and it's understandable that our response was measured and deliberate at the beginning to mitigate the risk of going immediately into general war. In my opinion, what has been inexcusable was, first, the failure to lead. I can think of several examples where Sullivan had to be led by the nose by either our allies, Congress, or public opinion before acting. Second, was the failure to steadily apply increasing pressure to Russia; we were always reacting to their latest escalation instead of taking the initiative to make things just a little more painful for them. Third, was the failure to accept this was a long war just as soon as it was obvious to everyone, roughly in the summer of 2022. We failed to take several common-sense long-term steps just because "well, that will take six months to a year to see any effect from that, and we hope the war will be over by then." Yeah, we're coming up on three years. Imagine what a difference we could have made if we had been cranking our economic might to generate fuel, food, and munitions under existing executive authority for all of this time.
how do you think that increased gubmnt spending would have impacted inflation? i have no doubt that they didn't sanction fleets of russian tankers day one due to the economic impact it would have had with the increase in price of oil. A much more proactive position would have been to sanction them day one with an understanding with KSA and others to make up the loss to the market. l
It is amazing what happens when you can interdict an enemy's LOC when not hampered by geographic restrictions.
I think even the amount of assistance could have been increased, especially in certain items. The U.S. has 9700 old Abrams tanks, with at least half of them in storage, and we could only spare 31 of them? The tanks were designed to destroy Russian armor. We should have been sending them 31 tanks every 6 months, or every 3 months (if every 3 months, they would have over 300 by now). Those tanks will be heading to the scrapyard in a few years--what a waste! Same with Bradley fighting vehicles. And Biden should have done whatever it took to crank up artillery shell production to 8-10X the production capacity when the war started, instead of 2-4X. Artillery shells are something that Ukraine has desperately needed throughout the war.
As much as I am not a fan of Jake Sullivan, I think he was taking his boss's lead. Biden has always fancied himself as a foreign policy guru and he wasn't going to ever allow Sullivan to run the show. Biden made it very clear early on no American boots were going to be allowed on the ground and so that explains the tempered approach by Sullivan you referenced. Biden didn't want to allow things to escalate to the point of no return. Which explains his dubious decision to okay the long-range weapons hitting Russian targets after the election. He knew he wouldn't be around to clean up any damage. Perhaps if Biden had not have removed sanctions on Russia and Iran early in his administration, the war never happens. Which I hope you see would have been the ideal outcome.
Mixed results but lower inflation over the long-term. Much of that inflation directly correlated with the increase in food prices (as a direct consequence of the war because of Ukraine's inability to produce and ship food) and the increase in fuel prices, which makes everything more expensive. If we had used executive power to start producing more food and fuel, then within six months to a year we could have reduced the effect of inflation on ourselves and our allies while further hurting Russia. On the munitions, I stipulate the government spending would have increased inflation in the short term, but I still argue that the best course of action in the long term is Ukrainian victory. And giving them the tools they need to win is our best line of effort short of directly entering the war.
