War in Ukraine

I think the market reacted to this development. The intel community has said the invasion will start with EW.

 

How am I a Putin apologist by saying the US Army needs a full time armored division in Europe again to dissuade Russian aggression, and that the content of Putin’s speech was completely made-up history intended as propaganda?

Saying the US needs a much more firm response and a heavy military presence in Europe because we’re eventually going to see the same thing in Poland or Estonia and trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty if we let Putin skate here seems about as far from a “Putin apologist” as you could get. If anything, I expected to get chided for wanting a return to the Cold War.

 

things I did not know. hopefully neon is easily sourced elsewhere

Ukraine urges roughly 3 million of its citizens living in Russia to leave 'immediately' (msn.com)

"According to research from market research firm Techcet, Russia and Ukraine are each pivotal in the high-tech trade," Curran said. "Per their reporting, more than 90% of semiconductor-grade neon used in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing is supplied from Ukraine, while 35% of palladium necessary for the chips comes from Russia."

As such, "the apparent White House plans to cut off Russia from the US chip industry were Moscow to approve an invasion of Ukraine could have cascading effects in both directions."

Indeed, "while war and loss of life are obviously top of mind for any and all onlookers, the apparent aversion of these industrial impacts is also worth highlighting," Curran noted. "That's not to mention Russia's now cozier than ever relationship with China after a joint statement at the Olympics, allying itself with another crucial nation in high-tech supply chains."

He added, "suffice it to say, the current conflict is far from settled ... As such, investors, especially those in the sensitive semiconductor sector, should not be shocked if a deja-vu-driven dip hits their portfolios as more issues inevitably emerge between the acrimonious neighboring nations."

 

and Trump and others in MAGA nation agreed with him..shocking but not surprising

 

It’s not JUST that they agreed with him. It’s that they are amplifying and given credence to that propaganda contrary to the national interest for their own personal benefit. And that’s horrifying.

 

Well, fortunately for us, none of them are in a position of actual authority to effect or influence the desired outcome, so what they say doesn’t matter much. What about the people who are in charge? Are you satisfied with the way they’re handling this? Because other than as a neato distraction from the ongoing foreign policy debacle, I’m not sure why Trump keeps coming up.

 

the last, and future candidate for potus, endorsing their tactics along with the republican committee insulting the current POTUS as he attempts to deal with the nuclear armed dictator doesn't concern you? Something about comforting and supporting the enemy comes to mind

 

Post 268.

And probably because someone who literally spent his time hugging the flag while trashing our alliances and undercutting NATO isn’t magically forgotten because he wasn’t re-elected. Indeed, Putin is arguably overplaying his hand by thinking that Trump did so much of his work for him be underestimating how this administration has done repairing our alliances so quickly, that he may not have anticipated the level of unified response he’s getting. Putin may have thought the juice was worth the squeeze but not properly anticipated the level of squeeze he’s getting and likely to continue to get tighter if he moves further.

I’m not saying I have the answer, nor do I think that you would say that you do. But neither of us has the intelligence that hasn’t been declassified—and declassifying what we have and publicizing it is another move that undercut Putin’s false flag propaganda.

 

Because he is the de facto leader of the opposition party.

 

Unfortunately the best support for peace sometimes is preparing for war. The us needs to probably allocate more funding to the military. I know that sound nuts but during the Cold War we were at 7% gdp and now we are at like 2.8% staring at a difficult potential two front conflict with Russia and China.

so us needs to increase available resources and probably needs to put at least 100 thousand troops into Europe right now along with all the appropriate artillery and support (and ramp up ammunition production because there is a shortage in Europe).

During the end of the Cold War the us had 300k over there. It was a deterrence force and it is needed once again.

again, I say that strength is often the best support for peace and if we don’t do this now Putin may not stop with Ukraine and it will only empower China in the pacific.

not doing it may actually force the us into a reactionary war.

 

Trump keeps coming up for two main reasons: one is he brings himself up with his antics and two he is the de facto head of the gop, so in that role his words actually do matter.

 

In addition for his vocalized pro-Putin support, attacks on NATO, Trump pulled 12,000 troops out of Germany in 2020. Literally every move made is that of a traitor.

 

As I stated on the other thread, game this out to it's conclusion. There are no good outcomes for Putin here. He takes just the Eastern Provinces, and he is left with a more Pro-Western Ukraine on his border (which is what happened with the Crimea situation). He takes all of Ukraine and he is left with a huge insurgency movement in his country and long-term devastating sanctions despite which he has to try to pay to pacify a large area. That will be massively destabilizing to his own government. He withdraws entirely and he looks weak. A rational actor realizes when they just stepped into a no win situation.

 

IDK. There is weakness in NATO right now. I'm not 100% sold on the US or several other countries living up to their commitment if Putin decides to invade the Baltics, and hell, we aren't even in a strategic position to do anything about it anyways. If Russia wants to recreate the USSR there isn't really anything to stop them right now. It would probably take months for the US to mount a legitimate response on the ground.

Is that rational? IDK. But if he attacks beyond Ukraine and NATO fails, that is his biggest victory. The disintegration of the NATO alliance. It's been his biggest dream for years.

 

Of course, it could. That’s the risk we would be presenting to Russia.

Just saying a thing does not make it so. I’m not getting into what we know about Russia’s capabilities and limitations, but put in the simplest terms Russia is at a decided disadvantage in the air and at sea. And they know it, though they probably don’t understand the extent. Could they win a ground war in Ukraine without control of the air and sea? Possibly. Would they take terrible casualties in doing so? Without question. Don’t forget this would be an aggressive war by Russia, and its people have always been very weak on offense and casualty-averse when not fighting for national survival. Stalin had a much tighter control of his population and of information than Putin does. And let’s not forget how quickly Stalin called off the dogs and accepted peace in Finland during the Winter War when he saw what it would cost him to close. Putin only wants this war if it’s going to be cheap and bloodless.

I’m not sure how they would do that without control of the air, which they would lose relatively quickly, but I also never asserted this would be risk-free for us. Yes, we too will take casualties.

No, it would get very ugly very fast. Just not in the sense you mean.

I hope.

I have no idea what China will do if we thwart Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. I only have a pretty good idea of what they will do if we don’t. And the only morbid curiosity I have in that scenario is how the left will lay the dead baby of Taiwan’s conquest at Trump’s doorstep … as seems to be in the works preemptively now with respect to Ukraine. But you also failed to mention Iran and what they will or will not do once the game of “That used to be mine, and I want it back” is openly declared to be once more in season.

You might be correct about this statement. I don’t know. That is why I have said if I was President I would take this matter to the people’s representatives and request conditional authorization to make war if Russia invades Ukraine. First, you must put the moral question in front of the body who constitutionally should decide it. Second, you must put all those members of Congress on record. If they say yes, then that alone will give Putin pause and our allies steel, serving as a powerful informational and diplomatic measure that we are dead serious about supporting Ukraine’s national determination. If they say no, then fine, not only will I shut up about it but also Biden will be off the hook politically, which seems to be more important to some on here than whether or not Russia subjugates Ukraine. The truth is, I don’t know what the American people will support when our back is against the wall. We have surprised ourselves many times before. I think most here would agree that if we had become involved much earlier during WW2 than we did it would have saved the world a great deal of suffering.

 

Again, you have to ignore the economic issues and the issues of the populace to come to that conclusion. This isn't Risk. You can't just take over independent countries that don't want to be taken over and pacify them quickly. They are going to have to continue to pay a military, pacify the oligarchs that really run things there (and are losing access to the West right now), and put down popular insurrections in those countries, all while being isolated from the global economic system, which kills their energy sales and, to far greater effect, stops them from being the money launderers for every black market in the world.

 

We waited too long on Ukraine. Sending troops there is logistically impractical. Projecting force that far from the US takes time and planning. Note that it took Russia months to set up for this and it was right on their doorstep. It would take the US probably 4-6 months to be able to come anywhere close to matching what Russia is putting out there right now, and by that time Russia would have solidified their position, should they continue invading.

No, the US must instead redeploy to the NATO countries as a deterring force. Ukraine is lost, and only the Ukraine, with western financing and supply, can defeat Russia IN UKRAINE. But the US can prevent further invasions by recreating fortress Europe because no way will Russia attempt any further aggression if the US is back into their traditional cold war defensive positions.

 

Agreed. While I’m a bit bothered by the budget buster the MIC can become, we’re probably about due for our readiness posture to go back to having the credible ability to engage in major operations in two theaters simultaneously.

And if one of those theaters is potentially a land war in Europe, that probably means going back to having a larger armor capability than just having the 1st AD in Texas, some Stryker teams, and random armor units attached to the National Guard.