War in Ukraine

we couldn't produce more fuel. refineries and pipeline networks are pretty much maxed out as is. we may have been able to push more lng after 6 months or so with some concentrated effort

i think all decisions on ukraine also went through an inflation lens. raising oil by sanctioning the shadow fleet and no exemptions for China and India and ramping up munitions and armament production (restoration of mothballed fleets to be sent to Ukraine) would have been short term inflationary but long term beneficial. Sadly, very few politicains look long term and neither does the average voter. The loser in that shortsightedness is the Ukranian and the Russian people.

 

That is possible. For myself, though, it looks like Sullivan has been running his own foreign policy and, maybe, back briefing the President after some of the decisions were an established fact. There are too many rumors of generals and other foreign policy leaders not being able to get access to the President when critical decisions were being made (or not made) during the Afghanistan catastrophe, our alienation of Saudi Arabia, and our sacrificing other foreign policy goals to try and get a new deal with Iran (which we never did). For the moment, there's only speculation. The truth about these things tends to come out years later. We will see.

Again, could be. From my perspective, the disaster in Afghanistan was a far bigger motivator to Russia and China to accelerate their timelines for recovering territory they believe is theirs. I was overseas in support of INHERENT RESOLVE when the strategic blunder in Afghanistan occurred, and it was less than a month later that our intelligence started noting the build-up of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border.* I just don't think it was a coincidence. Russia and China smelled blood in the water, and thought it was time to settle all family business. China just got lucky in the fact that they were able to postpone their move on Taiwan once they saw how much the Russians struggled against Western arms.

* Before anyone asks, the reason this was significant to us in the Middle East was because of the ongoing coordination we had with Russia in parts of Syria at that time.