War in Ukraine

Dumb posts are dumb

 

Alternative to your usual regurgitation, please explain what the US can do to stop Russia from realizing its aims.

 

The U.S. has nearly stopped Russia's invasion by supplying Ukraine with a little over $100 billion in military aid. If we spend another $100 billion, Ukraine will easily be able to last another year or two, and the chances are very high that Russia's economy collapses during that time frame. And no money = no war. Ukraine wins, Russia goes home. And before anyone whines that $100 billion is a lot of money, we currently spend about $800 billion a year on national defense. Even if Russia represents a fourth of the total threat against the U.S., we spend $200 billion a year preparing for a war with Russia. This proxy war with Ukraine fighting Russia is easily the best investment we could make, both financially and for our security.

 

The only real cost to our proxy war was Ukrainians. And it spared us the cost of a humiliating defeat had we elected to directly confront Russia in its backyard.

 

oh man I wish. Russia would shit their pants if the U.S. got that involved.

 

I know I’d have to change my drawers if I had to go up against trannies in khakis.

 

I partially agree with your points, but surely you see a diminishing point of returns with material support. I, too, want to see Ukraine better supplied, but eventually it matters less and less because there just aren’t enough Ukrainians to use it all. An alternative to that, which I also support, is to become progressively involved in the war (hopefully, short of directly putting bombs on Russians, but we can’t keep ruling it out, either) to free up the maximum Ukrainian manpower available. Concurrently, we have to keep strangling Russia economically like a python and no longer be overly concerned (as Sullivan was) with whether or not Russia collapses. I get it. I know as much as it would feel good, it is not in our long-term strategic interest for Russia to collapse. But we need to subordinate that interest to not letting Russia normalize conquest without consequences. And we need to start messaging Russia (and we might be already; I don’t know) that while we don’t want repeat of 1917 or 1991, by God, we’ll let it happen if Russia doesn’t take the opportunity to withdraw in good grace while it can.

 

What do you mean?

 

Israel ‘sends weapons captured in Lebanon to Ukraine’

Israel is considering sending Soviet and Russian-made weapons captured in Lebanon to Ukraine, with signs transfers may be under way.

Israel reportedly met with Ukrainian diplomats on Tuesday to discuss a weapons transfer. Since then, US military cargo planes have been tracked flying from Israel to an airbase in eastern Poland.

“There are signs that Israel has begun supplying Ukraine with Soviet and Russian-made weapons,” Two Majors, a pro-Russia military blog on the Telegram social messaging site, told its 1.2 million subscribers on Sunday.

It posted photos of dozens of shoulder-mounted missiles laid out on hard-baked ground, as well as two screengrabs of a US military plane flying from Ramstein airbase in Germany to Hatzerim airbase in Israel and then to Rzeszów in Poland, near the border with Ukraine.

 

feel bad for the population of that hellhole.

 

Yes, because Russia has been repeatedly humiliated in its own back yard by Ukrainians with 40-year-old U.S. weapons, it stands to reason that the U.S., the most powerful military in the world, would be humiliated in Russia with weapons from the 2010's and 2020's. Real smart thinking. Certainly, a few Americans would be killed, and we would lose a few advanced weapons systems to enemy fire or systems failures, but Russia would be driven out of Ukraine in a few months, easily.

Furthermore, Ukrainians were going to be killed by the marauding barbarian Russians regardless of whether we helped them or not. Ukraine was willing to fight, so I don't feel bad about providing them support to defend themselves. We know how things go after Russia takes over a country--they open torture centers and kill people indiscriminately, while kidnapping children. That's what they do. They're barbarians.

Try to think before you post.

 

I know that Ukraine is losing fighting age men at an unsustainable rate. But I have to believe that Russia is not only losing men at an even greater rate, they are also rapidly losing experienced soldiers. Most of their elite forces are gone. I don't know that they've maintained any kind of a quality training program to replace these elite forces. I assume most of their training is getting conscripts to follow orders, handle a rifle, and not piss their pants in battle. When Russia makes a horrible attempt to drive Ukraine out of Kursk, sending in hordes of tanks while Ukraine sets them up and knocks them down, I have to believe that Ukraine is fighting a much smarter war than Russia is. And that overcomes a lot of manpower deficiencies. With Russia continuing to use meat-wave tactics, their loss rates will continue to be high.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see another wave of military volunteers come in to help Ukraine as Russia gets weaker and more hopeless, especially if they can fight with a full supply of American weapons. I imagine that a lot of Polish people would like to be in the decisive battle with their former oppressor in a weakened state.

If all that it costs to find out if Ukraine can win this war is one eighth of a year's defense budget in military aid, I'm all for it. I'm o.k. with a repeat of 1991. I just hope that Trump has enough working brain cells to limit U.S. involvement in rebuilding Russia until Russia tears down its defense industries.

 

You believed the Ghost of Kyiv was real.

You believed the Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island bellowed “F*** you, Russian ship,” and died to a man.

You believed that of Russian troops were frostbitten in the Spring.

You believed that Russia was running out of missiles in April 2022.

You believed that Russian troops were subsisting on zoo animals.

You believed that Russia fired a Ukrainian missile, at ethnic-Russians, from Ukrainian held territory.

You believed that Russian troops were reduced to fighting with shovels at Bakhmut.

You believed, in late 2022, that twice as many Russian troops were killed as were injected into theatre. .

You believed you could type Russia to defeat.

 

I certainly understand. Sure would feel good. But let’s agree that you’re probably not okay with a repeat of 1917, even though that would feel good, too. If the only choice is between the extremes of Ukraine’s complete conquest and Russia’s complete political meltdown, then that’s no choice at all. But if there’s a way (and I’m not saying there is) to thread the needle where Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is guaranteed but Russia remains viable enough to keep China out, then we need to take it. Good strategy sometimes means not taking everything you want right now in order to achieve objectives you want 10 or 20 years from now.

 

Dumb question that you know the answer to.

 

Post 30660

 

Toothless, corncob pipe-smoking rocking ch

The #1 reason is that the US knows it would get whipped going against a peer country. It’s why we’re reduced to fighting wars with other countries’ troops.

 

Yawn

 

Back at you.

 

Most of those things I never believed. You're making things up again. I believe a few of those things happened in isolated incidents, but I never characterized the entire Russian military as doing/suffering them. You are, as your Russian hero propagandists are, full of crap.