The tanks aren't the big thing but I'd say the Bradley's were bigger. If you talk to any gulf War vets or Bradley's operators they'll tell you how much of a game changer they are. They're tank destroyers and their infrared and censors are best in the business. They can see if a solider has a cold 30 feet away. They were primarily made to go up against the t72s during cold war so they were made for this. Were upgrading our Bradley's anyways so these are just excess inventory. Folks don't realize most of the stuff were giving ukraine is old stuff and out dated.
US/NATO needed to escalate without making it seem like escalating. If you compare the arms shipments to Ukraine from then and now, it's definitely escalation but enough not to spook a response by the Russians or shift the narrative. You could even argue Germany's "reluctance" was a way to temper the reality happening on the battlefront. It's prudent in the sense that you don't want to provoke/enable a Russian response like moving even closer to using nukes or turning Russian opinion fervently into Putin's favor.
Most of them are completely abandoned utter trash and have been rusting in field untouched since the fall of the Soviet Union. But on paper they are in the inventory as tanks!
I did, but it's very clear we things differently... and it's clear you are dismissing the fact that it will take time to ramp up spending after Russia justified NATO by invading a country on its border. You are right the a pledge is different than passing legislation, but clearly the Russia attack on NATO's borders has spurred countries into action. Let's not just dismiss that or the time it takes to make good on that. And many of the countries are small populations and/or small GDPs as 2% was always some arbitrary level. What will 2% actually achieve, besides just appearances, for countries like Estonia, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, etc.? It will take time to ramp of spending and meet those goals. It will take time to build out the manufacturing to actually put the money to use, to train the fighter pilots, tank crews, etc to operate the weapons once produced, and actually put the spending to use. You do understand that or no? And Germany is the worst offender and because of their reluctance their economy is suffering from turning the cheap gas off. Their vaunted manufacturing sector is in bad shape without the cheap energy and feedstocks. Meanwhile the US is the largest exporter of LNG and is turning over it's old stock of munitions for newer, more modern munitions. If Germany doesn't want to step up then the US should move it's military assets to Poland. And let's talk about Poland.... which soon might be a top 3 military power in continental Europe. They are ramping the most because of their history of Russia invading their country, killing their citizens, and raping their women. South Korea is becoming a major arms exporter due to their advanced military born from having North Korea has their neighbor along with China. Poland is taking advantage of that and buying tanks, howitzers, and jets from South Korea and the US. Poland and neighbors may be shifting center of gravity in European defense & security Again, you are just dismissing the fact that Russia just justified NATO which is spurring countries into action. It's just fanciful to think if there wasn't NATO, the US would somehow being spending less on the US led world order that benefits us the most. You conservatives are just virtue signaling here because none of y'all voted for the Infrastructure Bill or the Inflation Bill (which helps bring critical supply chains home). You don't even want to invest in America when given the chance so your cries about budget is just sad. But this is the current situation.... are you explicitly saying you want to break up NATO? Not send aid to Ukraine? You are doing a lot of complaining but not saying what you would do.
And having *current* support of the U.S. involvement in Ukraine =/= warmongers. It can be extremely dangerous when honest criticism or support of US involvement in any war is labeled at either extreme. Damn the labels. But there is also room for calling out dishonest criticism (eg. Tucker Carlson) and blind patriotism (Bush wars).
The complaining and ingratitude is distasteful. These are pretty complicated, calculated and expensive decisions on our end.
On the same page here you have people calling people warmongers and leading to WWIII for promising to send some tanks to Ukraine and then people saying the US just wants to prolong the war indefinitely and we should send Ukraine whatever it wants including weapons that could strike deep into Russia.
Nobody has explained to me what the mission goal is and when we declare victory. When is a bridge too far? Why is it after 8 months after leaving Afghanistan we are now fully immersed in yet another war where some commanders have stated will last for at least a decade? Yes, we all know Putin is in full control of the narrative, but Americans haven't fully comprehended Putin started this conflict at that very specific moment in reason and can continue to draw this out as long as Putin is alive. I do continue to compare it to Afghanistan. In the beginning, the Afghans were very motivated to become more Western. After losing an entire generation to war, they got tired of fighting and realized its better to rebuild under a theocracy than continue to sacrifice their people to endless war. This is why the American propped Afghanistan government collapsed before we fully withdrew. We saw the same thing in Vietnam. Its easy for Ukraine to conscript the bravados in the beginning and be successful, but now they are having to conscript from the lower echelon. It doesn't bode well when Ukraine is forcing Europe to extradite their men who left due to the war. Eventually Ukrainians will get tired of the war and realize life under Russia is better off than having an entire generation destroyed. As long as BRICS continue to openly trade with each other, Russia will be able to continue this war.
The mission goals has been stated many times. It is to compel Russia to respect Ukrainian territorial integrity. Whether that happens militarily or through negotiation is still to be seen. Ukraine though cannot compel Russia to come to an acceptable settlement without being able to show they can defend themselves. SO it is Putin's narrative. He can withdraw and cease hostilities anytime. The US has been careful not to arm Ukraine with weapons that could strike into Russia so if Putin did it wouldn't be like Ukraine could press the war into Russia. And again this isn't Afghanistan. We don't have troops in Ukraine and the Ukrainians want to fight. That wasn't true about the Afghanistan. We're not directly in a war in Ukraine. The paralell to Afghanistan would be in the 1980's when we were arming the Mujahadeen. Not Afghanistan post 2001. Just to add yes Ukraine is having to get more people to fight. So is Russia. Russia appears to be having more resistance and much lower trained, equipped and motivated fighters. Far from indefinite war it seems just as likely that Russia can't sustain the national will to keep on fighting in Ukraine.
