"We aren't impacted". Whoops..... At any rate.... The West placed sanctions on a historical enemy that is constantly empire building from the middle east to central asia to eastern europe who....... engaged in a war of conquest in 2022. I guess maybe you thought we'd send them a strongly worded letter.......? Clearly the world is shifting and starting to draw lines in the sand. Clearly the era of Reaganomics/business friendly is dead and the West is looking to onshore critical supply chains or keep them within friendly countries. "We aren't impacted"..... christ, don't make it too easy.
Your assertion or claims lack even more substance or source than the CIA in Afghanistan and Iraq. tje whole police the whole world thing became clear a while ago
Edgy? In 2023, China is the largest buyer of Iraqi oil and China is moving into Afghanistan to tap into their vast strategic mineral deposits and access into Central Asia's vast resources. Not an excellent track record of great powers being able to subdue this part of the world... coincidentally there might be a reason why we left so much arms and munitions in the hands of the Taliban with China moving in. Yea it's a cute quip, but geopolitics is a bit messy and ruthless. It can be both true that "Nam", Iraq 2.0, and Afghanistan were blunders/boondoggles and that standing up to Russia and China's constant testing of boundaries is prudent. Clearly our response to Russia's invasion is also meant to say something to China.
Dont be intentionally obtuse. Anything and everything effects economics. Russia isn't threatening our borders. And for Europe's measly contributions, they don't seem to take it very seriously either. Why should I take it serious? other than you shaming me from a political level.
Which is why my initial comment explicitly said "globe's strategic resources." We aren't talking about widgets. In regards to Europe, I would wait and see if they are the main contributor to the reconstruction effort. Otherwise, to expand on my first comment above; you should take it seriously that the world is dividing lines in the sands over the intersection of trade and resources/technology. That's just my opinion, you have a different view of geopolitics and America's place in the world.
I could make a case about India/nigeria for all the hundreds of millions of dollars/ cybersecurity and people scammed out of their money to start a war with either. after all their talk of being anti war the dems sure love it. All the while simultaneously defending the shitshow withdrawal that didn’t give any of our allies time to get out the modern day liberal is tied to some virtue signaling dopamine rush and nothing else
"Conservative signaling" that you are not "virtue signaling"...... how tiresome and vapid.... The modern day conservative just stands still, yelling at everyone, while the ground shifts.
@Commodore Read an explanation of the current Ukrainian artillery sitch: Ukraine Update: How cluster munitions will address Ukraine's ammunition issues The consensus is that cluster munitions will allow Ukrainian to decrease the number of shells they need to fire at Russian entrenched infantry positions. This should also speed up the Ukrainian offensive.
I'm ambivalent on 100B/yr Ukrainian aid. Trump's deficit spending like a redneck lotto winner enabled Biden's spending if only not to look like a sucker to voters. He's making it rain domestically and militarily. ::Shrugs:: It's not like Russia is innocent or blameless. India and Nigeria haven't invaded their neighbors, and if India and China ever escalate border tensions in disputed territories, I'm sure we will pick a side. I've posted thoughts that we should plan an exit strategy around redefining victory conditions if only to buttress and support our Pacific readiness and prevent the appearance of opportunity with the Chinese. I don't think Ukraine has affected our operational readimess (kind of ridiculous the amount of reserves and stockpiles we hold around the world) but it's getting there soon. Ukraine's position of retaking all territories is foolhardy and drunk on bravado that will cause more senseless casualties. Crimea was given to Ukraine by Russia, and Sevastopol is unmistakably Russian. The USSR once offered Kaliningrad to Lithuania similar to the token of friendship Crimea was offered to Ukraine. If Lithuania had accepted that strip of land with 1-2M repatriated ethnic russians, it wouldve skewed their demographics and made Nato/EU membership highly unlikely. So folks here are extremely deluded if we pretend that we can carry out the idea of "we do whatever Ukraine wants." The position is realistically the reverse, but those same people are hiding behind ideology that is highly subjective. Ukraine is not like Taiwan, a country the US has a deep friendship with promises and commitments. OTOH, Russia has shown aggressive outwardness to disrupt and destabilize our allies and our foreign policy beyond it's sphere of influence. They stoked populist fires and disinformation with their bot armies and state supported hacking. It wasn't out of nowhere the bs we saw with Trump began in W. Europe a couple years earlier. It got bad to the point where we focused our "operational readiness" against election hackers that the Chinese took the opportunity to hack American corporations at the same time. Their interference in Syria damaged American credibility after Assad used banned chemical weapons on his own people. It was the failures from avoiding that proxy war that led to this proxy war. As with Syria, Wagner and other similar private military contractors gave Russia the window to claim it's focused on its borders while Wagner fought and influenced conflicts in third world countries Russia's previous sanctions (how many for Nigeria or India) and its history of invading neighbors signaled international weakness. I agree that at some point the war will cost us more than it has benefitted, and that diplomatic settlement is the only realistic answer over wishful unconditional surrender by the Russians. China won't allow it out of balance or would use it as an opportunity for an ever greater gain for them. I don't think just because Russia is a nuclear power, we disengage. In fact, we have to engage because Russia is a nuclear power. Because of that, they've pulled the same things since Obama and are getting increasingly embolded ever since. Establishing new unspoken rules is not easy nor perfect, but we realistically dont have anything in place given China and Russia's permanent veto in the UN sec council. So you take out the war crimes of alleged human trafficking, genocide, rape, torture, environmental destruction, etc..,the stuff "already happening" under our global watch, there are still significant motives for us acting in our interests outside of economic incentives (such as boosting American energy imports with euro reliance). A lot of this isn't what's being sold on war propaganda news channels, and I suppose that's a problem of the American public as nothing I wrote is hidden on the internet. More tears from Unfortunate Blue Eyes than the faceless coming from Shithole Countries we wrecked....
Really? You think it would be difficult to re arm if we are attacked? You think it takes that long to make munitions
bullshit....the idea that sending cluster munitions to Ukraine is affecting our national security is laughable. i promise you'll sleep safe tonite, comrade.
Lol what? You just print 2 trillion dollars, drag the tank factory and barracks icon onto the map. 2 minutes later you're build tanks and armies. It's not that difficult.
