I have plenty of empathy. I am incredibly heartbroken for what is happening to those people. I didn't refer to them as investments, that was something you made up. The investment was the money we sent to support Ukraine.
The veil of propaganda is starting to come loose, I feel like half of the $$$ we are spending there is going to their marketing team. All this talk about "destroying russian tanks" and russia is marching deeper than ever. Ukraine is not going to beat the 2nd strongest military in the world. Common sense will tell you that. Billions of dollars have bought a narrative while the python has slowly been constricting. We need to be building our military up and spending that money at home. If you take that into account, draining money through a proxy war makes this a terrible "ROI" if we're speaking in those terms @larsv8 @Space Ghost
Dude, you do know that we are sending Ukraine our old ****, that we were decommissioning anyway. It would not surprise if actually decommissioning was more expensive than just giving it to Ukraine for frees. This arms to Ukraine is a money saver. Would it make you feel better if we turned the money saved into a tax break for the top 1%?
Also even with the aid we give to Ukraine we are still far and away the most powerful military. According to members of the military the biggest impediment is the hold up of promotions in Congress and not sending aid to Ukraine.
I'm not sure this is true, and even if it is on a global scale, there's a limited ability to bring all these forces to bear in regional conflict with a near peer operating close to its own borders and lines of supply. for instance, it took two weeks to get the Ike to the med. would Taiwan even have two weeks if China launch an invasion?
I had thought that too, but a good % of top military minds are saying the opposite (the ones that have transferred to civillian life and are at liberty to say). And thats not even taking into account historically low recruits. They would need a draft
China invading Taiwan over a siege-like blockade would be an undertaking greater than D-Day (another WW2 comparison). Estimates generally claim it would take at least 6 months to fully respond to whatever China does regardless of Ukraine's outcome. The immediate issue is that we're shortchanging the arms packages Taiwan bought a few years ago because of "supply constraints", but they aren't complaining because they don't want to ruffle feathers and their depleted hybrid voluntary/conscript military isn't well equipped for logging in the training time needed to use it in real combat situations. I agree that suing for peace would help the China front, but it shouldn't be at the cost of shortchanging whatever victory Ukranians are trying to accomplish. As the check writer, we definitely have a say on what a victory should look like, but I don't think dropping this proxy war will make Russia stop finding ways to stab at us, whether it's their proxy in Syria (that we lost), election interference, tech infra/social media disruption, Wagner in Africa, or their continued alliance w/ China, Iran, etc... to make the UN and other world orgs useless. ****'em 100B is worth it.
You replied to a discussion debating whether Ukrainian support is impacting US's combat readiness. Even if there are questions whether we can still guarantee readiness on 2 war fronts, we are undisputedly far and away the most powerful military, regardless of our Ukrainian war stance.
Yes and their answer generally entails spending even more money beyond the 100B "many folks" are complaining about
In a conflict of attrition, Russia should prevail due to higher population and industrial capacity in a long drawn out conflict. https://www.axios.com/2023/11/02/ukraine-russia-war-stalemate-counteroffensive-aid Ukrainian general: Counteroffensive against Russia has reached "stalemate" Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces has reached a stalemate, a top Ukrainian general said in an interview published this week. Why it matters: The assessment diverges from past public appraisals of the counteroffensive offered by U.S. and Ukrainian officials. It comes as support is waning for Ukraine's war effort among the American public, and the Biden administration is at odds with some Congressional Republicans on continued aid for Kyiv. What he's saying: "There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough," Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, told the Economist in an interview published Wednesday. Just like in WWI, the two sides have "reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate," he added. Ukraine had underestimated Russia's ability to tolerate massive casualties among troops, he said, adding that Ukraine's forces has progressed more slowly than anticipated. A technological breakthrough is needed to break the stalemate, according to Zaluzhny. In an accompanying essay in the Economist, Zaluzhny lays out what he believes the technological and strategic needs are to change the current course of the war, including by gaining air superiority and improving electronic warfare capabilities.
this is the point I've been making, and why Biden's "masterful" strategy is fundamentally flawed. Ukraine had a window to win. that window is closing fast, if it hasn't already. They can't win a war of attrition against Russia.
Biden and the West could have done more. Or we should have done nothing at all. I suspect this just another push to justify a withdraw of Western Support, but this time to focus on the unfolding conflict in the Levant. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1830801/volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-war-russia-winning 'Deluded' Zelensky blasted as closest aide claims Ukraine is 'not winning' war with Russia Ukraine and Russia are in a deadlocked battle despite bloody fighting on the frontlines - President Volodymyr Zelensky's strategy has been called into question.
Hard to see doing more without actually putting the US military in Ukraine and essentially going to war with Russia. Yes the US could have given more advanced weaponry but the advanced weapons would have both been inadequate without training and would have been taken and reverse engineered by the Russians. There’s almost no moves that Biden could have taken that weren’t a loser. The fact is if a powerful country wants to invade a small neighboring country there’s very little anyone can do about it other than either going to war with that major country and creating another world war, or arming the opposition in a way that at least makes that invasion very costly for the bigger country and deters it in the future. Sanctions do not work against totalitarian Dictatorships. At least the US and West made Putins invasion extremely costly and that blunder that it has been for Putin is certainly a deterrent moving forward. I get kind of sick of Americans just acting as though Biden has god like omniscient power to over the world. There’s crap happening that’s completely out of our control and we can only expect realistic outcomes from our actions. It’s actually that kind of American exceptionalism arrogance that drives this thinking. It’s a big world and we are an important part but cannot control every single thing that happens with a magic wand.
