Having never heard of this org, I looked them up on Wikipedia. Fascinatingly: initial funding "included half a million dollars each from George Soros' Open Society Foundations and Charles Koch's Koch Foundation".
Why not? George Soros is socially left-leaning (not to be conflated with fiscally left-leaning) and funds left-leaning anti-war organizations.
The Koch brothers have been funding right-libertarian organizations for decades, including libertarian anti-war organizations. Responsible Statecraft is an anti-war organization that is predominantly right-libertarian however they work together with left-leaning anti-war organizations.
It's worth pointing out that right-libertarians were the OG anti-war movement in the US and even opposed US support and involvement in the European front during WW2. Responsible Statecraft are the ideological descendants of those people.
Whilst what you say is true (left and libertarian capitalists often have overlapping isolationist ideas on conflicts), Soros' position is distinct from that because whilst he may be socially somewhat left leaning and unimpressed with US Middle Eastern adventures, he favours the protection and spread of Western liberalism (and is above all else anti Russian nationalism expressed across international borders). So not only is he not necessarily aligned with the reflexively anti-war elements and definitely not an isolationist, but he's openly and ardently in favour of Western support for Ukraine in this conflict.
Of course, this is also exhibit A for "prominent commentators' views are often only incidentally aligned with their funders' interests and sometimes at loggerheads with them..."
> It's worth pointing out that right-libertarians were the OG anti-war movement in the US and even opposed US support and involvement in the European front during WW2. Responsible Statecraft are the ideological descendants of those people.
Yikes, that's a nasty genealogy for any group. "Hey we're the people who thought it was fine if Hitler and Stalin divided Europe, and Japan conquered Asia."
I think the other side of the spectrum, "let's remove from power anyone who does not share our values / does not uphold our interests", also leads to nasty things, like the long list of US-backed coups in Latin America [0]. (I'm not saying that isolationism is the right solution, just that interventionism can go bad)
I'll make one thing clear: yes. Yikes indeed. But, having said that, it is very important to note that among Normal Folk in the conservative camp, it's become much more acceptable to say that we befriended the wrong monster in the conflict. I can't emphasize how much I disagree with this on both practical and moral levels, but I do work in a place and an industry that's extremely conservative, and - weirdly - WW2 (and guns!) are one of the few areas of safe conversation for me.
I didn't realize how much things had shifted, so I had to poker face hard when this came up. <serious_historian_face.gif>
To the larger OP - oh yeah. Ha. So much stuff that the <military> sent back (because it didn't work, duh) gets to be sent back over the water again at top dollar. And no one will ever know! Because Ukraine classifies <these_things> as artillery (which is smart!) and not <other_things>, so whatever they end up using them for (spares, etc) will be invisible to the powers that be. Unlike when everything came back from Afghanistan, and Important People noticed that "the product" never worked (or "existed"), and - from the get-go - was a box of non-matching parts sourced from "Procurement Director's Immediate Family Enterprises". Ukrainians won't complain about that - they need parts!
It is probably not reasonable to suggest that Eliot Cohen advocates forceful resistance against Russia because CSIS corporate sponsors happen to include arms manufacturers. First, CSIS sponsors are a "who's who" of blue chip corporate America and are in no way dominated by arms dealers; second, Cohen is well known for his foreign policy positions, and if Northrop happens to be bankrolling 1/40th of his work, it's because of Cohen's reputation; the article has the causality reversed.
Further, the article would be a lot more honest if it more clearly acknowledged that CSIS does make its corporate donor list public.
This is one of those pieces where I feel like the authors are counting on the audience not to know basic facts. It feels like they're trying to hoodwink me. The Quincy Institute has what I understand to be a solid reputation, so you'd think they'd do better than this.
(None of this makes Elliot Cohen right! He goes way farther than the mainstream consensus on how to respond to the Russia/Ukraine situation. But to the extent that Quincy --- an overtly isolationist think tank --- wants to advocate against him, they should do it on the merits, not by trying to work the refs.)
Sure it does. Freedom of speech has the side effect of wealthy people and organizations being able to purchase louder speech, and often mask that process.
This is the big problem with corporate personhood. If we ditch that concept, which seems nonsensical on its face to me, our individual free speech can remain better protected. Without corporate personhood those individual limits on campaign donations and lobbying might actually work.
Dedicated news organizations are protected separately by freedom of the press, no need to make Exxon and Apple "persons" with free speech rights to maintain freedom of the press.
There probably need to be additional restrictions on what constitutes a news organization though otherwise Google might start calling itself "the press" and partisan organizations will own the press. Things like not engaging in other forms of business or taking money from lobbyists and political campaigns.
Of course, and in other news, Microsoft thinks Microsoft software is the best solution to any problem.
What worries me more though is the lack of weapons. Here's why:
It's clear Russia isn't going to stop. Putin would find it extremely embarrassing and politically harmful to just stop without getting anything out of it. All those sanctions, all that money, all those lives lost would be all for nothing.
It's equally clear Ukraine isn't going to stop. They see it (in my opinion very correctly) as a very existential fight to preserve their country and culture. Surrendering a good chunk of your country to an enemy that's been killing your people for a year is also politically nonviable and maybe even impossible.
So obviously this is only ending when one side becomes unwilling or unable to keep fighting.
If giving weapons to Ukraine is a good thing at all then the most moral option to me is giving Ukraine the means to achieve a swift, decisive win. Keeping things even has no legitimate purpose to it, it only gets more people killed on both sides.
I stand with Ukraine, and I support foreign aid to help them repel the Russian invasion. However, even if they eventually win the war the sad reality is that Ukraine is probably doomed as a distinct nation and culture. Even before the current war their demographics were collapsing. Now they are suffering heavy casualties on the battlefield, and millions of young people have fled the country as refugees to avoid violence and conscription. Realistically most of those people are never coming home.
In 30 years I expect the population of Ukraine to look vastly different with a lot more immigrants from Africa and the Middle East working in agriculture and resource extraction. And to be clear I'm not claiming that this is a good thing or a bad thing, just that it seems inevitable based on demographics and geography.
The demographics of Ukraine spells economic stagnation however ~25-30 million is more than enough for linguistic and cultural sustainability. My country, Denmark, only has 5 million people and Iceland only has 300,000 people.
I don't know if you're American but immigrants in Europe assimilate slower and keep their linguistic and cultural identity alive for generations. Young 3rd generation Turkish and Pakistani people in Denmark (whose grandparents arrived in the 1970s) are still able to speak Turkish and Urdu/Punjabi.
Russia will not take any single oblast.
In fact, it has retreated from two oblasts in the past 6 months.
And now retreating from part of Belgorod.
Good luck contradicting reality, bro.
The million dollar question is why not give Ukraine the means to switfly end the war?
One might say it's in order to prevent excessive escalation and slowly bleed out Russia, but, aside from the fact that "slowly bleeding out" Russia means sacrificing tens of thousands of Ukrainians and further destroying Ukraine along the way, does anyone really think that Russia won't escalate things anyway once they realize they are slowly losing?
Since I don't believe it's to prevent escalation, I must conclude it's because more death and destruction bring more business. The longer the conflict goes on the more weapons and ammo are sold, the more Ukrainian cities are destroyed the more money is to be made out of reconstruction.
At the very least the incentive is there, and if you ask me any system where death and destruction are incentivized is by definition antihuman.
There are enough weapons available, ammo might become tight one day so. Those weapons, from tanks rifles to planes, are modern so. That means that Ukrainian operators need training, that takes time. Logistics have to be set-up for everything from spares to consumables, that takes time. Not to forget that some of the stuff wasn't properly maintained for quite some time by the donor nations, so they need repairs, maintenance and overhaul. That takes time.
As long as NATO is willing to support Ukraine, a lack of weapons and gear shouldn't be a problem.
There's all sorts of hangups with things like ATACMS.
All I'm saying is that I find this gradual escalation very unpleasant. If we side with Ukraine then let's end this as quickly and decisively as possible. Stretching this out to years of gradual escalation where during a given month we decide "Okay, maybe Ukraine now can have HIMARS, or better tanks, or better missiles" seems like the worst way to do things.
I think long term the current strategy means more money, more dead people, less clear politics and worse PR.
If we side with Ukraine then let's end this as quickly and decisively as possible.
And how exactly are you going to achieve that? The thing about war is that you can’t just decide to win, you actually have to do it.
Stretching this out to years of gradual escalation
This gradual escalation is at least as much to the “benefit” of Western audiences as it is to Russia. Just imagine telling people (Germans in particular) about German tanks in Ukraine against Russia at the beginning of 2022…
Another psyop targeting Western audiences: the notion that Russia is losing[0], can’t or won’t retaliate, even that its strategic nuclear weapons won’t work, and in any case “MAD” will protect us. All these things are very wrong, no matter how mad that makes people here and elsewhere.
[0]: Open your favourite satellite image service, visit an Ukrainian city, count the fresh graves, do the math. Kharkov alone easily has 13k KIAs buried or whatever’s the official count.
Meanwhile: https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2023/04/14/bbc-news-russian... I‘d say it’s something like 50k total but point is: not even close to what Ukraine has lost. And even if it were, that’s not how you win an existential conflict against a country five times your size.
Nice of the Russians to support the "Western psyop" by loudly infighting over the losses suffered and struggles to hold the only bit of territory they've managed to capture since their latest conscription waves, following the mass retreats of the autumn, presumably because their numerical advantage left them without any Ukranians to shoot at.
Nice of the Russians to support the "Western psyop"
Yes, but unironically. Decisions Were Made after the US and UK attacked (via Ukraine but fooling nobody) sites of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces at the beginning of December last year.[0][1] They got an immediate answer[2], and a couple more such messages later on, but what the Russians would have realized then (if not earlier) is that you most likely cannot reason with the ruling elites of the dying empire and its rabid little attack Beagle. Let’s hope they find a way still.
following the mass retreats of the autumn
Every drug peddler knows: Getting high on your own supply is the most dangerous thing.
numerical advantage left them without any Ukranians to shoot at.
Pretty bad taste, in light of the footage coming in from Zaporozhye rn.
> Yes, but unironically. Decisions Were Made after the US and UK attacked (via Ukraine but fooling nobody) sites of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces at the beginning of December last year.[0][1] They got an immediate answer[2], and a couple more such messages later on, but what the Russians would have realized then (if not earlier) is that you most likely cannot reason with the ruling elites of the dying empire and its rabid little attack Beagle. Let’s hope they find a way still.
Cutting edge stealth drones which have never been seen anywhere before (particularly the marine ones) are being handcrafted by the US & UK, for ops planned using data from US/UK satellites, then guided in with US & UK C2, to hit Crimea, then we act like we are not at war.
> Every drug peddler knows: Getting high on your own supply is the most dangerous thing.
Well at least one thing you said was true. Say what you like about the Russian propaganda, it's a whole lot less deluded than the people that think it's insufficiently clear about how Russia was only defending itself and how well their military is performing.
I dunno, stanning for Russian performance in this war at this stage feels a bit more like the contrarian holdout insisting that both Mac and Windows fans are wrong and GUIs will never catch on :)
Cute that you've gone from Ukraine's capitulation within weeks being inevitable to pretending to count bodies though.
I’d tread carefully on a day where I’ve burned half a brigade in a fruitless, hare-brained probing/screening effort. But then, treading carefully isn’t something Ukies (and the fandom) are generally known for exactly.
Cute that you've gone from Ukraine's capitulation within weeks
Have I? (Remember: “Kiew within 72 hours” were Gen. Milley’s words.) But let’s assume I did; it certainly would have been the prudent thing to do for them. Must have underestimated their ability to waste hundreds of men day after day after day and just pretend it wasn’t so. And the willingness of Western media to carry their water. And, in fact, the sheer magnitude and shamelessness of the whole propaganda effort. War is peace, baby. And anyway, as Borrell (just recently), Austin and others have observed, the Ukrainian effort would collapse within days if Western were to end. Another one of those facts pro-Ukies just love to ignore.
pretending to count bodies
It’s very easy to become an authority on Ukrainian losses in the West because you’re pretty much the only one showing up for the job. Half a dozen guys, tops. Truly the least interesting question conceivable by man.
I understand that you, as a Brit, are congenitally bound to hate Russia and to desire to stir the European pot but remember: there’s nukes in the mix this time. Should be glad that Russia isn’t in fact losing.
Yes, unless you're a different person from the person that possessed the rainworld account in March 2022. Or perhaps that was a Western psyop too!
I'd tread carefully if I'd had to go from being certain about that outcome to being certain the only reason Russia had lost more territory than it gained over the past six months was because "they're not in a rush" and that the flattened ruins of Bakhmut are somehow more valuable than the former Kherson oblast of the Russian Federation. Kudos for keeping the faith though. If only those representing Russia's front line troop factions shared your rosy picture of how things are going.
It would, indeed, be relatively straightforward to become an expert on Ukraine casualties, but we both know that isn't you. And there are indeed nukes in the mix, but remember: sides that are winning a conventional war aren't idly threatening the other nuclear states with them on a weekly basis because that's a more convincing illusion of strength than anything happening on the front line. I mean, even the US in Vietnam (or USSR in Aghanistan, or the US in Afghanistan, I guess) didn't feel so inept on the battlefield they had to bring their ICBM count into discussions.
> I understand that you, as a Brit, are congenitally bound to hate Russia and to desire to stir the European pot but remember: there’s nukes in the mix this time. Should be glad that Russia isn’t in fact losing.
They aren’t losing so bad that they took close to 100k causalities to take a city that is 41 square kilometres.
They aren’t losing so bad that we have seen T54s in use by Russia.
Russia won’t ever use nukes in Ukraine and even if they do it won’t change the war in anyway except for increasing support for Ukraine and decreasing support for Russia
This is why Russian propaganda shouts about nukes and red lines but doesn’t actually do anything.
Much like how some people on here are doing the same nuclear doomerism all it is meant to do is increase fear in the west to actually ending this war.
Whether or not you think gradual escalation prevented nuclear escalation, it's pretty much done now. Given the US policy of not announcing shipments until they've been used in the field, I bet that ATACMS is currently en route to Ukraine. Storm Shadow and ATACMS are roughly equivalent and they already have Storm Shadow.
F-16 and ATACMS were pretty much the last things on the Ukraine wish list, and they're now (probably) getting both.
America's war goal is war. If Ukraine 'won' quickly, the next war may not be easy to find quickly. Better for everyone to keep this one going as long as possible.
Not sure why this was down voted. The incentives for our politicians to create wars are very strong. They can convince themselves and others of the verocity of their reasons but war is a benefit to them. All they have to do is signal a desire for conflict (or a response to conflict) and the campaign dollars pour in.
Part because I don't think Putin is suicidal, or that stupid. He was counting on reaping benefits from this. Nuclear doesn't lead to any kind of benefit.
But besides that there are plenty weapons that aren't all that fancy and would have made a huge difference if they were there sooner. Think about the mess HIMARS would have made of that tank column stuck on the way to Kyiv.
> Part because I don't think Putin is suicidal, or that stupid.
I would have agreed with this at the start of the war..but I have no idea what gain he can ever get here short of riding it out to 2025 and hoping that a change in politics in America will change the game for him. Even then, I would not be shocked to see the EU step up in their place. If Russia will overrun Ukraine, they will overrun anyone.
They are not gaining meaningful ground and the west is further uniting; NATO is at their doorstop in Finland now, a massive failure, any surrender in Ukraine ends with Ukraine joining NATO. The EU needs Russia to know that the buck stops there.
Rumors state Putin is surrounded by yes men and terrified. Media keeps hearing reports of cancer; he may be dying already. He has portrayed himself as brute and strong, gaining ground still has his legacy trashed for the cost, then goes out on that memory. Might I add that nobody actually knows his mental state. I would not be shocked to see a WMD outcome. There are rumors of chemical weapons being prepped. The only way Russia changes the tides is to cut Ukraine off at the top with Zelenskyy, there's only two ways they bring the fight to Kyiv.
> Logistics have to be set-up for everything from spares to consumables, that takes time. Not to forget that some of the stuff wasn't properly maintained for quite some time by the donor nations, so they need repairs, maintenance and overhaul. That takes time.
This is not representative of what is actually going on.
The Russians for the most part have a fairly clean logistics system based on their weapon systems they are employing. Nonstop convoys of Trains and trucks.
The Ukrainian logistics system is a debacle because it is a mishmash of Old Soviet and a smorgasboard of Western donations, and many things are being repaired in Poland then shipped back.
Becuase the Ukrainian tactics are effectively Russian tactics still, they are using Western vehicles in ways they are not intended to be used (e.g. using a tank as a mobile artillery platform shooting at max range with max charges, wearing out barrels early).
Given the tooth to nail ratio (Warfighter to logistics) and given losses already, Ukraine is pretty close to losing generations of men, and a wide depopulation of the country.
One thing that Ukraine is not doing is using Russian tactics. A lot of the successes they've had came with using western style C&C. Had Russia invaded for proper in 2014 then yes, but Ukraine undertook an extensive restructure and rebuild since then, obviously limited by their capacity and external support.
Well, you did talk more specifically about how they use tanks. Some of their army have had western training. If they are doing that there might be a more contextual reason that applies to Russia too - lack of air support. Western tactics rely a lot on good available air support and air suppression. Russia has more air support than Ukraine but it's still very limited.
But yet, the war is a slaughterhouse for Russia. It seems like the Russian issue is that they lack any modern weapons systems or skilled labor. They have playbooks for logistics but no way to actually move the line they send men to.
If the Russians have such a good logistics system why did there convoy just stop like 30km outside Kyiv in the initial phase of the war proceed to be bombed into dust?.
There was some serious underestimation of the Western Ukrainian resolve.
I’m very surprised they attempted an airfield seizure with such a small force. The airfield seizure debacle led to many others, such as convoy bombings.
That strikes me as gross miscalculation, not really logistics
I don't know if you are characterizing this correctly. I've spent a good amount of time in uniform focused on Russian tactics & Russian Order of Battle, and how to counter it, so I'll chime in some.
> It's clear Russia isn't going to stop. Putin would find it extremely embarrassing and politically harmful to just stop without getting anything out of it.
If the US has Eastern Ukraine, we can place missiles inside the Russian's early warning threshhold aimed at Moscow (Think Cuban Missile Crisis but worse). There are no true geographical barriers from driving tank divisions from Ukraine into Russia proper.
US policymakers have repeatedly stated their aim is to remove Putin, and they have plans to break up the country.
For the Russians, this is an existential crisis.
> All those sanctions, all that money, all those lives lost would be all for nothing.
The current Administration and their allies in Congress will fight to the last Ukrainian.
They are attempting to weaken Russian through a proxy war (Think Afghanistan or Vietnam). They are not defending Ukraine.
If the US administrations truly wanted peace they would have signed up for permanent no-NATO agreements as Dr. Mearsheimer has pointed out.
But having Ukraine become Switzerland would not benefit the US' current warlike ambitions, nor would it assist the plundering of the incredibly valuable resources of Ukraine. Zelensky's platform for peace, when he was elected, was destroyed by the Banderistas in Western Ukraine who have been prepping for war, or executingi
> If giving weapons to Ukraine is a good thing at all then the most moral option to me is giving Ukraine the means to achieve a swift, decisive win. Keeping things even has no legitimate purpose to it, it only gets more people killed on both sides.
Because this is an existential crisis to the Russians, they will continue ramping up their warmachine to support this war.
The Russian army is really designed for this type of combat, and they won't have a better chance. Now, they might have misjudged the level of Ukrainian resistance, and the Western support, but now they are just rubbling cities and targeting everything. The worst of WW1 & WW2 is back.
Each time we give the Ukrainians weapons we stall the inevitable, and we ensure that more Ukrainians will die.
> If the US has Eastern Ukraine, we can place missiles inside the Russian's early warning threshhold aimed at Moscow (Think Cuban Missile Crisis but worse). There are no true geographical barriers from driving tank divisions from Ukraine into Russia proper.
I don't buy this.
First, tech changed a lot since the old days. ICBMs can strike anywhere on the globe. Physical proximity to Moscow isn't really necessary.
Second, Finland joined and is within HIMARS range of St Petersburg. That plus Sweden blocks the Baltic Sea. That somehow doesn't seem to have caused a crisis.
Third, there's Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. There's really no lack of existing options.
> The current Administration and their allies in Congress will fight to the last Ukrainian.
That is silly. You have to consider that Russia's willingness to sacrifice its own people can't be infinite either.
> If the US administrations truly wanted peace they would have signed up for permanent no-NATO agreements as Dr. Mearsheimer has pointed out.
I see no reason why such an agreement would be advantageous to anyone.
> Each time we give the Ukrainians weapons we stall the inevitable, and we ensure that more Ukrainians will die.
Easy answer. Give them enough stuff to push Russia back to the border.
> ICBMs can strike anywhere on the globe. Physical proximity to Moscow isn't really necessary.
I am talking about getting inside an early warning window and preventing a Russian response.
> Second, Finland joined and is within HIMARS range of St Petersburg
HIMARS are not strategic nuclear weapons
> That is silly. You have to consider that Russia's willingness to sacrifice its own people can't be infinite either.
Russian has between a 7 to 1, and a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery, and this advantage is growing.
> I see no reason why such an agreement would be advantageous to anyone.
If Ukraine had agreed to be neutral (non-NATO) the war and all this bloodshed would have been avoided.
I'm sad so many people had to die. This would have been greatly advantageous for some of those dead people not to have died in vain because we want Russia to have a quagmire.
> Easy answer. Give them enough stuff to push Russia back to the border.
Won't happen. The Russians are likely going for all the ethnically Russian Oblasts in Ukraine.
> If Ukraine had agreed to be neutral (non-NATO) the war and all this bloodshed would have been avoided.
This was already offered by Germany, turns out it's not really what Russia wants.
> I'm sad so many people had to die. This would have been greatly advantageous for some of those dead people not to have died in vain because we want Russia to have a quagmire.
Be great if Russia just decided not to invade instead.
> Won't happen. The Russians are likely going for all the ethnically Russian Oblasts in Ukraine.
Yes because Russia has an infinite number of soldiers, vehicles and weapons and isn't running out of all three of those things.
> I am talking about getting inside an early warning window and preventing a Russian response.
Okay, so they can be in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania which are around the same distance.
> HIMARS are not strategic nuclear weapons
The point is that Finland is close enough to strike St Petersburg with something old, cheap and commonly available. Can always go fancier than that.
No reason why Finland couldn't host nuclear weapons.
> Russian has between a 7 to 1, and a 10 to 1 advantage in artillery, and this advantage is growing.
Guess will see what happens, but the likelihood of Russia winning this seems very low.
> If Ukraine had agreed to be neutral (non-NATO) the war and all this bloodshed would have been avoided.
If Russia had agreed to be neutral (stop panicking about NATO) the war and all this bloodshed would have been avoided. Mind you NATO was nearly dead until Russia started this nonsense. It's thanks to them that it's been greatly revitalized.
> Won't happen. The Russians are likely going for all the ethnically Russian Oblasts in Ukraine.
There won't be ethnically Russian Oblasts in Ukraine soon.
War already created a huge loss of population, and if Ukraine manages to regain them they'll use the war as a reason to systematically remove any Russian remains from them.
And I think thanks to the war this will be largely non-controversial.
Russia may have more artillery tubes, but they have a shortage of precision guided ammunition and are having trouble manufacturing more. They're basically using it as fast as they can make it just to hold the current lines and have been unable to build up the stockpiles that would be needed for another offensive. Meanwhile PGM deliveries to Ukraine have been accelerating.
> Russia may have more artillery tubes, but they have a shortage of precision guided ammunition and are having trouble manufacturing more.
This is incorrect, and the Russians have easier logistics than the Western Ukrainians, because the Russians are only fielding Russian arty systems, and the Western Ukrainians have a mishmash of polish, soviet, US, French, and others.
To quote someone from the US Defense establishment, Thomas A. Callaghan Jr., “Quantity has a Quality All Its Own". This is doubly true with area of effect weaponry like massed artillery fires.
> They're basically using it as fast as they can make it just to hold the current lines
They are currently winning a war of attrition. The Russian army is specifically designed for this type of warfare.
> and have been unable to build up the stockpiles that would be needed for another offensive.
If you are attriting an enemy at good odds, there is no need for an offensive. Key defensive points like Mariupol and Bakhmut have been taken.
Given the artillery supremacy, there is little chance the Western Ukrainians will be able to break out, and the Russian defensive lines are prepped just in case.
> Meanwhile PGM deliveries to Ukraine have been accelerating.
Precision guided munitions (HIMAR launched Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (all variants), Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) (80% GPS guided) , Storm Shadows, as well as Precision guided bombs like JDAMs) are inaccurate when they encounter the wide GPS jamming which is now happening across much of Ukraine. Given how much of the HIMAR launched missiles are GPS guided in a GPS jammed environment, they are not very accurate.
Furthermore, the Russians have S400 and S500 air defense, the very best AD system in the world, and they regularly are shooting down PGMs.
If we think strategically about this war
Surveillance: equal (assumes access to US Spy satellites assisting Western Ukrainians)
Intelligence: equal (assumes full access to Western capabilities)
Battle Management: favors Western Ukrainians due to full access to US systems & fusion capabilities
Logistics: favors Russians heavily due to simplified support/maintenance
Artillery: Between 6:1 and 10:1 favoring of Russians
Air Defense: favors Russians
Infantry: favors Russians due to massive reserves
Armor: favors Russians, latest MBTs employed on Russian side
Drones: favors Russians, DJI directly supporting Russians, latest & greatest in Russian stockpile, Iranian support
Aeronautics: favors Russians, regularly dropping FAB500 and greater PGMs
Missiles: favors Russians due to hypersonic missiles and greater missile supply
Electronic Warfare: favors Russians due to full access to Russian EW systems, GPS jammed environment
No one wants to attempt an ICBM launch. Very unreliable. They have never been tested and are just as likely to blow up in the silo and cause an unintended nuclear detonation.
Don't move the goalposts. You made claims about US wanting Eastern Ukraine for short missile distance, yet have apparently never looked at a map and realized that Latvia is closer to Moscow.
Curious if you really think there are people in the US Gov and military so callous as to be wasting Ukranian lives. I'm very removed from those circles, but it's so hard for me to imagine that there really are people like that and they really call the shots in our country / military.
> US policymakers have repeatedly stated their aim is to remove Putin, and they have plans to break up the country.
I have certainly seen assertions by US policymakers that Russia (and the world) would be better off without Putin, but this wording makes it sound like there is a non-fringe group calling for the assassination of Putin. Do you have a source for this?
I would also be interested in a source where policymakers have called for the break-up of (post-Soviet) Russia.
> would also be interested in a source where policymakers have called for the break-up of (post-Soviet) Russia.
Not counting our fomenting via NGOs...
Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote that, “When the Soviet Union was collapsing in late 1991, Dick (Cheney) wanted to see the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat.”
I think we're talking past each other here: I said "but this wording makes it sound like there is a non-fringe group calling for the assassination of Putin. Do you have a source for this?" What I'm seeing from your links is a call for a war crimes trial. Maybe the mistake was mine initially for assuming "removing" a foreign leader had more ominous connotations, but I don't think I'm alone in interpreting it this way (considering what the US has done in other places).
The Gates quote is more interesting, albeit a second-hand source (instead of directly from Cheney) and about something that had occurred more than 20 years prior.
>US policymakers have repeatedly stated their aim is to remove Putin, and they have plans to break up the country.
>
> For the Russians, this is an existential crisis.
Russia decided to invade Ukraine, you seem to imply that was partly due them needing Ukraine as buffer. That bit was a Russian talking point, until Putin said it was an excuse.
When asked for some evidence you give articles where Biden states that the war is a reason for a regime change in Russia. So Russia invaded and started a war in Ukraine. Then US said the war is a reason for a regime change. But Russia started the war for a reason that the US gave as a consequence of Russia attacking Ukraine.
> They are attempting to weaken Russian through a proxy war (Think Afghanistan or Vietnam). They are not defending Ukraine.
Wow, if only Russia had a way to stop the wests devious plan of forcing them to fight in Ukraine and decimate their military. I guess they could leave right?.
> If the US administrations truly wanted peace they would have signed up for permanent no-NATO agreements as Dr. Mearsheimer has pointed out.
Dr Mearsheimer has gotten nearly everything about this war incorrect, no one should be listening to him.
> But having Ukraine become Switzerland would not benefit the US' current warlike ambitions, nor would it assist the plundering of the incredibly valuable resources of Ukraine. Zelensky's platform for peace, when he was elected, was destroyed by the Banderistas in Western Ukraine who have been prepping for war, or executingi
Damn those Banderistas and there control of the Russian government, if only Putin had the power to not do what the west and the Banderists wanted he would of been able to stay out of this mess and to invaded Ukraine, but those mind control geniuses forced him to do it.
> The Russian army is really designed for this type of combat, and they won't have a better chance. Now, they might have misjudged the level of Ukrainian resistance, and the Western support, but now they are just rubbling cities and targeting everything. The worst of WW1 & WW2 is back.
The Russian army is already resorting to using T62's and are mad maxing vehicles, I don't think they are designed for this, unless 'this' is being slaughtered by western weaponry.
> Each time we give the Ukrainians weapons we stall the inevitable, and we ensure that more Ukrainians will die.
Conversely, each time we give Ukrainians weapons, we stop another Bucha massacre, we stop more women, children and men being tortured and raped, we stop more teenagers being summarily executed.
Why do you think letting the Russian army that has already ground cities to dust, implemented there 'filtration' (read torture) camps and committed war crime after war crime, do more of that is going to help?.
If you wanna really complain about weapons deliveries to Ukraine complain to Russia, they still are likely the biggest supplier of weapons to Ukraine, and if they aren't they are a close second.
- Defense contractors, who have a vested interest in selling more weapons, are subtly influencing the public debate about Ukraine to convince the government to award more weapon contracts.
- On its merits, from a purely strategic point of view, it would be a good idea to buy more weapons for Ukraine to help them push Russian forces out of occupied territories.
So this is a situation where the greed of defense contractors may coincide with the common good, at least for a while. But we should remain vigilant and have safeguards in place to ensure that these firms don't price gouge the taxpayer.
Not only are both of those true, but a third thing is also true: the government-level pro-Ukraine narrative in Western countries has been unusually unfavourable to domestic weapons industries, with constant briefings about the need to be careful about what is supplied and how it can be used, rationales for not sending Ukraine stuff based around the idea Ukrainians are better off sticking with ex-Soviet equipment they know how to use and maintain, and the actual stuff supplied tending to be obsolete compared with the stuff defence contractors want to market. With the added irony that the biggest potential beneficiaries from demonstrating the military potential of their novel tech (SpaceX and Chinese civil drone manufacturers) want to disassociate themselves from the war...
Oh, agreed, they'll still make money from replacement programs being brought forward
But if they were driving the narrative we wouldn't have weapons sent following months of government's explaining that actually it wouldn't be a good thing to send these weapons to Ukraine because they'd struggle for reliability in the conditions and Ukranian mechanics wouldn't be able to handle them, so in a way sending them older tech was doing them a favour....
Short term thinking drives their narratives. And money.
Take the F-16s question. Last year Biden said sending F-16s to Ukraine would mean World War 3, now he's changed his mind. Technically he's not sending them, but he's not holding back on others sending them.
Since the media is clearly carrying water for the weapons manufacturers by bringing them on without disclosure of the huge and obvious conflict of interest, I doubt the accuracy of the merits of this conflict that were also presented by them.
I think the merits of the conflict are pretty clear: Russia attacked Ukraine, an independent country, wanting to invade it. Which is something no one in Europe has done since Hitler. If that's not clear, I don't know what is...
> An extensive lead service pipe replacement effort has been underway since 2016. In early 2017, some officials asserted that the water quality had returned to acceptable levels, but in January 2019, residents and officials expressed doubt about the cleanliness of the water. There were an estimated 2,500 lead service pipes still in place as of April 2019. As of December 8, 2020, fewer than 500 service lines still needed to be inspected. As of July 16, 2021, 27,133 water service lines had been excavated and inspected, resulting in the replacement of 10,059 lead pipes. After $400 million in state and federal spending, Flint has secured a clean water source, distributed filters to all who want them, and laid modern, safe, copper pipes to nearly every home in the city. Politico declared that its water is "just as good as any city's in Michigan."
"We fixed it" presumably is part of why Flint is a lower priority than combating Russian wars of expansionary aggression.
(The Ukraine war is, incidentally, a fascinatingly cheap way of kneecapping Russia. It's beyond the wildest wet dreams of the Cold Warriors in cost effectiveness.)
The evidence is to the contrary. After decades of war in the middle east our infrastructure is crumbling, poverty is on the rise, kids are living in homes with lead in the water and painted on the walls and we are still leaving our kids with a bill (national debt).
That something is not done doesn't automatically prove it's due to e.g. Middle East, or giving really old stock to Ukraine. The US is more than capable of doing multiple things at the same time. Though, yeah, the infrastructure in the US is terrible and so on. It still doesn't prove that it's due to focussing on the military. E.g. the costs for medical care is way higher than any other country. It could've been done differently, but well, that's still not due to waging a war in the Middle East.
If they could do both at the same time, why haven't they? You might blame the opposite party but look more closely, did their voters get what they were asking for?
You vote for democrats to increase funding to social programs, they promise they will tax the rich to pay for them. The democrats never vote to raise the capital gains tax instead if they do anything they raise income taxes or introduce a "fine" to poor people who cant afford health insurance. They then fund ineffective programs that are later revealed to have a great deal of fraud and waste. They say they will fight healthcare costs but can't even get a bill to reimport drugs onto the floor. They'll do a Medicare for all vote but only when they are not in power so it won't go through.
Maybe you get disillusioned with that and decide to vote Republican. They say they cut taxes and they do nominally, but not without craving out even larger tax cuts for wealthy individuals. They fail to cut spending. Look at the most recent debt celing crisis, they immediately caved. Look at when they had a majority, no major spending cuts.
What do they have in common? War. They love wars. They get rich off wars. Let's not let them have any wars until they do what we want them to do at home. War is dessert, make them eat their dinner first.
The war in Ukraine is pretty clear cut for a modern conflict. It's colonial war with a disturbingly high component of genocidal intent of eradicating Ukrainian culture and identity.
That's why my post prefaced the weapons bit with "ostensibly". The labs themselves definitely existed.
In any case, this is a tangent. The fact that Russia added some extra phony justifications for invading doesn't automatically mean that their primary reason for invading was to commit genocide.
Are you talking about the stated intent of the Western Ukrainians to kill off the Eastern Muscovite Ukrainians, or the Eastern Ukrainians with the assistance of Russia killing off the Western Ukrainians?
> The war in the Donbas was portrayed as a civil war by Russia but was actually started by and fought largely by Russian soldiers and FSB/GRU members. The former head of the DPR himself admitted this recently.
Your timeline is incorrect. As someone who has spent a good amount of time in Ukraine, it is clear you are not correctly informed.
The Maidan revolution, or Coup d'etat (which the US supported) in Feb of 2014 ended the presidency of Victor Yanokvych that had previously been considered more Pro-kremlin than his opponent.
When the revolution happened, Victoria Nuland (US State Department) was captured with US State Dept staff playing kingmakers around which politicos would become the new president.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
The Ukrainian civil war between the Eastern Ukrainians supported by Russia, and the Western Ukrainians supported by the West/NATO, eventually became the Russian invasion of Ukraine around Feb 2022 after talks broke down about Ukraine's membership in NATO which Russia opposed.
Yea they were ethnic Russians because they were just Russians from Russia.
> The Ukrainian civil war between the Eastern Ukrainians supported by Russia, and the Western Ukrainians supported by the West/NATO, eventually became the Russian invasion of Ukraine around Feb 2022 after talks broke down about Ukraine's membership in NATO which Russia opposed.
If the Russians only supported and didn’t fight themselves why were Russian FSB and GRU officers setup as heads of the new areas?. Why didn’t Ukrainians from those areas get appointed instead?.
Here’s a paper on just how involved the Russians were in Donbas, hint they didn’t support it they were directly involved.
What diplomatic solutions? Russia thinks Ukraine is a fake nation that shouldn't exist. Putin re-iterated that claim a week ago by showing one map from 1700 without Ukraine.
The only diplomatic solution is for Russia to pull back its forces.
Honestly, it's not up to you to say. Real diplomacy happens behind the scenes. What politicians say in public is just a facade.
That's not even the point anyway. I'm asking about the possibility of military contractors lobbying for more war, as literally any business will lobby for more problems to be solved with the solution they sell.
> The only diplomatic solution is for Russia to pull back its forces.
Please don't alter the established meaning of words. That's not diplomatic, that's a military victory of Ukraine where Russia is forced to retreat.
Additionally the solution you propose comes at the cost of potentially hundred thousands more deaths on both sides, while a cease-fire would come at the cost of some territory for Ukraine. I value life over territory.
> Additionally the solution you propose comes at the cost of potentially hundred thousands more deaths on both sides, while a cease-fire would come at the cost of some territory for Ukraine. I value life over territory.
A ceasefire comes at the cost of all Ukrainian lives in the territory that Russia has already invaded.
Additionally all a ceasefire does is allow Russia to build up its forces again and invade in the future.
> A ceasefire comes at the cost of all Ukrainian lives in the territory that Russia has already invaded.
Based on what? These are mostly the ethnical Russian in eastern Ukraine. Anyone who didn't like Russia has long left before the territory could be taken. Many of these people even have relatives in Russia.
Now why do you assume Russia will simply exterminate any living being in the territories it just taken?
> Additionally all a ceasefire does is allow Russia to build up its forces again and invade in the future.
Why do you assume Ukraine has to sit waiting without doing anything in the meantime? Ukraine can build up forces as much as Russia can. Ukraine could join NATO as well. There are countless solutions to your problem that don't require any lives to be sacrificed for it.
> Now why do you assume Russia will simply exterminate any living being in the territories it just taken?
Because evidence suggests they do this for kicks sometimes. They have already slaughtered their say through Russian speaking towns why wouldn’t they continue to do this?.
> Why do you assume Ukraine has to sit waiting without doing anything in the meantime? Ukraine can build up forces as much as Russia can. Ukraine could join NATO as well. There are countless solutions to your problem that don't require any lives to be sacrificed for it.
You cannot join NATO whilst having active territorial disputes and a ceasefire is exactly that.
> Because evidence suggests they do this for kicks sometimes. They have already slaughtered their say through Russian speaking towns why wouldn’t they continue to do this?.
You know you are saying this in bad faith. What should we be saying of the American war crimes in the middle east? You wouldn't come to the conclusion that the USA in general commits war crimes "for kicks" right? War crimes happen during war times. To stop the crimes, end wars.
> You cannot join NATO whilst having active territorial disputes and a ceasefire is exactly that.
> You know you are saying this in bad faith. What should we be saying of the American war crimes in the middle east? You wouldn't come to the conclusion that the USA in general commits war crimes "for kicks" right? War crimes happen during war times. To stop the crimes, end wars.
Nice whataboutism but I have already stated on here multiple times what I think of Americas wars.
Now can you state that Russia should leave Ukraine and stop raping and torturing its civilians?.
> Then call it peace instead of ceasefire.
Why not peace with hitler?. You and all the other Russia supporters on here have the same energy and would have instantly capitulated the Sudetenland to hitler but I’m sure he will stop!.
The answer for why not peace?, Ukraine wants peace, a peace without the army that raped and tortured its way through its population in flagrant violation of the Budapest memorandum inside its border.
Would you give up part of your house to the person who raped your children or would you fight back?.
> Nice whataboutism but I have already stated on here multiple times what I think of Americas wars.
Not whataboutism, you're parroting the word without knowing what it means. I'm just saying that war crimes happen in any war, even when supposedly civilized nations fight.
> Why not peace with hitler?
Putin is in no way Hitler, modern Russia is no nazi Germany. If you don't understand the difference, please go study some history, I won't debate you on this.
> a peace without the army that raped and tortured its way through its population
This is an extreme exageration. There have been war crimes as in any other war. To say that the Russian army has systematically been doing this is a lie. The Ukrainian army is responsible of war crimes as well.
> Would you give up part of your house to the person who raped your children or would you fight back?.
This kind of idiotic comparison has no ground in reality. We're not talking about a house, Ukraine has no "children" as it is a nation, and if you really want to insist on the pathetic children analogy, "fighting back" requires tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands more children to die.
Would you sacrifice tens of thousands of your children to take back your house? See how groundless an analogy that is?
> Not whataboutism, you're parroting the word without knowing what it means. I'm just saying that war crimes happen in any war, even when supposedly civilized nations fight.
I think you don't have a clue what the word means, if you think the scale of war crimes that Russia commits happens in "any war, even when supposedly civilised nations fights" then you are blind and clueless.
> Putin is in no way Hitler, modern Russia is no nazi Germany. If you don't understand the difference, please go study some history, I won't debate you on this.
I don't know they really like flying there Z swastika high and proud, they are indoctrinating their children with a hatred for a nation of people and to fight in the future. They regularly call for the answer to the "Ukrainian question".
> This is an extreme exageration. There have been war crimes as in any other war. To say that the Russian army has systematically been doing this is a lie. The Ukrainian army is responsible of war crimes as well.
This is in no way a exaggeration we know that Russia regularly tortures civilians, filtration camps have been Russias modus operandi for decades now, just look up the filtration camps from chechnya to know what these monsters are capable of.
> This kind of idiotic comparison has no ground in reality. We're not talking about a house, Ukraine has no "children" as it is a nation, and if you really want to insist on the pathetic children analogy, "fighting back" requires tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands more children to die.
So whats your plan to get Russia out of Ukraine then? let them have whatever they want and let there crimes against humanity and the people of Ukraine go unanswered?.
> Would you sacrifice tens of thousands of your children to take back your house? See how groundless an analogy that is?
I would fight back, and not bow down to tyranny and terrorism from the new authoritarian beast. Sounds like your plan is for Ukraine to lay down and just let Russia do whatever they want.
> I don't know they really like flying there Z swastika high and proud, they are indoctrinating their children with a hatred for a nation of people and to fight in the future. They regularly call for the answer to the "Ukrainian question".
There are extensive documentaries predating the war on the Ukrainian Fascists that use Nazi iconography - Right Sektor, Azov, etc.
> This is in no way a exaggeration we know that Russia regularly tortures civilians, filtration camps have been Russias modus operandi for decades now, just look up the filtration camps from chechnya to know what these monsters are capable of.
In war the first casualty is truth.
> So whats your plan to get Russia out of Ukraine then? let them have whatever they want and let there crimes against humanity and the people of Ukraine go unanswered?.
Russia is taking all the ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine, which means 4 more oblasts.
> Sounds like your plan is for Ukraine to lay down and just let Russia do whatever they want.
Ukraine is historically Russian though the borders have been fluid on the west flank where it fell under the Mongols, the Polish, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Duchy of Lithuania.
> There are extensive documentaries predating the war on the Ukrainian Fascists that use Nazi iconography - Right Sektor, Azov, etc.
Same with Russia Nazi fascists everywhere, just look up the Wagner PMCs great SS lightning bolt lapel tattoos.
The difference is the Z swastika in Russia is promoted and run by the government.
> In war the first casualty is truth
There’s truth and proof to everything I’ve said but I get the feeling you would deny the existence of concentration camps in WW2 by spouting the same nonsense.
> Russia is taking all the ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine, which means 4 more oblasts.
So your answer to getting Russia out of Ukraine is to give Russia parts of Ukraine.
Russias actually lost its positions in massive amounts of land in Ukraine already in the past counter offensive and will lose more this time.
> Ukraine is historically Russian though the borders have been fluid on the west flank where it fell under the Mongols, the Polish, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Duchy of Lithuania.
What is this horseshit, Ukraine existed before Moscow was even on a map.
Not much of a victory there and, frankly, seems to be "just by happenstance" that the man-eating machine happens to be eating the right men for once. I'm not refreshed.
Don't see that combo every day.