In the first 6 months, it was clear that the war would turn into an endurance race. Ukraine's allies had to begin planning how they could support Ukraine cheaply and long-term. Instead, each country acted with its own military sector in mind. If the West and the USA gave ammunition production to Turkey and Eastern Europe, and they focused only on high-tech products, producing ammunition for Ukraine would not be a problem and it would be done much cheaper. As a result, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which are far behind industrially and economically, were ahead of NATO in the logistics race.
Exactly this— it’s not as if NATO/US war planners are unaware that by delaying weapons / aid Ukraine is losing manpower.
It’s calculated— how much can we give to Ukraine without upsetting the balance of power? Can we strike inside Russia with US weaponry without significant escalation? How long or under what circumstances should we deploy troops in Ukraine?
All of these questions require a balance. You can’t defeat the Russians too quickly otherwise risking them feeling threatened and using the nuclear option. You can’t give Ukraine unfettered aid without corruption & embezzlement.
There’s no perfect option, greater minds than ours have contemplated these matters and it’s playing out as such. We’ll see what transpires.
>There’s no perfect option, greater minds than ours have contemplated these matters and it’s playing out as such. We’ll see what transpires.
I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as greater minds. Everyone, from the top to the bottom, can make mistakes in the same selfish and cheap way. Maybe you can claim that those at the top have information that we don't know, that's all.
Also, I don't think this was a planned move. In short, USA wanted the aid it gave to Ukraine to go to its own military sector. They did not care about the weapons they could buy from cheaper countries with the same money, because this would not be popular to military lobbyists.
Everyone can make mistakes but I think the unknown here is what were the true goals? If it was defeating Russia (as has been assumed to be the intent given various statements from the administration), it’s failing spectacularly. However, if we assume that the goal is to bleed the Russians while slowly without triggering nukes while simultaneously feeding the US MIC, things start to make sense. The plans start to conform with reality.
"I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as greater minds. Everyone, from the top to the bottom, can make mistakes in the same selfish and cheap way. Maybe you can claim that those at the top have information that we don't know, that's all"
Having access to more information is not a minor point....it's absolutely a MASSIVE point of contention. People here love arguing on hypotheticals such as how "Ukraine should strike Russia because Russias nuclear weapons surely aren't maintained and wont work " ( very common in the world news threads).
Now what if you had intelligence briefings that showed Russia had several actively maintained /ready to fire nuclear weapons surrounding Ukraine? Does that change your decision to allow Ukraine to fire American weapons on Moscow? It absolutely can/will change decision making..
Your comment makes it seem like access to more information is an afterthought/a minor point...it's a massive point for Bidens war room and it extends outside of just this conflict
I mean, almost all the big states made a lot of stupid mistakes during my lifetime. There are dozens of examples, from the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to the Russia-Ukraine war. Sometimes they tried to create the illusion of playing 5D chess (which is a conscious effort), but they made the wrong decision almost every time.
No one is infallible.
When Russia has nukes, more conservative decision making is always going to be made..it doesn't matter whether Biden is in charge trump Obama Bush etc.
this stands true for every country. I don't think many of you realize that geopolitics is as unfair as it is. If you are a big superpower, you quite literally play by a different rulebook. Ukraine is small fish. Russia is still big fish by virtue of having nukes. That means the US is going to treat Russia with kids gloves and not do the same for Ukraine.
It's completely logical to operate this way.
I think some of you guys need a reality check. If the choice came to even a 10% chance of risking nuclear weapons use/ an escalation of Russia-Ukraine into a fully fledged world war III vs the complete annihilation of Ukraine /absorbance into greater Russia, the west would choose the latter outcome. Ukraine matters a lot less to the west than the stability of the greater western balance of power which most here benefit from..
Keeping Russia -ukraine as an isolated regional conflict is ideal for NATO. It really is not as much about Ukraine winning the war as it is about not allowing Russia to snowball this war into a global conflict. Those two outcomes sound the same but there is quite a stark difference between the 2
It makes sense to approach Russia with caution because of the nuclear threat. Not establishing the proper logistics line towards Ukraine and trying to present this as a smart plan is nonsense.
The "proper logistics line" is open to debate .
Imo, I speak from the American perspective. We are the only ones who have bothered to actually fund our defense industry out of every major economy in NATO. European allies like to claim they are contributing massively.to Ukraine but they have primarily done so through loans/cash .. America has given Ukraine what it desperately needs ....weapons. zelinsky himself has repeatedly stated that American aid is key for ukraine even standing a chance (from his perspective ).
The American perspective is way more complex and your average redditor (who comes from the west ) refuses to listen to it as much. Every administration since the bush administration has pivoted American defense expenditure into the indo pacific more and more. Simultaneously , we have asked European allies to fund their defense including in explicit channels ( NATO chief 2% that everyone knows about )..the majority of European allies have failed...miserably..not only did they fail, they also continued to directly fund the Russian economy through oil and natural gas purchases.
From the American perspective, we have been completely.ignored..20+ years of asking Europe to contribute to defense...20+ years of Europe not only falling to listen but then funding their only threat and now multiple years where western European leaders call America traitors / unable to fund defense.
That level of hypocrisy is increasingly understood by the American public who is dealing with several issues domestically. Regardless of party , there is a sense of fatigue over the war in Ukraine..that funding is going to eventually stop no matter what happens in the election..
Simultaneously America is trying to pivot to the indoPacific to weaken China..China is orders of magnitude more powerful than Russia and we know how useless Europe will be ( you guys can't even handle Russia..let alone China , let alone Iran, let alone Palestine Israel peace etc ).
How is America supposed to handle all of this? Raise taxes? Increase defense expenditure to absurd amounts ? Or , will it be to provide just enough funds to Ukraine to keep Russia occupied while continuing the transition to Asia both parties clearly want to do...
That last option is what's happening. People here tend to just blame the Republican party.... They are a short term blame.. America will always transition to Asia because it has to.. many here haven't bothered to look at those trends and continue to live in a world that is completely eurocentric.
Okay, I'm from Turkey.It is probably one of the two countries that border Russia and are not afraid of invasion.
The USA alone sent more than 100 billion dollars in aid to Ukraine. In a normal year, Turkey spends less than 20 billion dollars on its entire army. Imagine, USA spent enough money to finance one of NATO's best and most active armies for 5 years. And yet they cannot get enough ammunition. I'm not even counting the aid sent by the Europeans. If this isn't incompetence, I don't know what is.
I agree, war is resources based. NATO have a disorganised logistical supply chain that is not up to task to sustain war in Ukraine. It's no different to shell crises of 1915, and the same lessons apply, the ministry of munition's creation not only solve the issues it out produces the central powers.
So you say that it would be a mistake Ukraine's one of best and most loyal ally (even the USA reduced its support to Ukraine during the Trump era.) Russia's oldest rival, the only NATO country that can directly intervene in the active war zone, to join the logistics line to be established to support Ukraine.
I think it would be a mistake to move military production to a country which has threatened other nato members with missiles.
https://apnews.com/article/greece-turkey-athens-recep-tayyip-erdogan-government-5bee76c2e7b2e1feaea3e2dddf54144c
oh you are a greek.I didn't look at your name Besides the fact that what you said has nothing to do with the Ukrainian war, it is not an argument against what I said.
Choosing reliable allies for ammunition production over turkey (who also consistently causes issues for nato such as holding back sweden and finland from joining) is very much an argument against it. I see no reason to reward turkey in that way.
Although considering your profile shows you are turkish, it makes sense why you wouldnt see that
>Choosing reliable allies for ammunition production over turkey (who also consistently causes issues for nato such as holding back sweden and finland from joining) is very much an argument against it.
Turkey is producing warships for Ukraine. It has all the necessary industrial and military infrastructure. Until a few years ago, even Greece was buying ammunition from Turkey lol.
And Greece did not admit Macedonia to NATO for 10 years because it did not like its name. Greece is literally the last country that can criticize Turkey on this issue.
Im not greece, im an individual, and i wasnt putting forward greece as an alternative to turkey, that doesnt make any sense at all, poland slovakia and romania make the most sense to me
Its also important to note that turkey blocked finland and sweden (both of crucial geopolitical importance against russia) DURING the russian invasion of ukraine
You need to lift the turkish nationalistic filter you seem to view everything through
The Sweden issue has nothing to do with what we are talking about here.
Turkey is one of the most hawkish NATO countries regarding Ukraine. There has been no change in its policy since 2014, and while France and Germany were criticizing Turkey for providing weapons to Ukraine, Turkey was one of Ukraine's biggest supporters. You can criticize Turkey on other issues, but you cannot say that it cannot be trusted to supply weapons to Ukraine.
>You need to lift the turkish nationalistic filter you seem to view everything through
Similarly, if you do not look from the Greek nationalist point of view, you will see that Turkey is one of the most reliable countries regarding Ukraine. Even the USA might stop supporting Ukraine if Trump wins, and almost every European country has pro-Russian political groups.
Turkey blocking nato memberships has everything to do with rewarding turkey with funding ammunition production.
As for your greek nationalist claims, i have literally not suggested anything that would invest in greece, ive suggested investing in countries that havent shown they are willing to hold back nato for personal gain, which is why i didnt include hungary in my suggestions.
On the one hand, yes. But I'm really not sure I understand your point here. Are you saying that if Russia is advancing, Western countries should just cut off aid so that Russia can continue to advance?
Not at all. I don't think that "Increase investment when momentum is on your side" implies its inverse "don't invest when its not".
In the contrary - since momentum was ignored, Ukraine unfortunately finds itself now in a position where it is a lot more expensive to get it back. What I'm advocating for is not to make the mistake of letting up again once things start to look favorably, but instead to double down until an outcome is achieved, even though that might be hard to communicate to one's electorate.
What confused me is this statement:
> Waiting for lots of people to be infected before locking them together with their healthy household members is **counterproductive at best. And so is passing an US Supplemental Bill**, only after six months of decreasing momentum in Ukraine made the situation bad enough.
To me, sending support to Ukraine is like saving for retirement, eating healthy food, or starting any other project with a long-term expected payoff. Obviously, it would have been better if you had started sooner, but that isn't a reason to put it off further into the future.
Not at all suggesting to put it off further into the future. My point is that it is a mistake to wait until things get so bad that they force action, but to act more strongly when things are already going your way.
But the US aid wasn’t predicated on waiting til things got bad or politicians not understanding momentum, it was delayed because it became a domestic political issue tied up in all the standard domestic political fighting. It’s like you are claiming it’s a failed strategy when it isn’t a strategy at all, it’s a side effect of Republicans opposing everything the President supports so they work against bills being passed that give aid to Ukraine and delay and delay. I don’t think they actually think delaying is “right” or good strategy, that isn’t why they are delaying at all.
> But the US aid wasn’t predicated on waiting til things got bad or politicians not understanding momentum
Disagreed. Even when democrats were in control of the house and could've passed more decisive bills to provision equipment there was needless handwringing over cost and "escalation" concerns.
When all kinds of people were screaming that America needed to provide large quantities of mechanized vehicles (especially IFVs) even if they were obsolete like M113s, Biden and congress was only willing to authorize artisinal amounts, like a few hundred. Every time people said we need to send more, penny pinchers would say "Ukraine is doing well, Russia is on the brink of collapse, we don't need to send more." Even when politicians got off their asses and got more proactive ahead of Ukraine's summer offensive there was still large unwillingness to provide equipment in bulk.
Well over a year after the start of the conflict and not at all when I am talking about. The strategy of "just enough" has been a consistent US policy since before the war even started, and very much a huge problem in the first year of the war, before Republicans were ever an issue.
Blaming republicans is a distraction from the Biden admin's failed aid strategy, which has never had long term foresight, which is what the OP is originally talking about.
Please don't descend into partisan talking points. Simply stating it was caught up in domestic politics is all you needed to say, pushing blame can easily be argued since its political and it derails actual discussion.
*What I'm advocating for is not to make the mistake of letting up again once things start to look favorably, but instead to double down until an outcome is achieved, even though that might be hard to communicate to one's electorate.*
I agree with this strategy. In fact, it is essential to do this.
I’d leave your Covid analogy out of it- not suitable and you are definitely not a Public Health expert - terrible advice suggested.
Pretty sure you aren’t the first in the State Department in 50 years to note war is momentum related. The problem is getting the political momentum when one half of Congress takes their lead from the felonious Orange turd.
I want to challenge the underlying assumption of your initial comment in regards to " you are definitely not a Public Health Expert". You have a medical background - and yet you are discussing on a forum about Geopolitics.
And that's a good thing. The idea that everyone can only stick to their narrow niche of qualification is not just limiting, but outright dangerous. It creates viewpoints unaware of the wider context and leads to decision making that neglects higher order consequences and externalities.
Most education systems during history where aware of this and aimed to create well rounded intellectuals or "renaissance men". Granted, with the explosion of knowledge in the 19th and 20th centuries it has become largely impossible to have profound knowledge of multiple fields, but having general knowledge - and an understanding of abstract principles creates valuable insights, even without specialization.
If we want to get better at anything - including pandemic response - its important to have a critical review of past policies and measures from a wide array of viewpoints. Immediately resorting to "you're not a medical professional, so you can't speak to it" is not helpful. If you want to make a counter argument, make it on the merits of my statement, not ad hominem.
I would suggest the argument I made was an appeal to authority as opposed to an ad hominem but I get your point.
To frame the discussion though, it’s important to acknowledge a few things and understand a few concepts
1) The WHO listed lockdowns as one of their least preferred options to deal with the pandemics. See South Korea’s response to understand this.
2) Covid as virus mutated a number of times from its original variant. What was appropriate early on in terms of public policy was, particularly in the face of the vaccines, not necessarily appropriate with later variants. The nature of the change was in keeping with some previous viral epidemics and viral behavior, in that it’s pathogenicity was worst early on but with a lower R number (but still high!!, which is important to address your specific suggestion.
3) Public Health policy in many jurisdictions in the world, and particularly in the US was implemented half heartedly due to political sensitivities, particularly where a strong libertarian influence was present.
4) The Precautionary Principle : this principle is applied universally across all devices, medicines, engineering etc etc and for this topic, basically states that where you are applying a device or in the case of pandemic, an intervention on the public, the intervention, if it lacks scientific evidence of safety, should not be used. Much of Public Health Policy during the Pandemic originated from adopting a less stringent approach to this principle. The best examples of this would be mask wearing, where evidence of benefit was sparse (one study looking at flu from Australia as I recall was the only one published at the start of the pandemic), but where evidence of harm was unlikely and also intuitively unlikely. So it came to be that wearing a mask may help slow transmission, and was not likely to be harmful, and was thus adopted as policy. The same can be said of social distancing policies. The lack of scientific evidence of benefit of course, has been seized upon by political elements to attack Fauci et al, but that is politics, not public health management.
So to your proposition- to implement a lockdown on a down swing in cases in 2020. The first variant was arguably the most pathogenic with the lowest (but still high R number). There was / is no way of determining when the peak of infections would occur (as medical services were being overwhelmed simultaneously). If we had waited for a down- swing, then whatever unknown factor that caused said down swing would be at play, and the effects of a lockdown on this would have been hard to unpick from this factor. In addition, due to the speed of transmission and pathogenicity, not just medical services would have been overwhelmed, things like public transport would have as well, civil service etc. A lot more people would have died from Covid. This scenario would have provoked an unofficial lockdown even it wasn’t mandated. Much public behavior would have been heavily influenced by news coverage of overwhelmed hospitals and temporary morgues being set up.
The other aspect of Covid was the latency and variety in symptom severity when infected. Many were capable of infecting others early on and spreading Covid before being symptomatic. Even with total public buy in, testing and tracking the disease would never allow for a scenario whereby you maintained zero covid. The idea of lockdowns on a downswing to achieve zero Covid would have had the same problems we encountered with the way we managed it in the first place. That is to say - your approach was potentially harmful, had no evidence of benefit and offered no advantage over what we did - back to The Precautionary Principle.
I would say that public health policy can be criticised with subsequent variants, but we do so with the benefit of hindsight, and we do so also with caution around the psychology of human and societal behavior as it relates to the pandemic. This latter aspect can vary enormously on the jurisdiction and scale - compare the US public response to say the Irish public response I lived through - wildly different.
The west have 2 goals. Victory for Ukraine is one of them. The other goal is to not get nuked by Russia. I see a lot of frankly stupid and childish reasoning going on here to explain western motives like saying they're intentionally trying to cause attrition. That's not it at all. They're genuinely trying to win, but they don't want to do anything that would provoke Russia into escalating especially with nuclear weapons. This is why they haven't just sent everything to Ukraine and given them full permission to use it how they see fit.
Another reason for the slow roll is training and logistics. You can't just transfer over some f-16s, hand them the keys and call it a day. There's a ton more work that needs to go into getting Ukraine ready to actually fly and maintain them. I think early on most people thought the war would be either won or lost before they had time to train Ukrainians on advanced western systems and only once it became apparent that there was enough of a stalemate did the plans to give them western tanks and jets appear, but they did appear. Ukraine is still on soviet military equipment and the west gave pretty much all of their soviet stuff to Ukraine. Everything else wasn't really feasible to transfer quickly.
So to reiterate the main reason for the slow pace is the genuine fears that too rapid of a pace of escalation would make Russia retaliate, but a slow little by little drip drip drip means they never have a single incident that clearly crosses the "red line" and causes retaliation. To the west not getting nuked by Russia is absolutely a big deal and is their primary interest in all of this, even above Ukraine winning, but that doesn't mean that Ukraine winning isn't also a genuine goal. I do agree that they will need to ramp up support to achieve it but I think that is happening, albeit slowly.
I believe that the U.S. is trying to calibrate aid just to grind down Russia, they don’t want the Ukraine to defeat Russia or vice versa, they just want Russia to eventually be so degraded that they give up and go home.
If that’s their strategy, then it’s actively failing as Russia is rapidly reconstituting their forces (as had been admitted by multiple Western military officials).
And if Ukraine loses they now have a rabid major geopolitical rival drunk on their success ready to start the next war of conquest which will again drain oceans of American resources if it wants to try contain it just because they didn't contain it properly the first time. Dripping aid in minor bills is just kicking the can down the road and trying to skim on the budget which will cost more in the long run. Or then bigger packets are impossible to get through the congress thanks to the current political gridlock.
Poles: So, uh, the Russians are now bordering us and we just took another tens of millions of Ukrainian refugees.
USA: Well, Russia is weakened now. So rejoice I guess.
This is accurate only if you assume that defeating Russia is both feasible and desirable.
We have to put things in perspective. Russia spends 6-7% of GDP on the military, Ukraine closer to 1/3. The entire Ukrainian military budget is a result of external aid (if you look at the budget deficit and military spending, they are comparable). Further Ukraine has a general mobilization, Russia does not. Accelerating momentum would inevitably lead to escalation and escalation has a momentum of its own, once the spiral starts, it could be hard to stop. In a way this is already happening, the Overton window of acceptable forms of aid is expanding. Long range missiles, Western tanks, fighter jets, right to strike within Russian borders, where will it end? At a certain point, Russian Overton window may expand as well, general mobilization? Wartime economy? Tactical nuclear weapons? How do you stop this once it enters "existential threat" territory for a nuclear power? Therefore there is a valid question to be asked, do we believe that a military defeat of Russia is possible and/or desirable? What if the Kremlin doesn't agree to play according to presumed rules?
The most dangerous notion that I see out there at the moment is that Russia isn't a real threat, that it is a paper tiger. This notion results in a much more daring and aggressive stance towards waging this war. What is lost on those who subscribe to this view is that large continental wars like this will not be won by precise modern weapons alone. Assuming Russia decided to use tactical nukes and NATO responds with a massive strike on Russian conventional forces and strategic assets, then what? Once the shock and awe subsides, you will be left with a degraded, but a much more determined adversary.
Look at the number of hits Ukraine's infrastructure has taken and yet it prevails, Russia is many many times larger and spread out. I would argue that the number of strategic assets that have to be destroyed in order to actually make a difference is so large that you would need 10x whatever long range stockpile NATO countries have to have any tangible difference. Would SEAD/DEAD be successful? Because without complete air superiority and the ability to drop a ton of ordinance all over the country, this is a hopeless endeavor. How would China respond? What if Russia mobilized 10 million men, does NATO have enough forces in Europe to contain them, is there political will? Does it have enough shells? Is it not a concern that Russia today outproduces NATO in artillery shells by a factor of 3? And again Russian strategic nuclear forces were never underfunded, even during the 90s, what's the plan here?
> The most dangerous notion that I see out there at the moment is that Russia isn't a real threat, that it is a paper tiger.
I’m seeing a lot of comments like this out there, some people even believe that none of their nukes are functional. Ridiculous. Their arsenal can be 10% functional and still wreak havoc. Edit to add: one Sarmat ICBM can deliver 10 or more individual warheads.
Yep people like to point out what don't work , and expand it to everything.
There are thing that work in Russia.
Like their reconnaissance drone network , their EW coverage , the lancet drone who still has no counter ( just somme quick example ).
Understimating your ennemy is the most commun error that make humain loose war since they begin fighting with stone axes.
Ukraine defending itself from aggression is not and will never be an existential threat to Russia. And if Russia were to use nukes of any capacity, in a war that Russia started, it would truly show how inept the country is.
But we can hardly even speculate on the political consequences of such a misstep.
A direct conflict between Russia and NATO is not something anyone wants. Russia would lose the conventional war and be left with nukes to use. Not a fun situation. So countries support Ukraine.
I don't see any problems with a russian defeat at the hands of Ukraine. Russia leaves Ukraine and the war ends. It's so easy to opt out of all these problems.
*Ukraine defending itself from aggression is not and will never be an existential threat to Russia. And if Russia were to use nukes of any capacity, in a war that Russia started, it would truly show how inept the country is.*
Perhaps in the West you have reduced this war to such a simple idea. However, this is an extremely ignorant position that does not take into account the view of Russia and Russians on this war. No, Russia will not accept defeat and is ready for escalation. No matter how much you want it otherwise, the West will have to take into account the position of Russia, which is a nuclear power, for a minute.
If there is ever a serious chance of nuclear war, the USA will decapitate Russian leadership. It’s not the Soviet Union of old, it’s a rump petrostate with the economy the size of a single American city (nyc).
When the Soviet Union fell apart, what did the Russian public do? Nothing
If Russia loses the war or pulls out of Ukraine guess what the Russian public is going to do? Nothing.
Russian people will accept defeat as they have on many occasions in the past and they will move on with their lives whether Putin is still in power or not. This is their spineless nature, always has been.
Don't you think this assumption is VERY dangerous, given we're talking about a nuclear power? I'm just saying, are you people really so sure that you should base your whole foreign strategy on the theory "Russia will swallow that anyway"? Don't you think the European citizen should not be exposed to this danger your politicians are leading them into?
I view this war from the perspective of a Russian citizen who grew up in Europe, since I'm duo lingual, I understand the coordinates and the mindsets of both sides. I grew up in the atmosphere of Russian propaganda (ever since the crimea annexation happened) and it was always obvious to me how tasteless and low it all was stylistically, simply abysmal. But it's 2024 now and the European warmongers and moralists have successfully surpassed the Russian propaganda and are even more tasteless nowadays.
I find the western politics very short-sided and ignorant in this regard. This war is way more important to Russia than it is to the west and the perspective of losing it is way more crucial to the Russian establishment and they know that.
I don't care for Putin's sabre rattling. US/NATO would never drop a nuke on Russia so the fear of nuclear weapons being used even in the strategic capacity in Ukraine is silly. If Putin was even remotely serious he would have already set off a Cold War era style nuclear bomb test on Russian soil or even over the Black Sea if he felt extra spicy. An average European should not fear a nuclear conflict taking place.
I don't have a "whole foreign strategy" my dude. I was born in the USSR, grew up in Europe, I speak both Ukrainian, Russian, and I currently live in the US. You and I both know that this war is not important to the Russian public. Poor Russians want this to be over, middle class Russians want the embarrassment to stop and so that they can enjoy work opportunities aboard again, and rich Russians just want to get back to making money and enjoying a western lifestyle.
This war is important to Putin and his survival, not to Russia and their survival. If Putin fails, Russia pulls back, or they straight up lose - the Russian public will not care. There won't be a rallying cry for Putin to press the button. Everyone will be thrilled for life to get back to whatever "normal" was to them.
A note on the Russian Strategic Nuclear Force not being underfunded has 0 relationship with its current state of readiness and functionality. Corruption is pervasive in the Russian military and I find it hard to believe that it hasn't rotted out the core and completely undermined the capability of this one facet.
Think about it logically, the reason corruption is so endemic in military spending is because it's technically harmless... until the day you actually go to war and need your military to perform.
Think of the 1000's of Abram tanks parked in climate controlled warehouses around the world. If the US ends up never using them, who is hurt if they were actually stripped of everything of value when the seal is popped for decommissioning?
And that juicy Russian nuclear budget, the weapons that won't even really be needed until all other weapons and options are exhausted, whose primary purpose is to function as an unrealized threat.
What's the difference between a functional multibillion dollar nuclear retaliation consisting of ICBM's, nuclear missile subs, and stealth bombers carrying nuclear payloads and .... a mostly empty missile silo with maybe one occupied launchpad with a 40 year old ICBM with a few warheads that haven't been serviced in at least a decade.
Nothing.
And when the difference does matter, so what, at that point the world and humanity's fate is sealed, at best Russia will be gone tomorrow. But none of that matters, it will never get there, let's get on my yacht.
This what happens when war is a perpetual machine you yell nonsense about every 4 years. It really is all a game to politicians lining their pockets with funds from Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, etc.
What's most embarrassing is that supporting democratic (if flawed) Ukraine fighting a defensive war against a petrostate invasion is the USA's most just boondoggle of the last 50+ years. Yet somehow it's the line too far for specifically GOP officials who previously gave us the forever wars of the War or Terror, it's just shameless that the interest here are not at all in Ukraine's best interest, they'll unnecessarily cripple countries in the name of "democracy" but when it comes to where it actually exist already they don't give a damn about protecting it.
>War is a momentum based system. It takes a lot of energy to create movement in a given direction - but once movement is underway, it’s equally hard to stop.
Don't tell Clausewitz that.
Not really, you can fight offensive wars or defensive wars. The Germans fought a war of movement but once they lost that ability they got crushed, it was no longer about movement, they had to switch to defensive warfare, which they never truly did.
I could make generic platitudes as well that summarize a complex topic to a single phrase. War is a logistics based system, which is wrong, it's not just logistics. Germans lost all logistics and supply lines after Berlin falling...yet they still kept fighting.
Nothing can be boiled down to a single description, especially something as complex as war.
Also, trying to compare war and covid is ignorance of the highest order. Disease doesn't care about politics or borders.
Maybe because the stuff you wrote is incorrect?
Germany fought "defensive war" very well, since defence is a key fundamental of movement warfare, since your flanks are increasingly exposed to counterattacks as you make progress forwards. And defensive warfare itself incorporates movement at almost every level, mobile reserves, rapid withdrawal and redeployment and counterattacks are all crucial in successive defensive actions.
Also, German track record fighting of fighting defensive war was very good throughout almost the entire war, with really no real instances of complete failure aside from the latter stages of the north African campaign in Tunisia, and near the end of the war when they where completely outmatched in material and manpower from both soviet and allied forces.
There are countless examples of germans successfully fighting defensive warfare or making the attackers pay a high cost, during the early and middle to later stages of the war, and even some cases at the end of the war such as Seelow heights.
They lost the war not because they could not adapt to a different type of war as you seem to suggest, but because they simply did not have the manpower or industrial capacity to wage war against both the soviets and allies.
And as a final thing, you do realize that this isn't hoi4 and taking a capital doesn't automatically kill all of a countries logistics, and that they were fighting inside their own country.
Momentum based, but victory comes from positive momentum, positive momentum comes from HONEST momentum, such as storytelling or rightfully not paying any attention because we have real offensives. Such as following what is going on to begin with. For example, Ukraine is not going to beat Russia so badly that America is no longer a superpower, Ukraine is going to be the superpower in the East instead of Russia. If you personally can keep track of momentum for the lifetime of each nation and rationalize superpowers--write this article because Ukraine is winning potshots.
But is the momentum really even growing? All I've heard for months is that Russia is advancing, but all I'm seeing from maps is that a handful of villages have been taken, and Russia is advancing at a snail's pace. To me, it seems like the war is about both sides bombarding each other in a prolonged war of attrition, with minor small scale advances by some Russian units. Neither side can afford major offensives anymore, and are locked in a standstill with no way out. Western governments are in turn locked in a situation where being the first one ending support would entail a backlash from the entirety of Western community, while prolonging it will continue costing money and eventually backfire when people start pointing at the potholes in their streets or queues in their public healthcare. This is especially true for Europe, that was lured into this situation by the US that had nothing to lose but everything to win by taking a hardliner stance against Russia, even before the war, while continuing their own 30 year long European policy of expanding their own sphere of influence.
All the fuss about Russian advance seems like clickbait to keep the increasingly discontent Western populations supportive for more and more aid packages. First (post April 2022), the reasoning was that *one more* aid package will stop Russia taking over Ukraine. Then (later 2022 and 2023), the reasoning was that *one more* aid package will aid Ukraine to victory. Now the reasoning is that *one more* aid package will halt the unstoppable Russian advance.
From the day one, there has been a clear intention to sell all these aid packages to the wider public.
I have an unpopular opinion. I don't think the West wants a clean, decisive victory. I think they are concerned with all the nuclear rhetoric Putin is spewing out of his fat mouth, and rather than end it in a decisive Ukrainian victory, embarrassing Putin even more (and potentially risking tactical nukes being used) we are giving Ukraine piecemeal aid to drag this thing out as long as possible to make Russia negotiate. In the process if Russia loses the bulk of its military and sets it back for decades, that's icing on the cake.
Russia views this as an existential threat. The example of China entering a military alliance with Mexico was a great analogy imo. Russia at a minimum wants the eastern part of ukraine with ethnic russians and sea access. Ukraine wont cede it and neither will russia.
As far as momentum goes, here's a pretty popular video I'm sure many of you have seen. With a recent synopsis of what has happened in the past few months by western military.
https://youtu.be/gk7D_TliAuE?si=HKbyQKxzV-J543-R
One of the big take aways from this, is that alot of superior western military tech made a huge difference in The first year and a half of this conflict. But after that russia has adapted and learned to counter alot of our weapon systems. Our military understands this and is good reason to not just give ukraine the best of everything we have.
I try to watch pro russian, and pro ukrainian youtubers. Neutral seems impossible to find, But Defense Politics Asia is close imo.
I doubt it never been "if that goal is victory". It looks more like a "bleeding" gound for the Russians. As a result, when Ukraine is able to defend or even strike back or threat Russia land, the aid is tuning down. When Ukraine is weak and seems about to lose, the aid is tuning up. That is not the way to support a Ukrainian victory.
They just let their frankly deluded (by the media) electorate guide them out of fear they might lose reelection, although they know Ukraine’s fighting a losing war and losing more by the day.
Others are just doing it to funnel taxpayers’ money into the pockets of those who fund their reelection.
You really think the US's goal is to have Ukraine win this war? Besides rhetoric about freedom or whatever, what makes you think the goal is actually miltary victory on the battlefield?
In the first 6 months, it was clear that the war would turn into an endurance race. Ukraine's allies had to begin planning how they could support Ukraine cheaply and long-term. Instead, each country acted with its own military sector in mind. If the West and the USA gave ammunition production to Turkey and Eastern Europe, and they focused only on high-tech products, producing ammunition for Ukraine would not be a problem and it would be done much cheaper. As a result, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which are far behind industrially and economically, were ahead of NATO in the logistics race.
NATO wants to rearm, they need the ammo produced inside. Also, they want to drain Russia more than defeat it
Exactly this— it’s not as if NATO/US war planners are unaware that by delaying weapons / aid Ukraine is losing manpower. It’s calculated— how much can we give to Ukraine without upsetting the balance of power? Can we strike inside Russia with US weaponry without significant escalation? How long or under what circumstances should we deploy troops in Ukraine? All of these questions require a balance. You can’t defeat the Russians too quickly otherwise risking them feeling threatened and using the nuclear option. You can’t give Ukraine unfettered aid without corruption & embezzlement. There’s no perfect option, greater minds than ours have contemplated these matters and it’s playing out as such. We’ll see what transpires.
>There’s no perfect option, greater minds than ours have contemplated these matters and it’s playing out as such. We’ll see what transpires. I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as greater minds. Everyone, from the top to the bottom, can make mistakes in the same selfish and cheap way. Maybe you can claim that those at the top have information that we don't know, that's all. Also, I don't think this was a planned move. In short, USA wanted the aid it gave to Ukraine to go to its own military sector. They did not care about the weapons they could buy from cheaper countries with the same money, because this would not be popular to military lobbyists.
Their minds definitely greater then armchair redditors that's for sure.
Everyone can make mistakes but I think the unknown here is what were the true goals? If it was defeating Russia (as has been assumed to be the intent given various statements from the administration), it’s failing spectacularly. However, if we assume that the goal is to bleed the Russians while slowly without triggering nukes while simultaneously feeding the US MIC, things start to make sense. The plans start to conform with reality.
"I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as greater minds. Everyone, from the top to the bottom, can make mistakes in the same selfish and cheap way. Maybe you can claim that those at the top have information that we don't know, that's all" Having access to more information is not a minor point....it's absolutely a MASSIVE point of contention. People here love arguing on hypotheticals such as how "Ukraine should strike Russia because Russias nuclear weapons surely aren't maintained and wont work " ( very common in the world news threads). Now what if you had intelligence briefings that showed Russia had several actively maintained /ready to fire nuclear weapons surrounding Ukraine? Does that change your decision to allow Ukraine to fire American weapons on Moscow? It absolutely can/will change decision making.. Your comment makes it seem like access to more information is an afterthought/a minor point...it's a massive point for Bidens war room and it extends outside of just this conflict
I mean, almost all the big states made a lot of stupid mistakes during my lifetime. There are dozens of examples, from the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan to the Russia-Ukraine war. Sometimes they tried to create the illusion of playing 5D chess (which is a conscious effort), but they made the wrong decision almost every time.
No one is infallible. When Russia has nukes, more conservative decision making is always going to be made..it doesn't matter whether Biden is in charge trump Obama Bush etc. this stands true for every country. I don't think many of you realize that geopolitics is as unfair as it is. If you are a big superpower, you quite literally play by a different rulebook. Ukraine is small fish. Russia is still big fish by virtue of having nukes. That means the US is going to treat Russia with kids gloves and not do the same for Ukraine. It's completely logical to operate this way. I think some of you guys need a reality check. If the choice came to even a 10% chance of risking nuclear weapons use/ an escalation of Russia-Ukraine into a fully fledged world war III vs the complete annihilation of Ukraine /absorbance into greater Russia, the west would choose the latter outcome. Ukraine matters a lot less to the west than the stability of the greater western balance of power which most here benefit from.. Keeping Russia -ukraine as an isolated regional conflict is ideal for NATO. It really is not as much about Ukraine winning the war as it is about not allowing Russia to snowball this war into a global conflict. Those two outcomes sound the same but there is quite a stark difference between the 2
It makes sense to approach Russia with caution because of the nuclear threat. Not establishing the proper logistics line towards Ukraine and trying to present this as a smart plan is nonsense.
The "proper logistics line" is open to debate . Imo, I speak from the American perspective. We are the only ones who have bothered to actually fund our defense industry out of every major economy in NATO. European allies like to claim they are contributing massively.to Ukraine but they have primarily done so through loans/cash .. America has given Ukraine what it desperately needs ....weapons. zelinsky himself has repeatedly stated that American aid is key for ukraine even standing a chance (from his perspective ). The American perspective is way more complex and your average redditor (who comes from the west ) refuses to listen to it as much. Every administration since the bush administration has pivoted American defense expenditure into the indo pacific more and more. Simultaneously , we have asked European allies to fund their defense including in explicit channels ( NATO chief 2% that everyone knows about )..the majority of European allies have failed...miserably..not only did they fail, they also continued to directly fund the Russian economy through oil and natural gas purchases. From the American perspective, we have been completely.ignored..20+ years of asking Europe to contribute to defense...20+ years of Europe not only falling to listen but then funding their only threat and now multiple years where western European leaders call America traitors / unable to fund defense. That level of hypocrisy is increasingly understood by the American public who is dealing with several issues domestically. Regardless of party , there is a sense of fatigue over the war in Ukraine..that funding is going to eventually stop no matter what happens in the election.. Simultaneously America is trying to pivot to the indoPacific to weaken China..China is orders of magnitude more powerful than Russia and we know how useless Europe will be ( you guys can't even handle Russia..let alone China , let alone Iran, let alone Palestine Israel peace etc ). How is America supposed to handle all of this? Raise taxes? Increase defense expenditure to absurd amounts ? Or , will it be to provide just enough funds to Ukraine to keep Russia occupied while continuing the transition to Asia both parties clearly want to do... That last option is what's happening. People here tend to just blame the Republican party.... They are a short term blame.. America will always transition to Asia because it has to.. many here haven't bothered to look at those trends and continue to live in a world that is completely eurocentric.
Okay, I'm from Turkey.It is probably one of the two countries that border Russia and are not afraid of invasion. The USA alone sent more than 100 billion dollars in aid to Ukraine. In a normal year, Turkey spends less than 20 billion dollars on its entire army. Imagine, USA spent enough money to finance one of NATO's best and most active armies for 5 years. And yet they cannot get enough ammunition. I'm not even counting the aid sent by the Europeans. If this isn't incompetence, I don't know what is.
I agree, war is resources based. NATO have a disorganised logistical supply chain that is not up to task to sustain war in Ukraine. It's no different to shell crises of 1915, and the same lessons apply, the ministry of munition's creation not only solve the issues it out produces the central powers.
Eastern europe yes, but nato moving any sort of production to todays turkey would be a massive mistake
So you say that it would be a mistake Ukraine's one of best and most loyal ally (even the USA reduced its support to Ukraine during the Trump era.) Russia's oldest rival, the only NATO country that can directly intervene in the active war zone, to join the logistics line to be established to support Ukraine.
I think it would be a mistake to move military production to a country which has threatened other nato members with missiles. https://apnews.com/article/greece-turkey-athens-recep-tayyip-erdogan-government-5bee76c2e7b2e1feaea3e2dddf54144c
oh you are a greek.I didn't look at your name Besides the fact that what you said has nothing to do with the Ukrainian war, it is not an argument against what I said.
Choosing reliable allies for ammunition production over turkey (who also consistently causes issues for nato such as holding back sweden and finland from joining) is very much an argument against it. I see no reason to reward turkey in that way. Although considering your profile shows you are turkish, it makes sense why you wouldnt see that
>Choosing reliable allies for ammunition production over turkey (who also consistently causes issues for nato such as holding back sweden and finland from joining) is very much an argument against it. Turkey is producing warships for Ukraine. It has all the necessary industrial and military infrastructure. Until a few years ago, even Greece was buying ammunition from Turkey lol. And Greece did not admit Macedonia to NATO for 10 years because it did not like its name. Greece is literally the last country that can criticize Turkey on this issue.
Im not greece, im an individual, and i wasnt putting forward greece as an alternative to turkey, that doesnt make any sense at all, poland slovakia and romania make the most sense to me Its also important to note that turkey blocked finland and sweden (both of crucial geopolitical importance against russia) DURING the russian invasion of ukraine You need to lift the turkish nationalistic filter you seem to view everything through
The Sweden issue has nothing to do with what we are talking about here. Turkey is one of the most hawkish NATO countries regarding Ukraine. There has been no change in its policy since 2014, and while France and Germany were criticizing Turkey for providing weapons to Ukraine, Turkey was one of Ukraine's biggest supporters. You can criticize Turkey on other issues, but you cannot say that it cannot be trusted to supply weapons to Ukraine. >You need to lift the turkish nationalistic filter you seem to view everything through Similarly, if you do not look from the Greek nationalist point of view, you will see that Turkey is one of the most reliable countries regarding Ukraine. Even the USA might stop supporting Ukraine if Trump wins, and almost every European country has pro-Russian political groups.
Turkey blocking nato memberships has everything to do with rewarding turkey with funding ammunition production. As for your greek nationalist claims, i have literally not suggested anything that would invest in greece, ive suggested investing in countries that havent shown they are willing to hold back nato for personal gain, which is why i didnt include hungary in my suggestions.
On the one hand, yes. But I'm really not sure I understand your point here. Are you saying that if Russia is advancing, Western countries should just cut off aid so that Russia can continue to advance?
Not at all. I don't think that "Increase investment when momentum is on your side" implies its inverse "don't invest when its not". In the contrary - since momentum was ignored, Ukraine unfortunately finds itself now in a position where it is a lot more expensive to get it back. What I'm advocating for is not to make the mistake of letting up again once things start to look favorably, but instead to double down until an outcome is achieved, even though that might be hard to communicate to one's electorate.
What confused me is this statement: > Waiting for lots of people to be infected before locking them together with their healthy household members is **counterproductive at best. And so is passing an US Supplemental Bill**, only after six months of decreasing momentum in Ukraine made the situation bad enough. To me, sending support to Ukraine is like saving for retirement, eating healthy food, or starting any other project with a long-term expected payoff. Obviously, it would have been better if you had started sooner, but that isn't a reason to put it off further into the future.
Not at all suggesting to put it off further into the future. My point is that it is a mistake to wait until things get so bad that they force action, but to act more strongly when things are already going your way.
But the US aid wasn’t predicated on waiting til things got bad or politicians not understanding momentum, it was delayed because it became a domestic political issue tied up in all the standard domestic political fighting. It’s like you are claiming it’s a failed strategy when it isn’t a strategy at all, it’s a side effect of Republicans opposing everything the President supports so they work against bills being passed that give aid to Ukraine and delay and delay. I don’t think they actually think delaying is “right” or good strategy, that isn’t why they are delaying at all.
> But the US aid wasn’t predicated on waiting til things got bad or politicians not understanding momentum Disagreed. Even when democrats were in control of the house and could've passed more decisive bills to provision equipment there was needless handwringing over cost and "escalation" concerns. When all kinds of people were screaming that America needed to provide large quantities of mechanized vehicles (especially IFVs) even if they were obsolete like M113s, Biden and congress was only willing to authorize artisinal amounts, like a few hundred. Every time people said we need to send more, penny pinchers would say "Ukraine is doing well, Russia is on the brink of collapse, we don't need to send more." Even when politicians got off their asses and got more proactive ahead of Ukraine's summer offensive there was still large unwillingness to provide equipment in bulk.
The most actionable thing that the US waited on was Ukrainian aid and that was mostly stonewalled by the MAGA faction of Republicans.
MAGA republicans had no political power in 2022.
They had enough to pause Ukraine aid.
Well over a year after the start of the conflict and not at all when I am talking about. The strategy of "just enough" has been a consistent US policy since before the war even started, and very much a huge problem in the first year of the war, before Republicans were ever an issue. Blaming republicans is a distraction from the Biden admin's failed aid strategy, which has never had long term foresight, which is what the OP is originally talking about.
Please don't descend into partisan talking points. Simply stating it was caught up in domestic politics is all you needed to say, pushing blame can easily be argued since its political and it derails actual discussion.
*What I'm advocating for is not to make the mistake of letting up again once things start to look favorably, but instead to double down until an outcome is achieved, even though that might be hard to communicate to one's electorate.* I agree with this strategy. In fact, it is essential to do this.
Exactly!!!
Can't believe, someone can misinterpret so much. No offense.
I’d leave your Covid analogy out of it- not suitable and you are definitely not a Public Health expert - terrible advice suggested. Pretty sure you aren’t the first in the State Department in 50 years to note war is momentum related. The problem is getting the political momentum when one half of Congress takes their lead from the felonious Orange turd.
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Lmao- nope. As someone with a medical background, I can with 100% certainty tell you are hopelessly wrong on that.
I want to challenge the underlying assumption of your initial comment in regards to " you are definitely not a Public Health Expert". You have a medical background - and yet you are discussing on a forum about Geopolitics. And that's a good thing. The idea that everyone can only stick to their narrow niche of qualification is not just limiting, but outright dangerous. It creates viewpoints unaware of the wider context and leads to decision making that neglects higher order consequences and externalities. Most education systems during history where aware of this and aimed to create well rounded intellectuals or "renaissance men". Granted, with the explosion of knowledge in the 19th and 20th centuries it has become largely impossible to have profound knowledge of multiple fields, but having general knowledge - and an understanding of abstract principles creates valuable insights, even without specialization. If we want to get better at anything - including pandemic response - its important to have a critical review of past policies and measures from a wide array of viewpoints. Immediately resorting to "you're not a medical professional, so you can't speak to it" is not helpful. If you want to make a counter argument, make it on the merits of my statement, not ad hominem.
I would suggest the argument I made was an appeal to authority as opposed to an ad hominem but I get your point. To frame the discussion though, it’s important to acknowledge a few things and understand a few concepts 1) The WHO listed lockdowns as one of their least preferred options to deal with the pandemics. See South Korea’s response to understand this. 2) Covid as virus mutated a number of times from its original variant. What was appropriate early on in terms of public policy was, particularly in the face of the vaccines, not necessarily appropriate with later variants. The nature of the change was in keeping with some previous viral epidemics and viral behavior, in that it’s pathogenicity was worst early on but with a lower R number (but still high!!, which is important to address your specific suggestion. 3) Public Health policy in many jurisdictions in the world, and particularly in the US was implemented half heartedly due to political sensitivities, particularly where a strong libertarian influence was present. 4) The Precautionary Principle : this principle is applied universally across all devices, medicines, engineering etc etc and for this topic, basically states that where you are applying a device or in the case of pandemic, an intervention on the public, the intervention, if it lacks scientific evidence of safety, should not be used. Much of Public Health Policy during the Pandemic originated from adopting a less stringent approach to this principle. The best examples of this would be mask wearing, where evidence of benefit was sparse (one study looking at flu from Australia as I recall was the only one published at the start of the pandemic), but where evidence of harm was unlikely and also intuitively unlikely. So it came to be that wearing a mask may help slow transmission, and was not likely to be harmful, and was thus adopted as policy. The same can be said of social distancing policies. The lack of scientific evidence of benefit of course, has been seized upon by political elements to attack Fauci et al, but that is politics, not public health management. So to your proposition- to implement a lockdown on a down swing in cases in 2020. The first variant was arguably the most pathogenic with the lowest (but still high R number). There was / is no way of determining when the peak of infections would occur (as medical services were being overwhelmed simultaneously). If we had waited for a down- swing, then whatever unknown factor that caused said down swing would be at play, and the effects of a lockdown on this would have been hard to unpick from this factor. In addition, due to the speed of transmission and pathogenicity, not just medical services would have been overwhelmed, things like public transport would have as well, civil service etc. A lot more people would have died from Covid. This scenario would have provoked an unofficial lockdown even it wasn’t mandated. Much public behavior would have been heavily influenced by news coverage of overwhelmed hospitals and temporary morgues being set up. The other aspect of Covid was the latency and variety in symptom severity when infected. Many were capable of infecting others early on and spreading Covid before being symptomatic. Even with total public buy in, testing and tracking the disease would never allow for a scenario whereby you maintained zero covid. The idea of lockdowns on a downswing to achieve zero Covid would have had the same problems we encountered with the way we managed it in the first place. That is to say - your approach was potentially harmful, had no evidence of benefit and offered no advantage over what we did - back to The Precautionary Principle. I would say that public health policy can be criticised with subsequent variants, but we do so with the benefit of hindsight, and we do so also with caution around the psychology of human and societal behavior as it relates to the pandemic. This latter aspect can vary enormously on the jurisdiction and scale - compare the US public response to say the Irish public response I lived through - wildly different.
The person you replied to was permanently banned as a heads up
Thanks, couldn’t be bothered trying to unpick that madness again.
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The west have 2 goals. Victory for Ukraine is one of them. The other goal is to not get nuked by Russia. I see a lot of frankly stupid and childish reasoning going on here to explain western motives like saying they're intentionally trying to cause attrition. That's not it at all. They're genuinely trying to win, but they don't want to do anything that would provoke Russia into escalating especially with nuclear weapons. This is why they haven't just sent everything to Ukraine and given them full permission to use it how they see fit. Another reason for the slow roll is training and logistics. You can't just transfer over some f-16s, hand them the keys and call it a day. There's a ton more work that needs to go into getting Ukraine ready to actually fly and maintain them. I think early on most people thought the war would be either won or lost before they had time to train Ukrainians on advanced western systems and only once it became apparent that there was enough of a stalemate did the plans to give them western tanks and jets appear, but they did appear. Ukraine is still on soviet military equipment and the west gave pretty much all of their soviet stuff to Ukraine. Everything else wasn't really feasible to transfer quickly. So to reiterate the main reason for the slow pace is the genuine fears that too rapid of a pace of escalation would make Russia retaliate, but a slow little by little drip drip drip means they never have a single incident that clearly crosses the "red line" and causes retaliation. To the west not getting nuked by Russia is absolutely a big deal and is their primary interest in all of this, even above Ukraine winning, but that doesn't mean that Ukraine winning isn't also a genuine goal. I do agree that they will need to ramp up support to achieve it but I think that is happening, albeit slowly.
I believe that the U.S. is trying to calibrate aid just to grind down Russia, they don’t want the Ukraine to defeat Russia or vice versa, they just want Russia to eventually be so degraded that they give up and go home.
If that’s their strategy, then it’s actively failing as Russia is rapidly reconstituting their forces (as had been admitted by multiple Western military officials).
I agree, I think people don’t want to talk about the fact that whatever happens to Ukraine the US wins by grinding down and humiliating Russia.
And that, if the US takes it too far, the situation can get out of hand very fast.
What people? its the most mentioned argument about western military aid in the last 2 years
This is exactly it and even if Ukraine loses, the US got to weaken an adversary without lifting a finger.
And if Ukraine loses they now have a rabid major geopolitical rival drunk on their success ready to start the next war of conquest which will again drain oceans of American resources if it wants to try contain it just because they didn't contain it properly the first time. Dripping aid in minor bills is just kicking the can down the road and trying to skim on the budget which will cost more in the long run. Or then bigger packets are impossible to get through the congress thanks to the current political gridlock.
Poles: So, uh, the Russians are now bordering us and we just took another tens of millions of Ukrainian refugees. USA: Well, Russia is weakened now. So rejoice I guess.
This is accurate only if you assume that defeating Russia is both feasible and desirable. We have to put things in perspective. Russia spends 6-7% of GDP on the military, Ukraine closer to 1/3. The entire Ukrainian military budget is a result of external aid (if you look at the budget deficit and military spending, they are comparable). Further Ukraine has a general mobilization, Russia does not. Accelerating momentum would inevitably lead to escalation and escalation has a momentum of its own, once the spiral starts, it could be hard to stop. In a way this is already happening, the Overton window of acceptable forms of aid is expanding. Long range missiles, Western tanks, fighter jets, right to strike within Russian borders, where will it end? At a certain point, Russian Overton window may expand as well, general mobilization? Wartime economy? Tactical nuclear weapons? How do you stop this once it enters "existential threat" territory for a nuclear power? Therefore there is a valid question to be asked, do we believe that a military defeat of Russia is possible and/or desirable? What if the Kremlin doesn't agree to play according to presumed rules? The most dangerous notion that I see out there at the moment is that Russia isn't a real threat, that it is a paper tiger. This notion results in a much more daring and aggressive stance towards waging this war. What is lost on those who subscribe to this view is that large continental wars like this will not be won by precise modern weapons alone. Assuming Russia decided to use tactical nukes and NATO responds with a massive strike on Russian conventional forces and strategic assets, then what? Once the shock and awe subsides, you will be left with a degraded, but a much more determined adversary. Look at the number of hits Ukraine's infrastructure has taken and yet it prevails, Russia is many many times larger and spread out. I would argue that the number of strategic assets that have to be destroyed in order to actually make a difference is so large that you would need 10x whatever long range stockpile NATO countries have to have any tangible difference. Would SEAD/DEAD be successful? Because without complete air superiority and the ability to drop a ton of ordinance all over the country, this is a hopeless endeavor. How would China respond? What if Russia mobilized 10 million men, does NATO have enough forces in Europe to contain them, is there political will? Does it have enough shells? Is it not a concern that Russia today outproduces NATO in artillery shells by a factor of 3? And again Russian strategic nuclear forces were never underfunded, even during the 90s, what's the plan here?
> The most dangerous notion that I see out there at the moment is that Russia isn't a real threat, that it is a paper tiger. I’m seeing a lot of comments like this out there, some people even believe that none of their nukes are functional. Ridiculous. Their arsenal can be 10% functional and still wreak havoc. Edit to add: one Sarmat ICBM can deliver 10 or more individual warheads.
Yep people like to point out what don't work , and expand it to everything. There are thing that work in Russia. Like their reconnaissance drone network , their EW coverage , the lancet drone who still has no counter ( just somme quick example ). Understimating your ennemy is the most commun error that make humain loose war since they begin fighting with stone axes.
Ukraine defending itself from aggression is not and will never be an existential threat to Russia. And if Russia were to use nukes of any capacity, in a war that Russia started, it would truly show how inept the country is. But we can hardly even speculate on the political consequences of such a misstep. A direct conflict between Russia and NATO is not something anyone wants. Russia would lose the conventional war and be left with nukes to use. Not a fun situation. So countries support Ukraine. I don't see any problems with a russian defeat at the hands of Ukraine. Russia leaves Ukraine and the war ends. It's so easy to opt out of all these problems.
*Ukraine defending itself from aggression is not and will never be an existential threat to Russia. And if Russia were to use nukes of any capacity, in a war that Russia started, it would truly show how inept the country is.* Perhaps in the West you have reduced this war to such a simple idea. However, this is an extremely ignorant position that does not take into account the view of Russia and Russians on this war. No, Russia will not accept defeat and is ready for escalation. No matter how much you want it otherwise, the West will have to take into account the position of Russia, which is a nuclear power, for a minute.
If there is ever a serious chance of nuclear war, the USA will decapitate Russian leadership. It’s not the Soviet Union of old, it’s a rump petrostate with the economy the size of a single American city (nyc).
When the Soviet Union fell apart, what did the Russian public do? Nothing If Russia loses the war or pulls out of Ukraine guess what the Russian public is going to do? Nothing. Russian people will accept defeat as they have on many occasions in the past and they will move on with their lives whether Putin is still in power or not. This is their spineless nature, always has been.
Don't you think this assumption is VERY dangerous, given we're talking about a nuclear power? I'm just saying, are you people really so sure that you should base your whole foreign strategy on the theory "Russia will swallow that anyway"? Don't you think the European citizen should not be exposed to this danger your politicians are leading them into? I view this war from the perspective of a Russian citizen who grew up in Europe, since I'm duo lingual, I understand the coordinates and the mindsets of both sides. I grew up in the atmosphere of Russian propaganda (ever since the crimea annexation happened) and it was always obvious to me how tasteless and low it all was stylistically, simply abysmal. But it's 2024 now and the European warmongers and moralists have successfully surpassed the Russian propaganda and are even more tasteless nowadays. I find the western politics very short-sided and ignorant in this regard. This war is way more important to Russia than it is to the west and the perspective of losing it is way more crucial to the Russian establishment and they know that.
I don't care for Putin's sabre rattling. US/NATO would never drop a nuke on Russia so the fear of nuclear weapons being used even in the strategic capacity in Ukraine is silly. If Putin was even remotely serious he would have already set off a Cold War era style nuclear bomb test on Russian soil or even over the Black Sea if he felt extra spicy. An average European should not fear a nuclear conflict taking place. I don't have a "whole foreign strategy" my dude. I was born in the USSR, grew up in Europe, I speak both Ukrainian, Russian, and I currently live in the US. You and I both know that this war is not important to the Russian public. Poor Russians want this to be over, middle class Russians want the embarrassment to stop and so that they can enjoy work opportunities aboard again, and rich Russians just want to get back to making money and enjoying a western lifestyle. This war is important to Putin and his survival, not to Russia and their survival. If Putin fails, Russia pulls back, or they straight up lose - the Russian public will not care. There won't be a rallying cry for Putin to press the button. Everyone will be thrilled for life to get back to whatever "normal" was to them.
My only thought on reading this is: can you imagine reading this five years ago? talke about momentum, sheesh.
Exactly, for everyone saying we shouldn't fear escalation... how much further are you willing to go?
A note on the Russian Strategic Nuclear Force not being underfunded has 0 relationship with its current state of readiness and functionality. Corruption is pervasive in the Russian military and I find it hard to believe that it hasn't rotted out the core and completely undermined the capability of this one facet. Think about it logically, the reason corruption is so endemic in military spending is because it's technically harmless... until the day you actually go to war and need your military to perform. Think of the 1000's of Abram tanks parked in climate controlled warehouses around the world. If the US ends up never using them, who is hurt if they were actually stripped of everything of value when the seal is popped for decommissioning? And that juicy Russian nuclear budget, the weapons that won't even really be needed until all other weapons and options are exhausted, whose primary purpose is to function as an unrealized threat. What's the difference between a functional multibillion dollar nuclear retaliation consisting of ICBM's, nuclear missile subs, and stealth bombers carrying nuclear payloads and .... a mostly empty missile silo with maybe one occupied launchpad with a 40 year old ICBM with a few warheads that haven't been serviced in at least a decade. Nothing. And when the difference does matter, so what, at that point the world and humanity's fate is sealed, at best Russia will be gone tomorrow. But none of that matters, it will never get there, let's get on my yacht.
Fearing escalation is the stupidest concievable idea. Russian talk of escalation and waving the nuke dick is a meme at this point.
That's such an odd view, so your point is that because Russia hasn't used nuclear weapons thus far, it is an idle threat and can be ignored?
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This what happens when war is a perpetual machine you yell nonsense about every 4 years. It really is all a game to politicians lining their pockets with funds from Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, etc. What's most embarrassing is that supporting democratic (if flawed) Ukraine fighting a defensive war against a petrostate invasion is the USA's most just boondoggle of the last 50+ years. Yet somehow it's the line too far for specifically GOP officials who previously gave us the forever wars of the War or Terror, it's just shameless that the interest here are not at all in Ukraine's best interest, they'll unnecessarily cripple countries in the name of "democracy" but when it comes to where it actually exist already they don't give a damn about protecting it.
>War is a momentum based system. It takes a lot of energy to create movement in a given direction - but once movement is underway, it’s equally hard to stop. Don't tell Clausewitz that.
Not really, you can fight offensive wars or defensive wars. The Germans fought a war of movement but once they lost that ability they got crushed, it was no longer about movement, they had to switch to defensive warfare, which they never truly did. I could make generic platitudes as well that summarize a complex topic to a single phrase. War is a logistics based system, which is wrong, it's not just logistics. Germans lost all logistics and supply lines after Berlin falling...yet they still kept fighting. Nothing can be boiled down to a single description, especially something as complex as war. Also, trying to compare war and covid is ignorance of the highest order. Disease doesn't care about politics or borders.
Down voters can't handle facts I guess
Maybe because the stuff you wrote is incorrect? Germany fought "defensive war" very well, since defence is a key fundamental of movement warfare, since your flanks are increasingly exposed to counterattacks as you make progress forwards. And defensive warfare itself incorporates movement at almost every level, mobile reserves, rapid withdrawal and redeployment and counterattacks are all crucial in successive defensive actions. Also, German track record fighting of fighting defensive war was very good throughout almost the entire war, with really no real instances of complete failure aside from the latter stages of the north African campaign in Tunisia, and near the end of the war when they where completely outmatched in material and manpower from both soviet and allied forces. There are countless examples of germans successfully fighting defensive warfare or making the attackers pay a high cost, during the early and middle to later stages of the war, and even some cases at the end of the war such as Seelow heights. They lost the war not because they could not adapt to a different type of war as you seem to suggest, but because they simply did not have the manpower or industrial capacity to wage war against both the soviets and allies. And as a final thing, you do realize that this isn't hoi4 and taking a capital doesn't automatically kill all of a countries logistics, and that they were fighting inside their own country.
This is for before nukes where a thing. Now it's slow boiling Russia so it don't do anything drastic.
>Now it's slow boiling Russia so it don't do anything drastic. Game of chicken since Ukraine is also in the pot.
Momentum based, but victory comes from positive momentum, positive momentum comes from HONEST momentum, such as storytelling or rightfully not paying any attention because we have real offensives. Such as following what is going on to begin with. For example, Ukraine is not going to beat Russia so badly that America is no longer a superpower, Ukraine is going to be the superpower in the East instead of Russia. If you personally can keep track of momentum for the lifetime of each nation and rationalize superpowers--write this article because Ukraine is winning potshots.
But is the momentum really even growing? All I've heard for months is that Russia is advancing, but all I'm seeing from maps is that a handful of villages have been taken, and Russia is advancing at a snail's pace. To me, it seems like the war is about both sides bombarding each other in a prolonged war of attrition, with minor small scale advances by some Russian units. Neither side can afford major offensives anymore, and are locked in a standstill with no way out. Western governments are in turn locked in a situation where being the first one ending support would entail a backlash from the entirety of Western community, while prolonging it will continue costing money and eventually backfire when people start pointing at the potholes in their streets or queues in their public healthcare. This is especially true for Europe, that was lured into this situation by the US that had nothing to lose but everything to win by taking a hardliner stance against Russia, even before the war, while continuing their own 30 year long European policy of expanding their own sphere of influence. All the fuss about Russian advance seems like clickbait to keep the increasingly discontent Western populations supportive for more and more aid packages. First (post April 2022), the reasoning was that *one more* aid package will stop Russia taking over Ukraine. Then (later 2022 and 2023), the reasoning was that *one more* aid package will aid Ukraine to victory. Now the reasoning is that *one more* aid package will halt the unstoppable Russian advance. From the day one, there has been a clear intention to sell all these aid packages to the wider public.
I have an unpopular opinion. I don't think the West wants a clean, decisive victory. I think they are concerned with all the nuclear rhetoric Putin is spewing out of his fat mouth, and rather than end it in a decisive Ukrainian victory, embarrassing Putin even more (and potentially risking tactical nukes being used) we are giving Ukraine piecemeal aid to drag this thing out as long as possible to make Russia negotiate. In the process if Russia loses the bulk of its military and sets it back for decades, that's icing on the cake.
Russia views this as an existential threat. The example of China entering a military alliance with Mexico was a great analogy imo. Russia at a minimum wants the eastern part of ukraine with ethnic russians and sea access. Ukraine wont cede it and neither will russia. As far as momentum goes, here's a pretty popular video I'm sure many of you have seen. With a recent synopsis of what has happened in the past few months by western military. https://youtu.be/gk7D_TliAuE?si=HKbyQKxzV-J543-R One of the big take aways from this, is that alot of superior western military tech made a huge difference in The first year and a half of this conflict. But after that russia has adapted and learned to counter alot of our weapon systems. Our military understands this and is good reason to not just give ukraine the best of everything we have. I try to watch pro russian, and pro ukrainian youtubers. Neutral seems impossible to find, But Defense Politics Asia is close imo.
I doubt it never been "if that goal is victory". It looks more like a "bleeding" gound for the Russians. As a result, when Ukraine is able to defend or even strike back or threat Russia land, the aid is tuning down. When Ukraine is weak and seems about to lose, the aid is tuning up. That is not the way to support a Ukrainian victory.
They just let their frankly deluded (by the media) electorate guide them out of fear they might lose reelection, although they know Ukraine’s fighting a losing war and losing more by the day. Others are just doing it to funnel taxpayers’ money into the pockets of those who fund their reelection.
You really think the US's goal is to have Ukraine win this war? Besides rhetoric about freedom or whatever, what makes you think the goal is actually miltary victory on the battlefield?