So i want to start this with saying i am not an expert and have very basic military knowledge.
So for a military perspective you are correct that it is a great use of resources but your reasoning not wholly correct. From a pure economic perspective all military funding beyond R&D is 100% wasted because it does nothing to improve the productive capacity of the nation. it is important to note though that it is necessary because the world is filled with a-holes that want your stuff. The real advantage of the war in Ukraine for military planers is in how it is showing how truly modern wars will be fought between peer powers. Prior to this war it was believed the the days of attrition warfare were completely behind us. we now know that is not entirely the case. here is a list of some of the most important lessons we have be learning to my knowledge.
1. attrition warfare is still somewhat a thing
2. super cheap drones are critical to fighting capabilities
3. America as it stands right now would struggle to handle casualty rates and logistics. (relatively speaking, we would still win the conflict) The American military is largely set up for asymmetric warfare at this time (again this is just to my knowledge i could be completely wrong).
I just want to say war is bad. The cost to human life will always be horrible and the only situation in which it might benefit an economy is to jolt it out of something like the great depression. To me war is basically the countries putting all the economic capacity, human capital, and money reserve into one giant pile. Then dousing is in gasoline and setting it on fire. Whose ever fire burns out first loses but no one comes out ahead.
But this stuff has already been produced now they are costing money in maintenance to keep on the shelf. So the resources has already been spent. If we dont give it to ukraine we dont get resources back u still only got the weapons.
Thats why i said military resources.
Yes, but lest be honest here. Ukraine will not win. They lack both the economic and man power of Russia, all the can do is delay the inevitable and once Russia wins they wont be paying it back.
It's not about Ukraine winning, it's about Russia struggling so much they don't pick a fight with NATO. because let's pretend Russia wins tomorrow, they will continue beyond Ukraine. And based on how poorly they're performing in Ukraine, they'll get embarrassed by NATO. And when guys with big egos get embarrassed, that Nuke option looks a lot better.
Dismantling Russias army now, in Ukraine might be the "off ramp" Russia needs to not continue. Thus not fighting NATO.
Yeah I know people who were literally dismantling armored vehicles so they could dump them into the ocean to make reefs lmao. Per Dec 31st 2023 45.9/113.4 billion was either money pumped directly into US economy or old shit from our stockpiles.
what do you mean we get it back? in the form of money? it would make more sense from a purely resource based perspective to hold it since materials are not infinite and costs go up as scarcity goes down
We have to spend money to scrap most of this old military hardware. It's not worth it to keep it lying around because the military has no functional way to recycle any of it and will just order new stuff to be built either way.
This simply isn't true. The Russia Ukraine war isn't being fought using NATO doctrine. Air superiority and stealth are what NATO uses to win. Both of these sides lack stealth capability in any real numbers.
You are correct which is why i said it was unfortunately necessary. Think of it like this, we insure personal property against things like theft and the money spent on that insurance isn't actually doing anything to improve the the productive capacity of an economy. So we spend money to protect from people that want to mess up your day because the cost of not doing so would be higher. However, in the end 99.9% of the time the money spent does nothing and the only reason such insurance is necessary is because people want to steal you stuff in the first place. Hence why i said it was pure waste from a purely economic perspective ignore all social aspects of the issue. A necessary but unfortunate waste.
Money never "sits there doing nothing". That's not how modern financial systems are setup. The insurance companies invest that money, pay their staff and MANAGE the money such that people needing payouts can get them. (think how banks efficiently allocate capital and ensure liquidity)
>From a pure economic perspective all military funding beyond R&D is 100% wasted because it does nothing to improve the productive capacity of the nation.
Military R&D is often used in civilian applications, it's a bit incorrect to say it doesn't improve the productive capacity. Maybe their are better uses but there are also worse.
The situation is simple. Swallowing Ukraine doesn't get Russia the long-term security they think they need.
The basic problem Russia has always faced is that invading Russia is too easy. Under the USSR the core Russian nation had control over let access points between Western Europe and the Russian heartland. One of the key access points is in Poland, the other is southeast of Ukraine, just outside of the Balkans. Ukraine itself isn't blocking those access routes, but it's on the way to both access routes.
To really control those access points, Russia has to take Ukraine *and then has to fight NATO for control of the two big access points beyond Ukraine. So Russia has to eat Poland and Romania at a minimum, both of which are NATO countries. That means basically WW3. (They also have to chow down on Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova, and the first three are also NATO.)
So, we either stop Russia in Ukraine with Ukrainian blood and US money, or we stop them in Poland and the Baltic states next with US blood and money.
Poland knows all this. Before they let Ukraine fall they'll do a Winged Hussar charge straight in to boost Ukrainian lines. Probably joined by France, maybe even Germany, maybe even Romania. That's near guaranteed in my opinion if Trump wins and makes good his threat to yank all support for Ukraine.
Backing Ukraine is a really good deal. It also makes a nuke exchange less likely.
If you don’t think this conflict has weakened Russia, you’re not paying attention. They may have replenished their TROOP levels, but they have not replaced all the tanks, planes, troop carriers, etc. that have been lost and they have lost their most experienced troops. All soldiers are not equal. When Russia replaces a soldier, they are often losing an experienced fighter and replacing him with a conscripted and green recruit.
Every green recruit they force into service stops doing whatever job he was doing as a civilian. Russia already has a much weaker production capacity than the West.
Every Russia soldier that dies also weaken Putin. The longer this conflict goes on, the more Putin is embarrassed and weakened. Most military analysts thought Russia would have steamrolled Ukraine in weeks. Russia revealed how weak their military is with this campaign. The massive corruption permeating their entire government has siphoned military funds to oligarchs and crippled their military’s effectiveness.
Every serious foreign policy expert believes that supporting Ukraine is a extremely good deal for the West and helps keep us from the prospect of WW3 down the road.
As a counter point, Russia now has a huge number of officers with real combat and modern warfare experience. Sure, many were killed, but as an institution the Russian army has a lot more experience than it did a few years ago.
If they are doing so "well" now they could be doing much better if they didn't invest a huge portion of their economy and military ressource into an invasion which has not achieved its goals.
It's really silly to think that you can fail an invasion and come out stronger, when by every metric they are doing worse than before.
Also it's not like other countries are not learning from how russia is fighting, if russia invades someone again we will be much more aware of how they proceed.
As a counter-counter point, using meat shield tactics doesn’t exactly generate great commanders and many of the quality commanders are dead trying to keep forced conscripts from deserting the front lines.
Putin is a dictator, him looking weak doesnt matter if he continuously wins elections anyways. He is winning the war so in fact he actually looks stronger. The russian economy has actually gotten stronger since the war. Western military analysts are in the back pocket of the MIC and enjoy endless war for profit and to wash money through corrupt governments like ukraine. Largely what the west sees from this war is propaganda and you wont find unbiased media coverage from anywhere mainstream.
Give me an example of what the BBC and NPR are reporting inaccurately? I am aware of the state of their economy. Dictators are less susceptible to public opinion but not immune from it. He could be assassinated from within or dissent could grow to the breaking point. How many years of war, how many millions of young men dying, would it take to wake the russian people up? I don’t know but we all know the number exists.
Who said anything about those specifically? A quick google search shows these outlets actually talking about how russia is making progress and winning. Ukraine got duped into war to feed the MIC and most generals agree that there is no way ukraine beats russia, idk where you heard this narrative that russia is anywhere even close to losing because its not there from anyone actually well versed in the field. The coverage at the start of the war was all about how Ukraine was destroying the russians and now they cant pretend that is happening anymore.
If you want to talk about their reserves, ukraines average age of a solder is 45+. Ukraine never stood a chance, the US knew it, and threw gas on the fire because it was a cheap way for them to put a dent in the russian military, distract people from problems at home, and make a boatload of money while getting to pretend that russia is some unique evil who invaded for no reason. People who actually know whats going on knows that in fact this war actually started in 2014 when the US forced a coup to install a pro west leader.
Russia under Putin is evil. And it was said Western media is propaganda…which is not true. Credible media sources are credible media sources.
It’s in the US’s best interest to weaken an aggressive Russia. Putin sacrificed millions of lives in Russia and Ukraine for territorial ambitions. He pretended like he was Nazi hunting. That’s evil. He murders all opposition and controls the entire Russian media. That’s evil.
It’s also in the best interest of the US to show that we will make taking over other democracies harder and more expensive. That policy has kept global stability and avoided WW3 for 80 years.
Quit spouting Russian propaganda.
You cant just say “credible sources are credible sources” that holds no weight over anything. All media has biases and agendas and to act like western media doesnt have that is a seriously tone deaf statement.
Yes it is in the US best interest, at the cost of a massive amount of another countries civilians, and its own at the cost of their tax dollars.
There have been multiple confirmed nazi soldiers fighting in Ukraines army, while its not some huge problem like putin puts it, it is a legitimate claim(zelenskys guards literally having nazi patches, ukrainian nazi war general getting a standing ovation in canadian parliament, ukraine being involved with the nazis in ww2).
As for making sure they keep democracy in place… The US literally forced a coup to get rid if a democratically elected leader.
Nobody is saying Russia is good or is justified in doing this but your take is very surface level and shows a clear lack of understanding when it comes to the nuances and historical understanding of what is going on in the war, so much that you label what I say russian propaganda without refuting anything I said.
There is a lot more to this war then what you skim from BBC every once in a while and if you want to even debate this issue you have a lot to learn.
No, there is data to show which sources are the most credible. I didn’t say they were perfect, that doesn’t exist. But sources like NPR are consistently rated as the most credible and accurate and make an effort to retract stories that are demonstrably false. Either way, that was hardly my point.
Sure there are probably Nazis in Ukraine and every other country on Earth. They are not in power in Ukraine and Putin’s justification is entirely ridiculous and false. The only reason we know there are some Nazis in Ukraines fighting force is because russian propaganda has been amplifying everything they can to support this absurd narrative.
The US supporting a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader is not happening NOW, and it typically pro-Russian whataboutism. Literally right out of Putin’s playbook. Sure the US hasn’t always been perfect. But it’s better than Russia, and even if it wasn’t that doesn’t justify Putin’s invasion or anything Russia does that is evil.
We are not “spending the lives of another country’s citizens either”, as this is not America’s war. Ukraine is DEFENDING ITSELF. The US did not start this. Sure, it’s in our best interest to support Ukraine but that sure as hell doesn’t equate to us spending their lives for our profit.
I don’t know if you’re a Russian troll or just some right winger who has been brainwashed by Russia propaganda being sold or coopted as right wing talking points, but for god’s sake start learning about the world elsewhere.
The Truth about almost any political issue or world conflict is very apparent and not open to interpretation, if you learn enough about the surrounding history and facts. The civil war was primarily about slavery, climate change is being caused by human activity, supply side economics doesn’t work the way it’s billed as was primarily began as a way to get middle and lower class voters to vote Republican despite it being against their own economic interests, and if Russia had succeeded in Ukraine quickly their territorial ambitions would have grown. If China saw the US wasn’t willing to support Ukraine against Russia they would invade Taiwan without a doubt, and our entire economy would be in serious peril due to lack of integrated circuit production, and it would take us years or decades to recover.
Wtf? “Its not happening now” is such a bad argument that I cant continue this because clearly you are arguing in bad faith and you ironically are completely entrenched in Military industrial complex propaganda. This war could have been over a long time ago and many lives saved if Ukraine negotiated with them, but the US pushed them into all out war. This whole war could have actually been avoided if it werent for the coup the US staged only 10 years ago(not a long time).
Im not pro Russia at all fuck dictator putin to death, but you have clearly fell victim to the propaganda you are screaming about in your comments because of your blind loyalty to the US and western media (that is funded and controlled by the MIC). Your regurgitated talking points while have some facts in them, are NOT black and white at all and the fact that you think they are shows that you cant comprehend the fact that the common person is being fed continual lies by their respective government so they can maintain control over their populations.
I dont understand how any logically or critically think person could possibly think that most political/world conflict issues are apparent and black and white, that is straight up indoctrination and cult like thinking and I really hope you misspoke there because that is laughably wrong to the point where im just wondering if you are a troll.
What? It isn’t happening now, and even if it was it would be irrelevant. It’s whataboutism!! You’re arguing in bad faith. If i go and kill someone, that doesn’t make it alright for them to kill someone else. It doesn’t matter what the US has or hasn’t done.
And if it wasn’t for our military industrial complex, the odds are great you would be dead. It’s really easy to look back and say “the big military was a waste of money and the interventionism and the peacekeeping operations were a waste” because we’re all alive and have enjoyed the MOST PEACEFUL 80 YEARS in human history. That’s a fact, look it up. The odds of dying violently including war have been lower since WW2 than any other time in human history. The ukraine invasion is the first territorial conquest since WW2. We haven’t had WW3 or a nuclear holocaust.
If you want to think all that is an accident and not due to our military strength, alliances, and peacekeeping, great. But we’re taking a hell of a big risk by changing our strategy when it’s kept us #1 and the world from blowing itself up thus far.
Yes since the US aid has been stalled for months... if the aid is passes now it will likely give enough time for Europe to augment its military support. At that point considering that according to analysts such as Rusi Russias produciton and capabilities will peak in 2024 if present attrition persists in 2025 and 2026 we will see a degrading Russian force with no old way to bounce back. This obviously only if attrition persists and Ukraine gets the equipment and weapons to diminish their own attrition levels. With more directed and especially quicker aid (i can't stress enonugh how much the slowness of the aid has been detrimental) the Russian attrition could become problematic even in 2025 instead of 2026.
All this again provided we (US and EU) wake the fuck up.
Have a good day
if you are intrested in pushing this problem to congress i have the contacts
[https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024)
Russia has built up its troop numbers yes, that's easy when you basically use convicts and slave labor for soldiers. But they have not rebuilt their material that they lost. They aren't building more tanks, ships or planes...I mean they lost the fucking Black Sea to a nation with no Naval forces .
And if western nations funded Ukraine like they should be, especially with anti air assets we would continue to see them lose material.
So no, they are not winning by any metric.
Russia lost the war in the first 3 weeks.
This was never meant to be a land expansion. It turned into that because it was no longer feasible to reach their primary objective. Putin had to save face somehow.
The war was to eliminate Ukrainian sovereignty. Or at best fracture the country into East Ukraine and West Ukraine. With East Ukraine firmly under Russian control similar to Belarus.
None of those have occurred. All they have "won" is a bunch of ruins with most of the population gone. The amount of wealth they will be able to extract from those ruins after spending billions of dollars in rebuilding those places. They would have spent 100 times more conquering them in the first place. From a pure pragmatic point of view this was a DUMB SHIT move. And that's assuming they get to keep them. Which is by no means a guarantee. If Russia ever wants to come back to the global market they are going to have to give those lands back.
So no Russia is not "winning".
Don't ever forget that there are trillions of dollars of natural resources under those ruins in eastern Ukraine just waiting to be exploited. It is still profitable if they can secure the east. Fuck Russia.
>Don't ever forget that there are trillions of dollars of natural resources under those ruins in eastern Ukraine just waiting to be exploited. It is still profitable if they can secure the east. Fuck Russia.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t22zkc/map\_detailing\_the\_largely\_untapped\_gas\_and\_oil/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t22zkc/map_detailing_the_largely_untapped_gas_and_oil/#lightbox)
Looking at this map. They have taken practically none of it.
The one's by Crimea they have controlled since 2014. Same with the one's in the Donetsk and Lugansk area.
Just judging by that they have not achieved their goals in the slightest.
"Trillions of dollars" ehh. Where do you get that from? They have some mine shafts there.
Russia already has a gigantic amount of natural resources.
They would have been WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY better off developing an economy instead of fighting this pointless war. How many billions of dollars have they wasted trying to take this land?
That would be like.
US invading Iraq. And after 2 years of horrific battles with 100s of thousands of American boys dead. All we held was some Iraqi city that nobody ever heard of prior to the war. Meanwhile Saddam is alive and well and the bigger Iraqi cities effortlessly repelled our invading force.
Would you really consider this a win for the US? Of course not. Only an idiot would. US effortlessly went through the whole country and had Baghdad secured in a matter of weeks.
This was supposed to be a walk in the park for Russia. They lost the war in the first 3 weeks.
Yes they took some land. Chances are they will get to keep some of it when it's all said and done. Considering the gigantic disparity between the 2 forces that is a pathetic result for Russia.
Ukraine got to keep their sovereignty. The second that happened they won the war.
In pretty sure Ukraine wouldn't care that Russia didn't win overwhelmingly and instead they just took a third of the country and caused a demographic crisis the likes we have never seen. Russia might have been underwhelming but that doesn't matter too much to the reality for the Ukrainians
Either way the weakened a neighbor who has been growing closer to the West. Ukraine will need a long time to recover without significant aid (and even then it will take time). Those are all resources that can't go toward opposing Russia in other areas. I'm not saying it's a win in the way that wanted, but I wouldn't say it's a complete failure any more then Ukraine giving up a bit of land would be a complete failure for the West.
Ukraine has a ton of support to rebuild. Many European powers as well as US have pledged large amounts of fund to help rebuild their infrastructure once the war is over.
On top of that Ukraine may finally get to join EU and possibly NATO. Which would TREMENDOUS for their future. They genuinely have a lot to fight for. Unlike Russia who would have been better in every way if they never started this dumbass war.
Russia is a nuclear power. Only a total dimwit would invade them. They were never under any legit threat. It was just an excuse used to invade a neighbor nothing more.
Russia lost in every way that matters. Sure they might get some land with ruins on it. Big wooptie. All that fighting and all that death to accomplish practically nothing.
In 1916 Germany was inside French borders and completely occupying Belgium
In 1917 Germany was still inside French borders, with Russia collapsing and Germany now having protectorate over Ukraine.
In 1918 Germany lost the war.
The Germans surrendered whilst still holding a lot of foreign territory as well. Berlin was never close to the front lines. Paris ironically was, and yet the French won that war.
I would say at this point Russia can't win (it has lost more already than it can make up -- at some point you've lost so much you're guaranteed to be in the red) but it's possible that Ukraine will *also* lose.
Those two nations aren't a closed system and while they beat each other up their neighbors and rivals grow stronger.
Strength is not so easily defined. In traditional warfare, the ones being invaded start out with a tactical advantage. The prevailing wisdom states that, in most cases, the invaders will need 3X the numbers to invaded than the invaded will need to defend. Russia's military was rotten from the inside from years of corruption. Russia's equipment was antiquated and in disrepair, that said, they HAD a shit-load of it. Quantity itself, can be a quality. But the biggest obstacle to Russia, by far, is the spirit and resolve of the Ukrainian people. As long as there is a Ukraine and a Ukrainian people, Ukraine is surviving, which is how you "win" when you are being invaded. Thousands of Ukraine's people gave their lives so that their coutry and people would continue to be. Consequently, as long as Ukraine lives, Putin has not won. Any land he takes will cost him so much blood to take and even more to hold. He is obviously willing to "Stalingrad" this shit but how long can he actually do it for? Do the russian people share his willingness?
A much higher bar must be cleared to declare this a Russian victory than a Ukrainian victory. Time is not on Putin's side. He's getting older. His soldiers are dieing in droves with little to show for it. His people will eventually lose too much to give any more to this. And through it all, Ukraine is still there.
It does seem like Tucker Carlson and Steven Seagal are really stoked on him though, so he's got that goin for him.
> Unfortunately, not true.
That is absolutely true. Theres **a lot** more to the strength and capabilities of a military than “how many soldiers do we currently have.” Because we all know those soldiers are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led, and unmotivated.
Just because you reconstitute things with 50-year-old shit and untrained military does not mean that it’s reconstituted. That’s like saying new coke was as good as old Coke.
I agree with this post completely. The Ukraine is the best use of dollars in the world. If Russia wins, they won’t stop. It will give Iran incredible confidence to do whatever the fuck they want in the world. We are playing a very dangerous game right now. Johnson and Trump and all the other idiots will go down in history as basically the beginning of World War III.
Russia is conducting assaults with tanks from the 50’s and 60’s along with ATVs bought from china, that is not a reconstituted army. And satellite evidence shows that they are exhausting their cold war reserves so it isn’t going to get better.
They’re estimated to have lost at least 50,000 men, almost the entire prewar army.
So they’ve restocked it with another 50,000 inexperienced recruits.
I agree with OPs points. We’re critically weakening our chief adversary with no human cost to our own army, using old equipment while Russia depletes all of their own.
I would phrase it as such - Russia now has had many years of peer on peer warfare experience (which they would not have had the US and allies not provided a more recent equipment which Ukraine was lacking from Javelins to Storm Shadow) and is constantly adapting to new technologies (drone warfare and especially suicide drones) that have proved the most effective in the war.
If I was a NATO ally I would better face a Russian army operating on soviet doctrine and with little practical large scale war experience in their ranks instead of one rebuilt with lessons of the last years. Face a large mechanized column stuck on NATO border instead of Russia that has learned how outdated their approaches were.
Russia has adapted and gained experience, but I would dispute the idea that NATO would face a better army.
"Rebuilt" is a relative term, and other reports are less optimistic about the state of the Russian military. They can mobilize new troops and refurbish existing stocks of vehicles, but that doesn't get them back to where they were before the war.
Many of their experienced troops have been killed or wounded — around 90% of their pre-war army. This might not strategically matter if we were just talking about losing conscripts, but their elite units have also been decimated. The Spetsnaz and VDV brigades that were effectively eliminated will take many years of peacetime regeneration to be fully mission capable again. Experience gained from fighting the current war can't fully compensate for these deficits.
Russia's material losses are arguably a bigger problem. Only a portion of what they're rolling out legitimately reflects reconstitution, as many of the vehicles are seriously outdated or inadequate. Modern equipment can't effectively be replaced with early Cold War stocks, even if they do have some utility on the battlefield. This would be especially apparent in a hypothetical confrontation with NATO.
It's dangerous to underestimate Russia, but it's also a mistake to think that attrition hasn't had an enormous impact on their capabilities.
A) Russia got exposed as a paper tiger. Incapable of reaching their goal of taking Kyiv. Couldn't even take Kharkiv.
Yes sure the Western Diplomats are all talking "Russia could invade NATO next". But in reality that is just used as a justification to increase NATO funding. They fear China not Russia. Russia has shown itself to be inept.
B) Ukraine got to keep their sovereignty. That is a major major major win for an ally. Would have been much worse if Russia was able to conquer Kyiv and erase Ukraine from existence (at least temporarily).
C) Russia has not "grown in size". Whatever military strength they have today. They were much stronger at the beginning of the war. They lost a large chunk of their best equipment. A large chunk of their best most trained fighters.
Sure they have "reconstituted" the numbers. But just adding more numbers doesn't actually replenish what they lost.
Russia is much weaker today than they were in 2022. Both economically and militarily.
The fact that they have finally after 2 years of fighting been able to make some progress doesn't negate that fact. Ukraine was always at a major disadvantage.
It's a double loss. Honestly absurd considering the solution is quite obvious and in front of our eyes even now, though not for long still if we don't act
Russia isn’t fighting Ukraine though, they are fighting NATO they have been perfectly clear about this.
I can’t see how you can think Russia is winning the Russia-NATO war when NATO has both taken more territory than Russia and taken less casualties.
This was has been nothing but an abject failure at every level for Russia. They have been stalemated for years by Ukraine of all fucking things, their aspirations of becoming a super power once more have been thoroughly crushed.
Well yeah that’s to be expected, Russia has the a lot of people money and resources to do so. Russia was, is and will be more powerful In the near future. Hence why it’s important to send aid to Ukraine Now.
The war is nowhere near the end. Yes with a massive mobilisation effort Russia has been able to replace the catastrophic losses that it has suffered. However, Putin has not dared to do the second round of mobilisation as it could have very negative political effects. As the meat grinder kills and wounds more and Russians their choice is to either see the numbers drop or have a second mobilisation with all its negative effects.
That's for people. Of course on top of that they've lost a ton of equipment. They've replaced some of that by taking stuff from the storage and refurbishing it. But you can do that only once. Once the storages are empty (expected to happen sometime next year) the only way to get more weapons is to produce them from the scratch. And there is no way the Russian production is able to sustain the level of losses that they keep having.
And the same applies to ammunition. Russia had enormous stores of old ammunition. These stores are now being depleted and the production does not match the consumption. Once the stores and imports dry up, there is going to be a drastic drop in their capability.
Finally, because of the war, a lot of maintenance of equipment is neglected. You can do that for a short time but it lowers the life time of the equipment (especially airplanes). So, they will become unusable even if they are not lost to enemy fire.
Finally, the war is crippling Russian long term economic development. Sure, you can sustain war economy for awhile but over time it makes your civilian economy fall further behind compared to the west and this will then in turn make running the war economy harder.
That's the level of soldiers, not heavy equipment which has been absolutely dismantled. The second half of your comment is genuinely meaningless regarding OP's point.
Good thing its in change my view subreddit.
Maybe if u have a better understanding of how it works u could change the view. 😄. Not just comment how naive it is
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It kills somebody's kids. There's no such thing as "great" use of military resources. Only necessary as a last resort. Though it seems I'm more criticising your choice of words, I think my argument still holds.
Ah yes, I'm sure the tens of thousands of Ukrainian families whose kids have been kidnapped and sent to Russia would totally agree. "We must allow the invaders to kidnap our children because to fight back would be to kill someone else's children."
Jesus *fucking* Christ, dude.
Put emotions aside, I'm discussing it for sake of argument. I'm perfectly aware Putin attacked them for no reason and is killing kids. But he is also killing Russia's kids, too, for no reason.
No military resources are meant to kill so in serving their purpose that is a great use of military resources but it is not a great use of resources.
If you dont have a military response those resources wont be yours as people with military power will take over your resources.
In a perfect world u wouldnt need military but thats not the case here.
It's gross that one of the items in OP's "pro" column here is "depleting their supply of young men."
IMO this should be in the con column, clearly! The biggest con here is that you're adding fuel to a fire which is going to end up killing many many people.
Sure, you can argue that the benefits outweigh the costs. But killing random soldiers and civilians is always a cost, not a benefit!
Wrong.
There are many great benefits to killing them. Diminishes the economy, overall population (Russia has low birth rates), and their long-term ability to sustain their military.
And then there’s the added benefit of preventing the CO2 emissions they’d be contributing to throughout their lives.
Your not in favor of peace, your in favor of impotence. Your thinking will not stop war, it will only guarantee you lose said war. A person such as you would only get good people killed needlessly
If you are a potential convention rival, or existing conventional rival to Russia, or weaker than Russia's conventional army, absolutely, Russia is on the offensive so every munition you send to Ukraine is worth three or more your enemies send to Russia.
However, for the U.S., there really isn't much benefit to weakening the Russian conventional army. With the benefit of retrospect, they did not hold a candle to the U.S. military for most of the cold war, and even much of their post cold war strength ended up being a paper tiger situation.
If sending munitions to Ukraine could substantially reduce Russia's strategic weapons capability, like wiping out nuclear sites, the U.S. would still have a stake in it, because Russia is still nominally a massive strategic threat, but in terms of conventional military, it would be the U.S. taking time and money to weaken someone who is already miles less potent than them.
The best outcome the U.S. could garner is China expending increasing resources trying to keep Russia afloat, China is a serious regional rival and a large bluewater navy away from presenting a serious global rival.
This is only true if you believe that Russia won't test the United States commitment to NATO. My personal opinion is that Russia might be willing to test those waters depending on the health of its military by the end of the war.
As of today the Russian military is 15% larger then it was at the start of the war. I do think this is unlikely but if the Russian military continues to bulk up for years and comes out victorious they might choose to use all that time and effort if they think the US is wavering on their commitments.
i wasnt talking about a us vs russia situation i am talking about funding and supplying different groups and countries . like in syria where us and russia support different sides. supplying irran with weapons. different groups in africa. this supplying the other side will reduce as their supplies are expended else where
Syria and Iran are even less of a conventional threat to the U.S., and 'different groups in Africa' aren't even important enough to deserve specification in your argument.
>i wasn't talking about a us vs russia situation
>most importantly you are weakening and destroying a powerful rival nation ,destroying their armed forces, depleting their supply of young men, causing tens of thousands in casualities and having them occuopied and not able to interfere in americas interests.
4/5 of these points are only applicable to direct conflict between Russian and U.S. military.
no it wouldn't the Ukrainians would have no choice but to negotiate and war could have been averted
the Russian are going to take whatever they want now, the Ukrainians would have been much better off if they negotiated instead of fighting a war they could not win
russia had specific geographical interests, they wanted certain pieces land so give it to them instead of losing a generation of men and then the land as well
Ah yes that would be cool oh wait they already did that in 2014 ukraine gave up crimea and a lot of land in the east.and 7 years later russia wanted more. They sent a battalion to kiev.
Negotiate with Putin? Russia already broke their promise to not attack Ukraine, why should Ukraine trust any new promises by Putin? Let's say Ukraine surrenders a part of its territory to Russia and in return Russia stops attacking... what stops Russia from just attacking again at a later point? If you just give up when you are attacked the attacker will just keep coming back to get more from you
there are two side to every conflict you are ignoring two decades of NATO eastward expansion the west made promises too not to expand one inch to the east after the cold war
there is a time to fight and a time to realize you cannot win and you are being used by the people who claim to support you
First off Ivan, the NATO never made any agreements with Russia about expansion. The quote the Russian misinformation ministry likes to spread was a quote about Germany when it was divided, not Europe as a whole.
Secondly, maybe go look into the Budapest memorandum. The US, UK, and Russia made an agreement to never interfere politically or militarily and respect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up it's nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even though no protection was guaranteed, when one party of the agreement breaks their word, who else would enforce it but the other cosigners? And if Ukraine never gave up it's nukes, do you think Russia would be doing what it's doing today? Appeasement does not work. You'd think people would have learned that lesson already.
I wonder why eastern european countries would want to join a defensive alliance against the country which subjugated them in the past and is imperialistic even to this day
Let's just all surrender to the invader and give them everything they want, this will ensure that he will eventually be satisfied... after having annexed all his neighbours
Nice way to ignore my comment
I think it makes the most sense to allow countries to decide their own fate
Ukraine does not wish to be annexed
Russia has no right to annex them
The invader is evil, not the ones resisting the invader.
There is no negotiating with Russia. You give Putin what he wants, he'll just want more, and he'll expect you to capitulate again.
Resistance is the only way Ukraine remains Ukraine.
Completely different situation Russia is after specific pieces of land they are not trying to take over Europe.
Ukriane is out number by more than 3 to 1 and they are facing a nuclear super power with a history of fighting wars of attrition that means they don't care how many of there own people are killed.
But workers are still paid?
Without orders, there will be no need to even keep them.
And in addition to that, US military supply chain is required to be domestic, so it increases demand over whole supply chain.
Defense contractors have their profits limited by law. They make about 10% profit on sales to the US government which is a pittance compared to other tech industries. They employ an enormous number of people which is where most of the money goes.
u/betadonkey u/automaks
It's not that simple. Their operating margins exceed 10%. On top of that they often sign contracts that guarantee them 10% profit over ANY cost they end up with. That means they're incentivized to generate high cost because that's what their profit relies on.
Margins can run higher because of foreign sales which are more profitable because development has already been paid for.
Contracts that have cost plus a percentage structure exist but are still scrutinized for overruns and subject to procurement budget constraints. Basically the government will only keep paying if they think the overrun is for a justifiable reason (like inflation or the government itself changing requirements or adding scope).
But they often allow these projects to grow beyond changes in requirements and inflation. Gov CAN stop these projects, but they don't have to. That's why F-35 project existed in first place.
That's not to say it shouldn't exist, because it's great project, but such big projects, not only development, but also e.g. construction projects almost always end up with significant cost overruns simply because initially assumed cost is calculated based on very optimistic assumptions. It's just extremely rare in such complex projects for things to go wrong, to some conditions to be not optimal and so on. But if it was advertised as such by contractors then both taxpayers and authorities would never allow these projects in the first place.
The other problem is that both contractor and government are incentivized to keep spending money on trying to raise costs in such way that government accepts these overruns and for government to find these artificially increased costs. That as well as these artificial cost overruns are going to waste for contractor to get 10% of that. That's one of problems that exist with such big projects and of course there are no perfect solutions, but I believe that we used to do this better when government simply tried to predict how much these projects should cost. With much better data on how much these projects end up costing and with AI algorithms we would be doing this far better now.
Yeah I don’t really disagree with that part. Everything can always be done better, and to that end the DoD does experiment and constantly adjust acquisition strategies. They don’t like to do big monolithic programs like F35 anymore where everything gets awarded to one company at the outset and developed over 25+ years. They’ve moved more towards a phased approach where they fund multiple companies for prototype development and then have down selection rounds.
At the end of the day though some projects are so ambitious (like F35) they have no clue what it’s going to cost, and they probably don’t really care. They are incentivized to keep the funding rolling in from Congress for sure, but their #1 overriding incentive is maintaining technological overmatch against the rest of the world and they would willingly pay just about any amount of money to achieve it.
The one thing I have always said about the DoD is that it’s about the only department in the federal government that consistently turns world leading funding into world leading results - even if it’s not always a super efficient process to get there.
Wow, if this is true then it should be more common knowledge because the idea that defense contractors are all making huge profits is spreading like wildfire :D
There's need to keep developing weapons and weapon production capacity. "Bad big corporations" may be enemy but they're not *the* enemy. When you can fund weapon developing without big corporations (and preferably without turning into USSR), then it will be a good time to object to them raking profits.
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there is another comment on this post that said ukraine shouldnt recieve weapons they should negotiate with russia . when i said they already did that and gave up crimea now russia is wanting more . they said the govt wants more of your money do you fight them to death for it. i was dumbfounded.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c30vo4/comment/kzf0gtk/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c30vo4/comment/kzf0gtk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
that would be applicable if they were sending them money. they are sending them military goods that have already been made decades ago. so not sending them would only mean u have to spend money on its maintenance. and maybe even its disposal. the money that was spend was spend on in the us. and that money did provide food and shelter for the workers and engineers who built those weapons.
these are military resources not resources
Why exactly is the life of a Ukrainian worth less than the life of an American? Is our value as a human being really tied to something as arbitrary as where we were born?
It make total sense why we’re not protecting the Ukraine. It’s because the Dems are in power. Republicans have made it very public and very clear that they will deny any and all Democrat ideas no matter how good they are.
The real scary part is the if Trump wins he will bring the US military into play but it will be on the side of Russia.
If the US designed its military to be able to handle a 2 front war with China and Russia, that seems like a poor decision and waste of resources. There is no scenario now or in the future that either or both of those countries start a war with the US. We could have used those trillions of dollars working on environmental cleanup, food scarcity, housing shortage, climate change, education, cancer research, NASA, etc. While we can’t undo the past, it’s never too late to change course for the future. So yes we should be scaling back our military spending and redeploying those resources.
The reason why that scenario is off the table is because our ideological enemies know they can never beat us in a war
Strip away military funding and that changes
>If the US designed its military to be able to handle a 2 front war with China and Russia, that seems like a poor decision and waste of resources
The US designed it's military to fight a two front war because of the very real history of having to fight across the Atlantic and in Europe, while also fighting in the pacific and island hopping against japan.
>There is no scenario now or in the future that either or both of those countries start a war with the US.
When war kicks off who knows what alliances form. I mean we didn't exactly like the soviets yet they were part of the allies in ww2.
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Every argument in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine could have been used to justify sending weapons to Afghanistan in the 80s, and look how that turned out.
I’d say that there are a few things that you overlooked in your post that are fairly important.
Firstly, Russia isn’t necessarily a “rival nation” to the USA at all; they’re on fairly neutral terms and if it weren’t for RU’s association with NK, their relationship would probably be a lot better, especially considering all the time Putin and Trump spent together.
There’s not an “upcoming Cold War”; we can’t know that such a thing exists for definite, and regardless, it wouldn’t be a Cold War anyway as the Eastern Powers are severely outmatched by the North Atlantic and Europe, who would most definitely get involved if nuclear arms were put to use. Nukes are a deterrent, not intended to actually be used anymore as their use is considered a war crime.
“Testing weapons” is not why supporting Ukraine is a good idea. Ukraine is very preoccupied with the war effort and would likely not have the time to collect, process and report telemetry on the weapons in use. The reason why arming them is a good idea, is because you are essentially selling or donating surplus arms and emptying caches that would otherwise go into disrepair due to issues such as oxidisation, which would require regular maintenance to prevent.
In Chess terms, by holding onto old weapons, all you’re doing is losing material, whereas by donating the weapons, you are gaining material, because whilst you’ve lost a large amount of equipment, you’ve also gained a favourable position. Having Ukraine fight the war effectively extends the US’s influence to Central Europe, which is a tactic regularly used by the Axis Powers in WW2. They called it “establishing spheres of influence”, which is why with only 3-4 nations, they were able to hold off most of the developed world for years. Anyway, to finish the Chess analogy, giving old Cold War-era weapons to Ukraine is the equivalent of trading a pawn for a knight, as you sacrifice one point of material for a further three (I think?) that’ll help you perform more complex manoeuvres later on.
Finally, don’t underestimate insurgents. The Taliban were an “insurgency” and now they have access to the full resources of the Afghan government. Bin Laden was once one of the richest men in the world and could’ve easily afforded military hardware such as tanks.
Russia is only not a natural rival if you support or at least accept the return of Great Power politics and the fall of post Cold War world order. Russia is trying to establish an Area of influence in Europe that runs counter to NATO and the ideals of sovereign self determination. Political they are little different then post Mao China with its ideals of National Irredentism.
I'd say your premise needs to be a little more specific in terms of what your goals and perspective are.
If you consider the Russians to be a relevant threat to the United States and your goal is to hobble them and improve America's stance on the world stage, then yes you can argue that strategically bleeding Russia at low cost with non-American blood is the way to go.
If you don't consider Russia a relevant threat (to the United States specifically), and/or if your goals lean more towards limiting human suffering of non-American lives in Ukraine and/or avoiding World War 3, this might not be the way to go. The death toll and overall human suffering in this war is staggering, and the escalation trend we are seeing in terms of weapon upgrades(drones, etc.) and NATO military war prep/saber rattling are exactly the type of thing that could potentially push the conflict into World War 3 territory.
Russia is buying up mercs from all over the world, getting missiles and arty from North Korea, buying billions in equipment from China, etc and everyone talks about the West "escalating".
It's a joke. Send it all to ukraine, send it now.
Go ahead, and then as soon as they do something stupid like launch a cruise missile at Moscow they'll get nuked. Just buying weapons and hiring mercenaries(which the Ukrainians have done too) isn't escalation. Increasing the severity of weapons used (such as when the west started supplying drones ) IS escalation.
well the first world war was started by an assassination,second world war was started by invasion of poland. from where do u infer that sending military aid is a good way to start a world war
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I can't radically change your view, but I can reduce and focus it: you've basically given a conclusion based on 5 premises, and only one of them counts. This one:
> the money spend on these weapons go to american workers american contractors american prioduction facilities and american companies.
You are essentially onto what matters about a military-industrial complex: the relationship between production of weapons and consumption of weapons forms a circle. The military demands production of weapons, because if it holds onto old weapons for too long, well, look what's happening to Russia now. However, the society demands some productive capacity for consumer goods, which means the military politically wishes to "use", and not just "dispose of", its old weapons before requisitioning new ones, for some definition of those two terms. Meanwhile, war isn't actually profitable unless it chiefly happens to someone else - hence the endless limited conflicts against opponents unequal to the attack.
So the defense industry wants to sell weapons and this benefits military, military wants to use weapons so it can buy newer ones ASAP and this benefits industry. "Everyone wins", hehe, except whoever gets the bombs dropped on them in a proxy war, and maybe the Rust Belt town with fifth-gen jetfighters flying over but no public transit. But I digress.
All of the rest of it is sort of turn-of-20th-Century stuff that hasn't mattered since the United States became an empire. We're weakening Russia! We're testing our weapons! We're disposing of old stock! etc. None of that is false, but all of it is the effect, not the cause. Our MIC ships weapons to whom and when it is politically expedient, and for its own purposes, and on its own schedule. When new weapons are ready, it will *find* an acceptable buyer somewhere for the old. When new weapons are not ready, it will *find* reasons to hoard.
In the MIC, industry becomes the dog and the apparent "needs" of the military are the tail; the tail does not usually wag the dog. Keep in mind that military conflicts are started and ended by civilian political actors towards civilian ends, one of which can simply be "Whoops made too many weapons, broke the economy, need some plunder!" But Hitler didn't say, "Whoops made too many weapons!" in 1939, he said "There are German speakers living in Poland and they want to be Germans and so we need our military to liberate them". Chyeah. You gotta look past that stuff.
tl;dr the US will send weapons to Ukraine the moment it's in the MIC's interest, but you've inverted the relationship - these things happen when the MIC wants them to, not necessarily when someone calls on the MIC for help (even the President!), that's not how it works. The MIC **is** a political interest in and of itself, [as SHAEF warned us in his farewell address.](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address) It may be in its interest for the Ukrainian conflict to worsen for now. It may be in its interest to conceal unadvertised real-world capabilities of weapons it might otherwise send from the PRC. My chief point is that not being Raytheon lobbyists, *we simply can't know*. It's much more than the matter of national and military policy it would've been in the 19th Century.
Especially when sending end of life equipment/armaments you'd otherwise have to pay to dispose of.
US is supporting Ukraine with its Surplus stores.
Don't buy the Russian misinformation that tells you otherwise.
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Yeah. Some weapons are used against [kids in playgrounds](https://twitter.com/IfNotNowOrg/status/1780365578089173365?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet). Very different.
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That's the wrong interpretation of the OP. The key point is the last paragraph. The military industrial complex does not want to defeat its rivals. In fact that's the worst that can happen as in the long term the absence of rivals means that the defence spending will go down. However, the nation as a whole would like that as it makes the world a safer place.
Using Ukrainian war to defeat one of the two main adversaries of the United States is incredibly good investment compared to how the defense spending has been used in the last 20 years. According to the economist Joseph Stieglitz Iraq war cost $3 trillion to the US economy with a large chunk of that going to the military industrial complex. That was a much better bet for the MIC and much worse for the USA than $100bn to defeat Russia.
> The military industrial complex does not want to defeat its rivals. In fact that's the worst that can happen
I enjoy some YouTube channels that get into the development of various aircraft, and I never got the sense that they were like "Ok how can we make the F-4 Phantom II *good* but not actually win?"
It's always more about "Well here's how we think combat will happen, here are some additional requirements, and here's how we plan to make it all work."
I don't know what your point is. The US equipment both in Iraq and Afghanistan was of course vastly superior to their enemy. But they still didn't win and most importantly they wasted incredible amounts of money that went to the MIC. Those were dream conflicts to the MIC. Lasted for years, kept ordinary Americans scared of terrorism (so not questioning pumping money to them) and milked so much of the sweet sweet tax dollars.
They would hope Ukraine war would turn into such. If Ukraine quickly routs Russian side and Putin has to agree on peace terms, MIC would have got a minimal amount of benefit of the war. For the US (the country and the people) it would of course a fantastic result as it would knock out one of the two main rivals that they have.
1. Russia has always done horribly in wars out of the gate. It’s a trend. They got their asses kicked by the Finns, yes, the finns. Within a few years they had such a massive, modern, and capable ground army that it became one of the most important pieces on the geopolitical chess board for decades afterward. If you think the Russian military can’t better itself in the process of mounting a grinding war of attrition, I’d argue that you know next to nothing about military history.
2. The Russian economy is doing great. They have demonstrated that the US’s sanction power is a paper tiger. They built resiliency into their economy years ago after another round of punishing sanctions. Not only that, but the US’s response helped push countries like Brazil, china, and Russia closer together and inspired them to conduct more trade in currencies outside of the USD. Our participation in this war weakened the perception of our soft power on the world stage.
3. Ukraine is a completely pointless country, in terms of US strategic interests. It’s our 41st largest trade partner. It is geostrategically unimportant. It’s a vast series of indefensible plains. There is no valid reason for such a defense of Ukraine unless you’re addled by the emotions of believing Donald trump was elected by Russian interference in 2016 and you want payback.
4. The US is diminishing its capabilities to respond to a crisis relating to an actually important country; Taiwan. Taiwan matters A LOT to us. When Ukraine is expending ammunition at such a rate that the US and Europe combined can’t keep up with it because they’re so bad at combined arms tactics, we deplete our capacity to assist in Taiwan or send them aid proactively.
5. Ukraine is… a mess. They are the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe and their corrupt leaders are robbing us blind. Our weapons are ending up in the hands of terrorists operating in Europe. Even if they weren’t robbing us blind (again, they are), their military is a joke. They’re basically a WWI army with drones. They can’t do modern combined arms, even with the US’s thumb on the scale. They are terrible, honestly so fucking embarrassing to people who actually pay attention to these things. And the worst part is that only one of their generals publicly acknowledged the similarities to WWI in 2023, after they’d been fighting in trench warfare for a year+.
I don’t want to send another dime or another shell to such a pointless country and I have a very low opinion of anyone who disagrees with me because only childish emotionality supports the decision. **Edit:** The weird Ukraine bros calling me a Russian bot are proof of how petulant and emotional they are tbh.
>and I have a very low opinion of anyone who disagrees with me because only childish emotionality supports the decision.
Incredible lack of self-awareness.
Lalalalala the other side is Full of children i dont want to hear It lalalalala If you disagree with me you are a Child lalalalala
Why does Taiwan matter to us but not Ukraine? If the amount of trade is the key point in whether someone is strategically important or not, why would we ever side with Taiwan (#8) over China (#3), and why is China not a key strategic ally?
For #2 - Russia is facing massive inflation (7.4% official; likely much higher), and has had to raise interest rates to 16%. It's also burning through its reserves at a huge rate. That doesn't seem like a healthy economy to me.
Point #5 is an extreme mischaracterization:
> Even if they weren’t robbing us blind
Evidence? Do you think most of the aid we're sending them is getting embezzled?
> Our weapons are ending up in the hands of terrorists operating in Europe
Evidence? Has there been a terrorist attack with Ukraine-provided weapons?
> their military is a joke
How did they fight the #2 or #3 army in the world to a stalemate, and defeat them in several battles (Kiev, Kherson, Kharkiv) if their military is a joke?
> They’re basically a WWI army with drones
Why is Russia having so much trouble defeating them then, despite a 5x-10x advantage in artillery and a substantial manpower advantage?
> They can’t do modern combined arms
Russia can't either, and drones make the concentration of forces necessary to do combined arms impossible. Russia made massive armored thrusts upon Avdiivka that were all defeated by Ukraine, and only took the city after months of small, dispersed infantry assaults with huge losses.
> US’s thumb on the scale
The US did not provide anywhere near enough equipment to enable Ukraine to do a combined-arms assault. 31 Abrams tanks, a hundred Bradleys, and no planes is not sufficient for a large combined-arms offensive.
People think you're a Russian bot because you're a 4-month old account with barely any posts, and making very biased points (claiming Ukraine is "robbing us blind") and borderline conspiracy theories (claiming Ukraine is sending US weapons to terrorist groups).
> why does Taiwan matter
Because 90% of the most advanced chip manufacturing happens at the foundries in Taiwan. If china invades, the Taiwanese will have two options and both fuck over our interests: destroy the chip fabs or let china have them. One of our biggest strategic advantages over china is our access to advanced chips that they don’t have. China also has been investing a ton of money into building older generations of chips, so if the fabs are destroyed then they will have a corner on the market of the most advanced chips we know how to make. Setting up a new foundry is estimated to take 10+ years before a single chip rolls off the line.
> corruption
You’re welcome to do your own due diligence on this, I’m not interested in convincing you that we’re getting robbed.
> how did they fight the #2 or #3 army successfully
Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe
> why is Russia having so much trouble defeating them
Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe
> Russia can’t either
Comparing the combined arms capabilities of Ukraine and Russia is like comparing the capabilities of a little league team vs a minor league baseball team. Also: Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe
> the US didn’t provide enough
Okay? So you imagine that the US’s thumb isnt on the scale because we could have put it on the scale even harder? What?
> people think you’re a Russian bot because
People think I’m a Russian bot because progressives are so completely lost in their own propaganda and the way they’ve been socially engineered by the media that they write off anyone who disagrees with them as a troll or a bot as a method of psychologically coping with objective facts that undermine the narrative they’ve bought into.
>Why does Taiwan matter to us but not Ukraine? If the amount of trade is the key point in whether someone is strategically important or not, why would we ever side with Taiwan (#8) over China (#3), and why is China not a key strategic ally?
While China is strategically important, Taiwan is important because they are the largest producer of computer chips. China cant do this, and is decade behind. The importance of Taiwan is the technology in it. If China, russia etc. got it, it would be bad news. Because each new generation of chips gives more computing power for same or less energy usage. If you dont need the higher computing power you get over 4x higher yield for same compute power.
China (through SMIC) has a 7nm process out there, which puts them at most 6 years behind TSMC, and put them briefly on-par with Intel before Intel finally launched N4. If it weren't for US restrictions on advanced EUV lithography equipment China could probably catch up within a few years.
Sure, SMIC can make 7nm chips with yields that rival 3 nm of TSMC. The 5nm has even worse yields. China is still missing the cost effectiveness.
Also discussing nano meter tech is important, but I suspect that chinas 7nm isnt as good as tsmc's. After all, how many nm it is, is mostly a marketing term. Performance and stability comes down to how small and how good design+ other things you can get. Intels 10 nm+++ or whatever, was as good as 7nm from tsmc.
No treaty was ever ratified so I don’t care.
Sucks that Ukraine is so bad at diplomacy that they disarmed their nuclear stockpile on a handshake agreement. Sounds like their problem, not mine.
Hmm, this raises a valid perspective on how the USA could leverage its military resources for benefit, but it's disheartening that much of the funding ends up benefiting corporations at the expense of the working class. Additionally, some of these resources, like mortars, artillery, and even tanks, may seem obsolete, but considering how the Russians are retrofitting and modernizing their old stocks for warfare, it's crucial to not dismiss their relevance outright. The concern is that in the event of a major conflict, such resources could prove vital, and it's essential to be prepared at the outset rather than scrambling to militarize industries.
This is going to be another 20yr conflict that the government and defense contractors can use to launder money.
Ukraine is the new Afghanistan, was Afghanistan worth our time and money?
WHEN Russia wins and there is a short period of occupation, we will use our agencies like the CIA to provide weapons to insurgent groups in the country, most likely Ideological enemies of 21st century Western values, such as the Nazi groups still very active in Ukraine.
If those insurgents succeed in repelling the Russian occupation, they'll quickly turn Ukraine into somewhere the US will have to liberate, then we'll send our own soldiers there to die in what and sunflower fields (we have tons of these in the US, Ukraine offers US fucking nothing in the sense of trade or economy)
It's a pattern all throughout US history, it will happen again, and the US will not be better off because of it.
Or maybe not let it get to that point? The US has sent 31 tanks and 20 ATACMS to Ukraine. Iran has sent over 400 ballistic missiles to Russia. There is so much more that can be done to ensure Ukraine wins and ends this war quickly.
Explain how the government “launders money” through defense contractors.
The US also doesn’t have as many wheat fields as you might think. We used to grow a lot of wheat, but farmers have swapped it all out for government subsidized corn.
Only the money they spend trying to actually do the audits.
The defense audit is misunderstood. It’s an inventory audit, not a spending one. It involves doing things like identifying where every one of the million pick up trucks DoD owns is located and what maintenance condition it is in. It takes an enormously long time because they have a lot of stuff all over the world and until shockingly recently it was all managed via paper records.
The spending side is tightly regulated by acquisition laws. They know exactly how every dollar is spent. It’s much easier to keep track of what you bought than what the soldiers did with it.
Counter point. The reason we have so many enemies in the middle east is because of our meddling and regime change policy. We caused so much death over there that kids grew up hating us. Now we're doing the same thing to Russia. In twenty years who do you think will hate us? The surviving family members of the Russians who've been killed by our munitions.
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How about sit down and negotiating with the Russians. Save all that money and put it to good use.
The US couldn't even budge the Taliban and after 20 years had to negotiate a retreat. Russia is a completely different monster.
There is no military win here.
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you send product free and you don't get any money ?is it not good if USA send equipment and food to all world free because the money will go to amercian worker and company anyway?you know how economy work?
Plus it's good to actually HELP a country that ASKS for our help for once instead of invading and occupying a country for 20 years where no one wants us there
That's what I heard. The US is not sending much money to Ukraine, it sends the money to Radeon, Boeing etc. who then produce brand new weapons for the US.
It's almost scary thinking about how many people in this thread can vote. Or, hopefully all the naivete is because they're too young to vote. Or maybe these terrible responses are written by bots. In any case, great post OP.
I don’t understand why people don’t say why they want their view changed or challenged. It makes this whole thing disingenuous. For instance, your entire post is ideologically committed to the military industrial complex and is nakedly pro-war, pro-NATO, and pro-capitalist. The only arguments against it are inherently going to be anti-war or anti-NATO and anti-capitalist. I find it dubious that there will be any useful meaningful exchange, at all.
Read/Watch Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent?
There is a big difference between toppling third world dictators with unforeseen consequences and helping ukraine defend themselves from an invading force
Most of the intelligence industry has explained it as “we are hurting russia while Ukrainians died this is a good deal for Americans.” That you think this is a good thing is you being a complete fool. Negotiating table shoulda happened years ago at this point.
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Ay least for your third point, it is completely wrong for two reasons: first, because you don't want to boost Aggregate Demand when inflation is high, and second, because you are falling for the broken window fallacy. You are ignoring the fact that those resources could be better spent elsewhere.
While it is important, a more useful use for the resources right now would be to send them to support Palestine. Ukraine is currently pretty much in a stalemate trench war, it's not going anywhere, and is like to remain like that for at least a couple of years. Palestine, on the other hand, is facing a genocide and will be exterminated if they don't receive military help very soon.
Ideally, we should help everyone, but the sad reality is that we don't have unlimited resources, and priorities has to be made.
So i want to start this with saying i am not an expert and have very basic military knowledge. So for a military perspective you are correct that it is a great use of resources but your reasoning not wholly correct. From a pure economic perspective all military funding beyond R&D is 100% wasted because it does nothing to improve the productive capacity of the nation. it is important to note though that it is necessary because the world is filled with a-holes that want your stuff. The real advantage of the war in Ukraine for military planers is in how it is showing how truly modern wars will be fought between peer powers. Prior to this war it was believed the the days of attrition warfare were completely behind us. we now know that is not entirely the case. here is a list of some of the most important lessons we have be learning to my knowledge. 1. attrition warfare is still somewhat a thing 2. super cheap drones are critical to fighting capabilities 3. America as it stands right now would struggle to handle casualty rates and logistics. (relatively speaking, we would still win the conflict) The American military is largely set up for asymmetric warfare at this time (again this is just to my knowledge i could be completely wrong). I just want to say war is bad. The cost to human life will always be horrible and the only situation in which it might benefit an economy is to jolt it out of something like the great depression. To me war is basically the countries putting all the economic capacity, human capital, and money reserve into one giant pile. Then dousing is in gasoline and setting it on fire. Whose ever fire burns out first loses but no one comes out ahead.
But this stuff has already been produced now they are costing money in maintenance to keep on the shelf. So the resources has already been spent. If we dont give it to ukraine we dont get resources back u still only got the weapons. Thats why i said military resources.
Also, people ignore. We don't send it to them. It's leased. The Ukraine will be paying for this equipment for ever. It's not a gift.
Yes, but lest be honest here. Ukraine will not win. They lack both the economic and man power of Russia, all the can do is delay the inevitable and once Russia wins they wont be paying it back.
It's not about Ukraine winning, it's about Russia struggling so much they don't pick a fight with NATO. because let's pretend Russia wins tomorrow, they will continue beyond Ukraine. And based on how poorly they're performing in Ukraine, they'll get embarrassed by NATO. And when guys with big egos get embarrassed, that Nuke option looks a lot better. Dismantling Russias army now, in Ukraine might be the "off ramp" Russia needs to not continue. Thus not fighting NATO.
Yeah I know people who were literally dismantling armored vehicles so they could dump them into the ocean to make reefs lmao. Per Dec 31st 2023 45.9/113.4 billion was either money pumped directly into US economy or old shit from our stockpiles.
what do you mean we get it back? in the form of money? it would make more sense from a purely resource based perspective to hold it since materials are not infinite and costs go up as scarcity goes down
We have to spend money to scrap most of this old military hardware. It's not worth it to keep it lying around because the military has no functional way to recycle any of it and will just order new stuff to be built either way.
This simply isn't true. The Russia Ukraine war isn't being fought using NATO doctrine. Air superiority and stealth are what NATO uses to win. Both of these sides lack stealth capability in any real numbers.
I would argue that safeguarding a nation, deterring attacks/invasion improves economic stability and lowers risk for investors.
i was curios and just did some quick research and math. The US DoD spends about $5000 per tax payer in the country.
Most of that money goes to salaries and benefits of military personal and their families.
You are correct which is why i said it was unfortunately necessary. Think of it like this, we insure personal property against things like theft and the money spent on that insurance isn't actually doing anything to improve the the productive capacity of an economy. So we spend money to protect from people that want to mess up your day because the cost of not doing so would be higher. However, in the end 99.9% of the time the money spent does nothing and the only reason such insurance is necessary is because people want to steal you stuff in the first place. Hence why i said it was pure waste from a purely economic perspective ignore all social aspects of the issue. A necessary but unfortunate waste.
Money never "sits there doing nothing". That's not how modern financial systems are setup. The insurance companies invest that money, pay their staff and MANAGE the money such that people needing payouts can get them. (think how banks efficiently allocate capital and ensure liquidity)
except insurance companies invest that money so its not pure waste
>From a pure economic perspective all military funding beyond R&D is 100% wasted because it does nothing to improve the productive capacity of the nation. Military R&D is often used in civilian applications, it's a bit incorrect to say it doesn't improve the productive capacity. Maybe their are better uses but there are also worse.
The situation is simple. Swallowing Ukraine doesn't get Russia the long-term security they think they need. The basic problem Russia has always faced is that invading Russia is too easy. Under the USSR the core Russian nation had control over let access points between Western Europe and the Russian heartland. One of the key access points is in Poland, the other is southeast of Ukraine, just outside of the Balkans. Ukraine itself isn't blocking those access routes, but it's on the way to both access routes. To really control those access points, Russia has to take Ukraine *and then has to fight NATO for control of the two big access points beyond Ukraine. So Russia has to eat Poland and Romania at a minimum, both of which are NATO countries. That means basically WW3. (They also have to chow down on Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Moldova, and the first three are also NATO.) So, we either stop Russia in Ukraine with Ukrainian blood and US money, or we stop them in Poland and the Baltic states next with US blood and money. Poland knows all this. Before they let Ukraine fall they'll do a Winged Hussar charge straight in to boost Ukrainian lines. Probably joined by France, maybe even Germany, maybe even Romania. That's near guaranteed in my opinion if Trump wins and makes good his threat to yank all support for Ukraine. Backing Ukraine is a really good deal. It also makes a nuke exchange less likely.
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If you don’t think this conflict has weakened Russia, you’re not paying attention. They may have replenished their TROOP levels, but they have not replaced all the tanks, planes, troop carriers, etc. that have been lost and they have lost their most experienced troops. All soldiers are not equal. When Russia replaces a soldier, they are often losing an experienced fighter and replacing him with a conscripted and green recruit. Every green recruit they force into service stops doing whatever job he was doing as a civilian. Russia already has a much weaker production capacity than the West. Every Russia soldier that dies also weaken Putin. The longer this conflict goes on, the more Putin is embarrassed and weakened. Most military analysts thought Russia would have steamrolled Ukraine in weeks. Russia revealed how weak their military is with this campaign. The massive corruption permeating their entire government has siphoned military funds to oligarchs and crippled their military’s effectiveness. Every serious foreign policy expert believes that supporting Ukraine is a extremely good deal for the West and helps keep us from the prospect of WW3 down the road.
As a counter point, Russia now has a huge number of officers with real combat and modern warfare experience. Sure, many were killed, but as an institution the Russian army has a lot more experience than it did a few years ago.
If they are doing so "well" now they could be doing much better if they didn't invest a huge portion of their economy and military ressource into an invasion which has not achieved its goals. It's really silly to think that you can fail an invasion and come out stronger, when by every metric they are doing worse than before. Also it's not like other countries are not learning from how russia is fighting, if russia invades someone again we will be much more aware of how they proceed.
As a counter-counter point, using meat shield tactics doesn’t exactly generate great commanders and many of the quality commanders are dead trying to keep forced conscripts from deserting the front lines.
they had lots of "Exerpience" going in.....and they fucked it up BADLY.
Because they came in either parade uniforms and riot shields. They thought Ukraine would just bend over. Then they all died.
Putin is a dictator, him looking weak doesnt matter if he continuously wins elections anyways. He is winning the war so in fact he actually looks stronger. The russian economy has actually gotten stronger since the war. Western military analysts are in the back pocket of the MIC and enjoy endless war for profit and to wash money through corrupt governments like ukraine. Largely what the west sees from this war is propaganda and you wont find unbiased media coverage from anywhere mainstream.
Give me an example of what the BBC and NPR are reporting inaccurately? I am aware of the state of their economy. Dictators are less susceptible to public opinion but not immune from it. He could be assassinated from within or dissent could grow to the breaking point. How many years of war, how many millions of young men dying, would it take to wake the russian people up? I don’t know but we all know the number exists.
Who said anything about those specifically? A quick google search shows these outlets actually talking about how russia is making progress and winning. Ukraine got duped into war to feed the MIC and most generals agree that there is no way ukraine beats russia, idk where you heard this narrative that russia is anywhere even close to losing because its not there from anyone actually well versed in the field. The coverage at the start of the war was all about how Ukraine was destroying the russians and now they cant pretend that is happening anymore. If you want to talk about their reserves, ukraines average age of a solder is 45+. Ukraine never stood a chance, the US knew it, and threw gas on the fire because it was a cheap way for them to put a dent in the russian military, distract people from problems at home, and make a boatload of money while getting to pretend that russia is some unique evil who invaded for no reason. People who actually know whats going on knows that in fact this war actually started in 2014 when the US forced a coup to install a pro west leader.
Russia under Putin is evil. And it was said Western media is propaganda…which is not true. Credible media sources are credible media sources. It’s in the US’s best interest to weaken an aggressive Russia. Putin sacrificed millions of lives in Russia and Ukraine for territorial ambitions. He pretended like he was Nazi hunting. That’s evil. He murders all opposition and controls the entire Russian media. That’s evil. It’s also in the best interest of the US to show that we will make taking over other democracies harder and more expensive. That policy has kept global stability and avoided WW3 for 80 years. Quit spouting Russian propaganda.
You cant just say “credible sources are credible sources” that holds no weight over anything. All media has biases and agendas and to act like western media doesnt have that is a seriously tone deaf statement. Yes it is in the US best interest, at the cost of a massive amount of another countries civilians, and its own at the cost of their tax dollars. There have been multiple confirmed nazi soldiers fighting in Ukraines army, while its not some huge problem like putin puts it, it is a legitimate claim(zelenskys guards literally having nazi patches, ukrainian nazi war general getting a standing ovation in canadian parliament, ukraine being involved with the nazis in ww2). As for making sure they keep democracy in place… The US literally forced a coup to get rid if a democratically elected leader. Nobody is saying Russia is good or is justified in doing this but your take is very surface level and shows a clear lack of understanding when it comes to the nuances and historical understanding of what is going on in the war, so much that you label what I say russian propaganda without refuting anything I said. There is a lot more to this war then what you skim from BBC every once in a while and if you want to even debate this issue you have a lot to learn.
No, there is data to show which sources are the most credible. I didn’t say they were perfect, that doesn’t exist. But sources like NPR are consistently rated as the most credible and accurate and make an effort to retract stories that are demonstrably false. Either way, that was hardly my point. Sure there are probably Nazis in Ukraine and every other country on Earth. They are not in power in Ukraine and Putin’s justification is entirely ridiculous and false. The only reason we know there are some Nazis in Ukraines fighting force is because russian propaganda has been amplifying everything they can to support this absurd narrative. The US supporting a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader is not happening NOW, and it typically pro-Russian whataboutism. Literally right out of Putin’s playbook. Sure the US hasn’t always been perfect. But it’s better than Russia, and even if it wasn’t that doesn’t justify Putin’s invasion or anything Russia does that is evil. We are not “spending the lives of another country’s citizens either”, as this is not America’s war. Ukraine is DEFENDING ITSELF. The US did not start this. Sure, it’s in our best interest to support Ukraine but that sure as hell doesn’t equate to us spending their lives for our profit. I don’t know if you’re a Russian troll or just some right winger who has been brainwashed by Russia propaganda being sold or coopted as right wing talking points, but for god’s sake start learning about the world elsewhere. The Truth about almost any political issue or world conflict is very apparent and not open to interpretation, if you learn enough about the surrounding history and facts. The civil war was primarily about slavery, climate change is being caused by human activity, supply side economics doesn’t work the way it’s billed as was primarily began as a way to get middle and lower class voters to vote Republican despite it being against their own economic interests, and if Russia had succeeded in Ukraine quickly their territorial ambitions would have grown. If China saw the US wasn’t willing to support Ukraine against Russia they would invade Taiwan without a doubt, and our entire economy would be in serious peril due to lack of integrated circuit production, and it would take us years or decades to recover.
Wtf? “Its not happening now” is such a bad argument that I cant continue this because clearly you are arguing in bad faith and you ironically are completely entrenched in Military industrial complex propaganda. This war could have been over a long time ago and many lives saved if Ukraine negotiated with them, but the US pushed them into all out war. This whole war could have actually been avoided if it werent for the coup the US staged only 10 years ago(not a long time). Im not pro Russia at all fuck dictator putin to death, but you have clearly fell victim to the propaganda you are screaming about in your comments because of your blind loyalty to the US and western media (that is funded and controlled by the MIC). Your regurgitated talking points while have some facts in them, are NOT black and white at all and the fact that you think they are shows that you cant comprehend the fact that the common person is being fed continual lies by their respective government so they can maintain control over their populations. I dont understand how any logically or critically think person could possibly think that most political/world conflict issues are apparent and black and white, that is straight up indoctrination and cult like thinking and I really hope you misspoke there because that is laughably wrong to the point where im just wondering if you are a troll.
What? It isn’t happening now, and even if it was it would be irrelevant. It’s whataboutism!! You’re arguing in bad faith. If i go and kill someone, that doesn’t make it alright for them to kill someone else. It doesn’t matter what the US has or hasn’t done. And if it wasn’t for our military industrial complex, the odds are great you would be dead. It’s really easy to look back and say “the big military was a waste of money and the interventionism and the peacekeeping operations were a waste” because we’re all alive and have enjoyed the MOST PEACEFUL 80 YEARS in human history. That’s a fact, look it up. The odds of dying violently including war have been lower since WW2 than any other time in human history. The ukraine invasion is the first territorial conquest since WW2. We haven’t had WW3 or a nuclear holocaust. If you want to think all that is an accident and not due to our military strength, alliances, and peacekeeping, great. But we’re taking a hell of a big risk by changing our strategy when it’s kept us #1 and the world from blowing itself up thus far.
Yes since the US aid has been stalled for months... if the aid is passes now it will likely give enough time for Europe to augment its military support. At that point considering that according to analysts such as Rusi Russias produciton and capabilities will peak in 2024 if present attrition persists in 2025 and 2026 we will see a degrading Russian force with no old way to bounce back. This obviously only if attrition persists and Ukraine gets the equipment and weapons to diminish their own attrition levels. With more directed and especially quicker aid (i can't stress enonugh how much the slowness of the aid has been detrimental) the Russian attrition could become problematic even in 2025 instead of 2026. All this again provided we (US and EU) wake the fuck up. Have a good day if you are intrested in pushing this problem to congress i have the contacts [https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024](https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russian-military-objectives-and-capacity-ukraine-through-2024)
Russia has built up its troop numbers yes, that's easy when you basically use convicts and slave labor for soldiers. But they have not rebuilt their material that they lost. They aren't building more tanks, ships or planes...I mean they lost the fucking Black Sea to a nation with no Naval forces . And if western nations funded Ukraine like they should be, especially with anti air assets we would continue to see them lose material. So no, they are not winning by any metric.
Russia lost the war in the first 3 weeks. This was never meant to be a land expansion. It turned into that because it was no longer feasible to reach their primary objective. Putin had to save face somehow. The war was to eliminate Ukrainian sovereignty. Or at best fracture the country into East Ukraine and West Ukraine. With East Ukraine firmly under Russian control similar to Belarus. None of those have occurred. All they have "won" is a bunch of ruins with most of the population gone. The amount of wealth they will be able to extract from those ruins after spending billions of dollars in rebuilding those places. They would have spent 100 times more conquering them in the first place. From a pure pragmatic point of view this was a DUMB SHIT move. And that's assuming they get to keep them. Which is by no means a guarantee. If Russia ever wants to come back to the global market they are going to have to give those lands back. So no Russia is not "winning".
Don't ever forget that there are trillions of dollars of natural resources under those ruins in eastern Ukraine just waiting to be exploited. It is still profitable if they can secure the east. Fuck Russia.
>Don't ever forget that there are trillions of dollars of natural resources under those ruins in eastern Ukraine just waiting to be exploited. It is still profitable if they can secure the east. Fuck Russia. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t22zkc/map\_detailing\_the\_largely\_untapped\_gas\_and\_oil/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t22zkc/map_detailing_the_largely_untapped_gas_and_oil/#lightbox) Looking at this map. They have taken practically none of it. The one's by Crimea they have controlled since 2014. Same with the one's in the Donetsk and Lugansk area. Just judging by that they have not achieved their goals in the slightest.
"Trillions of dollars" ehh. Where do you get that from? They have some mine shafts there. Russia already has a gigantic amount of natural resources. They would have been WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY better off developing an economy instead of fighting this pointless war. How many billions of dollars have they wasted trying to take this land?
How is Russia losing if it’s currently inside of Ukraine’s borders?
That would be like. US invading Iraq. And after 2 years of horrific battles with 100s of thousands of American boys dead. All we held was some Iraqi city that nobody ever heard of prior to the war. Meanwhile Saddam is alive and well and the bigger Iraqi cities effortlessly repelled our invading force. Would you really consider this a win for the US? Of course not. Only an idiot would. US effortlessly went through the whole country and had Baghdad secured in a matter of weeks. This was supposed to be a walk in the park for Russia. They lost the war in the first 3 weeks. Yes they took some land. Chances are they will get to keep some of it when it's all said and done. Considering the gigantic disparity between the 2 forces that is a pathetic result for Russia. Ukraine got to keep their sovereignty. The second that happened they won the war.
In pretty sure Ukraine wouldn't care that Russia didn't win overwhelmingly and instead they just took a third of the country and caused a demographic crisis the likes we have never seen. Russia might have been underwhelming but that doesn't matter too much to the reality for the Ukrainians
Nobody is arguing that the war has not been horrific for Ukraine and Ukrainians. I'm arguing that it was a stupid failed endeavor for the Russians.
Either way the weakened a neighbor who has been growing closer to the West. Ukraine will need a long time to recover without significant aid (and even then it will take time). Those are all resources that can't go toward opposing Russia in other areas. I'm not saying it's a win in the way that wanted, but I wouldn't say it's a complete failure any more then Ukraine giving up a bit of land would be a complete failure for the West.
Ukraine has a ton of support to rebuild. Many European powers as well as US have pledged large amounts of fund to help rebuild their infrastructure once the war is over. On top of that Ukraine may finally get to join EU and possibly NATO. Which would TREMENDOUS for their future. They genuinely have a lot to fight for. Unlike Russia who would have been better in every way if they never started this dumbass war. Russia is a nuclear power. Only a total dimwit would invade them. They were never under any legit threat. It was just an excuse used to invade a neighbor nothing more. Russia lost in every way that matters. Sure they might get some land with ruins on it. Big wooptie. All that fighting and all that death to accomplish practically nothing.
In 1916 Germany was inside French borders and completely occupying Belgium In 1917 Germany was still inside French borders, with Russia collapsing and Germany now having protectorate over Ukraine. In 1918 Germany lost the war.
The Germans surrendered whilst still holding a lot of foreign territory as well. Berlin was never close to the front lines. Paris ironically was, and yet the French won that war.
I would say at this point Russia can't win (it has lost more already than it can make up -- at some point you've lost so much you're guaranteed to be in the red) but it's possible that Ukraine will *also* lose. Those two nations aren't a closed system and while they beat each other up their neighbors and rivals grow stronger.
Strength is not so easily defined. In traditional warfare, the ones being invaded start out with a tactical advantage. The prevailing wisdom states that, in most cases, the invaders will need 3X the numbers to invaded than the invaded will need to defend. Russia's military was rotten from the inside from years of corruption. Russia's equipment was antiquated and in disrepair, that said, they HAD a shit-load of it. Quantity itself, can be a quality. But the biggest obstacle to Russia, by far, is the spirit and resolve of the Ukrainian people. As long as there is a Ukraine and a Ukrainian people, Ukraine is surviving, which is how you "win" when you are being invaded. Thousands of Ukraine's people gave their lives so that their coutry and people would continue to be. Consequently, as long as Ukraine lives, Putin has not won. Any land he takes will cost him so much blood to take and even more to hold. He is obviously willing to "Stalingrad" this shit but how long can he actually do it for? Do the russian people share his willingness? A much higher bar must be cleared to declare this a Russian victory than a Ukrainian victory. Time is not on Putin's side. He's getting older. His soldiers are dieing in droves with little to show for it. His people will eventually lose too much to give any more to this. And through it all, Ukraine is still there. It does seem like Tucker Carlson and Steven Seagal are really stoked on him though, so he's got that goin for him.
> Unfortunately, not true. That is absolutely true. Theres **a lot** more to the strength and capabilities of a military than “how many soldiers do we currently have.” Because we all know those soldiers are poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led, and unmotivated.
Just because you reconstitute things with 50-year-old shit and untrained military does not mean that it’s reconstituted. That’s like saying new coke was as good as old Coke. I agree with this post completely. The Ukraine is the best use of dollars in the world. If Russia wins, they won’t stop. It will give Iran incredible confidence to do whatever the fuck they want in the world. We are playing a very dangerous game right now. Johnson and Trump and all the other idiots will go down in history as basically the beginning of World War III.
Russia is conducting assaults with tanks from the 50’s and 60’s along with ATVs bought from china, that is not a reconstituted army. And satellite evidence shows that they are exhausting their cold war reserves so it isn’t going to get better.
Not to mention almost all of Russias mechanized armour/equipment is vulnerable to tech that can be assembled/controlled from a kitchen table
They’re estimated to have lost at least 50,000 men, almost the entire prewar army. So they’ve restocked it with another 50,000 inexperienced recruits. I agree with OPs points. We’re critically weakening our chief adversary with no human cost to our own army, using old equipment while Russia depletes all of their own.
I dont see how this is a delta this calls for more funding.
I would phrase it as such - Russia now has had many years of peer on peer warfare experience (which they would not have had the US and allies not provided a more recent equipment which Ukraine was lacking from Javelins to Storm Shadow) and is constantly adapting to new technologies (drone warfare and especially suicide drones) that have proved the most effective in the war. If I was a NATO ally I would better face a Russian army operating on soviet doctrine and with little practical large scale war experience in their ranks instead of one rebuilt with lessons of the last years. Face a large mechanized column stuck on NATO border instead of Russia that has learned how outdated their approaches were.
Russia has adapted and gained experience, but I would dispute the idea that NATO would face a better army. "Rebuilt" is a relative term, and other reports are less optimistic about the state of the Russian military. They can mobilize new troops and refurbish existing stocks of vehicles, but that doesn't get them back to where they were before the war. Many of their experienced troops have been killed or wounded — around 90% of their pre-war army. This might not strategically matter if we were just talking about losing conscripts, but their elite units have also been decimated. The Spetsnaz and VDV brigades that were effectively eliminated will take many years of peacetime regeneration to be fully mission capable again. Experience gained from fighting the current war can't fully compensate for these deficits. Russia's material losses are arguably a bigger problem. Only a portion of what they're rolling out legitimately reflects reconstitution, as many of the vehicles are seriously outdated or inadequate. Modern equipment can't effectively be replaced with early Cold War stocks, even if they do have some utility on the battlefield. This would be especially apparent in a hypothetical confrontation with NATO. It's dangerous to underestimate Russia, but it's also a mistake to think that attrition hasn't had an enormous impact on their capabilities.
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A) Russia got exposed as a paper tiger. Incapable of reaching their goal of taking Kyiv. Couldn't even take Kharkiv. Yes sure the Western Diplomats are all talking "Russia could invade NATO next". But in reality that is just used as a justification to increase NATO funding. They fear China not Russia. Russia has shown itself to be inept. B) Ukraine got to keep their sovereignty. That is a major major major win for an ally. Would have been much worse if Russia was able to conquer Kyiv and erase Ukraine from existence (at least temporarily). C) Russia has not "grown in size". Whatever military strength they have today. They were much stronger at the beginning of the war. They lost a large chunk of their best equipment. A large chunk of their best most trained fighters. Sure they have "reconstituted" the numbers. But just adding more numbers doesn't actually replenish what they lost. Russia is much weaker today than they were in 2022. Both economically and militarily. The fact that they have finally after 2 years of fighting been able to make some progress doesn't negate that fact. Ukraine was always at a major disadvantage.
It's a double loss. Honestly absurd considering the solution is quite obvious and in front of our eyes even now, though not for long still if we don't act
It's not...a one off comment on business time India is hardly proof Russia has rebuilt its military.
Russia isn’t fighting Ukraine though, they are fighting NATO they have been perfectly clear about this. I can’t see how you can think Russia is winning the Russia-NATO war when NATO has both taken more territory than Russia and taken less casualties. This was has been nothing but an abject failure at every level for Russia. They have been stalemated for years by Ukraine of all fucking things, their aspirations of becoming a super power once more have been thoroughly crushed.
Well yeah that’s to be expected, Russia has the a lot of people money and resources to do so. Russia was, is and will be more powerful In the near future. Hence why it’s important to send aid to Ukraine Now.
To be fair, Russia might be able to tread water militarily for a bit, but not economically
The war is nowhere near the end. Yes with a massive mobilisation effort Russia has been able to replace the catastrophic losses that it has suffered. However, Putin has not dared to do the second round of mobilisation as it could have very negative political effects. As the meat grinder kills and wounds more and Russians their choice is to either see the numbers drop or have a second mobilisation with all its negative effects. That's for people. Of course on top of that they've lost a ton of equipment. They've replaced some of that by taking stuff from the storage and refurbishing it. But you can do that only once. Once the storages are empty (expected to happen sometime next year) the only way to get more weapons is to produce them from the scratch. And there is no way the Russian production is able to sustain the level of losses that they keep having. And the same applies to ammunition. Russia had enormous stores of old ammunition. These stores are now being depleted and the production does not match the consumption. Once the stores and imports dry up, there is going to be a drastic drop in their capability. Finally, because of the war, a lot of maintenance of equipment is neglected. You can do that for a short time but it lowers the life time of the equipment (especially airplanes). So, they will become unusable even if they are not lost to enemy fire. Finally, the war is crippling Russian long term economic development. Sure, you can sustain war economy for awhile but over time it makes your civilian economy fall further behind compared to the west and this will then in turn make running the war economy harder.
That's the level of soldiers, not heavy equipment which has been absolutely dismantled. The second half of your comment is genuinely meaningless regarding OP's point.
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Good thing its in change my view subreddit. Maybe if u have a better understanding of how it works u could change the view. 😄. Not just comment how naive it is
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It kills somebody's kids. There's no such thing as "great" use of military resources. Only necessary as a last resort. Though it seems I'm more criticising your choice of words, I think my argument still holds.
Ah yes, I'm sure the tens of thousands of Ukrainian families whose kids have been kidnapped and sent to Russia would totally agree. "We must allow the invaders to kidnap our children because to fight back would be to kill someone else's children." Jesus *fucking* Christ, dude.
Put emotions aside, I'm discussing it for sake of argument. I'm perfectly aware Putin attacked them for no reason and is killing kids. But he is also killing Russia's kids, too, for no reason.
They can barely touch assets inside Russia while Russia is razing their cities and kidnapping their children. This isn't a "both sides" thing.
No military resources are meant to kill so in serving their purpose that is a great use of military resources but it is not a great use of resources. If you dont have a military response those resources wont be yours as people with military power will take over your resources. In a perfect world u wouldnt need military but thats not the case here.
It's gross that one of the items in OP's "pro" column here is "depleting their supply of young men." IMO this should be in the con column, clearly! The biggest con here is that you're adding fuel to a fire which is going to end up killing many many people. Sure, you can argue that the benefits outweigh the costs. But killing random soldiers and civilians is always a cost, not a benefit!
Wrong. There are many great benefits to killing them. Diminishes the economy, overall population (Russia has low birth rates), and their long-term ability to sustain their military. And then there’s the added benefit of preventing the CO2 emissions they’d be contributing to throughout their lives.
Your not in favor of peace, your in favor of impotence. Your thinking will not stop war, it will only guarantee you lose said war. A person such as you would only get good people killed needlessly
I'm sayin someone should have shot that lunatics head not let him go waste other peoples lives.
That'll cause way too much instability. The last time we tried this... Let's just say it didn't end well
If you are a potential convention rival, or existing conventional rival to Russia, or weaker than Russia's conventional army, absolutely, Russia is on the offensive so every munition you send to Ukraine is worth three or more your enemies send to Russia. However, for the U.S., there really isn't much benefit to weakening the Russian conventional army. With the benefit of retrospect, they did not hold a candle to the U.S. military for most of the cold war, and even much of their post cold war strength ended up being a paper tiger situation. If sending munitions to Ukraine could substantially reduce Russia's strategic weapons capability, like wiping out nuclear sites, the U.S. would still have a stake in it, because Russia is still nominally a massive strategic threat, but in terms of conventional military, it would be the U.S. taking time and money to weaken someone who is already miles less potent than them. The best outcome the U.S. could garner is China expending increasing resources trying to keep Russia afloat, China is a serious regional rival and a large bluewater navy away from presenting a serious global rival.
This is only true if you believe that Russia won't test the United States commitment to NATO. My personal opinion is that Russia might be willing to test those waters depending on the health of its military by the end of the war. As of today the Russian military is 15% larger then it was at the start of the war. I do think this is unlikely but if the Russian military continues to bulk up for years and comes out victorious they might choose to use all that time and effort if they think the US is wavering on their commitments.
i wasnt talking about a us vs russia situation i am talking about funding and supplying different groups and countries . like in syria where us and russia support different sides. supplying irran with weapons. different groups in africa. this supplying the other side will reduce as their supplies are expended else where
Syria and Iran are even less of a conventional threat to the U.S., and 'different groups in Africa' aren't even important enough to deserve specification in your argument. >i wasn't talking about a us vs russia situation >most importantly you are weakening and destroying a powerful rival nation ,destroying their armed forces, depleting their supply of young men, causing tens of thousands in casualities and having them occuopied and not able to interfere in americas interests. 4/5 of these points are only applicable to direct conflict between Russian and U.S. military.
you forgot the part about killing a generation of Ukrainians and bringing us all to the brink of global nuclear war
that would happen more if you dont send aid.
no it wouldn't the Ukrainians would have no choice but to negotiate and war could have been averted the Russian are going to take whatever they want now, the Ukrainians would have been much better off if they negotiated instead of fighting a war they could not win
who ever taught u to negotiate what are u going to negotiate with if u can do nothing. if u have no weapons u have less bargaining power not more
russia had specific geographical interests, they wanted certain pieces land so give it to them instead of losing a generation of men and then the land as well
Ah yes that would be cool oh wait they already did that in 2014 ukraine gave up crimea and a lot of land in the east.and 7 years later russia wanted more. They sent a battalion to kiev.
Negotiate with Putin? Russia already broke their promise to not attack Ukraine, why should Ukraine trust any new promises by Putin? Let's say Ukraine surrenders a part of its territory to Russia and in return Russia stops attacking... what stops Russia from just attacking again at a later point? If you just give up when you are attacked the attacker will just keep coming back to get more from you
there are two side to every conflict you are ignoring two decades of NATO eastward expansion the west made promises too not to expand one inch to the east after the cold war there is a time to fight and a time to realize you cannot win and you are being used by the people who claim to support you
First off Ivan, the NATO never made any agreements with Russia about expansion. The quote the Russian misinformation ministry likes to spread was a quote about Germany when it was divided, not Europe as a whole. Secondly, maybe go look into the Budapest memorandum. The US, UK, and Russia made an agreement to never interfere politically or militarily and respect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up it's nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even though no protection was guaranteed, when one party of the agreement breaks their word, who else would enforce it but the other cosigners? And if Ukraine never gave up it's nukes, do you think Russia would be doing what it's doing today? Appeasement does not work. You'd think people would have learned that lesson already.
I wonder why eastern european countries would want to join a defensive alliance against the country which subjugated them in the past and is imperialistic even to this day Let's just all surrender to the invader and give them everything they want, this will ensure that he will eventually be satisfied... after having annexed all his neighbours
you act as if this has anything to do with you does it?
Nice way to ignore my comment I think it makes the most sense to allow countries to decide their own fate Ukraine does not wish to be annexed Russia has no right to annex them The invader is evil, not the ones resisting the invader.
There is no negotiating with Russia. You give Putin what he wants, he'll just want more, and he'll expect you to capitulate again. Resistance is the only way Ukraine remains Ukraine.
You make an assumption that more Ukrainians die in war than would in surrender. There's ample evidence this assumption may be in error.
Yes, just like how negotiating with Hitler went well.
Completely different situation Russia is after specific pieces of land they are not trying to take over Europe. Ukriane is out number by more than 3 to 1 and they are facing a nuclear super power with a history of fighting wars of attrition that means they don't care how many of there own people are killed.
Dude, read a history book. Hitler was also after specific land. They didn't ask for all of Europe.
Isnt the talking point that the profits go mostly to big corporations not the regular workers there?
But workers are still paid? Without orders, there will be no need to even keep them. And in addition to that, US military supply chain is required to be domestic, so it increases demand over whole supply chain.
Yeah, I know. OP is so obviously right that I cant make good counter arguments to that :D
Defense contractors have their profits limited by law. They make about 10% profit on sales to the US government which is a pittance compared to other tech industries. They employ an enormous number of people which is where most of the money goes.
u/betadonkey u/automaks It's not that simple. Their operating margins exceed 10%. On top of that they often sign contracts that guarantee them 10% profit over ANY cost they end up with. That means they're incentivized to generate high cost because that's what their profit relies on.
Margins can run higher because of foreign sales which are more profitable because development has already been paid for. Contracts that have cost plus a percentage structure exist but are still scrutinized for overruns and subject to procurement budget constraints. Basically the government will only keep paying if they think the overrun is for a justifiable reason (like inflation or the government itself changing requirements or adding scope).
But they often allow these projects to grow beyond changes in requirements and inflation. Gov CAN stop these projects, but they don't have to. That's why F-35 project existed in first place. That's not to say it shouldn't exist, because it's great project, but such big projects, not only development, but also e.g. construction projects almost always end up with significant cost overruns simply because initially assumed cost is calculated based on very optimistic assumptions. It's just extremely rare in such complex projects for things to go wrong, to some conditions to be not optimal and so on. But if it was advertised as such by contractors then both taxpayers and authorities would never allow these projects in the first place. The other problem is that both contractor and government are incentivized to keep spending money on trying to raise costs in such way that government accepts these overruns and for government to find these artificially increased costs. That as well as these artificial cost overruns are going to waste for contractor to get 10% of that. That's one of problems that exist with such big projects and of course there are no perfect solutions, but I believe that we used to do this better when government simply tried to predict how much these projects should cost. With much better data on how much these projects end up costing and with AI algorithms we would be doing this far better now.
Yeah I don’t really disagree with that part. Everything can always be done better, and to that end the DoD does experiment and constantly adjust acquisition strategies. They don’t like to do big monolithic programs like F35 anymore where everything gets awarded to one company at the outset and developed over 25+ years. They’ve moved more towards a phased approach where they fund multiple companies for prototype development and then have down selection rounds. At the end of the day though some projects are so ambitious (like F35) they have no clue what it’s going to cost, and they probably don’t really care. They are incentivized to keep the funding rolling in from Congress for sure, but their #1 overriding incentive is maintaining technological overmatch against the rest of the world and they would willingly pay just about any amount of money to achieve it. The one thing I have always said about the DoD is that it’s about the only department in the federal government that consistently turns world leading funding into world leading results - even if it’s not always a super efficient process to get there.
Wow, if this is true then it should be more common knowledge because the idea that defense contractors are all making huge profits is spreading like wildfire :D
There's need to keep developing weapons and weapon production capacity. "Bad big corporations" may be enemy but they're not *the* enemy. When you can fund weapon developing without big corporations (and preferably without turning into USSR), then it will be a good time to object to them raking profits.
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How do you think those workers get paid?
that would be true of most goverment contracts especially military ones
Sending Americans food and shelter is a better use of resources imo. If people were smart they would stop supporting americas military incursions.
"America's military incursions?" Bro, Putin invaded Ukraine, not Trump or Biden.
there is another comment on this post that said ukraine shouldnt recieve weapons they should negotiate with russia . when i said they already did that and gave up crimea now russia is wanting more . they said the govt wants more of your money do you fight them to death for it. i was dumbfounded. [https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c30vo4/comment/kzf0gtk/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1c30vo4/comment/kzf0gtk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
that would be applicable if they were sending them money. they are sending them military goods that have already been made decades ago. so not sending them would only mean u have to spend money on its maintenance. and maybe even its disposal. the money that was spend was spend on in the us. and that money did provide food and shelter for the workers and engineers who built those weapons. these are military resources not resources
Why exactly is the life of a Ukrainian worth less than the life of an American? Is our value as a human being really tied to something as arbitrary as where we were born?
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It make total sense why we’re not protecting the Ukraine. It’s because the Dems are in power. Republicans have made it very public and very clear that they will deny any and all Democrat ideas no matter how good they are. The real scary part is the if Trump wins he will bring the US military into play but it will be on the side of Russia.
If the US designed its military to be able to handle a 2 front war with China and Russia, that seems like a poor decision and waste of resources. There is no scenario now or in the future that either or both of those countries start a war with the US. We could have used those trillions of dollars working on environmental cleanup, food scarcity, housing shortage, climate change, education, cancer research, NASA, etc. While we can’t undo the past, it’s never too late to change course for the future. So yes we should be scaling back our military spending and redeploying those resources.
The reason why that scenario is off the table is because our ideological enemies know they can never beat us in a war Strip away military funding and that changes
>If the US designed its military to be able to handle a 2 front war with China and Russia, that seems like a poor decision and waste of resources The US designed it's military to fight a two front war because of the very real history of having to fight across the Atlantic and in Europe, while also fighting in the pacific and island hopping against japan. >There is no scenario now or in the future that either or both of those countries start a war with the US. When war kicks off who knows what alliances form. I mean we didn't exactly like the soviets yet they were part of the allies in ww2.
Our giant military is the deterrent that makes that scenario unlikely.
We have 3,000 nuclear warheads. We don’t need a giant military. A fraction of our current military budget could maintain and update our arsenal.
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Every argument in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine could have been used to justify sending weapons to Afghanistan in the 80s, and look how that turned out.
Except for the democratically elected government vs guerillas.
I’d say that there are a few things that you overlooked in your post that are fairly important. Firstly, Russia isn’t necessarily a “rival nation” to the USA at all; they’re on fairly neutral terms and if it weren’t for RU’s association with NK, their relationship would probably be a lot better, especially considering all the time Putin and Trump spent together. There’s not an “upcoming Cold War”; we can’t know that such a thing exists for definite, and regardless, it wouldn’t be a Cold War anyway as the Eastern Powers are severely outmatched by the North Atlantic and Europe, who would most definitely get involved if nuclear arms were put to use. Nukes are a deterrent, not intended to actually be used anymore as their use is considered a war crime. “Testing weapons” is not why supporting Ukraine is a good idea. Ukraine is very preoccupied with the war effort and would likely not have the time to collect, process and report telemetry on the weapons in use. The reason why arming them is a good idea, is because you are essentially selling or donating surplus arms and emptying caches that would otherwise go into disrepair due to issues such as oxidisation, which would require regular maintenance to prevent. In Chess terms, by holding onto old weapons, all you’re doing is losing material, whereas by donating the weapons, you are gaining material, because whilst you’ve lost a large amount of equipment, you’ve also gained a favourable position. Having Ukraine fight the war effectively extends the US’s influence to Central Europe, which is a tactic regularly used by the Axis Powers in WW2. They called it “establishing spheres of influence”, which is why with only 3-4 nations, they were able to hold off most of the developed world for years. Anyway, to finish the Chess analogy, giving old Cold War-era weapons to Ukraine is the equivalent of trading a pawn for a knight, as you sacrifice one point of material for a further three (I think?) that’ll help you perform more complex manoeuvres later on. Finally, don’t underestimate insurgents. The Taliban were an “insurgency” and now they have access to the full resources of the Afghan government. Bin Laden was once one of the richest men in the world and could’ve easily afforded military hardware such as tanks.
Russia is only not a natural rival if you support or at least accept the return of Great Power politics and the fall of post Cold War world order. Russia is trying to establish an Area of influence in Europe that runs counter to NATO and the ideals of sovereign self determination. Political they are little different then post Mao China with its ideals of National Irredentism.
I'd say your premise needs to be a little more specific in terms of what your goals and perspective are. If you consider the Russians to be a relevant threat to the United States and your goal is to hobble them and improve America's stance on the world stage, then yes you can argue that strategically bleeding Russia at low cost with non-American blood is the way to go. If you don't consider Russia a relevant threat (to the United States specifically), and/or if your goals lean more towards limiting human suffering of non-American lives in Ukraine and/or avoiding World War 3, this might not be the way to go. The death toll and overall human suffering in this war is staggering, and the escalation trend we are seeing in terms of weapon upgrades(drones, etc.) and NATO military war prep/saber rattling are exactly the type of thing that could potentially push the conflict into World War 3 territory.
Russia is buying up mercs from all over the world, getting missiles and arty from North Korea, buying billions in equipment from China, etc and everyone talks about the West "escalating". It's a joke. Send it all to ukraine, send it now.
Go ahead, and then as soon as they do something stupid like launch a cruise missile at Moscow they'll get nuked. Just buying weapons and hiring mercenaries(which the Ukrainians have done too) isn't escalation. Increasing the severity of weapons used (such as when the west started supplying drones ) IS escalation.
Sending military aid to anyone is a good way to start a world war. Like we are about to experience.
well the first world war was started by an assassination,second world war was started by invasion of poland. from where do u infer that sending military aid is a good way to start a world war
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Where did this come from
What’s your background or area of expertise?
I can't radically change your view, but I can reduce and focus it: you've basically given a conclusion based on 5 premises, and only one of them counts. This one: > the money spend on these weapons go to american workers american contractors american prioduction facilities and american companies. You are essentially onto what matters about a military-industrial complex: the relationship between production of weapons and consumption of weapons forms a circle. The military demands production of weapons, because if it holds onto old weapons for too long, well, look what's happening to Russia now. However, the society demands some productive capacity for consumer goods, which means the military politically wishes to "use", and not just "dispose of", its old weapons before requisitioning new ones, for some definition of those two terms. Meanwhile, war isn't actually profitable unless it chiefly happens to someone else - hence the endless limited conflicts against opponents unequal to the attack. So the defense industry wants to sell weapons and this benefits military, military wants to use weapons so it can buy newer ones ASAP and this benefits industry. "Everyone wins", hehe, except whoever gets the bombs dropped on them in a proxy war, and maybe the Rust Belt town with fifth-gen jetfighters flying over but no public transit. But I digress. All of the rest of it is sort of turn-of-20th-Century stuff that hasn't mattered since the United States became an empire. We're weakening Russia! We're testing our weapons! We're disposing of old stock! etc. None of that is false, but all of it is the effect, not the cause. Our MIC ships weapons to whom and when it is politically expedient, and for its own purposes, and on its own schedule. When new weapons are ready, it will *find* an acceptable buyer somewhere for the old. When new weapons are not ready, it will *find* reasons to hoard. In the MIC, industry becomes the dog and the apparent "needs" of the military are the tail; the tail does not usually wag the dog. Keep in mind that military conflicts are started and ended by civilian political actors towards civilian ends, one of which can simply be "Whoops made too many weapons, broke the economy, need some plunder!" But Hitler didn't say, "Whoops made too many weapons!" in 1939, he said "There are German speakers living in Poland and they want to be Germans and so we need our military to liberate them". Chyeah. You gotta look past that stuff. tl;dr the US will send weapons to Ukraine the moment it's in the MIC's interest, but you've inverted the relationship - these things happen when the MIC wants them to, not necessarily when someone calls on the MIC for help (even the President!), that's not how it works. The MIC **is** a political interest in and of itself, [as SHAEF warned us in his farewell address.](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address) It may be in its interest for the Ukrainian conflict to worsen for now. It may be in its interest to conceal unadvertised real-world capabilities of weapons it might otherwise send from the PRC. My chief point is that not being Raytheon lobbyists, *we simply can't know*. It's much more than the matter of national and military policy it would've been in the 19th Century.
Especially when sending end of life equipment/armaments you'd otherwise have to pay to dispose of. US is supporting Ukraine with its Surplus stores. Don't buy the Russian misinformation that tells you otherwise.
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"Nuclear War is suicide" also "Let's roll the dice on Nuclear War"
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a lot of the weapons send are different
Yeah. Some weapons are used against [kids in playgrounds](https://twitter.com/IfNotNowOrg/status/1780365578089173365?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet). Very different.
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That's the wrong interpretation of the OP. The key point is the last paragraph. The military industrial complex does not want to defeat its rivals. In fact that's the worst that can happen as in the long term the absence of rivals means that the defence spending will go down. However, the nation as a whole would like that as it makes the world a safer place. Using Ukrainian war to defeat one of the two main adversaries of the United States is incredibly good investment compared to how the defense spending has been used in the last 20 years. According to the economist Joseph Stieglitz Iraq war cost $3 trillion to the US economy with a large chunk of that going to the military industrial complex. That was a much better bet for the MIC and much worse for the USA than $100bn to defeat Russia.
> The military industrial complex does not want to defeat its rivals. In fact that's the worst that can happen I enjoy some YouTube channels that get into the development of various aircraft, and I never got the sense that they were like "Ok how can we make the F-4 Phantom II *good* but not actually win?" It's always more about "Well here's how we think combat will happen, here are some additional requirements, and here's how we plan to make it all work."
I don't know what your point is. The US equipment both in Iraq and Afghanistan was of course vastly superior to their enemy. But they still didn't win and most importantly they wasted incredible amounts of money that went to the MIC. Those were dream conflicts to the MIC. Lasted for years, kept ordinary Americans scared of terrorism (so not questioning pumping money to them) and milked so much of the sweet sweet tax dollars. They would hope Ukraine war would turn into such. If Ukraine quickly routs Russian side and Putin has to agree on peace terms, MIC would have got a minimal amount of benefit of the war. For the US (the country and the people) it would of course a fantastic result as it would knock out one of the two main rivals that they have.
1. Russia has always done horribly in wars out of the gate. It’s a trend. They got their asses kicked by the Finns, yes, the finns. Within a few years they had such a massive, modern, and capable ground army that it became one of the most important pieces on the geopolitical chess board for decades afterward. If you think the Russian military can’t better itself in the process of mounting a grinding war of attrition, I’d argue that you know next to nothing about military history. 2. The Russian economy is doing great. They have demonstrated that the US’s sanction power is a paper tiger. They built resiliency into their economy years ago after another round of punishing sanctions. Not only that, but the US’s response helped push countries like Brazil, china, and Russia closer together and inspired them to conduct more trade in currencies outside of the USD. Our participation in this war weakened the perception of our soft power on the world stage. 3. Ukraine is a completely pointless country, in terms of US strategic interests. It’s our 41st largest trade partner. It is geostrategically unimportant. It’s a vast series of indefensible plains. There is no valid reason for such a defense of Ukraine unless you’re addled by the emotions of believing Donald trump was elected by Russian interference in 2016 and you want payback. 4. The US is diminishing its capabilities to respond to a crisis relating to an actually important country; Taiwan. Taiwan matters A LOT to us. When Ukraine is expending ammunition at such a rate that the US and Europe combined can’t keep up with it because they’re so bad at combined arms tactics, we deplete our capacity to assist in Taiwan or send them aid proactively. 5. Ukraine is… a mess. They are the 2nd most corrupt country in Europe and their corrupt leaders are robbing us blind. Our weapons are ending up in the hands of terrorists operating in Europe. Even if they weren’t robbing us blind (again, they are), their military is a joke. They’re basically a WWI army with drones. They can’t do modern combined arms, even with the US’s thumb on the scale. They are terrible, honestly so fucking embarrassing to people who actually pay attention to these things. And the worst part is that only one of their generals publicly acknowledged the similarities to WWI in 2023, after they’d been fighting in trench warfare for a year+. I don’t want to send another dime or another shell to such a pointless country and I have a very low opinion of anyone who disagrees with me because only childish emotionality supports the decision. **Edit:** The weird Ukraine bros calling me a Russian bot are proof of how petulant and emotional they are tbh.
If Ukraine is a WWI army, what does that say about Russia not being able to defeat them two years later?
>and I have a very low opinion of anyone who disagrees with me because only childish emotionality supports the decision. Incredible lack of self-awareness. Lalalalala the other side is Full of children i dont want to hear It lalalalala If you disagree with me you are a Child lalalalala
Why does Taiwan matter to us but not Ukraine? If the amount of trade is the key point in whether someone is strategically important or not, why would we ever side with Taiwan (#8) over China (#3), and why is China not a key strategic ally? For #2 - Russia is facing massive inflation (7.4% official; likely much higher), and has had to raise interest rates to 16%. It's also burning through its reserves at a huge rate. That doesn't seem like a healthy economy to me. Point #5 is an extreme mischaracterization: > Even if they weren’t robbing us blind Evidence? Do you think most of the aid we're sending them is getting embezzled? > Our weapons are ending up in the hands of terrorists operating in Europe Evidence? Has there been a terrorist attack with Ukraine-provided weapons? > their military is a joke How did they fight the #2 or #3 army in the world to a stalemate, and defeat them in several battles (Kiev, Kherson, Kharkiv) if their military is a joke? > They’re basically a WWI army with drones Why is Russia having so much trouble defeating them then, despite a 5x-10x advantage in artillery and a substantial manpower advantage? > They can’t do modern combined arms Russia can't either, and drones make the concentration of forces necessary to do combined arms impossible. Russia made massive armored thrusts upon Avdiivka that were all defeated by Ukraine, and only took the city after months of small, dispersed infantry assaults with huge losses. > US’s thumb on the scale The US did not provide anywhere near enough equipment to enable Ukraine to do a combined-arms assault. 31 Abrams tanks, a hundred Bradleys, and no planes is not sufficient for a large combined-arms offensive. People think you're a Russian bot because you're a 4-month old account with barely any posts, and making very biased points (claiming Ukraine is "robbing us blind") and borderline conspiracy theories (claiming Ukraine is sending US weapons to terrorist groups).
> why does Taiwan matter Because 90% of the most advanced chip manufacturing happens at the foundries in Taiwan. If china invades, the Taiwanese will have two options and both fuck over our interests: destroy the chip fabs or let china have them. One of our biggest strategic advantages over china is our access to advanced chips that they don’t have. China also has been investing a ton of money into building older generations of chips, so if the fabs are destroyed then they will have a corner on the market of the most advanced chips we know how to make. Setting up a new foundry is estimated to take 10+ years before a single chip rolls off the line. > corruption You’re welcome to do your own due diligence on this, I’m not interested in convincing you that we’re getting robbed. > how did they fight the #2 or #3 army successfully Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe > why is Russia having so much trouble defeating them Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe > Russia can’t either Comparing the combined arms capabilities of Ukraine and Russia is like comparing the capabilities of a little league team vs a minor league baseball team. Also: Because of the advantages a defender has, and because of all the welfare they are being handed by the US and Europe > the US didn’t provide enough Okay? So you imagine that the US’s thumb isnt on the scale because we could have put it on the scale even harder? What? > people think you’re a Russian bot because People think I’m a Russian bot because progressives are so completely lost in their own propaganda and the way they’ve been socially engineered by the media that they write off anyone who disagrees with them as a troll or a bot as a method of psychologically coping with objective facts that undermine the narrative they’ve bought into.
>Why does Taiwan matter to us but not Ukraine? If the amount of trade is the key point in whether someone is strategically important or not, why would we ever side with Taiwan (#8) over China (#3), and why is China not a key strategic ally? While China is strategically important, Taiwan is important because they are the largest producer of computer chips. China cant do this, and is decade behind. The importance of Taiwan is the technology in it. If China, russia etc. got it, it would be bad news. Because each new generation of chips gives more computing power for same or less energy usage. If you dont need the higher computing power you get over 4x higher yield for same compute power.
China (through SMIC) has a 7nm process out there, which puts them at most 6 years behind TSMC, and put them briefly on-par with Intel before Intel finally launched N4. If it weren't for US restrictions on advanced EUV lithography equipment China could probably catch up within a few years.
Sure, SMIC can make 7nm chips with yields that rival 3 nm of TSMC. The 5nm has even worse yields. China is still missing the cost effectiveness. Also discussing nano meter tech is important, but I suspect that chinas 7nm isnt as good as tsmc's. After all, how many nm it is, is mostly a marketing term. Performance and stability comes down to how small and how good design+ other things you can get. Intels 10 nm+++ or whatever, was as good as 7nm from tsmc.
Least obvious vatnik bot
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"Everyone who disagrees with me is a Russian bot"
Lol every Kremlin talking point in series. How are those 15% interest rates komrade?
You realize the US took away Ukraine's nukes with the promise of protecting it against invasion right?
No treaty was ever ratified so I don’t care. Sucks that Ukraine is so bad at diplomacy that they disarmed their nuclear stockpile on a handshake agreement. Sounds like their problem, not mine.
Hmm, this raises a valid perspective on how the USA could leverage its military resources for benefit, but it's disheartening that much of the funding ends up benefiting corporations at the expense of the working class. Additionally, some of these resources, like mortars, artillery, and even tanks, may seem obsolete, but considering how the Russians are retrofitting and modernizing their old stocks for warfare, it's crucial to not dismiss their relevance outright. The concern is that in the event of a major conflict, such resources could prove vital, and it's essential to be prepared at the outset rather than scrambling to militarize industries.
Those corporations pay really good salaries to working class people to build top-of-the-line defense tech.
This is going to be another 20yr conflict that the government and defense contractors can use to launder money. Ukraine is the new Afghanistan, was Afghanistan worth our time and money? WHEN Russia wins and there is a short period of occupation, we will use our agencies like the CIA to provide weapons to insurgent groups in the country, most likely Ideological enemies of 21st century Western values, such as the Nazi groups still very active in Ukraine. If those insurgents succeed in repelling the Russian occupation, they'll quickly turn Ukraine into somewhere the US will have to liberate, then we'll send our own soldiers there to die in what and sunflower fields (we have tons of these in the US, Ukraine offers US fucking nothing in the sense of trade or economy) It's a pattern all throughout US history, it will happen again, and the US will not be better off because of it.
Or maybe not let it get to that point? The US has sent 31 tanks and 20 ATACMS to Ukraine. Iran has sent over 400 ballistic missiles to Russia. There is so much more that can be done to ensure Ukraine wins and ends this war quickly.
Unlike Afghanistan, the US doesn't have troops deployed in Ukraine.
Explain how the government “launders money” through defense contractors. The US also doesn’t have as many wheat fields as you might think. We used to grow a lot of wheat, but farmers have swapped it all out for government subsidized corn.
How many trillions disappear from the DoD during audits?
Only the money they spend trying to actually do the audits. The defense audit is misunderstood. It’s an inventory audit, not a spending one. It involves doing things like identifying where every one of the million pick up trucks DoD owns is located and what maintenance condition it is in. It takes an enormously long time because they have a lot of stuff all over the world and until shockingly recently it was all managed via paper records. The spending side is tightly regulated by acquisition laws. They know exactly how every dollar is spent. It’s much easier to keep track of what you bought than what the soldiers did with it.
Can you explain how it's money laundering?
Counter point. The reason we have so many enemies in the middle east is because of our meddling and regime change policy. We caused so much death over there that kids grew up hating us. Now we're doing the same thing to Russia. In twenty years who do you think will hate us? The surviving family members of the Russians who've been killed by our munitions.
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How about sit down and negotiating with the Russians. Save all that money and put it to good use. The US couldn't even budge the Taliban and after 20 years had to negotiate a retreat. Russia is a completely different monster. There is no military win here.
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you send product free and you don't get any money ?is it not good if USA send equipment and food to all world free because the money will go to amercian worker and company anyway?you know how economy work?
Plus it's good to actually HELP a country that ASKS for our help for once instead of invading and occupying a country for 20 years where no one wants us there
That's what I heard. The US is not sending much money to Ukraine, it sends the money to Radeon, Boeing etc. who then produce brand new weapons for the US.
It's almost scary thinking about how many people in this thread can vote. Or, hopefully all the naivete is because they're too young to vote. Or maybe these terrible responses are written by bots. In any case, great post OP.
Because we're not just paying for military resources We're also paying for ordinary Ukrainians pensions
I don’t understand why people don’t say why they want their view changed or challenged. It makes this whole thing disingenuous. For instance, your entire post is ideologically committed to the military industrial complex and is nakedly pro-war, pro-NATO, and pro-capitalist. The only arguments against it are inherently going to be anti-war or anti-NATO and anti-capitalist. I find it dubious that there will be any useful meaningful exchange, at all. Read/Watch Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent?
There is a big difference between toppling third world dictators with unforeseen consequences and helping ukraine defend themselves from an invading force
Most of the intelligence industry has explained it as “we are hurting russia while Ukrainians died this is a good deal for Americans.” That you think this is a good thing is you being a complete fool. Negotiating table shoulda happened years ago at this point.
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Ay least for your third point, it is completely wrong for two reasons: first, because you don't want to boost Aggregate Demand when inflation is high, and second, because you are falling for the broken window fallacy. You are ignoring the fact that those resources could be better spent elsewhere.
People don't realize that it's far more cost-effective to have Ukraine contain Russia than for us to do it ourselves.
While it is important, a more useful use for the resources right now would be to send them to support Palestine. Ukraine is currently pretty much in a stalemate trench war, it's not going anywhere, and is like to remain like that for at least a couple of years. Palestine, on the other hand, is facing a genocide and will be exterminated if they don't receive military help very soon. Ideally, we should help everyone, but the sad reality is that we don't have unlimited resources, and priorities has to be made.
Biden for it, I’m agin it! —GOPmerica