Ukraine: Ongoing…

[mcbigski]

15 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war, when the worst case is a nuclear exchange?  We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.  But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Got to feed the military industrial complex.  No one ever remembers the peons.

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war,

Eh depends on the war.

Luckily Ukraine is winning though.

19 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.

You get most of the aid is old equipment we were never going to use anyway right?

19 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better. 

If Britain decided to take back one of its former colonies—say a state you didn’t live in?

Would you implore a peaceful allocation of land and citizens as that’s not really your neighborhood?

Also I should stay this quite bluntly no nation is some isolated island where the goings on around the world can just be ignored. Russia threatening stability in Ukraine threatens stability in Europe which has a lot of our allies and trade partners.

19 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

10% for the big guy! 

Hmm, you’ve done this thing where you bemoaned a more competent (in your eyes at least) president  president would have prevented putin from invading—but you’re preferred solution to how America should respond to the invasion is to do nothing.

I understand. Big guy bad.

19 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

Got to feed the military industrial complex

So how strongly do you condemn the founding fathers of America and franc e for feeding the military industrial complex?

Scale of 1-10

Edited April 26 by Varysblackfyre321

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Not sure exactly what the legal borders are.  But how much does that matter?  Seems a lot like West Virginia and Virginia fighting now about a line of control.  They started out the same, and split up.  But why is a local border skirmish a global conflict?  11 figure funding aside of course.

Simple those would be the borders recognized by the Russian Federation when Ukraine surrendered all nuclear weapons inside its territory in exchange for Russian recognition of Ukrainian independence and after there was a nationwide referendum on independence from the Soviet Union in Ukraine:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war, when the worst case is a nuclear exchange?  We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.  But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Got to feed the military industrial complex.  No one ever remembers the peons.

How many Billions did the US spend from 1939-1945 on that “unwinnable war” when the worst case was the use of Nuclear Weapons? We spent $341 Billion in unadjusted Dollars per one website:

https://historyandheritage.cityofparramatta.nsw.gov.au/research-topics/world-war-two/world-war-two-financial-cost#:~:text=The table above outline the,allies%2C totals 1%2C301.316 billion dollars.
 

But freeing France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy was more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Had feed the Military Industrial Complex. No one ever remembered the peons.  
 

Edited April 26 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, mcbigski said:

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war, when the worst case is a nuclear exchange?  We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.  But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Got to feed the military industrial complex.  No one ever remembers the peons.

Lol, that's always the Republican talking point when they have a different interest. Then they turn around to slash funding for programs that would help local communities, even if the budget it there. Most the budget will still go to the industrial military complex and other major corporations. 

[Kalbear]

It's also funny because at least so far most of the money spent to Ukraine isn't in arms - its been in humanitarian aid. The weapons sent have been for weapons already bought and sitting around. Much of it is old and obsolete, and there are no plans to give more expensive, modern things or significantly change that.

But again yall are arguing with someone who fervently believes every single Tucker Carson talking point - especially the ones tucker himself doesnt believe in - and he must be hugely hurting right now. Give the man some sympathy in this difficult time.

[Werthead]

Watching the Russian-Ukrainian conflict analysed purely through the lens of internal US partisan politics is a bit like assessing the career of Taylor Swift from a Leninist-Marxist perspective: interesting, but not particularly germane to any serious understanding of the issues. Definitely one of those things where "not everything is about you," is applicable, although granted that the US is definitely involved in a supporting role.

Ultimately the question for American bean-counters, and one they are very convinced is valid (especially the Republican ones, who have been somewhat more hawkish-realist on this) is that every dollar spent defeating Russia in Ukraine is probably worth $5-10 defeating Russia in Poland or the Baltic States, and vastly more than that if that conflict goes nuclear.

[hauberk]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Watching the Russian-Ukrainian conflict analysed purely through the lens of internal US partisan politics is a bit like assessing the career of Taylor Swift from a Leninist-Marxist perspective: interesting, but not particularly germane to any serious understanding of the issues. Definitely one of those things where "not everything is about you," is applicable, although granted that the US is definitely involved in a supporting role.

Ultimately the question for American bean-counters, and one they are very convinced is valid (especially the Republican ones, who have been somewhat more hawkish-realist on this) is that every dollar spent defeating Russia in Ukraine is probably worth $5-10 defeating Russia in Poland or the Baltic States, and vastly more than that if that conflict goes nuclear.

Two issues with this:

1 - this presumes that those same conservative bean counters comprehend or care about impacts beyond the immediate topic/savings. 
 

2 - this ignores the fact that these conservative bean counters look longingly at pre WW isolationism with a sense of wistful nostalgia. 

[Werthead]

Zelensky has had a long telephone call with President Xi, the first since the war started. Ukraine's readout was positive, saying the conversation was about ending the conflict, restoring international stability and respect for territorial integrity etc etc. China's readout was fairly positive, although there was a now-customary swipe at the United States. There does not appear to have been any pressure by China to end the war disadvantageously to Ukraine, which was one concern. There's also an interesting suggestion that China might be looking to come up with a political settlement that ends the war on terms surprisingly favourable to Ukraine so as to try to woo Ukraine away from friendly relations with the US, although that seems like exceptionally wishful thinking at this juncture.

Given friendly Beijing-Moscow relations, it does not look likely that China is going to exert too much influence over Russia to end the war in the near future either. But Xi being willing to talk to Zelensky might be seen as a very mild statement aimed towards Russia that China is not 100% all-in behind Russia in the dispute either. There's some analysis that ending the war and restoring full export relations between Ukraine and China could have a nontrivial positive impact on the Chinese economy, which I'm sure Beijing is aware of.

One interesting suggestion was that China may reinstate its Kyiv embassy and send a special representative to Kyiv to discuss further economic and political ties, which might be something of a security guarantee to Ukraine that Russia's not going to do something insane and launch more massed attacks on the city (Russia killing Chinese nationals or diplomats by accident would go down poorly).

[James Arryn]

Not seeing it, but if China steps in and resolves this, beyond any direct Ukraine-China relations benefit, I think it’s a bigger play for soft power globally. The Southern Hemisphere has been very ambivalent about the whole thing, with many seeing this is just the latest ‘Intervention’ that does not really affect them as much as the West seems to think it should.
 

So for China to step forward and bring the conflict to an end somehow peacefully…well, they have been seeding tons in Africa and South America, they seem to have a real preference for soft power moves externally. I wonder if they think it gives them enough cache to work on effectively neutralizing international support for Taiwan?

[Gorn]

Again, Russia's annexation in September has made any negotiated settlement (by China or anyone else) pretty much impossible.

A negotiated peace would require either Russia voiding its annexation (non-starter for Russia unless they are defeated in the field), or Ukraine giving up its territory, including places like Slavyansk or Zaporizhzhia that Russia never actually conquered (non-starter for Ukraine unless they are defeated in the field).

The third option is both sides getting exhausted and realizing they cannot defeat the other, and just freezing the conflict in place like in Korea. Again, this will have nothing to do with peace resolutions by China or anyone else, and it will be caused primarily by the events on the battlefield. I don't see it happening for another couple of years however.

[The Anti-Targ]

I think Russia's game might now be to hope that Trump* wins in 2024 and he adopts the talking point favoured by some that Ukraine was always just a province of Russia and it's none of your business, thus leading the USA to adopts a formal neutrality policy and withdrawal of all military support.

Doesn't have to be Trump, it can be any Republican so long as they are willing to act on that talking point.

[mcbigski]

On 4/26/2023 at 11:02 AM, Kalnestk Oblast said:

But again yall are arguing with someone who fervently believes every single Tucker Carson talking point - especially the ones tucker himself doesnt believe in - and he must be hugely hurting right now. Give the man some sympathy in this difficult time.

I don't believe I've ever seen Tucker Carlson live.  It's possible maybe during election night coverage but I haven't watched Fox News since the 90s.  Still prefer Fox business channel to MSNBC, but that's a different animal, and daytime only.

To the extent that's a shot at me, way wide of the mark.  

To the extent that's a shot at Tucker Carlson, I suspect he'll do just fine.  I can think of off the top of my head 5 or 6 reporters that have been either out right cancelled or at least severely restricted by their corporate owners who moved on to both more profitable and freer speech platforms.  (Tucker, Meghan Kelly, Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibi, Sharyl Atkinsson, Lara Logan, Bari Weiss, and even more).  

If you strike me down I shall become more popular than you can possibly imagine.

Can't stop the signal.

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Also, I suspect Tucker will do just fine financially.  Consider Glen Beck's and Joe Rogan's revenue.

[Kalbear]

You might not watch him, @mcbigski, but you echo his talking points all the same. The difference between him and you is that he gets paid off by people to talk to these things and doesn't actually believe them, and you believe it for free. I probably should have guessed that tucker Carlson is too liberal for you though. 

Meanwhile the Russian Air raids begun again. The Russian precision attacks hitting reservists according to them by...exploding a minibus and killing several kids.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/4/28/russia-ukraine-live-overnight-airstrike-kills-12-across-ukraine

[SeanF]

On 4/26/2023 at 6:15 AM, mcbigski said:

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war, when the worst case is a nuclear exchange?  We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.  But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Got to feed the military industrial complex.  No one ever remembers the peons.

America gets to see a major military rival defanged, at no cost to itself in terms of casualties, and little cost, (so far, 0.4% of GDP),  in terms of finance.

That sounds like a wonderful deal for Uncle Sam.

Edited April 28 by SeanF

[Corvinus85]

12 hours ago, mcbigski said:

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Ironic. He could see the strings of totalitarianism pulled around others, but he could not see them about himself.

[Wilbur]

More genius Russian excavation operations:  Russian troops digging defensive works by hand around Melitopol managed to shovel their way through an extensive charnel ground for infected cattle.

As a result, at least two of them have come down with confirmed cases of Anthrax.

Russian troops digging trenches in Ukraine reportedly infected with anthrax (msn.com)

It is like Ukraine is suffering from an invasion of the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, Famine, Death and Dumbassery.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

12 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

More genius Russian excavation operations:  Russian troops digging defensive works by hand around Melitopol managed to shovel their way through an extensive charnel ground for infected cattle.

As a result, at least two of them have come down with confirmed cases of Anthrax.

Russian troops digging trenches in Ukraine reportedly infected with anthrax (msn.com)

It is like Ukraine is suffering from an invasion of the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pestilence, War, Famine, Death and Dumbassery.

No, the fifth one won't appear before the US presidential election next year. He will appear in a few courts in the US before that tho.

[Winterfell is Burning]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

America gets to see a major military rival defanged, at no cost to itself in terms of casualties, and little cost, (so far, 0.4% of GDP),  in terms of finance.

That sounds like a wonderful deal for Uncle Sam.

Also, if Putin wins at Ukraine, then he'll just move to somewhere else, and sooner or later, the US will have to interfere with boots on the ground when he goes to a Nato ally. And of course, Russia losing makes these kinds of invasions less likely for them, and anyone else who doesn't want a similar fate. But then again, I suspect he knows that already.

[Wilbur]

On 4/25/2023 at 10:15 PM, mcbigski said:

How many billions should the US spend for an unwinnable war, when the worst case is a nuclear exchange?  We're in for more than a tenth of a trillion.  But where the line in the Donbas is far more important than making your local neighborhood better.  10% for the big guy!  Got to feed the military industrial complex.  No one ever remembers the peons.

This is not a good line of reasoning.

I am not a fan of the interwoven web of relationships between the Beltway insiders and the MIC, but if you have an opportunity to upgrade and update your force posture, you need to take it.

The US Army has done so, dropping their bush-league inventory on the Ukrainians while getting fresh, high-tech replacements.

The USAF has missed the boat so far.