Posted on 04/20/2024 3:16:53 PM PDT by hardspunned
Yep, get all the remaining white Christian Europeans to kill each other off, Brilliant!
“Fiscally speaking, what’s $61B anyway? It just means rather than rolling up that next trillion in debt in 90 days, it will now only take 80 days. Big Whoop.”
It’s that kind of incremental thinking that got us where we are today, fiscally speaking. No amount of spending in a bill is ever a big deal compared to the unfathomably huge deficit, but that doesn’t make it unimportant.
Pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Ukraine has been defeated for some time now. The deep state has lulled and propagandized us to believe otherwise. West Ukraine to Poland (where it once belonged for several hundred years) and eastern Russian speaking provinces to Russia. Biden to declare victory by plagiarizing the Gettysburg Address.
Only 13 billion or so is going to actual weapons systems for AFU. That may buy a bunch of Patriot missiles, among other things.
But it appears that Patriots are not infallible, and most of those would be deployed around the capital and areas where foreign advisors are.
Poland has about 500K armed forces (which is 6 times more than the UK. Woe Britannia!)
And Russia has had to conscript and mobilize hundreds of thousands not to mention the numbers they have “ recruited “ from abroad. Additionally they still need more, yet the much needed mobilization of hundreds of thousands more has not happened even after putins “election”.
For a country that many here tout as having plenty of meat er ah men, I find that fascinating.
Is the manpower issue really limited to Ukraine?
If the weapons start showing up for Ukraine after 6+ months of limited resources, what will that do to Russias anemic gains, and prospects for success.
I find talk of taking Kiev and Odessa equally fascinating
“Only 13 billion”?
With Europe and others more than matching US aid, that 13 billion will be huge.
More than just more Patriot missiles I think you will see many more patriot systems, enough to risk putting more closer to the front. Look what some ancient s-200 systems have accomplished.
If this happens, along with western aircraft and weapons systems and ammunition, the three main advantages russia has had, long range missile and drone attacks, air launched glide bombs, and artillery fire will be gone.
Meat and equipment wave attacks will become even more costly with even less results if not reversals, cost on Russian economy will soar even more, demand for manpower will increase not only the cost, but civil unrest over the war.
Can Ukraine push back the Russians, that is not a given, but increase loses and potential territorial loses may spark an internal crisis for putin, and that has been the scenario I have always thought the most likely.
Putin “loves” history, that is a repeated part of Russian history
But Ukraine has already lost, I hear that repeated daily here. Russian mir is an interesting mindset
Defunding the defense of South Vietnam was a very exceptional event. It was kind of like defunding the police in Minneapolis and elsewhere in recent years. Simply bizarre to anyone of any sense.
Nixon bombed North Vietnam back to the negotiation table. They negotiated a peace. US troops withdrew in an orderly manner. Peace as obtained and could have continued as it did between North and South Korea, East and West Germany, and Israel and it’s Arab neighbors (for the most part).
After Watergate, a more left-wing Congress was elected. Democrats de-funded the defense of South Vietnam. North Vietnam turned to the Soviet Union requesting re-armament. It’s been claimed that North Vietnamese regulars invaded with more tanks than Patton had in WWII. The US had, or could re-establish, air superiority. Democrats had already made that course of action illegal in or near Vietnam. President Ford asked Congress for permission to intercede, but that was denied. 55,000 American deaths were rendered pointless.
Just hope for humanity’s sake that Putin isn’t succeeded by Dmitri Medvedev.
As always there is the “devil we know…” issue.
As to
Medved he is like Greene, he says what he wants because it really has no impact, if he became “president” again then his talk has consequences and would have to be backed up
Despite all this of putin still going light, and Russian gdp…their “gains” have all the hallmarks of the battle of the bulge.
Vast amounts of men and material lost for little gain.
The battle field has substantially changed with drones and precision weapons.
Imagine a WW2 style Kursk battle of massed armor and infantry butting heads. Half or more would never even make it to contact the contact line. Logistics would be hit like it wasn’t able to be back then and the ability to sustain such operations would be doubtful.
This applies to both sides. If Ukraine stages an offensive they would run into the same problems russianis facing trying to advance
Constant harassment by drones, mine fields, supply lines attacked
IMO, any substantial gains by Ukraine will come only if there is some kind of collapse by Russian military brought on by changes in the Russian political winds.
I do have a belief that this could happen, as putin likes to quote “history”, events like this are not unknown within Russia. The greatest threat to his “support” came during the kherson and Kharkiv operations.
If you ain’t first your last, and for all the Russians seem to be able to endure, battlefield loses in the form of lost territory is not one of them.
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