Funny but I agree with much of what you said, but a couple of things
NATO and the west were not threats to Russia or China. Without aggression from them they would never be in a military conflict with us so why are they being aggressive. For the moment China is doing it without military action but it is coming. Russia is being militarily aggressive. For what purpose Ukraine joining NATO, they are ringed by NATO countries and no attacks on them, denazification ???? Seriously was Ukraine going to go full nazi and invade Russia?
Do you think Putin would have stopped at Ukraine? Did hitler stop at Czech?
Sadly I think this is the only way to put an end to Putin/Russian aggression
As to China and it’s threats the weapons we are sending to Ukraine are not the weapons we will be using on China. If China attacks the use of tanks and artillery will be the least of our needs. I envision no scenario that involves a land invasion of China. Sadly the only end scenario with China I see is nuclear and depending on how “hitler in the Berlin bunker” Putin gets probably the same
As to tax dollars I will state again most of the weapons and ammunition we are sending were build to fight the Russians if they invaded so IMO they are being used for that purpose without US servicemen having to die
Additionally and I know this sounds a bit lame but still true 40 billion is 1/10th or 1/20 of student debt vote buy scam. Our 31 trillion debt is not the result of this war and I realize we won’t agree on this but I believe is money well spent
Deal with Russia now or later, turns out it is now
I agree that NATO is no threat to Russia, but Russia believes that it is. They have laid down some red lines, one of which is that Ukraine will not be part of NATO. Russia considers Ukraine to be within its sphere of influence in much the same way we used the Monroe Doctrine to prevent major powers from establishing any significant presence in the hemisphere. We came as close to nuclear war in our history with the Cuban Missile Crisis. We blockaded Cuba to force the Soviets to withdraw their missiles. Of course, we also offered the concession of removing IRBMs from Turkey.
This war has been going on for over 8 years. The US/NATO coup in 2014 that toppled the duly elected pro-Russian Ukrainian government spawned the separatist movement in the Donbas and sparked the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine to annex Crimea. The Donbas and Crimea are heavily Russian speaking regions. The reaction to the first Russian invasion was muted with little penalty for Russia.
Since 2014 NATO has been encouraging Ukraine to join NATO. Ukraine has participated in NATO military exercises and was given a special status as a quasi-member of NATO in 2020. In November 2021 as Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, we signed a cooperation agreement with Ukraine basically saying we would help defend them in case of an attack. We also stated we supported their entry into NATO despite the many times Russia said that was their red line.
Pure sophistry on China and weapons. We are sending in all kinds of weaponry to Ukraine that could be used by Taiwan to defend their island, including air defense systems and anti-ship weapons. It is going to take years to replenish our stocks.
The US is the world’s biggest debtor. Endless wars have costs us trillions of dollars. We have over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities in the form of Medicare and Social Security. We are just getting started in Ukraine. We are working on the first $100 billion. Zelensky says he needs at least $800 billion to rebuild the country.
Don’t rule out US serviceman dying in Ukraine. I am sure we have advisors inside Ukraine now. As a Vietnam vet, I remember how we got into that war. The law of unintended consequences obtains. Oh, and by the way, there is always the possibility of a nuclear conflict triggered by some inadvertent action.
We need to end this war now.