Posted on 12/12/2023 12:47:45 AM PST by Mount Athos
The United States is stepping up the face-to-face military advice it provides to Ukraine, dispatching a three-star general to Kyiv to spend considerable time on the ground.
The Americans are pushing for a conservative strategy that focuses on holding the territory Ukraine has, digging in and building up supplies and forces over the course of the year.
The United States has given vast military and economic support to Ukraine, more than $111 billion over the past two years. But a significant number of Republicans now say they oppose further spending, and others are demanding to see a new strategy before they vote for any additional funds.
Many Ukrainian leaders do not realize how precarious continued U.S. funding for the war is, American officials said. These Ukrainian generals and senior civilian officials have unrealistic expectations about what the United States will supply, they said. They are asking for millions of rounds of artillery, for example, from Western stockpiles that do not exist.
The Russian military, after its own failed drive to Kyiv in 2022, has begun to reverse its fortunes and is rebuilding its might. Moscow now has more troops, ammunition and missiles, and has increased its firepower advantage with a fleet of battlefield drones, many of them supplied by Iran, according to American officials.
Ukrainian hospitals are already filled with injured soldiers. Ambulances moved back and forth from the front throughout this year’s counteroffensive. Ukraine has not released official numbers of its war dead, but the losses, officials concede, have been steep.
American officials are trying to prepare the Ukrainians for next year, telling them that whatever aid Congress approves is not likely to match the kind of funding that Washington provided in the first two years of the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
US now sending Lt. Gen. Antonio A. Aguto Jr (3 star) to spend lengthy times in Kiev, directly advising Ukraine military leadership on an ongoing basis (summary in my own words). This is not a one time or temporary visit
Oh, if only the valiant and strategically wise Vindman had been named Ukrainian Defense Minister. /sarc
Here’s a strategy: Try to reach a peace agreement.
Impossible.
They were slaughtering the enemy on the gates of Baghdad last anyone said.
IMF just awarded $900 Million to Ukraine.
“These Ukrainian generals and senior civilian officials have unrealistic expectations about what the United States will supply, they said. They are asking for millions of rounds of artillery, for example, from Western stockpiles that do not exist.”
That’s an interesting data point that has not been previously made public.
Biden sent cluster munitions in July and admitted they had run out of everything else.
DOD says they have sent more than 2 million shells to Ukraine in 21 months, that’s 3000 per day. US production in 2022 was only 500 per day. That was increased to 1000 per day earlier this year.
DOD says they can increase production to 3000 per day by the end of calendar 2025. That’s 24 months from now.
3000 per day out of inventory for 24 months would be another 2 million shells. Do they even have that?
I think part of this peace talk and new funding reluctance is Washington has nothing more to send.
In the end, the West will have spent hundreds of billions only to lose territory. Russia will have spent far less and gained the territory they most wanted.
Another issue.
If Ukraine is going on defence, mine-fields will be critical. We saw during the Counter-Offensive just how much they were part of Russia’s defence.
How is the US mine inventory ?
Is there any current production capability ? (yeah, right !)
American officials say Ukrainians have unrealistic expectations about what the US will supply.
They are asking for millions of rounds of artillery from Western stockpiles that do not exist.
Americans demand transparency WRT the effects of Biden’s
military drawdown on American families’ safety and security.
Dedicated public policy should be summarily adopted, and must unequivocally stipulate:
<><>tax dollars for foreign wars should never be considered, now or ever,
<><>no more Biden admin fantasies WRT endlessly financing foreign wars
<><>Ukraine’s end goal must be finalized in the Ukraine,
<><>U.S. commitment to Ukraine achieving that goal must of necessity be nil.
On one hand, I’m glad to see Russian victories. It seems like all of the globalist and leftist turds I can’t stand hate Putin and Russia. I’m talking about big business, Biden, homosexuals, the media, neocons, Pentagon swamp rats, pop culture elites, radical feminists, Rinos, $oros, trannies, and so on.
But on the other hand, the aforementioned human debris can and will make Russia out to be a “bogeyman” if Putin wins his war. They’ll demand unquestioned “loyalty” to the establishment and “our democracy.” Any opposition to Biden or questioning of Democrat voter fraud will be cast as “treason.”
The United States today does not have the industrial infrastructure to fight WWII. Germany and Japan were defeated because U.S. manufacturing was quickly converted to war production. Today, the U.S. lacks the factories, and manufacturing skills to fight a protracted war. The proxy war against Russia in Ukraine highlights this vulnerability.
Ironically the politicians who have insisted on the U.S. projecting its military power globally over the past 30 years also supported the one sided “free trade” policies that gutted US manufacturing and the middle class. Ukraine is proving the loss of US manufacturing and supply chains is a major Achilles heel for our military capability.
How can the U.S. win a war against China over Taiwan or the Philippines without going nuclear.? We do not have the industrial capacity to project forces and fight a lengthy conventional war against an industrial nation the size of China, particularly when we are dependent on that nation’s factories for so many consumer and commercial manufactured goods. In a war situation China willl embargo the U.S. Within a few weeks the shelves in American chain stores will be empty of manufactured products which cannot be replaced. Clearly we can’t manufacture the ammunition, much less the high tech missiles, aircraft, tanks and ships fast enough to sustain conventional combat against the Chinese military and industrial base. Throw in a biological attack on the homeland and sustained cyberattacks against the homeland’s electrical grid, water systems, aircraft control and banking systems.
At the beginning of WWII the U.S. was self sufficient in agriculture, manufacturing and energy with excess manufacturing capacity to convert to war production. The population shared the same moral values, love of country, and willingness to fight for the American dream. Two large oceans were a formidable logistical barrier against invasion. Today we have none of these advantages.
Cong JD Vance said he knew of Bidenesque types wanting to decimate Social Security to give it to Ukraine——putting our seniors in poverty so that corrupt Ukrainians could buy more yachts.
NOTE Cong Vance was among the Republican senators last week to block a bill that would’ve provided additional tens of billions of tax dollars to Ukraine and Israel for their endless wars (that are none of our business).
The latest Biden fiasco-——a $111 billion “emergency supplemental package” also included nonsensical aid for the Indo-Pacific as well as going to the U.S. southern border NOT to stop illegals pouring in but to facilitate transporting drug traffickers and assorted foreign aliens to wreck our communities.
Brother, you are singing my Song of Cassandra. Everything is NOT well with American might. The corruption is rife in every institution; public office, churches, courts, public office, law enforcement, media, industry...but the most insidious of these is the social engineering rot in our schools. It drives the alluvion of misery we are experiencing.
“Ironically the politicians who have insisted on the U.S. projecting its military power globally over the past 30 years also supported the one sided “free trade” policies that gutted US manufacturing and the middle class. “
Yup. !
The “Free Traders” and NeoCons are the same people. Foolish in everything they do.
None of them were intelligent enough to see the inconsistency between de-industrialization and endless globalist wars.
Maybe they thought the USA could continue to import from China even during a war.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/19/raytheon-china-greg-hayes-decoupling/
“The corruption is rife in every institution; public office, churches, courts, public office, law enforcement, media, industry...but the most insidious of these is the social engineering rot in our schools. “
The Leftist poison starts at the Ivy League, spreads to the other universities, then via the prestige press to the elites of the country. then to all the institutions they control.
We saw the Ivy League Presidents last week with their preposterous equivocations and lies.
They run the most influential institutions in the country.
No wonder everything is such a mess.
“American officials are trying to prepare the Ukrainians for next year, telling them that whatever aid Congress approves is not likely to match the kind of funding that Washington provided in the first two years of the war.“
The bloody butchers in DC could not care less about the next one or two hundred thousand innocent Ukes they about to needlessly slaughter. I guess DC is counseling “next year” waiting for the next crop of 17 year old Uke boys to come available.
“...and flagging support for the country’s (Ukraine’s) war against Russia”
NARRATIVE ALERT!!!! Note how the NY Times is now blaming Ukraine by stating it’s Ukraine’s war against Russia. For Ukraine’s sake, they better start reading the tea leaves, because they’re about to be cut loose to fight ‘their war’.
Vietnam
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