J.D. Vance says Ukraine will have to ‘cede some territory’

On shell production. Some of the details on one of several Russian factories was leaked on pro-Ukraine Telegram.

https://twitter.com/simpatico771/status/1732929728447644156

Further down in the thread, another poster has a list of additional Russian factories and their relative size.

Here is the UK factory. They have one forging press. Cycle time is stated as 60 seconds per shell. Running 24 hours per day that is a maximum daily production of 1440.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj8KjjZVZYw

If they are going to expand production they need additional forging presses.

The USA only has one forging press - Scranton.

Industrial equipment like that is massively backordered, because that sector has shrunk so much. When you outsource the factories, the companies that used to produce factory machinery also die. The tool and die makers who worked for those companies retire or switch jobs. The young guys who use to apprentice for those trades don’t because there are no jobs. The technical college training programs for those trades also shrink.

This is why it takes DOD longer than the Manhattan project to get another forging press.

Russia didn’t outsource there shell factories. That’s why they are outproducing the entire West and winning this war.

Reverend Wright: "This is my point.
Even within Germany, there was a pro and anti War faction.
The alliances and treaties strengthened the hand of the General Staff within Germany.
And the alliances, and treaties and moralistic rhetoric pulled all the major powers of Europe into the war."

Well, first of all, German internal opposition to war evaporated as soon as the Kaiser's government declared war and mobilization, and war opposition was never a factor for Germany until 1918.

Second, the only allied action which might have prevented WWI in 1914, had they not done it, was Russia's partial mobilization to defend Serbia against Austria-Hungry.
Germans used Russia's mobilization as their pretext for launching their Schlieffen Plan to first invade west into Belgium and France before turning back east against Russia.
But Russia's actions to support Serbia were not based on any formal treaty with Serbia, only on Russia's special feelings towards their fellow Slavs in Serbia.
So it was not a treaty obligation which caused Russia to mobilize, nor was it a treaty obligation which caused Germany to invade Belgium and France.

So, the First World War did not start because of treaty obligations, but treaty obligations did prevent Germany from winning the First World War.
Had the Brits ignored their treaty obligation to Belgium and stayed out of it, Germany would have defeated France in 1914, just as they did in 1870, and the German Empire would have achieved its war aims, as those were expressed September 1914:

German 1914 War Aims:

Above -- all vassal, client and puppet states to be under German sovereignty.

Reverend Wright: "And now we have NATO, where each of 32 countries is underwriting the actions of 31 other countries.
And not just 31 other countries, but the most militarily irresponsible factions in 31 other countries that may be able to temporarily seize control and create a military conflict which pulls everyone else in.
This is insane !"

What's insane are your words here -- they make no sense at all, instead, you seem to be afflicted with some strange fantasy that has no basis in real facts, as if you were channeling the paranoid mind of Vlad the Invader himself.

The reality is, there is zero chance any NATO country will attack Russia unless Russia attacks first.

Reverend Wright: "This is a massive tail risk creating machine, that turns small regional conflicts into global war.
DISBAND NATO NOW !"

Yes, of course, so Vlad the Invader can achieve his goals of restoring the Old Soviet/Tsarist Russian Empire -- the prison of nations -- without risking World War III.

Sounds like a great idea, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

JonPreston: "Zelensky met with US arms manufacturers yesterday in Washington, DC.
Here he is pictured alongside executives from Lockheed Martin..."

During our Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and others spent years in Paris and other capitals negotiating for funding, weapons, ships and troops to support the American war effort.
Today it's impossible to imagine how our Revolutionary War could have been won without massive and timely foreign military and financial aid.
1781 the French fleet at Yorktown defeats the British fleet, making British army surrender necessary -- a successful Multinational Combined Arms operation:

Battle of the Chesapeake, 1781:

Reverend Wright: "The German General Staff used the (partial) mobilization of Russia to create the assumption of the inevitability of a war with Russia.
Which would be a two front war because of the Franco-Russia alliance.
So the German General Staff convinced the Kaiser to implement their two front war plan, which was the Schlieffen Plan / Aufmarsch West.
Without the Franco-Russian Alliance, at worst, the war would have been a Germany + Austria against Russia War."
Unreal. The Franco-Russian Alliance created World War One."

That's nonsense, beginning with this -- the German Kaiser had only himself to blame, just as the Old Soviets and now Russians have only themselves to blame, for the alliances formed against them.

Under Chancellor Bismark, Germany was careful to keep good relations with Russia, including the 1881 League of Three Emperors (Germany, Russia & Austria) and the 1887 Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia.

But Kaiser Wilhelm had different ideas, and in 1891 Germany formed the Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy, with the British also said to be joining, though eventually they did not.

France had issues with both Italy and Germany, and with the UK set to join the German led Triple Alliance, France wanted an ally too, chose Russia.
The France-Russia 1894 Dual Entente pledged mutual support in the event of attack.

By the early 1900s, Wilhelm's Germany was becoming increasingly aggressive, beginning with a naval arms race against Britain in 1905, and then a series of crises which forced the Brits to diplomatically (but not militarily) join Franch and Russia, making their agreements now the Triple Entente.

The 1894 Dual Entent (France-Russia) and the 1907 Triple Entente (France-Russia-Britain) were Kaiser Wilhelm's creations, just as NATO was created by the Old Soviet Uncle Joe Stalin.
Today NATO is being reborn out of the ash-cans of history by aggressive actions of Uncle Joe's little nephew, Old Soviet KGB LtCol. Vladimir Putin.

Now the fact is that NATO kept the Old Soviets in check, preventing war in Europe for over 40 years, until the USSR collapsed.
But today the Old Soviet Union is struggling to be reborn, and NATO's original purpose has been renewed.
Except now we hear voices sympathetic to Vlad the Invader telling us that NATO is more likely to cause war than deter or win it.

But the lessons of history are 100% clear and unequivocal --

Aggressors like Vlad the Invader are provoked by perceived weakness.
Aggressors who succeed will aggress again and again on ever bigger scales, as we saw in the 1930s.
Deterrence and peace only come through strength.

That's why we need a strong NATO now, more than ever before.

Watch out!

As it says in the linked Wiki article, the Septemberprogramm was not an official policy, but the results of a „brainstorming“, no matter what the dubious historian and pro-Entente writer Fischer said, who even went so far as to misquote other historical sources.

Lies by omission are the worst, what Fischer did - but as I said, as long as the archives in Paris and London on the genesis of WW One remain closed, nothing is clear.

I believe it was wrong of our Emperor, however, to go on vacation in July, just to show the world that he meant no harm. His presence would have been necessary in Berlin.

“Seriously, I only have once important question for you & others similar: when exactly did authoritarian Russia become your friend, as opposed to Western (small-d) democratic countries of Europe and elsewhere?
Can you pinpoint the moment in time when you began to feel like authoritarian Russia = good and the democratic West = bad? “

I was very much in the mode of conventional conservative: KGB Putin the Butcher of Grozny etc.

I became interested in how it happened tha Putin didn’t oppose Yanukovych to negotiate the Association Agreement with the EU, and then pressured Yanu to pull the plug after the fact. Which led to Maidan.

And what it turned out was there was a simultaneous negotiation by Ukraine of EU Association and the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia. Putin didn’t have any problems with the EU Agreement. And the EU didn’t have any problems with the Eurasion Union until very late in the game.

In Feb 2013, Van Rompey and Barasso piped up and stated that Ukraine couldn’t be in a Customs Union at the same time as Eu Association. This was a condition after the fact, 11 months AFTER the Association Agreement was initialed.

At that point, Putin went into action and pressured Yanu to reverse on the EU - which he did.

Then after that, the media presentation was Putin blocking Ukraine EU agreement because he didn’t want Ukraine to tilt to the West, which was a total lie and a 180 degree inversion of what actually happened.

I should have known the media and the Regime was lying, just as they lie about Christians and conservatives all the time.

So that was the beginning of doubting Regime narratives about Ukraine, Russia, Putin etc. And the more you look, the more lies there are.

More recently, as the entire elites of the West embrace, promote and force the LGBT agenda, while Putin opposes this stuff, and the Russian Gov’t acts to stop it ( not just talk like Western “conservatives”), and I am with Putin, here.

To me this is not a fringe cultural issue.

I take my lead from Romans 1, where a society that is on the trajectory of Godlessness and idolatry also experiences an explosion of homosexuality which results, as the Bible puts it, when the Lord “gives them over” to their base desires.

Well that is what is happening and it is being forced and encouraged by the elites in Western “Democracies”. And I am done defending or excusing this.

I think you are right to doubt victor’s narratives and official history.

For me, the single greatest trigger of WW1 was the Franco-Russian Alliance.

That turned a war in the East against Russia, into a two front War. Which the German General Staff then insisted on their two front war plan.

The Alliance with France emboldened Russia. Without it, likely Serbia would have been punished for a State Sponsored assassination, Russia would have done nothing, and that would have been the end of it.

Reverend Wright: "Running 24 hours per day that is a maximum daily production of 1440."

Every little bit helps.
1,440 per day is about 500,000 per year, out of Ukraine's total requirements of perhaps 3,000,000 per year.
A half a million here, a half a million there, pretty soon adds up to living h*ll for soldiers on the receiving end.

Reverend Wright: "Industrial equipment like that is massively backordered, because that sector has shrunk so much. When you outsource the factories, the companies that used to produce factory machinery also die.
The tool and die makers who worked for those companies retire or switch jobs.
The young guys who use to apprentice for those trades don’t because there are no jobs.
The technical college training programs for those trades also shrink.
This is why it takes DOD longer than the Manhattan project to get another forging press."

I know something about forging presses.
Many of them were in my line of work 30 years ago.
Have no idea how many of those are still operating today, if any.
Erie Press in Cleveland is a familiar name, and I see they are still in business.

I would imagine presses for 155 mm artillery shells are pretty special.
Still, I'd think in a national emergency they can be built rather quickly, certainly in months, not years.

Erie Press Hydraulic forging press:
Reverend Wright: "Russia didn’t outsource there shell factories.
That’s why they are outproducing the entire West and winning this war."

That's nonsense.
First, it was no secret that Russians imported about 1 million artillery shells from NoKo's Little Kim, though how many of those were actually fit to fire is unknown.

Second, Russians are far from winning, have not been winning since March 2022.
Since then, the only issue is how fast or slowly are they losing?

Finally, FRiend, you have not yet grasped the single most important point in this entire conversation!
It's this: if you have no accuracy, then it doesn't matter how many shells you fire at the enemy, they will do you no good.
Clearly, in Russia's case, when they are firing off 20,000 artillery shells per day, based on actual damage done, 99% of those shells miss their targets!!
So, they are a total waste of effort.

Every improvement in accuracy reduces the numbers of shells required, and that is "the Western way of war", as opposed to the Old Soviets' massive artillery & "Meat Wave" assaults.

US M-777 Howitzer, range up to 19 miles, up to 25 miles with Excalibur guided artillery shells.

Reverend Wright: "If there was no Franco-Russian Alliance, how would the July Crisis likely ended ?"

Helmuth Graf von Moltke (1877), Chief of the German General Staff:

The exact same way it did historically, because the 1905 Schlieffen plan was not in the least concerned about whatever formal alliance may or may not have existed between Russia and France.
Rather, it assumed ***correctly*** that since the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, that any German invasion of Russia would first have to deal with France potentially attacking Germany's western front.

Going all the way back to the 1870s and Moltke the Elder:

"Moltke assumed that in another war, Germany would have to fight a coalition of France and Austria or France and Russia.
Even if one opponent was quickly defeated, the victory could not be exploited before the Germans would have to redeploy their armies against the second enemy.
By 1877, Moltke was writing war plans with provision for an incomplete victory..."

In the 1870s there was no alliance between France and Russia, and yet Moltke planned for war to defeat both.

So, just ask yourself this question: what would it have required for Germany in 1914 to keep France neutral while Germany invaded Russia to acquire more "lebensraum" in the east?

The answer is obvious and simple -- to keep France neutral while the Kaiser invaded Russia, Germany would have to do what the Kaiser was genetically incapable of doing, namely, make very nicey, nicey with the French and sign a treaty of neutrality with France so the Kaiser could invade Russia -- similar to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact.

The impossibility of Kaiser Wilhelm II doing such a thing is what makes the existence or non-existence of the France-Russia Double Entente completely irrelevant.

Since the 1870s, Germany must first overrun France again, before invading Russia.

1870 Franco-Prussian War, Prussia victorious:

Menes: "As it says in the linked Wiki article, the Septemberprogramm was not an official policy, but the results of a „brainstorming“, no matter what the dubious historian and pro-Entente writer Fischer said, who even went so far as to misquote other historical sources."

Rubbish!
Sure, I "get" that you loathe and despise Fritz Fischer, for telling the truth, still, that's not what the article says -- why did you distort it?

"The Septemberprogramm (German: [zɛpˈtɛmbɐpʁoˌɡʁam], literally "September Program") was a memorandum authorized by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I (1914–18).
It was drafted on 9 September 1914 by the Chancellor's private secretary, Kurt Riezler, in preparation of peace negotiations at a time when Germany expected to defeat France quickly and decisively on the Western front.
The territorial changes proposed in the Septemberprogramm included making a vassal state of Belgium, annexing Luxembourg and portions of France, expanding German colonies in Africa, and increasing German influence in Eastern Europe at the expense of the Russian Empire."

And what do modern historians think of the Septemberprogram?

"The modern consensus among historians is that it was more of a discussion document, written well after the start of the war, and not a formally adopted government policy.[2]"

IOW -- in September 1914, the German chancellor listed out Germany's war aims as a negotiating document after expected quick victory over France.
It was never "formally adopted government policy" because the quick victory Germany intended never happened.

So, to deny they were actual German war aims is ludicrous, because what the 1914 Septemberprogram said is exactly what Germany did after overrunning Belgium in 1914 and at the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with defeated Russia in 1917.

Sorry, FRiend, but facts remain facts regardless of how much you personally loathe and despise them.

1917 Treaty of Brest Litovsk, where Germany shared its new "lebensraum" with allies Austria and Ottoman Turkey.

Reverend Wright: "...And what it turned out was there was a simultaneous negotiation by Ukraine of EU Association and the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia.
Putin didn’t have any problems with the EU Agreement.
And the EU didn’t have any problems with the Eurasion Union until very late in the game.

In Feb 2013, Van Rompey and Barasso piped up and stated that Ukraine couldn’t be in a Customs Union at the same time as Eu Association.
This was a condition after the fact, 11 months AFTER the Association Agreement was initialed.
At that point, Putin went into action and pressured Yanu to reverse on the EU - which he did."

It sounds to me like you've been bamboozled and so believe what you wish to believe just because you wish it.
The fact is, that whatever your "Van Rompey and Barasso" might have said, or thought or fantasized, if the EU treaty itself did not confirm their words, then there was no reason to obey them.
And therefore, there was no valid reason for Vlad the Invader to pressure his stooge Yanukovych to commit treason against Ukraine.

The reality is, Putin was using the events of 2013 as his pretext to accomplish goals he set out many years earlier, namely to seize and annex Crimea.

"In a 2005 Kremlin speech, Putin characterized the collapse of the Soviet Union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the Twentieth Century."[106] "

Nine years later, Putin's plans unfolded:

"In February 2014, Russia made several military incursions into Ukrainian territory.
After the Euromaidan protests and the fall of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Russian soldiers without insignias took control of strategic positions and infrastructure within the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
Russia then annexed Crimea and Sevastopol after a referendum in which, according to official results, Crimeans voted to join the Russian Federation.[163][164][165]"

Everything else is 100% nonsense and lies, and if you believe Russian propaganda lies, it's only because you personally wish them to be true.

And why is that? Because you fantasize Vlad the Invading War Criminal is some kind of "Christian" who deserves our respect and devotion while the entire democratic West has gone godlessly Woke and so now deserves destruction?

Seriously??
I'll ask it differently: when did you first notice yourself going stark raving insane, FRiend?

Reverend Wright: "For me, the single greatest trigger of WW1 was the Franco-Russian Alliance."

That alliance was forced on France by the Kaiser's own arrogance and belligerence, just as the NATO alliance was forced on Western Europe in 1949 by Old Uncle Joe Stalin's aggressions and oppressions in Eastern Europe.
Just as NATO's rebirth today is being forced on us by Vlad the Invading War Criminal's threats & aggressions in Ukraine and in many other places.

And the 1894 France-Russia Double Entente was 100% irrelevant to Germany anyway, since after the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, Germany must assume that France would take advantage of any German invasions of Russia to attack Germany's Western Front.

The only conceivable way for Germany to neutralize France before invading Russia in 1914, would have been to negotiate and sign some kind of non-aggression pact with France (!!!), similar to the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939.

And such actions were genetically unfathomable to Kaiser Wilhem II meaning any fantasy you have about Germany invading Russia without first having to defeat France again, such fantasies are pure 100% impossible nonsense.

So that is absolutely not a valid "lesson from history".
The real lessons from history we must learn and never forget come from here:

1931 Imperial Japan invaded China, "not our war"
1936 Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, "not our war"
1936 Nazi Germany occupied the Rhineland and in 1938 invaded Austria, "not our war"

All of those were "not our wars" until suddenly they all became our war, at the previously inconceivable overall cost of circa 75 million lives plus untold trillions (est. $72 trillion for the US alone) of dollars, in today's $ equivalents.
That is a basic lesson of history which, after 1945, everyone understood, and nobody needed to be reminded of until just the past few years.

JonPreston: "The idea that Russia will "Attack NATO" if Russia wins in Ukraine is a desperate attempt to prolong the conflict.
It's peddled by the same people in the US that fomented, perpetrated, and fuelled the War. "

You may not remember it, but Vlad the Invader denied he was intending to invade Ukraine in February 2022 right up until the day his invasions began.

That should tell you just a little about how much to trust Vlad's promises.

The true lessons of history are clear and irrevocable:

Aggressors like Vlad the Invader are provoked by perceived weakness.
Aggressors who succeed will aggress again and again on ever bigger scales, as we saw in the 1930s.
Deterrence and peace only come through strength.

That's why we need a strong NATO now, more than ever before.

I tried to explain Fischer‘s motif to you, I tried to explain Brest-Litovsk and its importance to the non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire striving for independence, but it was in vain.

You uphold the Germanophobic narrative of the victor nations. That is all there is to it. I am an independent historian by profession, I come to other conclusions than they do. Their wet dream is to destroy my people.

The FRG now is a slave-state to the EU and Nato, the world‘s biggest Dixie plantation, and the leftist power elite, of which the so-called intellectuals, historians or otherwise, are the slave-drivers and house ni..ers of the Big Massahs in the West.

Historiography is the bootlicker of the victors, and Fischer, a dyed in the wool Nazi, just did an about-face after 1945 to save his career. That’s what a biography from 2004 found out, but you will never find it in Commiepedia.

Nazi scum, Commie scum, alien enemies, leftist teaitors, birds of a feather…

Okay now. Over and out.

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