I already told you what they want - they want secure geography to protect the interior of their country. they don't have the population to defend their current borders today, much less in the future with fewer people.

If they had swiftly decapitated Kiev or raced south through Mykolaiv or Odessa no one knows if they would have stopped. If NATO and Europe hadn't stood firm in the face of the pressure no one knows. As a counter factual, if they swept through Kiev and looked like crack troops, what would we have done if they hit Transnistria and pushed into Romania? Are you *positive* we would have declared war on Russia in response? I'm not. It's only unthinkable for them to attack NATO in hindsight because of their weakness.

Russias military underperformance was a surprise, as was the stiff political response they encountered. And it changed the game - a stronger Russian conventional military would have generated a much weaker response. Their weakness changed the calculus, and directly lead to us *increasing* weapons transfers. A strong Russia might have broken NATO and European resolve.

I know $12.3 billion sounds like a lot of money, but relative to the actual budget, it represents what the US government spends in 18.9 hours, or about 0.0022% the annual budget.

Zobel said:

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I already told you what they want - they want secure geography to protect the interior of their country. they don't have the population to defend their current borders today, much less in the future with fewer people.

If they had swiftly decapitated Kiev or raced south through Mykolaiv or Odessa no one knows if they would have stopped. If NATO and Europe hadn't stood firm in the face of the pressure no one knows. As a counter factual, if they swept through Kiev and looked like crack troops, what would we have done if they hit Transnistria and pushed into Romania? Are you *positive* we would have declared war on Russia in response? I'm not. It's only unthinkable for them to attack NATO in hindsight because of their weakness.

Russias military underperformance was a surprise, as was the stiff political response they encountered. And it changed the game - a stronger Russian conventional military would have generated a much weaker response. Their weakness changed the calculus, and directly lead to us *increasing* weapons transfers. A strong Russia might have broken NATO and European resolve.

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I'm quite aware of the bold and Russia's demographic, geographic, and resource problems and weaknesses and have had said same in frequent posts on this topic. You aren't telling me anything that i don't already know. I really have no idea what you are arguing with me about on that. You are picking a comment unrelated to that point and then trying to argue it.

The rest of this is simply your own conjuncture that is counter to what the experts have said since the beginning of this. We have geopolitical experts who dealt directly with Putin and Russia who told us almost a year ago that attacking NATO was not his plan. His plan was to try and take back countries within his sphere of influence that weren't NATO because he felt he could get away with it as long as he didn't directly involve NATO.

Yes, his military being a paper tiger was a surprise and is also irrelevant to the original belief and statement by experts that he never intended to attack NATO.

And there's a whole raft of experts that thought he wasn't going to invade at all. And others who thought he would invade and roll through in 24 hours. There's experts on all sides of this issue.

your whole argument is confused. It's the right thing to oppose Russia's invasion, but there's no oversight…except there is oversight, but not enough… except it's also maybe not the right thing to do, because they weren't going to involve NATO, only Ukraine because some experts said so a month before this kicked off.

My opinion is this is cheap insurance to ensure Russia never engages NATO. They're not going into Poland or Romania except through Ukraine. If you stop them in Ukraine, you don't have to guess right about whether they're going to stop in Transnistria or Lviv.

pagerman @ work said:

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I know $12.3 billion sounds like a lot of money, but relative to the actual budget, it represents what the US government spends in 18.9 hours, or about 0.0022% the annual budget.

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While true, everytime there's a several billion dollar boondoggle pointed out, this is pointed out. If we added up all these "trivial" amounts, it might actually approach "problematic".

If $12.3B isn't a big deal, throw that **** my way. A much better use of the money, I guarantee you.

Silian Rail said:

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Waffledynamics said:

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Silian Rail said:

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Waffledynamics said:

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Silian Rail said:

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Teslag said:

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Silian Rail said:

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nhamp07 said:

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Guarantee you any general in the pentagon would say this is a cheap proxy war against Russia and we are getting our money's worth.

This should not even be political.

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The pentagon is full of transsexual culture warriors

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And they'd still skull **** Putin

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Yeah, which is why the "Russia is a threat to us" argument is garbage. The only threat is their nuclear capabilities, which they're not likely to use on us unless we threaten them.

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Nobody is threatening Russia's existence unless they decide to go nuclear. This justifying of their nuclear sabre rattling is ridiculous and disingenuous.

When people start marching directly to Moscow and actually pointing their nukes at Russia, then you can have this point. Your logic would see them never lose a conflict again because you would submit at the first mention of nuclear weapons.

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I have no problem with Ukraine defending themselves against Russia. I have no problem with Ukraine taking Moscow in revenge for them invading Ukraine. I have a problem with us involving ourself in yet another global quagmire.

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This Motte and Bailey stuff you're doing is old. All of you making these arguments know the outcome of what you want to happen. Some of you have explicitly cheered on Russia and jeered Ukraine. When called on it, you retreat back to a "oh I'm just looking out for the poor middle class taxpayer" shtick.

Nobody believes it.

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Yeah, I have affection for Russia having had an office there for years, and I dislike the amount of progressivism espoused by Ukraine, but it's not important enough for me to care either way. I have constantly argued against American intervention everywhere, we have so many problems at home that need to be fixed before we worry about anyone else.

Russia is zero threat to is if we don't aid Ukraine. The only way they become a threat to us is by doing what we're doing.

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Russia isn't a threat to us anyway unless they crank the stupidity up to 11 and decide to commit nuclear suicide. You know this.

Again, your logic is one of appeasement, and it doesn't work. It only solidifies nuclear threats as a way to get what one wants.

If you have such an affection for Russia because of an office, then I don't really know what to say about the level of judgment on display. Based on your previous comments IIRC, you appear to favor authoritarian regimes that have little to no care for their own citizens as long as they fit whatever narrow social priorities you care about. There are plenty of countries that fit what you want. Are you a fan of Iran? How about North Korea? How about repressive brutal African regimes? Plenty of them are insular and more focused on their immediate vicinity.

This isn't about the domestic social issues. It's about foreign policy and the world landscape. It's about dictatorial countries deciding they can just brutally invade other countries and get away with it because they have nukes. You incentivize further nuclear proliferation and bullying.

Zobel said:

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And there's a whole raft of experts that thought he wasn't going to invade at all. And others who thought he would invade and roll through in 24 hours. There's experts on all sides of this issue.

your whole argument is confused. It's the right thing to oppose Russia's invasion, but there's no oversight…except there is oversight, but not enough… except it's also maybe not the right thing to do, because they weren't going to involve NATO, only Ukraine because some experts said so a month before this kicked off.

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Cool, so i can quote experts that don't think NATO was ever in his scope and you can quote experts that think it was.

Guess we are at an impasse.

If they aren't a threat to us then why are we intervening? You act like expecting Ukraine to defend itself and expecting Europe to solve European problems is "appeasement". Why is it any of our business?

And with my office in Russia I have spent a lot of time over there. I like the Russian people, I like the Russian Orthodox Church, I also like Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Sure, you can't prove a hypothetical. The point here is to say what is the best course of action? I think it's pretty clear we have zero interest in war with Russia.

We're left with a couple of possibilities. They take Ukraine and we hope they stop, and they do. They take Ukraine and they keep going, we don't declare war and NATO fractures; or we do, and we're at war with Russia. Or we do everything possible to prevent their success in Ukraine to absolutely minimize the chance of NATO involvement. It seems like a very simple conclusion to me, and it looks like our government has come to the same conclusion.

Zobel said:

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Sure, you can't prove a hypothetical. The point here is to say what is the best course of action? I think it's pretty clear we have zero interest in war with Russia.

We're left with a couple of possibilities. They take Ukraine and we hope they stop, and they do. They take Ukraine and they keep going, we don't declare war and NATO fractures; or we do, and we're at war with Russia. Or we do everything possible to prevent their success in Ukraine to absolutely minimize the chance of NATO involvement. It seems like a very simple conclusion to me, and it looks like our government has come to the same conclusion.

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I have a slightly different hope/suggestion. Let Ukraine join NATO and have us leave. NATO sans the US needs to be powerful enough to handle European problems. It has become a US bankrolled Umbrella that allows all of Europe to shirk their national defense at our expense.

Silian Rail said:

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If they aren't a threat to us then why are we intervening? You act like expecting Ukraine to defend itself and expecting Europe to solve European problems is "appeasement". Why is it any of our business?

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Because Russia wants to be more of a threat to us. They are not conventionally. They have nukes, sure, but they are clearly an inferior, predatory power.

They and their allies are a threat to our allies and the countries we made agreements to protect. They want to take resources from countries that we are friendly with.

They want to destroy us economically and threaten countries within NATO. They have explicitly suggested they should invade NATO countries. They lie about wanting a buffer state. They already abut multiple NATO states.

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And with my office in Russia I have spent a lot of time over there. I like the Russian people, I like the Russian Orthodox Church, I also like Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

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It sounds like you would be happier if you lived in Russia. I suggest you go do that if it's so preferred.

BigRobSA said:

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pagerman @ work said:

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I know $12.3 billion sounds like a lot of money, but relative to the actual budget, it represents what the US government spends in 18.9 hours, or about 0.0022% the annual budget.

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While true, everytime there's a several billion dollar boondoggle pointed out, this is pointed out. If we added up all these "trivial" amounts, it might actually approach "problematic".

If $12.3B isn't a big deal, throw that **** my way. A much better use of the money, I guarantee you.

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I agree, but my bigger point is that the US government spends way too much money period, and it doesn't really much matter on what it is spent on.

When you get used to spending $5,700,000,000,000 (or more, if you can come up with an "emergency") every 12 months you start to get snow blind to the 0's and thinking like I pointed out, as well as the "will this cost me votes" calculus, are the only thing congress is considering. I would bet that the vast majority (if not all) of the bills congress approves that spend money are minimum $100 million. Billions become couch cushion money in effect.

Either we care about how much the government spends or we don't care. Individual items congress spends money on are distractions and don't matter.

We have effectively decided as a nation that we don't really care how much the government spends. We would vote differently if we did care.

And if we don't care about the spending (and we clearly don't), then why not send some of it (and a very small amount at that) to Ukraine? It's not like it would be spent better by any other government agency. And it is absolutely going to get spent on something.

I say we put together a powder puff football game between Russia and Ukraine, skins v skins, and let the chips fall where they may.

The whole "if you like anything about Russia you should go live there" shtick is stupidity in the extreme. I have a great life in the USA, I hate seeing the progressivism winning here in the USA, I like seeing Russia battle progressivism in their country. The conclusion that should be drawn from this is "work to fight progressivism here in the USA" and not "move to Russia".

BigRobSA said:

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I say we put together a powder puff football game between Russia and Ukraine, skins v skins, and let the chips fall where they may.

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We get that on PPV and I'm in!

Pending of course the players selected to participate.

pagerman @ work said:

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BigRobSA said:

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I say we put together a powder puff football game between Russia and Ukraine, skins v skins, and let the chips fall where they may.

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We get that on PPV and I'm in!

Pending of course the players selected to participate.

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That's a given, on both counts.

Zobel said:

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Sure, you can't prove a hypothetical. The point here is to say what is the best course of action? I think it's pretty clear we have zero interest in war with Russia.

We're left with a couple of possibilities. They take Ukraine and we hope they stop, and they do. They take Ukraine and they keep going, we don't declare war and NATO fractures; or we do, and we're at war with Russia. Or we do everything possible to prevent their success in Ukraine to absolutely minimize the chance of NATO involvement. It seems like a very simple conclusion to me, and it looks like our government has come to the same conclusion.

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Are you my wife? Jesus. You are now arguing stuff I never even brought up. You've already associated comments someone else said to me once, and you are doing it again.

I never said we had interest in war with Russia just like they had no interest in war with us. So, I'll say it again...I hope Russia loses. Considering the lack of ethics and values, ineptitude, and suicidal nature of our current administration, I can criticize and question things around this conflict and still hope Russia loses. Does that make you feel better, hon?

Silian Rail said:

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If they aren't a threat to us then why are we intervening? You act like expecting Ukraine to defend itself and expecting Europe to solve European problems is "appeasement". Why is it any of our business?

And with my office in Russia I have spent a lot of time over there. I like the Russian people, I like the Russian Orthodox Church, I also like Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

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They aren't a true military competitor to us, but they control enough of the energy market to cause problems around the world (see Europe), have (well, at least had) enough of a military to cause us headaches with their interventions, and they're a Chinese ally. This is a cheap, easy way to take them down a peg and weaken China while we're at it (their autocratic alliance is off to a bad start).

Sucks for your Russian friends who I'm sure are decent people, but if they don't want to get caught up in this mess they can head for the borders with all the other people who've had enough of Putin's BS.

Silian Rail said:

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Zobel said:

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Sure, you can't prove a hypothetical. The point here is to say what is the best course of action? I think it's pretty clear we have zero interest in war with Russia.

We're left with a couple of possibilities. They take Ukraine and we hope they stop, and they do. They take Ukraine and they keep going, we don't declare war and NATO fractures; or we do, and we're at war with Russia. Or we do everything possible to prevent their success in Ukraine to absolutely minimize the chance of NATO involvement. It seems like a very simple conclusion to me, and it looks like our government has come to the same conclusion.

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I have a slightly different hope/suggestion. Let Ukraine join NATO and have us leave. NATO sans the US needs to be powerful enough to handle European problems. It has become a US bankrolled Umbrella that allows all of Europe to shirk their national defense at our expense.

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Considering the EU produces 15x the GDP of Russia and has 4x the population, this is a perfectly reasonable take. I'm fine with us still being in NATO but we shouldn't be the #1 payer as we are today.

We need to pivot to the Western Hemisphere.

Apparently having an actual discussion exceeds your abilities. My fault for misjudging you.

This is actually a decent post

Zobel said:

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Apparently having an actual discussion exceeds your abilities. My fault for misjudging you.

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Yes, a discussion where you twice associated things to me i didn't say.

Get your responses straight with who said what and not scope creep an argument like a woman and maybe we can.

The last post didn't misattribute anything to you. I was saying - given the options we have, and the alliances we are in, we have limited options. With those options, the right action seems pretty clear - we need to stop this in Ukraine because it precludes having to choose between much worse alternatives.

and honestly, you already had to backtrack on your two original arguments of "there's no oversight" and "this is the right thing to do" so I'm not even sure what you're arguing any more.

but i guess since this has twice devolved into 'lol u talk like dum woman' we can safely close the discussion

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I have a slightly different hope/suggestion. Let Ukraine join NATO and have us leave. NATO sans the US needs to be powerful enough to handle European problems. It has become a US bankrolled Umbrella that allows all of Europe to shirk their national defense at our expense.

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i could see that being an alternative or outcome here. NATO's entire purpose was to let us write military policy for buffer states against the USSR and our carrot for them was economic benefit. we have paid economically for that, and now we have a situation that is really kind of nonsensical for the reality of today with no USSR.

but literally no one in the US is interested in having a discussion about foreign policy. i don't know that being hyper-isolationist is a realistic option for us - we could do it economically and militarily, but i don't know if we dont end up getting drawn into the rest of the world in the end anyway. that's the real discussion point that needs to happen.

it's our lot at this point to more or less decide what the world is going to look like for the next fifty years. we're refusing to be proactive about it. until we do, we're going to keep down the status quo path. NATO is a part of that.

Silian Rail said:

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The whole "if you like anything about Russia you should go live there" shtick is stupidity in the extreme. I have a great life in the USA, I hate seeing the progressivism winning here in the USA, I like seeing Russia battle progressivism in their country. The conclusion that should be drawn from this is "work to fight progressivism here in the USA" and not "move to Russia".

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Social issues play no part in this war. You bring them up because you like Russia. They could handle their domestic issues perfectly fine without this. Letting them pillage and rape their neighbors serves only to empower a geopolitical rival. If you hate the West so much, then move. You wouldn't even have to worry about the USA anymore. Alternatively, please admit that you can both fight for good domestic policy and advocate for good foreign policy. They're not mutually exclusive at all.

We agree that there are issues with NATO and funding. Those are being reformed, and in fact the other countries are buying hardware from us, thereby benefitting us. Leaving NATO means a greater likelihood of nuclear states coming into existential conflict, especially with an appeasement approach.

None of what you're saying makes any sense. The USA is my home, if you can't find fault in what is going on in the USA, I don't know what to tell you. That doesn't mean you leave, that means you fight for change in your own country. Which I am doing, with some small success.

Zobel said:

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The last post didn't misattribute anything to you. I was saying - given the options we have, and the alliances we are in, we have limited options. With those options, the right action seems pretty clear - we need to stop this in Ukraine because it precludes having to choose between much worse alternatives.

and honestly, you already had to backtrack on your two original arguments of "there's no oversight" and "this is the right thing to do" so I'm not even sure what you're arguing any more.

but i guess since this has twice devolved into 'lol u talk like dum woman' we can safely close the discussion

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I'll backtrack on my original oversight statement and say I would prefer to have more independent oversight which was not applied to this endeavor. I shouldn't have said "zero oversight".

No idea why you are attributing a quote to me that I didn't say here on the "right thing to do". Nothing to backtrack there. You seem to be quoting someone else and thinking it was me like you did back on page 5 with your "foreign aid" comment which I did not say.

I'm questioning the continued allocation of a new round of funds at $12B when we haven't spent the original two tranches totaling $54B. And then the question of Russia's original intent came up and I commented on that which I will continue to maintain Putin had zero desire to take on NATO on NATO soil. I base this on speeches I've seen by US and UK officials who would know more than anyone else on Putin's strategic intent So I would say it's safe to assume they know more than the both of us on the topic.

And considering where things are here on 10/22, the right course of action is easily argued at this point when you have them on the ropes about ready for a knockout blow. But even if we stopped all help right now, he can't do dick to NATO. He doesn't have the physical means to do it. That is a known quantity now.

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No idea why you are attributing a quote to me that I didn't say here on the "right thing to do". Nothing to backtrack there.

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because we'd talked about this point previously...?
https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3323909/replies/63134278

the reason i brought it up again is because you seem to keep quibbling about whether or not we should be spending this money in Ukraine. You agreed earlier its the right thing to do, but we're just doing it wrong, but then you keep going back to well Ukraine was never going to attack NATO. It's not clear that you actually do think we should be spending the money here.

to be clear - as I see it, the reason to spend the money in Ukraine is basically only to prevent a conflict with NATO. if Russia is never going to engage in a conflict with NATO, period, then the funding is pointless. But I don't think that's the case. Ukraine is not in and of itself a strategic end point - it borders strategic end points which are in NATO countries.

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I'm questioning the continued allocation of a new round of funds at $12B when we haven't spent the original two tranches totaling $54B.

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because they are for different things, and because there is a delay between the time money is allocated by congress, when it is put together as a package by the pentagon, when it is spent, and when the weapons purchased enter combat.

one takeaway we should probably be getting from these funding packages is that the people planning the spend don't think this conflict is going to end any time soon. the time for the US to be dumping existing arms and weapons seems to be passing, and now we're standing up future deliveries from suppliers. talking months-to-years.

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And considering where things are here on 10/22, the right course of action is easily argued at this point when you have them on the ropes about ready for a knockout blow. But even if we stopped all help right now, he can't do dick to NATO. He doesn't have the physical means to do it. That is a known quantity now.

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not sure we should be expecting a knockout blow. i could be wrong -- Russia's performance in this war has defied basically all expectations to the upside over and over again. I don't think I saw anyone accurately predict the s---show we're seeing. but see above for why maybe this conflict isn't in the 4th quarter.

it is also noteworthy that the US initially took a wait-and-see approach with major materiel and aid. the big stuff didn't start flowing in until after we got a look at how poorly Russia performed. Russia's poor performance increased the risk of a nuclear exchange should they engage NATO in a conventional war. In that regard the US and Russia have changed sides since the cold war days - at that time, we felt we were the weaker conventional party, leading to our more aggressive nuclear stance. we took the position that any conventional conflict could lead to a nuclear exchange. now it's a complete 180, and so we work to prevent that conflict from a different angle.