How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Tigers!]

No, the US defense industry. Ukraine is just a part of that, but the kneejerk funding of the Pentagon for all things military makes it harder for politicians to oppose the Ukraine piece.

I'm still confused.
The EU decides to fund Ukraine defense with $50B. The U.S. can't decide if we can afford to help.

Why would Ukraine get any appreciable amount of weaponry from the U.S. MIC, when EU has plenty of players who would love to sell their stuff? And have more influence over EU governments than Trump dominated USA? And getting weaponry from other EU members doesn't leave Ukraine supporters to the mercy of the USA election system, going into an election year?
Tom

Europe would rather some else pay the bills.

 

[TomC]

No, the US defense industry. Ukraine is just a part of that, but the kneejerk funding of the Pentagon for all things military makes it harder for politicians to oppose the Ukraine piece.

I'm still confused.
The EU decides to fund Ukraine defense with $50B. The U.S. can't decide if we can afford to help.

Why would Ukraine get any appreciable amount of weaponry from the U.S. MIC, when EU has plenty of players who would love to sell their stuff? And have more influence over EU governments than Trump dominated USA? And getting weaponry from other EU members doesn't leave Ukraine supporters to the mercy of the USA election system, going into an election year?
Tom

Europe would rather some else pay the bills.

That makes no sense. My point was since the USA won't pay, and the EU just ponied up $50B, why do big donors to Congress think that they're going to get a cut?
Tom

 

[Copernicus]

No, the US defense industry. Ukraine is just a part of that, but the kneejerk funding of the Pentagon for all things military makes it harder for politicians to oppose the Ukraine piece.

I'm still confused.
The EU decides to fund Ukraine defense with $50B. The U.S. can't decide if we can afford to help.

Why would Ukraine get any appreciable amount of weaponry from the U.S. MIC, when EU has plenty of players who would love to sell their stuff? And have more influence over EU governments than Trump dominated USA? And getting weaponry from other EU members doesn't leave Ukraine supporters to the mercy of the USA election system, going into an election year?
Tom

It's like this. The US is the world's largest arms exporter, and the weapons used in Ukraine come mostly from Russia and the US. It isn't going to get more weapons from Russia, so money spent to supply Ukraine will necessarily involve US manufacturers. Most of the modern weaponry that Ukraine needs to maintain and resupply comes from the US. Europe doesn't manufacture much of what Ukraine needs. Many of the contracts put out to meet Ukraine's needs will necessarily be won by US contractors, if Ukraine lacks the manufacturing capacity to fulfill them. That's not to say the the $54 billion will not be used to strengthen and expand European arms manufacturing, but all of that takes time--something that is in very short supply. France and Germany stand to benefit greatly from this windfall, but they aren't producing everything that Ukraine needs.

See:

10 LARGEST ARMS EXPORTERS IN THE WORLD [2023]​

 

[TV and credit cards]

No, the US defense industry. Ukraine is just a part of that, but the kneejerk funding of the Pentagon for all things military makes it harder for politicians to oppose the Ukraine piece.

I'm still confused.
The EU decides to fund Ukraine defense with $50B. The U.S. can't decide if we can afford to help.

Why would Ukraine get any appreciable amount of weaponry from the U.S. MIC, when EU has plenty of players who would love to sell their stuff? And have more influence over EU governments than Trump dominated USA? And getting weaponry from other EU members doesn't leave Ukraine supporters to the mercy of the USA election system, going into an election year?
Tom

Europe would rather some else pay the bills.

That makes no sense. My point was since the USA won't pay, and the EU just ponied up $50B, why do big donors to Congress think that they're going to get a cut?
Tom

It's my understanding this $54 billion doled out over four years is largely for Ukraine to pay the bills, not for armaments. It's to keep their economy running: healthcare, pensions, social services, etc.

 

[SLD]

Including its flag ship. One of these days I look forward to wreck diving in the Black Sea!!

 

[TomC]

View attachment 45306

Including its flag ship. One of these days I look forward to wreck diving in the Black Sea!!

Possibly more important, how many of the survivors are parading around? Hiding out in some safe port is almost better than sunk.
Tom

 

[barbos]

No, the US defense industry. Ukraine is just a part of that, but the kneejerk funding of the Pentagon for all things military makes it harder for politicians to oppose the Ukraine piece.

I'm still confused.
The EU decides to fund Ukraine defense with $50B. The U.S. can't decide if we can afford to help.

Why would Ukraine get any appreciable amount of weaponry from the U.S. MIC, when EU has plenty of players who would love to sell their stuff? And have more influence over EU governments than Trump dominated USA? And getting weaponry from other EU members doesn't leave Ukraine supporters to the mercy of the USA election system, going into an election year?
Tom

If you had been reading actual journalists instead of Western Propaganda you would have known the answer to that.

 

[barbos]

View attachment 45306

Including its flag ship. One of these days I look forward to wreck diving in the Black Sea!!

Not this shit again.
You are so desperate to powerpoint nazi "successes" , regardless of how inconsequential they are.
If I were you I would not be so cheerful about this. If anything it shows that surface ships became floating junk. And US is the biggest operator of that junk.

 

[Copernicus]

...It's my understanding this $54 billion doled out over four years is largely for Ukraine to pay the bills, not for armaments. It's to keep their economy running: healthcare, pensions, social services, etc.

That may be true. The EU allocation is earmarked for nonmilitary funding in order to help get it approved unanimously. Hungary can claim it didn't approve military funding to Ukraine. But my guess is that it doesn't make much difference in the end. Budgets can be manipulated by shifting funds originally allocated to healthcare, pensions, social services, etc., into defense funding. This is mostly what seems to happen in US states that institute lotteries to benefit educational institutions and other seemingly socially desirable buckets. The education and other budgets don't really change in the end, but they do get the earmarked gambling profits. However, unearmarked funds originally allocated for education become available for other projects that benefit the politicians who originally promoted the lottery idea. On paper, it looks like social programs benefit from the lottery, but, in reality, it is a zero sum game. The state ends up with a bigger budget pie to divide, and budget priorities don't really change. Politicians spend the extra budget on pork, because there was nothing in the original scheme that promised the earmarked funds would actually increase budget allocations for the advertised recipients of the funds.

 

[TV and credit cards]

...It's my understanding this $54 billion doled out over four years is largely for Ukraine to pay the bills, not for armaments. It's to keep their economy running: healthcare, pensions, social services, etc.

That may be true. The EU allocation is earmarked for nonmilitary funding in order to help get it approved unanimously. Hungary can claim it didn't approve military funding to Ukraine. But my guess is that it doesn't make much difference in the end. Budgets can be manipulated by shifting funds originally allocated to healthcare, pensions, social services, etc., into defense funding. This is mostly what seems to happen in US states that institute lotteries to benefit educational institutions and other seemingly socially desirable buckets. The education and other budgets don't really change in the end, but they do get the earmarked gambling profits. However, unearmarked funds originally allocated for education become available for other projects that benefit the politicians who originally promoted the lottery idea. On paper, it looks like social programs benefit from the lottery, but, in reality, it is a zero sum game. The state ends up with a bigger budget pie to divide, and budget priorities don't really change. Politicians spend the extra budget on pork, because there was nothing in the original scheme that promised the earmarked funds would actually increase budget allocations for the advertised recipients of the funds.

Yes, it depend how restrictive the EU is regarding where and how the money is spent. I would think in the interest of fighting corruption, it would be quite restrictive but who knows. If it is not, it is intentional.
I know within the US federal government, funds doled out to agencies are designated for specific use within the agency and cannot be shuffled about. I’ve dealt with this at the end of the fiscal year where funds have to be used or they will be clawed back.
Whether Ukraine spends the money on healthcare or manufacturing drones may be up to them. However tightly or not the EU has designated the use of funds, if Ukraine aspires to one day be part of the EU, they should be mindful that none of it be squandered.

 

[Swammerdami]

Twenty-two years ago, Cheney and Bush pretended to have wet dreams about an imaginary "Axis of Evil." But today we are faced with a real Axis of Evil. China and Russia will cooperate more and more. North Korea and Iran are already players in that Axis. Soon countries that the U.S. thought of as allies will join the Russian-led Axis. They will embrace Evil out of desperation because the U.S. is becoming a silly and unreliable partner.

In two decades or so, historians will try to make sense of this weird epoch. The rise of QAnon and the Tea Party will be mentioned, but the emphasis will be on the unbelievable way that millions of gullible Americans followed Trump down a rabbit-hole to support America's enemy, Vladimir Putin.

In RawStory, John Stoehr comments on a recent opinion by Anne Applebaum titled "Is Congress Really Going to Abandon Ukraine Now?" Rather than describing the Putin-loving GOP as merely stupid or "incompetent", Stoehr writes as though they've discovered a new religion! Is he correct?

By abandoning Ukraine in a fit of political incompetence, Americans will consent to the deaths of more Ukrainians and the further destruction of the country. ... [Ukraine's collapse] will convince millions of Europeans that we are untrustworthy. We will send a message to Russia and China too, reinforcing their frequently stated belief that the US is a degenerate, dying power. Less than a year ago, when Biden made his surprise trip to Kyiv, the US projected confidence and unity as the leader of a functional alliance. Now, suddenly, we don't.

Let's focus on the "incompetence" part . . . The Republicans who are standing in the way of aid to Ukraine are competent, though it may not seem so. In their minds, they and their presumptive leader faithfully represent the views and interests of a country that's sovereign in all but name. They faithfully represent a nation-inside-a-nation that opposes democracy and universal liberty, and that stands with countries, like Russia, that are equally opposed.

Applebaum said that the front line in the Ukraine war is fluid, but if it falls back dramatically [then . . .]

Russian occupation of more territory would continue to mean what it has meant for the past two years: torture chambers, random arrests, and thousands of kidnapped children.

An even deeper, broader shock wave would be triggered by the growing realization that the United States is not just an unreliable ally, but an unserious ally. A silly ally. Unlike the European Union, which collectively spends more money on Ukraine than Americans do but can't yet produce as many weapons, the US still has ammunition and weapons to send. Now Washington is on the verge of refusing to do so, but not because the White House has had a change of heart.
... To the outside world none of [the strange and silly U.S. politics] makes sense. All they see is that the US political system has been hijacked, rendered dysfunctional by a radical, pro-Russian faction led by a disgraced ex-president who used violence and deceit to try to remain in office.i

Like I said, I get it.

But the Republicans and their presumptive leader represent more than a "radical, pro-Russian faction." They represent a confederacy of the mind and spirit, an imaginary nation inside a real nation that is, to them, sovereign in all but name. It is a place where the "laws of God" supersede the laws of men, and efforts to actualize the broader ideals of America, such as universal liberty, is seen as a perversion of the will of God that's deserving of any reaction, up to and including treason.

 

[Elixir]

You are so desperate to powerpoint nazi "successes" , regardless of how inconsequential they are.

Yeah, what’s a flagship or few, more or less!

 

[SLD]

View attachment 45306

Including its flag ship. One of these days I look forward to wreck diving in the Black Sea!!

Not this shit again.
You are so desperate to powerpoint nazi "successes" , regardless of how inconsequential they are.
If I were you I would not be so cheerful about this. If anything it shows that surface ships became floating junk. And US is the biggest operator of that junk.

As a retired submarine officer I must agree. But then again I’ve always thought that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

View attachment 45306

Including its flag ship. One of these days I look forward to wreck diving in the Black Sea!!

Not this shit again.
You are so desperate to powerpoint nazi "successes" , regardless of how inconsequential they are.
If I were you I would not be so cheerful about this. If anything it shows that surface ships became floating junk. And US is the biggest operator of that junk.

As a retired submarine officer I must agree. But then again I’ve always thought that.

Tossing a bonus like for Keith&Co.

 

[lpetrich]

Seems like  Billy Mitchell all over again. He was a successful military aviator in WWI, and he became a big champion of military aviation in the years after that war, claiming that big ships are easy targets. He was court-martialed in 1925 because he displeased some of his superiors, it seems to me.

 

[TomC]

Seems like  Billy Mitchell all over again. He was a successful military aviator in WWI, and he became a big champion of military aviation in the years after that war, claiming that big ships are easy targets. He was court-martialed in 1925 because he displeased some of his superiors, it seems to me.

History is full of people who seriously miscalculated the rate of change to things they had a vested interest in.
"They'll never replace the horse!"
Tom

 

[lpetrich]

Billy Mitchell insisted on talking about tests of dropping bombs on ships, and his superiors didn't want him talking about those tests very much.

The first naval-warfare techniques were to try to board an enemy shop or else to try to ram it, with the Byzantines using "Greek fire", a kind of marine napalm. When guns became good enough a half a millennium ago, shooting each other became the dominant tactic, all the way to World War I. The next big naval war, World War II, had a mixture of both old and new: ships with big guns and aircraft carriers. The big-gun ships were outperformed by carriers in that war, and the largest naval vessels since then have been carriers.

The world's navies still have plenty of other surface ships, though relatively small and fast ones. They have guns, but relatively small ones, suitable for attacking airplanes and missiles. But are they also becoming vulnerable?

 

[crazyfingers]

Seems like  Billy Mitchell all over again. He was a successful military aviator in WWI, and he became a big champion of military aviation in the years after that war, claiming that big ships are easy targets. He was court-martialed in 1925 because he displeased some of his superiors, it seems to me.

It's all your fault that I just spent about an hour reading about Billy Mitchell and then surfed off to read about Hap Arnold. Of course it's stuff I'm familiar with anyway being a somewhat WWII buff.

 

[TomC]

The world's navies still have plenty of other surface ships, though relatively small and fast ones. They have guns, but relatively small ones, suitable for attacking airplanes and missiles. But are they also becoming vulnerable?

It isn't just navies.

When the Russian Invasion started I was mostly afraid that it would escalate to nukes. Now, I'm more concerned about the ramping up of drone weapons.

If I were you I would not be so cheerful about this. If anything it shows that surface ships became floating junk. And US is the biggest operator of that junk.

Too bad you didn't explain that to Putin a couple of years ago.

Putin's navy is a joke. A very very expensive joke.
Not just expensive in the sense of resources wasted on that "floating junk". Ukraine, which doesn't even have a navy, has been more effective against Russian military assets than Russia has been against Ukraine.
Tom

 

[TV and credit cards]

Russia Outraged by Biden’s Ecuadorian ‘Ringtausch’ Workaround to Help Ukraine

Washington’s “circular swap” scheme - where new weapons are provided to replace a nation’s old weapons, if it gives them to Ukraine – hasn’t gone down well in the Kremlin.

www.kyivpost.com

Ringtausch, loosely translated means Ring Around the Russians is where western nations buy up old Soviet weapons and send it to Ukraine in exchange for shiny new western weapons. Equador is currently doing just this with the US. Others, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua have also shown an interest. Get this, Russia, for their part, insists by contract they can not do this third party transfer of Soviet weapons without permission from Russia.
I'll pause while you collect yourself.
Further, under the US Excess Defense Authorization, Biden can transfer excess US weapons at his discretion to other nations to modernize their stock at a reduced or no cost. The older military equipment of the receiving nation can then move to Ukraine. I suppose Biden can keep doing this until the Republicans impeach him for it.