Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[JimNtexas]

Someone please explain to me how it could possibly be in the best interest of the United States to not give Ukraine really significant military assistance.

They are killing Russians and blowing up their stuff.  Russia is one of our two near-peer adversaries.  The one that is run by a crazy man.

What’s the point of being in NATO if just fold our arms and say ‘not our problem, we need the money for dish washer rebates and drag queen shows’.    Yes, I know that Ukraine isn’t a member, but all their neighbors are.  What will we do if we see Putin dancing down main  street Kyiv while the FSB is going door to door kidnapping kids and sending Mom and Dad to Siberia?

 

And why are Republicans suddenly whining about defense spending?   Are we now in bizzaro world?

[FourFans]

9 hours ago, nsplayr said:

I can't understand WTF you're talking about here after all that whiskey, and a 45+ minute youtube video of two unknown dudes talking is below my line.

Do you have a TL;DR once you're sober? Cheers!

Yeah, definitely whiskey involved.

TLDR: SEAD/DEAD in the future is going to look a lot different than it did in the past.

[pawnman]

9 hours ago, JimNtexas said:

Someone please explain to me how it could possibly be in the best interest of the United States to not give Ukraine really significant military assistance.

They are killing Russians and blowing up their stuff.  Russia is one of our two near-peer adversaries.  The one that is run by a crazy man.

What’s the point of being in NATO if just fold our arms and say ‘not our problem, we need the money for dish washer rebates and drag queen shows’.    Yes, I know that Ukraine isn’t a member, but all their neighbors are.  What will we do if we see Putin dancing down main  street Kyiv while the FSB is going door to door kidnapping kids and sending Mom and Dad to Siberia?

 

And why are Republicans suddenly whining about defense spending?   Are we now in bizzaro world?

100%.  No matter how much we've given Ukraine, it's a fraction of our annual DoD budget.  We are witnessing the wholesale destruction of a near-peer's military capability with zero US lives spent.  It would be a bargain at twice the price.

Edited January 8, 2023 by pawnman

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, pawnman said:

100%.  No matter how much we've given Ukraine, it's a fraction of our annual DoD budget.  We are witnessing the wholesale destruction of a near-peer's military capability with zero US lives spent.  It would be a bargain at twice the price.

In light of that would it be better to reduce the DoD budget by half, fire half our force, and invest in efforts like this more so than maintaining the large standing force we conventionally use? Instead of participating in NATO at all why don't we withdrawal all troops from Europe and offer NATO say, $50B/year in subsidy, but 0 manpower or materiel unless it's through FMS or technology sales. 

Edited January 8, 2023 by FLEA

[GrndPndr]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

In light of that would it be better to reduce the DoD budget by half, fire half our force, and invest in efforts like this more so than maintaining the large standing force we conventionally use? Instead of participating in NATO at all why don't we withdrawal all troops from Europe and offer NATO say, $50B/year in subsidy, but 0 manpower or materiel unless it's through FMS or technology sales. 

It seems as though your sarcasm has escaped (me).

[FLEA]

2 hours ago, GrndPndr said:

It seems as though your sarcasm has escaped (me).

Wasn't sarcasm. A serious COA. Is it possible some of these border states know the best means of investment for their defense better than we do? Is it possible they could spend that money more effectively and wisely than we could? We gave Ukraine $21B and they have literally crumbled what we thought was our second largest conventional competitor. 

We are geographically the most secure country on the planet but have the largest standing army in history. We also have guaranteed our security through a massive nuclear enterprise. The vast majority of our forces are engaged to security commitments abroad. We can't reduce forces due to those commitments. We spend ~$700B on defense annually but ~$350B is actually spend on personnel cost, benefits, entitlements, salary, wages and insurance. People are the costliest asset in the DoD. We don't need 2 million people though to defend the US borders. We need that because of foreign commitments. And a smaller force would generally be overall healthier for our economy. Imagine reinvesting ~$350B annually back into the US economy, or approximately $1000/person, $4000/family. The average household income in the US is $70K/yr. That's a nearly 5% raise to buying power across the US population. 

It also puts the onus back on most of these other countries that they need to take more responsibility for their own security. I don't think it should be the job of US forces to hold the expectation to absorb the majority of casualties in foreign conflicts designed to protect other countries. I think back to McArthur's support for the South Koreans when he said we weren't there to fight the war for them, but to be their spine, knowing that the US was backing them was a major boost to confidence and morale that allowed them to be successful. Working in South Korea its very clear they feel responsible for their own defense. Working in Europe, its exactly the opposite. They largely believe it is the US's job to pick up the burden of defense and they will assist in support roles later in the conflict. (With the exception of France and the UK, who are pretty reliable and self sufficient.) 

[FourFans]

5 hours ago, FLEA said:

In light of that would it be better to reduce the DoD budget by half, fire half our force, and invest in efforts like this more so than maintaining the large standing force we conventionally use? Instead of participating in NATO at all why don't we withdrawal all troops from Europe and offer NATO say, $50B/year in subsidy, but 0 manpower or materiel unless it's through FMS or technology sales. 

History is full of examples of exactly why we should not do this.

[FLEA]

15 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

History is full of examples of exactly why we should not do this.

Like......? 

Edit: Also worth asking: if this is the ideal state strategy, why aren't any other free democratic states practicing it? 

Edited January 8, 2023 by FLEA

[Stoker]

The idea doesn't work because the same defense we purchase can act as a fleet in being to defend South Korea, Taiwan, Europe, Israel, and a bunch of other places all at once. Whereas if we subsidize Poland the Chinese can be reasonably certain the Poles won't be coming to Taiwan's aid. So you'd need to duplicate the spending a bunch of times around the world. 

[FourFans]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

Like......? 

Edit: Also worth asking: if this is the ideal state strategy, why aren't any other free democratic states practicing it? 

Post American Revolutionary era draw-down led directly to the White House getting burned.  

Post WWI draw down heavily contributed to an over-populated workforce and helped make the great depression even greater

Post Korea draw down coupled with the idea that all future wars would be nuclear lead to an entire series of weapons (century series aircraft) that were completely inappropriate and miss-matched for the real-world wars that were clearly on the horizon.  

Post Vietnam draw-down lead to a completely hollow force (literally we parked airplanes with no engines in them to make it look like we had more than we really did).  We got lucky that the 70s and 80s weren't more turbulant, and we got really lucky that Reagan revived our military instrument of power before it was needed.

That's just American history.  Ask Germany, Japan, Spain, and France what happens when you let others do your fighting for you.  No-one cares as much about you as you do.  Pretending we can pay others to fight our battles from here on out is an easy trap to fall into, and has NEVER historically worked in the long term.

I am not advocated maintaining our military as is.  I AM advocated for a right sized and CORRECTLY ORIENTED force (an expeditionary capable deterrent force able to hit hard and get out fast against a near peer.  We can and should not be an occupying force.  

[FLEA]

24 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Post American Revolutionary era draw-down led directly to the White House getting burned.  

Post WWI draw down heavily contributed to an over-populated workforce and helped make the great depression even greater

Post Korea draw down coupled with the idea that all future wars would be nuclear lead to an entire series of weapons (century series aircraft) that were completely inappropriate and miss-matched for the real-world wars that were clearly on the horizon.  

Post Vietnam draw-down lead to a completely hollow force (literally we parked airplanes with no engines in them to make it look like we had more than we really did).  We got lucky that the 70s and 80s weren't more turbulant, and we got really lucky that Reagan revived our military instrument of power before it was needed.

That's just American history.  Ask Germany, Japan, Spain, and France what happens when you let others do your fighting for you.  No-one cares as much about you as you do.  Pretending we can pay others to fight our battles from here on out is an easy trap to fall into, and has NEVER historically worked in the long term.

So this is actually kind of the point i'm making right now. We are fighting Germany's, Japan's, and Spain's battles right now. I won't say France because they actually do a phenomenal job of maintaining military independence. Japan is getting there. Germany and Spain not so much. You are coming at this from "why don't we let other country's do our fighting for us?" and I'm coming from this at "why are we doing other country's fighting for them?"

I am not advocated maintaining our military as is.  I AM advocated for a right sized and CORRECTLY ORIENTED force (an expeditionary capable deterrent force able to hit hard and get out fast against a near peer.  We can and should not be an occupying force.  

 

[MCO]

3 hours ago, FLEA said:

We are geographically the most secure country on the planet but have the largest standing army in history.

While large, we don’t even have the largest standing army in the world today let alone in history.

[Prozac]

9 hours ago, FLEA said:

In light of that would it be better to reduce the DoD budget by half, fire half our force, and invest in efforts like this more so than maintaining the large standing force we conventionally use? Instead of participating in NATO at all why don't we withdrawal all troops from Europe and offer NATO say, $50B/year in subsidy, but 0 manpower or materiel unless it's through FMS or technology sales. 

We’ve decided it’s worth it to participate in other countries’ defense because the benefits of having secure, friendly nations to trade with far outweigh the cost incurred in defending them. We want more Germanys and fewer Chinas. 

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, MCO said:

While large, we don’t even have the largest standing army in the world today let alone in history.

If you are measuring by manpower alone, then no. But if you are measuring by accumulated power (industrial, machine, materiel and assets) then yes, we do. 

This is a really useful site I go back to often for evaluating force strengths: 

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

Edited January 9, 2023 by FLEA

[MCO]

15 minutes ago, FLEA said:

If you are measuring by manpower alone, then no. But if you are measuring by accumulated power (industrial, machine, materiel and assets) then yes, we do. 

This is a really useful site I go back to often for evaluating force strengths: 

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

Some websites power index measurement is not a standing army. I’d agree we have the most powerful military, but it’s not the largest. Our Army in 1865 was larger than our army now.

Topic at hand, fund Ukraine, let them fight our near peer for all the reasons previously stated including doing the right thing. For your point on downsizing, we have to be careful deciding to drastically cut our military and use it to fund friendly militaries because not everyone may stay friendly forever, and we are giving them the say on what the appropriate use of the military is. I’m not against looking at our budget, but we need to know what we are getting ourselves into.

[FourFans]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

So this is actually kind of the point i'm making right now. We are fighting Germany's, Japan's, and Spain's battles right now. I won't say France because they actually do a phenomenal job of maintaining military independence. Japan is getting there. Germany and Spain not so much. You are coming at this from "why don't we let other country's do our fighting for us?" and I'm coming from this at "why are we doing other country's fighting for them?"

That's a fair point.  From my view, we are actively in the process of giving the fight back to other people.  My core point is that we need to be careful that we don't let that pendulum swing so far that we lose our ability to fight for our own interests.  I could easily see our current 'leaders' doing just that, as none of them have a clue what it's like to serve something bigger than themselves, and more importantly, none of them appreciate the sacrifices that happened to get our country to where it is at the top of the heap.

[HeloDude]

On 1/8/2023 at 12:12 AM, JimNtexas said:

And why are Republicans suddenly whining about defense spending?   Are we now in bizzaro world?

I’m not a Republican, but if you’re asking why some people would “whine” about spending (defense or otherwise)…oh I don’t know…

https://www.usdebtclock.org

[StoleIt]

https://sofrep.com/news/aerial-warfare-russian-pilots-downs-5-ukrainian-su-27s-and-mig-29s/

Can't find anything to back up Russia's claims. But if they are really using SU-57's in combat and MiG-31's at huge standoff ranges than it isn't beyond realistic to see the air war be a bit skewed in Russia's favor if Ukraine is trying to fly more.

[FourFans]

9 hours ago, HeloDude said:

I’m not a Republican, but if you’re asking why some people would “whine” about spending (defense or otherwise)…oh I don’t know…

https://www.usdebtclock.org

WTF did I just look at for 10 minutes?  No a single source or assumption actually linked on that page.  Tons sited, none linked.  It's the internet, people can say whatever they want.  Without source data is all BS.

Edited January 10, 2023 by FourFans130

[HeloDude]

34 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

WTF did I just look at for 10 minutes?  No a single source or assumption actually linked on that page.  Tons sited, none linked.  It's the internet, people can say whatever they want.  Without source data is all BS.

This is the debt clock…not sure what your questions are?

[pawnman]

On 1/8/2023 at 4:00 PM, FLEA said:

Wasn't sarcasm. A serious COA. Is it possible some of these border states know the best means of investment for their defense better than we do? Is it possible they could spend that money more effectively and wisely than we could? We gave Ukraine $21B and they have literally crumbled what we thought was our second largest conventional competitor. 

We are geographically the most secure country on the planet but have the largest standing army in history. We also have guaranteed our security through a massive nuclear enterprise. The vast majority of our forces are engaged to security commitments abroad. We can't reduce forces due to those commitments. We spend ~$700B on defense annually but ~$350B is actually spend on personnel cost, benefits, entitlements, salary, wages and insurance. People are the costliest asset in the DoD. We don't need 2 million people though to defend the US borders. We need that because of foreign commitments. And a smaller force would generally be overall healthier for our economy. Imagine reinvesting ~$350B annually back into the US economy, or approximately $1000/person, $4000/family. The average household income in the US is $70K/yr. That's a nearly 5% raise to buying power across the US population. 

It also puts the onus back on most of these other countries that they need to take more responsibility for their own security. I don't think it should be the job of US forces to hold the expectation to absorb the majority of casualties in foreign conflicts designed to protect other countries. I think back to McArthur's support for the South Koreans when he said we weren't there to fight the war for them, but to be their spine, knowing that the US was backing them was a major boost to confidence and morale that allowed them to be successful. Working in South Korea its very clear they feel responsible for their own defense. Working in Europe, its exactly the opposite. They largely believe it is the US's job to pick up the burden of defense and they will assist in support roles later in the conflict. (With the exception of France and the UK, who are pretty reliable and self sufficient.) 

We do not have the largest standing military in history. China does. Which is a good reason not to slash our budget. 

[pawnman]

On 1/8/2023 at 4:49 PM, FLEA said:

Like......? 

Edit: Also worth asking: if this is the ideal state strategy, why aren't any other free democratic states practicing it? 

Because waiting to be invaded and hoping your adversary has terrible logistics isn't a great strategy. If Russia were competent and less corrupt, this easily could have gone much, much worse. 

[nsplayr]

We have the best funded, most capable military in the world and are allied with most of the other powerful players.

Russia, a primary antagonist, is actively destroying their military as we speak due to extremely poor policy choices and battlefield performance, which is great news for us.

China has a fragile and IMHO inferior political system, a worrying short- to medium-term economic outlook due to awful COVID policies, and a massive demographic problem that will take decades to unwind.

DoD topline numbers are the highest they’ve ever been, even while being a lower % of GDP, which I see as a good thing. Because we are so much wealthier than in the past and also in comparison to our adversaries, we can significantly outclass them even while enjoying more bread & butter to go along with all those beans & bullets.

Dems are almost 100% united behind supporting Ukraine’s democratic government and independence from a belligerent and invading neighbor. The GOP has some very notable fissures on the issue and some members who want to, IMHO, hang Ukraine out to dry and capitulate to Putin.

The last DoD budget was historically high and well above even what the DoD itself asked for, and that was with trifecta Dem control. Now with a GOP House there’s talk of looming cuts.

Some old assumptions about where the parties stand on robust defense spending and strong international relations may need to be reassessed if y’all haven’t updated yours recently. 🇺🇸🇺🇦

I for one welcome a coalition between mainstream Dems and Republicans to box out the mostly hapless left-wing tankies and the MAGA flavored right-wing isolationists, who unfortunately make up a sizable chunk of the GOP right now. They’re both wrong and America needs to remain strong and active on the international scene UFN.

Edited January 10, 2023 by nsplayr

[Lawman]

Because waiting to be invaded and hoping your adversary has terrible logistics isn't a great strategy. If Russia were competent and less corrupt, this easily could have gone much, much worse. 

Some people don’t understand the Ukrainians have repeatedly come near too and can still very much lose this war.


At this point it’s turning attritional. Just in the basics of will x means = ability to continue Russia has a large advantage in categories to that off manpower and manufacturing resources/base. The more attritional this becomes the more critical it is for the Uke’s to continue to disproportionately create casualties and expenditures for the Russians to just keep parity in the conflict. Nobody will care who sank the Slava of three years from now when one side cannot continue to recruit men and the other has tens of thousands it can press into service.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Prozac]

1 hour ago, HeloDude said:

This is the debt clock…not sure what your questions are?

And what effect, exactly, would cutting funding to Ukraine have on that clock? How ‘bout cutting half the current DOD budget? Or all of it? The vast majority of our debt problem stems from Social Security & Medicare, neither of which are going anywhere anytime soon. Cutting aid to Ukraine in the name of stemming debt is laughable.