Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[Stoker]

13 hours ago, HeloDude said:

So what you’re saying is that it has nothing to do with a dictator murdering innocent people as long as those people geographically live in on one side of a border vs another.

I'm saying the Western electorate is a lot more ok with you murdering your own people than they are with you crossing borders. I'm not saying I agree with that stance, but is the default stance of democratic nations since circa 1917.

[gearhog]

For those interested in how we are being involuntarily indebted for $Billions on the promise that you'll work hard and pay an increasing amount of taxes for the rest of your life, here is a list of ways fraud is being committed and enriching others at your expense, with links to government websites touting how these expenditures will ensure a prompt Russian defeat and guarantee peace and stability throughout the world.

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/gravy-train-independent-audit-ukraine/

[Stoker]

2 hours ago, gearhog said:

For those interested in how we are being involuntarily indebted for $Billions on the promise that you'll work hard and pay an increasing amount of taxes for the rest of your life, here is a list of ways fraud is being committed and enriching others at your expense, with links to government websites touting how these expenditures will ensure a prompt Russian defeat and guarantee peace and stability throughout the world.

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/06/27/gravy-train-independent-audit-ukraine/

I can't tell from this article if there's actual allegations of fraud, or if it's just bitching that we're spending money in general. If it's the former, there are avenues to address that and they don't include "Cut Ukraine loose, let the Russians roll through Europe and upend the free world order." If it's the latter, well, it's time to grow up and realize the US Government is a vehicle for shoveling money out the door to accomplish policy goals. And at ~$300 per American to stop a genocide and cripple a major threat to US foreign policy for decades, it's pretty cheap.

 

We spent on COVID bailouts about 45 times as much as we've spent on Ukraine. It's a rounding error in the budget.

[ClearedHot]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:51 PM, BashiChuni said:

You call it appeasing. 
 

I call it poking the bear in the eye acting shocked it bites your hand. Keep feeding that military industrial complex $$$ like a good drone you are 

Brother...for pennies on the dollar and without loss of American life (other than those who volunteered to go over), we have helped humble a superpower and a direct threat to the United States.  The damage done to Russia's military, population and economy will likely limit Russian aggression in Europe for many years to come.  A peaceful solution should not include Ukraine surrendering even more terrain after we promised to provide for their security when they gave up their nukes.  Any ground they reclaim, including the Crimea sets Putin back even further, I don't see how he survives.

[Lord Ratner]

26 minutes ago, Stoker said:

We spent on COVID bailouts about 45 times as much as we've spent on Ukraine. It's a rounding error in the budget.

This sums it up for me. I don't believe in the "every dollar counts" philosophy of government spending.

 

Either the government is going to spend itself into catastrophe or it won't. If it is, which I believe to be the case, then I'd rather see some of the funny-money-printing that will doom us go towards mildly useful endeavors, rather than watch it all get wasted on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, bank bailouts, PPP loans, student loan forgiveness, university funding, etc.

 

There's an unknown-but-finite $$ amount where all this nonsense falls apart. It's going to be spent on something, might as well be something that weakens our enemy a little.

[gearhog]

46 minutes ago, Stoker said:

I can't tell from this article if there's actual allegations of fraud, or if it's just bitching that we're spending money in general. If it's the former, there are avenues to address that and they don't include "Cut Ukraine loose, let the Russians roll through Europe and upend the free world order." If it's the latter, well, it's time to grow up and realize the US Government is a vehicle for shoveling money out the door to accomplish policy goals. And at ~$300 per American to stop a genocide and cripple a major threat to US foreign policy for decades, it's pretty cheap.

 

We spent on COVID bailouts about 45 times as much as we've spent on Ukraine. It's a rounding error in the budget.

Fraud is deception that results in financial gain. It's obvious a very large portion of these funds are being redirected away from the advertised purpose of helping Ukraine defeat Russia. I'm against the COVID bailouts as well, but at least average US citizens were direct beneficiaries. I think it's hard to make the case Russia was a dastardly superpower capable and ready to steamroll across Europe while also alleging they were stopped a few dozen miles into Ukraine for a paltry sum.

I think one should be careful bragging how cheaply we kill Russians, lest you sound like Lindsey Graham.

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/us-news/lindsey-graham-zelensky-russia-meeting-b2347305.html

30 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

 I'd rather see some of the funny-money-printing that will doom us go towards mildly useful endeavors, rather than watch it all get wasted on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, bank bailouts, PPP loans, student loan forgiveness, university funding, etc.

There's an unknown-but-finite $$ amount where all this nonsense falls apart. It's going to be spent on something, might as well be something that weakens our enemy a little.

Your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are a waste, but paying for war on the other side of the planet is not?

You know funny-money-printing is going to doom us, so it's better to try and doom adversaries than try and help ourselves?

Does not compute.

 

[Swizzle]

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Brother...for pennies on the dollar and without loss of American life (other than those who volunteered to go over), we have helped humble a superpower and a direct threat to the United States.  The damage done to Russia's military, population and economy will likely limit Russian aggression in Europe for many years to come.  A peaceful solution should not include Ukraine surrendering even more terrain after we promised to provide for their security when they gave up their nukes.  Any ground they reclaim, including the Crimea sets Putin back even further, I don't see how he survives.

Reminder: it comes at more than a financial cost. Other countries are watching, learning, gathering intel...'there is no free lunch.' Considering that...still worth it.

[DirkDiggler]

  Happy to see my tax dollars at work, nice of the Ukes to give us a 4th shout out.

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

Fraud is deception that results in financial gain. It's obvious a very large portion of these funds are being redirected away from the advertised purpose of helping Ukraine defeat Russia.

To where, and how much? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that is a very non-specific claim. Either way, the amount of the money being expended is small potatoes compared to other problem areas of the budget, therefore my concern is proportionately minimal. 

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

I'm against the COVID bailouts as well, but at least average US citizens were direct beneficiaries.

I guess if you consider fraudulent claims to be beneficiaries. We certainly aren't benefitting from the ensuing inflation. 

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1145040599/ppp-loan-forgiveness

 

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

I think it's hard to make the case Russia was a dastardly superpower capable and ready to steamroll across Europe while also alleging they were stopped a few dozen miles into Ukraine for a paltry sum.

Who is making that claim? It wasn't a paltry sum, it's just that the other sums are unfathomably large. Further, what Russia was capable of was not as important as what the world thought Russia was capable of. We are now free of the illusion that Russia poses a meaningful threat to the world, especially after the loss of military lives and equipment, and the decisions made in light of this revelation will allow us to better allocate resources for the next few decades. For $100-200 billion? That's a steal compared to the annual DOD budget alone. 

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

Your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are a waste, but paying for war on the other side of the planet is not?

Less of a waste, sure. Neutering a geopolitical adversary is a good thing. We don't have to do it, but if the opportunity falls into our lap, we should take it. Geopolitical stability is always the result of intense violence and the will of the victors in the aftermath. The experiment with McDonalds diplomacy has failed, and Russia is a nice little warning shot to China (the real threat). 

And how much of a waste is important. SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, and CHIP were about $2.4 trillion in 2022. If we round up to $200 Billion for Ukraine, that's less than 1/10 of the cost of the big-ticket waste, for the annihilation of much of the Russian military. Not bad. 

3 hours ago, gearhog said:

You know funny-money-printing is going to doom us, so it's better to try and doom adversaries than try and help ourselves?

Does not compute.

I'll try to make it understandable. 

First, "it's better to try and doom adversaries than try and help ourselves" is a strawman. That option is not on the table. 

We are not going to get our financial system in order. It is not going to happen. Governments are not going to willingly give up fiat currency, and voters are not going to willingly cut or cancel their government-provided benefits. That leaves only one possible outcome, other than complete global collapse, which I do not believe will happen. Hyperinflation will lead to societal instability, which will lead to political upheaval, which will lead to monetary and fiscal reform. At the end of that road we will once again be in a world without fiat currency and with limited government spending, until of course the cycle repeats in another 50-100 years. Let's call the point at which the monetary system collapses "the reckoning."

I don't know when the reckoning will happen, but it will happen whenever the amount of money being printed exceeds the productive output of the society supporting it. So between now and the reckoning we will spend XXX trillions of dollars. That money can go towards supporting senior citizens that didn't plan for retirement, Ukraine, repaving the interstate system, a colony on Mars, or anything else. Some of those things might actually increase the productive output of the society (the ideal purpose of government spending), but most will not, pushing us closer to the reckoning. 

 

So yeah, with the inevitable demise of the spend-anything era of modern governance looming, I would rather we spend the money on something like clipping Russia's wings (or China's), rather than paying people not to work, or building museums to celebrate nonsense cultural anomalies, or funding weapons systems that go nowhere, maintaining military bases in countries that aren't interested in their own defense, or keeping old people from dying of natural causes, or shoveling billions into the pharma companies to protect us from a new cold, etc etc etc. The money will be spent, so instead of tilting at windmills trying to stop the bleeding, try to redirect the spending to something that might set us up in a better position to "win" the great-global-reset. 

 

I wish it wasn't so, but the Trump era should have clearly demonstrated that there is no group interested in responsible spending. None. So let's win the game we are actually playing, not the game we wish we were playing. 

Edited July 8, 2023 by Lord Ratner

[BashiChuni]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Brother...for pennies on the dollar and without loss of American life (other than those who volunteered to go over), we have helped humble a superpower and a direct threat to the United States.  The damage done to Russia's military, population and economy will likely limit Russian aggression in Europe for many years to come.  A peaceful solution should not include Ukraine surrendering even more terrain after we promised to provide for their security when they gave up their nukes.  Any ground they reclaim, including the Crimea sets Putin back even further, I don't see how he survives.

i never viewed russia as a threat.

how many ukranians will die in our proxy war? cause our resume of inserting ourselves into conflicts is abysmal since WWII.

and regime change? yeah. that's worked out well for us in the recent past too.

 

[gearhog]

1 hour ago, DirkDiggler said:

 Happy to see my tax dollars at work, nice of the Ukes to give us a 4th shout out.

Nice. Amazing what you can accomplish with a Sharpie. I was so moved by the judicious use of our tax dollars, I wrote my very first poem:

Maxxpro. 
Easy come. 
Easy go.

Those poor Ukrainians. What a tragedy.

[DirkDiggler]

  And some more judicious use of my tax dollars, courtesy of Mr. HIMARS.

[ClearedHot]

2 hours ago, Swizzle said:

Reminder: it comes at more than a financial cost. Other countries are watching, learning, gathering intel...'there is no free lunch.' Considering that...still worth it.

I dare say we have learned more from this conflict than anyone else.  We've watched the Russians employ some of their best technology and we have discovered many Achilles heals relating to technology and tactics.  Some of the assessments I've seen believe this conflict has given China reason to pause and contemplate if their kit is good enough to take Taiwan....Our other adversaries can observe Patriot (older version), Javelin, Abrams M-1 tanks, and a shit ton of old HARMs.

Some of the real lessons from this conflict:

1.  The Russian Army is hollow, poorly trained and using WWII pound and ground tactics to bad effect and outcome. 

2.  Corruption is still rampant in the Russian system.  It is estimated that 25% of the Russian military budget was siphoned off by corrupt generals. 

3.  Putin's circle is smaller and incompetent.  Realistically he is listening to six flunky yes men and he has paid a price for that decision.

4.  We ALL witnessed another paradigm shift with regard to UAVs, especially Group 1 and 2. 

5.  Maneuver warfare doesn't work unless you fully integrate land and air.

28 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

i never viewed russia as a threat.

how many ukranians will die in our proxy war? cause our resume of inserting ourselves into conflicts is abysmal since WWII.

and regime change? yeah. that's worked out well for us in the recent past too.

 

The list of reasons why I disagree with you is far too long to list.  Actions and intel the past 10 years would most certainly say otherwise.

How many Ukrainians would die if we let Putin steamroll Ukraine?  He is shelling cities before he rolls through to level buildings and conduct genocide.  Have you not heard of Bucha in the Donbas?  Just let Ukraine surrender and all is well?

I never said a word about regime change...I do think Putin's grasp on power is very tenuous right now.  Probably why he just rounded up a bunch more generals today who will soon be falling out of windows.  Rumors of leadership purge in Russian military swirl after alleged detention of top general Surovikin, but that was never a goal.

[M2]

Geez, you guys are taking all the fun out of war! 

[gearhog]

First, awesome post. Lots of good points. However, as unnatural as it is for me to challenge anyone's ideas, I'm gonna take a stab at it.

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

To where, and how much? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that is a very non-specific claim. Either way, the amount of the money being expended is small potatoes compared to other problem areas of the budget, therefore my concern is proportionately minimal. 

I guess if you consider fraudulent claims to be beneficiaries. We certainly aren't benefitting from the ensuing inflation. 

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1145040599/ppp-loan-forgiveness

If you read the article, it listed very specific expenditures, exactly where the money was going, and exactly how much. I can't help but notice that the basis for your argument is a lot of "But what about this? But what about that?". When someone gets caught speeding, does telling the cop that they speed often and by a larger amount absolve them? Didn't the cop notice all the other people speeding? COVID is a separate issue, and I think there should have been some help from the government to dampen the systemic economic shock, but it was way overdone, and there was some fraud. Was your stimulus check fraud?

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Who is making that claim? It wasn't a paltry sum, it's just that the other sums are unfathomably large. Further, what Russia was capable of was not as important as what the world thought Russia was capable of. We are now free of the illusion that Russia poses a meaningful threat to the world, especially after the loss of military lives and equipment, and the decisions made in light of this revelation will allow us to better allocate resources for the next few decades. For $100-200 billion? That's a steal compared to the annual DOD budget alone. 

Less of a waste, sure. Neutering a geopolitical adversary is a good thing. We don't have to do it, but if the opportunity falls into our lap, we should take it. Geopolitical stability is always the result of intense violence and the will of the victors in the aftermath. The experiment with McDonalds diplomacy has failed, and Russia is a nice little warning shot to China (the real threat). 

Among others, didn't you just make that very claim a few sentences later by saying "That's a steal"? And here's where you lose me: You say we are now free of the illusion that Russia is a meaningful threat to the world, but 4 lines later say that they are also a geopolitical adversary. Which is it? Immediately upon the realization that Russia isn't the threat we thought they were, there should have been a negotiated end to hostilities.

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

And how much of a waste is important. SS, Medicare, and Medicaid, and CHIP were about $2.4 trillion in 2022. If we round up to $200 Billion for Ukraine, that's less than 1/10 of the cost of the big-ticket waste, for the annihilation of much of the Russian military. Not bad.

Again with the whatabout. "We're already $1 million dollars in debt, what's $100,000 more?" Fortunately, that logic doesn't work in my household. I can't believe it seems logical to others. Especially for something you've already said isn't a real threat. It seems you're more of a moral relativist whereas I'm more of a moral absolutist. That's probably where our differences lie an what makes me seem more disagreeable.

4 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

First, "it's better to try and doom adversaries than try and help ourselves" is a strawman. That option is not on the table. 

We are not going to get our financial system in order. It is not going to happen. Governments are not going to willingly give up fiat currency, and voters are not going to willingly cut or cancel their government-provided benefits. That leaves only one possible outcome, other than complete global collapse, which I do not believe will happen. Hyperinflation will lead to societal instability, which will lead to political upheaval, which will lead to monetary and fiscal reform. At the end of that road we will once again be in a world without fiat currency and with limited government spending, until of course the cycle repeats in another 50-100 years. Let's call the point at which the monetary system collapses "the reckoning."

I don't know when the reckoning will happen, but it will happen whenever the amount of money being printed exceeds the productive output of the society supporting it. So between now and the reckoning we will spend XXX trillions of dollars. That money can go towards supporting senior citizens that didn't plan for retirement, Ukraine, repaving the interstate system, a colony on Mars, or anything else. Some of those things might actually increase the productive output of the society (the ideal purpose of government spending), but most will not, pushing us closer to the reckoning.

So yeah, with the inevitable demise of the spend-anything era of modern governance looming, I would rather we spend the money on something like clipping Russia's wings (or China's), rather than paying people not to work, or building museums to celebrate nonsense cultural anomalies, or funding weapons systems that go nowhere, maintaining military bases in countries that aren't interested in their own defense, or keeping old people from dying of natural causes, or shoveling billions into the pharma companies to protect us from a new cold, etc etc etc. The money will be spent, so instead of tilting at windmills trying to stop the bleeding, try to redirect the spending to something that might set us up in a better position to "win" the great-global-reset.

I wish it wasn't so, but the Trump era should have clearly demonstrated that there is no group interested in responsible spending. None. So let's win the game we are actually playing, not the game we wish we were playing. 

I'm with you on much of your assessment here, but I'm not with you on how it should be addressed. You seem to be saying the battle against economic doom is lost, so why not exacerbate the problem and speed up the eventual collapse so we can get to what's next. If history is any indication, what comes next in the wake of social instability and political upheaval will be far worse than what we have now and it's worth staving off as long as we possibly can. I hate to quote Sun Tzu, but "An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes." That's exactly what our nation's leadership seem hell bent on doing. Russia would be the least of our concerns in the aftemath.

[BashiChuni]

we need to examine HOW WE GOT HERE

putin didn't just decide to "steamroll Ukraine"

the US and NATO have provoked Russia for decades...we got here because the neocons and war hawks in government WANTED this war

[BashiChuni]

[Stoker]

30 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

we need to examine HOW WE GOT HERE

putin didn't just decide to "steamroll Ukraine"

the US and NATO have provoked Russia for decades...we got here because the neocons and war hawks in government WANTED this war

The only thing that wouldn't have "provoked" Russia to war is letting them reconquer the entire former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact. That's a couple hundred million people who have made it emphatically clear over the past couple centuries that they DO NOT want to be ruled by Russia. I don't think it's the US' right, power, or in its interest to tell those people crying for freedom that it's too bad, they need to submit because we don't want to offend the Russians and then have to kill them. 

Europe tied it's entire energy sector to Russia to give them a reason not to have a conflict - and that didn't work, either. 

[BashiChuni]

2 minutes ago, Stoker said:

The only thing that wouldn't have "provoked" Russia to war is letting them reconquer the entire former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact. That's a couple hundred million people who have made it emphatically clear over the past couple centuries that they DO NOT want to be ruled by Russia. I don't think it's the US' right, power, or in its interest to tell those people crying for freedom that it's too bad, they need to submit because we don't want to offend the Russians and then have to kill them. 

Europe tied it's entire energy sector to Russia to give them a reason not to have a conflict - and that didn't work, either. 

false

[SurelySerious]

putin didn't just decide to "steamroll Ukraine"
the US and NATO have provoked Russia for decades.

Someone earlier asked what exactly Bashi has been spreading of Putin’s platform, and primarily it is this. This is directly from Putin’s talking points.

[Lord Ratner]

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

First, awesome post. Lots of good points.

Same to you

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

If you read the article, it listed very specific expenditures, exactly where the money was going, and exactly how much.

Didn't see that, since we weren't in a dialog at that point. Good article, and I don't dispute the findings. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

I can't help but notice that the basis for your argument is a lot of "But what about this? But what about that?". When someone gets caught speeding, does telling the cop that they speed often and by a larger amount absolve them? Didn't the cop notice all the other people speeding?

It's not so much that I think we can't do something if we don't do the other things, it's more to my overall financial point that those other things indicate the fruitlessness of fiscal responsibility on a governmental level. There is a finite amount of money between now and financial Armageddon. They will spend every dime if you let them on nonsense, or you can divert some to better causes. But it will be spent. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

COVID is a separate issue, and I think there should have been some help from the government to dampen the systemic economic shock, but it was way overdone, and there was some fraud. Was your stimulus check fraud?

There was a ton of fraud. A metric shit ton. And where it wasn't fraud, such as my stimulus check, it was waste. It's a separate issue, but it demonstrates, again, my overall point that being fiscally responsible with Ukraine spending at the cost of inaction (further discussed below) is illogical, because fiscal responsibility is no longer a goal of the system. It's like following a rule from an older version of the 11-202. No one is telling you to do it anymore, and it's slowing you down, so why are you doing it?

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

Among others, didn't you just make that very claim a few sentences later by saying "That's a steal"?

We are arguing semantics now. If I buy a fully loaded Ford F-350 4x4 for $35,000, that's a steal, but it's not a paltry sum. In this case, the MSRP of destroying the Russian military can be reasonably set at the annual rate of military spending (~$700B), and we are paying a whole lot less. Don't get caught up in the analogy. Suffice it to say we are spending a lot less than if we had to do it ourselves. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

And here's where you lose me: You say we are now free of the illusion that Russia is a meaningful threat to the world, but 4 lines later say that they are also a geopolitical adversary. Which is it? Immediately upon the realization that Russia isn't the threat we thought they were, there should have been a negotiated end to hostilities.

I don't consider this conflict mono-dimensional. There are lots of reasons to support Ukraine, though you certainly don't have to agree with them, they are still real reasons. 

• Materially weaken a bad actor (done, but still progressing)
• Dispel the image of Russian military strength (done)
• Enforce the vital concept of sovereign borders (ongoing)
• Support a country against an act of evil against them (ongoing, more below) 
• Scare Europe into considering the utility of a functional military again (done)
• Force the West to realign their supply chains, especially for energy production (done, but progressing further)

And yes, there are definitely good reasons to not support Ukraine further. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

Again with the whatabout. "We're already $1 million dollars in debt, what's $100,000 more?" Fortunately, that logic doesn't work in my household. I can't believe it seems logical to others. Especially for something you've already said isn't a real threat.

It shouldn't work in your household. It shouldn't work nationally, and eventually won't, but your ability to load up on massive debt will expire in a matter of months/years, whereas the country's ability is measured in decades. It's not logical, it's catastrophic, but it's happening anyways. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

It seems you're more of a moral relativist whereas I'm more of a moral absolutist. That's probably where our differences lie an what makes me seem more disagreeable.

Quite the contrary, one of the reasons I support the funding of Ukraine against Russia is specifically because I view it as a moral good. That doesn't mean you can run national policy off morality alone. I generally believe that if the act is immoral, you never do it as a nation, but if the act is moral, you now have the green light to weigh it against other interests. I do not believe that the political missteps of teasing Ukrainian involvement with NATO justifies this invasion. It is evil, in my eyes, and for as long as the Ukrainians wish to fight, and as long as we can afford it (already addressed), I want to support them. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

You seem to be saying the battle against economic doom is lost, so why not exacerbate the problem and speed up the eventual collapse so we can get to what's next.

Yes, in a way. Except I don't want to actively speed it up directly, I am simply ok with getting there sooner if it means spending some of the fake money on moral or useful endeavors. However, I do believe we are better off getting to the collapse sooner. 

6 hours ago, gearhog said:

If history is any indication, what comes next in the wake of social instability and political upheaval will be far worse than what we have now and it's worth staving off as long as we possibly can. I hate to quote Sun Tzu, but "An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes." That's exactly what our nation's leadership seem hell bent on doing. Russia would be the least of our concerns in the aftemath.

In the aftermath everyone will be jockeying for control, as they always do. A weaker Russia and a weaker China gives us a better shot of coming out on top. But more broadly:

This whole thing is game theory, or the prisoners dilemma. Except I can tell you already what the other prisoner is going to do: they are going to spend us into oblivion. So your financial discipline is only going to ensure you lose. By the time you are proven right, you're long gone. I truly believe there is a 0% chance of returning to financial sustainability without a devastating financial catastrophe. Look at the response to 2008... we solved a debt bubble with a newer, much bigger debt bubble. And now the largest voting demographic is completely reliant on home values, stock prices, and government spending to fund their unearned retirements. You think they are going to vote that away for our sake?

But the longer we take to get there, the weaker we will be. We will lose the musculature of innovation, as Europe has. Our military will continue to degrade, as Europe's has. Our resource infrastructure will wither away, as Europe's has. Seeing the theme? We can look across the ocean to see our future, and I don't like it. Better to hit the hard times now while we still have some hard men and women to lead us from the (metaphorical) rubble. 

But if it takes another 50 years I fear we will be as weak and helpless as the Europeans. That'll give China an advantage, especially when they conveniently let a few hundred million retirees die to rebalance their lost-cause demographics, something we would never do, and suddenly they have a strong foundation to build an empire on. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by Lord Ratner

[FourFans]

Got nothing to add, just wanna say that I admire you guys in what is a  a sincere, intellectually honest, and thought provoking discussion.

So refreshing

[DirkDiggler]

https://apple.news/AdjtghJweTa6JlejJp7jzoQ
 

  Interesting that Erdogan was willing to publicly stick it to Putin over this.

[BashiChuni]

so many of you guys have zero critical thinking and just parrot what the media tells you to say/think. nato has provoked russia since the early 90s with expansion. it's a fact. you can say its russian talking points as many times as you want....still doesn't make it not true.

[Stoker]

11 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

so many of you guys have zero critical thinking and just parrot what the media tells you to say/think. nato has provoked russia since the early 90s with expansion. it's a fact. you can say its russian talking points as many times as you want....still doesn't make it not true.

Again, Russia does not have the right to dominate the lives of 300 million people outside its borders. We "provoked" Russia by letting democratic states align with us instead of Russia? That's like a wife-beater saying his victim provoked him by trying to leave the trailer park.