All Things Russia & Ukraine

[Seacoaster(1)]

The lethal aid Trump gave helped prevent Ukraine's collapse.

The lethal aid Biden gave helped prevent Ukraine's collapse.

Fixed it for you.

When Trump does it, it's awesome.

When Biden does it, he's awful.

It's impossible for a man of your age and education to be this stupid. Stop wasting your time with this fake opinion.

You’re mistaken. He is in fact this stupid. And dishonest. And narrow-minded. A dull anachronism who is banking on Trumpto give him 1954 again.

[old salt]

Just need to stick this in here:

Our nation has been spending vast amounts of money and time preparing to do a land battle with USSR/Russia since before I was born.
So has the USSR/Russia. Just the other way around.

We both stopped building East v West stuff 30 years ago. But we had built a shitload of it. So did they. And now in the age of drones and EW modules, all of this old stuff is worthless. OK. Maybe just “Elderly”.

So we either pay to dispose of this stuff so we don’t have to maintain it, or give it to the Ukrainians, who are fighting the war we built all of this stuff for!

Let them (not us) bleed! Let them bleed out the military that I have feared for my whole life.

Without losing a single US soldier, to boot! How can I object to this?

All We do is enforce a sanction regime that keeps Russia from converting their rich natural resources into western tech to support their war machine. We’ll use our space and cyber assets to keep tiny Ukraine Intel a step or two ahead of Russian Intel
.
Our goal is to keep Russia from winning, but also to keep Ukraine from winning because an embarrassed nuclear Russia is a YUGE problem. So we give Ukraine JUST enough to peck at the Russian ego a bit. Ya know?

Problem is, Ukraine wants their old borders back.

I agree with most of that, but this war is not consuming just our old Cold War vintage stuff. This war, plus the wars in the ME against Iran's proxies, are outstripping our production capacity for more expensive precision weapons (like air defense munitions) which are multiple times more expensive & time consuming to produce than the threats they shoot down. Then there is our shortfall in production capacity of basic munitions like artillery shells. We also have thousands of surplus Abrams tanks & Bradley fighting vehicles which are too complex & expensive for the Ukrainians to operate en masse. The same thing applies to the F-16's our NATO allies are donating.

Given our national debt, we cannot afford to spend enough to a fund a global arms race with China, Russia, Iran & N Korea, especially when our allies are not willing to match our % of defense spending.

[old salt]

Blindly stumbling our way toward nuclear war ? Where are the duck & cover drills ?
Is Harris even in the loop ? She has to ensure they're using gender neutral pronouns.
https://x.com/TeamCavuto/status/1834709 ... gr%5Etweet

It is presumptuous for Lame Duck Biden to make long term commitments about future US support or Ukraine's NATO membership.
Why isn't Harris at the table ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNrJKxMNFZw&t=227s

Poor John Kirby
https://www.c-span.org/video/?538390-1/ ... er-starmer

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/us/p ... siles.html
John F. Kirby, the national security spokesman at the White House, said Friday that the Biden administration takes Mr. Putin’s threats seriously because he has proved himself capable of “aggression” and “escalation.” But Mr. Kirby added that there had been no change in Mr. Biden’s opposition to letting Ukraine use U.S. missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
“There is no change to our view on the provision of long-range strike capabilities for Ukraine to use inside Russia, and I wouldn’t expect any sort of major announcement in that regard coming out of the discussions, certainly not from our side,” he said.
Mr. Kirby’s comments came just hours before the two leaders met for their first lengthy conversation since Mr. Starmer became prime minister in early July.

The question of whether to let Ukraine use the long-range weapons that can travel 150 to 200 miles has been a rare point of disagreement between British and American officials, who have largely been in lock step on strategy over the past 30 months of fighting.
British officials have argued that Ukraine cannot be expected to fight effectively unless it can attack the military sites that Russia is using to shoot missiles or the airplanes that deliver “glide bombs.” And they believe that Mr. Putin, for all his nuclear threats warning that war between Russia and European forces could be coming, is largely bluffing. Mr. Putin, they say, has shown he does not want to bring NATO directly into the fighting.

Mr. Biden’s view has been far more cautious.
He has hesitated at every major decision point, starting with shipping HIMARS artillery, then through debates on whether to send M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighters, and short- and long-range ATACMS, a missile system critical to American preparations to defend both Europe and the Korean Peninsula.
But those decisions have primarily helped Ukraine’s military defend its territory and try to repel the Russian invasion. Over time, his aides say, they have discovered that Mr. Putin was less sensitive to the introduction of new weapons into the battlefield than they had thought. So they have gradually approved more capable, longer-range arms for Ukraine.

The questions of how Mr. Putin would react to the use of American weapons by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russian territory, officials say, could lead to a very different outcome.
“When he starts brandishing the nuclear sword, for instance, yeah, we take that seriously, and we constantly monitor that kind of activity,” Mr. Kirby said. “We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.”

The American concerns are twofold. The first has been rooted in Mr. Biden’s concern that the war not escalate; time and again he has told members of his staff that their No. 1 priority was to “avoid World War III.”

The second American concern is a practical one: Pentagon officials do not believe Ukraine has enough of the ATACMS, the British Storm Shadow and the French SCALP missiles to make a strategic difference on the battlefield. The reach of the missiles, they note, is well known — and Russia has already moved its most valuable aircraft beyond the range the missiles can fly.

Moreover, the U.S. officials say, they simply cannot supply many more to Ukraine. The Pentagon has warned that it must keep a healthy reserve of weapons in case of an outbreak of fighting in either Europe or Asia. And the missiles are so expensive that they contend Ukraine could get more firepower putting that money into drones.

So in the American telling of events, the decisions being debated by Mr. Biden and Mr. Starmer are more symbolic than substantive.
Looming over this is the American election.
In the debate against Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump declined several opportunities to say he was committed to Ukraine’s victory. Instead, he talked of striking a deal, one that Ukraine may be coerced to sign.
While Ms. Harris is likely to continue the outlines of the American strategy, providing more arms and aid to Ukraine as long as Congress keeps the spigot open, Mr. Trump has made clear he is uninterested in continuing to spend heavily. And while Europe has stepped up, it does not have enough of an arsenal to make much of a difference.

[youthathletics]

Not to worry, we just need Harris to first get elected in order to solve the Ukraine issue, since she is VP she really has not had any power or the ear of Biden the last couple years to help the matter.

[cradleandshoot]

Not to worry, we just need Harris to first get elected in order to solve the Ukraine issue, since she is VP she really has not had any power or the ear of Biden the last couple years to help the matter.

Now what has Harris publicly stated that her policy towards Ukraine will be? Oh wait she hasn't said anything about Ukraine that I know of. I wonder what her course of action might be? I guess it will be a surprise for everyone.

[youthathletics]

Not to worry, we just need Harris to first get elected in order to solve the Ukraine issue, since she is VP she really has not had any power or the ear of Biden the last couple years to help the matter.

Now what has Harris publicly stated that her policy towards Ukraine will be? Oh wait she hasn't said anything about Ukraine that I know of. I wonder what her course of action might be? I guess it will be a surprise for everyone.

We have to vote on it before we read it.

[Typical Lax Dad]

[cradleandshoot]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

[NattyBohChamps04]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

Well there's good news. We're no longer in Afghanistan and Biden isn't gonna be president after a few more months.

And it could have been 100x worse, just look at the Soviet withdrawal. And looking at Trump's negotiating skills and leadership - it probably would have been a much bigger disaster if he was in charge and actually went through with it.

If you're focused on America first like the MAGA folks, we got out with minimal loss of American life.

[cradleandshoot]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

Well there's good news. We're no longer in Afghanistan and Biden isn't gonna be president after a few more months.

And it could have been 100x worse, just look at the Soviet withdrawal. And looking at Trump's negotiating skills and leadership - it probably would have been a much bigger disaster if he was in charge and actually went through with it.

If you're focused on America first like the MAGA folks, we got out with minimal loss of American life.

Except that the women in Afghanistan are being treated as third class citizens. I bet those women would enjoy having a feeling of greatness once again? Sadly they are now just subservient to their men and must do what they are told to do or else.

[a fan]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

Tell us how to get out while guaranteeing fewer casualties.

The math averaging for the 4 years leading to the withdrawal, Cradle, told us that for every additional month, you can expect (and this is ONLY American soldiers).....16 deaths.

Biden's evac gave us 13. How do you beat that if you take your sweet time getting out? Tell us what you'd do?

You and Republicans are comparing Biden's withdrawal against what you're convinced is some magic situation where there are zero casualties or deaths, and then complaining that Biden wasn't perfect.

Trump had MORE deaths per year. Why aren't you telling us that Trump did it wrong, and Biden improved on Trump's peformance? Because the scoreboard says Biden did better, my man.

Then you add in the fact: how many US trooop KIA's did Biden have in Afghanistan in 2022? Ok...how about 2023? Ok...how about so far this year?

It's not even a close call, Cradle.

[a fan]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

Well there's good news. We're no longer in Afghanistan and Biden isn't gonna be president after a few more months.

And it could have been 100x worse, just look at the Soviet withdrawal. And looking at Trump's negotiating skills and leadership - it probably would have been a much bigger disaster if he was in charge and actually went through with it.

If you're focused on America first like the MAGA folks, we got out with minimal loss of American life.

Except that the women in Afghanistan are being treated as third class citizens. I bet those women would enjoy having a feeling of greatness once again? Sadly they are now just subservient to their men and must do what they are told to do or else.

That's every Muslim nation, Cradle. Not our problem.

[MDlaxfan76]

You really suck at trying to spin Bidens disaster in leaving Afghanistan. Biden was CiC he could have chosen any path to exit Afghanistan that his military advisors presented to him. He was never under any obligation to follow whatever agreement Trump had made. I will say this for the 100th time a strategic withdrawal is something you accomplish on your own schedule. Telling the world you will leave by such and such a date is foolish. What you tell the world is we will leave at a time and in a manner of our own choosing. Shutting down Bagram Airfield was an industrial strength stupid decision. There are many things that trump can be blamed for. The disaster in leaving Afghanistan is 100% in Joe Bidens lap. I'm certain Biden was given some good advice that he chose to ignore. BHO was correct when he said never underestimate Bidens ability to f**k things up.

Well there's good news. We're no longer in Afghanistan and Biden isn't gonna be president after a few more months.

And it could have been 100x worse, just look at the Soviet withdrawal. And looking at Trump's negotiating skills and leadership - it probably would have been a much bigger disaster if he was in charge and actually went through with it.

If you're focused on America first like the MAGA folks, we got out with minimal loss of American life.

Except that the women in Afghanistan are being treated as third class citizens. I bet those women would enjoy having a feeling of greatness once again? Sadly they are now just subservient to their men and must do what they are told to do or else.

That's every Muslim nation, Cradle. Not our problem.

I disagree only in the "not our problem" part of the above exchange.

I'd modify that perhaps as "not our military's problem" or "not a problem we can solve with force".

I also think that there's a legitimate argument that, having paid an enormous price in fighting Al Qaeda and their protectors the Taliban, and moreover having promised those millions of women and girls some hope for a better future, we should have continued to pay some price to make that better future an ongoing reality.

But no way to prove that would have been successful or that we wouldn't have instead just delayed the inevitable.

[a fan]

I also think that there's a legitimate argument that, having paid an enormous price in fighting Al Qaeda and their protectors the Taliban, and moreover having promised those millions of women and girls some hope for a better future, we should have continued to pay some price to make that better future an ongoing reality.

Yeah....we didn't do that either. In order to do that, you need another 20,000 troops, and billions in actual direct construction of real cities.

As usual, the Neo-Cons in both parties only think we should blow money on bombs. Read Charlie Wilson's War for direct evidence of that. They think war fixes everything.

So we half-assed it in Afghanistan, instead of spending 100x what we spent on bombs on infrastructure.

We didn't even TRY, MDlax. Mailed it in, as a always, and then act shocked when minimal spending has a minimal effect.

[OCanada]

The war on terror wash Bush’s greatest mistake,

[OCanada]

The lethal aid Trump gave helped prevent Ukraine's collapse.

The lethal aid Biden gave helped prevent Ukraine's collapse.

Fixed it for you.

When Trump does it, it's awesome.

When Biden does it, he's awful.

It's impossible for a man of your age and education to be this stupid. Stop wasting your time with this fake opinion.

What's stupid is your one size fits all logic & failure to see nuance or recognize different circumstances.

Right. Your answer EVERYTIME a D and a R do the exact same thing.

Every time, without fail, it's coincidentally and magically different.

Sell it somewhere else. Your partisanship makes you weak, small, and ridiculous. Dems are ALWAYS wrong. It's like talking to a child.

You see no difference between Invasion or No Invasion. Sell that somewhere else.

You ripped Obama for not helping Ukraine militarily. You ripped Biden because he DID help Ukraine militarily.

You can't keep your own BS straight. You've been caught doing this over and over and over. You're fooling no one trying to act like you're calling balls and strikes. No matter what the Dems do, you tell us it's wrong. No amount of dancing fixes this. You're caught.

You can't keep your BS straight.

I did not rip Obama for not supporting Ukraine militarily. I ripped him for interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs, fomenting the Maidan Revolution & regime change.

When Trump was being impeached for delaying the release of a few Javelins to Ukraine (long before the invasion), I pointed out that Obama had provided no lethal military aid. I did not rip Biden for providing military aid to Ukraine. I merely pointed out that he gave just enough military aid to extend the war & not enough to win it, & encouraged an ill conceived offensive against hardened Russian defenses which was doomed to fail without air support & long range fires, which he refused to provide.

You are more concerned with US meddling in intrtnsl affairs than you are with Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, Israeli, Hungarian in our internal affairs?

The Maidan Revolution clashes between protesters and state forces in Kyiv resulted in ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych, the return to the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine, and the outbreak of the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War. That one? Wasn’t Viktor a Russian asset? He was endorsed by Putin, did not speak Ukranian and wanted vlode ties with Russia

Correct. WE call out Russian meddling in our elections. Sanction & prosecute them. We actively participated in the overthrown of the legally recognized Government of Ukraine, & handed out sandwiches to the revolutionaries. Ukraine was supposed to be a bi-lingual country. For most of it's history it was a province of Russia & an integral part of Russia.

That was funny. Remember when we over threw the Shah of Iran? Or any of the other countries we destabilized? FYI your version of Ukrsines history is shall we say lacking. I will give you they were part of The Soviet empire beginning in 1922 until the fall of the wall. ( not counting a few years in between) So was sll oc eastern europe. It seems like you are more interested in restoring the Soviet Empire than even Putin. Estonia can’t expect much from you or Hungary, Czech, etc who were also part of the Soviet Empire

[a fan]

The war on terror wash Bush’s greatest mistake,

Sure. But remember...he held a vote for the moronic Iraq invasion. If Hillary and other D's voted no like Obama did? It wouldn't have happened.

And the EU took to the streets, telling us we were idiots if we invaded.

Did we listen? Nope. We think war fixes everything.

[njbill]

Obama didn’t become a senator until 2005. He didn’t vote on the Iraq war.

[3rdPersonPlural]

Just need to stick this in here:

Our nation has been spending vast amounts of money and time preparing to do a land battle with USSR/Russia since before I was born.
So has the USSR/Russia. Just the other way around.

We both stopped building East v West stuff 30 years ago. But we had built a shitload of it. So did they. And now in the age of drones and EW modules, all of this old stuff is worthless. OK. Maybe just “Elderly”.

So we either pay to dispose of this stuff so we don’t have to maintain it, or give it to the Ukrainians, who are fighting the war we built all of this stuff for!

Let them (not us) bleed! Let them bleed out the military that I have feared for my whole life.

Without losing a single US soldier, to boot! How can I object to this?

All We do is enforce a sanction regime that keeps Russia from converting their rich natural resources into western tech to support their war machine. We’ll use our space and cyber assets to keep tiny Ukraine Intel a step or two ahead of Russian Intel
.
Our goal is to keep Russia from winning, but also to keep Ukraine from winning because an embarrassed nuclear Russia is a YUGE problem. So we give Ukraine JUST enough to peck at the Russian ego a bit. Ya know?

Problem is, Ukraine wants their old borders back.

I agree with most of that, but this war is not consuming just our old Cold War vintage stuff. This war, plus the wars in the ME against Iran's proxies, are outstripping our production capacity for more expensive precision weapons (like air defense munitions) which are multiple times more expensive & time consuming to produce than the threats they shoot down. Then there is our shortfall in production capacity of basic munitions like artillery shells. We also have thousands of surplus Abrams tanks & Bradley fighting vehicles which are too complex & expensive for the Ukrainians to operate en masse. The same thing applies to the F-16's our NATO allies are donating.

Given our national debt, we cannot afford to spend enough to a fund a global arms race with China, Russia, Iran & N Korea, especially when our allies are not willing to match our % of defense spending.

Thank you for your considered reply. I (also) agree with most of what you posed, BUT:

This war, plus the wars in the ME against Iran's proxies, are outstripping our production capacity for more expensive precision weapons (like air defense munitions) which are multiple times more expensive & time consuming to produce than the threats they shoot down.

Yeah, I get this. And I see that our Military Industrial complex is developing cheap stuff to combat their cheap stuff. Thank goodness we get to monitor 'the next war' from the sidelines and learn from it

Then there is our shortfall in production capacity of basic munitions like artillery shells.

Yeah WTH!?! But our military has moved from the artillery followed by armored infantry supported by tanks model a few decades ago. Thank goodness that Ukraine is willing to use all the tubes and shells we abandoned when we moved to missiles and maneuver.

We also have thousands of surplus Abrams tanks & Bradley fighting vehicles which are too complex & expensive for the Ukrainians to operate en masse. The same thing applies to the F-16's our NATO allies are donating.

Here, we are in violent agreement. The F16 and the Abrams are too difficult to maintain, and a less trained crew fails. I see this as a failure on our part, not a failure of the Ukrainians or any reason to decide not to support them.

Given our national debt, we cannot afford to spend enough to a fund a global arms race with China, Russia, Iran & N Korea, especially when our allies are not willing to match our % of defense spending.

I can't argue with this sentiment. Europe, Japan, Taiwan, our Gulf allies, and Israel have felt comfy under the umbrella of Pax Americana for too long, IMHO. They need to arm up. Poland seems to be answering the bell. And Japan. But for the most part we are carrying the load.

[a fan]

Obama didn’t become a senator until 2005. He didn’t vote on the Iraq war.

Stand corrected, my mistake. He was against the war,....and I forgot the timeline. Appreciate the correction.


Speech from same day the Iraq War vote was held in 2002....

https://www.npr.org/2009/01/20/99591469 ... e-iraq-war