Political Posts

[Luke]

So yes, leaving nato, stopping being a US puppet and looking out for our own interests will make a lot of sense. 

 

But hey, perhaps the US will start sanctions if we miss behave? Maybe stop sending the AI chips to germany too? lol! 

 

Imagine what could be possible in eurasia and how much wealth we could create? Short SP 500, long Eurasia 500?

Edited March 11, 2024 by Luca

[Xerxes]

For clarity, UK’ nuclear arsenal are close coordinated with that of US, both at the technical level and as well as planning purposes. 

Whereas the French nuclear forces is truly independent and sovereign. That French nuclear deterrence by extension de facto strengths NATO nuclear umbrella as well. But it is independent.  Cannot say the same about UK. 
 

Source: The Economist

 

[adesigar]

30 minutes ago, Luca said:

About time we get independent from the US, especially considering what kind of presidents are voted for...is Trumpe a reliable nato partner? Absolutely not. 

 

Germany upsizes military spending, either gets control of french nuclear weapons in an alliance between the two countries, or asks for their own (lol). 

 

As you can see by my illustration, your nato partners already provide enough buffer space for us were you have to protect these countries before russia or china reaches us: Win Win. The rocket defense domes are produced in germany too, we shall up the spending! 

 

 

 

With better russian relations we can built/reuse our pipelines again, start a large industrial stimulus and germany will be great again! 

 

On top comes that we dont get drawn between the US and China, can keep china as an ally/market/ressource partner! 

 

So in one post you went from. Trump is terrible to MGGA(Make Germany Great Again). Also the westernmost part of Russia is Kaliningrad. which is west of Lithuania and right above Poland.

Edited March 11, 2024 by adesigar

[John Hjorth]

16 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

Blocking EU aid to Ukraine, dragging feet on Russian sanctions, trying to block Finland and Sweden from NATO, trying to block Ukraine EU bid, cozying up to Putin, etc, etc etc.

 

I'm all for reconsidering once Orban is out of power.

 

@ValueArb,

 

This is to me personally not a satisfactory reply to @Lucas polite request for elaboration of your personal postion [and I suppose to many other CoBF members] by posting "... cozying up to Putin, etc etc etc."

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Please just start a new topic in the general discussion forum here on CoBF about "Germany out of NATO", and I'll personally take care of getting it reported to get it ditched.

[Luke]

26 minutes ago, adesigar said:

So in one post you went from. Trump is terrible to MGGA(Make Germany Great Again). Also the westernmost part of Russia is Kaliningrad. which is west of Lithuania and right above Poland.

Trump is terrible for us and you have to counter him with his own medicine. America great again? Sure! Germany great again too  No more "common interests", sure! Then we all look out for our own and i think thats best. Germany is in a great position, lots of industry, lots of neighbors and potential. 

 

We need missile defenses for germany but most of all we need good relationships with russia

 

I am very sure putin is not interested in attacking germany, he actually rather looks at the US with pessimism if you read his speeches so i think he will be quite happy if we get back to diplomacy and the US chills on their own island. 

[Luke]

I have recently watched the navalny documentary and also his 1.5 hours video about putins abuse of his political power, stealing taxes etc. Yes, russia became an authoritarian regime with a few people with lots of power, with putin at the top. But he is also very paranoid and he hates having missiles close to his border that could bomb him away because of "missing democracy in russia" or whatever reason the US might make up. He is not interested in conquering the world but rather preserving a wide margin of safety around his country so he can live in peace and play his emperor game. That's for the Russian people to solve and not for us, we try to be diplomatic and take the resources necessary and maintain peaceful relations and focus on our own...

[Luke]

 

Highly recommended

 

 

[Luke]

1 minute ago, Luca said:

I have recently watched the navalny documentary and also his 1.5 hours video about putins abuse of his political power, stealing taxes etc. Yes, russia became an authoritarian regime with a few people with lots of power, with putin at the top. But he is also very paranoid and he hates having missiles close to his border that could bomb him away because of "missing democracy in russia" or whatever reason the US might make up. He is not interested in conquering the world but rather preserving a wide margin of safety around his country so he can live in peace and play his emperor game. That's for the Russian people to solve and not for us, we try to be diplomatic and take the resources necessary and maintain peaceful relations and focus on our own...

It's highly likely that one can get peace with Putin taking his regions of interests and Ukraine promising to stay a neutral country. 

 

We won't get peace with "Ukraine is independent and can decide to join NATO" and "Ukraine gets everything back". 

[Gregmal]

As an American I’ve been disgusted by all the warmongering that’s been brought about by the current regime…but it gets to another level when the SOTU headlines are that we’re “determined to avoid sending troops to Ukraine”….huh???? Who TF was ever even talking about sending US troops? It’s bad enough we re wasting billions so a dementia ridden puppet can play stratego….now we need to kill our own over some foreign pissing match? Fuck these people.

[changegonnacome]

1 hour ago, Luca said:

 

 

Every powerful nation with significant regional muscle likes a buffer zone around it (Monroe Doctrine anybody?) - in fact as I've argued the Russian invasion of Ukraine was principally triggered by its slow slide from a kind of ambiguous buffer zone (providing both NATO countries & Russia comfort)......into something much more akin to a US/EU client state....ya know the type of place where the US Vice President's son is on the board of the largest company there.....and where a current US sitting president is so secure in his leverage over a sitting Ukrainian president (due to aid payments) that he can instruct him on a phone call to investigate a domestic political rival.

 

The great tragedy of Ukraine - is that we in the West put it so firmly 'in play' with our hubristic liberal democratic nation building dreams and superior economic resources vs. Russia....to be clear I'm not advocating for some kind of past Ukraine abandonment strategy where we ceded the country to Putin to become a Russian vassal state....I'm advocating for a Kissenger-esque balance of power strategy for Ukraine in the 2000's one where it was neither fully a Russian nor USA vaseel state......a strategic approach that never put it firmly in the Russian column or the West's column......put more crudely....just because you can afford to pump billions more of aid/economic investment into Ukraine than Russia could in the 2000's to buy their allegiance doesn't mean you should have. We failed at this game in Belarus might I add....seems all our love and attention was spent on Ukraine in this period.

 

That's ancient history - the correct strategy moving forward is to give Ukraine exactly what it needs to regain most of the territory lost with the highest priority placed on the economically important regions which allow Ukraine in the longer term to be somewhat self-sustaining economically and militarily. Some landlocked Oblasts in the East are not hugely important economically and due to Ukrainian populations fleeing there are no longer ethnically hybrid regions...they are simply now edge outs of Russia...pragmatism would suggest that these regions form the basis of concessions to Russia in the future.

Edited March 11, 2024 by changegonnacome

[Xerxes]

It is worse than that, after betting all on “making sure Russia cannot win, making sure Ukraine does not lose”, we might be living in a world in 2025 where there is a change in US administration and policy for better or worse. 

If it was matter of national security under Biden, how could “national security” shifts so suddenly due to an election.

if there is a 180 degree a year from now, maybe it was not a matter of national security, but a nice to have. 

 

[changegonnacome]

33 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

If it was matter of national security under Biden, how could “national security” shifts so suddenly due to an election.

 

Exactly - cause the reality no wants to hear is that Ukraine, like Afghanistan.....when push comes to shove is not truly strategically important to the United States.....its unimportance is DEMONSTRATED by the fact that it has become a political football in D.C........this rarely ever occurs with truly important matters of national security which, in the main, unite the political parties......Biden is doing an extreme version of the most repeated trick in history which Russian threat inflation as per his State of the Union speech (which he may actually believe btw but he's on the face of it wrong).....Trump is correctly stating the obvious by questioning such deep US involvement....where he's wrong to a certain extent is that America has by its INVOLVEMENT there made Ukraine strategically important...not because Ukraine itself is important.....but because China is watching what happens there and how the US deals with the problem its got itself into....China is now measuring US political resolve.....and attempting to apply what it learns to whatever aspirations it has in the South China sea....for this reason Ukraine has become IMO hugely strategically important but not for the reasons of 'defeating' Russia.....but as a mechanism by which China might be deterred in Asia.

Edited March 11, 2024 by changegonnacome

[Luke]

45 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Every powerful nation with significant regional muscle likes a buffer zone around it (Monroe Doctrine anybody?) - in fact as I've argued the Russian invasion of Ukraine was principally triggered by its slow slide from a kind of ambiguous buffer zone (providing both NATO countries & Russia comfort)......into something much more akin to a US/EU client state....ya know the type of place where the US Vice President's son is on the board of the largest company there.....and where a current US sitting president is so secure in his leverage over a sitting Ukrainian president (due to aid payments) that he can instruct him on a phone call to investigate a domestic political rival.

 

The great tragedy of Ukraine - is that we in the West put it so firmly 'in play' with our hubristic liberal democratic nation building dreams and superior economic resources vs. Russia....to be clear I'm not advocating for some kind of past Ukraine abandonment strategy where we ceded the country to Putin to become a Russian vassal state....I'm advocating for a Kissenger-esque balance of power strategy for Ukraine in the 2000's one where it was neither fully a Russian nor USA vaseel state......a strategic approach that never put it firmly in the Russian column or the West's column......put more crudely....just because you can afford to pump billions more of aid/economic investment into Ukraine than Russia could in the 2000's to buy their allegiance doesn't mean you should have. We failed at this game in Belarus might I add....seems all our love and attention was spent on Ukraine in this period.

+

45 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

That's ancient history - the correct strategy moving forward is to give Ukraine exactly what it needs to regain most of the territory lost with the highest priority placed on the economically important regions which allow Ukraine in the longer term to be somewhat self-sustaining economically and militarily. Some landlocked Oblasts in the East are not hugely important economically and due to Ukrainian populations fleeing there are no longer ethnically hybrid regions...they are simply now edge outs of Russia...pragmatism would suggest that these regions form the basis of concessions to Russia in the future.

The problem is the current government in ukraine is just nuts, selensky is on a suicide mission, there is likely more corruption than we know. All we can do is force them to do the right thing, cut off any weapon supply, force them into capitulation and then organize peace talks with the russians. Best outcome would be that the west agrees to neutrality for ukraine, probably the regions putin wants will remain in his hand and then some rebuilding can take place with stimulus from the the larger nations, US, europe, china, russia. 

 

But you need willing leaders for that and i really dont see that right now unfortunately.

[changegonnacome]

3 minutes ago, Luca said:

The problem is the current government in ukraine is just nuts, selensky is on a suicide mission, there is likely more corruption than we know. All we can do is force them to do the right thing, cut off any weapon supply, force them into capitulation and then organize peace talks with the russians. Best outcome would be that the west agrees to neutrality for ukraine, probably the regions putin wants will remain in his hand and then some rebuilding can take place with stimulus from the the larger nations, US, europe, china, russia. 

 

But you need willing leaders for that and i really dont see that right now unfortunately.

 

Covered my thought on this in the post above your in this bit down below - which I think is a point orginally made by Niall Ferguson....and for which when he raised I must say I totally agree with the logic.

 

"Trump is correctly stating the obvious by questioning such deep US involvement....where he's wrong to a certain extent is that America has by its INVOLVEMENT there made Ukraine strategically important...not because Ukraine itself is important.....but because China is watching what happens there and how the US deals with the problem its got itself into....China is now measuring US political resolve.....and attempting to apply what it learns to whatever aspirations it has in the South China sea....for this reason Ukraine has become IMO hugely strategically important but not for the reasons of 'defeating' Russia.....but as a mechanism by which China might be deterred in Asia."

Edited March 11, 2024 by changegonnacome

[Luke]

5 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Covered my thought on this in the post above your in this bit down below - which I think is a point orginally made by Niall Ferguson....and for which when he raised I must say I totally agree with the logic.

 

"Trump is correctly stating the obvious by questioning such deep US involvement....where he's wrong to a certain extent is that America has by its INVOLVEMENT there made Ukraine strategically important...not because Ukraine itself is important.....but because China is watching what happens there and how the US deals with the problem its got itself into....China is now measuring US political resolve.....and attempting to apply what it learns to whatever aspirations it has in the South China sea....for this reason Ukraine has become IMO hugely strategically important but not for the reasons of 'defeating' Russia.....but as a mechanism by which China might be deterred in Asia."

Yeah this is a very good point i think fukuyama pointed something like this out in 2022 after the invasion in a newspaper article. 

 

I previously thought chinas population would rage about the death count if they invade but in russia they only send the rural low educated guys who nobody misses. Educated st petersburg/moscow folks are not drafted. Combine that with a very staged media sector and you can prevent public concern easily, could happen in china too....

Edited March 11, 2024 by Luca

[ValueArb]

1 hour ago, Luca said:

It's highly likely that one can get peace with Putin taking his regions of interests and Ukraine promising to stay a neutral country. 

 

We won't get peace with "Ukraine is independent and can decide to join NATO" and "Ukraine gets everything back". 

 

How can Ukraine promise to stay a neutral country when Putin has already said its always been a part of Russia? How does that work exactly to stop Putin from finishing what he started?

[Xerxes]

As the saying goes:

”war takes a life of its own”. 
 

who / why / when it all started becomes all meaningless with passage of time. 
 

———-

Ex: It didn’t matter if the Iraqi started the war in 1980. By 1988 the notion of “winning” was no longer the same as it was in 1981. 
———-

 

Worse, scares of a long war, shapes the thinking of that generation that fought the war. Who later became decision makers. War may have ended but the politics and the hard feeling stays. It takes another full generation to get past that. Long past the attention timespan of an average Westerner, itching for his/her war from safety. 

 

One thing for sure, post-ceasefire in the Eastern Europe is the perfect ground for Kremlin to continue “its work”. There will be enough “grey zone” and holes to drive several An-225 through (not that the plane still exists). What will be an “exit valve” for Western powers after being too tired of playing game of thrones will be an open field for the Kremlin. After all, what happens on your border is actually a matter of national security. As it is for the Kremlin. 
 

The cycle will go on 

[ValueArb]

2 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@ValueArb,

 

This is to me personally not a satisfactory reply to @Lucas polite request for elaboration of your personal postion [and I suppose to many other CoBF members] by posting "... cozying up to Putin, etc etc etc."

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Please just start a new topic in the general discussion forum here on CoBF about "Germany out of NATO", and I'll personally take care of getting it reported to get it ditched.

 

Point out where I was impolite and I'll edit my posts to remove the offending statements, that wasn't my intent.

 

But please don't tell me that pointing out how Germany, Hungary and Turkey are unreliable partners is impolite, when it's just a statement of fact. 

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/us-ambassador-slams-hungary-pm-viktor-orban-embracing-russia-over-nato/

[Luke]

5 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

How can Ukraine promise to stay a neutral country when Putin has already said its always been a part of Russia? How does that work exactly to stop Putin from finishing what he started?

Retired german general of our air forces, ex chief of staff german forces and ex nato military committee chairman for 3 years (Harald Kujat): 

 

 

"ukraine was prevented from signing the peace treaty"

"at the 29th of march Zelensky posted on the internet how the negotiations were, on the 28th we find interviews in Russian television of positive feedback by such negotiations. The istanbul communique was even already initialed BUT ukraine was urged by foreign parties to stop negotiations..."

 

English subtitles available. 

 

[Luke]

Putin doesnt want to take over ukraine completely, nor does he want to go further than ukraine. Main concerns were foreign interventions in ukraine regarding their security positioning...the peace treaty was almost there and the chinese published their 10 point plan of which one point was to get back to the negotiating table. 

 

Whats the end game? Complete destruction of ukraine and capitulation after 1m+ of men were killed slowly in this war...they will never beat the russian forces and only if we really go into this war which would lead to what exactly? 

 

 

EDIT: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Kujat

 

Edited March 11, 2024 by Luca

[cubsfan]

4 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

Germany is the beneficiary of at least a trillion in US subsidies the last 70 years to rebuild it and protect it from the USSR and Russia. It leaving NATO would be great for the US, we could reduce NATO spending obligations by pulling our troops out and closing Ramstein, and use Germany as buffer space in the next big european war. While its being overrun would give us more time to align defenses for the rest of free europe. 

 

Bingo!  Good luck going it alone Germany! You will make the US taxpayers very, very happy.

 

How you pacifists underestimate Russia. 

 

That's gratitude for you - too bad the Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany...

[ValueArb]

1 hour ago, Luca said:

Putin doesnt want to take over ukraine completely, nor does he want to go further than ukraine. Main concerns were foreign interventions in ukraine regarding their security positioning...the peace treaty was almost there and the chinese published their 10 point plan of which one point was to get back to the negotiating table. 

 

Whats the end game? Complete destruction of ukraine and capitulation after 1m+ of men were killed slowly in this war...they will never beat the russian forces and only if we really go into this war which would lead to what exactly? 

 

 

EDIT: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Kujat

 

 

Its ironic that Harald Kujat has been accused of being pro-russian, not just because of his opinions but also because he was under the employ of a Putin kleptocrat, Vladimir Yakunin. One of the problems that the west has with Germany is the significant number of important politicians and high ranking government employees who have or had close financial ties with Russian kleptocrats. Its certainly not proof that they are under Russian control, or even influence, but you have to see how concerning it is. 

 

Putin is not a trustworthy person to sign peace treaties with. He's already laid out the justification for total subjection of Ukraine, a peace agreement is just a pause for him to rebuild forces. And it will likely embolden him to not just finish off Ukraine but to invade Georgia, etc, all of which is key to his goal of rebuilding the Russian empire. Every domino that topples makes him stronger, and more of a problem for the west, including Germany. 

 

You may think that Ukraine can't win, but I think you are unfairly extrapolating the current stalement. Ukraine might not be able to win, but we don't know that for sure, there are certainly scenarios where they can.

 

For one, Russia can't hold Crimea if Ukraine mounts any significant offensive in the south-east. They are within a few tens of kilometers of being able to cut all the rail lines to Crimea using long range artillery and HIMARS, and if someone gives them long distance missiles with heavy warheads (instead of the cluster munitions on US ATACMs), such as Taurus, they could keep the Kerch bridge out of service for long periods. At that point russian forces in Crimea would be starved of ammunition, supplies, equipment, and even food, and would likely retreat in panic to get on the next ferries out. Once Crimea falls, Ukraine gets to mass far deeper concentrations of troops along a shorter line against the Donbas, which doesn't guarantee a break-through but makes one more likely, and makes any peace deal far more attractive for Ukraine.

 

Russia has lost most of its most advanced weapons and ships already, its only edge is just meat-grinder assaults. Its lost all of its paratroopers and most highly trained forces and is using undertrained conscripts straight from boot. It can't build T-90s in any volume, so its pulling T-74s and T-64s out of long term storage that weren't compettive 40 years ago. Its had to pull back its airforce because of heavy losses of SU-34s, SU-35s, A-50s, etc. Its only path to victory is over a mountain of corpses and through mass artillery barrages. 

 

Now I realize I've been the big bad american on this thread dumping on Germany, Hungary and Turkey for not doing enough or undercutting NATO's defensive posture. But thats just because the topic was not America's short-falls. So in interest of balanced and equal criticism here is all the ways we haven't done our best for Ukraine either.

 

1. We have 3,700 Abrams Tanks in storage, and as many as 3,000 are 40 year old M1A1s that are obsolete for our purposes so most will end up being recycled, but still far superior than Russian T-72s and T-90s in crew protection and most everything else. We've given Ukraine only 31 Abrams, despite them being practically free to us (refurb does cost money but still), and only did that small amount in order to encourage european allies to provide their own modern tanks to Ukraine.

 

2. We have 2,800 Bradley Fighting vehicles in storage (in addition to 3,700 modern ones in our service), again mostly 40 years old and obsolete for our purposes, but still have a great historical record of killing T-64s and T-74s at high rates while offering excellent crew protection. Again, basically free other than refurb costs, and we've only given them 186. 

 

3. We criticize Germany for not providing Taurus, but we only provide the cluster bomb version of ATACMS because we can no longer use them as the US is cycliing out of their use as a step towards banning them. We could provide the large warhead ATACMS to Ukraine to take out the Kerch bridge, but don't. 

 

4. We are helping train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16, but refusing to provide them to Ukraine, despite having over a thousand 30 year old versions in storage that we will never use (other than for parts canniblization).  These are still superior to almost anything Russia flies and ready for almost every NATO weapon we can provide them, unlike Ukraines old MIGs and Sukhois. Instead we have to rely on the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium to supply them. 

 

5. Even the Javelins we provide Ukraine are outdated, almost every weapon we've given them is from storage and no longer good enough for our troops. Yet almost all of them are superior to anything Russia can field, especially now. 

 

Biden likes to promote the high dollar figure ($100B) of aid he's sent Ukraine, but the reality is it appears he's way overstating the value of the aid and is using old sticker prices paid decades ago for obsolete equipment that had near zero value to us. He's only giving Ukraine enough help to keep them alive but not enough to help them win. But still, I have to vote for him because the only alternative is a guy who has no appreciation for the dangers of Putin or the value of defending Ukraine.

 

So now I think I've criticized everyone except the UK now so how much fairer can I be?

Edited March 11, 2024 by ValueArb

[Luke]

23 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

Bingo!  Good luck going it alone Germany! You will make the US taxpayers very, very happy.

We are spending the 2% of our GDP now annually, no idea why you guys are so fucked up about apparent "US" taxes that are being spend on "germany". 

23 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

How you pacifists underestimate Russia. 

Who said pacifists? You are putting words in my mouth, I said it's not wise to engage into this war with Russia for us and that diplomacy is smart here...why would he want to attack us at all, the facts are pretty clear what this is about.

23 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

That's gratitude for you - too bad the Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany...

This is such a shameful comment, you should be ashamed for saying these things as a US citizen honestly, no idea why you react so agressive.

[Luke]

13 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

 

Its ironic that Harald Kujat has been accused of being pro-russian, not just because of his opinions but also because he was under the employ of a Putin kleptocrat, Vladimir Yakunin. One of the problems that the west has with Germany is the significant number of important politicians and high ranking government employees who have or had close financial ties with Russian kleptocrats. Its certainly not proof that they are under Russian control, or even influence, but you have to see how concerning it is. 

Yadda yadda yadda, he is a MEMBER of an organization of which the owner is a russian. Massive mental stretch and a disgrace to Kujat to throw out these allegations.

13 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

Putin is not a trustworthy person to sign peace treaties with. He's already laid out the justification for total subjection of Ukraine, a peace agreement is just a pause for him to rebuild forces. And it will likely embolden him to not just finish off Ukraine but to invade Georgia, etc, all of which is key to his goal of rebuilding the Russian empire. Every domino that topples makes him stronger, and more of a problem for the west, including Germany. 

Never was and never has been, also not 10-15 years ago and before. The russian empire thesis is massively stretched and unjustifiable. The bigger problem for germany russia relations is the US and not russia itself.

13 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

You may think that Ukraine can't win, but I think you are unfairly extrapolating the current stalement. Ukraine might not be able to win, but we don't know that for sure, there are certainly scenarios where they can.

 

For one, Russia can't hold Crimea if Ukraine mounts any significant offensive in the south-east. They are within a few tens of kilometers of being able to cut all the rail lines to Crimea using long range artillery and HIMARS, and if someone gives them long distance missiles with heavy warheads (instead of the cluster munitions on US ATACMs), such as Taurus, they could keep the Kerch bridge out of service for long periods. At that point russian forces in Crimea would be starved of ammunition, supplies, equipment, and even food, and would likely retreat in panic to get on the next ferries out. Once Crimea falls, Ukraine gets to mass far deeper concentrations of troops along a shorter line against the Donbas, which doesn't guarantee a break-through but makes one more likely, and makes any peace deal far more attractive for Ukraine.

 

Russia has lost most of its most advanced weapons and ships already, its only edge is just meat-grinder assaults. Its lost all of its paratroopers and most highly trained forces and is using undertrained conscripts straight from boot. It can't build T-90s in any volume, so its pulling T-74s and T-64s out of long term storage that weren't compettive 40 years ago. Its had to pull back its airforce because of heavy losses of SU-34s, SU-35s, A-50s, etc. Its only path to victory is over a mountain of corpses and through mass artillery barrages. 

 

 

I am not a military expert: The austrian army uploaded this 2 months ago, comparing to what it sometimes sounds like in the media, ukraine is in a stalemate. 

 

You are arguing for even more deadly far range weapons, UK and france is already helping with geodata and has personal in ukraine to help them operating devices...how nuts can it get? 

 

You are saying russia is a threat for germany and you want us to get even more involved with directly damaging that country...how does that make sense? Yes, if we help ukraine beating russias ass and are directly involved in this war, russia will be a threat obviously...our chancelor already said that taurus is off the table due to the range etc...majority of germans against taurus too. 

 

13 minutes ago, ValueArb said:

 

Now I realize I've been the big bad american on this thread dumping on Germany, Hungary and Turkey for not doing enough or undercutting NATO's defensive posture. But thats just because the topic was not America's short-falls. So in interest of balanced and equal criticism here is all the ways we haven't done our best for Ukraine either.

 

1. We have 3,700 Abrams Tanks in storage, and as many as 3,000 are 40 year old M1A1s that are obsolete for our purposes so most will end up being recycled, but still far superior than Russian T-72s and T-90s in crew protection and most everything else. We've given Ukraine only 31 Abrams, despite them being practically free to us (refurb does cost money but still), and only did that small amount in order to encourage european allies to provide their own modern tanks to Ukraine.

 

2. We have 2,800 Bradley Fighting vehicles in storage (in addition to 3,700 modern ones in our service), again mostly 40 years old and obsolete for our purposes, but still have a great historical record of killing T-64s and T-74s at high rates while offering excellent crew protection. Again, basically free other than refurb costs, and we've only given them 186. 

 

3. We criticize Germany for not providing Taurus, but we only provide the cluster bomb version of ATACMS because we can no longer use them as the US is cycliing out of their use as a step towards banning them. We could provide the large warhead ATACMS to Ukraine to take out the Kerch bridge, but don't. 

 

4. We are helping train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16, but refusing to provide them to Ukraine, despite having over a thousand 30 year old versions in storage that we will never use (other than for parts canniblization).  These are still superior to almost anything Russia flies and ready for almost every NATO weapon we can provide them, unlike Ukraines old MIGs and Sukhois. Instead we have to rely on the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium to supply them. 

 

5. Even the Javelins we provide Ukraine are outdated, almost every weapon we've given them is from storage and no longer good enough for our troops. Yet almost all of them are superior to anything Russia can field, especially now. 

 

Biden likes to promote the high dollar figure ($100B) of aid he's sent Ukraine, but the reality is it appears he's way overstating the value of the aid and is using old sticker prices paid decades ago for obsolete equipment that had near zero value to us. He's only giving Ukraine enough help to keep them alive but not enough to help them win. But still, I have to vote for him because the only alternative is a guy who has no appreciation for the dangers of Putin or the value of defending Ukraine.

 

So now I think I've criticized everyone except the UK now so how much fairer can I be?

Pretty good summary of HOW MUCH your country is involved in that war haha! If you want to escalate further welcome to world war 3! 

 

I assume you wont get drafted and will sit at the sidelines shorting european stocks? 

 

Do you see how negotiating, armistice and diplomacy is non existent in what you write? You are coming from an opinion standpoint that negotiation is lost and russia has to be fought actively against with a whole bunch of other countries, sizeable amount and getting close to WW2/WW1 involvment.  At the same time putin repeatedly said publicly they are willing to negotiate.

[cubsfan]

^^^ Luca - somehow you seem to think that Freedom is free. And somehow the world is safe again.

It wasn't that long ago that a good portion of Germany was under Soviet control.

 

How foolish to think it can not happen again. But IF you feel that Germany is indeed a "US Puppet",

then I hope you get your wish and you can go it alone - without NATO.

 

I doubt the Baltic states & Poland feel the same way.