Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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The clowns in power right now will make it so Trump can't really do anything about PURPOSEFULLY trying to make this war last as long as possible.

We really are going to let as many Ukrainians die as possible to hurt Russia...which is evil AF. It might serve a purpose you're interested in...but its evil as hell.

Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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sombear said:

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Bear8084 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Bear8084 said:

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What really happened:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/22/boris-johnson-ukraine-2022-peace-talks-russia

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Thanks for confirming.

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Not really.

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Sam has trouble reading objectively. This confirms exactly what I said, and as I've posted multiple times, the Foreign Affairs article is by far the best sourced and most detailed analysis of the negotiations.

One can argue the west should have tried harder to convince Ukraine to settle. One cannot argue that the west did not allow it or had some crazy veto power.

Folks like Sam cannot accept this fact because it undermines their primary narrative that all of this somehow is our fault.

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It confirms what's in the Nation article, with the addition of a straw man and a lot of opinion. No one is saying the West exercised technical veto power. As pointed out above, that is a vacuous argument. Did the West effectively shut down negotiations? Absolutely. Even mainstream American media have had to admit as much.

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Wrong on both accounts.

First, several posters (and many right wing influencers) have repeatedly claimed that we would not allow Ukraine to settle and/or we forced them to fight. No nuance, just that clear. And it's false.

Second, we did not "effectively" shut down negotiations. Negotiations continued. Putin refused to meet with Zelensky despite repeated Zelensky requests. From the start until now, Ukraine 100% has had the discretion to decide to fight or settle. Mainstream media have admitted nothing of the sort.

Supporting Ukraine and not pleading with to settle is nowhere near "effectively shutting down negotiations."

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You've unknowingly hit on a crucial point: Putin indeed refused to meet with Zelensky until negotiations were in the final stage. It was at that point that Boris Johnson intervened. I need hardly point out that saying "don't negotiate with criminals" is a far cry from "not pleading hard enough" to settle. I mean, really.

Your analysis is another example of the danger in believing one's own propaganda. The problem with Ukraine exercising its own discretion is that the Russians know the West instigated the conflict. You're free to deny it to your heart's content. Zelensky doesn't have that luxury.

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He refused to meet with Zelensky, period. And, finally, when the parties got pretty close, Putin ordered the horrific war crimes. He thought that would create the leverage needed to push the deal over the line. Instead. It hardened Ukraine's resolve. Had he met with Zelensky before that, there may have been a formal agreement.

As to final your final point, you're conflating issues. Correct, I reject the argument that we instigated anything. But even if we did, that has no bearing on what happened in post-invasion negotiations. Ukraine made the call. Ukraine still is making the call.

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Putin did not refuse to meet, period. He refused to meet until the deal was close to final.

The alleged war crimes are completely irrelevant, except as a pretext to end negotiations.

The West's involvement has everything to do with post-invasion talks. It would be hard enough for Russia to trust a deal we claimed to support. With our opposition it's basically impossible.

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If you knew anything about the negotiations you'd know that Russia wanted us to be part of the deal.

Bucha, a pretext? Nice.

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Of course Russia wanted us to be part of the deal. That's what I'm saying. There was little that Ukraine could do without our support.

The fact that Bucha was cited as a reason to end negotiations is telling. It's another version of the Western talking point that you don't negotiate with criminals. If you're really concerned about war crimes, you want to end the war sooner rather than later. I understand that may not be satisfying emotionally, but emotions aren't supposed to govern when the stakes are this high.

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As you know (at least I assume you do) negotiations did not end. Putin just ordered Bucha (and others) at the worst possible time. It goes without saying that trust is major issue in any negotiation. Totally understandable to me how something as horrific as Bucha would seriously undermine trust. That massacre in addition to Ukraine performing well on the battlefield slowed real momentum that had been building.

Of course, there were still major roadblocks to settlement, not the least of which was one of the keys to the deal that I'm guessing you, Red, and Reality would have never supported - that the U.S. agree to take military action directly against Russia if Russia violated the agreement.

Look, I've said all along - and the best reporting confirmed - that both sides share blame in the failed negotiations. My main point is that your narratives on the negotiations - that (1) the U.S. actually or effectively tubed a deal and (2) Russia had offered simply taking over parts of the east - are pure fiction.

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Regarding your second point, it goes without saying that Ukrainian neutrality was always going to be part of any deal. That's not a matter of Ukraine giving anything up. They had already agreed to it, and limitations on military power were an ancillary means of enforcing what they had violated by attempting to join NATO. All they would really have given up in exchange for independence was the Donbas.

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So Ukraine was supposed to not have any military power, and not join any military protection pact (outside of the one they were in with Russia and the United States, which Russia clearly violated) to appease Russia? Lay there powerless like a rape victim, then have their rapist get angry about the victim defending itself? Sound logic there Sample Jack.

Why listen to her? She helped bring about this war. We should not escalate the war by sending weapons that allow Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia. We should insist on negotiations to end the war. When will U.S. media report Ukrainian casualties?pic.twitter.com/qPG2NgChSH

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) May 20, 2024

KaiBear said:

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sombear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs.

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LOL…that would be fanciful even by their standards.

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I trust very few outlets' reporting on this war, but I will say it's embarrassing that Russia cannot seem to stop the attacks on its fleet, air fields, and refineries.

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Pin pr$cks by a handful of drones.

For morale if little else.

Meanwhile the weight of unrelenting Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian infrastructure is crushing the country's ability to substain combat operations.

This war will be over in 4-12 months.





And somehow it will be Trump's fault.

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14% of Russian oil refinery capacity is knocked out of the loop for the foreseeable future. The people are taking it in the wallet. Can't even send aide to their own countrymen suffering from devastating floods because all $$ being spent on a heinous "special military operation". Wait til they start having to pull the kids off the street in St Pete and Moscow. We've seen this story before.

trey3216 said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.

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If Russia's military is bigger now than before the war, why are they trotting out tanks from 60 years ago on the battlefield?

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That strategy might be one reason that it's bigger! But it is in fact bigger than before the war, and this isn't my own speculation but something that the US has admitted that they are aware of. https://www.businessinsider.com/russias-army-15-percent-larger-when-attacked-ukraine-us-general-2024-4?amp

They are also using 80+ year old Mosin Nagants for guard duty. I am not going to make the argument that Russia's army is awesome, nor am I going to make the argument that all of their troops have top of the line equipment, etc. But their army is good enough to hold Crimea, Donbas, Donetsk etc

trey3216 said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.

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If Russia's military is bigger now than before the war, why are they trotting out tanks from 60 years ago on the battlefield?

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Because it's working and they don't need to waste money feeding a profit-based MIC. Ukraine is lucky if they have a tank on the battlefield that's lasted 60 days.

Daveisabovereproach said:

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trey3216 said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.

---

If Russia's military is bigger now than before the war, why are they trotting out tanks from 60 years ago on the battlefield?

---

That strategy might be one reason that it's bigger! But it is in fact bigger than before the war, and this isn't my own speculation but something that the US has admitted that they are aware of.

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Yep…if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Sam Lowry said:

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trey3216 said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.

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If Russia's military is bigger now than before the war, why are they trotting out tanks from 60 years ago on the battlefield?

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Because it's working and they don't need to waste money feeding a profit-based MIC. Ukraine is lucky if they have a tank on the battlefield that's lasted 60 days.

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LOL Not even close shill.

whiterock said:

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Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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There are a lot of ways to fight a war. Blitzkrieg is only one of them.

Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

---

The clowns in power right now will make it so Trump can't really do anything about PURPOSEFULLY trying to make this war last as long as possible.

We really are going to let as many Ukrainians die as possible to hurt Russia...which is evil AF. It might serve a purpose you're interested in...but its evil as hell.

---

well, there's that, and then there's the stupidity of just walking away from the conflict in which you have the advantage.

The logical thing to do is pass three-year funding bill of $180b or so of Ukrainian support, which includes enough purchase orders to get defense contractors to up capacity by 30% or more. Tjhen we strong arm France and Uk to proportionally match us, and get Germany to do the same for Finland & Sweden. We also announce upgrades to the Ukrainian F-16 program, a plan to sell littoral ships to the Ukrainian Navy, and license Ukraine to produce their own ATACMS. Such shows what is needed most - resolve - but more importantly resources Russia cannot match. It will force the Kremlin to the negotiating table. It will also show China that we are arming up to stop their advances in Asia, and show better deterrence.

No chance Trump walks away from the inauguration to call Putin & throw in the towel. Trump likes to win. And he will. We don't actually have to spend the money to get the benefit of it. Putin really does think we are going to cave. The peace negotiations are not going to start until it's clear we are not.

Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

---

Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

---

You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

Seems the Kharkiv offensive is at a stall, or worse, for the Russians...according to a Russian frontline blogger.

Wow. Just two weeks ago, the rashists were shouting about the inevitability of taking Kharkiv. Today, the family Syoma Pegov from WarGonzo talks about the potential possibility that the Defense Forces of Ukraine will seize the initiative and launch a counterattack in the Kharkiv… pic.twitter.com/eANlczXSvd

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) May 21, 2024

whiterock said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

---

The clowns in power right now will make it so Trump can't really do anything about PURPOSEFULLY trying to make this war last as long as possible.

We really are going to let as many Ukrainians die as possible to hurt Russia...which is evil AF. It might serve a purpose you're interested in...but its evil as hell.

---

well, there's that, and then there's the stupidity of just walking away from the conflict in which you have the advantage.

The logical thing to do is pass three-year funding bill of $180b or so of Ukrainian support, which includes enough purchase orders to get defense contractors to up capacity by 30% or more. Tjhen we strong arm France and Uk to proportionally match us, and get Germany to do the same for Finland & Sweden. We also announce upgrades to the Ukrainian F-16 program, a plan to sell littoral ships to the Ukrainian Navy, and license Ukraine to produce their own ATACMS. Such shows what is needed most - resolve - but more importantly resources Russia cannot match. It will force the Kremlin to the negotiating table. It will also show China that we are arming up to stop their advances in Asia, and show better deterrence.

No chance Trump walks away from the inauguration to call Putin & throw in the towel. Trump likes to win. And he will. We don't actually have to spend the money to get the benefit of it. Putin really does think we are going to cave. The peace negotiations are not going to start until it's clear we are not.

---

Meh, China bankrolls our politicians indirectly, we're never going to stand up to them and China can't survive without the dollar. They could attack Taiwan and we won't do a damn thing about it: US politicians aren't going to risk their finances like that.

I imagine the west turns Ukraine into another woke haven and begins mass immigration from the middle east. Western banks will own the place.

The real war my friend is western global hegemony that promotes woke nonsense and wants all of us to live in a giant tyrannical nanny state. All your worries and fears about Russia will pale in comparison to what the west is becoming.

Quote:

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We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

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Total hogwash.

whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

---

I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

---

can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")

The ambiguous response of many EU countries to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is appalling. Take Latvia, which borders Russia. Exports to Kazakhstan started booming right after Putin invaded Ukraine and continue to do so through March 2024. What will it take for Europe to wake up? pic.twitter.com/Fbk3nRfOYR

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) May 21, 2024

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

Redbrickbear said:

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The ambiguous response of many EU countries to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is appalling. Take Latvia, which borders Russia. Exports to Kazakhstan started booming right after Putin invaded Ukraine and continue to do so through March 2024. What will it take for Europe to wake up? pic.twitter.com/Fbk3nRfOYR

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) May 21, 2024

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Money talks.

And Russia pays a lot more for what it needs.

Sanctions do have an impact, ya know. They drive up the cost of doing business, which saps away resources needed to do other things, like float larger and more capable armies & navies.

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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Well I will try...

1. Without actual competent NATO/USA ground forces in this war Ukraine is not going to win.

2. Unless we plan on getting rid of the Russian state itself...its ALWAYS going to be involved in Ukraine at some level...its right next door...same goes for Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Just like the USA (unless someone intends to abolish it) is ALWAY going to be involved in Canada, Mexico, Cuba.

3. Its a simple fact that countries that surround a larger neighbor have to find ways to get along with it. There is just no other choice. Mongolia has to get along with China, Sri Lanka has to work with India. Etc.

As of right now we are funding a war in Ukraine that can not end with a complete Ukrainian victory and will at best end up as a frozen conflict....or worse.

4. The USA does not have much strategic interests on the line in Ukraine....Germany probably stands more to gain from Ukraine in the EU than does the USA.

https://www.hoover.org/research/what-americas-strategic-interest-ukraine

[A generation of American diplomats, including Henry Kissinger and former Ambassador to Russia William Burns, warned that expanding NATO to Ukraine was a tripwire for Russia. German documents published by Der Spiegel in February 2022 confirm that Western powers gave Russia written assurance in 1990 against NATO expansion. Russia's prostration after its 1998 debt default, though, allowed NATO to ignore these assurances. Under Clinton, NATO's mission morphed into a nebulous human rights and social welfare agenda. NATO added Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999, and another seven former Soviet-zone countries in 2004. Meanwhile the Bundeswehr shrank to five ill-equipped divisions from the twelve combat-ready, heavily armed divisions of 1990. NATO degraded its military function as it padded its membership.

Ukraine is another matter. Russia regards its inclusion in NATO as an existential threat. Putin stated on the eve of the invasion on February 23...]

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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The ambiguous response of many EU countries to Russia's invasion of Ukraine is appalling. Take Latvia, which borders Russia. Exports to Kazakhstan started booming right after Putin invaded Ukraine and continue to do so through March 2024. What will it take for Europe to wake up? pic.twitter.com/Fbk3nRfOYR

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) May 21, 2024

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Sanctions do have an impact, ya know. They drive up the cost of doing business, which saps away resources needed to do other things, like float larger and more capable armies & navies.

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But not enough of impact...and certainly it has not done with US planners in DC told us it would do...it has not crippled Russia

[Did American strategists really believe that sanctions would shut down Russia's economy? Did they imagine that the trading patterns of the Asian continent would shift to flow around the sanctions? Did they consider the materiel requirements of a long war that is exhausting American stockpiles? Did they consider what tripwires might elicit the use of nuclear weapons? Or did they sleepwalk into the conflict, as the European powers did in 1914?

Contrary to earlier American claims that economic sanctions would reduce Russia's economic output by half, Russia's GDP shrank by only 4 percent in 2022. Russia's exports to China rose to $190 billion in 2022 from $86 billion in 2021, and exports to India reportedly doubled to $27 billion in 2022 from $13 billion in 2021, although the true total probably is higher. Russian fertilizer revenues rose by 70% in 2022 vs. 2021 despite a 10% drop in volume. Chinese and Indian goods have replaced many Western items, with only minor inconvenience to Russian consumers. Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and other countries on Russia's periphery have boosted exports to Russia, effectively circumventing U.S. sanctions. At about RUB 69 to the U.S. dollar, Russia's currency trades higher than it did a year ago. New trading relationships, especially in energy, have emerged in Eurasia that consolidate Chinese influence...]

https://www.hoover.org/research/what-americas-strategic-interest-ukraine

Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

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Threats don't have to be economic or military equals, or even remotely close to that.

ATL Bear said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

---

Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

---

The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

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Threats don't have to be economic or military equals, or even remotely close to that.

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The should be if the entire DC ruling apparatus is going to freak out...spend billions of dollars we don't have....and possibly get us into a nuclear war.

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

---

There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

---

It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

---

Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

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Threats don't have to be economic or military equals, or even remotely close to that.

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The should be if the entire DC ruling apparatus is going to freak out...spend billions of dollars we don't have....and possibly get us into a nuclear war.

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Ask Afghanistan, or Iran or North Korea about that.

ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

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Threats don't have to be economic or military equals, or even remotely close to that.

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The should be if the entire DC ruling apparatus is going to freak out...spend billions of dollars we don't have....and possibly get us into a nuclear war.

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Ask Afghanistan, or Iran or North Korea about that.

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Good point... that we over estimated the threat these places actual posed to the USA.

Spending billons on a failed occupation of Afghanistan...and resisted the idea of cutting our losses and pulling out.

Now people in DC want to do the regime change war/long term occupation thing with Iran or Russia.

MADNESS

Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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ATL Bear said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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whiterock said:

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Daveisabovereproach said:

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I have yet to see an argument from the slava Ukraine side of this of how this war is supposed to end. Even the optimists must be forced to admit that Ukraine is not going to survive on Pyrrhic victories; you must go on the offensive to win a war. Russia can afford to take lot more casualties than Ukraine. They have plenty of peasant hordes to throw into the meat grinder. How does Ukraine win this? If there is no realistic option, then that is tantamount to admitting that this is a miniature repeat of Vietnam/war on terror minus the boots on the ground (unless the plan is to put boots on the ground which I would file under the unrealistic category)

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can you not see the faulty premise there?

Ukraine will finish no worse than the current battle lines. Ukraine wins this by simply outlasting Russian logistics. UK MOD on Friday assessed that Russian air defense has been attritted to the point it cannot cover the war and territorial defense needs. Yesterday's strikes deep into Russia and sinking of another Russian naval vessel are indicators that Russia is indeed under great strain.

Ukraine is under great strain as well. But Ukraine has the best half of the world's economy behind it, sending financial and military aid sufficient to keep it in the game. Russia has a (poorer) quarter of the world's economy sorta helping out a little bit. It is Russia which cannot last, friend....

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There is no false premise in anything that I just posted. Everything that I posted is simple, basic rational thought based on easily obtainable info about Russia and Ukraine. On the contrary, your argument is based on speculation and appealing to American Jingoism.

Google Russia's population.

Google Ukraine's population.

Now Google Russia's GDP.

Now Google Ukraine's GDP. (actually, Russia's military is bigger now than before the war started, but we will ignore that for this argument).
Now Google Nato's GDP.
As long as Nato supports Ukraine, Ukraine will not run out of resources. And Nato can match Russia's output easily (because of the +10x disparity in GDP between Nato and Russia). Russia cannot hope to match Nato's output, and the longer the term of view, the worse it fares for Russia.

Again, this type of stuff doesn't take George S. Patton to figure out. Russia can afford to lose more casualties than Ukraine. Where is the false premise there? Not sure how anybody can argue that unless they are wearing blue and yellow glasses, or they are really really buying into someone's propaganda (denying that there is propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side in this war is itself a piece of propaganda). Whether you like Russia or not, they are a big country with a big population and a lot of expendable oil and gas money. Ukraine is also their neighbor. They are not having to sail around the world to fight, etc.
False premise 1: that Ukraine and Russia are losing soldiers at the same rate. Does not matter that Russia has 3x the population if they are losing soldiers at 3x the rate. (and it's considerably worse than that).
False premise 2: that nations are equally able to bring their available people and industry to bear. Russia has severe constraints Ukraine does not have. A nation at war must divert some number of manpower to industry, which subtracts from available manpower for the military. Ukraine, which is getting a very high percentage of its equipment and ordnance from foreign aid, does not face that constraint to the same degree. (further offseting the 3-1 disadvantage in population.
False premise 3: that other security interests do not exist. Ukraine is dealing with one enemy in one direction, while Russia has an enormous footprint with numerous vulnerabilities. Ukraine does not need to support an Atlantic or Pacific Fleet, or ground & air forces all across the Asian continent. Ukraine has only one theater of operations (eastern Ukraine), while Russia has to defend thousands of miles of borders spread out all across Asia. That means Russia cannot fully exploit a 3x advantage in anything, because it must divert some of those resources elsewhere. And the "elsewhere" component has deteriorated for Russia, given the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, a new front which will require mid-high five-digit numbers of troops to defend.

Lastly, your statement about Ukraine having half of the world's economy on their side is actually a false premise here. People are getting weary of proxy wars, my friend. The US and these other NATO countries are not going to daddy Warbucks this war forever. These countries have given Ukraine a few billion here and there and some older weapons here and there, but acting like Ukraine has got a blank check for "the better half of the world's economy"? Textbook false premise.
You are tired of proxy wars. A near-majority of the GOP is tired of proxy wars. But a majority of American people do not share your desire to disengage from Ukraine (numbers vary from slim majorities to super-majorities depending on how the question is phrased). And Europe is digging in for the long haul. So you are way out over your skis on this one.

There's also the issue I brought up before that is also just a matter of basic logic: that is, there is no cash handout or conventional weapon that is going to make up for Ukraine's depleted manpower.
You make a classic error here. Until a couple of weeks ago, Ukraine had not yet drafted a single citizen below the age of 27, and is only now starting to draft down to age 25. They still have the entire cohort of age 18-25 available to tap, several million people, but are not doing so in order to improve future demography. But they will if they need too. It's what nations do. They fight until the literally run out of manpower or materiel. Nato support could keep Ukraine in this war against Russia indefinitely, certainly long enough for Russia to collapse. Remember, Russia is fully mobilized. Nato is not. Russia is under international sanctions which drive up the cost of everything; Ukraine is not. Etc.....

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It will be fun to watch the anti-war bunch react to Trump's Ukraine policy. I predict it will be a great disappointment to you, in no small part because the anti-war position is driven more by isolationism and budget weariness rather than any sound understanding of foreign affairs.

Fact is , with open supply lines from Nato, Ukraine and Russia are peer adversaries. How do we know this? Look at the status of the war = stalemated.

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Again, all you are doing in almost every post I've seen you make is speculating and veiling it as fact.
Citing factors you are not aware of is not speculating. It is explaining things you do not understand.

I've posted descriptive statistics and made a basic inference based on those: that a country with a much bigger population can afford to lose more troops than a country with a smaller population.
I haven't disputed that as a factor. I've in fact explained why it is not the only factor, and which other factors prevent it from being dispositive.
You keep saying stuff like "Russia has to defend all these miles of borders." Defend it from what ??????? I'm sure they'd love to have millions of troops stacked up along their border, but they don't actually have to.
No, they actually do have to execute a plan to defend their country. A neutral Finlad/Sweden affords Russia a buffer of time and space. they cannot be invaded from those countries alone (too small to be a threat in/of themselves). They only way those countries pose a threat is if they unite with others to position armies in their territories. Yes, there's lots of lead time on that, but there's even more lead time on building their own new units and supporting infrastructure to cover a threat that had not existed for the prior 80 years. It ups the current AND future costs of defense for Russia. It makes them commit more resources now to prepare to deploy against things that weren't an issue previously. Finland/Sweden accession to Nato will require Russia to deploy a division or two there. Russia has to station troops on its borders with North Korea, China, Central Asia, the Caucasus, too. Plus it has to fight in Ukraine. So do they increase the army to cover Finland/Sweden threat? ($$$) or do they simply rob troops from elsewhere to cover it? (incurring greater risk). We have military bases all along our southern border, deployed to meet current anticipated threats. Do you seriously mean to suggest that Mexico could sign a massive alliance treaty with China and it would require no additions/adjustments to our own deployments?
Again, it's decent speculation but it's just speculation. How do you know the whereabouts of Russian troops?
We know EXACTLY where Russian troops are deployed, thanks to satellite imagery. And geography is geography. Any general in uniform anywhere in the world will tell you the same thing I said above - when the geopolitical situation changes, it affects your defense needs. You will find exceedingly few analysts who tell you Finland/Sweden accession to Nato have had ZERO impact on Russian defense needs.
Unless you are sitting in meetings with Zelensky and then teleporting and sitting in meetings with Putin and his war cabinet, you can't deny the premise that Russia has more men to spare and can afford to take a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine.
Again, I haven't denied it. I have acknowledged it as fact, then explained how it's not as impactful as you presume. Just having the manpower is one thing. Recruiting it, training it, equipping it, and deploying it effectively is a wildly larger and more complicated thing. Russia, perpetually backward and corrupt, has never been good at anything requiring any kind of efficiency. Ukraine, which has the exact same military tradition as Russia, has turned to a western model and is getting massive amounts of western aid. As a result, Ukraine is more efficient in most aspects of this war. To quibble with that will require you to explain how else could a nation so small fight the behemoth to a standstill.
You're also assuming that you know the rate of casualties that Ukraine is taking, and that's just more speculation.
We have a pretty good idea. No one is accepting Ukrainian or Russian claims. Western estimates are fairly consistent with each other and the best yardstick we have. We also know what the casualty rates of the attacker typically are - 3x the defender. And lastly we know that with exception for 6 months or so, Russia has been on the offensive, seeking to exploit its manpower advantage by constant pressure and relentless human wave type assaults, incurring tens of thousands of casualties over strategically irrelevant positions like Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Yes, Ukraine has had two brief periods of a few weeks (Kharkiv front) and a few months ("counteroffensive") where it was on the offensive. But the Kharkiv front was a collapse of Russian lines, not at all a grinding offensive. And the "counteroffensive" was for all but the first two weeks a game of small unit infiltration of Russian lines. (Russia copied those tactics in the first few days of the recent advances on the Kharkiv front, but has now returned to the traditional Russian human wave.) Yes, Ukrainian losses are grievous. But they pale compared to the carnage inflicted on the Russian army.

I'm not surprised that the limousine liberals over on White Rock Lake want this war to go on forever.
I don't want the war to go on forever. I want to win it. And we easily can. We just need a better policy, which will require a different POTUS.
I know that people who live in gated communities often fall under the impression that their viewpoints are shared by everyone, but most Americans aren't about this war.
That doesn't mean the outcome of the war doesn't matter. A good leader will understand that a democratic society usually affords a limited amount time to achieve a desirable outcome, and therefore moves with alacrity to secure the victory. Biden's "as long as it takes" policy of scaling down our support to meet Russian efforts and win it over the long haul is incredibly stupid in that regard.
And it's not because we like Russia, it's because I'm sick of paying four dollars for a gallon of milk. I'm glad that your Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks are doing well. What's a few dead Ukrainians when you've got country club memberships and HOA fees to pay on multiple homes.
and there you have it. almost all isolationist critiques have nothing to do with national security needs. They merely propose to balance the budget by making bad decisions on foreign policy.

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You're going to spend the money one way or the other - in Ukraine defeating Russia, or in Europe defending from a Russian Army stationed in Ukraine. Why not just win it in Ukraine?

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Ukraine was literally a constituent part of Russia for 300 years and it never effected the American people.
It is amazing that people will float such weak arguments as though they are dispositive. Ukrainian borders has ebbed and flowed and disappeared and reappeared considerably more than you suggest. Ukrainian nationalism is 300 years old, too. So the historical angle would more easily support partition of modern Ukraine among 2-6 other states than Russian control over the entirety of it (an option which has precedent only a few decades old).

Even if Russia was able to take all of Ukraine (which they can't) is that not the point of having the massive NATO alliance? To defend against any attack by an outside force?
It is amazing that you can say such silly things as if they support your case. So if you see a hostile power invading a state adjacent to you, your best option is to let them have it free & clear with no contest and let them roll right up to your border, undeterred and undiminished? Will that not send signals about your resolve to resist them? Will that not make them stronger (more people/resources) and more fool hardy ('we are tougher than they are"). WWII Japan knew they couldn't defeat us straight up. They thought they could run wild throughout the Pacific and that we'd lose interest in taking all back against such ferocious resistance (because Japan thought we were softies). Nations make bad decisions all the time.....pick wars they shouldn't have picked.....because of bad assessments about their own abilities and the abilities of their targets. Just look at Russia & Ukraine!

Plus Russian forces were already stationed in Ukraine back pre-2014! Didn't effect the USA at all.
And we didn't invade, did we? But when the Ukrainian people decided they wanted to be part of the Western Order, we understood the obvious, that this was a good thing for us, and (very modestly & incrementally) supported their transition.

The massive Black sea naval base and other military installations around the Crimea already were in use by the Russians and had been for a long long time.
So? Russia is a malign influence in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean, too. Why would we not want to limit their influence there, when we have someone else who can do it for us?

Hell there have been Russia troops in Ukraine since at least 1772
See above. Not all of it. and 1772 is not 2022, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevastopol_Naval_Base#:~:text=The%20Sevastopol%20Naval%20Base%20(Russian,of%20the%20Black%20Sea%20Fleet.

(Sevastopol Naval Base: The port was renovated in 1772, while the Russo-Turkish War was still ongoing, and was finished in 1783)

John Paul Jones even volunteered over there and was station in Ukraine..."Jones became a rear admiral in the Russian Navy in 1788, flying his flag in the Vladimir as he defeated the Turks in an obscure sound at a northern gateway to the Black Sea.")
So what you're saying there is, in fact, that Russian influence in the Black Sea was not uncontested in 1788.

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Russia is only entitled to the influence it can impose with hard or soft power. It is not our job to stand back and let them futz around with their overrated hardware until they find a marginal level of competence. If they cannot control Ukraine (and they cannot), then Ukraine gets to control Ukraine. And helping Ukraine control Ukraine will keep the Russians a long way from our allies and our armies.

You have yet to explain how we benefit, geo-strategically, from doing nothing to stop Russia in Ukraine.

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The bolded can't be simultaneously true.

If they can't control Ukraine then they can't be a threat to our allies and armies. You can't be weak and strong at the same time. If they're truly that weak...they're never going to be a threat.

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Threats don't have to be economic or military equals, or even remotely close to that.

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The should be if the entire DC ruling apparatus is going to freak out...spend billions of dollars we don't have....and possibly get us into a nuclear war.

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Ask Afghanistan, or Iran or North Korea about that.

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Good point... that we over estimated the threat these places actual posed to the USA.

Spending billons on a failed occupation of Afghanistan...and resisted the idea of cutting our losses and pulling out.

Now people in DC want to do the regime change war/long term occupation thing with Iran or Russia.

MADNESS

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Taking nation building off the table, which I concur with, doesn't change the reality of being a threat.