3. Finally, to me it looks like wars these days are fought with the army, navy and air force you start with. Lots of people when talking about the threat of Russia before the invasion mentioned how Europe alone could beat Russia, because the European economy compared to Russia's was so much larger. While Russia's army turned out to be a paper tiger, honestly Europe hasn't looked so great here either. Despite all their economic power, there aren't new tanks, jets, guns etc. rolling off the assembly lines and heading to Ukraine. Gone of the days of WW1/2 where you could ram up industrial production to pump out a world class army in a year.
It would be nice to see America's allies spend more on defense, especially in Europe (asking Japan to do more against China has issues), as that would take some burden off the US.
Basically a lot of words to say "I feel its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". If you still want to cut US military spending that's fine, just accept that the next time a Ukraine like situation rolls around there might not be as much the US can do.
That's because they're not a war footing, Europe is just diverting catalogue stuff and their replacement level military production to Ukraine to help. Europe is very much not at war with Russia, it's just giving some stuff to a friend.
Now if the balance shifted due to something mad like Belarus joining the war by trying to cut off supplies coming through Poland, then I think you would see what you were expecting. Or if the cost of this being a forever war got one of the big European powers to decide "this is getting too expensive now and my own people are dying because of it. Lets wrap things up in Ukraine."
And even then only perhaps, the European armies (a few individually even, let alone a group) are likely enough to just take out any Russian forces in Ukraine and threaten airbases should retaliatory missiles start falling further afield, so you might not see a massive increase in production across the board even then. At least outside of missile defences.
War footing has nothing to do with it. Military technology went from simple stuff you could assign to any factory to pump out to incredibly complex pieces of equipment that need special parts to build and maintain. Where before your tanks optics were a glass scope you could have any glass or optic company make, now its a thermal scope that links to a targeting computer that links to sensors that tell it the wind, temperature, humidity. These parts are going to act as a bottleneck, and you probably cant build a new factory and train new staff to fill one once a war has started.
Yes, Europe has been diverting some of the equipment it makes to Ukraine, and its resulted in a backlog of orders for European armies. If there was a way to easily scale up production to meet all the order they have I'm sure they would do so.
As far as I know, the US only has one tank plant in existence anymore, the Lima Army Tank Plant. Even with "war time production" that's going to be a huge bottleneck on production capabilities.
And that's before we get to the issue that we have a global economy. What happens when you decided to enact wartime production, but China decides it will keep mining rare earth minerals at the same rate?
Edit: And even looking at WW1/2, it took years for nations to scale up their production numbers.
Easily done within a year if they had to, was my point, to start scaling. For a given value of easy once a defence minister is allowed to pull all the knobs on the military industrial war machine, and were just looking to replace with like rather than innovate. Much harder to do so without pushing those specific buttons though due to quality control and IP.
I honestly don't know what you're basing this on. I don't think it would be easy, and I feel asking an underfunded and under equipped army to hold out for a year (which seems like a really idealistic time frame!) while you start up the war machine seems like a recipe for disaster. Like I don't know how many more Leopards Germany could make in a month if push came to shove, but other than keeping the factory going 24/7 I don't see a way to easily increase production of these machines. The time of asking Volkswagen to change over from making Golfs to tanks is probably over.
There's also issue that some of the weapons Europe has in the arsenal are no longer produced, like Britain's Chieftain 2. The French Leclerc isn't produced any more either, but apparently Nexter has the ability to produce more. How long it would take to start up production on a tank that hasn't been made in almost 15 years is anyone's guess, but I would assume not quickly.
You seem to be basing your idea's of what war time production would look like off WW2, except times have changed. And yes, I have referenced WW2 myself but to show that even under much better conditions (Europe and America at the height of their industrial power, making much simpler machines and weapons) there were problems that took years to iron out.
3. Finally, to me it looks like wars these days are fought with the army, navy and air force you start with. Lots of people when talking about the threat of Russia before the invasion mentioned how Europe alone could beat Russia, because the European economy compared to Russia's was so much larger. While Russia's army turned out to be a paper tiger, honestly Europe hasn't looked so great here either. Despite all their economic power, there aren't new tanks, jets, guns etc. rolling off the assembly lines and heading to Ukraine. Gone of the days of WW1/2 where you could ram up industrial production to pump out a world class army in a year.
It would be nice to see America's allies spend more on defense, especially in Europe (asking Japan to do more against China has issues), as that would take some burden off the US.
Basically a lot of words to say "I feel its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". If you still want to cut US military spending that's fine, just accept that the next time a Ukraine like situation rolls around there might not be as much the US can do.
That's because they're not a war footing, Europe is just diverting catalogue stuff and their replacement level military production to Ukraine to help. Europe is very much not at war with Russia, it's just giving some stuff to a friend.
Now if the balance shifted due to something mad like Belarus joining the war by trying to cut off supplies coming through Poland, then I think you would see what you were expecting. Or if the cost of this being a forever war got one of the big European powers to decide "this is getting too expensive now and my own people are dying because of it. Lets wrap things up in Ukraine."
And even then only perhaps, the European armies (a few individually even, let alone a group) are likely enough to just take out any Russian forces in Ukraine and threaten airbases should retaliatory missiles start falling further afield, so you might not see a massive increase in production across the board even then. At least outside of missile defences.
War footing has nothing to do with it. Military technology went from simple stuff you could assign to any factory to pump out to incredibly complex pieces of equipment that need special parts to build and maintain. Where before your tanks optics were a glass scope you could have any glass or optic company make, now its a thermal scope that links to a targeting computer that links to sensors that tell it the wind, temperature, humidity. These parts are going to act as a bottleneck, and you probably cant build a new factory and train new staff to fill one once a war has started.
Yes, Europe has been diverting some of the equipment it makes to Ukraine, and its resulted in a backlog of orders for European armies. If there was a way to easily scale up production to meet all the order they have I'm sure they would do so.
As far as I know, the US only has one tank plant in existence anymore, the Lima Army Tank Plant. Even with "war time production" that's going to be a huge bottleneck on production capabilities.
And that's before we get to the issue that we have a global economy. What happens when you decided to enact wartime production, but China decides it will keep mining rare earth minerals at the same rate?
Edit: And even looking at WW1/2, it took years for nations to scale up their production numbers.
Easily done within a year if they had to, was my point, to start scaling. For a given value of easy once a defence minister is allowed to pull all the knobs on the military industrial war machine, and were just looking to replace with like rather than innovate. Much harder to do so without pushing those specific buttons though due to quality control and IP.
I honestly don't know what you're basing this on. I don't think it would be easy, and I feel asking an underfunded and under equipped army to hold out for a year (which seems like a really idealistic time frame!) while you start up the war machine seems like a recipe for disaster. Like I don't know how many more Leopards Germany could make in a month if push came to shove, but other than keeping the factory going 24/7 I don't see a way to easily increase production of these machines. The time of asking Volkswagen to change over from making Golfs to tanks is probably over.
There's also issue that some of the weapons Europe has in the arsenal are no longer produced, like Britain's Chieftain 2. The French Leclerc isn't produced any more either, but apparently Nexter has the ability to produce more. How long it would take to start up production on a tank that hasn't been made in almost 15 years is anyone's guess, but I would assume not quickly.
You seem to be basing your idea's of what war time production would look like off WW2, except times have changed. And yes, I have referenced WW2 myself but to show that even under much better conditions (Europe and America at the height of their industrial power, making much simpler machines and weapons) there were problems that took years to iron out.
Not just at the height of their industrial power; at the height of their industrial power with the entirety of their civilian populations fully committed either to military industry or direct support of same, with the full power of the state employed to make sure of that.
These days a country that isn't North Korea or Eritrea might get somewhere near that level of commitment to a war effort if genocidal extraterrestrials landed. Maybe.
Yeah, getting a WWII era car factory to start producing Sherman or Spitfire parts is a far cry from getting a modern car factory with its highly specialised robots to make anything much that'd be useful in a fighter jet.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
“Funding is already in place, contracts are underway to basically triple 155mm production,” Bush told Defense News on the sidelines of the Reagan National Defense Forum. “There’s funding on the Hill, in the supplemental, to more than double that again. That would take a period of years.
“We want to be able to build our stocks not just where we started the war, but higher. We’re posturing for a pretty ― over a period of three years ― a dramatic increase in conventional artillery ammunition production.”
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth separately told reporters that the U.S. will go from making 14,000 155mm shells each month to 20,000 by the spring and 40,000 by 2025.
For reference the US military's plan for 2022 was to purchase 29k shells for the year. So ramping to that a month is a big ramp, but at the peak of their advance the Russians were firing 60k a day.
I'm sure some number of this will go to replenish stocks, some number will go to other NATO countries and regional allies as they are increasing their own desires, but a large chunk has to be earmarked for Ukraine directly.
the miliary industrial complex and defense spending and do we actually have the capacity to make enough bullets to fight a war.. its a really complicated subject
do we have the capacity? honestly no. we probably don't. as someone rightly pointed out, this aint fuckin tin cans with engines anymore. you can jury rig an assembly line for a conventional artillery shell... but an artillery shell *with digital avionics*???
but also NATO's needs for equipment is really a lot different from what Ukraine needs... we *probably* won't need eleven gigajillion artillery shells... because NATO don't need to fuck with fight-for-every-mile artillery wars. we have the f-35... NATO doctrine is control the sky at all costs... and use the sky to win the ground
but it *would* be better if europe actually owned appreciable amounts of this technology instead of basically just hoping America shows up
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Oh gods, if this is the beginning of allowing the military to procure like an adult Department, that might go toward the entire government not being funded like it was a lemonade stand at recess.
Oh gods, if this is the beginning of allowing the military to procure like an adult Department, that might go toward the entire government not being funded like it was a lemonade stand at recess.
3. Finally, to me it looks like wars these days are fought with the army, navy and air force you start with. Lots of people when talking about the threat of Russia before the invasion mentioned how Europe alone could beat Russia, because the European economy compared to Russia's was so much larger. While Russia's army turned out to be a paper tiger, honestly Europe hasn't looked so great here either. Despite all their economic power, there aren't new tanks, jets, guns etc. rolling off the assembly lines and heading to Ukraine. Gone of the days of WW1/2 where you could ram up industrial production to pump out a world class army in a year.
It would be nice to see America's allies spend more on defense, especially in Europe (asking Japan to do more against China has issues), as that would take some burden off the US.
Basically a lot of words to say "I feel its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". If you still want to cut US military spending that's fine, just accept that the next time a Ukraine like situation rolls around there might not be as much the US can do.
That's because they're not a war footing, Europe is just diverting catalogue stuff and their replacement level military production to Ukraine to help. Europe is very much not at war with Russia, it's just giving some stuff to a friend.
Now if the balance shifted due to something mad like Belarus joining the war by trying to cut off supplies coming through Poland, then I think you would see what you were expecting. Or if the cost of this being a forever war got one of the big European powers to decide "this is getting too expensive now and my own people are dying because of it. Lets wrap things up in Ukraine."
And even then only perhaps, the European armies (a few individually even, let alone a group) are likely enough to just take out any Russian forces in Ukraine and threaten airbases should retaliatory missiles start falling further afield, so you might not see a massive increase in production across the board even then. At least outside of missile defences.
War footing has nothing to do with it. Military technology went from simple stuff you could assign to any factory to pump out to incredibly complex pieces of equipment that need special parts to build and maintain. Where before your tanks optics were a glass scope you could have any glass or optic company make, now its a thermal scope that links to a targeting computer that links to sensors that tell it the wind, temperature, humidity. These parts are going to act as a bottleneck, and you probably cant build a new factory and train new staff to fill one once a war has started.
Yes, Europe has been diverting some of the equipment it makes to Ukraine, and its resulted in a backlog of orders for European armies. If there was a way to easily scale up production to meet all the order they have I'm sure they would do so.
As far as I know, the US only has one tank plant in existence anymore, the Lima Army Tank Plant. Even with "war time production" that's going to be a huge bottleneck on production capabilities.
And that's before we get to the issue that we have a global economy. What happens when you decided to enact wartime production, but China decides it will keep mining rare earth minerals at the same rate?
Edit: And even looking at WW1/2, it took years for nations to scale up their production numbers.
Easily done within a year if they had to, was my point, to start scaling. For a given value of easy once a defence minister is allowed to pull all the knobs on the military industrial war machine, and were just looking to replace with like rather than innovate. Much harder to do so without pushing those specific buttons though due to quality control and IP.
I honestly don't know what you're basing this on. I don't think it would be easy, and I feel asking an underfunded and under equipped army to hold out for a year (which seems like a really idealistic time frame!) while you start up the war machine seems like a recipe for disaster. Like I don't know how many more Leopards Germany could make in a month if push came to shove, but other than keeping the factory going 24/7 I don't see a way to easily increase production of these machines. The time of asking Volkswagen to change over from making Golfs to tanks is probably over.
There's also issue that some of the weapons Europe has in the arsenal are no longer produced, like Britain's Chieftain 2. The French Leclerc isn't produced any more either, but apparently Nexter has the ability to produce more. How long it would take to start up production on a tank that hasn't been made in almost 15 years is anyone's guess, but I would assume not quickly.
You seem to be basing your idea's of what war time production would look like off WW2, except times have changed. And yes, I have referenced WW2 myself but to show that even under much better conditions (Europe and America at the height of their industrial power, making much simpler machines and weapons) there were problems that took years to iron out.
A modern wartime economy, I feel like, wouldnt be countries that aren't America putting out piles of advanced weapons quickly, but it would be a lot of putting commercial grade optics and stuff on old tanks, like VW can't make a modern tank, but it can probably be rapidly retooled to upjump older tanks a bit
It gets much dicier if we're talking modern aircraft, pretty much only America can even make full 5th generation fighters (I guess the J-20 is, but it's unlikely it has anywhere near the capabilities of a current block of F-35s), and only America could scale up production quickly, as in within half a decade - as it has the most advanced radar manufacturing industry, modern airplane manufacture, etc. So like, if Europe wanted to start ramping up fighter production big time it would probably barely be able to increase its most advanced fighter production for years and years, but would be able to ramp up building and upgrading older designs, where as America would probably mass produce F-35s and create new inferior variants (perhaps without stealth), and lots more F-16s and F-18s and the like from retooled boeing factories
that one youtube channel with the puppet predicts the USA could produce thousands of 5th generation fighters a year after 5 years if it went full wartime production, and easily eclipse the entire rest of the world's 4th generation fighter production at the same time - the only area America would really get fucked trying to quickly ramp up would be warships and would probably be forced to commission and mass produce some kind of corvette class to keep up since the facilities to build things like aircraft carriers and cruisers take many, many years to build, a supercarrier can't really be that rushed even if you strip down the amenities
Given the kind of destruction modern warheads throw around, how likely are we really to have a kind of war that would last 5 years of time to build up to? You don't really need thousands of F-35s a year to fight an insurgency
Given the kind of destruction modern warheads throw around, how likely are we really to have a kind of war that would last 5 years of time to build up to? You don't really need thousands of F-35s a year to fight an insurgency
Yeah, not sure what the time frame would be, but the total time for pitched battles between modernized armies (before it descended into insurgencies) for a campaign to be successful, is probably going to be measured in months, not years.
The signals technology, range, speed and raw fire-power just doesn't seem like lengthy engagements would happen, and any time it would, it'd just be a clusterfuck because of a lack of preparedness (as this conflict shows).
I'm relatively convinced that the main reason this war is ongoing is because the Ukrainians are constrained to fighting the war only in Ukraine.
Constrained by morality, by pressure from allies, by a lack of certain conventional weapons being restricted (typically long range ones), by Russia having nukes (and being petty wankers). But constrained all the same.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Oh gods, if this is the beginning of allowing the military to procure like an adult Department, that might go toward the entire government not being funded like it was a lemonade stand at recess.
what do you mean?
The Pentagon has long complained that the way they are funded makes creating long term projects incredibly difficult.
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
On a side note, that surge towards nationalism, fascism and war-mongering is only going to get stronger as climate change and resource exhaustion start to really bite. You say 'conventional weapons are shit at securing peace', which has been true since the dawn of time, and in these times under-populated but resource rich countries like Australia are going to start Thinking Thoughts. The only weapons that might secure peace are those that can ensure that the kind of people who think that they'll benefit from starting wars of aggression can be made direct and personal targets. Nuclear MAD works pretty well for that because, well, mutual assured destruction does what it says on the tin. But the new generation of long range drones, spooky robot dogs and so on might also be useful in such a role, when they're not too busy being used to take out godless liberals, environmentalists, journalists and other trouble-makers.
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
On a side note, that surge towards nationalism, fascism and war-mongering is only going to get stronger as climate change and resource exhaustion start to really bite. You say 'conventional weapons are shit at securing peace', which has been true since the dawn of time, and in these times under-populated but resource rich countries like Australia are going to start Thinking Thoughts. The only weapons that might secure peace are those that can ensure that the kind of people who think that they'll benefit from starting wars of aggression can be made direct and personal targets. Nuclear MAD works pretty well for that because, well, mutual assured destruction does what it says on the tin. But the new generation of long range drones, spooky robot dogs and so on might also be useful in such a role, when they're not too busy being used to take out godless liberals, environmentalists, journalists and other trouble-makers.
International cooperation, driven by nation states that actually fulfil their side of the social contract, should be the answer to all of our security problems as well as global warming (and other pollution issues) poverty and so on and so forth. Buying bigger guns (or smaller ones) is quite obviously not going to be the answer to all our problems and really is just going to put money in the pockets of the kind of people who think they'll benefit from starting wars of aggression.
But I digress...
Australia (and NZ) should procure a bigger fleet with the capability to project power out into the trade lanes it relies on.
Really can't, though. Even if we stop trade with China (arguably our biggest trade partner), we can't really project power into trade lines into the South China Sea that'd protect our Asian trade lines, due to their proximity versus ours.
And any aggressor that might be a threat to our trade with South America, Africa or Europe just has too large a target area for us to protect
Obviously, anyone who fucks with our North American trade has a bigger problem than any resistance Australia irself might offer.
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
With the swapped prisoner being Viktor Bout, an utterly horrible excuse for a human being.
Definitely a 'the frogurt is cursed' situation.
I opened the article because I knew it was going to be that bad. They weren't going to let her go for anything other then a real piece of shit Putin ally.
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
This whole situation is why nuclear proliferation should be a serious concern to be stopped as much as possible. The whole reason this is a grinding brutal land war is because Ukraine has to fight it themselves with only equipment and training from outside forces. And that's all because no one wants to provoke the Russians into using nukes. Without the threat of nuclear weapons, Ukraine is shelling Moscow or NATO is insuring total dominance of the air or something to that effect.
Putin has basically spent the last decade and a half exposing new and exciting ways in which countries having nukes is bad. And basically all of it is brinksmanship of one kind or another.
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
Not to speak for ELM, but I'm taking that as more 'the capacity to hand off giant pallets of these things on short notice is valuable', so much as 'and Taiwan should start getting loaded up with them as soon as Ukraine no longer needs to be 25% Javelin by mass/volume'.
Would it be wise to do ahead of time, as a possibly antagonistic move? I dunno. But if China decides to invade and the US decides to back them up similarly, it'd certainly make the math complicated for the invading force.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
People living in the US might not be all that worried about things because of the recent shit show.
But as someone who lives next door to Russia, i am all in on increased military spending.
Because the past year has made it quite clear that being too costly target to be worth invading is not enough.
What country? Cause got news for you NATO is in the giving weapons away mood because everybody is outraged right now. This is ending with Ukraine getting a fleet of F-16s and more.
I am fully confident that, if it came to it, my country of 5 million people would fucking win a war with Russia.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
Wait, An Unnamed Enemy Attacking from the East was Russia this whole time? Jinkies!
I don't think the non-nuclear part of the NATO weapon mix is actually that shit at securing peace-I guess it depends on what you view as securing. Desert Storm(First gulf war) and Kosovo and even the rolling up of ISIS after their initial rapid gains show that. It's biggest limitation is that it takes time to get forces deployed to where they need to be, although as mass deploy to Europe would probably be much faster than the GW deployment.
If the winds of policy shifted and we decided to treat this like we did Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, then Russia's continued presence in Ukraine would be measured in weeks. Even if we actually just started giving the Ukrainians the equipment they've been asking for, heavy armor, ACTAMS, etc. this thing would end much much sooner.
Ukraine is having to improvise its way through the nato war playbook without the tools to run 90% the plays-they put artillery on barges to Shell Snake Island FFS that's brilliant and gutsy, but NATO would have just had a couple of planes level the thing. Or look at the shit fit the airfield strikes caused this week, now replace 3 soviet era drones with a salvo of dozens of tomahawk missiles.
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
Yeah, that argument's precisely identical to the whole "giving Ukraine antitank missiles is a dangerous escalation" thing from January and February.
Given the kind of destruction modern warheads throw around, how likely are we really to have a kind of war that would last 5 years of time to build up to? You don't really need thousands of F-35s a year to fight an insurgency
IDK the Xcom campaign maybe
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
Last I checked the independence of Taiwan was NOT recognized anywhere near the level of Ukraine. Does the US recognize it? I thought we were ambivalent to it like Hong Kong.
700 HIMARS. That's more than have been built since the 2010 release.
That reads like we have a new hit on our hands. I never expected wheeled rocket artillery to be a worldwide American brand, but here we are.
there's no reason a HIMARS couldnt also serve as the launcher for anti-aircraft missiles like AIM-9x or IRIS-T either, it just needs the software to interface radar with the missiles
Russia has made it clear that if a more powerful nation attacks you, you can punch way above your weigh class if you can reach out and touch them with a GLMRS, I expect Himars to be a hot item for international arms sales
Jesus the right wing outrage over Britney Griner being released is expected but still depressing. Also it’s not just the maga crazies, the never trumpers and old guard are being just as disgusting with it. My rock bottom faith in the press has this being somehow laundered into a Biden loss by the end of the day
It’s all the usual complaints. She doesn’t deserve to be rescued while a marine is “left behind”, because she deserved it, etc. suddenly caring about an arms dealer we’ve had since 2012. A concerted belief that Biden could just pick and chose which deal ne wanted, etc
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
Yeah, that argument's precisely identical to the whole "giving Ukraine antitank missiles is a dangerous escalation" thing from January and February.
*although* similar arguments were made against Ukraine, I think there's way more legitimate questions about whether Taiwan will even attempt to fight back... why send weapons to people who may not even last a week, you're just giving away military hardware to your enemy
and there are semantic problems about Taiwan's status as a nation and our (possibly stupid) policies on if and how we would defend taiwan
i think the problem is purely political in nature but it IS a very different animal from ukraine...
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
Yeah, that argument's precisely identical to the whole "giving Ukraine antitank missiles is a dangerous escalation" thing from January and February.
*although* similar arguments were made against Ukraine, I think there's way more legitimate questions about whether Taiwan will even attempt to fight back... why send weapons to people who may not even last a week, you're just giving away military hardware to your enemy
and there are semantic problems about Taiwan's status as a nation and our (possibly stupid) policies on if and how we would defend taiwan
i think the problem is purely political in nature but it IS a very different animal from ukraine...
Taiwan's military has serious issues that are hopefully going to be addressed in the next round of modernization over the next year, but like, "won't last a week?"
Taiwan is about the hardest place to invade on the planet, like, getting a temporary foothold with a surprise attack on Texas would be significantly easier. China would need about a hundred times more sealift capability than it has to contest a landing, given the mountains are full of artillery and thousands of missiles that can reach airbases in China its not going to be as one sided as it first seems
If the USA was planning to invade Taiwan it would do SEAD for 2 months before trying to land any soldiers, and it would then have to do close air attacks with helicopters to route out MANPADs and the like, and take a shit ton of casualties doing so. There's a reason in the 40s the US figured it would take half the pacific fleet + 400,000 men to take the island
Jesus the right wing outrage over Britney Griner being released is expected but still depressing. Also it’s not just the maga crazies, the never trumpers and old guard are being just as disgusting with it. My rock bottom faith in the press has this being somehow laundered into a Biden loss by the end of the day
It's pretty gross for what probably feels like a miraculous day for the Griner family.
Jesus the right wing outrage over Britney Griner being released is expected but still depressing. Also it’s not just the maga crazies, the never trumpers and old guard are being just as disgusting with it. My rock bottom faith in the press has this being somehow laundered into a Biden loss by the end of the day
It's pretty gross for what probably feels like a miraculous day for the Griner family.
The overwhelming message from all corners of the conservative world is “we value her life less”, even though they think they’re saying Biden valued her life more, that’s the actual message they’re sending, “not her!” Is what they’re saying. As though Biden could chose between the ex marine and her, and chose her? Or that somehow we’ve lost leverage by releasing the arms dealer. We’ve had the arms dealer the whole time the marines been in jail, including when trump was president, and it never got the guy out. Gah I hate even engaging with their complaints cos it’s all racist and homophobic bullshit
The same day Tucker Carlson, the most popular right wing personality on television, called Zelensky a tyrant who’s closer to Lenin than Putin. Fucking hideous. We’re a few steps away from the Taliban being embraced. Or siding with the Iranian regime because the protesters are too woke
Which really has been true of the conservative right all along, they’ve always had more common ground with religious tyrants and homophobic autocrats than their oppressed peoples
Defense spending wise this war seems to mostly speak to the issue of tool appropriateness. The US's full collection of high tech toys aren't useful because they can't be donated or easily trained on, or represent too much escalation. I would hope to see a re-alignment of some spending priorities to figuring out more things like the HIMARS - relatively easy to use systems that act as big force multipliers.
The value of being able to flood Ukraine with Javelins and Stingers for example was huge. That's a deliverable that can make a target suddenly surprisingly spiky to a major military, and yet the US was still worrying about having the numbers to in stockpile to put them on the ground.
Being able to donate large collections of MANPADS to say, Taiwan on short notice is a good way to harden up defenses if things are going to kick off.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
Yeah, that argument's precisely identical to the whole "giving Ukraine antitank missiles is a dangerous escalation" thing from January and February.
*although* similar arguments were made against Ukraine, I think there's way more legitimate questions about whether Taiwan will even attempt to fight back... why send weapons to people who may not even last a week, you're just giving away military hardware to your enemy
and there are semantic problems about Taiwan's status as a nation and our (possibly stupid) policies on if and how we would defend taiwan
i think the problem is purely political in nature but it IS a very different animal from ukraine...
Taiwan's military has issues that are hopefully going to be addressed in the next round of modernization over the next year, but like, "won't last a week?"
Taiwan is about the hardest place to invade on the planet, like, getting a temporary foothold with a surprise attack on Texas would be significantly easier
I think the questions on Taiwan fighting back aren't about tenacity or defensibility, but the always weird internal view on their own sovereignty that outside narrators can never adequately explain. There doesn't seem to a majority opinion, there's multiple incompatible versions of reunificationism, multiple versions of independent nationalism. They're grouped into the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green movements but even with each group there's three or more irreconcilable factions. Almost nobody actually supports the status quo but there's no tenable way out of it either. So analysts are always arguing about how Taiwan would react politically and popularly to China asserting control.
But the part I think analysts are missing is that even the pro-CCP reunificationists don't want it to be a bloody and destructive invasion and the one thing everyone from every subgroup of Pan-Blue and Pan-Green actually agrees on enough to pass a vote is that the mainland doesn't just get to walk in and take it all by force. I think everyone on the island will be all in on not becoming another Hong Kong.
Jesus the right wing outrage over Britney Griner being released is expected but still depressing. Also it’s not just the maga crazies, the never trumpers and old guard are being just as disgusting with it. My rock bottom faith in the press has this being somehow laundered into a Biden loss by the end of the day
It's pretty gross for what probably feels like a miraculous day for the Griner family.
I’m happy for her and her family, and as liberal as they come, but really don’t think the trade was a good move. It just encourages this behavior from rogue states in the future. Also, given who we gave up it does seem like her freedom may come at a price measured in blood.
I firmly believe that traveling to any state with a Do Not Travel notice from DoS should come with the assumption of minimal or even no assistance if you get targeted by that state. Though I’ll note that I’m unsure if Russia was already listed as DNT at the time she traveled there, which was prior to the invasion if I recall. But as a rule individual US citizens should not be able to obligate the United States to have to make concessions like this to ensure their safety, not when the government has officially warned all of us to not set foot in these places.
i think its good that the US values its citizens above 5d geopolitical chess enough to fish her out of siberia at basically any cost... thats supposed to be part of what separates us from the other guys
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I honestly don't know what you're basing this on. I don't think it would be easy, and I feel asking an underfunded and under equipped army to hold out for a year (which seems like a really idealistic time frame!) while you start up the war machine seems like a recipe for disaster. Like I don't know how many more Leopards Germany could make in a month if push came to shove, but other than keeping the factory going 24/7 I don't see a way to easily increase production of these machines. The time of asking Volkswagen to change over from making Golfs to tanks is probably over.
There's also issue that some of the weapons Europe has in the arsenal are no longer produced, like Britain's Chieftain 2. The French Leclerc isn't produced any more either, but apparently Nexter has the ability to produce more. How long it would take to start up production on a tank that hasn't been made in almost 15 years is anyone's guess, but I would assume not quickly.
You seem to be basing your idea's of what war time production would look like off WW2, except times have changed. And yes, I have referenced WW2 myself but to show that even under much better conditions (Europe and America at the height of their industrial power, making much simpler machines and weapons) there were problems that took years to iron out.
Not just at the height of their industrial power; at the height of their industrial power with the entirety of their civilian populations fully committed either to military industry or direct support of same, with the full power of the state employed to make sure of that.
These days a country that isn't North Korea or Eritrea might get somewhere near that level of commitment to a war effort if genocidal extraterrestrials landed. Maybe.
More info spelled out:
open source reporting
do we have the capacity? honestly no. we probably don't. as someone rightly pointed out, this aint fuckin tin cans with engines anymore. you can jury rig an assembly line for a conventional artillery shell... but an artillery shell *with digital avionics*???
but also NATO's needs for equipment is really a lot different from what Ukraine needs... we *probably* won't need eleven gigajillion artillery shells... because NATO don't need to fuck with fight-for-every-mile artillery wars. we have the f-35... NATO doctrine is control the sky at all costs... and use the sky to win the ground
but it *would* be better if europe actually owned appreciable amounts of this technology instead of basically just hoping America shows up
what do you mean?
A modern wartime economy, I feel like, wouldnt be countries that aren't America putting out piles of advanced weapons quickly, but it would be a lot of putting commercial grade optics and stuff on old tanks, like VW can't make a modern tank, but it can probably be rapidly retooled to upjump older tanks a bit
It gets much dicier if we're talking modern aircraft, pretty much only America can even make full 5th generation fighters (I guess the J-20 is, but it's unlikely it has anywhere near the capabilities of a current block of F-35s), and only America could scale up production quickly, as in within half a decade - as it has the most advanced radar manufacturing industry, modern airplane manufacture, etc. So like, if Europe wanted to start ramping up fighter production big time it would probably barely be able to increase its most advanced fighter production for years and years, but would be able to ramp up building and upgrading older designs, where as America would probably mass produce F-35s and create new inferior variants (perhaps without stealth), and lots more F-16s and F-18s and the like from retooled boeing factories
that one youtube channel with the puppet predicts the USA could produce thousands of 5th generation fighters a year after 5 years if it went full wartime production, and easily eclipse the entire rest of the world's 4th generation fighter production at the same time - the only area America would really get fucked trying to quickly ramp up would be warships and would probably be forced to commission and mass produce some kind of corvette class to keep up since the facilities to build things like aircraft carriers and cruisers take many, many years to build, a supercarrier can't really be that rushed even if you strip down the amenities
Yeah, not sure what the time frame would be, but the total time for pitched battles between modernized armies (before it descended into insurgencies) for a campaign to be successful, is probably going to be measured in months, not years.
The signals technology, range, speed and raw fire-power just doesn't seem like lengthy engagements would happen, and any time it would, it'd just be a clusterfuck because of a lack of preparedness (as this conflict shows).
I'm relatively convinced that the main reason this war is ongoing is because the Ukrainians are constrained to fighting the war only in Ukraine.
Constrained by morality, by pressure from allies, by a lack of certain conventional weapons being restricted (typically long range ones), by Russia having nukes (and being petty wankers). But constrained all the same.
The Pentagon has long complained that the way they are funded makes creating long term projects incredibly difficult.
We have spent the past 80 years preparing for war with Russia, with the theory that by making ourselves too costly to invade, we could avoid, or at least delay indefinitely, the war.
That we can win, eventually, is not enough.
Ukraine is going to win.
That still takes time, and that cost is horrifying.
Yeah this is the disgusting part to me, that may have been overlooked in my previous posts on how shit conventional weaponry is at securing peace. If we'd moved Ukraine under the NATO nuclear umbrella there would have been a flourishing Mariupol today. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians would be not dead. etc. etc.
I hope Finland and Sweden end up under the NATO nuclear umbrella soonest.
Globally we've seen a rise of fascism (the correct word) and strongmen who are disinvesting in the international frameworks that secure trade and peace. MAD should not be exposed as the last reason why nuclear powers don't fight, but here we are. (thanks, Blair & Bush)
On a side note, that surge towards nationalism, fascism and war-mongering is only going to get stronger as climate change and resource exhaustion start to really bite. You say 'conventional weapons are shit at securing peace', which has been true since the dawn of time, and in these times under-populated but resource rich countries like Australia are going to start Thinking Thoughts. The only weapons that might secure peace are those that can ensure that the kind of people who think that they'll benefit from starting wars of aggression can be made direct and personal targets. Nuclear MAD works pretty well for that because, well, mutual assured destruction does what it says on the tin. But the new generation of long range drones, spooky robot dogs and so on might also be useful in such a role, when they're not too busy being used to take out godless liberals, environmentalists, journalists and other trouble-makers.
International cooperation, driven by nation states that actually fulfil their side of the social contract, should be the answer to all of our security problems as well as global warming (and other pollution issues) poverty and so on and so forth. Buying bigger guns (or smaller ones) is quite obviously not going to be the answer to all our problems and really is just going to put money in the pockets of the kind of people who think they'll benefit from starting wars of aggression.
But I digress...
Conversely, hypersonic anti shipping missiles in quantity is the sort of defensive measure we should have.
Really can't, though. Even if we stop trade with China (arguably our biggest trade partner), we can't really project power into trade lines into the South China Sea that'd protect our Asian trade lines, due to their proximity versus ours.
And any aggressor that might be a threat to our trade with South America, Africa or Europe just has too large a target area for us to protect
Obviously, anyone who fucks with our North American trade has a bigger problem than any resistance Australia irself might offer.
In news related to the war, Brittney Griner has been released in a prisoner swap.
That reads like we have a new hit on our hands. I never expected wheeled rocket artillery to be a worldwide American brand, but here we are.
With the swapped prisoner being Viktor Bout, an utterly horrible excuse for a human being.
Definitely a 'the frogurt is cursed' situation.
Are we sure this is a good idea? I feel for Taiwan but I don't know if this would be wise.
I opened the article because I knew it was going to be that bad. They weren't going to let her go for anything other then a real piece of shit Putin ally.
This whole situation is why nuclear proliferation should be a serious concern to be stopped as much as possible. The whole reason this is a grinding brutal land war is because Ukraine has to fight it themselves with only equipment and training from outside forces. And that's all because no one wants to provoke the Russians into using nukes. Without the threat of nuclear weapons, Ukraine is shelling Moscow or NATO is insuring total dominance of the air or something to that effect.
Putin has basically spent the last decade and a half exposing new and exciting ways in which countries having nukes is bad. And basically all of it is brinksmanship of one kind or another.
Not to speak for ELM, but I'm taking that as more 'the capacity to hand off giant pallets of these things on short notice is valuable', so much as 'and Taiwan should start getting loaded up with them as soon as Ukraine no longer needs to be 25% Javelin by mass/volume'.
Would it be wise to do ahead of time, as a possibly antagonistic move? I dunno. But if China decides to invade and the US decides to back them up similarly, it'd certainly make the math complicated for the invading force.
You don't think discouraging any nations which might just happen to be thinking about invading Taiwan might be a good idea? MANPADs aren't any use for Taiwan to attack any other nation, as it has no land borders and no expeditionary capability to speak of. They're a defensive weapon.
Or are we right back to "Maybe we shouldn't hurt the feelings of authoritarian nations who start wars for no reason better than greed, pride and bigotry"?
This fucker lord of War was about?
Wait, An Unnamed Enemy Attacking from the East was Russia this whole time? Jinkies!
I don't think the non-nuclear part of the NATO weapon mix is actually that shit at securing peace-I guess it depends on what you view as securing. Desert Storm(First gulf war) and Kosovo and even the rolling up of ISIS after their initial rapid gains show that. It's biggest limitation is that it takes time to get forces deployed to where they need to be, although as mass deploy to Europe would probably be much faster than the GW deployment.
If the winds of policy shifted and we decided to treat this like we did Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, then Russia's continued presence in Ukraine would be measured in weeks. Even if we actually just started giving the Ukrainians the equipment they've been asking for, heavy armor, ACTAMS, etc. this thing would end much much sooner.
Ukraine is having to improvise its way through the nato war playbook without the tools to run 90% the plays-they put artillery on barges to Shell Snake Island FFS that's brilliant and gutsy, but NATO would have just had a couple of planes level the thing. Or look at the shit fit the airfield strikes caused this week, now replace 3 soviet era drones with a salvo of dozens of tomahawk missiles.
Yeah, that argument's precisely identical to the whole "giving Ukraine antitank missiles is a dangerous escalation" thing from January and February.
IDK the Xcom campaign maybe
Last I checked the independence of Taiwan was NOT recognized anywhere near the level of Ukraine. Does the US recognize it? I thought we were ambivalent to it like Hong Kong.
there's no reason a HIMARS couldnt also serve as the launcher for anti-aircraft missiles like AIM-9x or IRIS-T either, it just needs the software to interface radar with the missiles
Russia has made it clear that if a more powerful nation attacks you, you can punch way above your weigh class if you can reach out and touch them with a GLMRS, I expect Himars to be a hot item for international arms sales
It’s all the usual complaints. She doesn’t deserve to be rescued while a marine is “left behind”, because she deserved it, etc. suddenly caring about an arms dealer we’ve had since 2012. A concerted belief that Biden could just pick and chose which deal ne wanted, etc
Just makes me physically ill
*although* similar arguments were made against Ukraine, I think there's way more legitimate questions about whether Taiwan will even attempt to fight back... why send weapons to people who may not even last a week, you're just giving away military hardware to your enemy
and there are semantic problems about Taiwan's status as a nation and our (possibly stupid) policies on if and how we would defend taiwan
i think the problem is purely political in nature but it IS a very different animal from ukraine...
Taiwan's military has serious issues that are hopefully going to be addressed in the next round of modernization over the next year, but like, "won't last a week?"
Taiwan is about the hardest place to invade on the planet, like, getting a temporary foothold with a surprise attack on Texas would be significantly easier. China would need about a hundred times more sealift capability than it has to contest a landing, given the mountains are full of artillery and thousands of missiles that can reach airbases in China its not going to be as one sided as it first seems
If the USA was planning to invade Taiwan it would do SEAD for 2 months before trying to land any soldiers, and it would then have to do close air attacks with helicopters to route out MANPADs and the like, and take a shit ton of casualties doing so. There's a reason in the 40s the US figured it would take half the pacific fleet + 400,000 men to take the island
It's pretty gross for what probably feels like a miraculous day for the Griner family.
The overwhelming message from all corners of the conservative world is “we value her life less”, even though they think they’re saying Biden valued her life more, that’s the actual message they’re sending, “not her!” Is what they’re saying. As though Biden could chose between the ex marine and her, and chose her? Or that somehow we’ve lost leverage by releasing the arms dealer. We’ve had the arms dealer the whole time the marines been in jail, including when trump was president, and it never got the guy out. Gah I hate even engaging with their complaints cos it’s all racist and homophobic bullshit
The same day Tucker Carlson, the most popular right wing personality on television, called Zelensky a tyrant who’s closer to Lenin than Putin. Fucking hideous. We’re a few steps away from the Taliban being embraced. Or siding with the Iranian regime because the protesters are too woke
Which really has been true of the conservative right all along, they’ve always had more common ground with religious tyrants and homophobic autocrats than their oppressed peoples
I think the questions on Taiwan fighting back aren't about tenacity or defensibility, but the always weird internal view on their own sovereignty that outside narrators can never adequately explain. There doesn't seem to a majority opinion, there's multiple incompatible versions of reunificationism, multiple versions of independent nationalism. They're grouped into the Pan-Blue and Pan-Green movements but even with each group there's three or more irreconcilable factions. Almost nobody actually supports the status quo but there's no tenable way out of it either. So analysts are always arguing about how Taiwan would react politically and popularly to China asserting control.
But the part I think analysts are missing is that even the pro-CCP reunificationists don't want it to be a bloody and destructive invasion and the one thing everyone from every subgroup of Pan-Blue and Pan-Green actually agrees on enough to pass a vote is that the mainland doesn't just get to walk in and take it all by force. I think everyone on the island will be all in on not becoming another Hong Kong.
I’m happy for her and her family, and as liberal as they come, but really don’t think the trade was a good move. It just encourages this behavior from rogue states in the future. Also, given who we gave up it does seem like her freedom may come at a price measured in blood.
I firmly believe that traveling to any state with a Do Not Travel notice from DoS should come with the assumption of minimal or even no assistance if you get targeted by that state. Though I’ll note that I’m unsure if Russia was already listed as DNT at the time she traveled there, which was prior to the invasion if I recall. But as a rule individual US citizens should not be able to obligate the United States to have to make concessions like this to ensure their safety, not when the government has officially warned all of us to not set foot in these places.
i just hope they'd do the same for me (they wont)