Not disagreeing. Lack of peace during that time period cost upwards of 60 million lives including 40 million civilian. The problem I see with the current conflict is that there is no end in sight. Meanwhile, people will continue to die in the Ukraine with the prospect of starvation across the globe becoming a very real thing. Do you see any resolution on the horizon ?
Ukraine….what’s our endgame here
- Thread starter lawpoke87
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I'm waiting to see what happens when they get this long range weapons system that they have asking for since early on. I want to see where they stand month or so later.
I would say that abandoning an ally that has fought a world power to a stalemate, in its time of need, is not a reassuring look to other allies.
I don’t know that I see a resolution. I’d be surprised if Russia can sustain a conflict of attrition like this for very long. Any land claim for them, they will tout as a victory against the West when we threw every non-combat resource (and a number of combat resources) we were able to at Russia.
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I’m certainly not advocating abandoning anyone. I’m asking as of June 1, 2022 what is our strategic goal and the plan for achieving the same ? There have been crickets regarding this question for months. If nothing changes I foresee a prolonged stalemate where Russia occupies the territory it has taken while both sides periodically shoot and kill at each other. We are supplying just enough arms to guarantee an extended war. One without a winner. Defense contractors certainly benefit. Not sure anyone else does.
Given where we are now, we seem locked in, but years ago we should realized that Russia would feel the same way about a NATO Unkraine as the US felt about Russian missiles in Cuba in the 60s. Both risk nuclear war.
The world shares an interest in stopping the conflict and rebuilding the Ukraine. Russia may get some territory out of this, but the sanctions, economic damage and military losses will make it a Pyrrhic victory at best.
WWI started with a much smaller conflict than this, and at the time, the consensus view was that big wars were over because of the existing framework of alliances. Instead Europe “slept walked‘ into WWI.
Putin’s demographic dilemma: Russia’s negative population growth and brain drain. The site is also in English.
www.france24.com
Déclin démographique en Russie : "Poutine n’a pas d'autre issue que de gagner" en Ukraine
Natalité en berne, mortalité en hausse, déclin migratoire... Malgré une politique nataliste parmi les plus incitatives au monde, la Russie se vide progressivement de ses habitants. "Un problème majeur…
www.france24.com
That is the direction the Biden Admin is heading. Liberal media outlets don’t change policy direction without an agenda. The NYTs was simply the first. Others will soon follow in an attempt to provide cover for Biden.
Peace in our time.
Biden must have figured out that the only way to keep his kickbacks from Burisma out of the headlines is to hang Ukraine out to dry..
Looks like at least one party is benefiting from the high energy prices.
www.yahoo.com
Russia is on track to make more money off oil and gas exports this year than it did in 2021, and it's got the EU to thank
Europe is a major buyer of Russian energy products, accounting for about 50% of the country's crude oil exports and 70% of its natural gas exports.
Probably time to ask again. Is our strategy to supply Ukraine with just enough arms to ensure the war can continue indefinitely as well as people dying indefinitely ? Anyone care to enlightened the board as to our actual strategy here? Has Biden stated one?
I don’t know if he needs to state his strategy publicly.
What would your proposed change to current events if you are dissatisfied with them? Would you stop supplying weapons and let Ukraine be completely overrun? Or would you supply more weapons and risk escalating the situation between NATO and Russia?
That will begin to change as they wean themselves off of Russian Imports. You do still have some places like Hungary that are making it difficult.Looks like at least one party is benefiting from the high energy prices.
Russia is on track to make more money off oil and gas exports this year than it did in 2021, and it's got the EU to thank
Europe is a major buyer of Russian energy products, accounting for about 50% of the country's crude oil exports and 70% of its natural gas exports.
The market dictates how fuel will be produced to meet consumption. Right now oil companies are focused on stock buybacks and dividend production which had eluded them prior to Covid.
We also have had several refineries close or be (voluntarily) converted to biodiesel production. The largest refinery on the East Coast (and one of the largest in the country) had an explosion and fire in 2019 which, alongside financial troubles, led to its permanent closing. Maybe Mr. Trump should have focused on plant safety and reliability to help insure that these valuable capital projects kept producing.
Sounds like you should be complaining about Chevron rather than the feds.
You absolutely need to state your objective when fighting an war or proxy war.
Doing just enough to insure the war continues and people die isn’t a viable long term plan. Certainly not a moral one. There are three possibilities :
1). Stop our support and allow Russia to take over Ukraine and end up in a situation like they experienced in Afghanistan.
2). Supply sufficient weapons and military support to drive Russia out of Ukraine
3). Convince Ukraine to give up the occupied eastern territory. I do believe this is where we are headed btw. Tough political pill for Ukraine and US to swallow.
You proposed three scenarios but didn’t go into the consequences of any of them.
And no, you don’t need to state your war goals in a defensive conflict. It just makes you have a weaker negotiating position. Your public war goal should always be to retain as much territory as possible (if not all the territory).
Consequences aren’t great with any of those options. Do you have a 4th?
You always need a stated objective in war. You will lose support if you don’t. Supplying just enough arms to keep the killing going indefinitely is not a strategy. Now if that’s our objective then that’s our objective. Certainly appears to be. The public won’t support that indefinitely.
The stated war goal is for Russia to go back to at least the Pre-March border. There will never be an announcement on strategy for arms lending like you say. Again. We’re walking a fine line with Russia. It’s an unfortunate line, but hopefully one that will allow us to come oit with the best possible outcome.
As far as consequences go. I’m not pleased with any of them. But I’m most not pleased with letting Ukraine be rolled over or making Russia into a tougher adversary.
We have a whispered proxy which they went back on verbally, while they didn't go back on it in actions. They can't stick with verbal objectives because Putin wouldn't stand for it, and might go to nukes. I'll horribly paraphrase the couple of different lines, because I'm lazy and don't want to go back and find the statements.
'make it so that Russia will no longer militarily be able to do this again.'
&
'Putin cannot remain in Power.'
I don’t see either one of those as “reasonable or even likely” scenarios. Russia is now in control of much of eastern Ukraine. Now will everyone accept the status quo at this point while agreeing to still be at war or will Russia continue its expansion west ? Say and agreement without an agreement? We will have to become significantly more involved to push Russia back to its pre war borders. Something I simply don’t see. Another question is if and when Russia will cease its expansion West?
I think you are a little too anxious to assess. The Himars system only arrived there 10 or 12 days ago, and according to US military assessments will take at least three weeks of training. After training it will take at least a couple of three weeks of use to have any kind of affect on the war. I want to wait till Mid to Late July to see where the war stands.
It will take an internal political collapse inside Russia before Putin withdraws from Ukraine.
Whether it is viable or not, that's what I think the Biden administration is shooting for.
we could help drive the 'world' price, if we we were still at pre biden production.
You think their military central planning and logistics are bad now? Wait until the government collapses. The Ukrainians would push them out.
US Oil Production
- 2018: 3,993,288,000 Barrels of Crude Oil(Trump: lower than in 2021)
- 2019: 4,485,635,000 Barrels of Crude Oil(Trump: highest oil production during presidency)
- 2020: 4,129,563,000 Barrels of Crude Oil(Trump: - 356k/day)
- 2021: 4,082,478,000 Barrels of Crude Oil(Biden: - 47k/day)
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Some thoughts from Forbes on what Biden could do to lower the price of petroleum. He appears to be aligned with the far left and won’t implement these measures fwiw. Taking steps to encourage production would obviously anger the climate crew. Not that burning opec oil is less harmful than domestic oil.
finance.yahoo.com
How Biden could lower oil and gas prices
The oil and gas industry has outlined several steps Biden could take to stimulate domestic energy production and lower prices. Biden's not there yet.
I made this statement with an important fact missing. Zelensky made the statement that he needed some 300 of the Himarrs units to fight with. I'm sure he went a little overboard with his estimate, and that say 100 of these units might have significantly affected the war. We went more than a bit underboard on our willingness to give them the proper # of units to do anything significant.
What I didn't realize, is we gave them four Himarrs units.
If the Biden administration doesn't significantly change their # on what they will allow Ukraine, it probably won't make a bit of difference to the war. Sounds like the Biden administration has already thrown in the towel for Zelensky. He(Zelensky) can't ensure Russia will have less capacity to continue actions like this against Ukraine or other nations with 4 Himarrs.
Biden abandon's beginning goals due to pressure from inflation? Biden afraid many more units will push Putin? That is weak conviction by Biden. Biden's already lost the nomination/presidential battle. That's done. Stand up for your convictions, or don't have them in the first place. Ukraine can thank Biden for the destruction of their country with this abandonment of any goals that would have made it worth it to the Ukrainians. This kind of action will leave many Ukrainians likely hating the U.S. after this war is over. They will face the bitter aftermath of losing territory and achieving no significant goals. I doubt they look too fondly on us as a nation at that point. This could achieve similar goals to Trumps abandonment of our allies. It goes about it in a different manor, but achieves the same goals.
He needs to commit to more Himarrs systems, or commit to none at all. If he's afraid of Putin's reaction, then he should have sent 15 or 30, to see his reaction. A number that would have had a noticeable affect.
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...And this reason that they won't send more, because they need training to use them that we cannot provide is simply an excuse.
They could train them on four units, with them taking notes and film. The Ukrainian could have then trained them on four more units halfway through training, with the US watching in a supervisory mode, and had training finished on the second four maybe a week after training on the first four was over. I am pretty confident Ukraine could have proven their mettle on training methods in short time, based on their fighting abilities. We made these kind of adjustments in WW2, and so could have Ukraine. My Grandfather became an Engineer in a speeded up four month(not years) teaching program, before he was given the Captaincy of a Mine Sweeper. I have equal faith in the Ukranians.
...Side Note: With that four months training, my Grandfather won the Silver Star as a Captain of a Mine Sweeper. His ship was the only ship that came back to shore on a suicide mission. Other Captains with less hurried training lost their ships on that mission. It can be done.
Probably not much different than how Russia was helping the Taliban against us in Afghanistan.
It’s going to get interesting when this war extends into winter. The play here now appears to be to try to wrap it up with concessions or a cease fire asap. That way people aren’t freezing to death in Ukraine and fuel prices dont go crazy in Western Europe in a couple of months. That doesn’t appear realistic for either side doing the fighting right now.
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