[Tainari88]

Also @Negotiator :

The west does not give its children proper education. We rely on China and India to get sufficient engineers. And such sources will dry out. Even now the USA cannot fill its green cards anymore; there are not enough people who actually want to move to the USA in this way.

They can let the thousands on the Southern Border of the USA in. Let them flood the states with new arrivals with zero formal educations and no English language skills and kids that need at leat 12 years of formal education and beyond at affordable free of payment ways.

Educate the Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Mexicans and Haitians, and Cubans and Venezuelans, and Colombians, and Ecuadorans, and every damn nation in Latin America that is super poor and fucked over. MILLIONS. Educate them all and make them engineers, doctors, medical professionals, surgeons, teachers, lawyers, etc etc. Computer scientists, analysts....oh, we can not do it. We hate those people.

We hate those children.

We do not want to educate them. Send them back.

We need instant made people with perfect English, super great educations that are HARD to learn and acquire degrees in...we want the rest of the world to give us their best and brightest for NOTHING. So we do not have to do a damn thing and they believe all the fucking hassles innate to the ICE and Immigration system of the USA, is worth it, when those valuable educated foreigners can get a good deal in their own countries or in countries that do not make their lives so hard.

Lol. Everyone is on the hunt for those people.

I got a work permit in less than a year living in Mexico to work in Mexico. Why? The formula they have. They need people who are with advanced degrees, speak various languages including their native language of the country they moved to, that can pay cash for properties and invest heavily in their societies and start contributing to a tax base instantly. They want well educated, no crime background, good tax paying people who are an asset to a lot of different nations. Fight over those people.

The ones who have zero educations, crime in the background, no money to invest or to live off of, and who are going to require about 20 years of work to have their children educated and trained to be contributing taxpayers are too much work.

They want the lazy way of coping.

No, there is no easy way folks. Invest in the people that show up. Not the ones who say...why should I move to the mass shooting nation with that crazy guy who might be the next dictator? I have enough problems here at home. Why should I move looking for problems?

[JohnRawls]

Why would western politicians even care ? This is literally taxpayer money that will end up in the pockets of rich people.

Again, finances are not the problem. The west has plenty of money. Lack of ability is the problem.

Even if the USA would actually give Ukraine the 60 billion dollars, that would only finance Ukrianes economy. It wouldnt help with the lack of weapon systems and ammunition. They simply dont exist. No amount of money can fix this problem, because its a lack of ability problem.

The two problem in the west in regards to military production are:

- Our MIC is privately owned and thus works exclusively profit oriented. So it doesnt build reserves for wartimes. It doesnt build reserve capacities. It doesnt build cheap weapons in high quantities. It doesnt try to find cheap solutions. It doesnt recyle ammunition that was stored for 30 years and has become unreliable. It often doesnt even build weapon systems that are durable. It creates super expensive horribly overeingineered systems like the F-35 fighter jet which can do anything but will probably never actually be finished. Or the western artillery which is optimized for low weight instead of for durability, and thus needs far sooner repair than russian equivalents. Etc etc etc.

- The west does not give its children proper education. We rely on China and India to get sufficient engineers. And such sources will dry out. Even now the USA cannot fill its green cards anymore; there are not enough people who actually want to move to the USA in this way.

So the only people who could sell us the required weapon systems and ammunition would be ... Russia and China. And they wont do that, obviously.

And by the way, the worst part of this war is all the lifes it has cost. For a war that was pointless from the start. For a war the west was never in the position to win. As Obama told us in 2016 already, Russia has escalatory dominance in Ukraine. And, since Russia sees the Ukraine issue as a question of Russias existence, they wouldnt back down, even if the situation was much, much worse for them.

We should never forget that this is war. This is hell. This gets people killed. A lot of people.

West had plenty of stocks pre 1991 we just scrapped everything because the cold war was over. Reality is that nobody expected some crazy guy to start a large war in Europe again or anywhere for that matter so US and Europe decreased the military funding and scrapped the stocks while consolidating weapon producers.

As for education then just You use the internet build by the West while typing these words on a computer 99% designed and developed by the West. And this will be the case for almost all cutting edge products.

[paeng]

About Kissinger, look up "realpolitik". For MAGA, consider the point that Biden also promotes MAGA policies. For example,

[Rich]

Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed its anti Semitic to make said to aid to Israel dependent on supporting Ukrainian Nazis.

The key thing to note is that conflict in Israel is a conflict between Semitic Supremaicsts. Both sides religion believes that God spoke his commands in a Semitic language. Both religions exclusively worship Semitic Gods. arguable even the same God.

[Negotiator]

Opinion piece on Ukraine in New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opin ... raine.html

Its behind a "freewall" (you have to create a free account).

[Negotiator]

West had plenty of stocks pre 1991 we just scrapped everything because the cold war was over.

Thats not really true, the MIC was privately owned even back in the 1950s. Which is why Eisenhower had his famous goodbye speech as president, warning of the US MIC. If the MIC still had large stockpiles in 1991, well thats possible, but it would be because of bad habit.

The US military production during WW2 was state owned. Only if you are not bound to operate under profit maximization you can organize production as it is best for war. The production of ammunition in the west for example is hardly increasing right now (even if you choose to be optimistic about that one) because private investors simply dont see a profit.

This ideological war between market economy and planned economy is really artificial. For some situations a market economy is better (a new area of technology, many competitiors with no monopoly power in play, unclear market direction, flexibility necessary, etc), for others a planned economy (market dominated with monopoly power, extremely predictable markets such as food, essential markets such as energy production, natural monopolys such as railways, profit motive cannot be dominant as for example for the MIC or hospitals, no profit motive at all as in schools and universities, etc, and last not least megaprojects like production for war or the space programs of both the USA and the USSR back in the day).

[JohnRawls]

Thats not really true, the MIC was privately owned even back in the 1950s. Which is why Eisenhower had his famous goodbye speech as president, warning of the US MIC. If the MIC still had large stockpiles in 1991, well thats possible, but it would be because of bad habit.

The US military production during WW2 was state owned. Only if you are not bound to operate under profit maximization you can organize production as it is best for war. The production of ammunition in the west for example is hardly increasing right now (even if you choose to be optimistic about that one) because private investors simply dont see a profit.

This ideological war between market economy and planned economy is really artificial. For some situations a market economy is better (a new area of technology, many competitiors with no monopoly power in play, unclear market direction, flexibility necessary, etc), for others a planned economy (market dominated with monopoly power, extremely predictable markets such as food, essential markets such as energy production, natural monopolys such as railways, profit motive cannot be dominant as for example for the MIC or hospitals, no profit motive at all as in schools and universities, etc, and last not least megaprojects like production for war or the space programs of both the USA and the USSR back in the day).

You really have no clue... The military industrial complex being private or not is irrelevant. Stocks can exist with or without the private sector.

Read up on what Europe and US did after 1991, check the % of gdp that went in to the military before and now. Also read up on consolidation of military producers and why it happened then get back to me when you actually have a clue instead citing a mantra.

Or you know, open up some declassified files from the cold war about the stocks and so on. How come we can have stock of everything we want like Oil, Steel, Aluminium etc and you know of them for example in oil price context when US releases or replenishes their stock but somehow military is not possible with a military industrial complex being private? Where is the logic here?

[Rich]

Russia doesn't have endless supply of weapons and recent degradation of equipment prooves this. Current "offensive" started using equipment from the 60s. European and US sanctions make manufacture of weapons almost impossible.

This post was made on the 16th April two years ago. I note the word "proves". I also notice you still seem to be in the habit of making pronouncements like this. Given this post was made less than 2 months into the SMO, I would suggest that two years on if anything has been proved it is that you didn't know what you were talking about. Why should we place any greater trust in your more recent declarations?

[Dr House]

This post was made on the 16th April two years ago. I note the word "proves". I also notice you still seem to be in the habit of making pronouncements like this. Given this post was made less than 2 months into the SMO, I would suggest that two years on if anything has been proved it is that you didn't know what you were talking about. Why should we place any greater trust in your more recent declarations?

Two things can be true at once: Russia doesn't have an endless supply of materiel to commit to the conflict but does have a very deep reserve. They have now exhausted their entire working stock of tanks, which was about 2,000. They have probably 10,000 more to pull out of mothballs, which they're starting with the ancient T-55s since they're easiest to upgrade and throw into the front. Assuming that each generation older doubles their attrition rate I'm assuming they'll run out of T-55s in like 6 months and then the newer gens in another 2-3 years. They most certainly can't make new tanks fast enough to replenish their losses.

This war is going to drag on for probably another 5 years. It's an open question whether anything will be left of either combatant at the end of it. But since the EU is bankrolling the Ukraine side, the West will probably win the war of attrition. We have bottomless pockets and Russia does not.

[Rich]

Two things can be true at once: Russia doesn't have an endless supply of materiel to commit to the conflict but does have a very deep reserve.

English is not a precise mathematical language and is not interpreted as such. I would suggest that the context of the @JohnRawls's statement clearly implies that Russia should have run out of arms long back, rather than two years on Russia being the one with the material advantage.

On the 17th April 2022 in resonse to @Istanbuller Rogoz posted this.

You're wrong. The way to end this war is to crush Russia in Ukraine. And that's what will happen inevitably.

If you're such a Putler fanboy, maybe you should tell your government to stop supplying drones.

I quoted the first line and said this

(My emphasis) So

1 The Western establishment correctly called out the Russian military build up.

2 The Western establishment accurately predicted the timing of the Russian operation.

3 The was an invasion not a limited surgical operation as claimed by Russia.

4 The execution of the two major northern incursions by by Russia were militarily disastrous, even though these axes of attack were strategically sound for some significant commitment of resources.

5 The fact that there were no axes of attack from the North into western Ukraine, clearly showed that the Russians did not have overwhelming military superiority and they knew it. Even if Russia did not want to occupy western Ukraine, cutting off the major road and rail supply routes, is military strategy 101. And occupation of those places would have given them territory to trade in return for their actual objectives.

6 The loss of the Moskva is a severe blow to Russia, both in physical and psychological terms.

I'm not here to debate the above points. I'll leave it to others to debate the Russian fan bois on these matters. I'm interested in moving beyond them, to look at the weaknesses of the Ukrainian position and why your statement, which is representative of a huge amount of western thinking on these issues is highly problematic.

I would suggest that Rugoz's @JohnRawls's and most of the so called western liberal military's analysis was ideologically motivated garbage while my analysis was grounded in reality.

[Rugoz]

On the 17th April 2022 in resonse to @Istanbuller Rogoz posted this.

Well, Russia is being crushed in Ukraine. It still loses almost 1000 soldiers per day, killed or wounded. The question is whether that is enough to end to war.

I freely admit that at the time, I totally underestimated the West's capacity to fuck this up. I thought the West, in particular the US, would supply Ukraine with everything needed to win the war. Instead, the West has been dragging its feet for 2 years, providing just enough that Ukraine does not lose. Meanwhile, MAGA/Trump are back and have stopped all US support.

I also underestimated Russia's willingness to mobilize and throw meat into the grinder. After all, Russia started the invasion with a severe lack of manpower (not only in total but within units), which suggested a strong aversion towards mobilization.

[Rugoz]

This war is going to drag on for probably another 5 years. It's an open question whether anything will be left of either combatant at the end of it. But since the EU is bankrolling the Ukraine side, the West will probably win the war of attrition. We have bottomless pockets and Russia does not.

Estonia proposed that Western countries spend 0.25% of GDP on military support for Ukraine. Great, but if Russia spends 10% of GDP, that won't make Ukraine win the war.

Two things can be true at once: Russia doesn't have an endless supply of materiel to commit to the conflict but does have a very deep reserve.

Russia's bottleneck are armored vehicles. Only 20% of new vehicles come from production. The rest from repairs/stocks. Still, nobody seems to know how large these stocks are.

[JohnRawls]

This post was made on the 16th April two years ago. I note the word "proves". I also notice you still seem to be in the habit of making pronouncements like this. Given this post was made less than 2 months into the SMO, I would suggest that two years on if anything has been proved it is that you didn't know what you were talking about. Why should we place any greater trust in your more recent declarations?

Two years ago we talked how the Russian army would be destroyed which it was. The army fighting now is not the same army in material or people since all of it is destroyed or killed, well the land army. They reconstituted the army back from conscripts and mobilized over time.

Now the bottleneck is the production and stock. Hence we are talking about them running out of stock.

[JohnRawls]

Two things can be true at once: Russia doesn't have an endless supply of materiel to commit to the conflict but does have a very deep reserve. They have now exhausted their entire working stock of tanks, which was about 2,000. They have probably 10,000 more to pull out of mothballs, which they're starting with the ancient T-55s since they're easiest to upgrade and throw into the front. Assuming that each generation older doubles their attrition rate I'm assuming they'll run out of T-55s in like 6 months and then the newer gens in another 2-3 years. They most certainly can't make new tanks fast enough to replenish their losses.

This war is going to drag on for probably another 5 years. It's an open question whether anything will be left of either combatant at the end of it. But since the EU is bankrolling the Ukraine side, the West will probably win the war of attrition. We have bottomless pockets and Russia does not.

Russia has around 3500 "decent" tanks remaining in stock that might be repairable. Out of those 3500 "decent" tanks majority is T-72 tanks that are probably in the "worst"state possible since they have stopped repairing them as mass and started sending T-64s/T-55s/T-80s long ago. That majority T-72s that is left is bad probably because Russia has been living off the Soviet T-72 stock since the 90s so all the "easily repairable" T-72s are already gone. (Data as of End of 2023 December but images from around August-October 2023). Out of those 3500 though not just the T-72s but also others have been stripped on the inside also to repair/restock other tanks. So that 3500 number is a bit deceiving. The remaining other tanks besides those 3500 are just junk that has been fully stripped and disassembled basically.

Out of artillery stock they have around 6500 towed artillery left and 2900 SPGs left from pre-war stock level of 15000 towed artillery and 4500 SPGs. But the remaining stock numbers again are deceiving since out of that 6500 towed artillery vast majority is really old WW2 or Cold War bullshit like D20 and D30 or even uses different calibre in a lot of cases. So if we take SPGs they have like 900 left that is 152mm artillery. And 500 out of them is 2S3 which was built in the 1968. They only have 120 2S9s(MSTA) left while everything else is much, much older. Towed artillery wise out of that 6500 only 600 are MT-12 which was built in the 1987. 1500 D-30s and 3500 D-20s etc. Such heavy loss of artillery is because they have been stripping barrels from them to conduct their artillery bullshit. Oh yeah and they have 0 Mortars left from pre-war stock of around 2500. (Info from February 2024 but sattelites images analyzed from August-November 2023)

Out of other vehicles there are 8900 total left out which 3600 are BMPs of different sort, mostly old ones. (Mid Summer 2023 and images from earlier)

[QatzelOk]

...We have bottomless pockets and Russia does not.

This is an interesting concept that China, Russia and Iran are aware of. The printing of money makes Western funding bottomless.

But I think the war in Ukraine (and the genocide in Palestine) will both end when the West realizes that their bottomless pocket has a big BRICS hole in it. In other words, bankruptcy will be the end of the West and all its wars of theft.

[litwin]

This is an interesting concept that China, Russia and Iran are aware of. The printing of money makes Western funding bottomless.

But I think the war in Ukraine (and the genocide in Palestine) will both end when the West realizes that their bottomless pocket has a big BRICS hole in it. In other words, bankruptcy will be the end of the West and all its wars of theft.

is it you , Moscow Marjorie ?

[QatzelOk]

is it you , Moscow Marjorie ?

Yes, it's me, Moscow Marjorie TM

That's not really my name, of course, but I am forced to use a fake name to protect my friends from all that NATO hate that they might get from the usual suspects. NATO is mean and heartless, and I hope it disappears one day.

I find coup d'états a huge turn-off, along with non-stop military expansion and the funding of genocides. These things leave me cold and dry. If you are into those kinds of things, litwin, you would be better off sleeping with Victoria Nuland.

If I am selected Miss World this year, I plan to eradicate global military alliances and create a Palestinian state.

[RealPolitic]

@Tainari88

No what is realistic is that the weak ass International courts, and weak ass UN, and the weak international group of nations sick of being pawns on a chess board and being kicked around by the arrogant ones on the international bodies of justice and law and relationships are going to have to create a system over time. Could take hundreds or thousands of years, but we will get there.....of effectively agreeing on what constitutes normal, non psychotic behavior internationally and what constitutes sociopathic anti life policies.

If you don't have strong international institutions that are effective, then states are going to have to compete with each other for power. They have little choice. That means the little states get gobbled up. And the barracuda eats the fish. From the realist perspective, the only way to have security is either through a balance of power or through hegemony. If you don't have a balance of power with the most powerful adverserial state in the very least, then your security could be in jeopardy.

The small states best chance for security is to align themselves with the interests of the most powerful states and ensure they have the backing of powerful states. Otherwise, they are easy prey. But from the realist perspective, people are free to break alliances and the powerful state that backs you could turn around and suddenly abandon you. This is where, smaller, weaker states may seek nuclear weapons as a deterrent against even the most powerful states to ensure they don't get gobbled up.

The danger of the realist perspective is that it very well could encourage nuclear weapons proliferation as weaker states seek security guarantees against any state by acquiring those weapons. However, the powerful states do try to keep nuclear weapons only in their hands to ensure that they keep most of the power and are able to gobble up weaker states undeterred if they decide they want to. But I can't see how powerful states can completely stop weaker states from acquiring these weapons to guarantee their own security against stronger states.

The problem, is that the more states that are encouraged to get these weapons and the more states that do get these weapons, the more likely it is those weapons could be used and could bring destruction upon all of humanity. So, there is a solid argument for strong and effective international institutions in international relations. Effective international institutions ensure justice and that smaller states have security without having to acquire weapons of mass destruction to get some level of security. Effective international institutions I think will stop the spread of nuclear weapons because such institutions could offer security to both strong and weaker nations alike.

It could also lead to the abolishment of standing armies. Having standing armies is a challenge to other nations and invites competition and encourages other nations to get their own standing armies in response. Even if you have a standing army purely for defensive purposes only, it still seen as a challenge or provocation by other states and invites competition. So, the ideal for strong effective international institutions is to see a day where nations have no need to have a standing army to ensure their security. It's a very idealistic notion. But it's something to aim for even if you don't ever get that point ever.

Another case to consider is the Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro got attacked by a CIA backed army which he defeated. But then he feared the US would directly invade Cuba and would be successful. He knew his forces were weaker and the US could occupy Cuba if it wanted to. So, he turns to the Soviets to install nuclear weapons in Cuba. That lead to the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis that really, truly did bring the world close to destroying itself. The US did not know the Soviets had smaller tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba. John F. Kennedy had authorized US military forces to use nuclear weapons against the Soviets ONLY if the Soviets used them first.

But the Soviet commanders had complete control of their nukes in Cuba and could use them as they wished without getting approval from the Kremlin. Had the US invaded to remove the missiles in Cuba, the Soviet commanders would have little choice but to use nuclear weapons against US forces invading Cuba. Of course, that would give US military commanders the green light to use nuclear weapons in return given that Kennedy had already authorized them to do so if the Soviets used theirs first.

The point of bringing up the Cuban Missile Crisis is to illustrate WHY you need strong and effective international institutions. The only reason why you and me are here today having this conversation on this message forum is because we were extremely lucky in the past that a global nuclear war never broke out. It was ONLY pure luck. But we were so close.

[paeng]

Well, Russia is being crushed in Ukraine. It still loses almost 1000 soldiers per day, killed or wounded. The question is whether that is enough to end to war.

I freely admit that at the time, I totally underestimated the West's capacity to fuck this up. I thought the West, in particular the US, would supply Ukraine with everything needed to win the war. Instead, the West has been dragging its feet for 2 years, providing just enough that Ukraine does not lose. Meanwhile, MAGA/Trump are back and have stopped all US support.

I also underestimated Russia's willingness to mobilize and throw meat into the grinder. After all, Russia started the invasion with a severe lack of manpower (not only in total but within units), which suggested a strong aversion towards mobilization.

There are two articles to consider in light of that:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/10/na ... raine-war/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opin ... raine.html

Apparently, the problem is that the West overestimated itself and Ukraine. The first relies significantly on China for various components and the ave. age of UA soldiers is now more than 40 years. Meanwhile, it looks like most in the West don't want to fight and would rather have Ukrainians fighting and dying, and are now complaining more about increasing debt and money that they believe is wasted in arming Ukraine.

Those pushing for war involve the rich financing arms industries, and they don't mind because they get paid plus profit (the military aid given to corrupt Ukraine officials is passed on as debt to the unwitting Western public now complaining that Ukraine gets more aid than they do from their own governments while they face increasing costs, with the cost of that aid also passed on to them). Also, it turns out that all aid comes with strings attached, with BlackRock, which is managing the assets of the same rich, eager to control various Ukraine assets which the country had to give up in exchange for that aid.

It's like what happened in the past, where arms manufacturers sold to both sides, and won because the winner would pay back while forcing the loser to do the same.

Reminds me of the documentary, "It's All a Rich Man's Trick." The only thing missing are the ignorant anons in online forums unwittingly shilling for that trick, which involves crossing red lines to foment conflict, then profiting from that conflict, and passing on the cost to the ignorant public that supports the same because their leaders said that they're fighting for "freedom" and "democracy".

[Rugoz]

There are two articles to consider in light of that:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/10/na ... raine-war/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/opin ... raine.html

Europe has ~1.5m active personnel, and ~2.5m reserves, for the US it is similar. It's about allocating troops to the NATO response force.

That nytimes piece is paywalled, but j.d. vance is a MAGA moron. Go figure.

The rest of your post is the usual weirdo conspiracy drivel.