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956 Worldwide

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Posts posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. 10 hours ago, Bevo said:

    This isn't true. They have a lack of manpower as well and have not been able to institute a draft and rotate personnel off the front line. And we all know why the supplies from the US have stopped. And we know why certain supplies from the US were never supplied. But, we don't have a clear idea of what is going on in Europe regarding supply. Turkey could send a shitload of supplies. Germany could do the same. What's going on there and in places such as Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic? Those posts are interesting.

    We have literally a full accounting of what is going on in Europe regarding supply via the contact group that meets in Rammstein. Anyway to answer your question:

    https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/03/20/czech-led-bulk-ammunition-buy-for-ukraine-picks-up-steam/

    Quote

    MILAN – A proposed Czech-led bulk artillery ammunition purchase for Ukraine is picking up steam, as countries commit to bank-rolling the effort while sourcing shells from non-European vendors.

    Czech President Petr Pavel said in February that Prague had identified 500,000 155mm artillery shells and 300,000 122mm rounds outside the European Union that could be sent to Ukraine if necessary funds were secured.

    Shortly after this announcement, over a dozen countries joined the mission, contributing millions of dollars. So far, Pavel’s government has succeeded at gathering the support of almost 20 other allies, Canada, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium.

    Speaking at a March 19 meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany, German Defense Minister Borius Pistorius said Berlin would pay for 180,000 rounds. Defense officials in Berlin declined to put a price tag on the commitment.

    Russia's advantage in artillery ammunitions is unlikely to spur more frontline gains, but it will give Moscow some breathing space, one analyst said.

     

    Some of the most recent members to join are Sweden and Portugal, which said on March 14, that they contributed $32,6 million and $108,6 million to the efforts, respectively.

    According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the Czechs have marked an additional 700,000 shells that could possibly be bought for Ukrainian troops. This would bring the total purchase to 1.5 million rounds, at a cost of $3.3 billion, the newspaper reported.

    Experts have pegged Russia’s firepower advantage at 5:1 for over Ukraine, with Russian forces firing as many as 10,000 shells per day, compared to 2,000 by Ukraine.

    Questions still remain about how quickly the Czech-led initiative could bring fresh ammunition to frontline troops in Ukraine. Czech national security advisor Tomas Pojar has said that the first rounds could be shipped by June.

    Officials in Prague have made it clear that they are ready to negotiate with almost any third-country vendor that could commit to making a contribution to the bulk purchase, with a few exceptions, including North Korea.

    The United States is the NATO Ally that has the defense base to supply most of the more pressing needs like high-end air defense and long-range fires. We are the supplier of choice to NATO Allies for this and we in fact have pressed to ensure we maintained some of these key capabilities as part of our defense industrial base. And now we are sitting on it. 
     

    Europe is contributing more per capita and in absolute terms but we are the nation that has surplus of extremely key hardware. It’s us or it doesn’t go. 

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  2. 4 hours ago, SmokeyTheBear said:

    We're not giving money and resources away,  we are investing it.  We're investing in a country being a wall to protecting the rest of Europe.  Investing in our own industry by showing off to the world how effective our old and new military equipment is. Investing in our own soldiers by limiting possible NATO war and face to face conflict.  Investing in a future partner and NATO ally with a very capable society.  The ROI on this stands to be massive considering the circumstances forced onto the world by Putin and his alliances.

    Based on what DJT said, this is probably going to be reframed as a loan, which everyone understands will never be repaid because you don’t give back a Bradley or a Patriot interceptor. It simply has to be framed that way as a sop to the grotesque ego of a man who needs to show he makes “good deals” and to satisfy—not LOW information voters— rather WRONG information voters. Just doing the thing that needs to be done by creating a Rube Goldberg machine for simpletons and half-wits to gawk at. 
     

    This especially uninspired bit of high school drama would be understandable as politics if the end result wasn’t killing lots of brave people who want to like us. It’s astounding how eager the GOP IS celebrate their own stupid harmfulness. 

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  3. 3 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

    I just think that the USA, with economic problems at home (e.g. inflation, housing, etc.) has already given $80bn to Ukraine's war effort. I think Europe as a whole continent of countries have given ~$90bn?

    Instead of looking to USA to carry the lion share of the load here indefinitely, all I'm saying is to add some accountability for others to help support Ukraine.

    It should be a source of embarrassment to Ukraine's brother and sister countries and land (neighbors, etc.) that Russia with the help of NK/China are able to out-produce and out-gun Ukraine with the whole of NATO/EU behind them. Those countries ought to be subsidizing the majority of the war and yes, America should too, but not disproportionately IMO. And I don't think it's that wildly offensive of an opinion and one shared by many.

    To the point of this thread, I think it's stupid to hold the money hostage, but I also think it's stupid to just be a revolving door and blank check go brrrrrrffftttttt (or even have the optics of it) when domestically we have our own financial issues (see: Inflation report this week).

    You keep repeating nonsense GOP lines (there’s no money printer) and you are actually making a great point that the NATO Allies outside of us as a whole are slightly larger than the U.S. and have a slightly larger economy cumulatively— and have contributed proportionally. 
     

    The Alliance can’t undo years of mistakes and underinvestment. We have the equipment and DIB to give stuff.  The others don’t. It sucks but it’s what it is. The question is why you want to abandon US leadership in Europe and why you hate the idea of modernizing our own forces while supporting Ukraine and creating America jobs? 
     

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  4. 15 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

    I am pro-Ukraine (and pro-Israel) and anti-Russia (and anti-Hamas), so your personal attacks don't offend me. Before just cutting checks every session, why not go after your "allies" like India who are funding Russia by buying their gasoline, spitting in the face of the West?

    What the message I hear by people reflexively freaking out about trying to put some guard rails around the spending on a very inefficient war with a very improbable positive outcome (Ukraine wins, because again I'm a Ukraine guy), is that you guys are okay with just a blank check indefinitely for a war that will eventually end at a stalemate or loss? @Dahobbs is right, Russia isn't going to lose, no matter how much aid is wasted. And it will be wasted, just like the Ukrainian lives.

    Or you can just dismiss any stance that is anything other than "give billions of dollars for the life of the war" as being a commie or secret russia lover, but it seems to me that a reasonable conversation can and should be had around America (and ultimately the American people-- you and I) responsibility and financial commitment. AND Europe's responsibility and financial commitment as direct neighbors.

    Anyone who lives in a world where Bucha, Mariupol, and Irpin happened and where Russia is forcibly deporting tens and thousands of children yet still says the loss of life is “wasted” is being either willfully ignorant or dishonest. 
     

    This is what armies are for. They exist to fight and die so that other armies don’t rape and murder civilians and kidnap children. 

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  5. 53 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

    Yes, but hardly along central supply lines. The Soviets had to extend their logistic network. That simply isn't the case for Russia in Ukraine. Again, these conflicts are not even close to the same scale. 

    Also, the Soviets won in Afghanistan, at least the early going. We financed an insurgent campaign designed to inflict maximum attrition anytime they left their urban strongholds. 
     

    The goal in Ukraine is not to surrender the nation to Russia and then bleed them dry. Not to re-litigate the morality of what happened there, but this would be a cruel and cynical approach that would cost at a minimum tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilian lives and would confirm the worst narrative of what we are doing by supporting Ukraine.  We want Ukraine to be free and sovereign. The goal isn’t just dead Russian soldiers as useful as that is. 

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  6. 10 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

    1.) I Wish this shit would happen to more of them. Period, fill stop.
    2.) I wish some of them would learn that they've been conned and act accordingly
    3.) We all know they'll blame corrupt democrats for somehow fucking with the stuck unjustly and ruining his life. 

    EL-OH-EL. Proof that being able to make significant amounts of money is not related to intelligence.

    queue reaction s GIF

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  7. 13 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

    With the caveat of a promise that this is the last, best and final aid package to Ukraine, I think this would be a deal.

    All U.S. military aid to Ukraine either comes from U.S. stocks and is backfilled with newer, better stuff or is being produced in the U.S. and reinvigorating our defense base and preparing us to fight the next war. You’re choosing American weakness and Russia/PRC victory. 

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  8. 3 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

    Ukraine is going to get plenty of weapons whether there is a resolution or not.  No way Lockheed Martin and other big boy defense contractors are going to miss out on those revenues.

    Yeah, this is wishcasting. This consensus doesn’t exist. The obstructionist wing of the GOP is invulnerable to even domestic economic lobbying. 

  9. It is getting increasingly hard to untangle the battlefield and Ukraine’s prospects from politics because (of choice) American politicians have chosen to make Russia’s victory and Ukraine’s defeat a political aim. I’ll leave it at that but the single biggest factor for whether Ukraine can hold serve is more approval to send weapons. 
     

    In the meantime China has picked sides and so we now sort of are in a proxy war with the PRC. 
     

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-intelligence-shows-china-is-surging-equipment-sales-to-russia-to-help-war-effort-in-ukraine-ap-says

    Spoiler

    WASHINGTON (AP) — China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine, according to a U.S. assessment.

    Two senior Biden administration officials, who discussed the sensitive findings Friday on the condition of anonymity, said that in 2023 about 90 percent of Russia’s microelectronics came from China, which Russia has used to make missiles, tanks and aircraft. Nearly 70 percent of Russia’s approximately $900 million in machine tool imports in the last quarter of 2023 came from China.

    Chinese and Russian entities have also been working to jointly produce unmanned aerial vehicles inside Russia, and Chinese companies are likely providing Russia with nitrocellulose needed to make propellants weapons, the officials said. China-based companies Wuhan Global Sensor Technology Co., Wuhan Tongsheng Technology Co. Ltd. and Hikvision are providing optical components for use in Russian tanks and armored vehicles.

    READ MORE: Ukraine will be outgunned by Russia 10 to 1 in weeks without U.S. help, top Europe general says

    The officials said Russia has received military optics for use in tanks and armored vehicles manufactured by Chinese firms iRay Technology and North China Research Institute of Electro-Optics, and China has been providing Russia with UAV engines and turbojet engines for cruise missiles.

    Russia’s semiconductor imports from China jumped from $200 million in 2021 to over $500 million in 2022, according to Russian customs data analyzed by the Free Russia Foundation, a group that advocates for civil society development.

    Beijing is also working with Russia to improve its satellite and other space-based capabilities for use in Ukraine, a development the officials say could in the longer term increase the threat Russia poses across Europe. The officials, citing downgraded intelligence findings, said the U.S. has also determined that China is providing imagery to Russia for its war on Ukraine.

    The officials discussed the findings as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China this month for talks. President Joe Biden has previously raised his concerns directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Beijing indirectly supporting Russia’s war effort.

    While China has not provided direct lethal military support for Russia, it has backed it diplomatically in blaming the West for provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the war and refrained from calling it an invasion in deference to the Kremlin.

    China has also said it isn’t providing Russia with arms or military assistance, although it has maintained robust economic connections with Moscow, alongside India and other countries, amid sanctions from Washington and its allies.

    WATCH: Leigh Ann Caldwell and Stephen Fowler on Ukraine aid, House leadership and the 2024 race

    Xi met in Beijing on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who heaped praise on Xi’s leadership.

    Russia’s growing economic and diplomatic isolation has made it increasingly reliant on China, its former rival for leadership of the Communist bloc during the Cold War.

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who returned to Washington this week from a visit to Beijing, said she warned Chinese officials that the Biden administration was prepared to sanction Chinese banks, companies and Beijing’s leadership, if they assist Russia’s armed forces with its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

    The Democratic president issued an executive order in December giving Yellen the authority to sanction financial institutions that aided Russia’s military-industrial complex.

    “We continue to be concerned about the role that any firms, including those in the PRC, are playing in Russia’s military procurement,” Yellen told reporters, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China. “I stressed that companies, including those in the PRC, must not provide material support for Russia’s war and that they will face significant consequences if they do. And I reinforced that any banks that facilitate significant transactions that channel military or dual-use goods to Russia’s defense industrial base expose themselves to the risk of U.S. sanctions.”

    The U.S. has frequently downgraded and unveiled intelligence findings about Russia’s plans and operations over the course of the more than 2-year-old war with Ukraine.

    WATCH: Pentagon holds news briefing as general warns Ukraine will soon be outgunned by Russia

    Such efforts have been focused on highlighting plans for Russian misinformation operations or to throw attention on Moscow’s difficulties in prosecuting its war against Ukraine as well as its coordination with Iran and North Korea to supply it with badly needed weaponry. Blinken last year spotlighted intelligence that showed China was considering providing arms and ammunition to Russia.

    The White House believes that the public airing of the intelligence findings has led China, at least for now, to hold off on directly arming Russia. China’s economy has also been slow to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese officials could be sensitive to reaction from European capitals, which have maintained closer ties to Beijing even as the U.S.-China relationship has become more complicated.

    Meanwhile, China on Thursday announced rare sanctions against two U.S. defense companies over what it called their support for arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy Beijing claims as its own territory to be recovered by force if necessary.

    The announcement freezes the assets of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems held within China. It also bars the companies’ management from entering the country.

    Filings show General Dynamics operates a half-dozen Gulfstream and jet aviation services operations in China, which remains heavily reliant on foreign aerospace technology even as it attempts to build its own presence in the field.

    The company also helps make the Abrams tank being purchased by Taiwan to replace outdated armor intended to deter or resist an invasion from China.

    General Atomics produces the Predator and Reaper drones used by the U.S. military.

     

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  10. 22 hours ago, Bevo said:

    I agree with this, but I'll add to it - The West fucked up by providing incremental aid. If we would have avoided the javelin to ATACMS and Patriot to F16 slow progression, Ukraine could have hit Russia before it transitioned to a wartime footing. We planned first for Ukraine to lose and then we planned for a long lasting war of attrition. We also put restraints on Russian assets that Ukraine could target. You have to fight a war to win and running a war with diplomats is a sure way to keep that from happening.

    All is not lost, but now Ukraine is on the defensive. The world will have to change course to change the outcome. Right now, from the reports coming in, it doesn't appear that it will happen.

    Ukraine needs to shift to an attritional strategy that gives them space to reconstitute forces and get support flowing and integrated. There isn’t space for another grand offensive.  And they can really maul the Russians.  They can’t mount one either but they also are going to try. For the near to mid-term there is no Russian collapse on the horizon. 
     

    Even this, which they can do, will need more and more consistent support. 

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  11. 1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

    What blows me away is how few MAGA realize that the only time that NATO’s Article 5 was invoked was after 9/11 and that many of the largest members sent troops or aided in other ways, along with New Zealand and Australia.

    They don’t care.

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  12. She’s almost certainly doing less damage as a rep than as mayor. That was a huge bullet dodged.

    She’s embarrassing and she’s hell on her staff but as a voting member is pretty much doing what she got sent there to do. Long term incumbents with marginal ambitions are rarely the worst problems in the House. 

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  13. 34 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

    New one I just heard from the in laws:

    Biden has something wrong with his eyes and that’s why he wears sunglasses. 
     

     

    The libs say the sun is really big and super hot and then say that these little sunglasses can protect you from it. It’s silly. 

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  14. 6 minutes ago, Satchel said:

    It’s still unsettling that college adjacent people feel comfortable suggesting that absence of people of color (who do not play sports for LSU) can make white people happy.

    Most SEC fans are college adjacent in the sense that IPIHB posters are Ana de Armas adjacent. 

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  15. 31 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    Oh hey on that note, WaPo has some new reporting out:

    image.thumb.png.6f4e14aa4f480a30e7ee33abc3067c2c.png

    Some analysts think giving Putin all he wants will reward him, amazing analysis WaPo. 
     

    We are done. We can’t win important wars. We can’t build ships. We can’t build airplanes. There’s no backbone or steel in any spines. It’s Jake Sullivans and Mike Johnsons all the way down. 

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