Ukraine - Russia Conflict
- Thread starter pardus
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There's a case to be made for how we're offloading old equipment/stockpiles on the Ukrainians to updated/renew our own, and for how we're able to develop tactics/see shortcomings as a sideline participant.
I understand the pros and cons a bit more for that arguement, but it still runs into the moral inconsistency you put so aptly.
I (personally) worked with dozens of Ukrainians and want to do everything I can to help them win their fight.
I (global perspective) understand at some point the only options are unstable and imperfect peace deals or an increase in the combatants. I don't want my joes dying in the woods of Eastern Europe because we refused to try peace.
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We have 3 years of data on the Russians already.
How many billions, and how many Ukrainian lives is it worth to end up at Russia controlling 13% of Ukraine territory in x years?
We are looking at the early years of Afghanistan right now: The gov't wont be shit, the vast majority of troops won't fight shit without us there and billions a year.....Except in the case of Ukraine: Ukraine is whipping ass with our equipment, but they are far outnumbered, and guys are fleeing the country to prevent being drafted, all this only possible with 10s of billions of U.S. taxpayer $$$...
How many billions, and how many Ukrainian lives is it worth to end up at Russia controlling 13% of Ukraine territory in x years?
We are looking at the early years of Afghanistan right now: The gov't wont be shit, the vast majority of troops won't fight shit without us there and billions a year.....Except in the case of Ukraine: Ukraine is whipping ass with our equipment, but they are far outnumbered, and guys are fleeing the country to prevent being drafted, all this only possible with 10s of billions of U.S. taxpayer $$$...
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
America hasn't really been at War since Vietnam, but honestly hasn't been at war since Korea. 70% of Vietnam casualties were volunteers. Korea was the opposite, the majority of casualties were draftees.
How much money did we spend supporting Saddam against the Ayatollah? How much did we spend supporting the Muj against the Soviets? I'd be interested in figures adjusted for inflation. But we bled the Russians hard in a modern sense...yet still not remotely as bad as we had in Vietnam and they still pulled out.
So it's quite interesting that they've easily lost what like 100k soldiers here and are still fighting? Which says a lot about how the population views the war and Putin.
Estimates for the number of Ukrainians that have fled their country range from 6.8M-10M (depending on source) since Jan 2022. Casualty numbers are a little hard to come by, but Zelensky said deaths are at 45k and casualties up around 390k (in Feb 2025), although that includes multiple injuries to one soldier in a lot of cases, and the data of who was a casualty and then returned to service just aren't there.
Everyone hates Putin, and deservedly so, but the false premise I think you may be operating from is that all cultures and all nationalities are equal and have the exact same morals and values.
If the 51st State (Snow Mexico) invaded America, I am not leaving. I know how insurgency works and I have a nice little hill that would be great to bleed out on. I also won't be part of a squad of patriots forcibly kidnapping dudes of all ages to fight on the front. (video from 5 month ago, videos like these go back 3 years, ish).
Applying my internal standard of nationalism (what I would do for my country) writ large to a culture I don't understand as an underpinning to why we are morally required to support them is a claim I think is untenable, which is why I don't do it.
Iraq vs. Iran and 80s Afghanistan were drops in the bucket of U.S. foreign involvement.
Trump campaigned on putting and end to the Ukraine war, what did we think he was going to do? Give half our high tech equipment to them, and nukes?
We all objectively knew this was going to get desperate without substantial foreign troops in Ukraine. The front lines haven't moved in the last year or two.
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
We can say this and be reductive, but this was not a huge talking point of the campaign at all. Returning to normalcy Tranny thing, Border thing, those were huge pieces. Border, delivered. Tranny thing...waiting on Congress to execute full delivery. Economy thing...all of a sudden American companies are on-shoring jobs.
Where would we go? Canada? Stand up and Fight. You're right that cultures are different, look at Afghanistan, look at Ukraine, look at Syria, Iraq, etc.
Probably the only culture that is similar to ours in that regard is the Israeli one. But I would say that our culture has been degraded quite a bit and we've always had a weird group of give peace a chance people in every government we had.
Trump said he was going to end the war on "Day 1", or in "1 Day", I can't remember, but either way that's Trump speak for I'm going to do some off the wall shit to make things happen. He also spoke of being around the world with our military, and talked us up, and the U.S. getting nothing out of it since the 2016 election.
For the 1st time in my life, an American President is putting the interest of the United States over people's feelings. A rare earth deal would put our interests squarely in Ukraine along with provide an incentive for all the treasure we used so far. I don't like the deal as much as I would like to see us give advanced weapons to Ukraine and watch them stomp the Russians for a few more years, but apparently that can't happen. Maybe that would be disastrous, I don't know. And I am not in charge, Trump is. But if we/they/them think troops and advanced weapons are really the right thing to do there's 27 countries in the EU that can get going without us.
For the 1st time in my life, an American President is putting the interest of the United States over people's feelings. A rare earth deal would put our interests squarely in Ukraine along with provide an incentive for all the treasure we used so far. I don't like the deal as much as I would like to see us give advanced weapons to Ukraine and watch them stomp the Russians for a few more years, but apparently that can't happen. Maybe that would be disastrous, I don't know. And I am not in charge, Trump is. But if we/they/them think troops and advanced weapons are really the right thing to do there's 27 countries in the EU that can get going without us.
Overall I agree, but NATO Article 5 has entered the chat.
When Keir Starmer says they're putting boots on the ground and planes in the sky, when Russia attacks those assets, it's "an attack on all".
How we square that circle, I am not sure. I mean, I know, but people get all upset when I say it.
I don't think we should stop them. If we want Europe to own European security... let them own it.
The peace deal should create a line of demarcation. Russia has this side, Ukraine has this side. If European troops are on the Ukrainian side, and stay there, while Russia still holds the parts of Ukraine they care about anyway (Donbas, Crimea), I think they'd be OK with that.
There are plenty of examples of European peacekeepers in non-NATO countries, admittedly with a mixed track record. But if it makes everyone feel better to have European troops guarding European borders... have at it.
Box
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I'm not actually 100% certain that bad actors within NATO aren't just itching to do a war even if it means dragging the USA into it kicking and scratching.
Democrats would love nothing more than to watch President Trump say "No" to an all out kinetic foray after some shit fisted NATO member does the metaphorical equivalent of shot gunning 4 or 5 shots of tequila and then taking a swing at the big dude at the end of the bar just because they know their buddies in the USA are there to back their play when they get punched in the fucking face.
Democrats don't care - as long as they have something else that they can say sucks about Trump as they sit on their hands and refuse to clap...
SKREE SKREE SKREE President Trump doesn't want to honor our Article 5 commitments SKREE SKREE SKREE
Democrats would love nothing more than to watch President Trump say "No" to an all out kinetic foray after some shit fisted NATO member does the metaphorical equivalent of shot gunning 4 or 5 shots of tequila and then taking a swing at the big dude at the end of the bar just because they know their buddies in the USA are there to back their play when they get punched in the fucking face.
Democrats don't care - as long as they have something else that they can say sucks about Trump as they sit on their hands and refuse to clap...
SKREE SKREE SKREE President Trump doesn't want to honor our Article 5 commitments SKREE SKREE SKREE
Here's the deal: it's unclear to me whether Art 5 would be triggered if say France's troops were in Ukraine and were attacks by Russia.
https://www.nato.int/cps/bu/natohq/topics_110496.htm#:~:text=“For the purpose,Tropic of Cancer.”
“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
https://www.nato.int/cps/bu/natohq/topics_110496.htm#:~:text=“For the purpose,Tropic of Cancer.”
“For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
- on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
- on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.”
Agree, and Article 6 reinforces that point.
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
I was in the Army for 27 years, and for more than 20 of those years, our military was at war.
Those wars were good for me, but they were not good for a lot of people, or for our country.
I don't want to fight someone else's wars any more. I don't want my children to fight Russia over Ukraine.
Never read about aticle 6, but without a direct attack on a NATO country, we shouldn't jump in until we HAVE TO.
Russia sucks at war, but the dont suck at cyber attacks and going full retard.
Russia sucks at war, but the dont suck at cyber attacks and going full retard.
757
Member
I speak on behalf of my cousins
Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.
We'd be like..."here's some a couple of $bn...good luck."
Box
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Here's the thing - and of course JUST my opinion - bit...
WHO CARES?
Seriously; who cares?
When you line up all of the "globalists" that are always itching to do a war - what do words like "ability" or "readiness" really mean?
Lets go back 30 years - does anybody REALLY think that those who stood to profit from conflict in Haiti gave so much as a popcorn fart about "readiness"
...did Brown and Root care about the readiness of US troops?
Or was the main concern more along the lines of "how can we profit from providing a full spectrum of logistic support to a ridiculously ineffective UN mission in Haiti?"
I ate steak and lobster more than any rank and file enlisted guy should EVER ingest diring a time of international crisis.
Because Brown and Root provided that shit.
They also had an almost never ending supply of Butterscotch Ice Cream
...and Maple Syrup
Guess what - the Royal Canadian Mounted Police taight me how mother fucking AWESOME butterscotch ice cream tastes when you slather it with maple syrup.
...because KBR made sure that the lap of luxury was never more than an arms reach away from
FUCK HAITI
...back to our regularly scheduled programing
KBR made sure that the lap of luxury was never more than an arms reach away from any UN member that wanted to have crab legs, ribeye steaks, lobster tails, and all of the other wonderful things that the military industrial complex can provide
at a price
as long as you are willing to oppress someone under the guise of liberating the oppressed
Ready for war?
Nobody is EVER "READY FOR WAR" but should the situation arise when we might profit from sacrificing the lives of someone else's children - we will fucking roll TONIGHT
and we'll figure out the details later
30 years ago - I bought into ALL of that bullshit.
Not any more
