Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[atomheartbevo 88729]

4 hours ago, KYHorn said:

Talk me out of this because it has been creeping into my head for the past couple of months. Setting aside all other CR considerations:

An election that results in more of the same policies is more likely to mean Ukraine continues to lose slowly while Russia's economy and military continue to be substantially depleted. Put another way, will a Harris admin approach this differently and with much greater resolve and courage than the current admin? I haven't seen much to suggest otherwise. This increases the likelihood of a meaningful Russian breakthrough at some point, but even without that, Russia is able to take more territory and Ukraine loses more bargaining power than it already has for when the time comes to settle this.

Russia still hasn't kicked the Ukrainians out of Kursk, and Russia is now relying on thousands of North Korean troops to backfill various places along their border or in occupied areas (to free up Russian troops to go elsewhere). Russia is not in as good of a place as they may seem and Europe is pushing more and more modern hardware into Ukraine while Russia is getting 60 year-old tanks out of storage. Yes, we've said that before, but Russia is literally bringing in over 10,000 Norks, and they aren't hiding it.

And North Korea has a fairly small population of 25 million. While every man and woman of a certain age has to serve in the military, Lil Kim is a paranoid fucker and may not give up too many of his soldiers to Russia.

One other situation you didn't mention on the election front - a Harris win, if the R's retain control of a chamber, could see the R's automatically opposing anything she pushes, which could mean an end to a lot of Ukrainian aid. With that said, Texas's very own John Cornyn is publicly complaining that Biden/Harris haven't done enough to support Ukraine, and Cornyn could be the Republican Senate leader.

And who knows how they Norks fair on the open battlefield - they've literally had it drilled into their brains that they are the superior force, and they are about to find themselves getting hunted down by cheap drones. 

[InkaUtexas 24774]

Yes, there are a lot of NORK troops, but I don't think all are created equal. I mean, you need food and nourishment to be able to jump through fire rings. That only takes the best of the best of the best SIR.

Hopefully when Harris wins a lot of GOP won't feel like they are betraying the party by sticking with the current line against Ukraine aid.

[SmokeyTheBear 5546]

8 hours ago, KYHorn said:

Talk me out of this because it has been creeping into my head for the past couple of months. Setting aside all other CR considerations:

An election that results in more of the same policies is more likely to mean Ukraine continues to lose slowly while Russia's economy and military continue to be substantially depleted. Put another way, will a Harris admin approach this differently and with much greater resolve and courage than the current admin? I haven't seen much to suggest otherwise. This increases the likelihood of a meaningful Russian breakthrough at some point, but even without that, Russia is able to take more territory and Ukraine loses more bargaining power than it already has for when the time comes to settle this.

An election that results in a new admin where they are determined to end it now could result in significant and terrible concessions for Ukraine, but given the person in charge is unpredictable and highly sensitive to how he is perceived, the risk that it is seen as a "weak deal" would be an effective deterrent to giving up much to Russia and could actually end up strengthening the USA's resolve vis-à-vis the president and, therefore, Ukraine's bargaining power.  Again, this is highly dependent on capriciousness, so it's more likely to result in extremes. But, if it is appearing increasingly likely that the alternative admin would continue down the path of slow decline, then the chance of the more favorable result for Ukraine might actually lie with the counter-intuitive admin. 

Milking the clock is the play. Pressure the Russian people to take Putin down which kills a big piece of the cancer in their society.  Russia will fracture into smaller countries, China will take their chunk, Japan will take their islands.  Post election with Harris campaign gives us the best shot to squash the Russia problem as it's been for 50+ years.