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Posted
31 minutes ago, Chopper said:

20,500 Czech volunteers donated an average of about $141 each to buy a Black Hawk for UKR

 

Nice.  But it's very likely that all purchases going forward should be for European/South Korean hardware.  It's possible TFG is going to refuse to sell parts for this and other American equipment in the near future and preclude our "allies" from doing the same.

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Posted (edited)
19 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yeah, about tariffs and the next six weeks:

 Me thinks that those tariffs will not last long, and talking about trying to hurt Europe for supporting Ukraine, well Europe is our biggest trading partner. We need their markets.  We rely on imports from Canada and Mexico, and we also export a lot to both.  It is a fucked up situation we find ourselves in economically, no doubt, but we can’t hammer Europe like that, and I suspect we won’t last long just with Canada and Mexico.  

And we run the real risk of billions of Euros and pounds being diverted from American defense companies to European companies.

I said earlier that nature abhors a vacuum, and I think we and Europe are going our own ways and they will fill that vacuum, at least over Ukraine. Maybe even what Immamac said about about Europe not giving a fuck what we do - we need their markets arguably more than they need ours (especially if we fuck round with Mexico and Canada).  And if you’re a European, why wouldn’t you decide now is a good time to go your own way? You don’t get many chances to usurp the sole superpower on the global stage, while helping to ensure that the number two military in Russia is wrecked.

I've been thinking about this recently.

Europe has a GDP roughly equivalent to the US. Add in Mexico & Canada. Maybe 4T more. China has been making investments in Africa. India? 

And, we're trying to bully them with tariffs? This isn't going to go how we want it t0.

The US could easily be a second world country in 5 years.

And this time, we won't have friendly neighbors to the north and south

Edited by Jameslaw121
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Posted
20 minutes ago, Jameslaw121 said:

I've been thinking about this recently.

Europe has a GDP roughly equivalent to the US. Add in Mexico & Canada. Maybe 4T more. China has been making investments in Africa. India? 

And, we're trying to bully them with tariffs? This isn't going to go how we want it t0.

The US could easily be a second world country in 5 years.

And this time, we won't have friendly neighbors to the north and south

I remember discussing this during the last Trump administration. The U.S. doesn't have the economic power to engage China on it's own. The U.S. economy plus the economies of our western allies provides the strength to engage China.

Without our allies we are another JAG. Granted, Trump might have us join the BRICS next week so we might have a new set of allies.

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Posted
On 2/21/2025 at 8:38 AM, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

I've been wondering how Rubio was going to handle all this.  He's the most "traditional Republican" of the whole administration, and his post as SoS puts him in the face of the most non-traditional Republican stance the admin has taken -- buddying up to Russia.  It'll be interesting to see if he can (1) steer policy a little less Russia friendly (2) ends up getting at odds with Trump and having to resign (3) just tries to talk out of both sides of his mouth and survive for four years.

Bolton says 2. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/point-resign-former-u-national-220229216.html

 

 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Unfortunately, it appears Rubio will continue to be Trump's sub.  In the last 24 hours he has blasted critics for criticizing peacemaker Trump and attacked Zelensky for going after Trump and Vance.  Riley io prefers his power.  We are only a month or so in, Rubio will probably be fired at some point but for now he's searching for his spine.

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Posted
Unfortunately, it appears Rubio will continue to be Trump's sub.  In the last 24 hours he has blasted critics for criticizing peacemaker Trump and attacked Zelensky for going after Trump and Vance.  Riley io prefers his power.  We are only a month or so in, Rubio will probably be fired at some point but for now he's searching for his spine.

He won’t find it.
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Posted (edited)

I’m only half way through this but so far it’s pretty damn encouraging that Europe can do this. 

 

Edited by B00M
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Posted
4 hours ago, Jameslaw121 said:

The US could easily be a second world country in 5 years


That just happened last week. Europe is moving on without us. What a stupid fucking man.

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Posted

Trump is being played by Putin – Russia will never accept a peace deal

 Summarize

The invasion of Ukraine wrecked Moscow’s finances – but it’s now the Kremlin’s only source of growth

Melissa Lawford02 March 2025 6:00am GMT

“Vranyo” is a Russian word for a specific type of lying.

“I once translated it for one of our ministers as ‘epic, bare-faced whopper that we both know cannot possibly be true, but I’m going to tell you anyway’,” says Sir Laurie Bristow, who was the UK’s ambassador to Russia from January 2016 until January 2020.

It is a concept that sits at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s statecraft. And it is about power.

“I had it done to me repeatedly in meetings. It’s not necessarily to persuade you that their version is true. It’s to cast doubt on the truth, by putting around so much litter that you kind of lose the will to live, you just become demoralised,” says Sir Laurie.

In 2014, for example, after the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, the Kremlin fed myths to the press. These included first the claim that the plane was shot down by Ukraine, and then a story that the CIA had filled a plane with bodies and crashed it to discredit the state.

It is this type of vranyo that has fuelled Russia’s isolation on the world stage. Long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine made Putin an international pariah, Moscow was kept at arm’s length by the West.

Donald Trump seems blissfully unaware of Russia’s track record – or at least doesn’t care. He has launched a mission to reset ties with Moscowand promised “to get that war over” in Ukraine. In doing so, he has shocked the international community by upending Western foreign policy, reopening ties with the Russian president and ruling out offering US security guarantees or Nato membership for Ukraine.

After he met with Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on Thursday, Trump told reporters that Putin would “keep his word” if a peace deal is secured. But even a peace deal in Putin’s favour would not get around the fact that Russia has become economically and ideologically addicted to war.

Russia’s economy is creaking under the weight of war, wracked by labour shortages, sanctions, high inflation and record interest rates. But equally, the conflict is its only remaining engine of growth.

After three years of war, nationalist anti-Western propaganda has also become the basis of Putin’s power.

“Putin does not want peace and he’s not going to settle,” says Simon Johnson, MIT professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “He’s enjoying the war. It’s awful. But he doesn’t want to end the war.”

Trump believes forging economic links with Ukraine will be enough to deter future conflict. But a peace deal will not quell the imperialist fire in Putin’s belly.

“Trump is greatly deceived by Mr Putin,” says Johnson. “Trump wants a quick victory. He wants a triumph and a show and Putin is going to play him along. He’s being played.”

War machine

Russia is hooked on military spending. In 2019, Russia spent 5 trillion roubles (£45bn) on defence and security combined, or 28pc of its total government spending. This year, in nominal terms, the bill will be 17 trillion roubles – 41pc of all government spending.

The war economy now makes up between 8pc and 10pc of Russia’s GDP. “For a country that is waging a war not on its own soil, that is a lot,” says Alexander Kolyandr, of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). The war industry has become the main driver of the Russian economy.

On the surface at least, all this spending is fuelling a strong economy. Russia’s real GDP grew by 3.6pc in 2024, according to the IMF – more than triple the growth seen in Britain last year. Real wages in Russia rose by 9.4pc in 2024, according to Rosstat, the Kremlin’s statistics agency.

But only one business is booming: war.

“The manufacturing industry, which includes the defence industry, was the only sector that showed growth in 2024,” says Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center who worked at Russia’s Central Bank until 2022.

Russia has doubled production of armoured vehicles, while some ammunition manufacturers have quintupled their output. Manufacturing production jumped by 7.6pc in the first nine months of last year.

But outside sectors directly linked to the military, growth is anaemic at best, says Prokopenko.

“Consumer spending is driven by larger salaries to servicemen or even payouts to casualties,” says Agnia Grigas, of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

The war effort is sucking investment and manpower away from the non-military sector, leaving the private sector to shrivel.

“Over time, Russia’s ability to maintain and develop a dynamic non-military economy is being cannibalised,” says Sir Laurie.

“If they ever come to unwinding the war economy, there won’t be the civilian economy left to take up the slack.”

Rather than prepare for peace, the Kremlin is doubling down on its war machine. In its autumn budget, the government raised its projections for military spending and cut nominal spending on social policy. “Military spending has started to become some kind of black hole,” says Andrei Yakovlev, associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Meanwhile, prices are soaring, bringing misery for ordinary Russians. Inflation averaged 12.1pc in the last three months of 2024. Interest rates have soared to a post-Soviet high of 21pc as Russia’s central bank scrambled to combat runaway price rises.

Yet the main problem is not something that can easily be solved by monetary policy: a lack of manpower.

By one estimate, 172,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war so far and a further 611,000 have been wounded. In September, Putin said he wanted to increase the size of the Russian army by 180,000 to 1.5m active servicemen. At least 650,000 emigres who fled Russia when the war began are still abroad, according to The Bell, a Russian independent economic news outlet.

There are not enough workers for the rest of the economy. Russia’s unemployment rate has plunged to an all-time record low of 2.3pc. Even Kremlin-linked analysts calculate that Russia needs an additional 1.6m workers.

Removing the state-engine of war spending would plunge Russia into an economic stagnation on the scale not seen since the Soviet Union in the 1980s, says Kolyandr.

“They will continue to spend on military production not only to restock their arsenal but also to keep the economy from sliding into recession.”

Russia does not have any other levers to support the economy. Its services sector is not globally competitive and its technology sector is backward. “There is no way that they can export,” says Kolyandr.

The key strength of Russia’s economy has always been its oil and gas exports, but the world has turned away from its fossil fuel industry in the years since the war in Ukraine began. Europe has diversified, the US has emerged as a leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and even Russia’s new energy buyers, India and China, would be hesitant to become dependent on the state for their supplies.

“The Russian leadership has boasted that its economy has been growing despite sanctions. That has been because of military production. So that would have to continue, because no alternatives have been figured out,” says Grigas.

A Russian economy without war will simply be a Russian economy preparing for war, says Johnson.

“Whether you call it war or whether you call it peace, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a militarised economy, funded by oil,” he says.

“Even if there is ‘peace’, Russia will scale up their armaments. This is the political economy equilibrium keeping Putin in power.”

‘Straight out of Machiavelli’

Until 2005, Sir Bill Browder was the largest foreign investor in Russia. Then he was banned from entering the country for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies.

In 2008, his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky uncovered a huge fraud committed by Russian government officials that involved the theft of $230m (£180m) in state taxes. Magnitsky was arrested, imprisoned without trial, tortured and eventually died in prison in 2009.

Corruption goes to the heart of the Russian state, Sir Bill says. It has rotted out the country’s core and is now pushing Putin to launch attacks abroad to shore up his regime.

“Putin needs war very specifically as a way to stay in power. If you look at the history of his presidency, every time his popularity has started to diminish, he started a war,” says Sir Bill.

Sir Bill Browder believes Putin starts wars to stay in powerCredit: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

Take, for example, Russia’s wars with Chechnya in the run up to Putin’s first election as president in 2000, Russia’s five-day war with Georgia in 2008 (which an EU-backed report said was started by Georgia following Russian provocation), and Russia’s annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In 2022, when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his popularity had been hammered by the Covid pandemic.

“This is straight out of Machiavelli,” Sir Bill says. “If you’re worried about people being angry with you, you create a foreign enemy and you start a war.”

Russians are far more patriotic than Britons and opposition to the West unites nationalist sentiment, says Sir Tony Brenton, who was the UK’s ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008.

“In the current situation, everybody knows that Russia is up against the West, or believes that it is, and that is the sort of situation where Russians instinctively gather around their leader because they feel that the external threat is a direct threat to them,” he says.

The war may be hammering Russia’s economy, but it has also given Putin more licence to crack down on civic society, tightening personal liberties and freedom of expression.

Putin banned Facebook and Instagram in 2022 after labelling their parent company Meta “extremist”. In the same year, the Russian state revoked the media licence of one of the country’s few independent news outlets, Novaya Gazeta, forcing its closure. Various foreign reporters have been expelled.

“Wartime society and wartime politics is beneficial in keeping the current regime in power,” says Grigas.

War is also making some people very rich. The nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was appointed head of the seized Russian subsidiary of French yoghurt maker Danone in 2023, for example, before being sold at a heavy discount to local businessmen in the region.

The Kovalchuk brothers, oligarchs with close ties to Putin, have also gained new influence, says Yakovlev. Umar Kremlev, who is now the owner of the Rolf company, the car dealer nationalised by the Russian government in 2023, similarly has new status.

“In my view war can be in their interests,” says Yakovlev.

“Putin needs one of two things in order to maintain the stability of the regime,” says Sir Laurie. “One is pretty much perpetual conflict with the West. The other is victory over the West.”

‘Rotten and corrupt’

Vranyo surfaces in many different ways in Russia. For a period of months while Sir Tony was ambassador, he was trailed by members of an aggressive pro-Kremlin youth group called Nashi.

“They were in groups of three or four. But it was all over the country. If I flew to give a speech somewhere, they knew where I was going, they’d get themselves there, into the meeting, and then they would shout abuse,” says Sir Tony.

“They were given free way by the traffic police. It was very clear they had authority from the Russian government to do what they were doing.”

State structures in Russia are not known for being honest and reliable.

“Nobody in Russia, certainly when I was there and I don’t think it has changed since, takes a driving test,” says Sir Tony. “What they do is they bribe the examiner. Because the system itself is so rotten and corrupt that it’s much easier to fork out small sums of money than to go through procedures that are not very dependable.”

The US president has suggested that a key motive for Russia to make peace in Europe would be the prospect of combined US-Russian business interests.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, told Moscow delegates in Riyadh last month that the US and Russia could pursue “potentially historic economic partnerships” and “incredible opportunities” if Putin ends the war. US and Russian officials are reportedly in talks about joint exploration of natural resources in the Arctic.

However, Trump’s discussion of business ties with Russia are a fantasy, says Sir Bill. “Nobody in their right mind is going to invest in Russia right now, that’s insane. It is not going to happen in a million years.

“I can tell you, as previously the largest foreign investor in the country, nobody is going to put a penny into it. There’s no rule of law. You’ll lose your money and you’ll get killed. That is what happens in Russia. It’s a toxic business environment. It’s uninvestable.”

Johnson at MIT is similarly blunt: “Any foreign investor in Russia is insane and should immediately be fired by their shareholders.”

Trump’s surrender

Trumpworld is blasé about all this. So far, it has granted a series of concessions to Russia in an attempt to draw Putin closer to peace.

First came a prisoner exchange, during which US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said he “spent a lot of time with President Putin, talking, developing a friendship, a relationship with him”.

Then came a 90-minute call between Trump and Putin, a meeting between US and Russian officials in Riyadh and then more talks last week in Istanbul.

Last month at the United Nations General Assembly, the US voted alongside Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a European resolution condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked attack – a vote which even China, Russia’s most important ally, abstained from.

John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser during his first administration, has described the US president as Putin’s puppet.

“This is essentially surrendering to the Russian position,” says Bolton.

Trump thinks foreign policy is based on personal relations, but Putin is not moved by personal ties.

“He’s as cold-blooded as it comes in pursuing Russia’s national interests,” Bolton says. “Trump doesn’t get it. He thinks he and Putin are friends.

“This former KGB agent has been manipulating him for the past couple of weeks to get what he wants and Trump doesn’t even realise.”

The president may be able to secure a ceasefire but any kind of peace will only be temporary. Putin will only use the time to rearm.

“If you get a ceasefire across existing frontlines, I think that will freeze into a new border,” says Bolton.

Whatever happens next will have big geopolitical implications. Aside from Putin’s own ambitions, China is watching closely for an indication of how much the West will care if it were to make a move on Taiwan.

“I think their calculus is if the US and Nato won’t stand up against aggression on the continent of Europe, the US is very unlikely to do anything significant in a faraway place like Taiwan,” says Bolton. “It is very dangerous.”

Timothy Ash, of Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, says Trump may simply not care. “For him, Ukraine is a European problem. I think Trump will agree anything to get a quick ceasefire and he won’t really care about whether it’s sustainable, that is for the Europeans to sort out.”

What should European leaders do? Starmer and Macron should step up cash support for Ukraine so that it can buy US weapons, says Johnson.

Sir Bill argues the best way to do this would be to seize $300bn in frozen Russian assets – an idea that has been advocated by UK David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, but which critics argue could undermine the legal system.

Bolton has an even cheaper, but perhaps more controversial suggestion. The best thing that European leaders can do is convince Trump that it is in his personal interests to support Ukraine, he says.

“It’s not worth talking about what’s going to happen in Ukraine. It won’t even move him really talking about what US national interests are. Everything with Trump is personal and he wants the Nobel Peace Prize,” says Bolton. “Starmer ought to offer to nominate him.”

If Trump were to win the prize, there would almost certainly be a grim irony. As Russia’s war machine chunters on, few are convinced that any peace deal would last.

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Posted (edited)

@Bevo That analysis is kind of rich, coming from The Telegraph, an English paper that endorsed the Russian-backed Brexit campaign, though I'll give them credit for now knowing the game being played. They're still being a little too kind in their judgment of this regime, as you can see in this statement:

Donald Trump seems blissfully unaware of Russia’s track record – or at least doesn’t care. He has launched a mission to reset ties with Moscow and promised “to get that war over” in Ukraine. In doing so, he has shocked the international community by upending Western foreign policy, reopening ties with the Russian president and ruling out offering US security guarantees or Nato membership for Ukraine.

They're missing a third, much more likely reason for the new American regime's acquiescence and embrace of Putin's stance: Trump is fully aware of Russia's track record and embraces it. 

Vranyo” is a Russian word for a specific type of lying.

“I once translated it for one of our ministers as ‘epic, bare-faced whopper that we both know cannot possibly be true, but I’m going to tell you anyway’,” says Sir Laurie Bristow, who was the UK’s ambassador to Russia from January 2016 until January 2020.

It is a concept that sits at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s statecraft. And it is about power.

If anyone hasn't figured it out by now, this has always been the MO for the man who's now plopped his plump rump in the Oval Office for decades in all facets of his life: personal, professional, and political. He is a master of this type of lying and does it daily on just about any topic imaginable. He's doing it right now with all his demands, bluster, and lies about Zelenskyy and Ukraine starting the war.

When an asshole lies to your face, and you know he's lying, and he knows you know he's lying, but you go ahead and do his bidding, or you continue to support him, then he knows he has power over you and can do anything he wishes.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

It's regrettable and maybe even embarrassing to be fooled by a lie, but to go along with it is complicit cowardice.

So, now that the mask has come off, the question is: What are we going to do about it? What can we do about it?

Edited by bolverk
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Posted
3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

Mr. Tusk gets it.

Mr. Hegseth is a Russian stooge of a Russian stooge.

 

They should be told if they want a reduction in force they will all be sent home

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Captainant said:

In the past when we brought up "vryano" and other russian disinformation techniques there was a derogatory "derangement syndrome" that would be hurled as an insult. Now who's laughing?

The fucking russians are. It's shocking how readily so much of our citizenry is accepting straight up bullshit as truth, simply because "I don't pay attention to politics" or "the news is all lying anyways".

Putin's firehose of falsehoods has been extremely effective when wrapped up in and kissing an American flag


I don’t think this is true, but most of the left thinks that it is true. The right is not some singular voice of thought. There are plenty on the right who are slava Ukraine. We will see if that has an effect on Trump, but I doubt it because Trump is hardheaded and always thinks that he is right and is narcissistic enough not to change his views and thus admit that he was wrong. And his supporters may still support him because their reasons for support probably weren’t tied to his position on Ukraine.

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Posted
1 minute ago, Ted Lange said:

 

And Putin is drawing up a plan to funnel billions of dollars to Donald Trump.  Because duh.

We have a POTUS who uses the office solely for personal enrichment, with such enrichment being in the form of either 1) money or 2) praise/loyalty/stroking his ego.  Give him one of those two things, you'll get something in concern.  What is actually in the interest of the United States will never even cross his mind, much less be part of the calculus.

And half the voting public doesn't see that plain truth staring them in the face.  It's the goddamndest thing I've ever seen.

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Posted
1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

Starmer has unveiled a new deal that will enable Ukraine to access £1.6 billion in UK export finance to purchase over 5,000 air defense missiles. These missiles will be manufactured in Belfast, creating jobs within the UK’s defense sector.

We are going to start losing a lot more business now that European defense companies are getting the door thrown wide open for them.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

The fucking russians are. It's shocking how readily so much of our citizenry is accepting straight up bullshit as truth, simply because "I don't pay attention to politics" or "the news is all lying anyways".

I've recently mentioned certain events to relatives and they do the "you're listening to the media" bit, and then I mention, "no, it's not political or commentary -  the person I'm talking about actually said it in public or tweeted it, here let me send you their own words" and they get real fucking uncomfortable and try to claim I'm misreading or mishearing or interpreting what they said, and I say "here, listen to it for yourself."

And it is a whole shitload of people - this thread is an outlier - most people in the US do not realize that Ukraine is really hurting Russia, or even has Russian territory in Kursk, all they know is Russian forces are in Ukraine.

I am glad to see Europe starting to diverge from us, as much as I hate where it points us historically in terms of waning influence.

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Posted

image.thumb.png.6bc155e73469b41cf2baa02bbded054b.png

https://news.sky.com/story/inside-a-top-secret-ukrainian-drone-mission-as-commander-says-they-are-changing-the-war-13320824

 

"Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to conceal the extent of the damage," the commander told Sky News in an interview at an undisclosed location in Kyiv.

"Headquarters have been hit, command structures weakened, and panic is spreading among their officers. Compared to a year ago, conducting full-scale combat operations has become significantly more challenging for [the Russians]."

...

"In a sign of the importance placed on long-range drones, he said Kyiv's ability to manufacture this weapon has already jumped 100-fold since late 2022 to more than 500 per month."

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Posted
1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i doubt this.  we will absolutely keep selling weapons.  the buyers will change though 

But the US government were the buyers before.  Why would the Europeans buy from the US now, when they can just use locals like BAE, Rheinmetall, Thales and Leonardo?

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Posted
1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i doubt this.  we will absolutely keep selling weapons.  the buyers will change though 

We are going to start supplying Russia. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

Who was the guy on here who was going to the Ukraine, but still supported Trump and thought Trump would never turn his back on them?

@Trey3216 didn't exactly do himself many favors on this thread either, suggesting that Trump's bullying nature could be beneficial in combatting Putin (most pointed out that he, a puppet, was way, way, WAY more likely to "bully" Zelensky). Fascinating to watch people look past what's staring them right in the face.

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Posted
1 minute ago, aggie08 said:

@Trey3216 didn't exactly do himself many favors on this thread either, suggesting that Trump's bullying nature could be beneficial in combatting Putin (most pointed out that he, a puppet, was way, way, WAY more likely to "bully" Zelensky). Fascinating to watch people look past what's staring them right in the face.

That's fair.  Pile on.  I'm a firm believer America will get it (mostly) right (most of the time) and was looking for the outside straight.  I don't even think it's out of the realm that it could still happen to be honest.  But that's for another thread.   

 

We all want to make things work.  We all want things to happen.  We hate when they don't go as planned.  I hate that they got invaded in '14 and fuck all was done by the admin then.  Fuck all was done for the a while in '22.  You can't unfuck the babysitter as someone said.  

 

Can Ukraine still turn the tide?  I fucking hope so.  I hope it happens.  I hope we are part of it too.  

 

Is continuing to gut their country of enough men to make them viable going forward the answer either?  Something has to fucking give.  I sure as shit don't want it to be Russia getting its way...  

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Posted
1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i doubt this.  we will absolutely keep selling weapons.  the buyers will change though 

No we won’t.  If you watch Perun’s latest video, he mentions a huge vulnerability with buying from America, one that a lot of us tend to forget - if you buy from an American company, the American government has the right to restrict who you can share it with, sell or give it to.  And if you make a weapons system such as a fighter in Sweden and it has an American component such as a jet engine, the American government can also restrict the sale, sharing, or giving of said fighter.

 It affects a helluva lot of European weapons, and we are in a position to deny things like cruise missiles made in England or France to Ukraine, or jets made in Sweden or self-propelled artillery systems that use an American computer.  Whether we follow through and deny a host of weapons provided by other countries to Ukraine is for the CR thread, but what was an advantage - using the latest American technology or benefiting from our economy of scale, is now a vulnerability that has to be dealt with.

If you are a European defense contractor, you are going to pivot from American suppliers to South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, etc. suppliers.

And in the US, it’s for the Elon Musk thread, but DOGE is turning its sights towards the DOD, and every dollar that goes to Lockheed or Boeing or whoever is a dollar that doesn’t go to an Elon Musk company, and Musk and Co. are wanting to shrink the US military for a reason.

Those two problems are going to hammer our defense industries 

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Posted
10 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

We all want to make things work.  We all want things to happen.  We hate when they don't go as planned.  I hate that they got invaded in '14 and fuck all was done by the admin then.  Fuck all was done for the a while in '22.  You can't unfuck the babysitter as someone said.  

I hate people who don’t know how to use the return or enter key.

Posted
2 hours ago, Chopper said:

Russia is finding it increasingly difficult to conceal the extent of the damage," the commander told Sky News in an interview at an undisclosed location in Kyiv.

"Headquarters have been hit, command structures weakened, and panic is spreading among their officers. Compared to a year ago, conducting full-scale combat operations has become significantly more challenging for [the Russians]."

...

"In a sign of the importance placed on long-range drones, he said Kyiv's ability to manufacture this weapon has already jumped 100-fold since late 2022 to more than 500 per month."

12 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Can Ukraine still turn the tide?  I fucking hope so.  I hope it happens.  I hope we are part of it too.  

Something is happening if we are seeing the Russians struggling to do things that they were doing even just a few months ago.  I’ve been out of the OSINT loop for the past few months, but I’ve seen the discussions about Russian advances bogging done and slowing to a crawl, or even being reversed, and their inability to kick Ukraine out of Kursk (even after bringing in thousands of North Korean troops).  This stuff is not wishful thinking. We are seeing it reflected in the maps, we are seeing it reflected in Russians using fucking donkeys to move equipment and golf carts to move men around.

I’ve been banging the “Russia may have culminated” drum, but I’m seeing the evidence everyday. 

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Posted
23 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

but what was an advantage - using the latest American technology or benefiting from our economy of scale, is now a vulnerability that has to be dealt with.

If you are a European defense contractor, you are going to pivot from American suppliers to South Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, etc. suppliers.

Fucking THIS.  Defense contractors in our allies (correction: FORMER allies) would be gutnumbingly stupid if they didn't take drastic measures to disentangle themselves from US tech, and posthaste.  A few months ago, we were laughing about countries bailing on Russian tech and weaponry because it sucked.  Today....everyone else should be laughing at us as people bail on US tech and weaponry, which is absolutely the smart play.  We cannot be trusted.  Once you break trust, it's game fucking over.

 

31 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

but DOGE is turning its sights towards the DOD, and every dollar that goes to Lockheed or Boeing or whoever is a dollar that doesn’t go to an Elon Musk company, and Musk and Co. are wanting to shrink the US military for a reason.

And another giant DING DING DING.  It is about both grift, and control.  Elon wants the entire US government beholden to -- and functionally owned by -- him.  He is the most dangerous man on the planet, and the current regime is just handing him the keys to the Republic.

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

@Trey3216 didn't exactly do himself many favors on this thread either, suggesting that Trump's bullying nature could be beneficial in combatting Putin (most pointed out that he, a puppet, was way, way, WAY more likely to "bully" Zelensky). Fascinating to watch people look past what's staring them right in the face.

Did you say the same thing about Obama and Biden’s treatment/dealings with Netanyahu? I don’t remember 1/100th of the news coverage of saying the PM of Israel, who is Jewish, needs a “come to Jesus” meeting when trying to broker peace for Gaza. I guess a hot mic is forgivable instead of appalling when you like the guy saying it. Oh, and we threatened to withhold U.S. weapon shipments unless he played by our rules…which sounds kind of familiar here.

Edited by Spankytoes
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Posted
26 minutes ago, Spankytoes said:

Did you say the same thing about Obama and Biden’s treatment/dealings with Netanyahu? I don’t remember 1/100th of the news coverage of saying the PM of Israel, who is Jewish, needs a “come to Jesus” meeting when trying to broker peace for Gaza. I guess a hot mic is forgivable instead of appalling when you like the guy saying it. Oh, and we threatened to withhold U.S. weapon shipments unless he played by our rules…which sounds kind of familiar here.

True galaxy brain stuff right there.

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Posted

Sooooo POTUS is threatening Zelensky now

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14457063/trump-zelensky-ukraine-russia-peace.html

Trump said he would give an update on the minerals deal during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.  

And he hinted Zelensky might not survive long if he continued to make demands ahead of a peace deal.

'It should not be that hard a deal to make,' he said.

'It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long.'

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Posted (edited)

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-pauses-military-aid-ukraine-media-reports-2025-03-04/

Yeah, pausing aid to Ukraine is a classic trump move. Maybe he'll twist Zelensky's arm to gin up some fake blackmail on Hunter Biden again too

 

This does include aid already appropriated by Congress. Because the president OBVIOUSLY has that unilateral power.

Edited by Captainant
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