re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Biden’s best course of action is a long and drawn out war that he can plunder at will with to fill his and his crackhead son’s coffers. ATACMS would not win the war but it would give them another big punch besides their limited supply of Storm Shadows and these don’t require keeping a half dozen aircraft safe and airworthy to launch them. If he’s still going to hold ATACMS he needs to at least give them M26 cluster rockets for HIMARS so they can hunt Russian artillery more effectively. The fact that we haven’t done this already with our stock of regular GMLRS rockets at a critical level blows my mind. I don’t understand how regular 155 mm clusters are ok yet they aren’t from HIMARS. I really don’t think the Ukrainians give a frick that the dud rate may be 2-3% higher than that of 155 mm cluster shells when the Russians have mined the entire eastern edge of their country.

2014 to 2017 Ukraine was given no lethal assistance. They want a long war between Ukraine and Russia. Why, only the CIA and Democrats can give you that answer!

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ATACMS + F16s during the winter, IMO.

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When your forces are bogged down by ice or mud, having powerful long-range missiles would come in handy.

ATACMS maybe, but I’ll be surprised to see F-16s before spring.

Drone swarm light shows. Pretty amazing stuff with no small measure of military applications. Start at 2 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpyPwnDaijU

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In contrast, what most of Europe has now decided is that they want Ukraine to win. The Brits, Dutch, Poles, Finns, Swedes, Czechs, and Balts all want Ukraine to take Crimea to to crush Russia. And it increasingly looks like the Germans, French, and Italians are leaning more that way.

As of yesterday's Ramstein meeting, European countries have now given Ukraine twice as much aid as the US has. There's now a tremendous disconnect across the Atlantic.

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I don't know how accurate polls are concerning Crimea, but I saw some a good while back noting that Crimea preferred to be either independent or with Russia. Probably a lot of Russian snowbirds there, but perhaps demilitarized and neutral would be possible.

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Perfect, sounds like a great time for us to step back and let the Europeans finally grow up and take care of themselves.

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I think they've proven more than once they can't do that. It's easy to say let them fend for themselves but we always get dragged into the fray one way or another. It's also better for us that we have more influence there than say, Russia or China.

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The US farm economy would go through a period of contraction that would make the 1980s look like a champagne brunch

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The direct result of Reagan stopping a number of giveaway programs. This directly impacted the price of rice which was the favorite giveaway crop for decades.

That being said, family farms which were sole proprietor owned not even LLC, had big issues when inherited. Those who got into contract farming or sharecropping made great money when the large farms (corporate farming is nothing new at all) opted to not maintain a workforce and equipment contracting for others to do it for them.

Interesting in a telephone conversation with a mine owner in Guyana, the Saudis are getting into agriculture there. Diversifying what were once all rice farms into rice, corn and soybeans.

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Perfect, sounds like a great time for us to step back and let the Europeans finally grow up and take care of themselves.

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As a share of its GDP, Poland is the biggest defense spender in NATO, budgeting 3.9 percent in 2023. The U.S. is second, spending 3.49 percent, followed by Greece at 3.01 percent, Estonia at 2.73 percent, and Lithuania at 2.54 percent. Luxembourg, at 0.72 percent, is the smallest spender, followed by Belgium at 1.13 percent, Spain at 1.26 percent, Turkey at 1.31 percent, and Slovenia at 1.35 percent.

The nations seeing the greatest increase in defense spending since 2014 are mainly in Eastern Europe, closest to the fighting in Ukraine, with Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary and Latvia, and Slovakia all seeing a jump from about 1-1.5 percent of GDP to about 2-2.5 percent.

Poland, Finland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria are all undertaking the greatest increases in equipment spending, from as little as 1 percent to upwards of 36 percent. Poland’s equipment spending has jumped from about 18 percent of its overall budget to a majority of its defense budget at 52 percent

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Look at the military spending by the baltic states, Poland, and the UK. If France and Germany would get their act together and pull their weight it might be possible for the USA to consider leaving NATO without jeopardizing the security of Europe. However, the USA is never leaving NATO because France and Germany are never going to commit to pulling their weight for the long term plus the USA gets a lot of economic benefits from being in NATO. The US and the EU are each other's largest trade partners and nobody is going to risk messing that up. Especially since the European energy market is now up for grabs and 64% of US LNG exports went to the EU last year and that is expected to rise in the coming years.