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re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict.
Posted on 3/19/26 at 9:14 pm to Chromdome35
Posted on 3/19/26 at 9:14 pm to Chromdome35
quote:
Without coming across as a troll, what other benefits does the US get from NATO today and next week other than basing rights?
Excellent question. Let's put aside the fact that it took two weeks for us to start asking Allies for help in our current conflict - it doesn't matter how powerful our military is, everybody needs friends, especially ones with written agreements. We've needed friends in the past and we are going to need them in the future, and it all starts with China.
Let's assume that China is the military adversary we all think they are. That's a big 'if,' I know, but it's plausible. A war with China will overwhelmingly likely come about around Taiwan, which is squarely on China's home turf. China may very well likely have 1 Billion people, which means they could take losses upwards of 50 Million men and still keep rocking, so we are going to need help in terms of manpower. Then there's the economic, political, and geographic aspects of European power, which I don't think most people truly understand - we need to make it work with them, if for no other reason than we don't need to turn them into competitors, too.
And while I do believe that Russia isn't going to be near the military threat that they were five years ago (and it's clear they weren't the threat we all thought they were) the changing drone threat means that it's not going to cost them nearly as much in terms of time, money, or anything else to become a threat again.
The bottom line is that the democracies need to stick to together and continue to work things out and act as a positive stabilizing force in the world, and in many ways it's NATO that is where that starts.
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Posted on 3/19/26 at 9:35 pm to Leopold
Isn't that predicated on an assumption that we won't still be friends and allies with the European countries? It sounds like you are assuming that if we end NATO, Europe won't be allies anymore. I do think that some European countries might not be, but most of them are smart enough to not make that mistake.
If a war with China were to kick off over Tiawan, would Europe help us? I don't know but I do know that NATO doesn't have anything to do with Tiawan.
What are we getting TODAY for our massive investment into NATO? I get that the value prop was different in years past, but thats all water under the bridge, what value do we get today from NATO beyond basing rights?
If a war with China were to kick off over Tiawan, would Europe help us? I don't know but I do know that NATO doesn't have anything to do with Tiawan.
What are we getting TODAY for our massive investment into NATO? I get that the value prop was different in years past, but thats all water under the bridge, what value do we get today from NATO beyond basing rights?
Posted on 3/19/26 at 9:58 pm to Chromdome35
quote:
Isn't that predicated on an assumption that we won't still be friends and allies with the European countries?
Right now, I'd argue that being friends with anybody is not a given, and that's not a joke. But it goes deeper than just that - I've got friends who would abandon me in a fistfight, and Europe and the rest of the world have been looking for an alternative to us for some time now and we stupidly keep giving them a reason to.
quote:
If a war with China were to kick off over Tiawan, would Europe help us? I don't know but I do know that NATO doesn't have anything to do with Tiawan.
If China attacked an American base or asset, then they would be obligated to. Granted, I'm sure it would be based on certain circumstances, of which I'm not an expert on, but, yeah, they're going to have to at least pick a side and being in the same security pact is a good place to start. I mean, it's kind of like Europe asking for our help with Russia when they have only attacked Ukraine - the relationship actually matters.
quote:
What are we getting TODAY for our massive investment into NATO?
What, you mean besides the fall of the Soviet Union? Besides getting an enormous amount of help after 9/11? Or the fact that there is a war going on right now that is openly against a 'unipolar world,' i.e. one built by the Americans and directly benefiting us? One that directly benefits us, and a stable of friends, or at least reliable work companions that are inclined to follow us and not China, Russia, or any other penny-ante dictator?
People keep saying that wars are a thing of the past, especially force-on-force wars, and yet they keep happening. People have stated that there's an 'end to history' and that democracy is the only option, and yet there are billions of people who either don't agree with that or are actively working against it.
The answer isn't to end NATO. The answer is to amend it, and get our allies to hold their own weight. This war with Russia and Ukraine was a good way to get the Europeans to see that, it's just a shame Americans don't see the value when we're the ones benefiting from it.
Posted on 3/19/26 at 10:32 pm to Leopold
quote:
What, you mean besides the fall of the Soviet Union? Besides getting an enormous amount of help after 9/11? Or the fact that there is a war going on right now that is openly against a 'unipolar world,' i.e. one built by the Americans and directly benefiting us? One that directly benefits us, and a stable of friends, or at least reliable work companions that are inclined to follow us and not China, Russia, or any other penny-ante dictator?
But those are things we benefited from yesterday. I'm glad they happened and agree they would not have happened if NATO didn't exist. However, In the time after those things happened, Europe has made a conscious choice to not invest into their militaries to the point where they barely have militaries.
With any war, there is nothing to say we wouldn't help them and they wouldn't help us, it would be situational.
quote:
he answer is to amend it, and get our allies to hold their own weight.
And how long does the American taxpayer have to wait for this to happen?
Yes those allies were there for us in 2001, but they couldn't be there today which strikes at the heart of my question.
In 2001 when the UK helped, it had:
Main Battle Tanks: 850. Today it has 213, a 75% decline
IFV's: 760. Today 430 a 43% decline
Combat Aircraft: 380, Today 173 a 55% decline
Surface Combatants: 35, today 13 a 63% decline
Submarines: 16, today 10 a 33% decline.
A year ago, MoD declared to a House of Commons Defense Committee that only 157 tanks were combat ready or nearly so.
Today, Britian can only field one Aircraft carrier without a full complement of planes and 1 (ONE) destroyer. It's carrier can't set sail without needing other nations to help protect it.
France sent their carrier to the Med, even with that carrier they had to have other countries help provide escorts.
I don't think most people realize how far the Europeans (Poland is the exception) have allowed their militaries to atrophy. That won't be fixed overnight. And because of that, the US taxpayer is going to have to continue to subsidize Europe's defense until it can get its act together (it may not ever get its act together)
So again I ask, what does NATO give us today?
Posted on 3/19/26 at 11:50 pm to Chromdome35
And again, I respond that there is a war going on that is attempting to take on an American-led world order built for our own purposes. The Russians have to go through Europe before they could ever threaten us, and they are failing at it - NATO is working exactly as was intended even though we are doing nothing to help it right now.
The fact that much of Europe's military is behind doesn't change the fact that hey could rebuilt in a year should they so choose to. Hell, both the UK and Germany are investing 9 figures into drone technology, and countries like France, Sweden, the UK (and Germany, actually, though nobody will acknowledge it) have thriving defense industries that are only going to grow in the coming years. UK's tanks and IFV's are in bad shape? From I'm hearing on this board Tanks aren't even a thing anymore, it's all about drones.
We need to keep these relationships, not throw them away, and a defense pact is a foundational point for this. Yes, the rest of NATO needs to get their act together, but that doesn't mean we leave - we stay and work with our allies to grow stronger, not piss them off, insult them and walk out as though we don't need them.
The fact that much of Europe's military is behind doesn't change the fact that hey could rebuilt in a year should they so choose to. Hell, both the UK and Germany are investing 9 figures into drone technology, and countries like France, Sweden, the UK (and Germany, actually, though nobody will acknowledge it) have thriving defense industries that are only going to grow in the coming years. UK's tanks and IFV's are in bad shape? From I'm hearing on this board Tanks aren't even a thing anymore, it's all about drones.
We need to keep these relationships, not throw them away, and a defense pact is a foundational point for this. Yes, the rest of NATO needs to get their act together, but that doesn't mean we leave - we stay and work with our allies to grow stronger, not piss them off, insult them and walk out as though we don't need them.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:00 am to Chromdome35
quote:Let's be realistic about the cost sharing. The NATO agreement was never about all members sharing costs equally, not even on a percentage of GNP basis. The US Navy currently has 11 nuclear aircraft carriers and 70 nuclear submarines. Can we expect anyone in NATO to match this? Even collectively?
the answer is to amend it, and get our allies to hold their own weight.
And how long does the American taxpayer have to wait for this to happen?
The deal is that everyone depends on the Arsenal of Democracy and the US gets bases in Europe and everyone meets, trains and maintains readiness to fight together. The intent is when the crap hits the fan, the US provides the majority of the weaponry, logistics and support. Just as we did in WW2. With NATO in place, we avoid the political squabbling that characterized the Allied effort at the start of WW2. The Europeans are just following the original and current intention, all driven by the US.
Critically, when all of this US-provided weaponry, logistics and support is built, who gets the benefit of the spending? The US MIC does. The only money the US taxpayers spend on non-US jobs and non-US contracts is the small amount for support of the European bases. No one in Europe is forcing us to carry them, we are spending the money by ourselves and would do so even if NATO didn't exist.
There is only one country that benefits from a disfunctional NATO and their top representative in the White House is the only one making this agrument. If we criticise NATO spending, what we are actually doing is criticizing all US defense spending.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:03 am to Coeur du Tigre
Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:08 am to Coeur du Tigre
Only another three weeks until the pipeline repair starts. Then we wait for the Russians to destroy it again.
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If tweet fails to load, click here.Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:10 am to Coeur du Tigre
Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:18 am to Coeur du Tigre
More video from yesterday's attack. That's a lot of drone strikes.
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Posted on 3/20/26 at 3:54 am to WeeWee
quote:
Russian lawyer Remeslo has been committed to a psychiatric hospital after verbally attacking Putin.
Wow. This is a lot more significant than originally thought -
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The travails of Remeslo, the Russian pro-Kremlin lawyer who led the charge against Navalny back in the day, who recently came out with all barrels blasting against Putin, and who is now cooling his heels at a psychiatric hospital in St. Petersburg.
First, let's just say how out of whack it is for this sort of thing to come out from Russia these days. This is not some random blogger who finally had it with the Internet blocking and who let it rip. It's a prominent establishment figure who was a very vocal supporter of Putin's regime for many, many years.
Second, he was offered an easy way out when people started suggesting that perhaps his account had been hacked, but he doubled down, and not just in writing. He actually recorded videos to ensure that everyone knew he had written the posts and that he was not drunk either.
Third, it's sort of odd that he has not been hauled into court on some trumped up charges (discrediting the Russian military or something) but that might be in part because he's a lawyer and so was careful to phrase his criticisms to focus specifically on Putin. The fact that he hasn't fallen out of a window (yet) but got hauled into a psychiatry could also mean that he has some powerful protectors who had given him the green light to voice what might be an increasingly widespread opinion of Putin.
This is the most interesting possibility as it would constitute an attempt to make opposition to Putin in the corridors of powers common knowledge. It's not for nothing that Remeslo specifically refers to the well known tale about the Emperor's New Clothes: recall that the fable is about a situation where everyone knows the truth but because nobody says it, nobody knows who else shares that opinion, and so everyone remains quiet. The power of making a privately shared truth common knowledge is substantial in authoritarian systems, which is why rulers expend a lot of energy suppressing it through propaganda, intimidation, and coercion.
Let me translate his original posts so you see what's going on. After reading these, read the translation of a panicked post by Anastassia Kashevarova, from the pro-Kremlin propaganda show Solovyev Live. Her reaction is telling me that this is no mere outburst and that regime supporters are very, very nervous indeed.
Read his whole post and interpretation of how significant this is.
Comments:
quote:
There’s something called elite defection — if it starts happening en masse it usually means regime change
quote:
As Kucharenko said: Sometimes it is not treason but foresight. What Remeslo did is like a readers digest of the criticism voiced in informed circles by people like Ivashov etc. Remeslo (and Xenia) opened the door to a wider public, lower rank siloviki and apparatchiks. It's a GO.
quote:
I’ve been expecting a russian “reasonable voice” to be presented to the west as an acceptable replacement for Putin for a while now. So that they (FSB/oligarchs) can blame it all on one man and not lose power and the country when they replace him. Western greed will do the rest
Posted on 3/20/26 at 4:22 am to Leopold
What is not being discussed is Europe's financial decline especially in manufacturing. The decline in chemical manufacturing is drastic. European friends declared that this would happen when the wet natural gas provided very cheap feedstock for petrochemicals all due to advancement of old technology known as hydraulic fracturing. Exxon closed its chemicals and adjacent refinery in France. This was purchased by a Canadian company owned by Wall Street capital investment company and the refinery is being converted to more fuels by a Louisiana based company. The naphtha will be used for gasoline instead of chemicals, an increase of 30,000 BPD. Dow is closing its former East German chemical complex, which had the largest environmental cleanup in European history after purchase by Dow in 1995. BASF has been moving chemical manufacturing to the US for 15 years now.
Europe had the opportunity to tap a large shale formation straddling France and Germany, but even though hydraulic fracturing in other formations for decades was common practice, it banned the same for shale formations deeper in the earth. Only Ukraine has not banned this practice.
Other manufacturing has been moving to Poland from Germany for several years now.
As for the UK, the entire chemical industry is crumbling due lack of new activity in the North Sea. Old fields have been depleted. Brent is no longer for several years now. The name has been used for a trading platform tied to WTI, for oil. Both are merely a set of specifications which do not actually exist.
Since the dawn of time, militaries need funding. Eurotrash has opted to spend lavishly on social services including pensions.
Europe had the opportunity to tap a large shale formation straddling France and Germany, but even though hydraulic fracturing in other formations for decades was common practice, it banned the same for shale formations deeper in the earth. Only Ukraine has not banned this practice.
Other manufacturing has been moving to Poland from Germany for several years now.
As for the UK, the entire chemical industry is crumbling due lack of new activity in the North Sea. Old fields have been depleted. Brent is no longer for several years now. The name has been used for a trading platform tied to WTI, for oil. Both are merely a set of specifications which do not actually exist.
Since the dawn of time, militaries need funding. Eurotrash has opted to spend lavishly on social services including pensions.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 7:14 am to Leopold
Europe currently produces as many artillery shells per year as the US and is on track to surpass the US by the end of 2026.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 8:39 am to cypher
Posted on 3/20/26 at 9:04 am to cypher
quote:
March 19 (Reuters) - A pro-Kremlin figure ?who unexpectedly denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in a social media post this week that went viral has been placed in a psychiatric facility, ?the hospital said on Thursday.
Ilya Remeslo made a career denouncing ?Putin's critics until he became one himself, posting a manifesto ?late on Tuesday to his 90,000 followers on Telegram entitled: "Five reasons why ?I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin."
quote:
On Thursday, St Petersburg's Fontanka newspaper reported Remeslo had been hospitalised in the city's Psychiatric Hospital No. 3. Reuters was unable to reach Remeslo himself or determine how he came to be hospitalised.
quote:
Remeslo, a 42-year-old lawyer and former member of a Kremlin-controlled advisory body, ?had in ?the past heavily criticised the late opposition ?figure Alexei Navalny, Putin's most prominent critic who died in an Arctic penal colony in ?February 2024.
LINK
What a shitty place to live.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 11:43 am to CitizenK
Great. And the day that Europe decides they want to be a military power will be a military power. CitizenK just pointed out something I've said twice on this board, that Europe is producing more artillery shells than we do right now, and they are about to start producing WAAAAYYYY more drones.
Christ, the EU has a larger population and economy than we do and even with their demographic problems they will be a force to be reckoned with for generations to come.
All of this points to revising the agreement, not pulling out of it like temperamental jackasses.
Christ, the EU has a larger population and economy than we do and even with their demographic problems they will be a force to be reckoned with for generations to come.
All of this points to revising the agreement, not pulling out of it like temperamental jackasses.
Posted on 3/20/26 at 1:05 pm to Leopold
Posted on 3/20/26 at 1:15 pm to Coeur du Tigre
I'm old enough to remember a time when Putin denied sharing intelligence with the Iranians...
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If tweet fails to load, click here.Posted on 3/20/26 at 1:23 pm to Coeur du Tigre
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But there's realistic chance the "elites" will start fighting for power. I can already imagine trump urgently travelling to moscow to host that reality show. It would solve so many problems at once.
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