Tfork

Because his hypocrisy is steeped in politics. Simply.

Excargodog

"Persecuting" is scarcely the word I'd use to describe countries who sign up for an alliance with the apparent purpose of simply transferring their defense burden to the American taxpayer. And you are right about one thing - protected by two moats and the vastness of Canadanian wilderness, only our practically wide open southern border poses any real threat to invasion and that more to just infiltration rather than any actual armed incursion. We are doing more than our fair share just providing the nuclear deterrent that - so far at least - has stopped nuclear weapons from being used in warfare for the last 80 years. All countries have benefitted from that nuclear deterrent with most not paying a dime for it. If they are unwilling to fund their own conventional arms I do not believe we should be obligated to pick up their slack.

The "oceanic moats" and the airspace above them are another issue. If we are going to continue global trade and travel, those are going to have to be kept reasonably safe. It's been just over 10 years since a 777-200 was blown from the sky at FL 330 by an antiaircraft missile and missiles of that capability and greater have proliferated. Even obsolescent systems like the one that downed the 777 are very capable against non maneuvering targets and easily placed aboard small freighter sized vessels even as deck cargo. So we have a choice, to either maintain a US Navy capable of playing our part in deterring that or deciding we don't need the global economy and we'll make do with building everything within the CONUS from materials locally available.

The US surface navy, however, is in bad shape and poorly managed. Whether that will require just better management, more money, or both, is a much longer discussion and one I'm uncertain about. The last two classes of ships the Navy has built (Zumwalt Class destroyer and Littoral Combat Ships) have - at least in my opinion - been unmitigated disasters. Given R&D costs if any class is limited to just three ships, you know it's a fiasco. Originally planned for 32 ships, the DDG 1000 program became an over budget nightmare based - mostly it woukd appear - on just a loss of practicality by those people pushing it. Your opinion is free to differ.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-zumwalt-class-wont-be-battleship-future-210559#:~:text=ClassZumwaltStealth-,The%20U.S.%20Navy's%20Zumwalt%2DClass%20Won't%20B e%20the%20',production%20after%20only%20three%20sh ips.

The LCS program was going to depend for success on not ever really coming up against any sort of real ne'er peer naval opposition which was chancy enough, but it was plagued by bad engineering that forced the early retirement of these classes of ships. Again, your opinion may vary.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-
ship

But an even worse problem for the REST of the navy - and this not limited to the surface fleet - is a huge and growing maintenance backlog:

https://news.usni.org/2024/05/07/gao...diness-concern

So IF we are to continue to use those "oceanic moats" and the airspace above them in safety we are certainly going to have to do SOMETHING with our US Navy.

Be that more money or just kicking @$$ and taking names or whatever - yeah, if we aren't going totally isolationist Like Japan before Commodoe Perry we'll have to do something.

As for a jobs program for the military minded - that shouldn't be a problem. Except for the Marines, none of the services are meeting their recruitment or retention goals - haven't for years now.

These are all real issues for the future of our nation and they are deserving of real discussion. But yeah, you'd rather engage in childish insults and name calling. I get that.

Lowslung

Most cogent post I’ve seen from you. Actually agree with a lot of what you just said. I agree that we should continue to push NATO states to pay their fair share. Canada’s paltry contribution is absolutely ridiculous. Where we differ is that I believe the alliance is worth investing in even with its current problems. Supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression is also a no brainer. Pennies on the dollar to decimate one of the biggest threats to peace in Europe in recent times.

Excargodog

But I ask you the question:

If the larger NON- US NATO economies in NATO like Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada had been adequately funding their own defense for the ten years before this war broke out, or even just since the annexation of Crimea, don't you think this war might have been avoided? I mean, you don't correct thirty years of shortfalls quickly. We (and some of our allies) are only now ramping up to sustained production after two and a half years of fighting. Wars are a come-as-you-are event but military equipment and ordnance is a long lead time issue. Our abilities today are still being constrained by BRAC decisions we made back in the 80s. (If unfamiliar with the BRAC process, this https://www.governmentattic.org/52do...entRpt2021.pdf. Explains it in excruciating detail). In retrospect, mistakes were made because the decisions were made with intel available back in the 1970s and 1980s but that's understandable - situations and politics change. But the capabilities you have today are the result of decisions you made two, three, four decades ago.

At the start of this war the Germans - the most prosperous economy in Europe - had ONE DAY's worth of ammunition and no room to store more even if they had more and no prompt way to make more. That's what I mean by long lead time issues. It wasn't that they had missed their 2% if gdp for a year or so, or even for the eight years since the seizure of Crimea, it's that they'd been skating on funding their defense for 30 years.

The Russians might have a culture I dislike, but that doesn't mean they are dumb. They knew the major economic powers in NATO excepting the US were paper tigers. Perhaps had those NATO members not been paper tigers it woukd have made no difference in the war breaking out - perhaps Putin was just not about to be deterred - that is entirely possible, but it sure as he// would have made a big difference in the ABILITY of non-US NATO countries to respond. When the ballon went up, there was simply no serious response available for most of the EU nations. The debacle of getting the Leopard tanks to the Ukraine, the time it took to get them together in some condition they could even get them loaded on the trains, and the huge percentage that were - at best - spare parts repositories indicates that.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...very-disaster/



I know, everything is coulda, shoulda, woulda - the road not taken always is like that - and there is nothing sexy about military logistics, and you can power through short term deficiencies if you've got the reserves and maybe - just maybe- Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and the UK have learned their lesson but I doubt it. And until they do, NATO war deterrence is a paper tiger.

If we truly do ever want Ukraine to achieve it's stated goals of recovery of the Donetsk and Crimea it will require NATO boots on the ground (disproportionately American boots) or use of tactical nukes with all the risks that implies. And in either case, Ukraine would end up seriously damaged.

Deterrence would have been a far better option. My opinion. You are entitled to yours.

CLazarus

Seconded, best defense dollars we've ever spent. Personally, I think a good way to movtivate NATO countries to get their act together would be to bulk up our forces in the Pacific by relocating a lot of them from Europe. (I'd happily see some U.S. forces put into Ukraine too as "peacekeepers"). We'd absolutely honor our NATO treaty obligations, but like WWII they could not expect us to arrive in significant force for a few years. So, NATO had better plan and spend appropriately for it.

Lowslung

Sure, yeah, maybe if Europe had been funding defense seriously for the past 30 years it would've given the Russians enough pause to have re-thought incursions into Crimea, Donbas, Georgia, etc. But that's not the world in which we live. All we can do is operate in the reality we're presented with today. I agree that what we do today will shape tomorrow & that Europe needs to be convinced to take a bigger role in its defense. I don't agree that the way to do that is to walk away from the alliance. There's simply too much at stake, even on this side of the pond. Today, right now, in the world as it stands, the best way to deter Russian aggression in the future is to convince them that they will pay a very high price for such actions. That's why so many of us support aiding Ukraine for as long as their willing to fight. Putin thought it was going to be a cakewalk. He may yet achieve some of his goals but I bet he didn't think it would cost him half his army & most of his country's economy to do it. Many thought the Latvians would be next on the hit list. That next little Russian adventure has probably been pushed back a couple decades by developments in Ukraine. That's a good thing & a huge win for Eastern Europeans who want to hold on to their newfound freedoms.

METO Guido

^^^Iow, boots. US predominately. Some number returned empty. In addition to however many messed up minds of those unable to cope with the ‘dissonance’ professional killers generate. Risking life & limb while at the same time, dispatching every target so ordered quick as a wink. Yeah, shoulda never come this far. Oh well. “The future Mr. Gittes, the future.” Noah Cross

Hubcapped

cutting your nose to spite your face comes to mind. Short sighted fear based right wing maga enthusiasts. We lost over 400k of our own people fighting to remove despotism from the main world stage, and these people want to let it all happen again for our children to deal with…..shameful

Excargodog

And interrupting a serious and relatively agreeable ongoing dialogue to start on politicizing this and character assasination. And this from the thread OP.

Proh pudor, as my old Latin prof would say.

Lowslung

Sorry, I must've missed the part where we started sending troops into Ukraine. How many American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors have we lost so far? Oh yeah, we haven't, zero, and nobody with the power to make it happen has yet made an argument for US boots on the ground in Ukraine. How does such a bald faced strawman argument gain such traction? Maybe a certain country or countries who are not aligned with our values or geopolitical interests are putting that argument out there and certain media outlets are amplifying because, a) those countries want us to be afraid and divided and, b) those media outlets make a $%!t ton of money off of said fear and division. Just a thought. 🤷‍♂️