They must really care: Zelensky will deliver keynote address at US defense industry conference.
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A duet with Dick Cheyney?
Otherwise known as the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
As some wag observed, we’re only a few weeks away from being able to hire Zelensky to appear at your kid’s birthday party.
Yes, but only if you’re filthy like Malcolm, Mike or Simon.
“War is good for business.”
– Quark, Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
If a nation just demonstrated that a relatively few modern weapons could bust the well prepared invasion of Russia I’d imagine the guys who sell this stuff might well get him a platform. On todays form Ukraine is making Putin look really stupid.
I’m not convinced the latest vicissitudes in Ukraine indicate much, strategically, Yankee. The Allies had Dunkirk and Singapore and many other reversals.
The media ignore Russian advances and lay on the triumphalism a little too thick when Ukraine has a good week. I don’t take anything they retail to Western publics seriously – most especially given that Western governments are strip-mining their own citizens to prop up a government widely considered one of the most corrupt in the world long before the invasion. Their lies have become close to laughable; in a few cases, actually laughable.
All I want is 1) an end to the slaughter that Ukraine cannot win; and 2) inexorably moving to normalise the Russian Federation as – at the very least – a half-ally against the heathen Chinese. The latter is consonant with what Ronald Reagan and his strategists would have wanted.
On my first point, what I mean is that Ukraine cannot win what will end up being a generational war (there is no other kind in those lands). Eventually, the United States (and Australia) will quit. We need long-term thinkers who can see beyond news cycles and one particular Russian leader.
Finally, with Europeans foraging in woods for fuel to survive winter, it’s being generous to assert that it’s Putin being made to look foolish.
I agree CL.
It’s hard to contemplate how hard winter might be in Northern Europe without adequate heating.
From 2014, when this thing got started. Lars Schall interviews Dr. Karin Kneissl on the topic of where the Europeans are going in terms of energy and sanctions on Russia.
https://youtu.be/ks3-m0dNurg
Not many views on the counter … I guess hardly anyone was thinking ahead back then.
I agree C.L.
The Americans wedged Trump to stop him from creating any form of alliance with Russia.
normalize the Russian federation? what so Putin can create a few more incidents that make him a war criminal.
This invasion has turned out to be a disaster. The Russian army is vastly over-rated. the Russian econmy is in a tail spin and will get worse. Putin is forced to go to Iran with a begging bowl to buy drone knock offs.
Oh and we should not forget Putin did not start this war despite invading Ukraine according to CL.
Trampo the Bushie. LOL.
The war was started by the US State Department which deliberately encroached upon Russia’s sphere of influence. Just as we don’t want Chinamen in the Solomons, Russia doesn’t want Langley jackrabbits in Ukraine. The present phase of the eight-year war followed several years of ethnic cleansing by Ukrainian nazis and an illegal coup that installed a television personality (and offshore money hoarder) as ‘president.’
The serious men of the Reagan cabinet explicitly did NOT want NATO to expand eastward. They wanted relations with post-Soviet Russia normalised as soon as practicable.
Yes, we’ve all heard that CIA slogan popularised by News Corps and other media. It has proved to be a disaster for Ukraine – which will never re-establish its former borders (ever) – and Europe, which is now under the energy control of Moscow and which is paying China for gas (much of which Beijing purchased from Russia). America’s war of choice in Ukraine is enriching Russia and China, impoverishing the West and re-creating the old Soviet-CCP alliance.
Good work, neo-cons. Reagan would be ashamed.
A “disaster” is the left’s beloved Afghanistan War – lost after 20 years – which led to the Taliban being given $20 billion worth of arms by Joe Biden and total control of a country again. That’s what a disaster looks like.
Like much of the current political left, Non Mentis wants perpetual war. Whatever happened to “Give peace a chance”?
As for never normalising the Russian Federation, has Non Mentis forgotten that other slogan from the 1970s, “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose”?
The modern political left thinks it is smart to push a nuclear armed state with as history of paranoia into a corner. Idiots, all of them.
Not exactly.
When a Republican is elected President, Ukraine will immediately become a ‘bad war.’
It’s actually perpetual cultural gaslighting. Break down truth so people don’t know what is real and what is not, then repeat the same lines over an over until enough drones repeat them that anyone who is not brainwashed is irrelevant anyway.
Watching Anthony Alboeingeasy blow smoke up the monarchy’s nether regions this morning brought it all home. The guy has appointed a minister or a republic but it’s not expedient to push against a tidal wave of support for the monarchy right now, so he’ll keep his minister and rinse and repeat all his poison when the smoke clears. Right now, he’s off to bow and scrape and avoid scrutiny at home.
Wishful thinking aside, it is not.
except Germany said they would veto Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.
did you forget that or simply ignorant of that?
The arms were useless as was the plan. If it initiated by Trump it was always going to be a disaster and bidden should have known that. how could you have talks with the Taliban that excluded the government.
Interesting that the intelligence which was so bad in Afghanistan was so good about Ukraine.
Yeah russia is soo wealthy they have to go cap in hand to Iran and ask for drone knock offs.
Non Mentis
If it initiated by Trump it was always going to be a disaster and bidden should have known that.
Stupid even by your lax standards. There were six months in which “bidden (sic)” and his military and foreign policy staffs could have revised the plan. Note that the Trump plan included withdrawing all excess US equipment, and all US staff. “bidden (sic)” fucked the whole process up all on his own.
That is a very good way of putting it CL. Its very uncomfortable watching those good Ukrainian boys getting ground up for some pointless mileage, and being cheered on by the ghouls who will abandon them the very second they lose, or another Crisis distracts the MSM. And the Russian troops don’t deserve it either. The Ruskis and Ukes are cousins, its sad to see them destroying each other.
Like Lee says, War is good for business. A certain kind of business that is.
The Ukrainian Kherson Offensive has been a moral and political disaster for Russia, but militarily it is not that significant. The Russians hardly defended the Kherson, and took very few casualties. Typically retreating troops suffer heavy casualties. It has all the characteristics of a tactical withdrawal, not a retreat.
Putin may be a hard man with fascistic tendencies, but he is not Stalin the Terrible and he is not a fool. He has been very parsimonious with Russian lives, and for the most part he prefers the Donbas republicans do the dying, and artillery do the killing. If the mothers of the dead Russian boys gather in numbers at Red Square, his days are numbered.
As for casualties, “senior Pentagon official” just estimated that as many as 80,000 “Russians” have been killed or wounded in Ukraine since the war began, but Ukraine only claims around 52000. A more reliable figure is 9000 KIA and 25000 WIA, a bit more than half actual Russians. I have not been able to find a plausible figure for Ukrainian casualties, which makes me wonder. But they are on the receiving end of some serious artillery, and I guess they are significantly higher than the Russians.
Why is there no international push for peace negotiations? Why is there no John Lennon singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance”?
Yes which makes Biden’s plan even more stupid than it was.
russsia is in hock to China now and they don’t even pay top dollar for the oil they buy.
CL’s argument is nonsensical. Russia is the only nation that can call off their invasion but CL being a top level Putin apologist would never suggest that.
Perhaps you missed, in the early days of the conflict, the ludicrous UN SecGen Guterres uttering exactly those words. I’m not sure whether he segued into ‘Imagine’ after that.
Non Mentis
Yes which makes Biden’s plan even more stupid than it was.
Yet you still tried to blame his stupidity on Trump? How stupid does that make you?
PS, weeks ago, you were asked to provide evidence (you said it was all on the teeev) that all the abandoned weapons and other equipment were useless. You have not been able to provide a link to that coverage, perhaps because it does not exist. Yet you keep repeating the statement like some kind of mantra. Repeating rubbish does not make it true, it simply shows the emptiness of your head.
Because you are a primary school drop out you forgot about the senate hearings where this myth was dispelled, alas only stupid deplorables ( a tautology I know) still talk about it.
Think about it have you seen the taliban driving a tank? Think hard
Please try to keep up … just pay attention a tiny bit, now and then.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=taliban+shows+off+us+military+vehicles
Non Mentis
Because you are a primary school drop out you forgot about the senate hearings where this myth was dispelled, alas only stupid deplorables ( a tautology I know) still talk about it.
How sweet, you believe that incompetents appearing before the Senate would boast of their incompetence? But you claimed that the evidence was on the teev. Are you suggesting that it was incompetents babbling (as you do) on a videoed Senate hearing that was the “evidence”? Or is it the evidence to which Tel linked?
Stupid, even by your low standards.
Back to pre-school for you, for another attempt to read complex sentences such as “The cat sat on the mat”.
Good shot Tel, got him right in his deplorables.
Trampis, calling Boambee a school dropout is just makes you look silly. Putting all politics aside, it is clear that his command of the Queens English is excellent. And yours is not. To put it politely.
Oh, I missed that Cuckoo. I guess it is his job to say that after all. It didn’t get a lot of traction.
So much for all that ex-U.S. military hardware being “useless” or “disabled.”
Two reasons, IMO: Putin bad because he is culturally ‘right-wing’ (meaning trans-gay-klimate etc isn’t the centre of Russian social policy). Brussels hates Hungary and Poland for the same reason. Second, Democrat in the White House.
If this was President Trump’s war, the papers would be filled every day with lurid accounts of Ukrainian reversals, failures, mutinies and looting. Stan Grant would be emceeing earnest panel discussions on the morality of backing Nazis and Four Corners would be investigating Zelensky’s offshore accounts.
The left has a very convenient memory hole on this; communists Fidel Castro and Che Guevara – to name just two – were virulent homophobes and persecuted and committed horrific crimes against gays.
There would also be furrowed brows among the lefterati about how Russia is in a stronger financial position that before the war and how this has bolstered totalitarian China. There would be pieces on the hardship the evil gop has foisted on innocent victim eu countries who have bambi like tried to be good environmental citizens but are now being undermined by an unjust war in Ukraine.
I would guess that over time it will be difficult for them to maintain the equipment in top condition, without spare parts, workshops, training, etc.
That said … the Chinese will be enthusiastic buyers on the second hand market and might well offer plausible knock off parts. They are skilled at copying technology. Will be interesting to see whether the Taliban put religious principles first and hold China accountable for mistreatment of Muslims … or whether pragmatism wins and they figure do busness where you can.
If the Chinese don’t step in, then Iran might be an OK second choice. There are also technically adept Pakistanis available. Surprisingly, we have still operational Soviet Shilkas in the Middle East … running on clockwork parts that rightfully belong in some 18th Century music box from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Here’s the quote from Wikipedia:
Don’t underestimate what a yokel village blacksmith can achieve with time and motivation.
CL: quite unlikely Russia would ever turn on China. As recent events demonstrate, they both have limited alliance options. As for Russia having leverage with energy; they lost it when they used it. Now it’s clear that Europe will move as fast as possible to shift away from Russian gas. Good for Qatar. Bad for Russia. Putin is looking like toast.
Foo Fighters
It is more likely that China will turn on Russia, and take parts of Siberia. China has outstanding claims against Russia about so-called “unequal treaties”. Right now, Siberia would be an easier target than Taiwan.
There will be such gleeful chuckling in Beijing the day they seize the Siberian semiconductor industry!
Tel
Invade Taiwan, and they are unlikely to get more than the ruins of the Taiwan semiconductor industry. At least Siberia has lots of natural resources – no more dealing with waysist Oztralians. and it can all be exploited out of the sight of those waysist envronmentalists.