19 thoughts on “The Suburbs Of Kiev”

  1. Can we “attrit” Russia faster than we are “attriting” our own defense resources?

    If we assume Russia is our only challenger, I suppose it matters less. But if we also worry about Iran, China, North Korea, Liberia…

    1. Can we “attrit” Russia faster than we are “attriting” our own defense resources?

      It’s working so far. The US’s “defense resources” in question are overpriced gear by oligopoly manufacturers. We wouldn’t be running out of HIMARS launchers or rockets, for example, if we had a sane supply chain for it.

    2. The vast majority of weaponry transfered to Ukraine have been types needed to fight a land war. Any war between the United States and China would be primarily naval.

  2. The fact that we have depleted our stocks in such a limited and slow moving conflict shows just how hollow the claims of preparedness were. We have the most expensive military in the world, yet in a real peer conflict they would be out of ammo in days.

    Considering that there are nearly 3/4 million Americans dead from the last two times someone in Europe decided that they “deserved” just a little more territory from their neighbors, we’re lucky to get by with only a monetary cost, so far.

    1. A man who lives there? I see Viktor Orban, Tucker Carlson, and the Tyler Durden nameplate. None who live in Ukraine. And I’d take Orban’s support for Trump as more demonstration not to vote for Trump, as if I needed it.

      1. Don’t be dense. Obviously Orban lives in Central Europe which would be impacted by a broadening of the Ukraine war. Pointing at Tucker or Zerohedge is a strawman that addresses zip, zero, nada.

        1. Obviously Orban lives in Central Europe which would be impacted by a broadening of the Ukraine war.

          So what? I would be affected as well even though I don’t live in Ukraine either. As to Zero Hedge, my take is that their anonymous sermonizing shows cowardice just like their fawning article about Tucker and Orban shows lack of judgment.

          I became very disillusioned with Zero when I realized that anyone on the planet could be posting behind that handle. I get better anonymous posting from Facebook or Twitter.

  4. The US has become a paper tiger. It will take a massive, dedicated effort to fix this but there is no political will to do so. The money is all spent on social programs. They are pivoting to China because they have already lost Ukraine.

  5. I thought we were in Syria to f with Russia. That is a better venue for it in terms of risk to our country but we shouldn’t be in Syria either.

    It does feel good to see Russia suffer but I don’t think running the war in Ukraine is very helpful to our interests in the medium to long term. It is certainly tearing our country apart and wedging the right against themselves.

    It is amusing to see people who were called Russian bots and agents for the duration of Trump’s presidency deploy the same smear against their fellows. What other abuses will they support against their fellow Americans? Censorship? DOJ investigations? Denial of employment? Debanking?

    Our country has been taken over by Progressive Marxists. That is the fight we need to engage in but some people would rather join them because they hold a hatred for Russia.

    1. People of our age, raised during the cold war, have almost a hard-coded distrust of anything Russian. That’s a significant blind-spot.

      For all its faults, the Russian Federation today is not the USSR of Brezhnev or Andropov.

      Yet, as Wodun points out, the West, lead by the US has a massive Marxist infestation. We all know that is where the neocons came from.

      1. I’m officially old, just not that old, and I get the feelings people have for Russia because I share a lot of them.

        What should give the old cold warriors comfort is that Russia hasn’t been able to take over Ukraine with little green men nor with a full scale invasion. We helped a lot with that but we (NATO) aren’t the ones directly fighting. There is no way Russia could take on NATO.

        That doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat but the threats they pose aren’t the invasion and subjugation of Europe.

        The feelings you note are why Obama, Hillary, and the federal government’s running coup against Trump being a Russian agent were so effective at getting Republicans to turn against him and why it is so easy to manipulate others today.

      2. For all its faults, the Russian Federation today is not the USSR of Brezhnev or Andropov.

        Come on. It’s run by former KGB from top down. Those wolves haven’t even bothered to change their sheepskins from 40 years ago. It’s the same cults of personality. It’s the same propaganda excuses. I just had someone excusing the Russian invasion because the US does mean things – classic whataboutism, a Soviet specialty.

        The Russian Federation might not be completely the USSR of yesterday, but it’s getting really close. Something needs to be done before we have a repeat of history. Them losing the Ukrainian invasion will do which is one of the reasons I support US supply of Ukraine.

    1. Can we all agree Russia at present is not the Soviet Union of the Cold War?

      No, we can’t. See my post above. My take is that they’ve gone into Cold War reruns.

  7. At this point, I’d need proof that the Soviet Army wasn’t as riddled with corruption and incompetence as the Russian Army has proven to be. How many of those 50,000 tanks, ready to spring through the Fulda Gap had working radios, engines that would start and run long enough to get out of the lager, actual fuel in the tanks and …?

    The $64 question is whether the strategic forces are any better? I’d bet they’re even worse but the stakes are kind of high. Of course the clowns that assured us that the Russian Army was a major power to sell the next trillion dollar weapon boondoggle are the same ones assuring us that all the bits and pieces of their deterrent hasn’t been sold off on Russian eBay to buy more vodka.

    1. “Of course the clowns that assured us that the Russian Army was a major power..”

      So you believe Russian incompetence was a prior known factor, just ignored/hidden by DoD in order to acquire funding?

    2. I think the worry wasn’t the the Soviets were competent but that they had so many men and equipment that enough of their stuff would work to cause problems.

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