Also, @NoahCRothman is a pure neocon, an ideological copy of Bill Kristol, David Frum, Dick/Liz Cheney. So of course Biden's Chief of Staff favorably cites him because the alliance between the Dem Party and neocons - once presented as a temporary one of convenience - is complete. pic.twitter.com/2rtdDzbBzb
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2022
December 28, 2022
"... seems like an absolutely incredible investment."
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Well, Rothman is right. Ideological blinders keep some people from seeing/admitting it.
"US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia'a conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment."
What could go wrong? These people are playing with fire.
"Who gives a shit about all the death and destruction... I'm getting stock options out of the deal!"
We've Always been at War, with Eurasia.. It's Certainly ABOUT TIME, for it to go Nuclear!!!
yea!!!! LONG LIVE BIG BROTHER!!!!
That should be an uncontroversial tweet. Reducing Russian influence is in the US interest. Ukraine is not really.
Left unsaid: "and we get to use another country's army to do it"
Getting Russia to face up to their failures is not to the advantage of the USA.
&
"It's reported that Russia has begun repair work on #nordstream2 Pipeline - And just imagine, the Mainstream Media + Politicians in the #EU were blaming Russia for damaging their own Pipeline - But that was before the EU went silent.
Now the EU doesn't want to know who did it..."
The communist said we would sell them the rope to hang us with...
Turns out the Democrats will sell the weapons to kill us all with (and let in millions of illegals to be their servants at the same time.)
Who wants to bet Fauci and others were 'helping' China with biological warfare when the COVID genie slipped out of their bottle. Now it's nuke weapons.
What's the ROI on this adventure? Just guessing, but I would estimate 20% ..... radiation poisoning for the Ukrainian citizenry.
All that "reduced Russian influence" is great. And it only cost $100,000 million and 30,000 dead Ukrainians. Those Ukrainians sure did stop a lot of Russian hardware and render it useless. Har Har.
So anyway, a good return on our "Investment". Maybe we can keep the war going and kill another 40,000 people and spend another $100,000 million. Wouldn't that be great? Why the "Russian influence" will be done to nothing. Maybe down to 23.10 percent on my scientific "Russian Influence meter".
We can get it down to Zero, with some nuclear war. I promise only 10-20 million dead. Tops. Depending on the breaks.
/sarcasm off/
The reason people like Klain tweet these sort of things is quite simple. First, they're bloodthirsty disgusting pigs. Second, they love to play war as long they aren't in danger. Third, They're bloodthirsty assholes.
As Mark Twain observed, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."
The USSR spent a little cash on weapons so North Koreans could kill lots of US soldiers and have the US waste great capital in Korea.
The USSR spent a little cash on weapons so North Vietnamese could kill a lot of US soldiers and have the US waste great capital in Vietnam.
The US spent a little cash on weapons so Afghans could kill a lot of USSR soldiers and have the USSR waste great capital in Afghanistan.
The Iranian Mullahs spent a little cash on weapons so Afghans could kill kill a lot of US soldiers and have the US waste great capital in Afghanistan.
The Iranian Mullahs also spent a little cash on weapons so Iraqis could kill a lot of US soldiers and have the US waste great capital in Iraq.
And now the US is spending a little cash on weapons so Ukrainians can kill a lot of USSR soldiers and have the USSR waste great capital in Ukraine.
IMHO, Rothman and Klain are merely commenting on the "Great Game" they enjoy playing that gets paid for in blood and treasure by the Jamoke Chumbolones who voted for our current political masters. But somehow The Great Game never actually hurts guys like Klain or Rothman, who, as best I can tell, never served in the military.
Yes, let's publicly brag about doing what Putin says we are doing and we formally deny. Also let's have the Secretary of State announce that we aren't capable of assisting two allies to the extent we are assisting the Ukraine. Is everyone supporting this administration a moron or are they really trying to destroy all of our influence in the world and perhaps getting paid for it.
Another client state in the making.
"Zelensky announces he is planning to join World Economic Forum in Davos, to sign new postwar loans with BlackRock"
Tim said " Reducing Russian influence is in the US interest". Unfortunately that's not happening. EU Nations are cutting forests trying to stay warm while the Ruble is at an all time high. Putin and Xiden's bud Xi are happily negotiating new deals for oil. The US Petro-dollar is on the verge of being replaced by the Yuan, which will result in recession/depression for US. The only US "interest" being served are those in the defense industry, SecDef's paymaster, Raytheon, smiles!
Original Mike said... "US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia's conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment."
"What could go wrong? These people are playing with fire."
Mike, the other side (Putin's Russia) is always willing to play with fire when it comes to dealing with the west. You don't stop dictators by appeasing them: check out Neville Chamberlain's success with Anschluss in Austria and Czechoslovakia for examples. WW2 followed.
How do you stop dictators: you act like Reagan with the Soviet Union in the 80s. Of course, our US liberals (today's progressives) were appalled by stupid ole' Cowboy Reagan's "bellicosity" at the time... (No Nukes! OMG---He's going to get us into a nuclear war!!!!)
Only WW3 never happened, and Reagan, and the rest of us, won, while the USSR collapsed.
Lesson learned. Still applies.
Pro Russian troll.
Little wonder they were Never Trump from day one.
To increase Chinese influence? They're waffling.
It's pretty clear we are in this to bleed Russia white. That has been true for a while. Are we going to like that outcome? Any potential downsides?
"US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia's conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment."
So, just to be clear, we are at war with Russia, right? And we have defined the destruction of nearly half of its conventional military capability as our war aim, correct?
When and how did Congress debate the issue, and authorize the present to pursue the war?
Though I am less trusting of our Ukrainian and Western European allies than Noah Rothman, he has written some worthwhile books. One is an attack on social justice orthodoxy called Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. The second, The New Puritans, skewers the absurdities of the woke lifestyle. He is worth listening to.
This seems to me to be a situation in which honest people can disagree.
Absolutely agree with Rothman.
This is the only reason for the US to be spending these massive sums, and it's a really good reason.
Absolutely agree with Rothman.
This is the only reason for the US to be spending these massive sums, and it's a really good reason.
Sounds like a massive rationalization for the fleecing of America to line the pockets of the power elites; i.e., the usual elite grifters who so desperately wanted Trump, the disrupter, out. Plus it makes no sense to me because Russia can always rebuild its military capacity, and the more humiliated they feel the more motivated they will be to rebuild. A dangerous game the Biden administration has committed the USA to play for the foreseeable future and beyond to benefit the insider political class and their lobbies and supporters rather than ordinary Americans. If anything this makes the world less safe and peace more difficult.
I agree with Tim. I don't see the issue. Why would we spend that much money if not to further our own interests? One can argue about whether or not the risk is worth the benefit, but did anyone actually think we were spending that kind of money on pure altruism?
I thought it to be smartest to have Trump do it for free. It has worked before. Are you warriors holding Raytheon stock?
If our leadership in this arena was competent, destroying Russia’s military might be a defendable goal. But if our leadership was competent they would be content to do it quietly and not gloat about it while merely in progress.
They primp and preen too much. Children playing Stratego staying up late on a school night.
As I said on this blog in during the first two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (to much ridicule by the Putin bots who comment here) the Ukrainians are doing (now have done) a great service to the Western world by clearly demonstrating that Russia is a paper tiger, complete with poorly trained and unmotivated troops, shit tactics, incompetent leadership and shoddy equipment. This condition was realized by those of us who fought in the Gulf in 1991 because Saddam's military was a clone of their Russian suppliers and trainers, and we saw the same results from Iraq as we saw from Russia during the comical assault on Kiev at the war's start. That this military condition should coexist with blatant, overwhelming corruption in almost all phases of Russian (or Iraqi) government should not be a surprise to said Putin bots; however, given no military expertise to draw on, our resident bots have to rely on their their ideology and hatred of the current governments in the both the US and Ukraine to inform their opinions. Those opinions are and have always been crap.
That said, no one has a lower opinion of Brandon than I do, only I don't let that get in the way of reality.
I guess it is cool to only spend money to get over on a strategic adversary. Shame all those lives lost by the pawns in the middle. I guess they were cheap anyway.
Now, about the conventional forces part of the statement; were those forces ever a threat to the US? It seems keeping the Russian nuclear forces in place keeps the US still at risk. Maybe even greater risk, as it becomes the only weapon for Russia to protect itself. Hoorah!
There are additional benefits from this endeavor in what it reminds China of. I did not think "Biden" had it in them. How much was induced by blackmail, real or potential, over the family dealings we don't know, at this point. I assume that is a serious factor in the "policy." But maybe Ukraine always saw the payoffs as merely the necessary vigorish for our protection; and we saw Ukraine as a marginally viable buffer against Russian imperialism.
So Blackrock is a possible beneficiary, if Hunter's Hooker's info is correct. American companies usually benefit from changes that create opportunities. They're world leaders, they should be capable of deriving benefit. (The issue of their patriotism is another matter.) Nevertheless, Blackrock stock is down from the 900s to 700, including an earlier stop in the 500s. As the bear market winds on, the financial down-cycle should send a stock like this a lot lower. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Yes, Raytheon is near its all-time high. But I wouldn't want to hold Raytheon much longer, either. JMO.
How long until Biden gets credit for “baiting” Putin into Ukraine?
I'm so glad decisions like this aren't left up to the people to decide. Much too important. Ordinary folks are so squeamish about killing thousands of people for theoretical political advantage and borrowing billions of dollars to do so. Thank God for the experts. They'll bring us to the promised land, yessiree.
It seems to me that fun and games are being played with numbers. My calculations show the US has a defense budget of $813.3B. 5.6% of that number would be "only" $45.5B. Well short of the $91B either spent or committed to Ukraine so far. Additionally, Russia's defense budget is approximately $84B so "roughly half of Russia's conventional military capability" (however that corresponds to their defense budget) would be an amount less, seemingly way less, than what we have "invested".
Moondawgie said:
Only WW3 never happened, and Reagan, and the rest of us, won, while the USSR collapsed.
The ROI on the collapse of post-Soviet Russia is not the same as on the collapse of the Soviet Union. I daresay nobody really knows what the fallout (pun intended) might be, but it certainly won't gain us victory against a geopolitical nemesis that posed grave threats, local nd global, to the free peoples of the world. Topple a dictator? Great. But see Libya as an example of how that "improves" things inside the country and out.
As I see it, we're spending $100,000,000,000 to kill a whole lot of people so that we have more street cred in Eastern Europe and a corrupt nation that owes us a bunch of favors. Doesn't hurt that it stops people from wondering how much Burisma money made its way to the Big Guy.
So, we've "ONLY" spend about $100 Billion (this year?) in The Ukraine for a russia war??
And this was able to "destroy nearly half of Russia's conventional military capability"??
HOW MUCH is russia spending on defense? As Al Smith would say; Let's take a look, at the record.
Russian defense budget2022: $65.9bn
WOW! that SEEMS 'like an absolutely incredible investment.'
VERY SOON; Russia will be out of conventional military capability, and will have NO OPTIONS but nuclear.
AND! Putin is a CRAZY MAN!!!! And is fighting for HIS LIFE
But! Don't worry about the nukes, a person would Have To Be CRAZY, to use nukes
---Shame all those lives lost by the pawns in the middle. I guess they were cheap anyway. [Leland]
Tell that to Vladimir Putin. That's who determined it.
Russia can always rebuild its military capacity, and the more humiliated they feel the more motivated they will be to rebuild.
It will take Russia years, or even decades, to rebuild its military capacity. Not just the production of jets and tanks and other systems which they won't have the money to build or buy, but the institutional knowledge to employ them effectively that comes from years of training. Plus, they're going to end up wiping out a significant chunk of the potential manpower for any future Russian military.
Why is countering Russian influence important to anyone outside of the circle of US regime cronies who have their unblinking eye on Russian natural resources?
It’s not. War benefits the powerful and the rest of us suffer the consequences. Why is it important to us that Ukrainian nazis rule over Russian speakers who have been holding them off for eight years? It’s not. The civil war in Ukraine is on Russia’s border, not ours.
Russia has oil and China.
It is a delusion to believe that war is ever a gain. It may be necessary - the better of two horrible possible outcomes - but it isn’t a gain for anyone and never will be.
Stalin: Georgian
Kruschev: Ukrainian
Brezhnev: Ukrainian
Gorbachev: half Ukrainian
There is plenty of culpability to go around, and Ukrainian revenge is not America’s problem.
We can say that the Ukrainians are being careful and effective with our money, thinking with our heads The figures I use are that we have actually sent $20 billion in military aid out of our military budget of $845 billion or 2% The Russians have spent 1/3 of their military budget of $69 billion or $22.7 billion and they intend to increase the budget to $85 million next year to make up their losses. The Russians have have had 100,000 men permanently removed from combat by death or serious wounds; scores of generals have been killed; their chief combat regiments have been chewed up; their air defense weapons are being used to bomb the Ukrainian power grid leaving their strategic bomber bases open to drone attacks; 10 or 15 oligarchs have fallen accidently out of windows or died in other mysterious ways; 5 million young professionals left the country when the war started and 300,00 young men left when mobilization began in September.
The Russian aggression in the Ukraine is also a moral issue we feel in our hearts. The Ukrainians are resisting because they know what the Russian empire is like and we are helping them because we know this, too. We know that Putin started the war by invading the Ukraine because he wants his empire back to play with; that the Russian Army advances accompanied by a wave of looting and rape; and that the Russian Army invasion is followed by a civilian regime characterized by torture chambers, the kidnapping of children and preparations for the next attack on some small state Putin thinks Russian should dominate.
Never ending wars are kind of boring when we're not dropping our own bombs ourselves.
Financing it just isn't as exciting as blowing shit up around the world.
Hope this Dem/NeoCon alliance can get us into a real war soon.
10 Commandments of War Propaganda
Falsehood In War (1928),
Lord Arthur Ponsonby
1. We do not want war
2. The other side is solely responsible for the war
3. The enemy has the face of the devil (or in the order of “ugly”)
4. The real aims of the war must be masked under noble causes
5. The enemy knowingly commits atrocities. If we commit blunders, they are unintentional
6. We suffer very few losses. The enemy’s losses are enormous
7. Our cause is sacred
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause
9. The enemy uses illegal weapons
10. Those who question our propaganda are traitors
Serious Questions...
How, the Hell, is it Our Problem?
Whether the Ukrainian nazis started the war,
or if Putin started the war,
or, if the CIA started the war...
How, the HELL, is it Our Problem?
Oh, that's RIGHT! because; IF WE HADN'T STOPPED THEM IN THE UKRAINE, THEY'D ROLL OVER EUROPE..
But, HOW? HOW would these incompetent bozos do THAT?
IF they Ever Could.. They Sure CAN'T NOW
So...
How, the HELL, is it Our Problem?
come to think about it, it's the Only Question
This will show China what Biden is made of...
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19260/china-sabotage-north-dakota
BUMBLE BEE said...
I thought it to be smartest to have Trump do it for free. It has worked before. Are you warriors holding Raytheon stock?
12/29/22, 3:50 AM
THIS^^^
Amadeus 48 said...It's pretty clear we are in this to bleed Russia white.
Russia choose the time and place and can leave the field any time it wants. The people trying too hard to blame the United States would do well to remember where the armies are and why.
Blogger Moondawggie said..."Mike, the other side (Putin's Russia) is always willing to play with fire when it comes to dealing with the west. You don't stop dictators by appeasing them: check out Neville Chamberlain's success with Anschluss in Austria and Czechoslovakia for examples. WW2 followed. "
I agree that the invasion of neighboring countries needs to be opposed for the reason you state. That's not the guiding principal stated in the tweet.
Rothman was a Russian Studies major in college, so for a moment it made sense for me where he was coming from, a nostalgia for the old Cold War days. The Eighties are calling and they really do want their foreign policy back.
Then I noticed that when Rothman graduated, the USSR would have been gone for a decade, and it made much less sense. Noah also went from Opie and Anthony's morning radio show to Commentary magazine. Somehow I don't think that's quite the path Norman Podhoretz took.
Wasn't it clear to everyone decades ago that, apart from its nuclear arsenal, Russia is a paper tiger. Why is the demonstration and continued degradation necessary?
My calculations show the US has a defense budget of $813.3B. 5.6% of that number would be "only" $45.5B. Well short of the $91B either spent or committed to Ukraine so far.
You have to factor in the graft and the kickbacks.
I'm only here to read all the Putin Rootin'poster's Vlad apologetics.
Plus, distrust anyone who claims that war is an investment.
Wow, the pro-ChiCom Xi Boosting WEF fanboys are really out in force today.
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done
Call me crazy, but it seems to me that all the USA and European allies are doing right now is fulfiiling the security obligations (to Ukraine) they agreed to via the Budapest Memorandum. We, the good guys, pledged to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression in exchange for Ukraine giving up their large stockpile of Soviet nukes. And here we are, surprisingly, doing just that.
Right?
The golden moments of crackheads and tweekers can also be observed by trained researchers and shit.
One of the more despicable patterns I see here from some is this notion that anyone who doubts the wisdom of our Ukraine policy is, to quote a couple of people, a "Russian bot" or a "Putin Rootin" poster engaging in Vlad apologetics. It's such cheap b.s. substituting of ad hominem for an actual argument (as is also another often-conjoined element - lecturing all the civilians about how they simply do not know the mechanics of war or military strategy or whatever it is that sets the writer apart in his opinion from the rest.
As for me, I am mystified by the easy assumption that the Cold War is still on, that Russia is our central adversary, and that the US has unlimited resources and the know-how to stabilize things (when we cannot even LOSE a war without making a big mess of it, a la Afghanistan). All of them, ready to fight to the last Ukrainian standing. And I am left wondering, after Russia is degraded militarily as Rothman wishes it to be, what then? Do you suppose it will disappear? Do you think the Ukrainians will no longer have to deal with it at all, and that the West shall rise again in all its glory. I don't.
One of the more despicable patterns I see here from some is this notion that anyone who doubts the wisdom of our Ukraine policy is, to quote a couple of people, a "Russian bot" or a "Putin Rootin" poster engaging in Vlad apologetics. It's such cheap b.s. substituting of ad hominem for an actual argument (as is also another often-conjoined element - lecturing all the civilians about how they simply do not know the mechanics of war or military strategy or whatever it is that sets the writer apart in his opinion from the rest.
As for me, I am mystified by the easy assumption that the Cold War is still on, that Russia is our central adversary, and that the US has unlimited resources and the know-how to stabilize things (when we cannot even LOSE a war without making a big mess of it, a la Afghanistan). All of them, ready to fight to the last Ukrainian standing. And I am left wondering, after Russia is degraded militarily as Rothman wishes it to be, what then? Do you suppose it will disappear? Do you think the Ukrainians will no longer have to deal with it at all, and that the West shall rise again in all its glory. I don't.
One thing I dislike is people who say "Ukraine is wasting our money" so you show Ukraine is wasting the Russian military so they say "why are we in Ukraine" so you say Russia is starting wars and invading countries and intends to set up an empire which the Ukrainians are resisting and we are helping in the effort so they say "if we have a purpose in the Ukraine then we are in charge and it's a proxy war and where is our exit strategy" so you say it's an alliance and Ukraine is maintaining its independence with respect to us as well as Russia so they say "if the Ukraine is independent that means it has no oversight and is wasting our money" so...
so I don't mind going round and round if it helps the Ukraine. It's tiresome but, to be honest, I don't like being in with the neo-cons. I know what they're like and I think it's a good idea to challenge them and force them to make their case even if the blind squirrel has found a nut this time. The other side got used to not having to make a case when we were being muted by tech suppression and that's one reason why they don't listen. They think we're not there because they haven't been able to hear us and so they don't have to do any work to win the argument. Sort of like Putin thinking about invading Ukraine. "They long for me to introduce righteousness in Kiev, except for a few nazi-banderists, who have no right to spew unrighteousness. Better dead than read."
Russia and Putin are NOT our enemy. And doesn't matter where the boundry is between Ukraine and Russia. Unless you're Russian or Ukrainian.
When average Americans start jabbering about "Reducing Russian influence" and "we can't reward aggression", you know they're just missing war. Its so BORING talking about domestic affairs, if only had an ENEMY we could hate and get all worked up about.
Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels,
When the first President Bush said that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait would not stand, we still may have had some credibility as the world sheriff determined to make aggression a thing of the past.
When the second President Bush said that we had to depose Saddam Hussein with a preemptive war because of fears that he might attack us someday, we lost that credibility.
People who were skeptical of our good intentions through the Cold War may have been wrong or they may have been right, but they shouldn't have lost their skepticism.
It's time for negotiations to start -- or if we really are committed to the current course, it's time for Rothman and Klain to shut up.
I love the goal-shifting: First, the complaint that "We shouldn't support Ukraine because there's no US interest at stake." Second, the response, "Well, it's in the US interest and cost-efficient to degrade Russian military power, and greatly reduce its capacity to threaten Western Europe, by supporting Ukraine in this war." Third, the revised goal, "See, you don't care about Ukraine, you just want to attack Russia." I'd laugh but it's not really funny.
jaydub: "...however, given no military expertise to draw on, our resident bots have to rely on their their ideology and hatred of the current governments in the both the US and Ukraine to inform their opinions. Those opinions are and have always been crap."
Yes, of course. No one that ever served could possibly disagree with your particular geo-political/military perspective.
As with Fauci declaring himself to be The Science, it appears you have decided to declare yourself The Mindreading Clausewitz.
Congrats. I'm assuming this isn't your first blog-"battlefield" selfie-spot "promotion".
We, the good guys, pledged to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression in exchange for Ukraine giving up their large stockpile of Soviet nukes.
No, we didn't. There's no Article 5 in the Budapest Memorandum. That's why Ukraine has wanted to be in NATO so bad.
Ukraine sought such guarantees, but the US wasn't willing to go that far. Ukraine finally accepted deliberately ambiguous language, “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”.
Russia signed the agreement too. Obviously, they aren't respecting Ukraine's borders at the moment, but they argue the agreement was with the legal, democratically elected government of Ukraine, not with the current government that came to power via a coup and that the government of Ukraine has repeatedly violate subsequent treaties, which is true.
Don't call me a Putin lover, I'm just stating the Russian position, not advocating for it.
Bob Boyd: "No, we didn't. There's no Article 5 in the Budapest Memorandum. That's why Ukraine has wanted to be in NATO so bad."
Bob, there is no point in pointing out those factual points to the majority of the Forever War/Keep The Focus Off The ChiComs/Grift Campaigners.
We invaded Serbia to establish Kosovo was the precedent for the current action. We invaded South Africa to secure resources and prop Mandela's Xhosa as they attacked their Zulu competitors, and the native South Africans were collateral damage. However, Russia did not invade Ukraine. The post-coup regime in Kiev denied essential services to Ukrainians in Crimea, prompting a vote to work with Russia that was already legally present in force to restore those services. The Donbas region was under assault for eight years before Russia joined their cause to push back the Kiev-military-paramilitary axis under Zelensky.
When the second President Bush said that we had to depose Saddam Hussein with a preemptive war because of fears that he might attack us someday, we lost that credibility.
The war started when Hussein invaded Kuwait, was joined by the first Bush, was sustained under Clinton, then ended with the second Bush. The second Iraq war was launched and funded by Obama through the Iranian surrogate, Islamic State, etc. in what evolved as the World War Spring series from Libya, to Egypt, to Syria, to Ukraine in progress.
@Drago
It's dark and lonely work, like oral sex, but somebody's got to do it.
Rothman has also said defense spending has the highest-ROI of any government spending.
It's true we're getting a good deal in terms of dead opponents to American effort (and a great one in terms of American lives), but these people talking nonsense about how using money and our weapon stock will enrich our nation need to read up on the broken windows fallacy.
Hell, Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" is only 200 pages!
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