Phaedrus/69
Member
The only reason that the world can see Russia as a paper tiger is because the West has stepped up to help Ukraine. Had we not they would have been steamrolled like Crimea (which is course is properly a region of Ukraine). Remember that as recently as 2013 Ukraine's military was a train wreck, and much of the capability they did have at the beginning of the conflict was due to training & modernization from NATO nations. "Near peer" is mostly a term invented by DoD and the military industrial complex to keep tax money flowing into their coffers. But make no mistake, as incompetent as Russia has been in this illegal invasion they're still a regional power, and one with thousands of upon thousands of nuclear weapons. They pose about as much of a threat to the sovereignty of the US as China or Canada which is to say little to none, but like China they can throw a monkey wrench into our interests. Is this "political"? Of course, for as von Clausewitz observed, "War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means."
At any rate, I think it's factually incorrect to say we're expending munitions needed by the US. We've sent mostly stuff we wouldn't have used anyway, and things we can replace. The stuff we're planning to send will probably save the US money (vs keeping obsolete stuff in storage and maintaining it; note the in the US we actually do maintain our stored stuff, unlike Russia where it's rusting in a field and having the copper stripped & sold for scrap by Private Conscriptivitch). Besides, what are we saving those munitions for? Most of them were stockpiled to use against the USSR, then Russia. If you had five AR15s and saw a party of home invaders coming down the road, would it be smarter to grab one in each hand or to give one to your next door neighbor? These weapons were built for the this fight, and each one Ukraine uses is one Russian soldier in a bag that won't be engaged in adventurism anywhere else. France knew this in the eighteenth century which is why they backed the Colonies that would later become the USA. They threw in their lot with us because it degraded English power. Had they not we'd probably still have the English royal on our pound notes.
I suppose though we're getting into topics a bit out of bounds at THR.
At any rate, I think it's factually incorrect to say we're expending munitions needed by the US. We've sent mostly stuff we wouldn't have used anyway, and things we can replace. The stuff we're planning to send will probably save the US money (vs keeping obsolete stuff in storage and maintaining it; note the in the US we actually do maintain our stored stuff, unlike Russia where it's rusting in a field and having the copper stripped & sold for scrap by Private Conscriptivitch). Besides, what are we saving those munitions for? Most of them were stockpiled to use against the USSR, then Russia. If you had five AR15s and saw a party of home invaders coming down the road, would it be smarter to grab one in each hand or to give one to your next door neighbor? These weapons were built for the this fight, and each one Ukraine uses is one Russian soldier in a bag that won't be engaged in adventurism anywhere else. France knew this in the eighteenth century which is why they backed the Colonies that would later become the USA. They threw in their lot with us because it degraded English power. Had they not we'd probably still have the English royal on our pound notes.
I suppose though we're getting into topics a bit out of bounds at THR.
