Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Realitybites said:
Because google search is well known for providing fair and balanced information?
"I found it remarkable that not a single anti-abortion commentary about this very Catholic question showed up until page five of the Google results. So, I tried the same comparative search with socially charged questions, including: Should I help my teen transition their gender? Are unarmed Black men at greater risk for being shot by police? Are white Christians really the greatest threat to American democracy? And, is climate change really going to burn up the planet?
What I found interesting about the first-page results (where an estimated 92% of clicks come from) was that the Google results presented near-unanimous results directing me to a single, monolithic answer. Thus, parents wondering whether they should help their teen transition their gender were gently nudged to allay their concerns. People asking about white Christians and democracy were assured that white nationalists were an even greater threat than imagined. And people inquiring about climate change were warned, with absolutely no equivocation, that "the climate disaster is here" and there is no hope for "the unhabitable Earth."
https://www.deseret.com/2022/10/30/23387827/google-freespoke-search-engines-censorship-conservatives/
So Whiterock, the retired spook, is asking you to use a government affiliated search engine that is going to give you a government approved answer about everything Ukraine. Think better, and understand that a guy like MacGregor who has direct exposure to somewhat modern warfare has a better handle on things than a boomer who chased Bolsheviks in Ladas half a century ago.
LOL I know all that about Google, first hand, but my specific reference was generic = quick research. And in this case, facts are facts, buddy. There is an aid package. It has stuff in it. You can search any engine you want to use and you will find the same stuff listed - 155m arty rounds, longer range ATACMS, replenishment of Patriot batteries (plus more batteries), vehicles, etc...... We are shipping in more than enough ammo to stabilize the front lines. $1b worth is already pre-positioned and will be delivered in days. There's also additional Presidential draw-down authority. (if you don't immediately know what that means, it means you don't google enough and should reflect on whether or not you know enough to be commenting on the subject material.)
And this is before we get to the question of the impact of the passage of the aid package will have on NATO allies. Some have been waiting on us to act before stepping up their own aid levels, so our aid will not be the totality of what will be provided over the coming weeks.
Example of the kind of stuff you should be reading:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-preparing-1-bln-weapons-package-ukraine-officials-say-2024-04-23/
But you have to actually try to educate yourself if you're going to catch up to the boomers.
Your article confirms what I said. $1 billion for immediate aid, $8 billion in additional PDA, and tens of billions -- by far the bulk of the appropriation -- to replace weapons already sent.
LOL, uh...nope. You are (again) missing the details.
$29b...half is direct war-fighting aid, $14b of which is for lethal stuff (arms/ammo), and $15b of which is for combat support (meals, meds, commo, uniforms, training, intel, etc.....). Replenishment monies are about a third. The rest is non-military aid to Ukrainian Govt.
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-aid-congress-senate-china-d7b4846de76a1dfe5d2207b7eb6eeead
The "replenishment" number hints at what you missed = Presidential Drawdown Authority. PDA has its own annual statutory cap = $11b. POTUS can, on his own judgment, give up to $11b or military aid wherever he/she sees fit. The replenishment funding in the bill is merely restocking what was given last year under under the 2023 PDA limit That, of course, means that Biden now has another $11b in PDA authority for FY 2024 IN ADDITION to the funding in the aid bill. Some of that will go to Taiwan and/or Israel, but one could reasonably expect the lion's share to go to Ukraine.
The $1b in lethal aid already prepositioned for delivery in hours is under PDA.
The replenishment provided in the bill means that, from a military readiness standpoint, we have enough inventory to provide $11b in aid without affecting our own readiness.
$23 billion of the appropriation is to replace weapons that have already been delivered.. Perhaps another $4 billion pays for weapons in the process of being delivered. Only about $10 billion represents weapons yet to be produced and shipped.
Bottom line, most of this aid is already on the battlefield.
PDA is an authorization, not a funding source.
That's exactly what I'm trying to explain to you. PDA doesn't cause weapons to magically appear.
LOL Good Grief, Sam!!! PDA does indeed make weapons magically appear. We pull them today out of existing inventory and ship them tomorrow directly to the battlefield. That is precisely the purpose of PDA...emergency capability to respond first and get funding later.
You seem to think all those Abrams, F-16s, etc. are just sitting around waiting to be distributed whenever and wherever.
Indeed they are. We pulled 400 M1 Abrahms off-line with the USMC and sold them to Poland last year. We could have shipped all of them to Ukraine and let Poland purchase new models off the production line. We have THOUSANDS of Abrahms and Bradleys in active service and could spare a few hundred for a few months until we pull a corresponding number of out of the boneyards (where we have THOUSANDS of each in storage). Your disconnect with reality here is orbital.
Kind of like you think our massive GDP number means we can produce anything we want overnight and automatically win the arms race with the flick of a pen.
It most certainly does. And if we sign a big enough purchase order, ordnance manufacturers will add capacity which will be on line in a few months. Lockheed fired up a new production line for F-16s in Nov 2022. You know how that started? With the flick of a pen. They produced 8 last year and will be at a rate of 4 per month (48/yr) by 2025. The quicker you flick the pen, the quicker that kind of production happens.
The reality is that our resources are allocated in certain ways, and diverting them involves a trade-off. It affects readiness long before the number of stocks reaches zero.
Dude. The numbers involved in our aid to Ukraine are a pin-***** on our readiness. Only a handful of missile systems are even in question.
As Mearsheimer and others have pointed out, there's no sign that we have large numbers of the needed stocks available to give to Ukraine. Apparently we have more Bradleys than we know what to do with, so we're handing out a lot of them. Unfortunately that isn't what Ukraine needs right now.
Your argument presumes that we are already at full capacity short of full mobilization. That is comically incorrect. Our suppliers have to make a profit. To do that, they have to tool up for peacetime replenishment programs - replacement of old systems due to shelf-life or technological obsolescence issues. They can 2x, 3x, 4x and more if we commit to purchase enough to justify the investment. All it takes is a purchase order and they will do it. See the F-16 example above. 14 months to full production on one of the more complicated things we make. 155m arty rounds are terribly simple things. Increase in orders of magnitude would take weeks to accomplish. All it takes i the flick of a pen.
By the way, bear in mind that when this package fails to turn the tide -- and it will fail -- you're going to be obliged to belittle it and accuse Biden of "slow-walking" and "trickling out the aid." So you might want to think twice before over-hyping it too much. Just saying.
He has been slow-walking the aid. Ukrainian pilots should have been in F-16 training BEFORE Russia invaded. (We do want to sell F-16s, don't we?) It is profoundly stupid that we did not do it immediately after the war started.
Our massive GDP does indeed mean that with the signature of a purchase order, factories start building production of ordnance and weapons systems at a rates Russia cannot hope to match. Their economy is smaller than Texas, yet you are trying to make the case that it is the USA which is resource constrained. Far from it. Our limitation is the wisdom of the current POTUS, who has a policy of "however long it takes" instead of "BOHICA, buddy."
Put down the shovel, Sam! You really do not understand the subject material at all. The moment a POTUS signs the purchase order to as much as double our production of arty and missile rounds, Russia will pivot to diplomacy. They know they cannot compete. Their only hope is that the anti-war argument wins out in western Parliaments.
Here's the strategic lesson you are missing:
Nato peacetime replenishment production capacity is sufficient to match Russia military production at full mobilziation. The path to victory here is quite elementary.
Their GDP is actually a bit larger than Canada's. But you really don't understand the economics at all. Russia spent years subsidizing their defense industry and building up surge capacity to prepare for this situation. It would take us even longer, given the obstacles in a profit-based system where funding is unpredictable and inconsistent. The necessary industrial base and supply chains just aren't there.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/02/draft-pentagon-strategy-china-00129764
LOL not only do I have two degrees in a macro-economic discipline (trade), I can even read simple charts. The Texas economy, per State of Tx website, is $2.4T, ranking 8th on all three lists, well ahead of BOTH Russia and Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)#Table
Add in the $16T GDP of the EU zone and Russia is facing a 20-1 macroeconomic disadvantage.
How can you expect to be taken seriously when you argue that Russia has a industrial base which can outproduce that of Nato/EU? Nato/EU as far higher productivity rates. Nato/EU suffers not from technological limitations that Russia faces. Nato/EU peacetime military production dwarfs Russian war footing output.
All we have to do is sign purchase orders......
Russia is spending ONE-THIRD of its federal budget on the Ukraine War = $109B. They are already all-in. Nothing left to give.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/everything-front-russia-allots-third-2024-spending-defence-2023-10-02/
NATO is spending 10x that PEACETIME.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/everything-front-russia-allots-third-2024-spending-defence-2023-10-02/
We double aid to Ukraine, Russia folds.
Your economic and military expertise has served you well. I don't think there's a poster here who's capable of misunderstanding this war in greater depth than you do. But you do need to call your buddies at the Pentagon and let them in on your plan. They just put out a report on our deep, systemic problems with supply and production, which they say will take a generation to fix. Tell them to take those pens and get to flicking!
Seriously though, I wonder whether you believe half the stuff that you post here ("human wave" assaults, anyone?). We could double our aid to Ukraine and still not produce half of what Russia does. And remember we have a global empire to maintain, plus that war with China that you maniacs are already planning. Speaking of which, the Chinese have yet to commit their aid in a serious way. You are really playing one-dimensional chess if you think they'd just let us roll over the Russians.\
Last link in my prior post was incorrect. Here's the proper one:
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/6/pdf/220627-def-exp-2022-en.pdfShake out all the cobwebs in your brain and read those links carefully. You will see:
The military portion of the aid package just passed is nearly 40% of the entire Russian defense budget.
Nato defense spending, peacetime levels, is over $1T.
Russia defense spending, fully mobilized is, from multiple sources, $109B.
NATO aid (all purposes) to Ukraine exceeds Russia's entire MOD budget; and Nato military aid this year will roughly equal it. Chart below does not include the bill Congress just passed, or the additional PDA available for this year.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/Russia cannot win a war of attrition against NATO, where Nato factories are effectively matching Russian production without interruption at peacetime capacity while suffering no casualties. Russia, by comparison, is fully mobilized and losing tens of thousands of soldiers per month. A puppy cannot pull a freight train, no matter how earnestly you insist it is so.
Your Chinese strawman is cute. China has not committed serious military aid, and will not do so as long as the struggle remains contained to Ukraine. Since Nato has no intention of invading Russia, Chinese involvement is not likely to change. Neither will it change should Russia fail in Ukraine and go home. China, you see, actually does have virtually no interest in what happens in Ukraine. China will keep its powder dry for Taiwan and other contingencies in Asia. China's interest in Russia is limited to maintaining the stability of the Russian state. China could be expected to Marshall Plan Russia, massive economic aid, should Russia face worst case scenarios from a loss in Ukraine.
Biden is playing down to Russia's level, apparently to avoid escalation. I fundamentally disagree with that strategy, as it presumes the American people will support indefinitely a policy which seeks to simply hold the line and let Russia wear itself out. it seems clear to me that is the one policy the American people do NOT want to see. They would more easily support an increase in aid to force Russia to back down, which it would have no option but to do.
We could go on on this point a bit. Here's an assessment from last fall indicating Russia had a goal of devoting 40% of its budget to war-time production. But the actual budge (link above) shows it only made it to 33%. That's called "hitting the wall." Russia is maxed out......
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russias-unprecedented-war-budget-explainedbut keep talking about how we "could double aid and not produce half of what Russia does." You need that to be true. Unfortunately, it's laughably incorrect, because of the Russia part of the equation. Nato definitely could double production, effortlessly....with the flick of a pen. Russia, on the other hand, is already maxed out and likely will struggle to maintain its current effort.
