Gloomy Saturday

[Arde]

Today Munich is not about passion for BMWs. I feel gloomy as Kamala Harris meets Zelenski in Munich. It feels Europe may return to its ethnic, borders. and invasion malaise. Apologies for my gloomy mood, how bad do the actors have to be to let a country with 1/20th of the US GDP mess up the works, globally...Just venting, as usual.

 

[scottevest]

Agreed completely. We, www.scottevest.com, have several key contractors in Ukraine. It is a horrible situation.

 

[Stan]

Russian = Bangladesh with nuclear weapons.
Absent the nuclear threat, I think the push back would be more forceful.
But, I am not a geopolitician

 

[Dan Wood]

It is good to see that NATO is aligned again. I just wish the US political system was as aligned. The good surprise was that Germany will stop Nord Stream 2. I feel really sorry for Ukraine and what might happen.

 

[CSteve]

While, sadly, this might end badly for Ukraine, no matter which way it goes it will end even worse for Putin. Although he has spent billions of rubles upgrading his once second world army driven by badly treated conscripts, officers and enlisted alike, the Molotov Cocktail he might? toss will have lots more blowback for him and his country.

Like Stan I am not a geo-politician. Just my two rubles worth.

 

[Arde]

I think the Germans are so dependent of Russian natural gas, and fear so much the Russians, that Nord Stream 2 will happen. I think Putin will annex the separatist regions and NATO will just complain, and put brief economic penalties on oligarchs nobody knows.
US role is transitioning from the Wuhan period to the Donbas period, and I was kind enough to spell it with a single 's'.

 

[CSteve]

I hope you are right Arde.

 

[Arde]

I hope you are right Arde.

This time I hope to be wrong.
Our incompetent leaders have imposed sanctions on Russia's exports.
Let's see, their top 4 exports are energy, you limit that and that increases the global energy prices, Russia gets higher per-unit revenues, and exports to China and a myriad of non-aligned players. Russia gets more revenue or same revenue on smaller unit volume.
What else are we going to miss from Russia? Caviar?

Harvard economist and former Obama advisor says Russia is 'basically a big gas station' and is otherwise 'incredibly unimportant' in the global economy

On the brink of imposing sanctions on Russia, the US and Europe have sought to reduce a ripple effect that could destabilize their own economies.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[dang]

I still think they missed an opportunity. A massive air drop of vodka on both front lines, wait two days, invasion is over.

 

[WALTER]

This time I hope to be wrong.
Our incompetent leaders have imposed sanctions on Russia's exports.
Let's see, their top 4 exports are energy, you limit that and that increases the global energy prices, Russia gets higher per-unit revenues, and exports to China and a myriad of non-aligned players. Russia gets more revenue or same revenue on smaller unit volume.
What else are we going to miss from Russia? Caviar?

Harvard economist and former Obama advisor says Russia is 'basically a big gas station' and is otherwise 'incredibly unimportant' in the global economy

On the brink of imposing sanctions on Russia, the US and Europe have sought to reduce a ripple effect that could destabilize their own economies.

www.businessinsider.com

Harsh assessment of our leadership. What exactly do you suggest to do, nothing? I certainly don’t want to get caught in another military conflict. My suggestion would be to give the sanctions time to work…I have a feeling Putin wants no part of a full scale invasion/occupation.

 

[Dan Wood]

Harsh assessment of our leadership. What exactly do you suggest to do, nothing? I certainly don’t want to get caught in another military conflict. My suggestion would be to give the sanctions time to work…I have a feeling Putin wants no part of a full scale invasion/occupation.

Today the Russian stock market is down 46% and 1 ruble = 0.012 USD. This isn't looking good for Russia!

 

[Arde]

Harsh assessment of our leadership. What exactly do you suggest to do, nothing? I certainly don’t want to get caught in another military conflict. My suggestion would be to give the sanctions time to work…I have a feeling Putin wants no part of a full scale invasion/occupation.

When Obama draws a line in the sand in Syria against chemical weapons and then does nothing and creates a vacuum for Russia, it matters. When Russia kills with Novichov poison in UK soil and they prove it yet do nothing, t matters. When Russia does damage through proven cyber attacks in the US and we do no thing it matters.
What I suggested for a while is that the 89 B$ worth of military gear that these leaders in their great naïveté left for the Taliban should have been transported to Ukraine. Instead we scrambled to provide 1B$ of hardware to Ukraine with great fanfare. What I suggest is to back Taiwan or bring the semiconductor manufacturing urgently to the US.

I hope folks do not perceive this as political. This is about freedom and right of governance, and I am shocked at the apathy of this board about such global affairs.

 

[dang]

What I suggested for a while is that the 89 B$ worth of military gear that these leaders in their great naïveté left for the Taliban should have been transported to Ukraine.

I think this is very over simplified. The US military equipment left behind in Afghanistan was suppose to be for the Afghan army, which basically folded as soon as we said we were leaving. So our choice was to say "screw you" to the Afghan army well in advance and remove it (move it somewhere else) or stay with our agreement that we would back the Afghan army with that equipment. It was a lose lose for us. It's not that simple either, but I guess I give more credit to our military leaders than you do. The vast majority of the air craft and a lot of the surface vehicles are not operational or won't be because they don't know how to use it and/or can't survive without supplies and maintenance. We've been there before, and again, I trust our military leaders for the most part.

Not sure how much apathy there is on this board since the members have been encouraged not to talk about this kind of stuff.

 

[Markos]

Not sure how much apathy there is on this board since the members have been encouraged not to talk about this kind of stuff.

This!

We have a bunch of successful educated and politically diverse members. @Arde you are taking a big leap with your apathy statement. What actionable outcomes are you expecting from a thread like this?

I’m thoroughly freaked out about the events that are transpiring. I have zero interest in discussing it here however.

 

[WALTER]

It’s not apathy Arde; it’s the hard learned lesson that you can not want success more than the people you are assisting. I was an advisor to an Afghan military unit; me and my guys did a great job but it was clear we were more interested in their future viability as military than they were. We knew they would fail after we left, but none thought it would be a matter of days; I predicted they would last a year. Of the equipment we left there, it’s not as easy as transferring it to another nation, it’s more a matter of what they can absorb and sustain themselves. I can almost guarantee you that most of what we left behind that has a motor in it is inoperable now.

 

[Bmachine]

It’s not apathy Arde; it’s the hard learned lesson that you can not want success more than the people you are assisting. I was an advisor to an Afghan military unit; me and my guys did a great job but it was clear we were more interested in their future viability as military than they were. We knew they would fail after we left, but none thought it would be a matter of days; I predicted they would last a year. Of the equipment we left there, it’s not as easy as transferring it to another nation, it’s more a matter of what they can absorb and sustain themselves. I can almost guarantee you that most of what we left behind that has a motor in it is inoperable now.

Very interesting first hand experience! Thank you for sharing that.

 

[teahead]

Europe needs to stop really soon, depend on Russia for its energy.


Should have stopped 20 years ago.

What were they thinking?

 

[Arde]

I know very little about our military leaders, so I trust them.
I know the civilians running the show now made a big stink about the Russians putting a bounty on our soldiers during the elections with no proof, and now we have the Russians doing malignant warfare on people that clearly do not want to be Russians, and these same people now in the White House are shitting in their pants. I am ashamed of our stance. I hate hypocrisy, I hate to lose.
Coming from three generations of immigrants caused by Europe's 20th century being a cursed continent, I thought the US was the light, Pax Americana, a new century, only to witness another European disaster. I am ashamed of the leader of the West being a deer in the headlights person at the helm in what could be WWIII.
I have Ukranian friends and colleagues, and I feel their pain.
We invented linear programming to solve complex logistical problems, do a google maps search and see how close it would have been to move 89B$ worth of gear to Ukraine... Was it that hard?

PS: Again, this is not partisan politics speech here, this is way deeper and I just feel people have to take a stand in every venue they are.

 

[dang]

do a google maps search and see how close it would have been to move 89B$ worth of gear to Ukraine... Was it that hard?

Yes.

Here's something to think about. What if we had moved our military hardware to Ukraine. Do you think it would keep Russia out? Relying on the Ukrainian army to use our equipment without our guys there to help? We're not sending our troops into Ukraine. Russia will ride into the country and take what's there, including U.S. military hardware.

And why would we have moved it to Ukraine instead of other NATO countries? What about other conflicts in that part of the world? Did we know that Russia was going to invade Ukraine when we left Afghanistan?

 

[Gransin]

The constant, albeit pretty small and under the surface worry about our neighbors suddenly became very real over the last couple of days. Talks about what happened 1917 as a mistake isn't great news for us.
If Putin is ready to do that to Ukraine, there's no telling what the next steps might be. No need to worry, yet, is the message from our leaders and what else can we do.