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The broader point, though, is that this is yet another step up the escalation ladder for the United States and we're inching closer to direct involvement in a territorial dispute that has little strategic value for the US. Many don't like that fact, but it's still true. That we're doing this means we're either running out of things to give Ukraine, their counter-offensive is not going as well as expected or planned, or some combination of both. I can steelman an argument for US involvement, but it pretty much stops at degrading Russian combat power to the point where they can't project force anymore, outside of their nuclear deterrent. We've reached that point. There isn't really a coherent end game to this war as long as the US continues to print money and ship our weapons to Ukraine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munition...
If we need to perpetually spend like 3% of our defense budget on Ukraine... That's fine? We're not really dedicated to it like the $Trillion/year we spent on Iraq or Afghanistan.
One can even argue that all the data we are getting from Patriot systems and Drones is good for the Taiwan situation. Out defenses and weapons are being tested, while China's are not. We will have upgrades and improvements that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten thanks to Ukrainian war.
From a purely selfish perspective, USA is a big winner of Ukraine/Russia war, much like the Nazi Germany was the winner of the Spanish civil war.
A war in an allied nation where our weapons, doctrine and theories is tested puts us up in ways that money cannot buy.
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We are learning how to spin up 155mm production lines and Stinger missiles thanks to the Ukrainian war. We've learned of the hole in our air defenses that drones pose. We've seen how naval drones work vs the Russian navy (and a preview for how it'd work vs the Chinese Navy). Etc. Etc.
The only reason we are sending these cluster bombs is because we've failed to spin up production of 155mm shells fast enough, and our stockpiles of that shell were too shallow in practice.
We've learned that Switzerland is not a reliable ally. We've learned that Germany's doctrine relies upon Swiss AA ammunition and that Germany is grossly unprepared to ramp up AA defense production.
Good. We learned, our generals will remember and we will be in a better position when a real war hits us. This was all a test and we can use the results of the test to improve ourselves.
And who knows? Maybe we can even keep Ukraine free and prosperous when it all ends. Might as well try our best to help them while getting all this valuable data.
Could you please explain your reasoning?
The fewer tanks Russia has, the less they're able to mess around with other countries. That means fewer Russo-Georgian War (2008) events, because Russia's military is just left weaker overall.
We need to ensure that the Russo-Ukrainian War (2014 to 2023) is the last destabilizing push Russia does in the near future. Sure, they can rebuild later, but we can make that rebuilding as costly as possible (ex: sanctions on chips and other strategic parts that they need to actually build these weapons).
Russia's economy is not like ours. We can certainly outspend them in production. We know that they're using 152mm shells at a rate exceeding 155mm shells (because their shells are less accurate than our shells).
And Russia's wartime economy is weaker than ours, they simply don't have as much production as us either (the combined might of NATO: not just USA but also Germany, Poland, UK, etc. etc). The war-materials they use in Ukraine they cannot use in other countries. This will prevent another Georgia-like or Ukraine-like situation, because Russia simply won't have the strength to mess around anymore.
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EDIT: In particular, we know that Moldova is on Russia's crosshairs. By making sure that Russia is stopped in Ukraine, then we save Moldova. Even if Ukraine is stalemated (or even conquered), the next country down the line has better security the more resistance we put up in Ukraine.
>By making sure that Russia is stopped in Ukraine, then we save Moldova.
To this point on Moldova ... Probably less than 1% of Americans could find Moldova on a map without googling. Probably less than 5% of congressmen. Pretending that it's existence outside of Russia's sphere of influence is some critical part of this war effort is downright preposterous. Maybe that's how some people steelman it, but I don't buy it. Moreover, pretending that Moldova is a critical part of the US sphere of influence is even more preposterous. Again, I don't disagree that degrading/destroying Russian combat power has some benefits for the US' ability to project power abroad (i.e. in the Pacific), and some benefits for weapons systems evaluation. I just simply don't buy these contortions that the US security sphere extends globally and any country that has weak sovereignty is now a US protectorate.
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Something appears to have happened post Cold War (probably related to 9/11 and the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) that has caused a lot of Americans (apologies if you are not one) to reflexively want to "do something!!" about this war. It's, I think, started to jade a longer term historical perspective about why nations go to war in the first place and leads to situations like this, where we have to actively come up with reasons to continue a war in Europe because ending it would be "bad". If the war ended tomorrow with the current borders as they are today, it's not like the history books would think of Russia as the good guys or a neutral party.
The thing kind of hinges on whether you consider the Russian invasions of (so far) Georgia and Ukraine separate, narrowly bounded wars with no consequences for each beyond their boundaries, and no context, or if you see them as a single expanding pattern of aggression directly responding to particular opportunities created by perceived lack of willingness of the international community to constrain further aggression.
Did the Munich Peace Agreement avoid a war in 1938 over the Sudetenland? Sure. Did it contribute positively to European stability and security in any but the shortest possible term? I think most would agree the answer is “no,” Chamberlain’s triumphant declaration of “Peace for our time” aside.
It just is. All you need for proof of that is Finland and Sweden, who reacted very strongly to the invasion of Ukraine to join NATO.
Russia will do what Russia does. And we need to come up with plans to protect our allies. Ideally, Europe would be strong enough to defend themselves but USA's overwhelming military could use less than those 5% or 3% numbers you were talking about there to help our our European friends.
Its very cheap from the USA perspective, and provides plenty of assurances of raw, brutal defense. The kind of which Russia (and China) cannot ignore.
And ignore they will. No amount of signatures on the Budapest Memorandum prevented Putin from invading Ukraine.
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There's nothing "unstable" about Ukraine fighting for its survival. The unstable part is Russia invading Ukraine. The question is how to stop Russia from invading other countries.
The answer is to stop Russia in Ukraine. If Russia is stopped here, they won't attack other countries. Its really that simple.
I think getting the European NATO members to pony up and develop their own defense capabilities is long overdue, because there's been a bit of a free-rider problem since the end of the Cold War. Partially this is the result of a general failure of US leadership to posit what, exactly, NATO is supposed to be absent an Iron Curtain in Europe. I also vehemently agree that, in terms of dollars spent, this has been probably the greatest return on R&D dollars spent by US defense since WWII and has exposed pretty wide gaps in procurement (in fairness many have known and been screaming about these gaps for a while, but now they can't be explained away as not important "because War on Terror").
Where I think we part ways is probably at the definition of "stop". We've basically stalemated, with Russia getting no support from abroad and Ukraine getting extensive support from NATO and the US especially. Is a stalemate a "stop"? Is it "return to pre-war borders"? Is it "Crimea is back under control of Ukraine"? Is it "Ukraine is in NATO"? No one can really say, and that's where the unknown unknowns exist. For what it's worth, I actually agree with some who say that Ukraine is a de facto member of NATO already, but making them a de jure member must, absolutely must mean that all members wish to fight WWIII over the Donbass. That's a hard sell for normal people.
Even if this goes on for the next 20 years, we'd have spent less on the Ukrainian war than a single year of Afghanistan.
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We still man the South Korean line, hold drills and protect them because protecting the South Koreans from the North Koreans is in our interests (and in the interests of pretty much every Android developer)
>With only a few dozen billion/year being spent on this, I don't see any reason why USA should think of stopping.
In a nutshell, that's my problem here. There really is no end game. We could evaporate 25% of Ukrainian and Russian fighting age men in this conflict, and you could still make the argument that "we just gotta test that new weapons system" or "to Sevastopol, or Moldova will be next, I promise".
We just got out of a pointless 20 year conflict, and now the best steelman we can come up with is "this time a forever war is good actually".
And elsewhere:
What is the stop? No one can really say.
This seems like a strange thing to say, given this war has a very clear and obvious metric (apart from people or materiel). Which has been, since after the 3rd week or so, moving monotonically in Ukraine's favor; sometimes slowly like now, at other times very quickly; but never oscillating or swinging back in Russia's favor.
There's also the matter of Putin's own impending demise or convalescence, not too far off -- and the inevitable consequences this will bring.
So not only does the war have a clear "stop" -- it has a built-in expiration date.
There are still unknowns, and things could go either way. But it's not like there's no very clearly defined "goal", especially for Ukraine. Or no way to measure velocity towards that goal.
What is this "built-in expiration date"?
I don't doubt that you seriously believe these numbers exist, but I think you're imagining that they're tied to a specific event you want to see (Putin dropping dead of a heart attack or something). People have been predicting both the Russian and Ukrainian military "collapse" to be "any day now" for almost a year. Indeed, they also predicted that the Russian government itself would collapse not 3 weeks ago.
As an aside, one thing I learned from the Afghanistan war is that when your leaders - political and military - are not giving you clear, concise, specific, and measurable objectives in a conflict (e.g. amorphous bullshit like "increase host nation capacity") it's a recipe for nothing getting done for a long time. I see a similar phenomenon here, but the stakes are dramatically higher.
Unlike the Taliban who fought with incredibly cheap weapons, Russia has a limited amount of sophisticated artillery, tanks, and missiles.
Every tank, missile, airplane, helicopter Russia loses is one that will never threaten a European nation ever again
As long as the hard metrics are moving in our favor, it's good. The thing about Afghanistan is that we reached the point of minimal Taliban army in like December 2001 and didn't know what to do after that.
Russia's army is much bigger. So we have to spend months or even years corroding their army. After that, it will take decades for Russia to rebuild. It's a very different situation than Afghanistan.
It's not like Russia's army is infinite here. It's large but finite.
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But let's talk about lines on the map. Should Russia keep control of Crimea? Should we let Russians expand their territory at their leisure?
How does letting Russia annex territory help European security?
Mind you, this is the exact opposite situation than Afghanistan. All we Americans are doing are funding a rebellion inside of Crimea or Donetsk and hoping the territory gets returned eventually.
If not, we make the Russians pay for their mistake to discourage future annexation of territory.
This is closer to us funding the Taliban in 80s, rather than fighting the Taliban in the 00s. We have plenty of weapons and weapon production. The local population has high morale and is motivated. Our objectives align and unlike the Taliban/Mujhadeen we have better long term assurances that the Ukrainians will be a better ally with us in the long term.
Like what is the downside for supporting the Ukrainians or Koreans for the next 50 years? Like $50 Billion/year? We absolutely can pay that.
You are comparing/contrasting to Afghanistan which cost more than 20x the money and directly risked US lives, that had obviously fewer gains.
>Like what is the downside for supporting the Ukrainians or Koreans for the next 50 years? Like $50 Billion/year? We absolutely can pay that.
This, right here, is the kind of folly I'm talking about. As the war progresses do you not see how we have to keep walking up the escalation ladder as Russia - correctly! - sees this conflict as one that is more and more a direct one with the United States? There isn't even the pretense of balancing the human cost and escalation risk with what our security objectives even are, because the latter are left nebulous or undefined and the former is written off as just a cost of doing business (perhaps literally). Indeed, that seems to be the tone of our "elites" who wish to bring a country actively in a war into NATO, perhaps with the intention of immediately invoking Article 5 - all without any debate among the citizens of member states who would have to bear that cost. Never thought I'd see it, but "forever wars are good now" is I suppose the natural progression of how Americans (I am one) would deal with losing.
The strategic interest is that we punish Russia for taking Crimea and annexing swaths of land.
Any other country that makes this mistake will be punished by the USA. We cannot let countries just take over huge swaths of land of other countries like Hitler did Poland, (formerly called) Czechoslovakia, Austria or France.
When power-hungry dictators think that its in their interest to conquer land, they'll continue to conquer land. If they see that the world's largest military is willing and able to come to the defender's aid, then those countries around the world will stop thinking about attacking smaller nations.
This is in our strategic interest because China is eyeing Taiwan. If China decides to attack Taiwan, then they know that the might of the US Military stands against them. If not directly, then at very least indirectly.
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The fact remains: the "plan" was that Russia took over Ukraine and then USA supports an insurrection over the next decade with anti-tank Javelins. Ukraine overperformed: their army still stands, their leader survived the assassination attempts. Its only natural we USA reward them for their efforts.
We're giving Ukraine more arms than we ever expected to give them, but that's because they're doing so, so so so much better than anyone in the USA could have dreamed or planned for. There's a chance Ukraine actually kicks Russia out, and if _THEY_, the Ukrainians, are willing to fight for that I say we let them. Its really not that much money that we're giving them. And its in our strategic interests to defend the 1994 Budapest memorandum. (we _HAVE_ to show the world that disarming from nuclear weapons gives them a security guarantee / benefit from the United States. We want more countries disarming from nukes).
The $50 Billion or so we're spending on the Ukrainians this past year have been so much better than the $10+ Trillions we spent on the Afghanis. If this deal remains this cheap, its not even going to make me blink. I think you're not realizing how tiny the Ukrainian war budget really is.
Yes, the goals are vague. But the goals are vague because the Ukrainians are overperforming so much better than our stated goals.
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So strategic interest?
1. Punishing those who annex other territory
2. Supporting the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and showing the world that nuclear disarmament works, maybe not on the Russian/Soviet side but at least on the USA side of the agreement.
3. Permanently reducing the Russian military through the atrophy of this war.
4. Testing our weapons in support of Taiwan should China be stupid enough to do anything in the next decade.
The one that never applied to Afghanistan. I definitely concur about non-measurable metrics. But the metrics in Ukraine are very specific and absolutely measurable. Essentially the exact opposite of the situation in that conflict, in this regard.
Putin's croaking soon isn't a requirement for this thing to stop. The main point is that not something that's going to happen in the far off future. Which means that most likely this conflict has similar bounds time-wise as well.
If by "people" you mean random Youtubers -- yeah, "people" have been predicting all kinds of stuff. But very few of the analysts with actual expertise in these things have been making catastrophic predictions of the sort you're talking about (not even about the mutiny, or whatever it was 3 weeks ago). They've been quite level-headed and consistent in what they've been saying, actually.
With that - I think we can find our own "stop", also. We don't have to agree about where this thing is ultimately heading.
For my own part, I'll leave deliberations on that topic -- to those who are actually fighting it or living through it.
That's the problem here, you are arguing deliberately for a forever war and writing it off as "no trust me this time it's actually a good idea". You aren't even developing that justification from first principles ("democracy good, Russians bad" would at least be consistent if not repetitive and circular) I think that's at a minimum unusual, and at maximum downright crazy because deliberately seeking to maximize a war a) obviously maximizes the human cost and b) in this case edges very close to an actual World War.
And no, just because one doesn't know the end date (or even a range) doesn't put a conflict in the "forever" category. Do you think the Western powers knew how long it would get that job finished, back around '41-'42?
So, no, I don't need to take the "forever war" bait.
This is getting boring. You can keep on playing that game if you like. Just not with me.
>If you want Germany under Russian control in 30 years stopping giving Ukraine better weapons is the way to go.
I'm struggling to understand how this would happen, given Russia is at the point where they're pulling out mothballed T-34s for this and Germany has its own defense industry with modern weapons systems across all levels of war. "If we don't start WWIII over the Donbass, it's on to Berlin for the Russians!" isn't a statement grounded in any evidence or reality.
Russia will have a generation raised during this war and war propaganda. Right now Russians sabotage the war by inaction and evasion because not that many people actually want to actively participate. That will change over time if the new generation is indoctrinated. This can’t be allowed to happen.
If it was Germany on Russian border and without NATO article 5 instead of Ukraine, Berlin would have been taken in 3 days, no amount of modern manufacturing will save you from not having a standing army with proper equipment.
>If it was Germany on Russian border and without NATO article 5 instead of Ukraine, Berlin would have been taken in 3 days, no amount of modern manufacturing will save you from not having a standing army with proper equipment.
Sure, if you posit a bunch of things as true that are not true, you can make any analogy you want.
But it’s far from being defeated. It’s not on the brink. It did not even mobilize the economy. The average guy in Moscow lived as well as before the war or better.
About the manufacturing: this is not new technology, you just need to commit to it. US was never ready for an artillery war, US is air and sea power. The US does not have a lot of things Russians have just because they have a different doctrine. The doctrine Ukraine can’t use because it does not have modern planes and aircraft carriers. Russia had so much ammo stockpiled (many times more than all the West combined) that it was not ready for it to start running out.
Right - people need to get their model numbers straight. What they're pulling up are mothballed T-54/55s, a.k.a. "mammoth poo":
Actually the main concern in Ukraine is stopping the mass murder, rape and torture of civilians.
Bet you didn't think of that.
Fortunately, there is a very good pragmatic argument for helping Ukraine win.
It's not like it's a big head-scratcher.
My opposition is on the grounds of the human and economic cost of land contaminated with unexploded submunitions.
But if Russia's already using them in their usual profligate manner, and they'll help the Ukrainian war effort, then my objections fade to a reluctant sigh.
Well I'll be damned, Max Verstappen is on HN.
The idea that the increased effectiveness of DPCIMs will save lives is a rather theoretical argument. Perhaps it will be comforting to armless children in the future? Because that kind of casualty is a known fact.
You know who removed their limbs?
The fucking russians.