"This is why, dear readers, it’s extremely unlikely Israel is going to permit the USA to ship these systems to Ukraine". I'm just curious: is there any fool on this planet who would assume that Israel would ever send patriots to Ukraine? :-) I'm quite surprised by how many Ukrainians have naive expectations from Israel (to put it mildly)
No. Israel supports Israel, first, last, and always. While I support them and can see they are despite numerous issues still the most free country in the Middle East, I recognize that Israel will always take care of themselves first over any ally or friend, even if they are Jewish.
Lebanon was called "The Switzerland of the Middle East" and it wasn't empty words. Lebanon was the most developed country in this region. The war which was provoked and supported by one of its neighbours threw Lebanon into poverty. The rich country became a poor with religious fanatics in the head.
The sectarian problems were present in Lebanon always, e.g. see civil war in 1860. Also, look at the former Yugoslavia - even many local intellectuals and artists there though how peaceful is their inter-national co-living, while other guys there were sharping their knives and waiting to attack their neighbors. And no foreign country could be blamed for that. Same for Lebanon, Syria, etc. - many repeats the false story how they were peaceful and foreign influence changed everything. But the sectarian tensions were always there, even if elites believed they suppressed them.
How did Lebanon become The little Switzerland with all these problems? You exaggerate the significance of the problems. Of course, Lebanon had many problems. Every society has many problems, even Switzerland.
I really wish we had mothballed some of our factories like had been talked about in the 90s. Or at least set them up for rapid expansion. But no, these types of wars would never happen again. I think our leadership lost faith in humanity as we have continually proven to be able to do "impossible" stuff like that as a species.
It wasn't the first time either. The US shed most of its muscle after the Civil War as well, happy with small-scale special military operations for the next fifty years, even though European countries were armed to the teeth. The 1990s came after two world wars, decades of standoff including Vietnam, then finally the disintegration of the single comparably powerful adversary. Who on earth could have started any major war at that point?
It seems to happen every couple of generations, one goes through all the stress and is relieved to be done with it, "forever", then the next one gets funny ideas and starts it all over again.
At least some of the descriptions I have read about the Korean war claimed that US had managed to «sted a lot of its muscles» allready in the give year from 1945 to 1950.
True. After WW2, the US government knew they didn't need the same level of production but wanted to be able to scale up quickly given the worldwide tension with the Soviet Union. So they planned to mothball factories, ships and planes. But you can't just let the equipment sit there, it has to have a minimum level of maintenance. (This wasn't done for equipment stored in the middle east so when it was transferred to Ukraine they had to restore the equipment first).
The problem was, Congress didn't want to fund the minimal maintainence so the production capacity wasn't retained. One result was a shortage of artillery ammo. The US still had enough 155 mm ammo, but they were short of 105 mm ammo for two years. Well, short by WW2 standards, at least. By 1953, they resumed peak production of 105 mm ammo.
When the Soviet Union broke up, the US government told contractors that they needed to consolidate. All sorts of bases were shut down and defense companies bought other defense companies. The US didn't need any submarines at that point but they maintained production of a couple subs, building them on a much slower schedule, to maintain a minimal work force with the associated expertise, along with the supply chain.
30 years later, the US is building a new generation of subs and is encountering understandable and unsurprising issues with a faster production schedule.
Would have been really hard to explain why this military capacity is being retained. Nobody at that time could have predicted that in the 2020s we'd be doing mass disposal of the USSR stockpiles fueled by someone's inferiority complex.
A better question would be why this wasn't fixed after 2008, 2014 and even 2022. The warnings were there but the money wasn't. Everyone was instead too busy building bitcoin "factories".
2008 was similar to other minor Post-Soviet conflicts with Russian intervention, it mostly affected areas already controlled by separatists, and other countries were quite happy with buying the "sphere of influence" narrative anyway. 2014 caused a bigger scandal, but experts on international relations were like "Putin wouldn't start a full-scale war, he's not insane" right until Feb 2022. Since then, it's pure inertia.
This is all so common. In the 1930s, Chamberlain was appeasing Germany because Hitler couldn't have been so insane as to start a war if he could get a few pieces of ethnic German territories peacefully. Stalin chose to ignore the intelligence about the pending attack, because the idea of an unprepared Wehrmacht taking on the gargantuan Red Army seemed just insane.
The Planet is changing faster.. And not in a good direction. This is our legacy for our children. It’s a shame. That terrorist country should be wiped from this Earth once for all. And maybe after that we will have peace again.
"This is why, dear readers, it’s extremely unlikely Israel is going to permit the USA to ship these systems to Ukraine". I'm just curious: is there any fool on this planet who would assume that Israel would ever send patriots to Ukraine? :-) I'm quite surprised by how many Ukrainians have naive expectations from Israel (to put it mildly)
Ukraine, the counry with a Jewish president - makes sense for Israel to support Ukraine.
No. Israel supports Israel, first, last, and always. While I support them and can see they are despite numerous issues still the most free country in the Middle East, I recognize that Israel will always take care of themselves first over any ally or friend, even if they are Jewish.
I'll add: they'll let the whole world burn before they jeopardize national interests. Look what they did to Biden's campaign!
PS: it's easy to be the freest country in the Middle East, if you've been founded by Europeans :-)
Mostly funded by the US, especially militarily.
I meant "been founded, established" not funded
Yes but without the US it would be a different state now
Lebanon was called "The Switzerland of the Middle East" and it wasn't empty words. Lebanon was the most developed country in this region. The war which was provoked and supported by one of its neighbours threw Lebanon into poverty. The rich country became a poor with religious fanatics in the head.
The sectarian problems were present in Lebanon always, e.g. see civil war in 1860. Also, look at the former Yugoslavia - even many local intellectuals and artists there though how peaceful is their inter-national co-living, while other guys there were sharping their knives and waiting to attack their neighbors. And no foreign country could be blamed for that. Same for Lebanon, Syria, etc. - many repeats the false story how they were peaceful and foreign influence changed everything. But the sectarian tensions were always there, even if elites believed they suppressed them.
How did Lebanon become The little Switzerland with all these problems? You exaggerate the significance of the problems. Of course, Lebanon had many problems. Every society has many problems, even Switzerland.
By any chance, could Israel send these Patriots to USA, so that USA could send some of their own to Ukraine instead?
The only hope is that some things may happen unofficially.
fuck netanyahu
I really wish we had mothballed some of our factories like had been talked about in the 90s. Or at least set them up for rapid expansion. But no, these types of wars would never happen again. I think our leadership lost faith in humanity as we have continually proven to be able to do "impossible" stuff like that as a species.
It wasn't the first time either. The US shed most of its muscle after the Civil War as well, happy with small-scale special military operations for the next fifty years, even though European countries were armed to the teeth. The 1990s came after two world wars, decades of standoff including Vietnam, then finally the disintegration of the single comparably powerful adversary. Who on earth could have started any major war at that point?
It seems to happen every couple of generations, one goes through all the stress and is relieved to be done with it, "forever", then the next one gets funny ideas and starts it all over again.
At least some of the descriptions I have read about the Korean war claimed that US had managed to «sted a lot of its muscles» allready in the give year from 1945 to 1950.
True. After WW2, the US government knew they didn't need the same level of production but wanted to be able to scale up quickly given the worldwide tension with the Soviet Union. So they planned to mothball factories, ships and planes. But you can't just let the equipment sit there, it has to have a minimum level of maintenance. (This wasn't done for equipment stored in the middle east so when it was transferred to Ukraine they had to restore the equipment first).
The problem was, Congress didn't want to fund the minimal maintainence so the production capacity wasn't retained. One result was a shortage of artillery ammo. The US still had enough 155 mm ammo, but they were short of 105 mm ammo for two years. Well, short by WW2 standards, at least. By 1953, they resumed peak production of 105 mm ammo.
When the Soviet Union broke up, the US government told contractors that they needed to consolidate. All sorts of bases were shut down and defense companies bought other defense companies. The US didn't need any submarines at that point but they maintained production of a couple subs, building them on a much slower schedule, to maintain a minimal work force with the associated expertise, along with the supply chain.
30 years later, the US is building a new generation of subs and is encountering understandable and unsurprising issues with a faster production schedule.
https://news.usni.org/2023/03/31/navy-estimates-5-more-years-for-virginia-attack-sub-production-to-hit-2-boats-a-year
Would have been really hard to explain why this military capacity is being retained. Nobody at that time could have predicted that in the 2020s we'd be doing mass disposal of the USSR stockpiles fueled by someone's inferiority complex.
A better question would be why this wasn't fixed after 2008, 2014 and even 2022. The warnings were there but the money wasn't. Everyone was instead too busy building bitcoin "factories".
2008 was similar to other minor Post-Soviet conflicts with Russian intervention, it mostly affected areas already controlled by separatists, and other countries were quite happy with buying the "sphere of influence" narrative anyway. 2014 caused a bigger scandal, but experts on international relations were like "Putin wouldn't start a full-scale war, he's not insane" right until Feb 2022. Since then, it's pure inertia.
This is all so common. In the 1930s, Chamberlain was appeasing Germany because Hitler couldn't have been so insane as to start a war if he could get a few pieces of ethnic German territories peacefully. Stalin chose to ignore the intelligence about the pending attack, because the idea of an unprepared Wehrmacht taking on the gargantuan Red Army seemed just insane.
Thank you very miuch for explaining so many issues.
The Planet is changing faster.. And not in a good direction. This is our legacy for our children. It’s a shame. That terrorist country should be wiped from this Earth once for all. And maybe after that we will have peace again.
Lots of countries enter in this description.
Wait, Ukraine uses 1,900 PAC-3 or does this number include also S-300 missiles they had before?
Thanks for these 3 reports Don