I would also add one more argument for those Americans that still mention "our money spent on Ukraine".
Your money were spent on US defence all those years, and that in vain. It is 600 billions every year, with two major adversaries Russia and China.
All those years of expenditure are now obsolete. It was proven that those investments were in the wrong capabilities, like no sufficient ammo production. In the wrong technologies, like expensive drones vs cheap drones. And it's only Ukraine's factor that saved US defence sector from catastrophic failure.
This is only what is known from the things people already communicated. Just think of this, the whole US projection of force through naval formations. Would there be any change in light of naval drones experience? I think people there are scratching their heads quite heavily.
Thank you Tom. Unfortunately, none of this will help Ukraine in any way - America and the West have set a course for ending the war as soon as possible. They have missed the time to deploy defense capabilities to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces and no one is going to invest in this. The "Czech" and "Danish" initiatives will not change the situation. I think that counting on Trump as the Messiah is a big mistake.
Exactly what needs to be said. I don't know how many people STILL think all the aid to Ukraine was cash and just dumped off instead of actual aid or how most of it stays in the US. It's like talking to rocks, only I've meet some smarter rocks.
Sorry for nitpicking but you are a few zeroes off, i read the number at 808 billion (using the American denomination skipping milliards and billiards) but still fully agree with your conclusion!
"And the policy is failing. It’s meant to prevent Russian escalation (total failure) and degrade Russia’s ability to wage war (total failure)."
How can you say that last part? Russia's ability to wake war had obviously degraded a lot already, and every day it degrades more. There are hundreds, thousands of very expensive equipment they are losing, hundreds of thousands people killed or injured. A lot of the equipment from storage was repaired or used for repairs and production and is not there anymore. Russia's federal reserves are what, less than half of what they were. Inflation is huge, rubble lost a lot of value.
Sure, Russia is still fighting, it's still attacking, but the war costs it dearly.
I believe western states long ago decided they want to weaken Russia, but not let it lose. And that policy seems to be working exactly as intended.
Yep, but as with the bug analogy, what's left of the Russian military is *learning* . And learning fast. This is the real danger, the longish border and the Ukrainian people about to be press-ganged are only icing on the cake.
Well, ok, but that's a bit convoluted argument. Sure, Russia is learning, but so is Ukraine and I hope western countries at least to some extent as well. Meanwhile, Russia is losing equipment and people that it took long decades to get.
Not to mention how much it already lost diplomatically. Remember Georgia? Chechnya? I remember very well how the West treated Poles as anti-russian idiots, who cannot put the past behind them and understand Russia is now a democratic country whose interests we should all care about. How much that has changed!
Actually, that's what I worry about the most - that it will again change as suddenly, the other way around again.
But still, Russian ability to wage war is severely diminished. Saying that the policy that aimed to do that was a "total failure" is just not grounded in facts.
I agree on that with you. But the main fault or weakness of that strategy is that it is paid with Ukrianin lives and blood, even putting aside the physical destruction of the country.
Then again, and this comes to mind just now... How many of the Ukrainian refugees were screened for security? I'm seeing lots and lots of people pushed into german economy. Nothing wrong with giving educated people a chance to help their host country, but russia would be stupid not to use this opportunity to embed a few agents of its own into areas which were not as easy to reach in the years before...
I argued from day one with those opposing aid to Ukraine citing the fact that there were significant ethnic Russian populations in Eastern Ukraine that this was the equivalent of the Anschluss and later the Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia as regions which were inhabited by ethnic Germans and therefore needing to be a part of 'Greater Germany.'
And, of course, the populations and industries of those regions were then integrated into the Nazi war machine. And it was securing those population and industrial resources that was the incentive for the actions rather than any idea of 'protecting the rights' of fellow ethnic Germans in the past or Russians in the present...
Sorry but that historical comparisons are partly nonsense still floating around mainly in the english speaking part of the world:
1) Sudetenland before 1938 was never part of the German empire, but part of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy.
2) The German speaking people were forced by guns into Czechoslovakia which was a small-scale version of the so called 'multi-ethnicity-dungeon' of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. The latter was also another crude propaganda lie.
3) Austria as it's natural protecting power was kept silent by black mailing them (delivery of coal).
4) The creation of a such structured Czechoslovakia and by the way similiar structured Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the result of French diplomatic efforts of still trying to dominate the European continent, but that is a different story.
5) The so called 'Anschluss' is a very complicated matter:
a) Austria the remnants of the dual monarchy were even denied a customs union with Germany by the victors of WWI, that much for the right of self-determination of the peoples.
b) The political left in Austria (most prominent proponent Karl Renner, a real turncoat) wanted an 'Anschluss' from the very beginning, as long as the SPD was ruling there (in Germany).
c) In 1938 the population really wanted the 'Anschluss' but not for starting a war, but it was already living for more than 4 years in a dictatorship under miserable economic conditions.
True is that an occupying power will always use the resources of the victim to it's own advantage, but that is the reason why the occupation is done.
And my analogy also has a problem in that, as I recall, the ethnic Germans in Sudetenland had lived there for generations. A major percentage of the ethnic Russian population in Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and the Baltic states dates from pre and post WWII 'Russianization' of the those areas. Including by 'exporting' significant numbers of the previous populations to Siberia.
The fact that the regions became Czechoslovakia were originally Austro-Hungarian didn't make them less 'German' in the eyes of Hitler (even my paternal grandfather a Slovene who emigrated from Slovenia pre-WWI always told people he was 'German').
And yes, while the Slovenes and Croats were willing to join a new 'Kingdom of the South Slavs' in order not to be second class 'Germans' in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and my maternal grandfather also a Slovene who emigrated pre-WWI had little use for Serbs) Sudeten Germans were far less enthused to be a part of Czechoslovakia.
As to Austrians and the 'Anschluss' I don't think my comment made any reference to why so many Austrians welcomed 'unification' with Germany - certainly not that they anticipated Hitler embarking on a campaign to conquer portions of Europe and the Soviet Union.
Insofar as France, France is France - always looking to be a major player.
However, I believe part of the idea behind the creation of the new 'countries' in Europe and the Middle East was to create countries large enough to be more than hodge podge of minor principalities, dukedoms, etc. that had existed prior to the various unification movements of the 19th Century. Regardless of the fact that it meant shoehorning various ethnic groups into a union none of them really were enthused about.
Sorry to repeat that again. They were not Germans, but Austrians speaking their version of the german language with the very small exception of "Hultschiner Ländchen" which did come from Silesia 1920 again without asking anyone of the local polulation.
By the way the Czechs also cheated (ie. didn't keep their promises) on the other minorities like Slovaks and Hungarians, etc.
In 1921 the Czechs itself were less than 50% of the complete population, but they still tried to dominate all others, which reminds us of what the Serbs tried to do in Jugoslavia and we all know how this ended after the death of Tito.
By the way Montenegro existed as a state before WW I, fought on side of the Entente and as a 'thank you' had to become part of the new Kingdom of Jugoslavia without being asked.
Hitler was a half educated Austrian, who serves as a volunteer in the German (and not Austrian-Hungarian !) army and was later given in Braunschweig German citizenship (the reasons for that are a different story). As far as I know he also disliked the Czechs for their double play towards the monarchy.
But sadly he was the only one to care about the german speaking 'Austrians' in Czechoslovakia.
The whole concept of National states is a concept which imho comes from the 19th century where it was used to get rid of Napoleon and was by itself a crazy concept as the ethnicities were mixed everywhere to a different amount. Once started it did get it's own dynamics beyond political control.
It is true that you wrote no details about the 'Anschluss', but you mentioned it, so I thought it would be best to clarify some myths, which are still floating around.
I think regarding those new created 'states' we have to make a difference between
1) Europe, where the French diplomacy tried to weaken Germany as much as possible. One can clearly see that by how and where the new borders were drawn.
2) The Near East, where originally those creations were in many but not all cases never ment as independent states, but as colonies of France and GB, which quickly started their own power games against each other (but that is also a different story). The borders there just show the different spheres of interest between France and UK.
Yes, in the modern era Montenegro/Crna Gora had been recognized as a kingdom in the late 1800s after regaining independence from the Ottomans. It had had various 'identities' previously but was definitely a region with a history of self rule between periods of outside domination.
As to my reference to Sudeten 'Germans,' one of my most recent forays into history was 'Black Edelweiss' a history of a German solider's service in Finland during WWII which, of course. in its recital of events leading to the war recounted what the author saw at the time as the 'reuniting' of the Sudeten 'Germans' with their fellow nationalists.
And as to nation states, the last upper level history course I took in college -'Europe From the 1815 Congress of Vienna to 1910' actually 'blamed' it on the French Revolution which encouraged the population to see themselves as members of a French 'Nation' rather than as subjects of a monarchy. And that with Napoleon's conquests this spread to other regions and ethnic groups.
Of course there are nearly as many versions of 'history' as historians...
Now a somehow fast forward version of the history:
Contintal Europe at the beginning of the 19th century was ruled by absolutist princes with the exception of France.
Many people overlook nowadays the fact that Napoleon was also a reformer (code Napoleon, which by the way also broke the power of the church making France a secular state).
So at the beginning he was celebrated by the educated bourgeoisie as liberator from the yoke of absolutist princes.
That quickly changed when he did put his relatives on the thrones. 😁
The big change did come with the failure of his Russian Campaign, which did not necessarily have to end in a catastrophe, but the wrong selection of unsuitable subordinates in critical positions led to this outcome, which could have been even worse. But that wrong choice in combination with the catastrophic end of the campaign did cost him his rule in Europe.
So 1813 his allies started to leave with proclamations that emphasized the nationalist character of the uprising. Everything culminated in the Battle of Leipzig with Napoleon having never a chance to win it.
What followed were the death throes of a declining empire, which brought the Russians to Paris as part of the coalition and Napoleon was forced to abdicate.
Now the absolute ruling princes wanted to turn back the clock and the congress danced and haggled in Vienna (incidentally, evil tongues claim that Vienna was chosen as the meeting place because of the large number of avaible prostitutes). 😁😂
Which gave Napoleon a chance for a comeback. After he had landed in France all the troops the French king did send to intercept him defected to Napoleon, which tells a lot by itself.
At this time he just wanted to rule in France only, but nobody outside France did trust him and as they feared him too much it finally came to the battle of Waterloo, which he lost at least because of Grouchy, who was another bad and wrong choice.
The outome of the batlle led to the second and final abdication of Napoleon and also laid the foundation for the wealth of the Rothschild family in UK, but that is a different story.
Since the troublemaker for the European order had been finally sidelined, the absolutist ruling princes were apparently able to turn back the clocks of time, resulting in the European 'explosion' of 1848.
The end of the Pax Americana, the end of faith in the US as an ally and leader, the end of the rules based world order, the proliferation of many wars and dictatorships, need nuclear proliferation and new arms races, will all cost FAR MORE than probably $10 TRILLION.
The global economic impact will be deep, catastrophic for the US way of life, and last for generations.
And that's WITHOUT a major European or Pacific war.
The cost to restore deterrence will be many trillions and will still be MUCH lower than the cost of China & NK and others starting Asian/ Pacific wars. And Russia starting wider European, African, and Middle Eastern (even south American) wars.
And all that FAR less than nuclear war, which is vastly MORE likely if Russia is not soundly defeated and deterrence restored.
It's utter insanity to not pay whatever it takes to defeat Russia now.
According to Joseph Borell the EU spent 700 billion dollars (700 000 000 000) in the first year of the war "to help families and firms to face the high prices of electricity, of food, the subsidies to our people in order to face the consequences of the war".
Good question! Right now, Ukraine's three key "allies" - the US, France and Germany - have very serious financial problems. You shouldn't expect them to make plans for some future that may not exist, to the detriment of steps to immediately resolve the huge holes in their budgets.
Let’s assume Borrell is right—so what? Should the EU simply abandon everything (e.g., cut even its minimal aid) and hand Putin whatever he wants? Maybe even grant him ius primae noctis over European daughters for himself and his cronies because “war is costly”?
Ladies and gentlemen, stop acting like ostriches burying their heads in the sand when faced with problems. War EXISTS, and we simply CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Yes, it’s costly, but ignoring it won’t make it go away.
Instead, let’s focus on the lessons we need to learn:
- Lesson 1: National defense must be taken seriously. It cannot be neglected during peacetime, turning armies into little more than salary mills or bribery networks.
- Lesson 2: We must keep dictators and imperialists (like Putin’s Russia and Communist China—oh, and let’s not forget the “liberator” USA) at a proper distance. Business during peacetime? Sure. But we absolutely MUST avoid becoming vulnerable to their influence.
- Lesson 3: do the same as lesson 2, but with ecocnomic private boyars and wannabe rich decision makers (i.e. Musk).
Do this and, guess what, maybe something would get even less costly than now
Okay so we have now a number, but the main question is: Are the decision maker following the same logic, as many residents of 'dreamland' still believe "Gollum" (aka Pudding aka Putin) will be the friendly uncle again, that in reality he never was, after winning in Ukraine.
There are millions of those idiots in Europe falling to that Russian PR bullshit.
It's all useless, Ukraine has already been sold, populism is winning. The West is weak, it will be replaced by disparate and weak autocracies. And people will continue to look at Instagram and discuss who bought what car.
The West has collectively been convinced it’s a fragile little boat adrift in the sea of events. In reality, it isn’t—but it is subjugated to a satrapy of 'enlightened capitalists' who orchestrate everything exclusively to serve their private interests and find much more profitable (just for today, obviously no visions for the future) to just "make a deal" with Putin and return to "business as usual" with Russia.
Do I have to enlist the western firms and brands that just "put on hold" theyr business in Russia while to ready to immediately restart once sanctions are lifted?
Who do newspapers, media outlets and political parties/politician respond to?
We achieved secularism to (try to) separate the state and the church; it’s now urgently necessary to do the same between temporal power, information and economic power.
So it's a min/max deal? Isn't the most realistic scenario some sort of peace deal and not the total defeat of either Ukraine or Russia? Also there is no mention of the Baltics in the new defensive line and they would most certainly need a boost too. Are they just left to fend for themselves?
It illustrates nicely the organizational and leadership problems plaguing the ZSU.
"We have a system of circular insanity. Instead of passing information up the chain to make adequate decisions, there is a reluctance to deliver bad news because it will result in sanctions. This leads to negative selection of commanders, as those who accurately report information and challenge unreasonable orders are unwelcome. Instead, commanders who blindly follow even the most absurd of orders are promoted. "
Thank you!
I would also add one more argument for those Americans that still mention "our money spent on Ukraine".
Your money were spent on US defence all those years, and that in vain. It is 600 billions every year, with two major adversaries Russia and China.
All those years of expenditure are now obsolete. It was proven that those investments were in the wrong capabilities, like no sufficient ammo production. In the wrong technologies, like expensive drones vs cheap drones. And it's only Ukraine's factor that saved US defence sector from catastrophic failure.
Don't believe it? Read this: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/replicator-on-track-cheap-drones/
This is a very important point.
I suspect the figure is an underestimate.
I agree.
This is only what is known from the things people already communicated. Just think of this, the whole US projection of force through naval formations. Would there be any change in light of naval drones experience? I think people there are scratching their heads quite heavily.
Thank you Tom. Unfortunately, none of this will help Ukraine in any way - America and the West have set a course for ending the war as soon as possible. They have missed the time to deploy defense capabilities to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces and no one is going to invest in this. The "Czech" and "Danish" initiatives will not change the situation. I think that counting on Trump as the Messiah is a big mistake.
This article has been written by Benjamin Cook.
Exactly what needs to be said. I don't know how many people STILL think all the aid to Ukraine was cash and just dumped off instead of actual aid or how most of it stays in the US. It's like talking to rocks, only I've meet some smarter rocks.
Sorry for nitpicking but you are a few zeroes off, i read the number at 808 billion (using the American denomination skipping milliards and billiards) but still fully agree with your conclusion!
Excellent work as always Ben. Business men like Trump need a figure. Now they've got one.
Trump isn’t a business man. He just played one on TV. The same as Zelensky played a president.
"And the policy is failing. It’s meant to prevent Russian escalation (total failure) and degrade Russia’s ability to wage war (total failure)."
How can you say that last part? Russia's ability to wake war had obviously degraded a lot already, and every day it degrades more. There are hundreds, thousands of very expensive equipment they are losing, hundreds of thousands people killed or injured. A lot of the equipment from storage was repaired or used for repairs and production and is not there anymore. Russia's federal reserves are what, less than half of what they were. Inflation is huge, rubble lost a lot of value.
Sure, Russia is still fighting, it's still attacking, but the war costs it dearly.
I believe western states long ago decided they want to weaken Russia, but not let it lose. And that policy seems to be working exactly as intended.
Yep, but as with the bug analogy, what's left of the Russian military is *learning* . And learning fast. This is the real danger, the longish border and the Ukrainian people about to be press-ganged are only icing on the cake.
Well, ok, but that's a bit convoluted argument. Sure, Russia is learning, but so is Ukraine and I hope western countries at least to some extent as well. Meanwhile, Russia is losing equipment and people that it took long decades to get.
Not to mention how much it already lost diplomatically. Remember Georgia? Chechnya? I remember very well how the West treated Poles as anti-russian idiots, who cannot put the past behind them and understand Russia is now a democratic country whose interests we should all care about. How much that has changed!
Actually, that's what I worry about the most - that it will again change as suddenly, the other way around again.
But still, Russian ability to wage war is severely diminished. Saying that the policy that aimed to do that was a "total failure" is just not grounded in facts.
I agree on that with you. But the main fault or weakness of that strategy is that it is paid with Ukrianin lives and blood, even putting aside the physical destruction of the country.
Yes, I completely agree.
Then again, and this comes to mind just now... How many of the Ukrainian refugees were screened for security? I'm seeing lots and lots of people pushed into german economy. Nothing wrong with giving educated people a chance to help their host country, but russia would be stupid not to use this opportunity to embed a few agents of its own into areas which were not as easy to reach in the years before...
If Russia puts any more agents in Germany, there'll be no space left for regular Germans in the country :D
I argued from day one with those opposing aid to Ukraine citing the fact that there were significant ethnic Russian populations in Eastern Ukraine that this was the equivalent of the Anschluss and later the Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia as regions which were inhabited by ethnic Germans and therefore needing to be a part of 'Greater Germany.'
And, of course, the populations and industries of those regions were then integrated into the Nazi war machine. And it was securing those population and industrial resources that was the incentive for the actions rather than any idea of 'protecting the rights' of fellow ethnic Germans in the past or Russians in the present...
Sorry but that historical comparisons are partly nonsense still floating around mainly in the english speaking part of the world:
1) Sudetenland before 1938 was never part of the German empire, but part of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy.
2) The German speaking people were forced by guns into Czechoslovakia which was a small-scale version of the so called 'multi-ethnicity-dungeon' of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. The latter was also another crude propaganda lie.
3) Austria as it's natural protecting power was kept silent by black mailing them (delivery of coal).
4) The creation of a such structured Czechoslovakia and by the way similiar structured Kingdom of Yugoslavia was the result of French diplomatic efforts of still trying to dominate the European continent, but that is a different story.
5) The so called 'Anschluss' is a very complicated matter:
a) Austria the remnants of the dual monarchy were even denied a customs union with Germany by the victors of WWI, that much for the right of self-determination of the peoples.
b) The political left in Austria (most prominent proponent Karl Renner, a real turncoat) wanted an 'Anschluss' from the very beginning, as long as the SPD was ruling there (in Germany).
c) In 1938 the population really wanted the 'Anschluss' but not for starting a war, but it was already living for more than 4 years in a dictatorship under miserable economic conditions.
True is that an occupying power will always use the resources of the victim to it's own advantage, but that is the reason why the occupation is done.
And my analogy also has a problem in that, as I recall, the ethnic Germans in Sudetenland had lived there for generations. A major percentage of the ethnic Russian population in Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and the Baltic states dates from pre and post WWII 'Russianization' of the those areas. Including by 'exporting' significant numbers of the previous populations to Siberia.
The fact that the regions became Czechoslovakia were originally Austro-Hungarian didn't make them less 'German' in the eyes of Hitler (even my paternal grandfather a Slovene who emigrated from Slovenia pre-WWI always told people he was 'German').
And yes, while the Slovenes and Croats were willing to join a new 'Kingdom of the South Slavs' in order not to be second class 'Germans' in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and my maternal grandfather also a Slovene who emigrated pre-WWI had little use for Serbs) Sudeten Germans were far less enthused to be a part of Czechoslovakia.
As to Austrians and the 'Anschluss' I don't think my comment made any reference to why so many Austrians welcomed 'unification' with Germany - certainly not that they anticipated Hitler embarking on a campaign to conquer portions of Europe and the Soviet Union.
Insofar as France, France is France - always looking to be a major player.
However, I believe part of the idea behind the creation of the new 'countries' in Europe and the Middle East was to create countries large enough to be more than hodge podge of minor principalities, dukedoms, etc. that had existed prior to the various unification movements of the 19th Century. Regardless of the fact that it meant shoehorning various ethnic groups into a union none of them really were enthused about.
Sorry to repeat that again. They were not Germans, but Austrians speaking their version of the german language with the very small exception of "Hultschiner Ländchen" which did come from Silesia 1920 again without asking anyone of the local polulation.
By the way the Czechs also cheated (ie. didn't keep their promises) on the other minorities like Slovaks and Hungarians, etc.
In 1921 the Czechs itself were less than 50% of the complete population, but they still tried to dominate all others, which reminds us of what the Serbs tried to do in Jugoslavia and we all know how this ended after the death of Tito.
By the way Montenegro existed as a state before WW I, fought on side of the Entente and as a 'thank you' had to become part of the new Kingdom of Jugoslavia without being asked.
Hitler was a half educated Austrian, who serves as a volunteer in the German (and not Austrian-Hungarian !) army and was later given in Braunschweig German citizenship (the reasons for that are a different story). As far as I know he also disliked the Czechs for their double play towards the monarchy.
But sadly he was the only one to care about the german speaking 'Austrians' in Czechoslovakia.
The whole concept of National states is a concept which imho comes from the 19th century where it was used to get rid of Napoleon and was by itself a crazy concept as the ethnicities were mixed everywhere to a different amount. Once started it did get it's own dynamics beyond political control.
It is true that you wrote no details about the 'Anschluss', but you mentioned it, so I thought it would be best to clarify some myths, which are still floating around.
I think regarding those new created 'states' we have to make a difference between
1) Europe, where the French diplomacy tried to weaken Germany as much as possible. One can clearly see that by how and where the new borders were drawn.
2) The Near East, where originally those creations were in many but not all cases never ment as independent states, but as colonies of France and GB, which quickly started their own power games against each other (but that is also a different story). The borders there just show the different spheres of interest between France and UK.
Yes, in the modern era Montenegro/Crna Gora had been recognized as a kingdom in the late 1800s after regaining independence from the Ottomans. It had had various 'identities' previously but was definitely a region with a history of self rule between periods of outside domination.
As to my reference to Sudeten 'Germans,' one of my most recent forays into history was 'Black Edelweiss' a history of a German solider's service in Finland during WWII which, of course. in its recital of events leading to the war recounted what the author saw at the time as the 'reuniting' of the Sudeten 'Germans' with their fellow nationalists.
And as to nation states, the last upper level history course I took in college -'Europe From the 1815 Congress of Vienna to 1910' actually 'blamed' it on the French Revolution which encouraged the population to see themselves as members of a French 'Nation' rather than as subjects of a monarchy. And that with Napoleon's conquests this spread to other regions and ethnic groups.
Of course there are nearly as many versions of 'history' as historians...
Now a somehow fast forward version of the history:
Contintal Europe at the beginning of the 19th century was ruled by absolutist princes with the exception of France.
Many people overlook nowadays the fact that Napoleon was also a reformer (code Napoleon, which by the way also broke the power of the church making France a secular state).
So at the beginning he was celebrated by the educated bourgeoisie as liberator from the yoke of absolutist princes.
That quickly changed when he did put his relatives on the thrones. 😁
The big change did come with the failure of his Russian Campaign, which did not necessarily have to end in a catastrophe, but the wrong selection of unsuitable subordinates in critical positions led to this outcome, which could have been even worse. But that wrong choice in combination with the catastrophic end of the campaign did cost him his rule in Europe.
So 1813 his allies started to leave with proclamations that emphasized the nationalist character of the uprising. Everything culminated in the Battle of Leipzig with Napoleon having never a chance to win it.
What followed were the death throes of a declining empire, which brought the Russians to Paris as part of the coalition and Napoleon was forced to abdicate.
Now the absolute ruling princes wanted to turn back the clock and the congress danced and haggled in Vienna (incidentally, evil tongues claim that Vienna was chosen as the meeting place because of the large number of avaible prostitutes). 😁😂
Which gave Napoleon a chance for a comeback. After he had landed in France all the troops the French king did send to intercept him defected to Napoleon, which tells a lot by itself.
At this time he just wanted to rule in France only, but nobody outside France did trust him and as they feared him too much it finally came to the battle of Waterloo, which he lost at least because of Grouchy, who was another bad and wrong choice.
The outome of the batlle led to the second and final abdication of Napoleon and also laid the foundation for the wealth of the Rothschild family in UK, but that is a different story.
Since the troublemaker for the European order had been finally sidelined, the absolutist ruling princes were apparently able to turn back the clocks of time, resulting in the European 'explosion' of 1848.
I end with that for today.
That's missing a zero, at least.
The end of the Pax Americana, the end of faith in the US as an ally and leader, the end of the rules based world order, the proliferation of many wars and dictatorships, need nuclear proliferation and new arms races, will all cost FAR MORE than probably $10 TRILLION.
The global economic impact will be deep, catastrophic for the US way of life, and last for generations.
And that's WITHOUT a major European or Pacific war.
The cost to restore deterrence will be many trillions and will still be MUCH lower than the cost of China & NK and others starting Asian/ Pacific wars. And Russia starting wider European, African, and Middle Eastern (even south American) wars.
And all that FAR less than nuclear war, which is vastly MORE likely if Russia is not soundly defeated and deterrence restored.
It's utter insanity to not pay whatever it takes to defeat Russia now.
How about the cost of continuing the war ?
According to Joseph Borell the EU spent 700 billion dollars (700 000 000 000) in the first year of the war "to help families and firms to face the high prices of electricity, of food, the subsidies to our people in order to face the consequences of the war".
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/singapore-speech-hrvp-borrell-shangri-la-dialogue_en
Unless this escalates to WW3 the US will be fine. It takes care of its interests.
The EU however..... :(
Good question! Right now, Ukraine's three key "allies" - the US, France and Germany - have very serious financial problems. You shouldn't expect them to make plans for some future that may not exist, to the detriment of steps to immediately resolve the huge holes in their budgets.
Sorry, but... what?
Let’s assume Borrell is right—so what? Should the EU simply abandon everything (e.g., cut even its minimal aid) and hand Putin whatever he wants? Maybe even grant him ius primae noctis over European daughters for himself and his cronies because “war is costly”?
Ladies and gentlemen, stop acting like ostriches burying their heads in the sand when faced with problems. War EXISTS, and we simply CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Yes, it’s costly, but ignoring it won’t make it go away.
Instead, let’s focus on the lessons we need to learn:
- Lesson 1: National defense must be taken seriously. It cannot be neglected during peacetime, turning armies into little more than salary mills or bribery networks.
- Lesson 2: We must keep dictators and imperialists (like Putin’s Russia and Communist China—oh, and let’s not forget the “liberator” USA) at a proper distance. Business during peacetime? Sure. But we absolutely MUST avoid becoming vulnerable to their influence.
- Lesson 3: do the same as lesson 2, but with ecocnomic private boyars and wannabe rich decision makers (i.e. Musk).
Do this and, guess what, maybe something would get even less costly than now
Okay so we have now a number, but the main question is: Are the decision maker following the same logic, as many residents of 'dreamland' still believe "Gollum" (aka Pudding aka Putin) will be the friendly uncle again, that in reality he never was, after winning in Ukraine.
There are millions of those idiots in Europe falling to that Russian PR bullshit.
It's all useless, Ukraine has already been sold, populism is winning. The West is weak, it will be replaced by disparate and weak autocracies. And people will continue to look at Instagram and discuss who bought what car.
The West has collectively been convinced it’s a fragile little boat adrift in the sea of events. In reality, it isn’t—but it is subjugated to a satrapy of 'enlightened capitalists' who orchestrate everything exclusively to serve their private interests and find much more profitable (just for today, obviously no visions for the future) to just "make a deal" with Putin and return to "business as usual" with Russia.
Do I have to enlist the western firms and brands that just "put on hold" theyr business in Russia while to ready to immediately restart once sanctions are lifted?
Who do newspapers, media outlets and political parties/politician respond to?
We achieved secularism to (try to) separate the state and the church; it’s now urgently necessary to do the same between temporal power, information and economic power.
So it's a min/max deal? Isn't the most realistic scenario some sort of peace deal and not the total defeat of either Ukraine or Russia? Also there is no mention of the Baltics in the new defensive line and they would most certainly need a boost too. Are they just left to fend for themselves?
@ So it's a min/max deal?
Yes, it is.
Awwwwww, as usual, woke-radical-chic Cassandras cannot stop yelling and yelling over and over about problems and upcoming catastrophes...
Where they see a desert of problems, well, the hyper-ultra clever capitalist rulers of the "West" see an open field of opportunities!
And so, we will have almost a TRILION of $ to be pocketed via bribes and corruption!
It's economy, sweeties!
Tom, have you seen this article ?
https://hromadske.ua/en/war/236229-battle-for-pokrovsk-whats-at-stake-as-russian-forces-move-within-3-km-of-strategic-donbas-city
It illustrates nicely the organizational and leadership problems plaguing the ZSU.
"We have a system of circular insanity. Instead of passing information up the chain to make adequate decisions, there is a reluctance to deliver bad news because it will result in sanctions. This leads to negative selection of commanders, as those who accurately report information and challenge unreasonable orders are unwelcome. Instead, commanders who blindly follow even the most absurd of orders are promoted. "