Dejin
22632
Biden Administration is getting together another arms package for Ukraine Washington Post Gift Link. Reportedly more Bradley IFVs on top of the 50 from the last package. Possibly up to 100 Stryker — variants not specified (seems like a good way to offload some of the 105mm gun system variant that the Army has decided is no longer wanted).
Stryker seems like a good choice for a mobile reserve, since it can move much more quickly than the Bradleys. Not sure if it’s off-road performance is going to be great for assaults in potentially muddy conditions though.
Reportedly no tanks. I still can’t believe how pathetic Germany has been on this issue. I think Biden should toss in 5 or so Abrams just to get Germany to move forward. I know the Abrams are not well suited to Ukraine’s needs, but Chancellor Scholz is determined to be a lapdog and he needs the US to give him a push.
Grifman
22633
Sweden is also throwing in 50 AFV:
Can we send, oh, 20 actual Senators from a certain party to Ukraine, as raw recruits?
Which both makes sense and is infuriating at the same time. The history of German actions in Ukraine during WWII may arguably be irrelevant in 2023, but when feeling churlish one can’t but help wonder if there isn’t a part of the German psyche that is reveling in two Slavic groups killing each other.
Fun post by Dmitry Medvede (blogger, member of Russia’s Security Council, Russian Prime minister 2012-2020, last living Russian ex-president).
Tomorrow at the Ramstein base in NATO, the great military leaders will discuss new tactics and strategy, as well as deliveries of new heavy weapons and strike systems to Ukraine. And this right after the forum in Davos, where underdeveloped political partygoers repeated like a mantra: “To achieve peace, Russia must lose.”
And it never occurs to any of the wretches to draw the following elementary conclusion from this: the loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war. The nuclear powers have never lost a major conflict on which their fate depends.
And this should be obvious to anyone. Even a Western politician with any trace of intelligence.
Funny how we came to “you’ll be sorry for making us lose”. Nowadays you need a rare true believer to still believe conventional victory in Ukraine is possible for Russia.
Similar stuff in the Russian Parliament too. A lot of discussions on “what can we do to not lose this”. One fun law raised the maximum age for a draft to 30 years. That’s a draft for universal service, and for half a year people there theoretically will not participate in warfare.
What does fate depends mean? Because I’m pretty sure the US has lost some wars on which their fate depended (a US that won Vietnam is different than one which lost). The USSR also lost at least one war on which their fate depended too.
Does he mean that if Russia loses this War, Russia will cease to exist? Yeah, nobody believes that.
I will explain to you decadent Westerner step-by-step.
All freedoms are curtailed and all dissent is forbidden, everyone has to rally around the flag in Russia. Naturally, it’s not because of the leader’s megalomania or his friends’ well-being (BTW just recently they repealed the law that required statesmen to publish their tax reports because Russia exited GRECO). It’s because the threat to the state is existential.
It’s obvious right now that it’s not a border skirmish with a minor power. Such thing wouldn’t make Russia break a sweat. The fact that Russia hasn’t yet won is a clear indication that an international conspiracy fights against it.
And this conspiracy wants to make Russian subservient and weak. Just like Europeans today, Russians will be forbidden from using words like “mother” or “father” and will have to say “parent 1” and “parent 2”. Children will be forced to change sex. Homosexuals will do their parades, then savage Muslim immigrants will do the same. Pushkin and Tolstoy will be canceled just like Rowling. Russia will become non-existent, weak, and easy to control. Just like those Europeans that beat Russia today.
I’m always reminded of the Russian joke of Medvedev.
Putin and Medvedev go out for dinner. The waiter arrives and Putin announces he will have the steak.
“And what of the potato?” the waiter asks.
Putin replies, “He will have the steak, also.”
At least Medvedev is still alive. Say what you want about his backbone or lack thereof, but he seems to be a survivor.
abrandt
22641
Sadly, this seems like a pretty inherent flaw in human psychology that we can believe both things at once. And I’m pretty sure it happens to all of us. “This group is bad and our enemy because they are weak/failing/dumb but this bad thing that happened to us could only have come about because our dastardly enemy is strong/winning/smart!”.
At least before the war (and also before COVID) you could believe in that age-old thing with Good Times creating Weak Men. All those anti-modern sentiments try to be philosophical and explain how there’s a certain strength in not having modern things like recognition of minorities, women’s rights, and plumbing. Strong Russian men can beat they/them armies any day, you can easily find some 1+ year-old memes about that.
But now you can’t argue in any way that Europeans traded security for prosperity or anything like that. They got both by not allowing their governments to be a kleptocracy of grumpy old men.
It feels like Scholz’s feet-dragging on Leopards has kind of opened the gates with other countries. Denmark in on the action.
Estonia sending the equivalent of 1% of its GDP. Sweden getting really aggressive with their aid package.
I can’t find the link right now, but O’Brien posted two weeks ago on Twitter that Scandinavia being all in on arming Ukraine was probably how Ukraine wins this war the most directly. That combined, the four traditional Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Norway, Finland (yes, I know), and Denmark have economies and GDP and arms potential that exceeds what Russia can do.
This is a great point. Add the Baltic states to the mix, and Poland, and it seems like arms aid is going to flow no matter what Germany does.
Thrag
22645
Huge amounts of arms being pledged by various countries today, and this is before the Ramstein meeting. The floodgates certianly seem to be opening.
Russia is clearly Estonia’s (and many other countries’) biggest security threat, so for them this is a huge opportunity to tackle it head-on, without, you know, tackling it head-on (so to speak). This has to be the best possible application of their security budget right now.
Which brings up another point–is there some expectation of payment here? As I said above I think all countries giving aid to Ukraine are getting their realpolitik dollars’ worth, but are these weapons being delivered according to some contract? If it were up to me the answer would be no, and we’d also kick in Marshall Plan levels of $ after the war, but it’s not up to me.
Poland getting (even more) spicy:
Grifman
22649
Poland could/should send 100 Leopards. What is Germany going to do about it? Poland is replacing them fairly soon. They have on order with the US 250 Abrams, and they and South Korea are building a factory to produce K2 tanks in Poland. So they are going off Leopards anyway. I think if Poland did this you would see others quickly do the same. Or Germany give permission realizing it is going to happen anyway.
Or withhold permission knowing it’s going to happen anyway.
Grifman
22651
Interesting - silent heroes:
