So far a few dirt farmers have held off the might of the Red Army for a year.

There is no way they can even remotely threaten Europe at this point.

Even the mouth piece for the CIA is reporting on the dire state of Ukraine.


Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow

https://www.washingtonpost.com...ammunition-shortage/

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine — The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of Russia’s invasion early last year, compared with about 200,000 on the Russian side, which has a much larger military and roughly triple the population from which to draw conscripts. Ukraine keeps its running casualty numbers secret, even from its staunchest Western supporters.

Statistics aside, an influx of inexperienced draftees, brought in to plug the losses, has changed the profile of the Ukrainian force, which is also suffering from basic shortages of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, according to military personnel in the field.

“The most valuable thing in war is combat experience,” said a battalion commander in the 46th Air Assault Brigade, who is being identified only by his call sign, Kupol, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. “A soldier who has survived six months of combat and a soldier who came from a firing range are two different soldiers. It’s heaven and earth.”

“And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience,” Kupol added. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”

Such grim assessments have spread a palpable, if mostly unspoken, pessimism from the front lines to the corridors of power in Kyiv, the capital. An inability by Ukraine to execute a much-hyped counteroffensive would fuel new criticism that the United States and its European allies waited too long, until the force had already deteriorated, to deepen training programs and provide armored fighting vehicles, including Bradleys and Leopard battle tanks.

The situation on the battlefield now may not reflect a full picture of Ukraine’s forces, because Kyiv is training troops for the coming counteroffensive separately and deliberately holding them back from current fighting, including the defense of Bakhmut, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said the state of the Ukrainian force does not diminish his optimism about a coming counteroffensive. “I don’t think we’ve exhausted our potential,” Yermak said. “I think that in any war, there comes a time when you have to prepare new personnel, which is what is happening right now.”

And the situation for Russia may be worse. During a NATO meeting last month, U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that 97 percent of Russia’s army was already deployed in Ukraine and that Moscow was suffering “First World War levels of attrition.”

Kupol said he was speaking out in hopes of securing better training for Ukrainian forces from Washington and that he hopes Ukrainian troops being held back for a coming counteroffensive will have more success than the inexperienced soldiers now manning the front under his command.

“There’s always belief in a miracle,” he said. “Either it will be a massacre and corpses or it’s going to be a professional counteroffensive. There are two options. There will be a counteroffensive either way.”

How much increased Western military aid and training will tip the balance in such a spring offensive remains uncertain, given the scars of attrition that are beginning to show.

One senior Ukrainian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, called the number of tanks promised by the West a “symbolic” amount. Others privately voiced pessimism that promised supplies would even reach the battlefield in time.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack,” the senior official said. “If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs.”

“We don’t have the people or weapons,” the senior official added. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.”

Such analysis is far less optimistic than the public statements by Ukraine’s political and military leadership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described 2023 as “the year of victory” for Ukraine. His military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, touted the possibility of Ukrainians vacationing this summer in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed illegally from Ukraine nine years ago.

“Our president inspires us to win,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Generally, we all think the same, and we understand that for us it is of course necessary to win by the end of the year. And it is real. It is real if we are given all the help which we have been promised by our partners.”

On the front lines, however, the mood is dark.

Kupol, who consented to having his photograph taken and said he understood he could face personal blowback for giving a frank assessment, described going to battle with newly drafted soldiers who had never thrown a grenade, who readily abandoned their positions under fire and who lacked confidence in handling firearms.

His unit withdrew from Soledar in eastern Ukraine in the winter after being surrounded by Russian forces who later captured the city. Kupol recalled how hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in units fighting alongside his battalion simply abandoned their positions, even as fighters for Russia’s Wagner mercenary group pressed ahead.

After a year of war, Kupol, a lieutenant colonel, said his battalion is unrecognizable. Of about 500 soldiers, roughly 100 were killed in action and another 400 wounded, leading to complete turnover. Kupol said he was the sole military professional in the battalion, and he described the struggle of leading a unit composed entirely of inexperienced troops.

“I get 100 new soldiers,” Kupol said. “They don’t give me any time to prepare them. They say, ‘Take them into the battle.’ They just drop everything and run. That’s it. Do you understand why? Because the soldier doesn’t shoot. I ask him why, and he says, ‘I’m afraid of the sound of the shot.’ And for some reason, he has never thrown a grenade. … We need NATO instructors in all our training centers, and our instructors need to be sent over there into the trenches. Because they failed in their task.”

He described severe ammunition shortages, including a lack of simple mortar bombs and grenades for U.S.-made MK 19s.

Ukraine has also faced an acute shortage of artillery shells, which Washington and its allies have scrambled to address, with discussions about how to shore up Ukrainian stocks dominating daily meetings on the war at the White House National Security Council. Washington’s efforts have kept Ukraine fighting, but use rates are very high, and scarcity persists.

“You’re on the front line,” Kupol said. “They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with.”

Kupol said Kyiv needed to focus on better preparing new troops in a systematic way. “It’s like all we do is give interviews and tell people that we’ve already won, just a little bit further away, two weeks, and we’ll win,” he said.

Dmytro, a Ukrainian soldier whom The Post is identifying only by first name for security reasons, described many of the same conditions. Some of the less-experienced troops serving at his position with the 36th Marine Brigade in the Donetsk region “are afraid to leave the trenches,” he said. Shelling is so intense at times, he said, that one soldier will have a panic attack, then “others catch it.”

The first time he saw fellow soldiers very shaken, Dmytro said, he tried to talk them through the reality of the risks. The next time, he said, they “just ran from the position.”

“I don’t blame them,” he said. “They were so confused.”

The challenges stem from steep losses. Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said in August that nearly 9,000 of his soldiers had died. In December, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said the number was up to 13,000. But Western officials have given higher estimates and, in any case, the Ukrainian figures excluded the far larger number of wounded who are no longer able to fight.

A German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said that Berlin estimates Ukrainian casualties, including dead and wounded, are as high as 120,000. “They don’t share the information with us because they don’t trust us,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Russian offensive has been building since early January, according to Syrsky. Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, told The Post last month that Russia had more than 325,000 soldiers in Ukraine, and another 150,000 mobilized troops could soon join the fight. Ukrainian soldiers report being outnumbered and having less ammunition.

The stakes for Ukraine in the coming months are particularly high, as Western countries aiding Kyiv look to see whether Ukrainian forces can once again seize the initiative and reclaim more territory from Russian control.

Russia is also facing ammunition, manpower and motivation problems — and has notched only incremental gains in recent months despite the strained state of Ukraine’s force. As bad as Ukraine’s losses are, Russia’s are worse, the U.S. official said.

“The question is whether Ukraine’s relative advantage is sufficient to attain their objectives, and whether those advantages can be sustained,” said Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Virginia-based CNA. “That depends not just on them, but also on the West.”

Despite reports of untrained mobilized Russian fighters being thrown into battle, Syrsky said those now arriving are well-prepared. “We have to live and fight in these realities,” he said. “Of course, it’s problematic for us. … It forces us to be more precise in our firing, more detailed in our reconnaissance, more careful in choosing our positions and more detailed in organizing the interaction between the units. There is no other way.”

Russia’s recent gains — notably around Bakhmut — have not significantly tilted the battlefield, and U.S. military officials have said that even if Russia seizes Bakhmut, it would be of little strategic importance. But given the heavy casualties Ukraine is suffering there, officials in Washington have questioned Kyiv’s refusal to retreat. The United States has been advising Ukraine to retreat from the city since at least January, the U.S. official said.

A Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the battle for Bakhmut was depleting Russian forces there — mainly Wagner fighters who have been Moscow’s most effective of late — and that Ukrainian units defending the city were not slated to be deployed in upcoming offensive operations anyway.

Ukraine has lost many of its junior officers who received U.S. training over the past nine years, eroding a corps of leaders who helped distinguish the Ukrainians from their Russian enemies at the start of the invasion, the Ukrainian official said. Now, the official said, those forces must be replaced. “A lot of them are killed,” the official said.

At the start of the invasion, Ukrainians rushed to volunteer for military duty, but now men across the country who did not sign up have begun to fear being handed draft slips on the street. Ukraine’s internal security service recently shut down Telegram accounts that were helping Ukrainians avoid locations where authorities were distributing summonses.

Initially, the United States focused its training on new weapons systems Washington had decided to provide Kyiv, such as M777 artillery pieces and HIMARS rocket launchers. In January, after nearly a year of all-out war, the United States began training Ukrainian forces in combined-arms warfare. Just one battalion, of about 650 people, has completed the training in Germany so far.

Additional Ukrainian battalions will complete the training by the end of March, and the program will adjust as Ukraine’s needs evolve, said Lt. Col. Garron Garn, a Pentagon spokesman.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “remains laser-focused on ensuring that Ukraine is receiving the training it needs for the current fight,” Garn said. The United States is “working around-the-clock” to fulfill Ukraine’s security needs, in addition to investing billions of dollars to produce and procure artillery ammunition, he said.

“The bottom line is that we are getting the Ukrainians what they need, when they need it,” Garn said. “And as President Biden and Secretary Austin have emphasized repeatedly, we will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Even with new equipment and training, U.S. military officials consider Ukraine’s force insufficient to attack all along the giant front, where Russia has erected substantive defenses, so troops are being trained to probe for weak points that allow them to break through with tanks and armored vehicles.

Britain is also training Ukrainian recruits, including about 10,000 last year, with another 20,000 expected this year. The European Union has said it will train 30,000 Ukrainians in 2023.

Ukraine has been holding back soldiers for a spring offensive and training them as part of newly assembled assault brigades. Kyiv is also organizing battalions around the new fighting vehicles and tanks that Western nations are providing.

Syrsky said he is focused on holding the line against Russian attacks while his deputies prepare soldiers for the next offensive.

“We need to buy time to prepare reserves,” Syrsky said, referring to the Ukrainian soldiers training abroad with Western weapons. “We know that we have to withstand this attack to prepare the reserves that will take part in future actions properly. … Some people defend, others prepare.”

U.S. officials said they expect Ukraine’s offensive to start in late April or early May, and they are acutely aware of the urgency of supplying Kyiv because a drawn-out war could favor Russia, which has more people, money and weapons manufacturing.

Asked at a recent congressional hearing how much more U.S. aid might be required, Pentagon policy chief Colin Kahl told House lawmakers that he did not know. “We don’t know the course or trajectory of the conflict,” Kahl said. “It could end six months from now, it could end two years from now, three years from now.”

quote:

How much increased Western military aid and training will tip the balance in such a spring offensive remains uncertain…

Moar money!

DeSantis rattles establishment GOP after saying US interest in Ukraine-Russia war is not 'vital'

quote:

"While the U.S. has many vital national interests… becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them," DeSantis told Carlson.

Compare this to RINO Liz Cheney's specious argument:

quote:

"This is not ‘a territorial dispute,’" Cheney said in a statement, according to the New York Times. "The Ukrainian people are fighting for their freedom. Surrendering to Putin and refusing to defend freedom makes America less safe."

No, Liz, it is a territorial dispute. That's exactly what it is, and all the patriotic-sounding buzz phrases in the world won't change this fact. You argument is as empty as your pointy little head.

We’ve learned our lesson.
Let them handle it.

quote:

In the same way it relied on Russia for energy, Germany is relying on everyone else to support Ukraine and keep Putin at bay.

quote:

During his recent visit to the United States, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised that his country would soon begin spending 2% of its annual budget on defense.

Would soon begin?? They were supposed to be doing that for the last 74 years. Donald Trump had to shame them into ponying up in 2018.

Okay, I can sense people want a German perspective on this, but I can really only come back to the point that foreign policy debate frequently is in fact domestic partisan debate. Certainly what Senator Kennedy says; if you want to pressure the German government, you don't go on Fox News - an outlet with a target audience of American conservatives - with a collection of losely-related cherrypicked facts which the presumptive adressees will immediately recognize as at best misleading.

What I can say as someone who has held the same kind of job is that I'm not impressed with the staff who wrote this up for Kennedy. This is the sort of text where you expect the audience to not really care enough about the issue to check your sources, just to remember the name of your boss when the next election rolls around. Example:

quote:

By every measure, Germany—the economic leader of Europe—is failing to pull its weight. Its current spending by share of GDP wouldn’t even place Germany in the top 10 nations in terms of financial support for Ukraine.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have all provided more than double what Germany has given to Ukraine by share of GDP. But countries don’t need proximity to Russia to outspend Germany. The United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have all outspent Germany in terms of GDP. In raw dollars, the United States has given sevenfold what Germany has sent to Ukraine.

The article links to the Council of Foreign Relations for those claims. However, as all the numbers you'll find on the topic - and the CFR sites states that - they ultimately come from the Ukraine Support Tracker of IFW Kiel. Unlike CFR, they don't list the contributions of the EU institutions relative to GDP, for the obvious reason that they generate no GDP; they only have the money the member states give them. Including the aid Germany routes through the EU, national share of aid to Ukraine then is 3.7 percent of the GDP. Same as the US in fact, though the latter is probably a couple further decimals ahead, as IFW ranks it two places ahead of Germany. But neither is in the top ten, so the entire argument is moot.

Similarly, it's certainly correct that the US outspends Germany in total sevenfold (if you include the latter's EU share BTW, which shows the author is aware of it). But so it does vis-a-vis all other nations mentioned - including the UK which the US outspends nine times, and definitely top contributor by GDP Estonia at about 200 times - and yet they are held up as doing better.

That doesn't mean every claim in the article is wrong. It's just that it isn't really about Ukraine and Germany, just generating domestic attention for the good senator.

No worries. We'll fund this BS until no ones left to die.

While I think that won't happen, any serious discussion about changing the current American role as "the world's policeman" etc. brings us back to the point that the US first needs to decide which part of its interests it wants to give up or, preferably, entrust its allies with to uphold as joint interests. Because as long as the US insists on having the capabilities to make the world safe for its political and economic model, alone if necessary, and derives the claim to lead all like-minded nations from that, nothing's gonna change.

When I gamed the question in a similar debate elsewhere, I found that you could probably slash the US armed forces by 40 percent without incurring penalties for canceling major items like aircraft carriers already ordered, and it would be within the capabilities of American allies to make up for it. All it would need would be a president telling American voters "I'll cut our military nearly in half, and have our global political and economic interests secured more by the British, French, Germans and Japanese". Someone suggested it would pretty much have to be a Republican with a strong military background in a "only Nixon could go to China" way. And I would add that he probably shouldn't have any designs on getting re-elected.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
While I think that won't happen, any serious discussion about changing the current American role as "the world's policeman" etc. brings us back to the point that the US first needs to decide which part of its interests it wants to give up or, preferably, entrust its allies with to uphold as joint interests. Because as long as the US insists on having the capabilities to make the world safe for its political and economic model, alone if necessary, and derives the claim to lead all like-minded nations from that, nothing's gonna change.

It doesn't matter what the US does or "insists" upon. The fact is that European countries have become lazy and dependent upon others to do their fighting and they give no indication of changing their dependent behavior. There's a certain underlying cockyness in the attitudes of governments of European nations: daddy will always help us out.

I’m a simpleton, I still believe to the Europeans ,America will always been seen as the “Ugly American” after we bail out their culo’s once again.

They’re the aristocrats & we’re Andy Jackson’s coon cap wearin’ Americans. I’d not have it any other way.

They owe us!

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
It doesn't matter what the US does or "insists" upon. The fact is that European countries have become lazy and dependent upon others to do their fighting and they give no indication of changing their dependent behavior. There's a certain underlying cockyness in the attitudes of governments of European nations: daddy will always help us out.

And that's a valid perspective, certainly from a material point of view, and particularly regarding will to act. There are of course those who would point out that the US remains the only NATO member to have declared a case of Article 5 after 9/11, and more allied soldiers subsequently died on behalf of the US than US soldiers ever died on behalf of NATO. Though I suspect they're a rather small slice between the plain anti-American camp complaining that the US has always treated its allies as mere vassals; and people like me who believe that American and European/Western interests are largely congruent, even if both "sides" have sometimes abused the relationship for their own particular aims. In the end, an American soldier in Kosovo and a European soldier in Afghanistan both served joint security - notwithstanding failure of such missions, or bright ideas like Iraq on the American and Libya on the European part, which actually turned out to be detrimental to (at least European) security.

But if your view on the European side is correct, just complaining rather than acting won't change anything for the US, because there is no incentive for the Europeans. And again, American policy in the last 30 years has actively discouraged emergence of a self-reliant European security identity (in the words of Madeleine Albright in 1998, "no diminution of NATO, no duplication of its structures, no discrimination of its members"). There are various levels of reduced American commitment to Europe I can think of; however the US needs to define what it wants. Are you still interested in bases like Ramstein which are needed for logistics of operations all throughout the Europe-Africa-West Asia area, including treatment of WIAs? Sigonella, which enables UAV operations in the same area without excessive satellite lag? Naples, the HQ of Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean? The missile defense sites in Eastern Europe, which were set up to protect the US from future long-range missiles out of the Middle East, with protection of Europe a side effect? Etc.

Letting allies take over regional security has certainly worked in the past. France, and to a lesser part the UK and other former colonial powers, have policed sub-Saharan Africa for the West for decades, with only punctual American involvement because the US hadn't many vital interests there. The main problem with American withdrawl from Europe could be that the US is the powerful outsider everyone can agree on as a lead power, if for no other reason than that they are less resented than traditional rivals on the continent which might else fill the position. Germany may be the most powerful economy in Europe, but half of the others would shit a brick if it took over the role; which is why Germany itself, despite all recent declarations about providing more military leadership, is reluctant to. For that reason alone, the US might want to proceed carefully in handing off responsibilities; the political and economic repercussions of a Europe squabbling over leadership on security issues may come at greater cost to Americans than continuing to underwrite its own leadership with troops and money.

quote:

And that's a valid perspective, certainly from a material point of view, and particularly regarding will to act....
But if your view on the European side is correct, just complaining rather than acting won't change anything for the US, because there is no incentive for the Europeans. And again, American policy in the last 30 years has actively discouraged emergence of a self-reliant European security identity (in the words of Madeleine Albright in 1998, "no diminution of NATO, no duplication of its structures, no discrimination of its members"). There are various levels of reduced American commitment to Europe I can think of; however the US needs to define what it wants.

You're right about that.
Withdrawal from or dissolution of the formal NATO alliance would rip off the band-aid. I'd be in favor of US withdrawal from NATO. I think it has become too involved in European affairs and too expensive, particularly for the US.
It would formalize the idea that Europe should defend Europe.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
It doesn't matter what the US does or "insists" upon. The fact is that European countries have become lazy and dependent upon others to do their fighting and they give no indication of changing their dependent behavior. There's a certain underlying cockyness in the attitudes of governments of European nations: daddy will always help us out.

And that's a valid perspective, certainly from a material point of view, and particularly regarding will to act. There are of course those who would point out that the US remains the only NATO member to have declared a case of Article 5 after 9/11, and more allied soldiers subsequently died on behalf of the US than US soldiers ever died on behalf of NATO. Though I suspect they're a rather small slice between the plain anti-American camp complaining that the US has always treated its allies as mere vassals; and people like me who believe that American and European/Western interests are largely congruent, even if both "sides" have sometimes abused the relationship for their own particular aims. In the end, an American soldier in Kosovo and a European soldier in Afghanistan both served joint security - notwithstanding failure of such missions, or bright ideas like Iraq on the American and Libya on the European part, which actually turned out to be detrimental to (at least European) security.

But if your view on the European side is correct, just complaining rather than acting won't change anything for the US, because there is no incentive for the Europeans. And again, American policy in the last 30 years has actively discouraged emergence of a self-reliant European security identity (in the words of Madeleine Albright in 1998, "no diminution of NATO, no duplication of its structures, no discrimination of its members"). There are various levels of reduced American commitment to Europe I can think of; however the US needs to define what it wants. Are you still interested in bases like Ramstein which are needed for logistics of operations all throughout the Europe-Africa-West Asia area, including treatment of WIAs? Sigonella, which enables UAV operations in the same area without excessive satellite lag? Naples, the HQ of Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean? The missile defense sites in Eastern Europe, which were set up to protect the US from future long-range missiles out of the Middle East, with protection of Europe a side effect? Etc.

Letting allies take over regional security has certainly worked in the past. France, and to a lesser part the UK and other former colonial powers, have policed sub-Saharan Africa for the West for decades, with only punctual American involvement because the US hadn't many vital interests there. The main problem with American withdrawl from Europe could be that the US is the powerful outsider everyone can agree on as a lead power, if for no other reason than that they are less resented than traditional rivals on the continent which might else fill the position. Germany may be the most powerful economy in Europe, but half of the others would shit a brick if it took over the role; which is why Germany itself, despite all recent declarations about providing more military leadership, is reluctant to. For that reason alone, the US might want to proceed carefully in handing off responsibilities; the political and economic repercussions of a Europe squabbling over leadership on security issues may come at greater cost to Americans than continuing to underwrite its own leadership with troops and money.

There's a profound difference between force projection and defense. We don't need to fight or spend money to defend Ukraine. Same goes for many countries in Europe. You guys could cut the social programs and spend more on defenses, that way, when cousin Vlad does come knocking on the door, you can kick the shit out of him if you need to. We are there mainly to ensure everyone keeps cool by being the 500 pound gorilla in the room ready to whip some ass when necessary. Our mere presence keeps the peace! That's force projection! Guess if Germany didn't shit can the idea of Ukraine in NATO back in '08 this wouldn't even be an issue right now. Why should we NOW be the ones that need to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, when most (all) of this falls squarely on European politics? There's nothing stopping the members of NATO from spending more on their own defense or the defense of others. That's a lie the politicians have been feeding you. It allows them free up that money they keep taking from y'all while providing minimal defense so they can buy your votes through social programs. It's easy to do when you know Uncle Sugar is gonna do what he needs to in order to keep the peace. President Trump just said out loud what everyone already knows.


My thoughts on NATO and the UN are the same as many American's....WHY? A few airbases and other installations to keep the boogeyman away? We could walk away today and Europe would be begging us to come back and be that gorilla again. Guess the one thing keeping us in, is the continuity of in place logistics: cheaper/easier and less time consuming in the long run for US when we need to put the smackdown on a Euro country getting out of line. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that!

As to your assertion "more allied soldiers subsequently died on behalf of the US than US soldiers ever died on behalf of NATO"? Ask yourself how many Europeans would have died without the US being a part of NATO. Go on back to 1949. If your number isn't in the millions, you're absolutely lying to yourself. I'm guessing were square here.

The last is an interesting "What If"; there were earlier/alternate approaches for a post-WW II European security organization without the US, but in the end everyone was clearly glad to have the Americans on board. However, my assertion actually is that American and European security interests largely coincide, so I'm not counting KIAs against each other any more than material expenditures. Follies like Iraq or Libya aside, if European soldiers then fought and died for joint security in the War on Terror, obviously so did their American brothers in arms.

And obviously supporting Ukraine is not directly defending NATO; for starters, no NATO soldiers are fighting Russia in Ukraine, which is rather preferable. Though I maintain that if the Russian annexations are allowed to stand, any historically contested border becomes debatable, including within NATO. And while we have digressed into the usual debate of relative contributions to joint security by the US and its allies (blame the Kennedy piece, which makes the same conflation), to me it all comes back to the point that America is doing it to assert its position as the Western lead nation, not least for its own benefit.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Withdrawal from or dissolution of the formal NATO alliance would rip off the band-aid. I'd be in favor of US withdrawal from NATO. I think it has become too involved in European affairs and too expensive, particularly for the US.
It would formalize the idea that Europe should defend Europe.

That would certainly be doable within a couple years, maybe a decade. Compared to the end of the Cold War, when the US had two entire Army corps with the equivalent of five mechanized divisions based in Europe, plus nine tactical fighter wings, six missile and half a dozen other Air Force wings, its military footprint today is rather small. There are only really two permanently based Army brigade combat teams left, 3rd Cavalry in Germany and 173rd Airborne in Italy; two mechanized BCTs have been rotating through Eastern Europe at any time since Ukraine flared up, and two airborne ones are currently deployed to Poland and Romania. On the Air Force side, there are seven fighter and three airlift etc. squadrons, plus the equivalent of about two more currently deployed. With those reinforcements, call it a fifth of the Cold War fighting force.

The bulk these days is in headquarters (US Army and US Air Force Europe and Africa, respectively, plus NATO HQs), bases, medical installations and logistics troops like 21st Theater Sustainment Command supporting US operations between, roughly, the Azores and Afghanistan, the North Cape and Cape of Good Hope. The decision then becomes whether to give up those capabilities, too. If Eastern Europe ceases to be an area of interest for the US, certainly the same case could be made for the rest of the strategic region. As noted, there has never been much American interest in Africa anyway, except for the shore countries along strategic sea lines of communication. The Middle East OTOH used to be the area of American interest, but over the last decade there has been successive US disengagement from it.

There are various reasons, primarily reduced US dependence upon oil from the Persian Gulf countries, the experience of the Islamist backlash to the American presence and failure in Iraq, and the US-brokered rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbors over a common interest to contain Iran reducing the need for American leadership. That said, it's far from certain the latter situation will continue to improve; since the US pulled the plug on the nuclear deal with Iran, they have reportedly managed to enrich uranium to almost weapons-grade 84 percent, China recently brokered another rapprochement between traditional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Israel looks to be on the brink of tearing itself apart as decades of divergent developments in society are coming to a head.

That might have an influence on whether the US wants to keep its strategic installations in Europe, not least the missile defense sites. Those are currently covered by the NATO Status of Forces Agreement: The host nation provides the property at no charge and also pre-finances any new construction or improvement on it; the sending state subsequently reimburses for the construction cost, except for those related to planning under the host nation's laws (environmental impact surveys etc.). If the sending state relinquishes use of the property and returns it to the host nation, the former is paid compensation for the value of improvements it had done during its tenure. If the US should leave NATO but wish to continue use of some installations in Europe, it would therefore have to negotiate new agreements with the respective host nations.

The last decision I see deriving immediately is whether the US wants to leave securing the strategic SLOCs in the European littorals to the Europeans. As noted, anyone who makes them safe is doing it so for everyone; all nations depend on the same international shipping for commerce. Otherwise, for the Europeans the gap to fill is not so much in troop strength - there are more than enough troops in Europe to defend against any threat by Russia or whomever already. The deficits are foremost in a lack of unifying political will so far provided by the US, but also equipment levels, availability/deployability, and strategic capabilities in command and control, reconnaissance and other force enablers. Not least there might need to be a buildup in nuclear deterrence.

Ultimately, rectifying those deficits would however make Europe a strategic military competitor to the US when it used to be an ally - something I still maintain is in the interest of neither.

Anyone arguing this is Europe's fight, we have no links to it, really needs to open a history book. From the Colonial Era to the dissolution of the Former Yugoslavia we have been dragged into Europe's conflicts. We can be isolationists, or non-interventionists as much as we want, but trying hard to recall a major European conflict that sooner or later we didn't get dragged into. Right now it is just material support for the Ukrainians. I would rather see that than a certain point where US and NATO troops have to go in to defend Kiev against Russia.

We know you support the drain on critical resources of the United States.

Saying that we always "get dragged into it" is far more telling than you seem to realize.

What if America didn't exist? What would Europe do then? They would handle their own affairs, and not sit back on their lazy asses waiting for daddy to fix things for them. Based upon the attitudes of those who support America getting "dragged into it" you would think that European nations are helpless children.

Just for fun maybe you should read a history book that is t Rurocentrc and notice the conflicts we have stayed out of.
Africa for instance seems to always have a war we could get into, sun-Saharan northern Egypt. How about Asia? Chinese have run roughshod there for five decades. Cambodia, Laos, we managed to stay out. Phillipines also in a guerilla war.

From what I read regularly we aren’t even sure that we can or will go to the aid of Taiwan. But Ukraine? A country most Americans couldn’t find on a map of Ukraine were all in for… cuz, just cuz.

No thanks and my reading is just fine.