Ukraine War... How much will S&P drop this week?

[StarTrekDoc]

I disagree. Humanitarian aid should be given liberally without strings or conditions. Military and Governmental aid on the other hand should be given with a strategic objective and goal in mind, namely in the case- obtaining peace. There is now a debate going on as to what victory will look like. Seems like we should have figured that out first.

You may want that, as do I.

The reality is that there isn't a reasonable way for such contingencies to exist and if we draw the line at handing out blankets -- well, we saw the result there too.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

I suggest you read the recent headlines, the Ukrainians are pushing hard against any negotiations that involve giving up land for peace. Of course that's their prerogative, but it seems to me that our military and economic aid should have been contingent on peace negotiations which will inevitably involve some Russian control, whether it be retaining control of crimea or terrirory in eastern ukraine. That would have made sense.

This would be a foolish approach. Allowing Russia to take pieces of Ukraine one at a time and amass forces freely behind a new border, would be a mistake. Not to mention that it is naive to think that Russia could be trusted in a position of strength. They already promised peace if Ukraine gave up its nukes, then they swore they wouldn’t invade as the invasion was underway. What do you think they will do with that signed piece of paper?…. It would never occur to them to respect any agreement with anyone who would take this approach. They would be viewed as gullible children from the Russian cultural perspective. The Ukrainians are correct.

Russia would use it to strengthen their position for the next phase of the invasion, and nothing more.

The time to negotiate will be when Russia its in a real major catastrophe and in serious trouble without a good exit. They aren’t there yet.

You can’t plan on exactly what victory looks like in a real war with a formidable opponent. You know when it happens though, because your enemy stops fighting at that point.

[Dont_know_mind]

For fun, imagine if the US used the Russian playbook on Canada. Fund and back separatists in various Canadian states that want secession. Then invade Ontario because they are mistreating Quebec.

[CordMcNally]

For fun, imagine if the US used the Russian playbook on Canada. Fund and back separatists in various Canadian states that want secession. Then invade Ontario because they are mistreating Quebec.

I would call that just slightly different since Canada was never a part of one large conglomerate like Ukraine and Russia were with the Soviet Union until the early 1990s.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

For fun, imagine if the US used the Russian playbook on Canada. Fund and back separatists in various Canadian states that want secession. Then invade Ontario because they are mistreating Quebec.

You mean, we send in the army and special forces groups with light military equipment, dressed up as Canadians. They do a series of hits, and sabotage key infrastructure, and start a series of attacks on military targets. Then we call them “separatists” and “rebels”, and claim those actions as evidence that part of Canada wants to join the US, when in actuality it’s our troops.

This is what happened in those “break away” eastern regions the wanted to “join Russia”.

[Dont_know_mind]

This would be a foolish approach. Allowing Russia to take pieces of Ukraine one at a time and amass forces freely behind a new border, would be a mistake. Not to mention that it is naive to think that Russia could be trusted in a position of strength. They already promised peace if Ukraine gave up its nukes, then they swore they wouldn’t invade as the invasion was underway. What do you think they will do with that signed piece of paper?…. It would never occur to them to respect any agreement with anyone who would take this approach. They would be viewed as gullible children from the Russian cultural perspective. The Ukrainians are correct.

Russia would use it to strengthen their position for the next phase of the invasion, and nothing more.

The time to negotiate will be when Russia its in a real major catastrophe and in serious trouble without a good exit. They aren’t there yet.

You can’t plan on exactly what victory looks like in a real war with a formidable opponent. You know when it happens though, because your enemy stops fighting at that point.

Have you read the book “disunited nations” by Peter Zeihan? I finished reading it last week. Would be interested in your or anyones take on it. It seems to be a narrative that is gaining in popularity.

[Dont_know_mind]

You mean, we send in the army and special forces groups with light military equipment, dressed up as Canadians. They do a series of hits, and sabotage key infrastructure, and start a series of attacks on military targets. Then we call them “separatists” and “rebels”, and claim those actions as evidence that part of Canada wants to join the US, when in actuality it’s our troops.

This is what happened in those “break away” eastern regions the wanted to “join Russia”.

That’s an even better way of putting it! There’s an absurd element to it in terms of the the propaganda. Except for the 1M Ukrainians who have been resettled (or kidnapped depending on how you look at it) into Russia. It’s pretty bad when you think about it.

[StarTrekDoc]

A more appropriate probably be Tijuana and rio grande area that's intricately connected to usa in economy and cross border people.

Local folk start jammering for separation and usa sends plain clothes troops over to support actions. Since main Mexican army is of little match, they can only wall off the area as Tijuana and rio grande declare independence.

Years later usa recognizes Baja Mexico independence and sends troops in to support.

[Rando]

I hope this is ok to post. Good NYT article on how goals have changed on Ukraine. As this thread proves the cost of the Ukraine War is a lot more than the billions the government has sent over, there's also been impact on the stock market and global commerce as well as the human costs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/us/politics/zelensky-ukraine-war.html

[nephron]

I think that we could invade Canada very easily. In a conventional war on a battlefield, I don't think that there is a country that is anywhere close to our military. The problem isn't the invasion as much as it is holding onto ground in a population that doesn't want you there with citizens willing to violently oppose you (Afghanistan). I don't know how much Canadians would oppose our rule. They may get mad when they realize that they no longer get free government healthcare I suppose. Then you are just looking at the people who utilize the healthcare system providing any sort of opposition.

I do wonder if our astronomical spending on our conventional military combined with strategic alliances artificially depresses everybody else's military spending. Why spend a lot on tanks in Germany or France when you realize you can just ask Americans to send theirs over if needed. That combined with nuclear threats means that if you are a smaller country part of NATO, you probably don't really need that much of a robust military. As evident in Ukraine, we certainly do benefit from having a certain world order where countries are not invading their neighbors periodically so I don't know how you could run the system any differently. It doesn't seem like that bad of a deal for us to just flood a country with high tech weapons if we want them to fight off some aggressor vs getting our own troops involved.

[CordMcNally]

I do wonder if our astronomical spending on our conventional military combined with strategic alliances artificially depresses everybody else's military spending. Why spend a lot on tanks in Germany or France when you realize you can just ask Americans to send theirs over if needed. That combined with nuclear threats means that if you are a smaller country part of NATO, you probably don't really need that much of a robust military. As evident in Ukraine, we certainly do benefit from having a certain world order where countries are not invading their neighbors periodically so I don't know how you could run the system any differently. It doesn't seem like that bad of a deal for us to just flood a country with high tech weapons if we want them to fight off some aggressor vs getting our own troops involved.

NATO spending answers that. No other NATO country needs to because the US supplies nearly endless dollars.

If we weren’t funding so much of Ukraine, I bet many countries in Europe would magically find some funding.

[StarTrekDoc]

It doesn't seem like that bad of a deal for us to just flood a country with high tech weapons if we want them to fight off some aggressor vs getting our own troops involved.

This. Ukraine conflict is opportunity for NATO to degrade Russia as a primary adversary without own troops getting involved.

Even more - spend our aging stock and backfill with new inventory and spending for our own military industries. eg: even though 1/3 javelins sent over, I'm sure we can spare sending another 5k and make an emergency multi-year acquisition to Raytheon.

That along with all the backfill F16s and tanks to Poland/Czech NATO for getting rid of their soviet era stocks.

What gets me is Germany having a lot of surplus but simply not relinquishing those over. Very weird some of Germany's non-actions this conflict.

[StarTrekDoc]

It IS skewed a bit too though. per capita it's a little more balanced; but we still take on Lion's share of NATO spending.....carrier groups are pretty expensive.

United Arab Emirates	22.75	10,081,785	2256.54	382.58	5.95
Israel	20.00	8,922,892	2241.43	353.27	5.66
United States	750.00	334,805,269	2240.11	19485.39	3.85
Qatar	6.00	2,979,915	2013.48	166.93	3.59
Saudi Arabia	67.60	35,844,909	1885.90	686.74	9.84
Singapore	11.20	5,943,546	1884.40	323.91	3.46
Oman	8.69	5,323,993	1632.23	70.78	12.28
Kuwait	6.83	4,380,326	1559.24	120.13	5.69
Uruguay	4.95	3,496,016	1415.90	56.16	8.81
Norway	7.18	5,511,370	1302.76	399.49	1.80
Australia	26.30	26,068,792	1008.87	1323.42	1.99
New Zealand	4.30	4,898,203	877.87	204.14	2.11
South Korea	44.00	51,329,899	857.20	1530.75	2.87
Denmark	4.76	5,834,950	815.77	329.87	1.44
United Kingdom	55.10	68,497,907	804.40	2637.87	2.09
Bahrain	1.42	1,783,983	795.97	35.43	4.01
Netherlands	12.42	17,211,447	721.61	830.57	1.50
Finland	3.57	5,554,960	642.67	252.30	1.41
France	41.50	65,584,518	632.77	2582.50	1.61
Sweden	6.33	10,218,971	619.44	535.61	1.18
Germany	50.00	83,883,596	596.06	3693.20	1.35
Canada	22.50	38,388,419	586.11	1647.12	1.37
Switzerland	5.00	8,773,637	569.89	678.97	0.74
Estonia	0.69	1,321,910	518.19	26.61	2.57
Greece	4.84	10,316,637	469.15	203.09	2.38
Armenia	1.39	2,971,966	467.70	11.54	12.05
Italy	27.80	60,262,770	461.31	1943.84	1.43

[Dont_know_mind]

I think that we could invade Canada very easily. In a conventional war on a battlefield, I don't think that there is a country that is anywhere close to our military. The problem isn't the invasion as much as it is holding onto ground in a population that doesn't want you there with citizens willing to violently oppose you (Afghanistan). I don't know how much Canadians would oppose our rule. They may get mad when they realize that they no longer get free government healthcare I suppose. Then you are just looking at the people who utilize the healthcare system providing any sort of opposition.

I do wonder if our astronomical spending on our conventional military combined with strategic alliances artificially depresses everybody else's military spending. Why spend a lot on tanks in Germany or France when you realize you can just ask Americans to send theirs over if needed. That combined with nuclear threats means that if you are a smaller country part of NATO, you probably don't really need that much of a robust military. As evident in Ukraine, we certainly do benefit from having a certain world order where countries are not invading their neighbors periodically so I don't know how you could run the system any differently. It doesn't seem like that bad of a deal for us to just flood a country with high tech weapons if we want them to fight off some aggressor vs getting our own troops involved.

Zeihan’s argument is that the two poles of the narrative:
1. The populist one one embraced (in different ways) by the hard left and right of politics: that the US is being ripped off by military spending, we get not benefit from it, the US doesn’t need the world. “Splendid isolationism”.
2. The military-strategic one: that the Cold War era strategy was to guarantee free trade for anyone on our side (ie. anti-USSR) without anything in return from the US. This got nearly everyone in our side. Far from being a position of weakness though, this is actually a position strength because a) this allowed for an easy win of the Cold War and b) when the US disengages from the previous world order, it gains and everyone else falls apart. In this way of thinking China and Russia benefit the most from world trade (which the US had previously secured with its Navy), and they will suffer the most as the US withdraws and the world becomes more disorderly.

Generally accepted is:
- there is broad, bipartisan political support for the US detaching internationally. Strategically, it can now do so now, since it is energy independent.

Logically related but hard to imagine:
- moving away from the role of world policeman, the US may be the main beneficiary from world disorder now. The incentives will be for it to become an aggitator.

One way the old order could have been preserved is if the US had asked/negotiated for adequate payment/benefit from the role and cost of its continuance after the end of the cold war. But this didn’t happen and resulted in increasing US resentment. The US has been disengaging in the last 4 administrations (since at least Clinton).

[Dont_know_mind]

What gets me is Germany having a lot of surplus but simply not relinquishing those over. Very weird some of Germany's non-actions this conflict.

I find the German strategy puzzling also. The only way I can make sense of their energy policy (particularly their decision to decommission remaining nuclear reactors) is if some of their politicians are being paid or influenced by Russian interests. Or it could be just odd decision making.