I would be MUCH more cautious in my estimates of how worthless the Russian military is. "The First Casualty in War is Truth".
Russians and Ukrainians are both old hat at propaganda, and of nations invaded in recent years, Ukraine is more populous and richer than any other nation invaded by a major power in recent years - a third the population of Russia, and a major player in multiple global export markets. The closest parallel to this war is the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, but even that isn't perfect - Poland was at a greater disadvantage in every metric than Ukraine is right now.
Russia is somewhat underperforming expectations, clearly has systemic issues with their military, and the news is making hay out of every misstep they make... but Great Britain and French Ministry of Defense maps and analysis indicate a slow grinding win for Russia.
It should also be noted that the Germans have made themselves utterly dependent upon the Russians, in addition to neglecting their own defense, and this, despite anything they've said in the last few weeks, is highly unlikely to change. They may try, but the political forces which have placed them in their current position are strong, well established, and not particularly noted for a pragmatism. It would be great if the Germans could take their traditional place as a counterbalance to Russia - in terms of population and money, they could do it by themselves - but they've proven themselves untrustworthy and feckless in recent years (and more so in recent weeks).
Still, the point re: NATO not needing the US is quite fair. The Russian Federation is not the USSR, and they don't have the Warsaw pact backing them up... in fact, much of the former Warsaw Pact is lined up in opposition to them, most notably Poland, which has been getting very good value for their money on their military. Poland, backstopped by France and the UK - both nuclear powers too, so we wouldn't even need to provide nuclear deterrent - is sufficient roadblock to further westward expansion by the Russians, as they are now.
However, the money would just get redirected to building up our navy for the coming fight in the West Pacific against the Chinese, rather than going elsewhere.
2. Halving the natgas they get from the Russians still leaves them needing massive amounts of Russian natgas. Per the chief executive of at least one German utility, Russia accounts for ~half of their natgas supplies. Halving that still leaves them in the hole by 25% if Russian natgas ceases to flow. The same executive said that it would take years to replace Russian gas supplies. That IS dependence, no matter how you slice it.
3. They're not replacing even that 25% without building a bunch more LNG infrastructure, or a bunch of nuke plants... and I have strong doubts that they could do it in that timeline, even if their word on making the attempt was good.
4. As regards anything the Germans say that they're doing in response to Russia... they have been obstructive at every step in this process, have stopped making promised arms deliveries, and even before they stopped were not coming close to fulfilling their promises. In light of that, both their promises to increase their military funding, and to reduce their dependence on Russian natgas are little more than hot air.
In short, they're not finding alternate sources for a full quarter of their natural gas by summer, even if they did, they'd still have another quarter coming from Russia, and nothing they say about planned actions is to be trusted.
> The reason nobody thought about this before, is because they didn’t realize how astoundingly awful the Russian army actually is
Nah. Nobody thought about it because US military budget is not really a charity to the rest of NATO. At least that's not the point.
Everything you said may be true - but also, US loses being a global hegemon thingy. Unless it's not so correlated with military spending - but I wouldn't bet on it.
Logic that works but probably will never be adopted. Have not seen such an idea before. Pity we pay a lot of people to look at stuff like this proposal so why haven't they done this kind of thing? Nice envelope day, thanks.
There's a bit of a flaw in this otherwise excellent plan: the legitimate(?) threat that China poses. However, if they were to see the US sincerely and legitimately scaling down their military spending, I suspect they would enthusiastically follow.
His narrative is still garbled, but thanks for the suggested clarification.
What does "containing China" mean? Chinese commercial expansion is massive, both internally and externally, how would a military buildup change international trade?
Correct - the Military Industrial Complex will not give up so easily methinks - why not take the naive European taxpayer money *in addition to* the same old naive US taxpayer money? It's just common sense!
I would be MUCH more cautious in my estimates of how worthless the Russian military is. "The First Casualty in War is Truth".
Russians and Ukrainians are both old hat at propaganda, and of nations invaded in recent years, Ukraine is more populous and richer than any other nation invaded by a major power in recent years - a third the population of Russia, and a major player in multiple global export markets. The closest parallel to this war is the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, but even that isn't perfect - Poland was at a greater disadvantage in every metric than Ukraine is right now.
Russia is somewhat underperforming expectations, clearly has systemic issues with their military, and the news is making hay out of every misstep they make... but Great Britain and French Ministry of Defense maps and analysis indicate a slow grinding win for Russia.
It should also be noted that the Germans have made themselves utterly dependent upon the Russians, in addition to neglecting their own defense, and this, despite anything they've said in the last few weeks, is highly unlikely to change. They may try, but the political forces which have placed them in their current position are strong, well established, and not particularly noted for a pragmatism. It would be great if the Germans could take their traditional place as a counterbalance to Russia - in terms of population and money, they could do it by themselves - but they've proven themselves untrustworthy and feckless in recent years (and more so in recent weeks).
Still, the point re: NATO not needing the US is quite fair. The Russian Federation is not the USSR, and they don't have the Warsaw pact backing them up... in fact, much of the former Warsaw Pact is lined up in opposition to them, most notably Poland, which has been getting very good value for their money on their military. Poland, backstopped by France and the UK - both nuclear powers too, so we wouldn't even need to provide nuclear deterrent - is sufficient roadblock to further westward expansion by the Russians, as they are now.
However, the money would just get redirected to building up our navy for the coming fight in the West Pacific against the Chinese, rather than going elsewhere.
> the Germans have made themselves utterly dependent upon the Russians,
Aren't they planning to cut half of the gas they get from Russia by summer? That sounds pretty fast, so how could they be "utterly dependent?.
1. Planning is not the same thing as achieving.
2. Halving the natgas they get from the Russians still leaves them needing massive amounts of Russian natgas. Per the chief executive of at least one German utility, Russia accounts for ~half of their natgas supplies. Halving that still leaves them in the hole by 25% if Russian natgas ceases to flow. The same executive said that it would take years to replace Russian gas supplies. That IS dependence, no matter how you slice it.
3. They're not replacing even that 25% without building a bunch more LNG infrastructure, or a bunch of nuke plants... and I have strong doubts that they could do it in that timeline, even if their word on making the attempt was good.
4. As regards anything the Germans say that they're doing in response to Russia... they have been obstructive at every step in this process, have stopped making promised arms deliveries, and even before they stopped were not coming close to fulfilling their promises. In light of that, both their promises to increase their military funding, and to reduce their dependence on Russian natgas are little more than hot air.
In short, they're not finding alternate sources for a full quarter of their natural gas by summer, even if they did, they'd still have another quarter coming from Russia, and nothing they say about planned actions is to be trusted.
> Every country from France and to the left is upholding their NATO defense spending obligation. Every country to the right of France isn’t.
Unless I have misread that chart horribly, I think you have left and right reversed here.
> The reason nobody thought about this before, is because they didn’t realize how astoundingly awful the Russian army actually is
Nah. Nobody thought about it because US military budget is not really a charity to the rest of NATO. At least that's not the point.
Everything you said may be true - but also, US loses being a global hegemon thingy. Unless it's not so correlated with military spending - but I wouldn't bet on it.
Cannot travel to any lands beyond the misspelling.
Logic that works but probably will never be adopted. Have not seen such an idea before. Pity we pay a lot of people to look at stuff like this proposal so why haven't they done this kind of thing? Nice envelope day, thanks.
There's a bit of a flaw in this otherwise excellent plan: the legitimate(?) threat that China poses. However, if they were to see the US sincerely and legitimately scaling down their military spending, I suspect they would enthusiastically follow.
What does China have to do with the Ukraine war, or NATO* in general?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
I think his point is that, in the absence of defending Europe, we would spend the money on containing China, rather than on cheapening Cancer.
His narrative is still garbled, but thanks for the suggested clarification.
What does "containing China" mean? Chinese commercial expansion is massive, both internally and externally, how would a military buildup change international trade?
Correct - the Military Industrial Complex will not give up so easily methinks - why not take the naive European taxpayer money *in addition to* the same old naive US taxpayer money? It's just common sense!
The business of America is business, after all.