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US to start training Ukrainian troops on Abrams tanks within weeks

31 points by jdmark 3y ago

givepeasach0 3y ago
[flagged]
TexanFeller 3y ago
We have been steadily escalating the conflict with Russia. We're training Ukrainian forces, providing the intelligence for them, and supplying them with our best weapons. How can we even pretend it's Ukraine at war and not us at this point? How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner?
- RedCondor 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
    > Most people are too cowardly to challenge the premises of the conflict ("Poor innocent Ukraine got attacked by evil Russia!") I'm not a coward so I will challenge you. It wasn't Russia, it was Putin and a group of people around him who decided to attack Ukraine to extend their influence. Ukraine is a victim in this conflict. There is nothing that they did they would justify invading, murdering and raping innocent people.
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      This is even worse. "It was just like, a tiny clique of villains with almost no support!" To feel good about a wrong theory of a particular war you put forth an even more wrong theory of statecraft.
  - stackedinserter 3y ago
    Because it's evil Russia attacked poor innocent Ukraine in 2014, then escalated it to a full continental war, with tanks, artillery and planes. You're free to challenge the premises of the conflict by showing me a Russian city destroyed to grounds by Ukrainians, like Mariupol or Bakhmut.
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      No, I won't do this useless tit tat game. You're welcome to read a Black American socialist, Glen Ford, and his brief account of where things were headed as far back as 2014, though: https://redsails.org/ford-on-ukraine/ https://redsails.org/ford-on-ukraine/ I think that President Obama’s attempt to destabilize Russia will be seen by history as disastrous as George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like the Iraq war, the de facto declaration of “war by other means” against Russia will accelerate the very dynamic that it intends to halt: the steady weakening of U.S. imperialism’s grip on the world. It will increase the resolve of a host of nations to disengage themselves from American madness and to strengthen collaboration and cooperation among many countries, and not just Russia and China. The result will be the exact opposite of Washington’s intention. The attempt to isolate and destabilize Russia, the other nuclear superpower, may appear to some to be an act of brashness, a flexing of American muscle, an act of imperial overconfidence and recklessness. People thought the same thing when Bush went into Iraq. They were shocked and more than a little bit awed. [1] In fact, sometimes I think that Americans are more shocked and awed by the American military than anybody else. But the Iraq invasion, and the brazen offensive against Russia, as well as the so-called “Pivot Against China” and the octopus-like U.S. military entrenchment in Africa — these are really symptoms of weakness and desperation. U.S. imperialism is losing its grip on the world and responds to its weakening condition with massive campaigns of destabilization. Destabilization characterizes U.S. foreign policy today more than any other word. The purpose is to reverse the general dynamic of global affairs today in which U.S. influence and power shrinks in relative terms as the rest of the world develops. U.S. and European hegemony — and that is the ability to dictate the terms of economic and political life on the planet — has daily diminished in myriad objective ways, ways that we can measure by the numbers. China’s soon-to-be status as the world’s biggest economy is just one aspect of that decline. The process is inexorable and it’s gaining momentum. The trajectory of imperial decline has been firmly set ever since the Western capitalists decided to move the production of things — that, is the industrial base — to the South and the rest of the planet. Inevitably power and influence follow and imperial hegemony diminishes. This is of course unacceptable to the rulers of the United States who now find themselves in objective opposition to all manifestations of collaboration and mutual development under terms that are not dictated by Washington. They are in objective opposition to all manifestations of independence by countries in the world. This applies not just to China, not just to China and Russia, but to the rest of the BRICS and to other developing nations. And it even applies to America’s closest allies. That is because hegemons don’t really have allies. All they have are subordinates, and so the U.S. is quite prepared to do serious harm to European economic interests by pressuring them to break long established economic ties to Russia. They will ultimately do the same thing in the pacific region with China and cause great destabilization there. They do so not because of strength but because of growing relative weakness. Their desperation compels them to risk war because their only clear superiority is in weapons. However, the net end result, if we survive these flirtations with all-out war, can only be further isolation of the United States and the further weakening of imperialism. I think there is on what passes for the left in the United States a tendency to describe U.S. aggressions like the Iraq war, like the current offensive against Russia, as mistakes and miscalculations: “They didn’t mean to do that.” In reality the U.S. goes to the brink and beyond the brink of war because it perceives itself as having no other choice. Its soft power is fading. It has few other means beyond the military to strategically influence events. It recruits or buys allies where it can get them, be it jihadists or Nazis. As imperialism’s sway in the world shrinks, so do its options. U.S. policymakers surveyed the world in 2002 and in 2003 and they concluded that the dynamic in Asia was going against them. They knew that most of the world would be horrified with a war against Iraq, but they rolled the dice anyway and invaded. The net result was the opposite of what they intended. The U.S. was humiliated and the U.S. was humiliated so badly that the rulers of the United States chose to put a dramatically different face on U.S. power — a Black face, Barack Obama. Iraq was supposed to be a forward U.S. base in Asia to disrupt China’s growing ties in the region. Instead the Iraq war exposed U.S. imperialism’s weaknesses. In the days before that invasion, we wrote in Black Commentator that the U.S. had reached too far and succeeded only in accelerating the process of its own decline. Today Barack Obama is rolling the dice just like George Bush did. To sever Russia’s ties to Europe, Washington has surveyed the global scene and concluded that it has no other choice. The result will be a strengthening of ties between Russia and China, a great anxiety and rethinking among Europeans about their ties to the United States which is about to harm their economy, and an acceleration of imperialism’s death spiral. Power to the people! —— As usual HN disabling my ability to reply to people. Re the amusing soft power post: Nothing says "consolidated American soft power" like Iran and Saudi Arabia cutting peace deals, the rise of K-Pop, and America desperately trying to ban TikTok.
  - TechBro8615 3y ago
    If you're pro-war, you should head down to your nearest Army recruiting station and sign up for duty. Otherwise, you're not really pro-war. You're anti-war for yourself, but you want other people to kill people on your behalf. In other words, you're a coward.
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      This sounds nice, and I more or less agree, but has zero political rhetorical/ persuasive power. Sticking to this line is basically resigning yourself to the status quo while claimimg yourself morally above it. Just for one thing: geriatrics control most policymaking in America, and they won't be fighting anything.
      - TechBro8615 3y ago
        Then replace "you" in my statement with "your son" and "someone else's son," and the same applies. It's not just rhetoric. The underlying truth is that there have been wars in history that were worth fighting, and for which people did head to their nearest Army office and sign up to fight. And if a war doesn't reach that standard, then it begs the question why it's worth fighting at all.
    - cpwright 3y ago
      As an American, American soldiers are not fighting. The Ukrainians are not asking them to either. We are paying taxes, and those taxes are being used to send weapons to Ukraine. I'm pro-Ukraine as long as they collectively want to fight themselves - whether that means we send them advanced weapon systems or provide training and support for an insurgency.
- adammarples 3y ago
  How do you escalate from a full blown invasion which flattens cities with artillery and targets civilians with impunity? I suggest that the only alternative to this "escalation" is to lie down and die and take the consequences.
  - stackedinserter 3y ago
    "Let Pudding take whatever he wants, maybe it will calm him down".
    - qikInNdOutReply 3y ago
      Worked with adolf
- gpderetta 3y ago
  This won't be the first or last of proxy wars. The notable thing is that it is being fought in Europe, right on the boundary between NATO and Russia, so the stakes (and the risks) are way higher
- flerchin 3y ago
  Much like Afghanistan in the 80s. Vietnam in the 70s. Various other proxy wars.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  In the Cold War days, we had numerous proxy wars. Korea and Vietnam are examples. Same with Afghanistan I (boy, that chicken came home to roost). Chile and Iran were egregious examples of the US sticking our oar in. It’s been over a generation of peace, so people have forgotten them.
  - esotericimpl 3y ago
    Proxy wars are wars not fought by ones own military. Korea and Vietnam were faught by americans and thus arent a proxy war for the USA. For instance the ukraine and russia war is a proxy war for the USA but is not for russia, as russia is fighting.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
      No, they were proxy wars. It’s just that Russia and China were playing the part we’re playing with Ukraine.
- thesuitonym 3y ago
  >How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner? That's exactly what Russia was counting on. Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want, with no consequences or resistance?
  - ghostwriter 3y ago
    > Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want There's no "whatever land". The war is going for a particular land with particular significance to Russia, similarly to Panama's significance to the US [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
    - xdennis 3y ago
      > The war is going for a particular land with particular significance As Putin himself said, Russia has no borders, so the orcs' goal is to subjugate everyone. What history does Russia have in Romania (it still occupies Transnistria)? What history does Russia have in Crimea (orcs only became the majority because of the execution/expulsion of the natives https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_P... ) > similarly to Panama's significance to the US Why is it that Russians are the most jingoistic "Americans"? Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing. If there's a similar significance does that mean you'll leave Ukraine afterwards?
      - ghostwriter 3y ago
        It's counter productive to get into debates with people who call one side of the conflict as "orcs", it just shows that you've got skin in the game to object to everything that doesn't align with "Ukraine's right and is winning" narrative. But just to show your bias once again here's a few points: > What history does Russia have in Romania (it still occupies Transnistria)? It has the same common history with Carpathian Ruthenia land that Ukraine isn't willing to return to Hungary and Romania. > Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing. That's to show you that double-standards exist and that nobody seems to care as long as it serves their agenda.
- Clubber 3y ago
  Appeasement also has its issues. There is no guarantee that Russia would stop at Ukraine just like Germany didn't stop with Czechoslovakia. If Russia successfully annexed Ukraine, it would grow stronger with all of Ukraine's resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement We didn't do anything when they annexed Georgia and Crimea and here we are. It's certainly concerning.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; Russia has lost two wars (once as the USSR, once as Russia) similarly without resorting to nuclear weapons. A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII.
  - xtian 3y ago
    Russia has explicitly stated multiple times that they will use nuclear weapons in response to an existential threat, but you want to call their bluff?
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
      Resisting their incursion into a sovereign country somehow constitutes a credible threat to the _existence_ of the Russian nation?
      - xtian 3y ago
        Read the comments in this thread and others. See how many slack-jawed jackals are slavering over the idea of overthrowing Putin, ‘decolonizing’ Russia, Russia descending into anarchy, etc. These halfwits are merely echoing the myopic fantasies fed to them via the US media apparatus from the highest echelons of state power. Do you really think all these dark fantasies originated a year ago? Or is there maybe something else going on?
  - TexanFeller 3y ago
    > A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII Perhaps not for the country, but it could be for Putin. It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      That’s not how nuclear codes work. There’s a long chain of people before ICBM is launched.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  Same as martial coach not in war with bully of a child they’re teaching.
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  Everyone downvoting this should be completely ashamed of themselves. This isn't reddit - we strive for a higher level of discourse here. "Upvotes / downvotes" mean "good contribution to the discussion / not good, ad hominem, rude, etc." And the above comment is an excellent contribution. I want someone who actually has a good grasp of foreign policy, strategy, wargaming, geopolitics, etc. to answer this. I too want to understand how America arming and training a Ukrainian man to fight Russia is so strategically/diplomatically different from an American man fighting Russia. The degree of indirection seems so minor, how is it so different from direct engagement? Why/how does Russia/U.S. not treat it like direct engagement? I don't understand.
  - prohobo 3y ago
    This is standard proxy war stuff, and isn't even close to what's been going on in the middle east. Like, not too long ago Wagner forces actually had a direct shoot out with the US military in Syria. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/battle-syria-us-russian-mercenaries-commandos-islamic-state-a8370781.html%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... The episode where the Russian jet sprayed fuel on the US drone? Standard cold war tactic that was very common in the 80s. Russians have been ramming and harassing US vehicles for decades. Here's a video of Russians harassing a US convoy of sorts in Syria a few years ago: https://youtube.com/shorts/hSGv02qQfhQ?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/hSGv02qQfhQ?feature=share Both sides have been flagrantly arming and training opposing factions in these proxy wars for decades as well. Modern Ukraine looks a lot like a reversed Vietnam, actually, and the US never declared war on Russia for that either. Neither side wants direct confrontation with the other, so they play games like this. Ukraine is a bit tame compared to the other recent/ongoing proxy wars. The flashpoint is that it's happening in Europe, which makes every move very public and sensationalised, and adds more pressure to the situation in general. So most of this talk of "violations" and escalation is in some sense naive, because the actual red lines have been carved in the sand outside of the public eye over the past half century. What we understand as a clear escalation is often just par for the course in the minds of the people involved in these conflicts.
  - xdennis 3y ago
    > Everyone downvoting this should be completely ashamed of themselves. > we strive for a higher level of discourse here I am not ashamed. TexanFeller's comment is not contributing to the discussion, he fearmongers with nukes to advocate for the subjugation of a country. It could just be that it's his honest opinion, but I've seen too many similar comments always using whataboutism and/or nuclear fearmongering.
- Zach_the_Lizard 3y ago
  There is a long and storied history of the US and Russia / the Soviet Union providing, uh, "advisors" and equipment to enemies of their enemies. Soviet pilots fought in Korea and Vietnam (to a much lesser degree). There are stories of Soviet special forces, infantry instructors, etc. participating in Vietnam as well. Vietnam received tons of anti-air missiles and systems, not to speak of the fighter jets, tanks, guns, and more. The US trained and armed fighters in Afghanistan. It wouldn't surprise me to learn US special forces popped in from time to time. Those are more well known--especially the Korean War and Afghan war shenanigans--but there are many others that are more obscure. The US, UK, etc. funded and trained a number of independence and / or revolutionary movements in the Eastern Bloc and China. The Baltic states, for example, had some level of guerilla war for a bit until the Soviets cracked down. The Soviets, of course, funded all sorts of, shall we say, interesting characters in the West. More recently, Iranian forces fought against American forces in Iraq. Syria has seen the US and Russia square off in a few incidents. The question in my mind is: what level of support is too much support? How do we reason about that? What level of support deters additional territorial conquest? Does territorial conquest in and of itself increase the risk of Armageddon? This is the sort of thing I'd expect to see in some Cold War era RAND Corporation white paper. I worry we have lost some of our Cold War worries in the public consciousness. Being the top dog for so long has made us feel invincible. But I also think we've forgotten that the Cold War was cold, not frozen, and there are valuable game theoretic discussions to be had or revisited
hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
I really feel sad about my friends in both Ukraine and Russia. Both countries bleed because of someone's misguided fantasies. And there's no way out. Putin knows he can not give up. Ukrainians will never give up. And even if someone managed to kill Putin now, there is no any guarantee his successor won't want to continue the war. It's sad to watch all this and feel completely hopeless.
- pshirshov 3y ago
  Someone's?
- k_bx 3y ago
  It's a common misconception to think it's Putin's war and not Russians'. There are many people who fled Russia in European cities like Berlin. How many anti-war protests conducted by Russians were there?
  - rossdavidh 3y ago
    Well, there were at the very beginning, and they were quite harshly repressed. It's not like anti-war protests in the US against the Iraq war, where you can just do it and go back to your life the next day, necessarily. Russian reporters who just say negative things in print get prison sentences. There are more protests against the war in Ukraine now, than there were in Russia in 1915, and the Russian people eventually overthrew their czar over that.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
      As firsthand recorded source material for the above, see "This American Life" episode 767, act 2. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/767/do-not-go-gentle https://www.thisamericanlife.org/767/do-not-go-gentle (Disclaimer: contains recordings from Russian police stations...)
    - k_bx 3y ago
      Please read my message again. I'm talking about protests in cities like Berlin, where nobody is repressed.
stackedinserter 3y ago
Too late, too little.
- dmix 3y ago
  It was never just about the Abrams it was mostly about unleashing Leopard tanks from other NATO countries (in addition to Challenger 2). Although the number of Leopard tanks sent by Germany so far is pretty small (18/88 promised) combined with 8 from Canada and 10 from Spain. There's about 2000 floating around Europe total. Still it was a big step forward. The Abrams is powerful but it's expensive and logistically difficult to operate with jet fuel and trailing supply vehicles designed for a modern American army. I'm most interested in the hundreds of Bradley's and other IFVs showing up.
  - dingaling 3y ago
    All NATO gas turbines, including the M1's engine, are rated to run on a variety of hydrocarbons including diesel and petrol / gasoline. There is a performance penalty but not significantly.
    - dmix 3y ago
      Everyone always says this exact thing that M1 can run on desiel but no one actually expects them to when they get them and being the first wide scale deployment test in real world operations seems awfully risky
ripvanwinkle 3y ago
It feels like the approach of arming Ukraine on a drip by drip basis is just prolonging the war. It would be best to arm Ukraine to the extent required (missiles, planes etc) to reclaim all their territory vs reactively doing just enough to keep them in the fight.
- dsfyu404ed 3y ago
  The west prefers a bled dry Russia to a recently humiliated but not bled dry Russia. That's why it's a drip by drip basis. Also the defense industrial complex sells more shit in a long conflict than a short one.
- web3-is-a-scam 3y ago
  You couldn't possibly be naive enough to think that the military industrial complex wants the war to actually end do you?
- gWPVhyxPHqvk 3y ago
  No, that's not a great approach. One overreach and you're in a nuclear war.
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    > No, that's not a great approach. One overreach and you're in a nuclear war. That's pretty easy to stop - I'm sure NATO has already told Ukraine that an incursion into Russia proper would mean an end to military aid.
    - b112 3y ago
      Bullies only respond to force. The only way to prevent Russia using nukes, is to tell(and mean it!) them any use will be repaid 5x over. Really though, all we're waiting for is Putin to die from old age, or lose his hold, and then Russia will decend into anarchy. Which will end the current threat, but open up others...
      - 3y ago
mutatio 3y ago
Some weird comments and up/down voting going on in this thread, hijacked perhaps or Western "socialists" doing their contradictory SIMPing for imperial Russia?
justinzollars 3y ago
I think Ukraine will ultimately lose because it's not in the West's strategic interest, while it is in Russias. Russia's history is also pretty dark and they are paranoid of invasion. It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine. It's horrible what has happened to the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are fighting valiantly. An invasion of Taiwan on the other hand would have a huge and immediate effect on our lives. We could in an instant be cut off from Semiconductors and would likely respond with a trade embargo with China who makes everything.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  The four variables are: a. Ukraine's will to resist b. NATO's will to supply military arms c. Russia's will to continue the operation d. Russia's economy Of those, I'd bet (d) fails first. Nazi Germany (which was economically mobilized for total war) showed you can only keep the economic house of cards going for so long. And the Russian economy is not the German economy (then or now), nor has mobilized for wartime. It looks like it's doing okay, and the Russians loudly claim so and point at the Chinese and Indians buying crude and gas, but we'll see how long the veneer of "okay" lasts.
- xdennis 3y ago
  > It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine. The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO. If you think Article 5 should be honored, then it does make a difference.
  - ghostwriter 3y ago
    > The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO. None of those countries have ever been officially mentioned as the "red line" by Russia, except Ukraine. Article 5 doesn't apply to Ukraine, and it doesn't allow for preventive military measures on non-alliance territories just because "there's a signal" somewhere outside.
jupp0r 3y ago
31 tanks will not make a difference in a war where Russia lost more than 3000 tanks in a year. US has thousands of unused Abrams in storage. Time for the Biden administration to step up for real.
- Balgair 3y ago
  The unique geography of the Isthmus of Perekop into Crimea actually makes it so that 31 tanks really could turn the war. At it's narrowest, it's ~4 miles wide (~120 yards per side of each tank), flat as a pancake, no cover or so much as a molehill. It's really the only way into Crimea for Ukraine too (it gets a bit complicated). Two and a half football field lengths between each tank is a bit crowded, if anything. Yeah, yeah, defenses, and I agree. The last time the Nazis and Soviets fought over it, ~250k casualties resulted (I think). It's a hell of a choke-point. But 31 Abrams is just about enough to do it, right order of magnitude in the least.
vpribish 3y ago
flagged. this is totally irrelevant for HN and brings out the worst sort of comments.

31 points by jdmark 3y ago

[flagged]

We have been steadily escalating the conflict with Russia. We're training Ukrainian forces, providing the intelligence for them, and supplying them with our best weapons. How can we even pretend it's Ukraine at war and not us at this point? How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner?

RedCondor 3y ago
[flagged]
- hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago
  > Most people are too cowardly to challenge the premises of the conflict ("Poor innocent Ukraine got attacked by evil Russia!") I'm not a coward so I will challenge you. It wasn't Russia, it was Putin and a group of people around him who decided to attack Ukraine to extend their influence. Ukraine is a victim in this conflict. There is nothing that they did they would justify invading, murdering and raping innocent people.
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    This is even worse. "It was just like, a tiny clique of villains with almost no support!" To feel good about a wrong theory of a particular war you put forth an even more wrong theory of statecraft.
- stackedinserter 3y ago
  Because it's evil Russia attacked poor innocent Ukraine in 2014, then escalated it to a full continental war, with tanks, artillery and planes. You're free to challenge the premises of the conflict by showing me a Russian city destroyed to grounds by Ukrainians, like Mariupol or Bakhmut.
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    No, I won't do this useless tit tat game. You're welcome to read a Black American socialist, Glen Ford, and his brief account of where things were headed as far back as 2014, though: https://redsails.org/ford-on-ukraine/ https://redsails.org/ford-on-ukraine/ I think that President Obama’s attempt to destabilize Russia will be seen by history as disastrous as George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like the Iraq war, the de facto declaration of “war by other means” against Russia will accelerate the very dynamic that it intends to halt: the steady weakening of U.S. imperialism’s grip on the world. It will increase the resolve of a host of nations to disengage themselves from American madness and to strengthen collaboration and cooperation among many countries, and not just Russia and China. The result will be the exact opposite of Washington’s intention. The attempt to isolate and destabilize Russia, the other nuclear superpower, may appear to some to be an act of brashness, a flexing of American muscle, an act of imperial overconfidence and recklessness. People thought the same thing when Bush went into Iraq. They were shocked and more than a little bit awed. [1] In fact, sometimes I think that Americans are more shocked and awed by the American military than anybody else. But the Iraq invasion, and the brazen offensive against Russia, as well as the so-called “Pivot Against China” and the octopus-like U.S. military entrenchment in Africa — these are really symptoms of weakness and desperation. U.S. imperialism is losing its grip on the world and responds to its weakening condition with massive campaigns of destabilization. Destabilization characterizes U.S. foreign policy today more than any other word. The purpose is to reverse the general dynamic of global affairs today in which U.S. influence and power shrinks in relative terms as the rest of the world develops. U.S. and European hegemony — and that is the ability to dictate the terms of economic and political life on the planet — has daily diminished in myriad objective ways, ways that we can measure by the numbers. China’s soon-to-be status as the world’s biggest economy is just one aspect of that decline. The process is inexorable and it’s gaining momentum. The trajectory of imperial decline has been firmly set ever since the Western capitalists decided to move the production of things — that, is the industrial base — to the South and the rest of the planet. Inevitably power and influence follow and imperial hegemony diminishes. This is of course unacceptable to the rulers of the United States who now find themselves in objective opposition to all manifestations of collaboration and mutual development under terms that are not dictated by Washington. They are in objective opposition to all manifestations of independence by countries in the world. This applies not just to China, not just to China and Russia, but to the rest of the BRICS and to other developing nations. And it even applies to America’s closest allies. That is because hegemons don’t really have allies. All they have are subordinates, and so the U.S. is quite prepared to do serious harm to European economic interests by pressuring them to break long established economic ties to Russia. They will ultimately do the same thing in the pacific region with China and cause great destabilization there. They do so not because of strength but because of growing relative weakness. Their desperation compels them to risk war because their only clear superiority is in weapons. However, the net end result, if we survive these flirtations with all-out war, can only be further isolation of the United States and the further weakening of imperialism. I think there is on what passes for the left in the United States a tendency to describe U.S. aggressions like the Iraq war, like the current offensive against Russia, as mistakes and miscalculations: “They didn’t mean to do that.” In reality the U.S. goes to the brink and beyond the brink of war because it perceives itself as having no other choice. Its soft power is fading. It has few other means beyond the military to strategically influence events. It recruits or buys allies where it can get them, be it jihadists or Nazis. As imperialism’s sway in the world shrinks, so do its options. U.S. policymakers surveyed the world in 2002 and in 2003 and they concluded that the dynamic in Asia was going against them. They knew that most of the world would be horrified with a war against Iraq, but they rolled the dice anyway and invaded. The net result was the opposite of what they intended. The U.S. was humiliated and the U.S. was humiliated so badly that the rulers of the United States chose to put a dramatically different face on U.S. power — a Black face, Barack Obama. Iraq was supposed to be a forward U.S. base in Asia to disrupt China’s growing ties in the region. Instead the Iraq war exposed U.S. imperialism’s weaknesses. In the days before that invasion, we wrote in Black Commentator that the U.S. had reached too far and succeeded only in accelerating the process of its own decline. Today Barack Obama is rolling the dice just like George Bush did. To sever Russia’s ties to Europe, Washington has surveyed the global scene and concluded that it has no other choice. The result will be a strengthening of ties between Russia and China, a great anxiety and rethinking among Europeans about their ties to the United States which is about to harm their economy, and an acceleration of imperialism’s death spiral. Power to the people! —— As usual HN disabling my ability to reply to people. Re the amusing soft power post: Nothing says "consolidated American soft power" like Iran and Saudi Arabia cutting peace deals, the rise of K-Pop, and America desperately trying to ban TikTok.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  If you're pro-war, you should head down to your nearest Army recruiting station and sign up for duty. Otherwise, you're not really pro-war. You're anti-war for yourself, but you want other people to kill people on your behalf. In other words, you're a coward.
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    This sounds nice, and I more or less agree, but has zero political rhetorical/ persuasive power. Sticking to this line is basically resigning yourself to the status quo while claimimg yourself morally above it. Just for one thing: geriatrics control most policymaking in America, and they won't be fighting anything.
    - TechBro8615 3y ago
      Then replace "you" in my statement with "your son" and "someone else's son," and the same applies. It's not just rhetoric. The underlying truth is that there have been wars in history that were worth fighting, and for which people did head to their nearest Army office and sign up to fight. And if a war doesn't reach that standard, then it begs the question why it's worth fighting at all.
  - cpwright 3y ago
    As an American, American soldiers are not fighting. The Ukrainians are not asking them to either. We are paying taxes, and those taxes are being used to send weapons to Ukraine. I'm pro-Ukraine as long as they collectively want to fight themselves - whether that means we send them advanced weapon systems or provide training and support for an insurgency.
adammarples 3y ago
How do you escalate from a full blown invasion which flattens cities with artillery and targets civilians with impunity? I suggest that the only alternative to this "escalation" is to lie down and die and take the consequences.
- stackedinserter 3y ago
  "Let Pudding take whatever he wants, maybe it will calm him down".
  - qikInNdOutReply 3y ago
    Worked with adolf
gpderetta 3y ago
This won't be the first or last of proxy wars. The notable thing is that it is being fought in Europe, right on the boundary between NATO and Russia, so the stakes (and the risks) are way higher
flerchin 3y ago
Much like Afghanistan in the 80s. Vietnam in the 70s. Various other proxy wars.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
In the Cold War days, we had numerous proxy wars. Korea and Vietnam are examples. Same with Afghanistan I (boy, that chicken came home to roost). Chile and Iran were egregious examples of the US sticking our oar in. It’s been over a generation of peace, so people have forgotten them.
- esotericimpl 3y ago
  Proxy wars are wars not fought by ones own military. Korea and Vietnam were faught by americans and thus arent a proxy war for the USA. For instance the ukraine and russia war is a proxy war for the USA but is not for russia, as russia is fighting.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    No, they were proxy wars. It’s just that Russia and China were playing the part we’re playing with Ukraine.
thesuitonym 3y ago
>How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner? That's exactly what Russia was counting on. Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want, with no consequences or resistance?
- ghostwriter 3y ago
  > Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want There's no "whatever land". The war is going for a particular land with particular significance to Russia, similarly to Panama's significance to the US [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
  - xdennis 3y ago
    > The war is going for a particular land with particular significance As Putin himself said, Russia has no borders, so the orcs' goal is to subjugate everyone. What history does Russia have in Romania (it still occupies Transnistria)? What history does Russia have in Crimea (orcs only became the majority because of the execution/expulsion of the natives https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_Population_of_Crimea_18th%E2%80%9321st_century.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Ethnic_P... ) > similarly to Panama's significance to the US Why is it that Russians are the most jingoistic "Americans"? Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing. If there's a similar significance does that mean you'll leave Ukraine afterwards?
    - ghostwriter 3y ago
      It's counter productive to get into debates with people who call one side of the conflict as "orcs", it just shows that you've got skin in the game to object to everything that doesn't align with "Ukraine's right and is winning" narrative. But just to show your bias once again here's a few points: > What history does Russia have in Romania (it still occupies Transnistria)? It has the same common history with Carpathian Ruthenia land that Ukraine isn't willing to return to Hungary and Romania. > Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing. That's to show you that double-standards exist and that nobody seems to care as long as it serves their agenda.
Clubber 3y ago
Appeasement also has its issues. There is no guarantee that Russia would stop at Ukraine just like Germany didn't stop with Czechoslovakia. If Russia successfully annexed Ukraine, it would grow stronger with all of Ukraine's resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement We didn't do anything when they annexed Georgia and Crimea and here we are. It's certainly concerning.
jcranmer 3y ago
The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; Russia has lost two wars (once as the USSR, once as Russia) similarly without resorting to nuclear weapons. A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII.
- xtian 3y ago
  Russia has explicitly stated multiple times that they will use nuclear weapons in response to an existential threat, but you want to call their bluff?
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y ago
    Resisting their incursion into a sovereign country somehow constitutes a credible threat to the _existence_ of the Russian nation?
    - xtian 3y ago
      Read the comments in this thread and others. See how many slack-jawed jackals are slavering over the idea of overthrowing Putin, ‘decolonizing’ Russia, Russia descending into anarchy, etc. These halfwits are merely echoing the myopic fantasies fed to them via the US media apparatus from the highest echelons of state power. Do you really think all these dark fantasies originated a year ago? Or is there maybe something else going on?
- TexanFeller 3y ago
  > A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII Perhaps not for the country, but it could be for Putin. It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life.
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    That’s not how nuclear codes work. There’s a long chain of people before ICBM is launched.
wiseowise 3y ago
Same as martial coach not in war with bully of a child they’re teaching.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
Everyone downvoting this should be completely ashamed of themselves. This isn't reddit - we strive for a higher level of discourse here. "Upvotes / downvotes" mean "good contribution to the discussion / not good, ad hominem, rude, etc." And the above comment is an excellent contribution. I want someone who actually has a good grasp of foreign policy, strategy, wargaming, geopolitics, etc. to answer this. I too want to understand how America arming and training a Ukrainian man to fight Russia is so strategically/diplomatically different from an American man fighting Russia. The degree of indirection seems so minor, how is it so different from direct engagement? Why/how does Russia/U.S. not treat it like direct engagement? I don't understand.
- prohobo 3y ago
  This is standard proxy war stuff, and isn't even close to what's been going on in the middle east. Like, not too long ago Wagner forces actually had a direct shoot out with the US military in Syria. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/battle-syria-us-russian-mercenaries-commandos-islamic-state-a8370781.html%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... The episode where the Russian jet sprayed fuel on the US drone? Standard cold war tactic that was very common in the 80s. Russians have been ramming and harassing US vehicles for decades. Here's a video of Russians harassing a US convoy of sorts in Syria a few years ago: https://youtube.com/shorts/hSGv02qQfhQ?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/hSGv02qQfhQ?feature=share Both sides have been flagrantly arming and training opposing factions in these proxy wars for decades as well. Modern Ukraine looks a lot like a reversed Vietnam, actually, and the US never declared war on Russia for that either. Neither side wants direct confrontation with the other, so they play games like this. Ukraine is a bit tame compared to the other recent/ongoing proxy wars. The flashpoint is that it's happening in Europe, which makes every move very public and sensationalised, and adds more pressure to the situation in general. So most of this talk of "violations" and escalation is in some sense naive, because the actual red lines have been carved in the sand outside of the public eye over the past half century. What we understand as a clear escalation is often just par for the course in the minds of the people involved in these conflicts.
- xdennis 3y ago
  > Everyone downvoting this should be completely ashamed of themselves. > we strive for a higher level of discourse here I am not ashamed. TexanFeller's comment is not contributing to the discussion, he fearmongers with nukes to advocate for the subjugation of a country. It could just be that it's his honest opinion, but I've seen too many similar comments always using whataboutism and/or nuclear fearmongering.
Zach_the_Lizard 3y ago
There is a long and storied history of the US and Russia / the Soviet Union providing, uh, "advisors" and equipment to enemies of their enemies. Soviet pilots fought in Korea and Vietnam (to a much lesser degree). There are stories of Soviet special forces, infantry instructors, etc. participating in Vietnam as well. Vietnam received tons of anti-air missiles and systems, not to speak of the fighter jets, tanks, guns, and more. The US trained and armed fighters in Afghanistan. It wouldn't surprise me to learn US special forces popped in from time to time. Those are more well known--especially the Korean War and Afghan war shenanigans--but there are many others that are more obscure. The US, UK, etc. funded and trained a number of independence and / or revolutionary movements in the Eastern Bloc and China. The Baltic states, for example, had some level of guerilla war for a bit until the Soviets cracked down. The Soviets, of course, funded all sorts of, shall we say, interesting characters in the West. More recently, Iranian forces fought against American forces in Iraq. Syria has seen the US and Russia square off in a few incidents. The question in my mind is: what level of support is too much support? How do we reason about that? What level of support deters additional territorial conquest? Does territorial conquest in and of itself increase the risk of Armageddon? This is the sort of thing I'd expect to see in some Cold War era RAND Corporation white paper. I worry we have lost some of our Cold War worries in the public consciousness. Being the top dog for so long has made us feel invincible. But I also think we've forgotten that the Cold War was cold, not frozen, and there are valuable game theoretic discussions to be had or revisited

hdjjhhvvhga 3y ago

I really feel sad about my friends in both Ukraine and Russia. Both countries bleed because of someone's misguided fantasies. And there's no way out. Putin knows he can not give up. Ukrainians will never give up. And even if someone managed to kill Putin now, there is no any guarantee his successor won't want to continue the war. It's sad to watch all this and feel completely hopeless.

pshirshov 3y ago
Someone's?
k_bx 3y ago
It's a common misconception to think it's Putin's war and not Russians'. There are many people who fled Russia in European cities like Berlin. How many anti-war protests conducted by Russians were there?
- rossdavidh 3y ago
  Well, there were at the very beginning, and they were quite harshly repressed. It's not like anti-war protests in the US against the Iraq war, where you can just do it and go back to your life the next day, necessarily. Russian reporters who just say negative things in print get prison sentences. There are more protests against the war in Ukraine now, than there were in Russia in 1915, and the Russian people eventually overthrew their czar over that.
  - ethbr0 3y ago
    As firsthand recorded source material for the above, see "This American Life" episode 767, act 2. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/767/do-not-go-gentle https://www.thisamericanlife.org/767/do-not-go-gentle (Disclaimer: contains recordings from Russian police stations...)
  - k_bx 3y ago
    Please read my message again. I'm talking about protests in cities like Berlin, where nobody is repressed.

stackedinserter 3y ago

Too late, too little.

dmix 3y ago
It was never just about the Abrams it was mostly about unleashing Leopard tanks from other NATO countries (in addition to Challenger 2). Although the number of Leopard tanks sent by Germany so far is pretty small (18/88 promised) combined with 8 from Canada and 10 from Spain. There's about 2000 floating around Europe total. Still it was a big step forward. The Abrams is powerful but it's expensive and logistically difficult to operate with jet fuel and trailing supply vehicles designed for a modern American army. I'm most interested in the hundreds of Bradley's and other IFVs showing up.
- dingaling 3y ago
  All NATO gas turbines, including the M1's engine, are rated to run on a variety of hydrocarbons including diesel and petrol / gasoline. There is a performance penalty but not significantly.
  - dmix 3y ago
    Everyone always says this exact thing that M1 can run on desiel but no one actually expects them to when they get them and being the first wide scale deployment test in real world operations seems awfully risky

ripvanwinkle 3y ago

It feels like the approach of arming Ukraine on a drip by drip basis is just prolonging the war. It would be best to arm Ukraine to the extent required (missiles, planes etc) to reclaim all their territory vs reactively doing just enough to keep them in the fight.

dsfyu404ed 3y ago
The west prefers a bled dry Russia to a recently humiliated but not bled dry Russia. That's why it's a drip by drip basis. Also the defense industrial complex sells more shit in a long conflict than a short one.
web3-is-a-scam 3y ago
You couldn't possibly be naive enough to think that the military industrial complex wants the war to actually end do you?
gWPVhyxPHqvk 3y ago
No, that's not a great approach. One overreach and you're in a nuclear war.
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > No, that's not a great approach. One overreach and you're in a nuclear war. That's pretty easy to stop - I'm sure NATO has already told Ukraine that an incursion into Russia proper would mean an end to military aid.
  - b112 3y ago
    Bullies only respond to force. The only way to prevent Russia using nukes, is to tell(and mean it!) them any use will be repaid 5x over. Really though, all we're waiting for is Putin to die from old age, or lose his hold, and then Russia will decend into anarchy. Which will end the current threat, but open up others...
    - 3y ago

mutatio 3y ago

Some weird comments and up/down voting going on in this thread, hijacked perhaps or Western "socialists" doing their contradictory SIMPing for imperial Russia?

justinzollars 3y ago

I think Ukraine will ultimately lose because it's not in the West's strategic interest, while it is in Russias. Russia's history is also pretty dark and they are paranoid of invasion. It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine. It's horrible what has happened to the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are fighting valiantly. An invasion of Taiwan on the other hand would have a huge and immediate effect on our lives. We could in an instant be cut off from Semiconductors and would likely respond with a trade embargo with China who makes everything.

ethbr0 3y ago
The four variables are: a. Ukraine's will to resist b. NATO's will to supply military arms c. Russia's will to continue the operation d. Russia's economy Of those, I'd bet (d) fails first. Nazi Germany (which was economically mobilized for total war) showed you can only keep the economic house of cards going for so long. And the Russian economy is not the German economy (then or now), nor has mobilized for wartime. It looks like it's doing okay, and the Russians loudly claim so and point at the Chinese and Indians buying crude and gas, but we'll see how long the veneer of "okay" lasts.
xdennis 3y ago
> It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine. The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO. If you think Article 5 should be honored, then it does make a difference.
- ghostwriter 3y ago
  > The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO. None of those countries have ever been officially mentioned as the "red line" by Russia, except Ukraine. Article 5 doesn't apply to Ukraine, and it doesn't allow for preventive military measures on non-alliance territories just because "there's a signal" somewhere outside.

jupp0r 3y ago

31 tanks will not make a difference in a war where Russia lost more than 3000 tanks in a year. US has thousands of unused Abrams in storage. Time for the Biden administration to step up for real.

Balgair 3y ago
The unique geography of the Isthmus of Perekop into Crimea actually makes it so that 31 tanks really could turn the war. At it's narrowest, it's ~4 miles wide (~120 yards per side of each tank), flat as a pancake, no cover or so much as a molehill. It's really the only way into Crimea for Ukraine too (it gets a bit complicated). Two and a half football field lengths between each tank is a bit crowded, if anything. Yeah, yeah, defenses, and I agree. The last time the Nazis and Soviets fought over it, ~250k casualties resulted (I think). It's a hell of a choke-point. But 31 Abrams is just about enough to do it, right order of magnitude in the least.

vpribish 3y ago

flagged. this is totally irrelevant for HN and brings out the worst sort of comments.