Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

stumble.jpg

[THE_WIZARD_]

...cues Suzi Quatro...

"...stumblin' in..."

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine: The US is no longer providing weapons or money to Ukraine. The EU continues to provide money at agreed upon levels - its a lot: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegatio...llars_en?s=253

Money in and of itself isn't a problem. weapons and ammunition delivery is a huge problem as industrial capacity in Europe isn't sufficient to provide promised ammunition at the rate it was, up until recently, being used. As it has been explained the war has reached a point where neither side is gaining significant territory and combat is characterized as positional warfare. Think the Western Front in WWI. Neither side has an advantage and battle primarily involves costly frontal assaults by the Russians against entrenched Ukrainian forces.

However, because the Russians just keep coming, wave after wave attacking entrenched Ukrainian defenses, the Russian strategy can be understood as wearing down Ukrainian forces. It remains to be seen if the Russian Army can succeed with this strategy in achieving Putin's maximalist goals- the collapse of the Ukrainian state. The Russian DIB is becoming more robust. Refilling the ranks with newly recruited soldiers, albeit poorly trained, is succeeding. Given waning western political support, Putin is on a path to success and that is a very bad outcome

ISW has written an article describing the costs to the west of a Russian victory in Ukraine. It's an eye-opener and crystallizes what right now is a confusing and poorly defined western alliance cause. That the US government seems paralysed over the debate on Ukraine spending is the consequent outcome of poorly articulated reasons of why Putin cannot achieve success in Ukraine. This has allowed the Republican hard right to hold Ukraine funding hostage to their priorities - boarder security and control of government spending. The ISW article concludes with this:

We have argued strongly that American values align with American interests in Ukraine and that there is a strong and cogent values-based argument for helping Ukraine liberate all its land and its people.[11] We still believe that that is true.

But the American people are being asked to spend a lot of money helping Ukraine fight Russia, and it is not unreasonable for them also wonder what the financial cost of not helping Ukraine would be. This essay is meant solely to serve as a departure point for a data-driven and realistic discussion answering that question.

I'm not at all confident that the light bulb will come on in the US Congress and the priority of preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine over domestic issues will be realized. There are many historical examples of liberal democracies failing to recognize the threat to freedom posed by autocratic leaders bent on expanding their empires. We're at another historical crossroads of either stopping Putin, like the allies stopped Hitler, or surrendering Ukraine to him.

https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...ing-ukraine

[Jeff Buchanan]

In the Middle East: It's difficult to assess IDF successes in Gaza. From the various sources I read, Hamas' capacity to conduct effective combat operations against the IDF is being severely degraded. The political and military leadership is being covertly hunted down by the Israeli's and killed. It is going to be months before anyone without access to classified information is going to be able to assess the effectiveness of these kinds of covert operations.

The problem for Israel and its supporters in the west is that Iran has effectively mobilized it's proxies to conduct asymmetric and conventional operations across the larger ME. What's getting a lot of coverage right now is the Houthi's missile attacks on commercial shipping in key shipping lanes leading to the Suez canal. The vulnerability of global supply chains to disruption by unfriendly forces in the ME has been a known for decades. The US has continued a strong naval presence in friendly Arab countries. The maritime security mission has long been a part of the US Navy's 5th Fleet. The 5th also has a co-relationship and co- HQ'ed with NAVCENT in Bahrain.

While you'd get the impression that the Axis of Resistance (including the Houthi's in Yemen) is raining down missiles, it only takes a few to create conditions that commercial shippers aren't going to risk transit. I'm not conversant in how Maritime superiority is established but part of it has to be the significant strikes targeting Houthi targets in Yemen that were conducted this weekend. I suspect significant damage was done to missile storage and launch capabilities. For now, Its a side show to the IDF's operations in Gaza and Israel as a whole threatened by hostile forces in the West Bank and Hezbollah operating from southern Lebanon and Syria.

The forces aligning against US interests in the ME are considerable. It amounts to harassment operations to complicate the Israel/Hamas conflict and try to get US forces completely out of the entire region - that's not going to happen but multiple pin-pricks are going to be painfully augmented in their impact by the press. It's important to keep Israeli combat objectives wrt Hamas in focus regarding the operations by the Iranian Axis of Resistance as a side show.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Vivek’s mission is complete. Hobble DeSantis, drop out, and endorse Trump

[iam416]

Welp, now all I have to hope for is death. Either candidate will do. Both are well within natural causes range.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Talent....would you rather see Trump die...or Wizard?

[iam416]

You're no higher than 3rd on my list, Wiz. The Chairman and DJT are solidly top 2. Chris Collingsworth is probably #3, but you definitely could still beat him out.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Perhaps a helicopter carrying Trump could crash into THE_WIZARD_'s abode and deliver El Talento a 2-for-1 special.

[THE_WIZARD_]

cogently lucid...and seconded

[Dr. Strangelove]

Turnout in the Iowa caucus was significantly down from 2016. In Polk County (Des Moines) the total vote was barely half of 2016.

The weather probably had an impact but also likely some Trump fatigue, some regarding his nomination as a done deal, and at least in Des Moines some have fled the Republican Party.

Biden won Polk by 14 points. Hillary won it by 11.

It's crazy to think that not that long ago Obama won Iowa and Ohio twice.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Trump & Weather Derangement Syndrome.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Settle down, corn-stroker

[iam416]

Both of you can STFU.

Look, pretty soon this forum is going to be down to the us 3. We better learn how to get along and the only way I see that happening is if you both STFU, KYR and ESAD.