Why the U.S. should oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I wanted to write this earlier but have been busy. I wanted a single place to put forward reasons for the U.S. to continue to oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine but primarily to answer criticism of U.S. opposition.

A brief history of the invasion so far. On the 14th of February 2014, Putin started an invasion of Crimea. The reaction by the Obama administration was slow but he did condemn it. In the nearly 2 years left in his office, Obama did not send a single weapon to Ukraine. The reaction by the Europeans was worse. The Russian army blew up a plane full of Dutch. The Dutch didn't care. Putin paused the invasion of Ukraine in 2015, but continued the conflict at a low level.

Putin expected Ukraine to reverse course and reinstall one of his puppets as Georgia had done. It did not. Over time, Ukraine used diplomacy as much as possible to obtain aid. Ukrainians embraced the west and their country more than they had ever done before. If you had visited Ukraine in 2013 and left, you wouldn't even know what the flag looked like. But in 2015, the Ukrainian flag was as common as the U.S. flag in the U.S. They westernized their police force, labeled their streets, etc. They were finally able to obtain a limited number of weapons from the Trump administration - primarily Javelin missiles.

In 2022, Putin stopped the asymmetrical war he had started and started a full scale invasion. Putin demonstrated Belarus was nothing but a puppet state, when he invaded Ukraine from that country. Ukraine focused on defending Kyiv. The attack on Kyiv failed.

During this time, the U.S. and other countries have been slowly supplying Ukraine with weapons. The amount of military aid is so small, the economic aid Ukraine has received dwarfs the military aid it has received.

I believe the U.S. should continue to oppose the invasion of Ukraine by Russia because what Russia is doing is evil and Russia will continue its behavior if it is not opposed.

I'll briefly go over the arguments against opposing Russia invasion.

It's the Vietnam "Domino Theory". This is one of the more interesting arguments because the "Domino Theory" was actually correct. When South Vietnam fell to communism, soon afterwards, Cambodia fell as well as Laos. Soon After that Vietnam itself was successfully invaded by China. As a result, the argument is simply silly.

It'll be another Vietnam, Iraq, etc. In all the examples the opposition like to quote U.S. troops were involved. In Ukraine, there are no U.S. troops, nor do I support any being sent.

But there are U.S. troops in Ukraine! Since 2013, Russian Agitprop has been pushing this narrative. It's simply false and those who push it are representing Russian propaganda.

But the Ukrainian government is corrupt/NAZI/totalitarian/whatever! In WWII, we supplied Stalin with far more weapons and economic aid than we did anyone else. You're going to be hard pressed to convince anyone but the most stupid that Ukraine is more evil than Stalin.

But we were actually attacked in WWII at Pearl Harbor! No, that doesn't hold water. We were supplying arms to Russia well before Pearl Harbor. Remember the reasoning behind lend-lease - If a neighbor was successful in defending his home, the security of your home was enhanced. Even before that, we were supplying military aid to the British.

But we have domestic problems! Wasn't Roosevelt dealing with the Great Depression? These series of arguments can of course be used to end U.S. opposition to NAZI expansions during WWII.

But it's not our fight! Neither was the war between Great Britain and Hitler. Or the war between Stalin and Hitler. Or the War between Japan and China . . . etc.

But Putin isn't Hitler and it's silly to compare him to Hitler! Hitler wasn't Hitler before he was Hitler. Remember that after Hitler's successful invasion of France, there were only about 70,000 deaths due to the war. Ending it immediately would have saved countless lives . . . or would it? The Holocaust and other mass atrocities on the scale of millions didn't happen until later. One has to read what Putin has told his internal audience - Ukraine is fictional, Ukrainian is not a real language, etc. to realize Putin's peace is not going to be bloodless.

Now to the critics who want the aid to be dribbled in slowly - like the Biden administration supports.

The Ukrainians can't possibly learn how to use fill in the blank! It's too advanced. This has been said repeatedly - usually by those with an overt adoration of those who serve in the U.S. military. Military equipment is designed for stupid people to be able to understand and use. As the Ukrainians have demonstrated repeatedly, the training times and learning difficulty have been repeatedly inflated with only a quarter of the training time U.S. soldiers take actually being needed. It is easier to fly an F-16 than it is to fly many civilian aircraft.

We aren't able to ship it to Ukraine that quickly! We have far more shipping and transport capabilities than we did during WWII.

We don't want to escalate the War! Short of actually using nukes, Putin has left nothing off of the table in his invasion of Ukraine. Putin can't escalate it any farther. Putin hasn't used nukes because he's afraid of escalating the war.

Sending weapons kills Ukrainians! No. Quite the opposite. Not sending weapons kills Ukrainians. The fewer weapons Ukraine is provided for its defense, the more Ukrainians will die defending themselves from Russia.

Now I'll respond to the nutty crackpot opposition.

The U.S. started this when it set up its own military hunta in Ukraine! There was no fight or attack which caused Yanukovych to flee. He decided to leave on his own. In successive elections, the Ukrainian people have chosen their own leadership. Racists and Imperialists believe that nations bordering Russia can't think for themselves.

Putin is just defending himself from NATO! Putin has decided to leave almost no troops on his border with NATO.

 

Bob, your "brief history" isn't even remotely accurate.

We get it. You want our tax dollars frittered away in a shithole no one could finger on a map 18 months ago but we have real problems at home that need addressing.....a wide-open border, 100K dead/year fentanyl, homelessness, anarchy in major cities, $33.5 trillion in debt, etc.

 

We have provided so much munitions and weapons to the Ukraine that our military is desperately short of supplies. Now, with this flare up in Israel, we are almost helpless to provide support to Israel. Our desire to help the Ukraine has put us in a very bad spot. To put it bluntly, Russia, China and Iran are playing chess while we are flailing around at checkers.

 

Our military is desperately short of supplies of what?

We still have thousands of tanks rusting in a parking lot. A thousand m2 Bradleys, 10,000 or more m113s. That's just silly.

Israel can easily take care of itself. We can supply Israel with plenty of help. And is Israel part of NATO?

I would suggest you stop playing checkers then. I never have. China is collapsing and fully dependent on the U.S. system. Iran is a self-sufficient theocracy which holds power only through the export of terror. Russia gets into the news by screaming I'll nuke you. They're playing checkers with chess pieces.

 

Coming from you, that must mean it's completely and entirely accurate. Thank you for confirming everything I wrote is true.

Wow! I already addressed that . . . surprise, surprise.

 

Primarily ammunition. There is equipment not in use. That is the way it is during peacetime, but we are not prepared for a buildup.
Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo | AP News

 

Yes if we stop supporting the Ukraine we will be able to build up enough munitions to help the Poles and the Germans.

 

We don't just build up ammunition. Except for rifles and hand guns, there is no constant production line. We order and it can take years for a sophisticated ammunition such as guided missiles to be constructed.

 

So, the U.S. needs more ammunition and therefore is making more ammunition. What's the problem?

 

No. It doesn't take years. Maybe years to develop them. The building of the guided missile actually takes a day and just like cars, there is an assembly line.

 

But it does. After I retired from the Air Force, I worked for Eagle Picher Industries and Lockheed Martin Corp. I am very familiar with the process.

Do you think they have all those components just laying around?

There is a prime contractor, subcontractor and usually sub sub contractors. Each one of those sends out a request for a proposal for parts, then orders parts and then assemble them and forwards them to the next higher level for assembly.

 

And why haven’t the Germans and Poles taken the precautions to insure relative safety from Russia? Oh that’s right. EU’s precautions involve depending on the U.S. to do all the dirty work, spend and develop a military capable of locking the world hehe

 

Did we learn nothing from Korea, Viet Nam, and Afghanistan? I'll tell you what we did learn -- we learned our war hawks made millions while the leaders in the other countries salted away millions in Swiss bank accounts. Meanwhile some of our sons, fathers, wives, and daughters never made it back home. And some of our warriors left arms and legs in the foreign countries. We need to tend to our own little red wagon and let the rest of the world do the same. We can't make heaven here on earth.

 

This is unverifiable nonsense. You're on an anonymous forum.

Which components take years to acquire? Lemme guess you can't name them . . .

And no, this does not take years unless an incompetent corrupt moron is involved.

 

Generally speaking, the Poles have done quite a bit to protect themselves. The Germans could do better.

A better question is why is Russia still something we need to protect ourselves from? This should have been nipped in the bud much earlier. Indecisive policies toward Russia have been a problem.

 

I answered this in the OP you didn't bother to read.

 

Russia vs Ukraine = Money Laundry 〰️

 

Sir, if posts are too long winded, I just read a few lines. I prefer the Readers' Digest version.

 

~ The " digest" part gets difficult around here ... "'

 

I gave the reader's digest version.

Most articles in Reader's digest are far longer.

 

It is the process that takes the time. I will briefly outline it.

The military service goes out for bids from the various contractors. Each contractor will then go out for bids to the subcontractor for the various components. i.e. The power system, propulsion system, guidance system, safety destruct system. etc. They prepare their bids and submit it to the military service. The military service evaluates all the bids and selects a winner and they then award the contract. That process generally ran about six months.

The prime contractor then goes out to the subcontractors to order parts. They also take bids and the contractor selects his subcontractor. The subcontractor orders his parts from the vendor. Receives his parts and assembles his component and ships it to the contractor. The contractor then assembles the final product. A few final products will be selected off the assembly line for destructive testing. If that testing proves that he has a viable product, he ships them to the military service.

While I was at Eagle Picher, I was closest to the process. As a subcontractor we made thermal batteries. Generally for missiles such as the sidewinder, AMRAM or cruise missile Most of the components we used were in constant production by our suppliers, so we could usually get a quick response from our suppliers and kept a pretty good handle on prices. However, typically it would take a month or two to get the parts we needed such as squibs to activate the battery. Order sizes could be anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand. Since our batteries tended to be different from missile to missile type, we did mostly hands on fabrication and it could take months to complete an order.

Eagle Picher made many different kinds of batteries for defense contractors and other aerospace contractors including NASA, but the thermal batteries were the ones I worked with. Eagle Picher was the world leader in production of thermal batteries.

Eagle Picher still has one of its batteries on the moon in the Moon Rover.

 

Well for starters, munitions cost money to build.. The U.S. could put this expense to better use, in country.. There is no reason this useless war should have lasted this long other than to funnel money from the American taxpayer to a corrupt country and our corrupt politicians..

 

Absofucklutely it is..

 

Looking back at my previous post #22, that assumes that they have the people on hand to do it. If they are not working on a project, it is likely that they got laid off. Since they are generally very good workers, they don't have trouble finding another job and they are not just going to quit and come back.

 

Wow. It's like you're a broken record.