"War Is A Racket" For These 25 'Defense' Companies

[dhupverg]

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-top-25-defense-companies-by-revenue/

 

There's some serious money to be made in war. Figures below are in the billions for FY 2022.

 

 Lockheed Martin    $63.3    
🇺🇸 RTX Corp (formerly Raytheon Technologies)    $39.6
🇺🇸 Northrop Grumman    $32.4    
🇨🇳 Aviation Industry Corporation of China    $31.0
🇺🇸 Boeing    $30.8    
🇺🇸 General Dynamics    $30.4    
🇬🇧 BAE Systems    $25.2    

[thaibeachlovers]

Yes indeed, the 1% are doing very nicely out of death and destruction.

They must be luvin' it.

The US taxpayer not so much.

[heybruce]

15 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Yes indeed, the 1% are doing very nicely out of death and destruction.

They must be luvin' it.

The US taxpayer not so much.

The 1% are not in the defense industry.  The figures given are a tiny fraction of the revenues of tech companies such as Meta, Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft.https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platforms/revenue   https://www.statista.com/statistics/234529/comparison-of-apple-and-google-revenues/

[impulse]

12 hours ago, heybruce said:

The 1% are not in the defense industry. 

 

Yeah they are.  Maybe not exclusively, but they own the stock.

 

[pegman]

Otherwise known as Biden donors. Big oil and national media have made out like bandits too from the proxy war in Ukraine. 

[sirineou]

I wonder who is the poster suffering from Tourette syndrome, posting all these inappropriate laugh emojis. And where are the moderators. I thought inappropriate and off   topic communications are against the rules of this forum. To their defend, perhaps there were a lot more that they remove, but one cant be everywhere always, except for God, she sees everything.

To the person(using the term loosely ) who posts all these inappropriate laugh emojis : Yea you got a reaction you moron, enjoy it in good health. And don't forget to post one on this post .. your stupidity requires that you exhibit it  at every opportunity. 

Ohh , and I forgot to say 

Good morning 

 

Oh and to keep this post on topic. Yea  the millinery industrial complex sucks. 

[heybruce]

9 hours ago, pegman said:

Otherwise known as Biden donors. Big oil and national media have made out like bandits too from the proxy war in Ukraine. 

Really?  I'd think they'd be Putin donors, he started the war.

[pegman]

15 hours ago, heybruce said:

Really?  I'd think they'd be Putin donors, he started the war.

So you don't think Putin was baited by Biden declaring, once he came into office, that he wanted Ukraine in NATO? JFK threaten war over less in Cuba. What do you and your NSA pals have to say about a military coup about to happen to turf Zelenskyy? For the last year I've been watching the Military Summary Channel on YouTube.  Run by I suspect a Ukrainian analyst who prefers not to say where he is from so as to be seen as neutral. According to him the word in Kyiv is that the Ukrainian president will be soon gone from position.

[sirineou]

54 minutes ago, pegman said:

So you don't think Putin was baited by Biden declaring, once he came into office, that he wanted Ukraine in NATO? JFK threaten war over less in Cuba. What do you and your NSA pals have to say about a military coup about to happen to turf Zelenskyy? For the last year I've been watching the Military Summary Channel on YouTube.  Run by I suspect a Ukrainian analyst who prefers not to say where he is from so as to be seen as neutral. According to him the word in Kyiv is that the Ukrainian president will be soon gone from position.

The problem for the US is China as we transition from a unipolar world order to a multipolar one.

And The US should be concentrating on China rather that getting distracted with misadventures in Ukraine and the middle east.  

IMO and the opinion of many others who know a lot more about this that I will ever know, baiting Russia in a war with Ukraine was a mistake of monumental proportion. Russia instead of being a US ally in the coming conflict with China , has become an enemy and an ally to China.

In addition the seizure of Russian assets was a wake up call to other countries, and a fear that unless they play ball their assets are in jeopardy, and galvanised the nessacery support for the creation of the BRICS alliance that soon  will have to change it's name to include almost forty other countries. 

And is threatening the de-dollarization of the world economy. 

 

 

[rabas]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

The problem for the US is China as we transition from a unipolar world order to a multipolar one.

And The US should be concentrating on China rather that getting distracted with misadventures in Ukraine and the middle east.  

IMO and the opinion of many others who know a lot more about this that I will ever know, baiting Russia in a war with Ukraine was a mistake of monumental proportion. Russia instead of being a US ally in the coming conflict with China , has become an enemy and an ally to China.

In addition the seizure of Russian assets was a wake up call to other countries, and a fear that unless they play ball their assets are in jeopardy, and galvanised the nessacery support for the creation of the BRICS alliance that soon  will have to change it's name to include almost forty other countries. 

And is threatening the de-dollarization of the world economy. 

I agree, Russians and Russia would, should be great allies for the West, this has been know for decades. The problem has been 1. corrupt communism followed by 2. even more corrupt Putin. Allies has not really been in the cards so far.

 

There was serious talk of Russia joining NATO in 2000 when Putin became president. Both sides made positive moves.  One reason it fell through was Putin's demand to immediately join allowing Russia to skip lots of checks and  requirements, possibly leading to a fox in the hens house situation. Another factor may be the US's position of strength. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

 

Other than that, Russia has been, particularly after its blundered attach on Ukraine, the top strategic, dangerous threat to the West. The West has no option other than to oppose an expansionist RusPutin.

 

China is a completely different story, more of great global competition and cooperation. In the long term both will hopefully realize they have more to gain in a cooperative relationship. 

[sirineou]

1 minute ago, rabas said:

I agree, Russians and Russia would, should be great allies for the West, this has been know for decades. The problem has been 1. corrupt communism followed by 2. even more corrupt Putin. Allies has not really been in the cards so far.

You men as opposed to ethical capitalism 😅

4 minutes ago, rabas said:

There was serious talk of Russia joining NATO in 2000 when Putin became president. Both sides made positive moves.  One reason it fell through was Putin's demand to immediately join allowing Russia to skip lots of checks and  requirements, possibly leading to a fox in the hens house situation. Another factor may be the US's position of strength. 

Oh , the problem was that Russia wanted to become an ally too quick. I understand

These things take time. 

I mean Putin did not even know the secret handshake yet. 

First we chock him and then we can make him a junior member.  

 

8 minutes ago, rabas said:

Other than that, Russia has been, particularly after its blundered attach on Ukraine, the top strategic, dangerous threat to the West.

I agree it was not a great option for Rusia, but it was the only option.

12 minutes ago, rabas said:

China is a completely different story, more of great global competition and cooperation. In the long term both will hopefully realize they have more to gain in a cooperative relationship. 

But there lays the crux of the problem , The US is not interested in cooperating the US is interested in dominating, and China will not be dominated. They remember "the hundred years of humiliation" the wes bestowed upon them.  No way they will allow the US to have bases 100 miles from their coast. 

If texas was to decide and be independents, and  entered into an alliance with China , how would you think the US would react? 

What happened to Cuba when they avowed USSR to have bases there? And Cuba was an independents country. 

Or do you subscribe to the concept of American exceptionalism? The Monroe doctrine is only good for goose and certainly not good for the gander. 

[thaibeachlovers]

17 hours ago, rabas said:

China is a completely different story, more of great global competition and cooperation. In the long term both will hopefully realize they have more to gain in a cooperative relationship. 

One always hopes for sanity, but as seen in a different conflict from Ukraine, sanity is in short supply in this Brave New World we find ourselves in.

 

My fear is that Xi will resort to the situation normal when threatened from within, of starting a little war to divert the threats elsewhere.

It worked for Thatcher, so why not Xi?

[thaibeachlovers]

17 hours ago, sirineou said:

What happened to Cuba when they avowed USSR to have bases there? And Cuba was an independents country. 

I think that was as much payback for Cuba getting rid of America's tame dictator that turned Cuba into the mafia's home from home, as not wanting Russian missiles close enough to nuke Washington. Lets remember that America had their own nuke missiles parked really close to the USSR.

 

America like tame dictators and when they can't get a tame one they will install a brute, as in Chile.

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, pegman said:

According to him the word in Kyiv is that the Ukrainian president will be soon gone from position.

One can only hope.

[KhunLA]

The defense contractors motto:

"Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars, now wars are manufactured to sell weapons”

[heybruce]

On 11/4/2023 at 8:18 PM, pegman said:

So you don't think Putin was baited by Biden declaring, once he came into office, that he wanted Ukraine in NATO? JFK threaten war over less in Cuba. What do you and your NSA pals have to say about a military coup about to happen to turf Zelenskyy? For the last year I've been watching the Military Summary Channel on YouTube.  Run by I suspect a Ukrainian analyst who prefers not to say where he is from so as to be seen as neutral. According to him the word in Kyiv is that the Ukrainian president will be soon gone from position.

No, Putin was not baited.  Ukraine was pushed to join NATO by Russian aggression.

 

Why is it that so many people don't understand:  NATO does not recruit members.  Countries that feel threatened by Russia ask to join, and are usually told no.  It's not that difficult to grasp.

 

Ask me about the coup against Zelensky when it is reported in a real news source.

[rabas]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

One always hopes for sanity, but as seen in a different conflict from Ukraine, sanity is in short supply in this Brave New World we find ourselves in.

 

My fear is that Xi will resort to the situation normal when threatened from within, of starting a little war to divert the threats elsewhere.

It worked for Thatcher, so why not Xi?

 

I have to agree on China. I just returned from Shanghai where ominous things seem afoot. It was oddly quiet with few foreigners. I talked with a Chinese friend who lives there but now holds Singapore citizenship. He said about 50,000 of China's richest elite have left China and moved to Singapore with all there money, just in the last year. 

 

Parts of the economy are undergoing unprecedented collapse most notably China's massive real estate sector.  Recently two top CCP officials have been or are being purged, both were Xi supporters. So the stage is set for your scenario.

 

Edit: one of the officials is defense minister Li Shangfu. He was initially chosen by Xi. 

 

[rabas]

On 10/30/2023 at 4:51 PM, dhupverg said:

There's some serious money to be made in war. Figures below are in the billions for FY 2022.

 

 Lockheed Martin    $63.3    
🇺🇸 RTX Corp (formerly Raytheon Technologies)    $39.6
🇺🇸 Northrop Grumman    $32.4    
🇨🇳 Aviation Industry Corporation of China    $31.0
🇺🇸 Boeing    $30.8    
🇺🇸 General Dynamics    $30.4    
🇬🇧 BAE Systems    $25.2    

 

In 2022, the estimated revenue of the US Health industry was US$2829.6 billion. [ref] 

 

Make pills not bombs!

 

 

[sirineou]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I think that was as much payback for Cuba getting rid of America's tame dictator that turned Cuba into the mafia's home from home, as not wanting Russian missiles close enough to nuke Washington. Lets remember that America had their own nuke missiles parked really close to the USSR.

I would disagree with that.

Yes indeed the US had their own land based nuclear missiles parked near the USSR , and as such the Russians had every moral right to have their own near the USA, but several things came into play.

One is cultura American exceptionalism , that made them politically impossible to allow, another the Monroe Doctrine, and third such proximity would not give the Americans much reaction time, which really was not a issue since I am sure the Russians had nuclear subs parked at the east and west coast. . The other difference was that the Russians were not willing to bring nuclear war to the world . where the US was., or at least bluffed that it was .

In addition as I said earlier the Russians had the Golf-class submarines . These submarines were each equipped with three Nuclear ballistic missiles with a range of 1500 km. Stationary based weapons  though logistically preferable, were not strategically nessacery for a deterrent. 

How many of those Golf-class subs would you guess were parked of the east and west coast? 

Also a thing to consider was that the landmass of the USSR was 2.5 larger than the USA's so Nuclear weapons at their  border  had to travel twice the distance to reach certain points in the USSR which you can bet the soviets took into consideration when deciding where to place their Nuclear weapon bases, So Nuclear weapons near the USS were not as important as  Nuclear weapons near the USA IMO. 

This of course is a very cursory analysis with many other components coming into play such as nuclear capable strategic bombers, etc.  The point being that Cuba was not as strategically important to  the USSR , as displayed by the fact that it did not really change the balance of power as far as the Nuclear deterrent

was concerned,  

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, sirineou said:

I would disagree with that.

Yes indeed the US had their own land based nuclear missiles parked near the USSR , and as such the Russians had every moral right to have their own near the USA, but several things came into play.

One is cultura American exceptionalism , that made them politically impossible to allow, another the Monroe Doctrine, and third such proximity would not give the Americans much reaction time, which really was not a issue since I am sure the Russians had nuclear subs parked at the east and west coast. . The other difference was that the Russians were not willing to bring nuclear war to the world . where the US was., or at least bluffed that it was .

In addition as I said earlier the Russians had the Golf-class submarines . These submarines were each equipped with three Nuclear ballistic missiles with a range of 1500 km. Stationary based weapons  though logistically preferable, were not strategically nessacery for a deterrent. 

How many of those Golf-class subs would you guess were parked of the east and west coast? 

Also a thing to consider was that the landmass of the USSR was 2.5 larger than the USA's so Nuclear weapons at their  border  had to travel twice the distance to reach certain points in the USSR which you can bet the soviets took into consideration when deciding where to place their Nuclear weapon bases, So Nuclear weapons near the USS were not as important as  Nuclear weapons near the USA IMO. 

This of course is a very cursory analysis with many other components coming into play such as nuclear capable strategic bombers, etc.  The point being that Cuba was not as strategically important to  the USSR , as displayed by the fact that it did not really change the balance of power as far as the Nuclear deterrent

was concerned,  

 

 

I can agree with that. Perhaps the Soviets were pushing the boundaries to see how far they could get, but Kennedy was the right man at the right time.

Since then the Russians had more than enough disasters to rein them in- Afghanistan, Chechnya, etc. After Ukraine, I dare say they will be thinking twice about any non nuclear war with the west.

[sirineou]

41 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I can agree with that. Perhaps the Soviets were pushing the boundaries to see how far they could get, but Kennedy was the right man at the right time.

Since then the Russians had more than enough disasters to rein them in- Afghanistan, Chechnya, etc. After Ukraine, I dare say they will be thinking twice about any non nuclear war with the west.

Not sure if Kennedy was the right man at the right time . 

Things need to be locked objectively with in context of the whole timeline 

So 

"JFK Was Completely Unprepared For His Summit with Khrushchev

'He just beat the hell out of me,' Kennedy said."

"Just six weeks after John F. Kennedy’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion, the U.S. president hurtled head-first into another disaster: his first and only summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

“Worst thing in my life,” Kennedy told a New York Times reporter. “He savaged me.”

According to Richard Reeves, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California and author of President Kennedy: Profile of Power, the main problem was that Kennedy wasn’t properly prepared to take on the more experienced Khrushchev at the June 1961 summit in Vienna."The Cuban Crisis  occurred in October 16 1962 

https://www.history.com/news/kennedy-krushchev-vienna-summit-meeting-1961

Do you think there was a relationship between the two?

Like the Vienna summit Khrushchev played Kenedy like a Ukulele. 

"On October 26, Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev suggesting that "if assurances were given that the President of the United States would not participate in an attack on Cuba and the blockade lifted, then the question of the removal or destruction of the missile sites in Cuba would then be an entirely different question." 

Was the locade removed? Did the US overtly attack Cuba again ?

"Kennedy got another letter from Khrushchev, demanding removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union's neighbor, in exchange for removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba.  "

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/fall/cuban-missiles.html

So did the US remove their missiles from Turkey and Italy?

"he biggest secrets of the Cuban Missile Crisis: the undisclosed deal between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in which the US would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey (and by extension, the Jupiters in Italy) in exchange for the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba"

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/jupiter-missiles-and-endgame-cuban-missile-crisis-matter-great-secrecy

 

" U.S. Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey in April 1963."

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis#:~:text=U.S. Jupiter missiles were removed,Kennedy's image domestically and internationally.

 

So it begs the question. Did Nikita Khrushchev  place the bases and missiles in Cuba to Threaten the US, or did he use it as leverage to achieve that which he had demanded in the past and accomplished later without losing anything other a sacrificial pawn  . 

Ps: " Within a year, Kennedy and Khrushchev signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age. Also in 1963, the first "hotline" between Washington and Moscow was installed."

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/fall/cuban-missiles.html

 

Make want you want from all of this. 

 

As Far a Russia and Ukraine is concerned , in the end Ukraine will get , what it could have had at the beginning of the war, only minuses all the destruction that occurred  to Ukraine, and the loss of the eastern 1/3 of the country. 

If you consider this a win for Ukraine, I have a bridge I like to sell you. 

The only winner is the US in that it has degraded russians millinery capacity, but it has precipitated the creation of the BRICS block (Saudi Arabia also just joined, and wants to ditches the US dollar for oil trade)  so lets see if even the US comes out as a winner. One country is sitting pretty in all of this. China. 

https://www.thestatesman.com/business/brics-expansion-could-end-us-dollar-dominance-in-oil-trade-us-financial-experts-warn-of-dangers-ahead-1503231541.html

 

 

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Not sure if Kennedy was the right man at the right time . 

Things need to be locked objectively with in context of the whole timeline 

So 

"JFK Was Completely Unprepared For His Summit with Khrushchev

'He just beat the hell out of me,' Kennedy said."

"Just six weeks after John F. Kennedy’s botched Bay of Pigs invasion, the U.S. president hurtled head-first into another disaster: his first and only summit with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

“Worst thing in my life,” Kennedy told a New York Times reporter. “He savaged me.”

According to Richard Reeves, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California and author of President Kennedy: Profile of Power, the main problem was that Kennedy wasn’t properly prepared to take on the more experienced Khrushchev at the June 1961 summit in Vienna."The Cuban Crisis  occurred in October 16 1962 

https://www.history.com/news/kennedy-krushchev-vienna-summit-meeting-1961

Do you think there was a relationship between the two?

Like the Vienna summit Khrushchev played Kenedy like a Ukulele. 

"On October 26, Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev suggesting that "if assurances were given that the President of the United States would not participate in an attack on Cuba and the blockade lifted, then the question of the removal or destruction of the missile sites in Cuba would then be an entirely different question." 

Was the locade removed? Did the US overtly attack Cuba again ?

"Kennedy got another letter from Khrushchev, demanding removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union's neighbor, in exchange for removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba.  "

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/fall/cuban-missiles.html

So did the US remove their missiles from Turkey and Italy?

"he biggest secrets of the Cuban Missile Crisis: the undisclosed deal between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in which the US would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey (and by extension, the Jupiters in Italy) in exchange for the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba"

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/jupiter-missiles-and-endgame-cuban-missile-crisis-matter-great-secrecy

 

" U.S. Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey in April 1963."

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis#:~:text=U.S. Jupiter missiles were removed,Kennedy's image domestically and internationally.

 

So it begs the question. Did Nikita Khrushchev  place the bases and missiles in Cuba to Threaten the US, or did he use it as leverage to achieve that which he had demanded in the past and accomplished later without losing anything other a sacrificial pawn  . 

Ps: " Within a year, Kennedy and Khrushchev signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age. Also in 1963, the first "hotline" between Washington and Moscow was installed."

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/fall/cuban-missiles.html

 

Make want you want from all of this. 

 

As Far a Russia and Ukraine is concerned , in the end Ukraine will get , what it could have had at the beginning of the war, only minuses all the destruction that occurred  to Ukraine, and the loss of the eastern 1/3 of the country. 

If you consider this a win for Ukraine, I have a bridge I like to sell you. 

The only winner is the US in that it has degraded russians millinery capacity, but it has precipitated the creation of the BRICS block (Saudi Arabia also just joined, and wants to ditches the US dollar for oil trade)  so lets see if even the US comes out as a winner. One country is sitting pretty in all of this. China. 

https://www.thestatesman.com/business/brics-expansion-could-end-us-dollar-dominance-in-oil-trade-us-financial-experts-warn-of-dangers-ahead-1503231541.html

 

 

 

 

 

As I understand it, it wasn't Kennedy's Bay of Pigs at all. He inherited it  and refused to let the US be part of it which meant it failed, as it should have ( should never have been allowed at all ).

 

Thank goodness Nixon wasn't in charge then, if his incompetence in Vietnam is anything to go by.

Kennedy apparently didn't want to go into Vietnam at all, but the warmonger Johnson took over and we know how that ended.

 

Just my opinion, but every war the US has been in since Korea ( whether directly or by proxy ) has been a disaster, but they did make the 1% richer. I'm not sure about Grenada, but was that even a "war"?

[impulse]

10 minutes ago, sirineou said:

The only winner is the US in that it has degraded russians millinery capacity,

 

I don't know that degraded is the correct term.  They have forced Russia to ramp up weapons production, train up a lot more personnel than they would have, and season them with the most realistic (and tragic) war game possible.  Russia's going to come out of the debacle a lot stronger than they were going in, and certainly stronger than they would have if Ukraine had capitulated when Putin faked toward Kiev.  

 

[thaibeachlovers]

12 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Like the Vienna summit Khrushchev played Kenedy like a Ukulele. 

He wasn't the first to be played by the Soviets. Stalin certainly did well against Churchill at Yalta, and Churchill was a seasoned politician, while Kennedy was a mere political baby compared to Khrushchev.

IMO Churchill won the war against Germany, but lost the peace to the Soviets.

[sirineou]

42 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

I don't know that degraded is the correct term.  They have forced Russia to ramp up weapons production, train up a lot more personnel than they would have, and season them with the most realistic (and tragic) war game possible.  Russia's going to come out of the debacle a lot stronger than they were going in, and certainly stronger than they would have if Ukraine had capitulated when Putin faked toward Kiev.  

 

That's a good point I guess time will tell.

It was not a bad gambit on the part of the US,, but the US grossly miscalculated., 

Say what you want about all these players on all sides,but one thing for sure. 

They are not stupid. You don't get to that level of play by being stupid.

After the fall of the USSR the US found itself in the enviable position of being the hegemon in a Unipolar world. But It could see the writing on the wall , There were three super powers.

The US, China, and a distant third Russia. So What do you do? You take out the easy guy so you can pivot and deal one on one with your pier competitor

You know what they say? Three is company LOL but  in all seriousness two orbits are easy to calculate throw in there a third body and  the systems starts to behave in all shorts of unpredictable ways. It is called the three body problem. 

So the US thought it could take Russia out on the cheap. Create a condition where Russia had no choice but react, use a proxy war that combined with sanctions would collapse the current regime in Russia and have it replaced with one that would be second banana to the US, 

The brilliant strategist  Helmuth von Moltke is credited for having first coined the  term "no plan survives contact with the enemy".  The three body problem reared its ugly head , and unpredictable orbits aligned to create unforeseen consequences.  

As I said , without making any value judgments, the US plan was not a bad plan as far as plans go, 

It just has not worked as it should, 

And the worst part is that the Ukrainian  people have paid for it with blood and territory. And all those who thought they were supporting Ukraine  were actuary doing it the worst harm.  Which puts meaning in the proverm "All the best intentions....  

 

[impulse]

31 minutes ago, sirineou said:

And the worst part is that the Ukrainian  people have paid for it with blood and territory. And all those who thought they were supporting Ukraine  were actuary doing it the worst harm.  Which puts meaning in the proverm "All the best intentions....  

 

Sadly, over the years I've come to the conclusion that my gub'ment's "strategy" on Russia is to stick it to them whenever possible, regardless of what 3rd party it harms, and how much taxpayer money it costs.

 

And since the mid '90s, I've felt that they didn't learn a thing from history and the Armistice.  The Germans capitulated in 1918 and it took them 21 years to regroup, re-arm, get their war finances lined up and make another go of it.  Anywhere during that period, WW2 could have been prevented had the French (et al) eased up on the punishment, and Hitler would have never come to power. 

 

Took the Russkies a few years longer, but here we are.  Anyone who claimed the Cold War was over, and the West won, just didn't learn from their history.

 

[sirineou]

1 hour ago, impulse said:

Took the Russkies a few years longer, but here we are.  Anyone who claimed the Cold War was over, and the West won, just didn't learn from their history.

I agree that what led to ww1 ww3 and lets hope not ww3 ,is certainly an unfortunate set of missed opportunities. 

I hope I am wrong, and the good news are that often I am.  But I dont think many of us though I hope we die of natural causes, would live long enough to see the end of Cold War part Deux.

I am sure the military industrial complex is salivating at the prospects .

   Interesting , though a bit dated, book by by Gore Vidal  ,Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace 

 https://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-War-Peace-How-Hated-ebook/dp/B01DNESF9M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3VXDFDN8HJ4Y1&keywords=perpetual+war+for+perpetual+peace&qid=1699345691&sprefix=Perpetual+War+for+Perpetual+Peace%2Caps%2C702&sr=8-1 

 

and if you are interested in History I suggest you read everything by Gore Vidal , He mostly wrote (Has passed away now) Historical Novels where a fictional protagonist moves through real historical events.

Creation was one of my favorites, I should be re reading it again.  Julian was another. I particularly enjoyed  "Burr" "Lincoln" and "Empire" . If you don't already have, get a Kindle. 

 

[heybruce]

3 hours ago, impulse said:

 

I don't know that degraded is the correct term.  They have forced Russia to ramp up weapons production, train up a lot more personnel than they would have, and season them with the most realistic (and tragic) war game possible.  Russia's going to come out of the debacle a lot stronger than they were going in, and certainly stronger than they would have if Ukraine had capitulated when Putin faked toward Kiev.  

 

There is a limit to how long a petro-state dedicating all available resources to weapons production can keep the economy going.  Also, Russia can't ramp up people production, other than by kidnapping Ukrainian children.  Eventually Russia will run out of ethnic minorities and prisoners to throw into the meat grinder and will have to start using the urban ethnic Russians that Putin has been trying to protect.  Let's see how that plays out.

[thaibeachlovers]

20 hours ago, impulse said:

 

Sadly, over the years I've come to the conclusion that my gub'ment's "strategy" on Russia is to stick it to them whenever possible, regardless of what 3rd party it harms, and how much taxpayer money it costs.

 

And since the mid '90s, I've felt that they didn't learn a thing from history and the Armistice.  The Germans capitulated in 1918 and it took them 21 years to regroup, re-arm, get their war finances lined up and make another go of it.  Anywhere during that period, WW2 could have been prevented had the French (et al) eased up on the punishment, and Hitler would have never come to power. 

 

Took the Russkies a few years longer, but here we are.  Anyone who claimed the Cold War was over, and the West won, just didn't learn from their history.

 

Problem with history as it is taught doesn't ( or at least it didn't when I was in school ) deal with relevant history, so despite the war in Vietnam ( my generation's war ) we learned zero about Asia in general and Vietnam in particular. I learned more about British history than NZ history.

Anything I learned about WW1 and 2 was self taught.

I was good at Latin though.

[thaibeachlovers]

21 hours ago, sirineou said:

After the fall of the USSR the US found itself in the enviable position of being the hegemon in a Unipolar world. But It could see the writing on the wall , There were three super powers.

The US, China, and a distant third Russia. So What do you do? You take out the easy guy so you can pivot and deal one on one with your pier competitor

You can blame Nixon for the rise of China. He should have let them cook in their own stew instead of allowing them to join in the capitalist economy and thrash us in the ensuing move to make everything in China, from which the western working class has never recovered.