NATO return to Cold War force structure

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, I'm blaming him for this. 19 missiles was a mistake?

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

52 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, I'm blaming him for this. 19 missiles was a mistake?

 

So is the UK not an independent state? Isn't Poland? Which European country is independent?

Edited September 14 by Mighty_Zuk

[bojan]

56 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, I'm blaming him for this. 19 missiles was a mistake?

What missiles? Those were false targets for AD type of drones?

[Stuart Galbraith]

49 minutes ago, bojan said:

What missiles? Those were false targets for AD type of drones?

Not the best description I have made, but as it happens, still perfectly accurate according to the Cambridge dictionary.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/missile

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

59 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

So is the UK not an independent state? Isn't Poland? Which European country is independent?

So one minute you are saying Trump respects alliances, and then demanding to know if we are independent.

And that's precisely why at the moment ive zero confidence in American politicians.

[Mighty_Zuk]

15 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

So one minute you are saying Trump respects alliances, and then demanding to know if we are independent.

And that's precisely why at the moment ive zero confidence in American politicians.

What? You're being incoherent. You said Europe lacks security because of Trump. So why are you shifting goalposts?

[Martineleca]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

So one minute you are saying Trump respects alliances, and then demanding to know if we are independent.

A year ago the entire West was on autopilot to irrelevance in geopolitics, our politicians whose weakness opened the door for expanded Russian agression on multiple continents were all too content to continue sacrificing Ukraine on the pyre of European insecurity without any idea how to stop its destruction while constantly reassuring the enemy we would never get involved ourselves. Today we have sanctions orders of manitude stronger than before placed on Russia's clients and an actual coalition that includes several big countries prepared to put troops on the line to guarantee Ukraine's security once a ceasefire is finally agreed upon, it truly can't come soon enough.

[Ssnake]

8 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

We cannot expect a business to only profit when there is no demand, and make no profit when there is demand.

They're all operating on cost-plus contracts. Whether that's a good system that sets the right incentives - well, I guess it kinda depends on the circumstances. Let's just say that all the big defense ccontractors have supremely adapted to this scheme and generate all the expenses that they legally can, and then earn their 4% or whatever the going rate is on top of all that.

Now, it's one thing to have all your expenses covered including the needless ones, and a guaranteed profit margin, be it war or peace. It's quite another for the US president to levy a 10% export fee on sales because he can. These aren't "just market forces at work". These are political prices that the defense companies cannot and do not set themselves. The US government negotiates these prices. If the US wanted Europe to ramp up its readiness ASAP, then why charge 10% extra? All this accomplishes is that shit gets done 10% slower.

[Mighty_Zuk]

22 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

They're all operating on cost-plus contracts. Whether that's a good system that sets the right incentives - well, I guess it kinda depends on the circumstances. Let's just say that all the big defense ccontractors have supremely adapted to this scheme and generate all the expenses that they legally can, and then earn their 4% or whatever the going rate is on top of all that.

Defense remains one of the least profitable markets. It exists because some profit is better than none.

Expenses are usually decided by the buyer, not the manufacturer, when it comes to defense. That's because in defense you buy not the product, but the product and its production and the logistical chain around it. So you wanna pay $1 mil per item and just get the item? Sure. Wanna pay only $500k? Here's the machinery we need. That's not a business model that exists for a bakery. Or is it? 

31 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Now, it's one thing to have all your expenses covered including the needless ones, and a guaranteed profit margin, be it war or peace. It's quite another for the US president to levy a 10% export fee on sales because he can. These aren't "just market forces at work". These are political prices that the defense companies cannot and do not set themselves. The US government negotiates these prices. If the US wanted Europe to ramp up its readiness ASAP, then why charge 10% extra? All this accomplishes is that shit gets done 10% slower.

The money gets cycled. A million different ways it gets handled. But now is a time of high demand. It makes every bit of sense to increase the markup. 

Deciding between an American, Israeli, or European manufacturer, can move the contract value by more than just 10%. Serious buyers will prioritize delivery times right now. If a certain production line is coveted, it'll get booked for a while. The company can choose on its own if it wants to invest in expanding production. It can also ask the US gov't for money, but then the gov't will want something out of it. That's where I assume this is coming from.

Will the market react and European defense cos get boosted contracts? Highly likely. And that's very good for European defense. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

4 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

What? You're being incoherent. You said Europe lacks security because of Trump. So why are you shifting goalposts?

We either have security or insecurity. Is saying Russias drone incursion a mistake, and refusing to lead in sanctions somehow aiding security? I hardly think so. Then clearly it must be the opposite no?

And now I'm being lectured on incoherence. Oh God, the hilarity.

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

We either have security or insecurity. Is saying Russias drone incursion a mistake, and refusing to lead in sanctions somehow aiding security? I hardly think so. Then clearly it must be the opposite no?

And now I'm being lectured on incoherence. Oh God, the hilarity.

 

The US is leading in sanctions. And Europe is leading in buying energy from Russia.

[Stuart Galbraith]

In fact if you had looked into this, you would find the US Government under Biden had encourged the Europeans and India to buy Russian oil and gas because it was dirt cheap, and couldnt contribute much to Russia sustaining the war. One can argue about how true that is, but that it was US Government policy to happily tolerate them doing so.

So, here is the irony, Trump is now punishing Europe and India for doing precisely what the US Government told them to. And if you dont perceive that as strategic incoherence, then clearly you need to go away and think about it.

The only reason Trump is pushing NATO to do sanctions is that so he doesnt have to. Because, and ive no idea why this is, or whether there is any truth in the allegations, when it comes to Putin, Trump is an utter pussy.

[Martineleca]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

In fact if you had looked into this, you would find the US Government under Biden had encourged the Europeans and India to buy Russian oil and gas because it was dirt cheap, and couldnt contribute much to Russia sustaining the war. One can argue about how true that is, but that it was US Government policy to happily tolerate them doing so.

Fact that the big Russian oil companies are just now starting to suffer serious year on year financial losses demonstrates these latest sanctions are biting hard, I think the advice to continue buying up all the ruskie oil reaching market was a ploy to keep the global supply up and avoid the situation with surging natural gas prices, it was still funding the Russian war machine plenty.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, that sounds plausible. Its also presumably why Biden was annoyed about Ukraine hitting Russian refining capacity, even though he had no other ideas how Ukraine could win the war. In fact, im not sure he even wanted Ukraine to win the war. It all must have been jolly tiresome for him.

[Ssnake]

All the politicians in all the interviews I witnessed said the exact same thing in 2022...2023, that "Russia must not win". Nothing else. Think about it for a minute and you'll agree that it's telling, and actually congruent with what was done in practice until 2024.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah. They were terrified, absolutely terrified, of a nuclear crisis, which it is presumed where Putin would go if he started badly losing. This is the same bad logic that didnt really do anything in 2022 when he invaded Ukraine, 2018 when he chemically slimed Salisbury, in 2014 when he invaded Crimea and Donbass, and the countless other occasions before then when we have faced him down and put him back in his NKVD box.

No, I dont want to have a nuclear crisis either. Ive read a great deal on october 1962 and it sounds positively hairy. OTOH, swapping that successful outcome for endless Munichs and peaces in our time, which seems to be all our Politicians have on offer, really doesnt sell itself to me either. Ukraine must win, or we will just get more of the same, probably against NATO. Putin was so good as to tell us that was what was on offer next, and we barely seemed to notice.

I hope I live long enough to see the British and American records on this period released, because Ive a feeling few are going to come out well from them.

 

[glenn239]

The West isn't making policy on the basis of your feelings.  It's making it on the basis of the real assessed risks vs. the real assessed interests and consequences of various courses of action.  

[urbanoid]

Thankfully it isn't doing so based on your feelings either, if it did it could basically disband its organisations, militaries and invite foreign occupation.

[RETAC21]

1 hour ago, urbanoid said:

Thankfully it isn't doing so based on your feelings either, if it did it could basically disband its organisations, militaries and invite foreign occupation.

I Glenn you not...

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, urbanoid said:

Thankfully it isn't doing so based on your feelings either, if it did it could basically disband its organisations, militaries and invite foreign occupation.

I've never advocated for the disbanding of NATO or for reducing budgets.  I have cautioned that it's a bad idea to involve NATO in confrontations with nuclear powers outside its territory.   

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its Europe. Poland and Romania are NATO territory. What part of 'core issue' is so difficult to grasp here?

[glenn239]

9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Its Europe. Poland and Romania are NATO territory. What part of 'core issue' is so difficult to grasp here?

The part where you think I'm naive enough to assume that Russia and not Ukraine did it.  Specifically, that in the past year Russia has launched thousands of the decoy type Shahed drones into Ukraine, and since these have no warheads, the Ukrainians could have recovered and repaired dozens of them.

Ukraine is losing the war and has motive to try and bring NATO in.  Russia has no need to involve NATO and no motive to probe Polish air defenses.  I'd be more attuned to the Russia theory if there was a coherent motive for it, but I don't see one.

 

 

 

[MiGG0]

1 hour ago, glenn239 said:

The part where you think I'm naive enough to assume that Russia and not Ukraine did it.  Specifically, that in the past year Russia has launched thousands of the decoy type Shahed drones into Ukraine, and since these have no warheads, the Ukrainians could have recovered and repaired dozens of them.

Ukraine is losing the war and has motive to try and bring NATO in.  Russia has no need to involve NATO and no motive to probe Polish air defenses.  I'd be more attuned to the Russia theory if there was a coherent motive for it, but I don't see one.

 

 

 

While UKR false flag operation is possible, there is reason for RUS to do it aswell. Basically just to tell NATO ”hands off, we are not afraid to hit you aswell if you intervene”.

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, MiGG0 said:

While UKR false flag operation is possible, there is reason for RUS to do it aswell. Basically just to tell NATO ”hands off, we are not afraid to hit you aswell if you intervene”.

The Russian pattern is to respond afterwards, not be proactive in the response to a new NATO policy.  The Ukrainian pattern is to search the cupboards for anything that will bring NATO in.  Between the two the Ukrainians seem to have more to gain from taking a risk, while the Russians don't seem to have anything to gain from the behaviour.

Edited September 16 by glenn239

[Josh]

10 hours ago, glenn239 said:

The part where you think I'm naive enough to assume that Russia and not Ukraine did it.  Specifically, that in the past year Russia has launched thousands of the decoy type Shahed drones into Ukraine, and since these have no warheads, the Ukrainians could have recovered and repaired dozens of them.

Ukraine is losing the war and has motive to try and bring NATO in.  Russia has no need to involve NATO and no motive to probe Polish air defenses.  I'd be more attuned to the Russia theory if there was a coherent motive for it, but I don't see one.

Russia’s claims does not have a leg to stand on after several direct attacks on NATO territory, including chemical weapons. I personally will let the Pokes poke through the wreckage and draw their own conclusions.

 

Either way, it’s not like NATO will go to war over unarmed drones.