>We could learn from our allies in Ukraine. Give them capital and manufacturing bases in America.
The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base.
Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.
Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads.
The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.
The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons.
The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO.
These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page.
Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.
It's not about steamrolling, never was. The whole point of the exercise was to install a puppet government. In Ukraine, the TV actor installed by the Biden administration is currently the acting president. The moment funding runs out - so will he.
Being steamrolled requires Russia have the logistics to drive a steamroller more than a hundred yards. There is a reason it was intended to be a three day war.
Bombing a school is unconscionable but its a shadow of Russia's crimes in Ukraine.
>There is a reason it was intended to be a three day war.
Biden's general mark milley said it would be a three day war. Putin said from day 1 that "it will take as long as it takes".
The propaganda on the western side of this war was extreme and (as your catchphrase illustrates), often rather stupid.
"3 day war", "Russian economy will imminently collapse", "crimean beach party"...all incredibly inane and thoughtless and these were just the trivially disprovable idiocies.
Surely, Ukraine being such an awefully corrupt country, Putin was easily able to bribe his way to Kyiv and take it in three short days. Oh, wait... maybe someone is spewing russian propaganda here?
> inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons
Ukraine is a massive weapons manufacturer. It's a small country holding Russia's entire military-industrial complex at bay. We have a lot to learn from them, even if it's just tactics and industrial organisation. And those lessons don't only apply to fighting pisspot dictatorships like Putin's.
The soviet union collapsed as a result of military overspending and massive supply chain corruption in an attempt to keep up with an opponent with lower levels of corruption and a far more powerful industrial base.
Which is to say, inviting the gold toilet brigade from Ukraine to come and build our weapons while showering them with cash would signal that that Christmas came early for Putin.