>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.

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pjc50 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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justacrow 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What do you mean "achieve very little"? A lot of American oligarchs made boatloads of money!

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pydry 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

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fooker 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Leaders being corrupt is not a great reason to let a country get steamrolled by the russian war machine

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pydry 7 hours ago | parent [-]

It's inevitable now. If they didn't want to let the country get steamrolled then Zelensky probably should have signed the "keep the NATO war machine out of Ukraine" Istanbul deal from 2022.

Given the nature of the US war machine and how prone it is to acts of extreme terrorism (as we are seeing in this war), Russia is logically (albeit quite brutally) trying to keep it away from its most vulnerable border.

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cosmicgadget 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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fooker 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It has been inevitable for more that three years, I'm sure you'll be proven right any day now!

	▲	pydry 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No, three years ago it was inevitable that "Russian economy was going to collapse". Two years ago was the year of the crimean beach party (after the inevitably successful summer offensive). One year ago was "invading Kursk will inevitably achieve... something". And now the story is "stalemate was inevitable". Next year will be the story of "Russia is winning, yes, but at what cost?"

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JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.